XIV

I was horrified.

By this time every few minutes my iPad would make a bleeping noise and either a piece of vaguely disturbing text, or - worse - a collage consisting of a photograph of one of the latest atrocities in the Middle East with a quote from Charlie Manson plastered on it. This was not very high tech stuff, each collage would only have taken a couple of minutes with Photoshop, but it was undeniably disturbing. And these were the last things that I wanted to look at when I was trying to commune with my maker, and the little hire car sped across the flat lands of East Anglia towards Norwich where my youngest stepdaughter was about to make me a Grandfather.

Like any other person with any knowledge of the world stage, I had been following the events in the Middle East with a feeling of mounting distress. each day in the news we were confronted with stories of the sort of atrocities which one thought had been left behind centuries ago, and that - I for one - never thought that I would see again. Burnings, floggings, mutilations and crucifixions - how on earth could things like this happen in the 21st Century. On top of that how could SOMEONE, (and although all the available evidence pointed towards this being the Xtul 'Ministry of Information', I wasn't too sure) defy all the laws of physics, the internet and - let's face it - everything else in order to beam disturbing messages straight to my iPad from across the aether.

And who was going to take quotes from a long incarcerated serial killer, fiddle about with them, and try to tie them in with the current sociopolitical events in the Middle East? Again, the available evidence pointed to Danny Miles, but why would he? The week before he had spent several hours with me in my study, bumming my cigarettes and drinking my coffee, and I truly believed that what he had told me had basically been the truth. I know that he had a distressing obsession with the life and works of the aforementioned serial killer, and some of this stuff had his metaphorical fingerprints all over it. But why bother? He had already told me of his involvement with this group (whoever or whatever they were), and surely he could not have thought that this stuff was going to impress me.

And surely even for Danny, trying to tie in a semi-mythical progressive hiphop band with the appalling predations of ISIL in the Middle East was beyond the bounds of good taste. Here, however, it should be pointed out that this is probably the first time that anyone has ever used the words Danny Miles and Good Taste in the same sentence. I couldn't believe that even Danny would have bothered to try and pull  the psychohistoric wool over my eyes only a week or so after telling me all that he knew about the cult and their activities.

All the instant messages were signed 'Lynette' and although I had no idea who this 'Lynette' actually was, I had a pretty good idea who she was pretending to be. Over to Wikipedia:

"Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme (born October 22, 1948) is an American would-be assassin best known for attempting to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975. A member of the infamous "Manson family", she was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted assassination and was released on parole on August 14, 2009, after serving 34 years."

After her release from Prison, she had - allegedly at least - gone to live in a town called Marcy in New York State. However, a website called the Federal BOP Inmate locator failed to find her when I tried to look her up, later that evening. She would now be 66, and as far as I can ascertain, nobody knows anything about her activities for the past five years, or if they do, they are not  telling. A quick look at Facebook reveals several Lynnette or Squeaky Frommes one of whom claims to live in Marcy and to have studied at Columbia University, but as I know only too well, despite the fact that it is allegedly illegal, it is quite easy to open a Facebook account and call yourself whatever you want.

Personally I thought that it was highly unlikely that this long term disciple of Charlie M had suddenly started a campaign of sending enigmatic and disturbing messages to a disabled part time journalist, who by this time, was driving round and round the outskirts of Norwich trying to battle the one way system and find the main hospital.

There was a loud dinging sound from Corinna's telephone. I grabbed it. Corinna was driving and would want to know what the message was, and if it was some obscure psychobabble from a serial killer whom I felt perfectly deserved to have been locked up in durance vile since 1969, I wanted to make sure that I got to it before she did. But I needn't have worried; it was my elder stepdaughter wanting to know where we were. And it so happened that just as I was punching in her telephone number into the telephone keypad, I saw a signpost pointing to the hospital.

"Next right!" I shouted, just as Shosh picked up the telephone, and then had to explain to her that I hadn't been shouting at her - a complicated explanation which continued as we entered the car part, drove to the disabled parking bay by the front entrance and waved a greeting to her and her husband Gavin who were sitting by a particularly peculiar piece of modern sculpture waiting for us.

Then my iPad 'pinged again'. It was another message from Lynnette.

"Are you ready for the end of the world?"

Deciding not to dignify that question with an answer, because the only possible answers could be YES or NO, and either of them would be bound to open up a level of dialogue with this bloody woman that I, at this time at least, was unwilling to enter, I just switched the iPad off, hugged Shoshannah and went into the hospital foyer to get our bearings.

Thus began - what, if you will excuse me lapsing into cliche, I can only describe as - a long night of the soul; one of the most tortuous and stressful periods of time that I have ever spent. It only lasted about six or seven hours, or at least the first phase did, but it was the longest six or seven hours that I have ever spent.

The first thing that we did was - if you do not mind me reverting to my family background in the military - establish a bridgehead in the hospital canteen. We then sent a text to Olivia's partner Aaron to tell them that we had arrived and sat down to wait for an answer.

It was a long wait.

Eventually we received a brief answer from Aaron acknowledging the message, but not imparting any further information. there is a quote from Robert Heinlein (I think it is in Farnham's Freehold, but I cannot find my battered and dog-eared copy) saying something to the effect that babies and kittens arrive in the small hours of the morning after a long wait. The Dean of Science Fiction was a much wittier and better author than me, and so my misuse of his bon mot is perforce going to be an anticlimax. But I grasped the essence of it and steeled myself for a long evening. I spent about ten minutes wandering about getting my bearings, but I found the disabled toilets, registered the car as being OK to be in the disabled bay with two jolly nice fellows on the reception desk, and then returned to the others and their basecamp in the canteen, and wondered what to do next.

I switched my iPad on again and logged into the hospital wifi network. Opening my email client I found that I had hundreds, which - as it had been something like seven hours since I had last checked my emails - was no real surprise. They were the usual collection of electronic flotsam and jetsam that I tend to get in my inbox, and I was relieved to see that none of them were from Lynnette or anything to do with Xtul. I sorted through the motley collection, and deleted all the obvious phishing scams, the people trying to sell me Viagra, the softcore pornography, and the letters from people claiming to be my 'Brother in Christ' and discovered a handful of interesting cryptozoological articles which I reposted on the CFZ blogs, and some emails from friends wishing us all good luck and sending their love to Olivia.

I emailed my long term partner in crime, Graham Inglis, back home in Woolsery where he was keeping the home fires burning and looking after the animals. I told him that we had arrived safely, that Olivia was in labour and her waters had broken, and that I would telephone him when I had any further news, and pressed 'Send and Receive'.

The message to Graham went off safely, and there was one new message in its stead.

It was from Danny Miles and read: "You probably won't believe me but those messages from Lynnette are nothing to do with me. be careful of her .... She is very dangerous. And don't believe all that you see. They are messing with your head!"

They certainly were, but as there was nothing I could do about it, and I certainly wouldn't be so cruel as to add to the stress levels that Olivia's mother, sister and brother-in-law were already feeling, I did a Captain Oates. "I'm going out for a cigarette", I said.  "I may be some time"....