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“Well, you may be in luck, Mr. Bosch. Our clients here or their proxies have all agreed to take part in our memory studies. I’m intrigued by what you want to ask Mr. Bishop, and I think we could work out something that is mutually beneficial. But the questions will be asked by me, as I’m lead on his therapy sessions and I don’t want to confuse him.”
“I have no problem with that. You’re the pro.”
“I might have to send you on a bit of a scavenger hunt first.”
“How so?”
“Let’s go to my office.”
“Sure.”
She led the way through the door and down a hallway to an office. There was a desk with two chairs for visitors and a wall of shelves lined with books.
“Have a seat,” she said.
Bosch sat across the desk from her. He noticed on the wall behind her a framed diploma from the Université de Montréal awarding Margaret Gail Sears a PhD in neurological sciences.
“Scavenger hunt?” he prompted.
“Yes,” Sears replied. “We have found with our therapies that date- and location-specific artifacts are extremely useful in prompting memory.”
“Like a reverse Rosebud.”
“Excuse me?”
“The sled in Citizen Kane. His last words. Prompted by memory. You look for the sled to prompt the memory.”
“That is exactly right. Is that how the police used hypnosis?”
“No, it was more basic. Trance-induced visualization and recall. We were dealing with witnesses who’d seen traumatic events, trying to draw from them descriptions of suspects and getaway vehicles. Things like that.”
“Was it successful?”
“Sometimes. I got some license plate numbers that turned out to be accurate. A few descriptions of tattoos that hit in the archive.”
“The archive?”
“A compilation of photos of tattoos taken when bad guys got booked. Back then we had binders full of them. I got matches based on descriptions drawn under hypnosis.”
“Fascinating.”
“It was while it lasted. So how long has Mr. Bishop been a patient here?”
“Twenty-five months.”
“And how’s it going?”
“He has improved but not to the point that he knows anyone in his family in context. He vaguely recognizes them but doesn’t know exactly who they are. But he has touchstone memories he can draw from. He has also improved on self-care initiatives.”
“He’s gotta be in his eighties. Is there any hope for actual memories coming back at that age?”
“That’s what our study is about. Reversing age-related memory loss.”
“Are any of those touchstone memories you mentioned from MacLaren?”
“He has spoken about it during our sessions. Nothing that connects with other memories or makes sense. His brain is like a filing cabinet where everything has been misfiled. You open a drawer and pull out a file and you don’t know what you will get. Our job here is to reorder the files.”
“Does he ever mention something called the hollow?”
