All Sorts of Possible

by Rupert Wallis

  The BMW remained parked there and Agatha kept wishing it would drive away. But it didn’t. The faint smell of Mason’s cologne wouldn’t leave either and she opened the back door to flush it out of the house.

  She hid the red fifty-pound note deep in a drawer full of odd buttons and offcuts of material, the nubs of pencils and little nests of string.

  When she peered out of the window again, keeping close to the wall so as not to be seen, she saw the BMW’s bonnet was up and two large men were standing beside it. One of the men had a hump on his back, which grew as he leant over the engine and started tinkering with the hoses.

  Both of them looked up suddenly when one of the rear passenger doors opened and Mason appeared and pointed at something back down the street. When the two men turned round, Agatha pressed her face closer to the window to see what Mason was pointing at.

  It was Rosie.

  And she was walking up the street towards the house with a boy.

  45

  The three of them sat in a row on the sofa in the living room with their hands in their laps. Mason was perched on a chair opposite, grinning, and when he slapped his thigh it was like a gunshot.

  He swore excitedly under his breath. ‘Another five minutes and I’d have missed you.’ He grinned at Daniel. ‘You think the world’s just chaos now? You know it can’t be. Not with you meeting this lovely girl in the hospital and the two of you coming here to ask her gran about this connection of yours, and me being here too. You’ve got to believe it’s all down to fate now, that it always lends a hand when needed. That life’s playing out according to some plan.’

  Daniel shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, but no words came out. Yet Rosie seemed to know exactly what to do as she took his hand in hers and held on tight, her fingers cool and strong.

  ‘If that’s what you want to believe, Mr Mason,’ she said, tucking a curl of black hair behind her ear.

  ‘Oh, it’s more than that,’ said Mason, shaking his head. ‘I know it. Go on, Daniel, tell her all about you, how life’s worked out to bring you here, right up to this moment.’

  Daniel shifted his feet. Took a breath. But, before he could say anything, Rosie was speaking.

  ‘Daniel told me everything on the way over here. You’re a bully and you’ve threatened to hurt his father unless he helps you find your briefcase of money and this other thing you want, this flask. And you’ve told him that you think what’s happened to him is all down to some cosmic plan in which you happen to be involved.’

  ‘And now I think that you, you pretty thing, are the one Daniel’s been looking for to prove it, to make the fit,’ said Mason, waggling a big finger at her.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Or maybe not. If you’re the expert on making the fit then do tell me more because I’m new to all this.’ Mason’s leg pumped harder, as though he was charging his voice to shout something loud, but Rosie carried on slowly and quietly. ‘My grandmother’s the one who’s psychic. We came to see her, not you, to find out more about the fit and how it works.’ She leant forward until she could see herself in Mason’s eyes. ‘Daniel told me what happened to Lawson and I’m not about to let the same thing happen to me.’

  Mason grinned as she sat back. ‘You’re as pretty as a wasp, Rosie, you know that?’ And then he pointed at Agatha without looking at her. ‘I’m not sure your gran’s going to be much use, to be honest. I’m pretty sure she’s a fake, fleecing punters for a few nuggets of made-up comfort to make them feel better about taking their money. So I’ve got a better idea.’ He took the silver signet ring from his pocket and held it out for Rosie. ‘Let’s just get things moving ourselves. I want to kno—’

  But Rosie shook her head, cutting Mason dead, making him frown as if his brain was curdling. ‘Not until I know more.’ When Mason kept his hand stretched out, she shook her head again. ‘You don’t scare me.’

  ‘Really? Why not?’ He tapped a big finger against his lips, as if mulling this over. And then he smiled. ‘You were at the hospital, so what’s wrong with you? Touch of death, is it? Heart? Cancer?’ He nodded when Rosie’s throat moved. ‘Cancer it is. Chemo not going too well? Not got long? Or maybe you’ve only just been diagnosed and you’re still feeling angry at the world.’ When Daniel squeezed Rosie’s hand, Mason noticed. ‘Bingo,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Daniel, his voice steely and sure. ‘It’s not her fault she’s ill.’

  Mason beamed. ‘There he is! There’s the boy who survived being swallowed by the ground.’ He folded his arms and observed them. ‘You two were born to make the fit. Look at you. Only met an hour ago and now you’re inseparable.’ He cricked his neck and grunted like a dog that’s found its itch. ‘Well, you might not be scared of me, Rosie, but you’ll learn to be.’

  Mason perched right on the edge of his seat, one hand splayed over his thigh like a giant starfish. ‘You see,’ he whispered as if they were in church. ‘I’ve got a way with people that makes them do what I want. So pretty please. Go on. With cherries and cream on top. Or else Gran here might meet with an accident if you know what I mean.’ He held out his other hand again, the ring in the centre of his palm and winked at Rosie.

  Rosie kept watching as if expecting him to laugh and say it was all a joke. But he didn’t. When she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer, she turned to Agatha. ‘What are we supposed to do, Gran? How does all this work?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rosie,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about this.’

  Mason grinned and raised his eyebrows as if he had known what she would say all along. When Agatha noticed that, she thought for a moment and sat up straighter and squared her shoulders until something defiant shone in her eyes. ‘But Rosie darling, if you think there’s something between you and this boy, some sort of connection, then trust in it if you think it’s good. Because there’s so little good in the world it must count for something against all the bad.’ When Agatha looked straight at Mason, he stared right back.

  ‘Get you, Granny,’ he said, nodding as if he approved of everything she had said.

  Rosie squeezed her grandmother’s hand and then she turned and took the ring from Mason’s palm and clenched her fist round it. ‘Tell me what Lawson did, Daniel,’ she said, ignoring Mason’s excited gasps.

  As she stared at him, waiting to hear what he had to say, Daniel wondered how this delicate and beautiful girl would ever be strong enough to make the fit when it seemed she would break apart in his arms if he simply hugged her. But when the fingers of her other hand gripped his wrist he felt a strength in them. Like wire. It strengthened something inside him too and he turned and looked at Mason.

  ‘Whatever we’re going to try isn’t for you. It’s to see if we can make the fit that’s going to let us do something really good with it, like helping my dad and Rosie too.’

  Mason drummed his fingers on his great big knees. ‘Of course it is, Daniel. Whatever you say. Now let’s get on with it, shall we?’ And he took out his little black notebook from his jacket pocket and opened it, ready to write everything down with his pencil.

  ‘Focus on the ring,’ said Daniel, turning to Rosie. ‘Then do whatever you did in the lift earlier. I’m going to focus on you, Rosie. I’m going to open my heart to you and let you do your best to use what’s inside me. I’ll warn you if anything feels wrong. I’ll keep you safe.’

  Rosie nodded and closed her eyes and Daniel did his best to focus on her, trying to forget about Mason as he watched. Then, in the next moment, he felt the familiar flutter in his chest and a warmth coursing through him, as if his blood was turning golden.

  He began to see moments playing out around him, like little snippets of film, just as he had done when Lawson had made the fit with him . . .

  A dead man’s face, his eyes staring at nothing . . .

  . . . the silver signet ring on his little finger . . .

  . . . he was lying in a pool of blood on a road bordered by shops shuttered up fo
r the night, under the glare of a street light . . .

  . . . as a white car idled further on down the street.

  And then the driver’s door opened.

  A pair of silver boot tips stopped beside the dead man’s head and a hand picked up a leather briefcase that was lying in the road.

  And then the white car began to drive away . . .

  . . . A right indicator flashed as the white car reached a junction at the top of the street and then disappeared, leaving the dead man under the light.

  Rosie described these things to Mason and he leant forward and asked for more. ‘Tell me who took my money, Rosie. Tell me,’ he growled.

  There was not the slightest fear inside Daniel of anything feeling wrong as the warmth increased in his chest, and he knew that Rosie was trying harder to make their fit stronger. He kept focused on her as more moments spun out of nowhere and played out around him . . .

  The face of a man, thickset, with a black moustache and a scar across one side of his cheek, opening the briefcase and looking inside at bricks of money, then snapping it shut and walking away from the body in the street . . .

  . . . the leather briefcase lying on the passenger seat of the white car . . .

  . . . the man with the black moustache sitting in the driver’s seat, pumping the clutch with a silver-tipped boot as he drove away from the dead man, just a dark hump on the road in the rear-view mirror.

  A letter lying crumpled in the well of the passenger seat below the briefcase. A tax demand for a Mr Gates. Address: 31 Highfield Crescent, Cambridge CB2 9BT.

  Over and over Rosie repeated what she was seeing until she opened her eyes, and she was blinking in the early evening sunlight coming low through the window in front of her, her face red and glistening with sweat.

  You could have popped a marble through the ‘O’ of Mason’s mouth as he stared at them, his pencil poised above the notebook, apparently surprised neither of them had come to any harm. When he seemed to accept it, he looked at the name and address he had written down and then flipped the notebook shut and stood up.

  ‘You two come with me,’ he said. When neither Daniel nor Rosie moved, Mason clicked his fingers and motioned for them to stand up. ‘It’s important. You need to see what happens next. So you both know how serious I am about everything.’

  As they stood up, he winked at Agatha. ‘Your granddaughter’s a real peach, you know that?’ He blew a kiss across the room at her. ‘See you later, Granny-gator.’

  46

  The man with the black moustache and the scar was lying on the floor of the bedsit, bloodied and beaten, his nose a nub of red putty. One of his wrists was broken, misshapen like an overripe fruit about to burst. Frank and Jiff stood impassively in one corner, looking on as Mason showed Daniel and Rosie into the room. He clicked the door shut behind them, then turned to survey the room, tutting disapprovingly. A cheap desk splintered and thrown on its side. The bed upturned and the stripy mattress ripped down its centre with a knife. A lamp on the floor, its white shade askew and the bulb peeking out.

  Mason picked up the leather briefcase, which stood beside Frank, and scowled as he judged its weight.

  ‘How light?’

  ‘A couple of hundred quid,’ said Jiff.

  ‘He’s just a chancer, boss,’ said Frank. ‘Thought he’d won the lottery when he found it.’

  ‘Not stupid though,’ said Mason. ‘Didn’t blow it all in one go. Or else we would have heard about that.’ He pursed his lips. Then trod slowly down on the man’s broken wrist, making him cry out.

  ‘I’ll go easy on you, Mr Gates. You’ve had a bad day already by the looks of things. Ten per cent interest. Daily. That’s what you owe me now. It’s my money, you see.’

  He picked up a chair and positioned it squarely in the centre of the room and sat down. He flicked open the locks on the briefcase and stared at the money. Thin bricks of notes, each one with a yellow rubber band around it. There were two spaces.

  He felt underneath the money and found a slim black box. He flicked the small silver switch in its top right corner back and forth and then gave it a shake and listened to something rattling.

  ‘Did you break the transponder?’

  The man lying on the floor gurgled something. Coughed. Spat a string of blood. And then he shook his head because even such a small word seemed to be beyond him.

  ‘No, I expect you didn’t,’ said Mason, looking round the room. He lobbed the broken transponder at Frank. ‘Buy British next time.’

  Snapping the briefcase shut, he smiled to himself as he drummed his fingers on the leather top. When he looked up at Daniel and Rosie, he stared at them for some time. Neither of them knew where to look. Not at Mason. Or at the man gasping on the carpet or the gloved black hands of Frank and Jiff standing still as rocks.

  ‘You see what I can do when people disappoint me?’ said Mason.

  Daniel nodded slowly. So did Rosie.

  ‘Well then,’ said Mason. He stood up and plucked a small brown teddy bear off a shelf with a red ribbon around its neck on which a tiny bell was attached and shook it close to his ear. When he lobbed it at Rosie, the bell rattled when she caught it. ‘A memento. So neither of you forget.’

  When they came back out into the alley where Mason’s BMW was parked, there was no longer any evening sun because a mist was curdling in the street, blocking out the sky and slowly deleting the buildings around them.

  In the car, Mason laughed and joked with Frank and Jiff who were sitting in the front seats. The BMW smelt of white leather and cologne and beer because Mason was sipping from a bottle of Bud, which frothed against the glass every time he took a sip.

  Daniel let down the window and smelt the mist and the wind funnelling down the street. He pushed his head out until all the men’s voices had disappeared in the roar so he could be alone with his thoughts . . .

  . . . the hope he had for what he and Rosie might be able to do to help his father . . .

  . . . the man lying on the floor in the bedsit . . .

  . . . Lawson.

  He thought he heard Rosie’s voice above the drone of the wind and looked back. But she was facing straight ahead, beside him, with her eyes closed. She looked older, as if time had played a trick on his memory of her. When she opened her eyes, Daniel smiled, but her lips stayed fixed, like two pink rods. So he took her hand in his and held it.

  Mason popped the lid off two more bottles of Bud and thrust one under Daniel’s nose and waggled it, making the beer fizz white as it rose in the neck.

  ‘You’re one of the gang now.’

  He held the bottle out until Daniel grabbed hold and took a fizzy swig and all three men cheered. And then Mason made Rosie drink from the other one too.

  When they pulled up, they could barely see Rosie’s house through the mist. But they could all tell it was big and white, with a gravel drive that set it back from the road.

  ‘Looks nice,’ said Mason. ‘What does your dad do?’

  ‘He’s a doctor,’ she said quietly.

  Mason nodded as he thought about that. Gave her a nudge with one of his big arms. ‘But not a cancer doctor?’ And he laughed out loud like it was the punchline to a joke.

  Rosie kept blinking at him, something ticking in her jaw, until she looked away, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear.

  Mason grinned. ‘I said you’d learn to be scared of me, Rosie, didn’t I? Didn’t I say that, boys?’ Frank and Jiff grunted and nodded. ‘Maybe I’m a psychic too. Come to think of it . . .’ Mason tapped his great bald head, his brow furrowed, then raised his hands like some TV evangelist about to preach a great truth. ‘Yes, I can see it. I can see the future for both of you. Now you’ve found my money, you’re going to get me what I really want. The antique flask that Lawson promised he was going to track down. And you’re both coming with me tomorrow to look for it.’

  ‘I can’t,’ mumbled Rosie.

  Mason grunted. He plucked the brown teddy bear fr
om Rosie’s lap and waggled it, making the bell around its neck jingle.

  But Rosie shook her head. ‘I have my first chemotherapy treatment tomorrow.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘All day. They have to do blood tests and then they make up the drugs the same day, which takes time, and then I’m given the infusion. It’s non-negotiable.’

  Mason cricked his neck. Sighed. Looked at the teddy bear and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think she’d lie. Naughty bear for thinking such a thing.’ He cuffed the teddy’s head. ‘You wouldn’t lie, Rosie, would you? Not now we have an understanding?’

  He paused when Rosie reached across Daniel and clicked open the door. Quickly, she took Daniel’s head in her hands and kissed him. He tasted apricots and peppermint. Her hair smelt of ginger. When she hugged him hard, she whispered something quietly so no one else would hear.

  ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow with your dad.’

  All four of them watched her blurring at the edges as the mist rolled round her until she was drifting towards the house like a ghost.

  Mason pinged his electric window down and shouted, ‘You forgot teddy!’ They heard the front door slam shut. ‘They’re touchy, these psychic types,’ said Mason as he rolled the window up. ‘Or maybe it’s just the tumour.’ He patted Frank’s shoulder and they pulled out on to the road, and drove through the mist in silence until they pulled up in Daniel’s street.

  ‘She in, do you think?’ asked Mason.

  ‘Who?’ Daniel felt something in his throat and couldn’t swallow it down.

  ‘Your aunt.’

  Daniel looked at his feet and tried to think of something else.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I should meet her.’

  ‘Not sure you’d want to.’

  ‘Beat your balls, does she?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well then.’ And Mason drummed his fingers on the leather seat beside him as if it helped him to think. Eventually, he produced a mobile phone from the inside of his jacket pocket. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything. I’m under M. For Mason.’