Perfect People

by Peter James

  ‘I don’t have one. I wish that I did, believe me, but I don’t.’ She looked hard at each of them.

  Naomi felt herself being scrutinized, and she was confused. ‘How can a linguistic scientist tell us one thing and you tell us another?’

  The psychologist nodded in silent thought for some moments, then she said, ‘Does the expression epistemic boundedness mean anything to either of you?’

  ‘Epistemic boundedness?’ Naomi repeated, shaking her head.

  ‘Yes,’ John said, ‘I know about it.’

  ‘Could you explain it to your wife?’

  John shrugged, as if hesitant for a moment, then turned to Naomi. ‘What it basically means is that human intelligence has a ceiling. That humans are hardwired with a certain level of intelligence. That there are biological limits. Just as there are limits on other aspects of human beings.’

  He looked at the psychologist for confirmation. She nodded for him to go on.

  ‘For instance, the four-minute mile. We know it can be broken by a few seconds, but no human is ever going to run a one-minute mile. Probably not even a three-minute mile.’ He exchanged an awkward glance with Naomi.

  One of Dr Dettore’s might, her face said.

  ‘It’s the same with height,’ John went on. ‘Most humans are within a certain range. You get occasional exceptions, but seven and a half feet is about the upper limit – you’re never going to find a human who is fifteen feet tall.’ He looked back at the psychologist. ‘What you’re saying, if I’m understanding you correctly, is that this feat of language by Luke and Phoebe is the equivalent of – like – a one-minute mile, or a fifteen-foot-tall human?’

  ‘That’s exactly right.’

  John caught Naomi’s eye, then looked away sharply. He had not realized the full significance of what Luke and Phoebe were doing before, and now he did, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

  ‘So how come Chetwynde-Cunningham didn’t tell you that?’ Naomi asked.

  John looked at her, then at the psychologist, then back at his wife. ‘He did. That is exactly what he said. I thought perhaps he was exaggerating, but now I realize that probably he wasn’t.’

  ‘You are saying that our children are performing a mathematical feat that is beyond the capability of any living human being?’

  ‘Beyond any human being who has ever lived, I would imagine, Mrs Klaesson.’ The psychologist looked dubiously at John and Naomi. ‘I think the next step would be for me to see Luke and Phoebe. Ideally I would like to observe them at playschool.’

  Naomi felt her cheeks burning. ‘The reason – the main reason that we came here is – because—’ She glanced at John for support, then back at Dr Michaelides. ‘Because I was asked not to bring them back to playschool.’

  The psychologist nodded. ‘Yes, but I think I could have a word with the playschool leader and ask if she would let them come back with me observing – I’ve done this quite a few times and it is not usually a problem.’

  ‘Anything you could do, we’d be very grateful for,’ Naomi said.

  After they had left, the psychologist wrote up her notes on her computer. She also checked the notes that the psychiatrist, Dr Roland Talbot, had faxed through.

  Pushy, ambitious parents, she wrote.

  Father compensates for long work hours by giving them his interpretation of ‘quality time’.

  Intelligent people. Dr Klaesson a typical academic. Greater intellect than wife but less worldly. Nonsense about the language – clear indication of their over-ambition for Luke and Phoebe. Attitude highly likely to have harming effect on twins in some way – as is indicated by their behaviour. Could make them school-phobic.

  Withdrawn behaviour of twins an indicator of abuse? Parents clearly hiding something, evident in their body language.

  71

  Like many of its counterparts that were on the mainland peninsula of Mount Athos, the monastery of Perivoli Tis Panagias was a huge cluster of buildings in different architectural styles, contained within the outer monastic walls. In the middle ages, poor monks inhabited cells in the main building, while wealthier arrivals constructed their own houses, in their preferred building materials – mostly wood or stone – and colour schemes.

  Staring down from his cell window into the cobbled courtyard that was dominated by the domed church, flanked on one side by a row of terraced houses that would not have looked out of place in San Francisco or in parts of Boston, and on the other by turreted and crenellated walls, Harald Gatward thought, as he did often during his hours of contemplation, that the place at night felt a little like a deserted studio lot.

  Except it was never deserted. The spirit of God was always present, and the eyes of their beloved guardian angel, the Virgin Mary, ever vigilant.

  Father Yanni permitted very few intrusions from the outside world to pass the monastery’s tall wooden gates. Pilgrims of course were welcome, in the monastic tradition of hospitality, but the Abbot recalled it had been twenty years, probably longer – he would have to check the registration book – since any pilgrim had made the twenty-kilometre boat trip from the mainland. Occasionally a cruise ship sailed past, or a yacht, but they always kept their distance, although more out of respect for the four unmarked submerged reefs than for the privacy of the monks, he suspected.

  One intrusion was the laptop, which sat next to the Bible on the simple wooden table in Harald Gatward’s narrow cell. The Abbot had considered it a strange request, but who was he to refuse anything to the American who had been brought here by the Virgin Mary to save their monastery?

  All other trappings of the modern world were housed in the village a short distance below the monastery walls. There the Disciples lived with their women. The Disciples were welcome to worship in the monastery’s church and to eat meals in silence alongside the Abbot and the four other monks in the magnificent refectory with its frescoed wall, but not the women. Out of respect to the customs of the monks, Gatward had never permitted women to enter these walls.

  At midnight, as was his ritual, Harald Gatward broke off from his prayer vigil. He was well pleased with the work of his Disciples. Five sets of Satan’s Spawn were now exterminated. Three had made the world press, but the fourth, in a car crash in Italy, had passed unnoticed, as had the fifth, in a helicopter crash in Singapore. Even so, he had thought it prudent to call his Disciples home, let the heat die down.

  Just one Disciple remained out in the field at this moment. He was good, this one, he had true passion. Soon it would be time to summon him home, and give him his reward: Lara, sweet girl, waiting down in the village, so patient, so devout.

  There was an email sitting in his inbox from Timon Cort now.

  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

  Harald Gatward closed his eyes and asked the Virgin Mary to dictate his reply.

  72

  Luke and Phoebe were kneeling on the kitchen floor, totally absorbed with their two guinea pigs.

  Fudge had beige and white stripes, Chocolate was dark brown and white; they were cute, with their sleek coats, their black, hairless ears, their tiny paws, and the strange little squeaking sounds they made.

  Naomi lovingly watched Luke and Phoebe play with them, each feeding them a carrot. It was the first real affection she had ever seen from the children, although she worried how long it would be before they got bored with them.

  Five weeks to Christmas. She loved Christmas, loved putting up the tree and the decorations and preparing all the food that went with it, and buying and wrapping presents. And this year, Luke and Phoebe were old enough really to start appreciating what was going on.

  She hoped it snowed, a white Christmas out here would be awesome. Her mother and Harriet were coming down on Christmas Eve and staying until Boxing Day, and John’s mother was coming over to stay from Sweden for the whole of Christmas week. Carson and Caroline and their c
hildren were coming over for a boozy Swedish Christmas Eve dinner, and Rosie and Gordon and their children as well. It was going to be great – chaotic, but great!

  As she sat, some of the anger that had been boiling inside her, since their meeting with the child psychologist Dr Michaelides this morning, was now starting to simmer down.

  She felt belittled by the woman. In the car afterwards John had told her she was being over-sensitive, but she disagreed. She had felt that she and John were on trial. OK, of course they’d said nothing to her about Dettore but—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by John arriving back, hot and sweaty in his tracksuit after a long jog up on the Downs. He’d stayed at home this afternoon after they got back from Dr Michaelides, and she was glad to see him go on his run; he’d been working crazy hours recently and doing much less exercise than he used to.

  ‘Hi, Luke! Hi, Phoebe! Hi, Fudge! Hi, Chocolate!’ he said, sounding puffed. The children ignored him.

  ‘Good run?’ she asked.

  ‘Six miles! Wonderful!’ He wiped his brow and sniffed. His face was glowing red from exertion, and his hair was awry. Naomi liked him looking rough like this. ‘Fifty-two minutes, but that includes over half a mile vertical ascent.’

  ‘Not bad!’ she said. ‘You had three calls – one from Carson, and a couple of others from your office – I put them on your desk.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He glanced at his watch, then stared down at the children. ‘How’s Fudge, Phoebe?’ There was a long silence. Then, without looking at him, Luke said, ‘Fudge is my ging pig. Phoebe’s is Chokkit.’

  ‘OK, right, Daddy got muddled. So how’s Fudge, Luke?’

  Luke was teasing the guinea pig with a food pellet tied to a length of cotton, constantly pulling it just beyond the creature’s reach. The frustrated guinea pig made a squeaking sound like glass being polished. Luke laughed and tugged the cotton again.

  John knelt beside him, pushing aside a book that was lying on the floor. ‘You should let him have a reward sometimes, otherwise he’ll get bored and stop playing.’

  The guinea pig advanced and Luke tugged the cotton again, totally ignoring his father. Then again. Phoebe wound a length of cotton around another pellet and began teasing Chokkit in the same way.

  John felt excluded. The children had put up that damned wall between them and himself and Naomi once more.

  ‘Time to put them to bed now, darlings,’ Naomi said.

  No reaction at all from either Luke or Phoebe.

  ‘Get them ready for bed, Luke and Phoebe, then you have to go to bed, too!’ Naomi said.

  Phoebe reached into the hutch, took out the drinking bowl, went over to the sink, stood on a chair and ran the tap. She tested the water with her index finger, waiting until it was cold, then filled the bowl for the animals and placed it in their hutch.

  Despite his anger of a few moments ago, John watched proudly. This was his daughter, caring for her pet, all by herself!

  Luke picked up the box of food, and poured pellets into their plastic tray. Then he knelt down, scooped Fudge up and placed him on the straw-covered floor of their hutch. Phoebe tempted Chocolate with one more pellet of food then picked her up, kissed her on the mouth and placed her, as gently as if she were laying a priceless china ornament, on the straw inside the hutch.

  Together John and Naomi bathed the children and John put them to bed.

  ‘Will you say g’night to Fudge?’ Luke said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Will you say g’night to Chokkit?’ Phoebe asked.

  ‘Of course, sweetheart.’

  John left the room and closed the door, beaming. They had asked him to do something! Wow! Progress!

  He skipped down the stairs, went into the kitchen and knelt down in front of the hutch. Both of the creatures were curled up on the floor.

  ‘Luke and Phoebe said to say goodnight!’

  There was a great smell of cooking. Naomi was standing over the Aga, stirring a pan. She gave him a bemused look.

  ‘I’m starving,’ John said. ‘What are we having?’

  ‘Our special today is pan-fried guinea pig on a buckwheat pancake, served with a side order of child psychologist’s sweetbreads,’ Naomi replied. ‘I had intended making a goulash of her brain, but there wasn’t enough of it to make it worthwhile.’

  John put an arm around her. ‘Don’t be too harsh on her – at least she’s going to give them another chance at playschool.’

  ‘She was a bitch,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Put yourself in her position.’

  She stared at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re keeping stuff back from her.’

  ‘John, she was accusing you and I of being responsible for the way they are. She didn’t tell us in so many words, but she was implying that all the problems with Luke and Phoebe stem from us being crap parents. That’s not true and you know that.’

  ‘They’re getting better. They are also talking a bit more as well. Maybe we don’t need a psychologist, maybe all we need is time. Look at them – you saw the way they played with their guinea pigs – how much they adored them. Right?’

  ‘It’s nice to see it. It would be quite nice if they showed us that much affection, too. I know they have got a little better as they’ve grown older. It’s a shame they don’t smile more – they have such lovely smiles.’

  73

  The Disciple spent the night in a youth hostel on the Bowery, where he kept to himself, his departure into the bitter cold morning as low-key as his arrival had been. In a few weeks’ time he would be gone from anyone’s memory there.

  He breakfasted simply in a busy café, then took the subway to the West Village and emerged into a street teeming with people, heady with a hundred different smells, and the discordance of a thousand different noises. It had started snowing. Pure white flakes fell and were corrupted into dirty grey slush as they landed.

  It took him only a couple of minutes to find the second internet café on his list, but all the computers were taken and he had to sit in a line. A young woman in scruffy clothes tried to engage him in conversation. Her name was Elaine, she told him, but her friends called her Ellie. She asked him where he lived and he told her New Jersey. Persisting, irritating him now, she asked him what he did. He told her he worked for the Lord.

  She talked more to him, looking at him in a way that made him uncomfortable, edging closer to him, giving him signals. Tempting him. Sent by Satan, you could tell, you could always tell, sent to destroy his love for Lara.

  The next computer became free and he moved away from her, saying a prayer of gratitude to the Lord, and sat down in front of it. Joel Timothy entered his username and password and logged on to his Hotmail account.

  One new email sat there, waiting for him.

  The Lord will protect him and preserve his life, He will bless him in the Foreign land and not surrender him to the desires of his foes.

  The Disciple deleted the email, logged off and left the café. He was smiling. Walking swiftly back to the subway, not caring about how much he breathed in, nor about the sounds, his head was filled now with more important thoughts. Travel plans. He had never travelled outside of the United States before.

  Now he was going to England.

  74

  Christmas decorations were still up. On one wall hung politically correct posters of the Three Wise Men, depicting them with different ethnic origins, painted by the children. Sheila Michaelides, keeping her distance, watched Naomi help Luke and Phoebe out of their coats and hang them on the peg, then leave.

  Immediately, the psychologist noticed a change in the twins. It was as if they had been energized by their mother’s departure. Luke, followed by Phoebe, went into the main playroom. Sheila moved up to the doorway so she could observe, and was instantly horrified by what she saw.

  There were about a dozen children in this room, mostly in small groups, and a supervisor, a woman in her early thirties wearing jeans and some kind of woolly ethn
ic top. As Luke and Phoebe entered, all the activity and noise instantly stopped, as if a lever had been pulled. Not one of the children made eye contact with the twins, but instead, without actually moving from where they were, seemed to shrink away. It was like a frozen tableau.

  The psychologist stared at the woman supervisor, whose eyes were tracking Luke and Phoebe with deep mistrust.

  Luke walked straight over to the table where two boys had, seconds earlier, both been tugging on the little knight on horseback, and lifted it out of their hands without a word; neither boy looked at him. Luke peered at it contemptuously, then tossed it back onto the table. Phoebe knelt on the floor and peered at some dolls. Two little girls, Michaelides could see, remained frozen, immobile, shaking.

  Luke then went over to the table where four children were playing Lego. His hands moved so fast that the psychologist could not keep pace with what they were doing. She just saw a blur of movement, of coloured bricks, the stare of the supervisor, the other children all motionless with fear in their faces. Then Luke stepped away.

  The psychologist put a hand in front of her mouth involuntarily. She could not believe this. The Lego tower that, less than a minute ago, had been ragged and distinctly lopsided, now stood perfect, several inches taller, all the bricks rearranged into a separate colour for each of the four sides, so that it resembled a vertical Rubik’s Cube, with a perfect pitched roof.

  Moments later, she had to step aside as Luke and Phoebe marched back into the corridor. Like creatures emerging from hibernation, the other children, one by one, turned their heads towards the door, as if to make quite sure they were gone.

  Sheila Michaelides felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising.

  She watched Luke and Phoebe approach the boy who was playing on the computer. They went and stood either side of him, then each turned and said something.