Professor Alice Branson had followed Victor out of her house and into his car on instruction. She’d slept when he told her to, and nobody was there to miss her. She wouldn’t be discovered missing. She’d be discovered dead.
The swing set had two seats, attached by chains to a single thick metal bar which was sunk into the ground on each side. He sat on one and judged the height.
He wanted the scene to be accurate. It wasn’t for the people who discovered her, although they would wonder why. It was all for her. She’d know. He wanted to see the realisation in her eyes before he gave her the final instruction. Every detail had to be correct.
First, he removed one of the professor’s shoes from her sleeping body. He placed it under one of the swing seats, its laces loose. Next, he took the rope, measured out the correct length, and threw it over the top of the bar, so that the noose fell halfway towards the seat.
He left the rope and unpacked a dress from his rucksack. It was floral and vintage-looking. Simple white cotton patterned with faded yellow roses. He struggled to get the professor out of her pyjamas, storing them in his bag. He pulled the floral dress over her head. It reached her knees.
He lifted her into a seated position and sat behind her, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and securing it with an elastic band.
Floral dress with yellow roses and a ponytail. That was correct. That was how she needed to look.
He sat in silence for a moment, a stab of fear pushing at his stomach. Why did his head hurt so much? His doubts caused even more pain. His thoughts were sharp daggers in his temples. He held back the vomit but knew he must get on with it. It was the only thing that would make him feel better.
‘Wake up, Alice,’ he said. Barely a whisper, but he was close enough for the words to seep into her consciousness. She’d respond without delay.
The professor coughed and opened her eyes. She saw Victor’s face and her mouth opened.
‘Calm yourself,’ said Victor. He whispered a combination of short phrases. The professor closed her mouth and looked puzzled for a few moments, her eyes searching.
‘It is Alice, isn’t it?’ said Victor, standing up, giving her room to move.
She stood and stared at him, taking in the dark night, the playground. She glanced to the rope and back again. Victor could see she was struggling to comprehend the scene.
‘Elena called you Alice once, do you remember? Forty-five.’
The professor took a few moments. She stared at the rope for several seconds before turning to Victor. Her eyes were wide now, the realisation surfacing.
She remembered.
Victor smiled. ‘She was beaten for that. She was beaten for calling you Alice. Alice was her dead mother’s name. Did you know that?’
Professor Alice Branson didn’t move a muscle. Her body was paralysed and her mind was gripped in a vice, but her eyes betrayed everything.
‘She was beaten and then she was killed. You made me kill her. You.’ Victor walked towards the swings and checked the rope. ‘She wore a small dress on the day she died.’
The professor looked at herself, at what she was wearing. Her eyes begged. Victor allowed her to find her voice.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘It was . . .’ Victor yanked the rope. It tensed and held tight.
She shook her head. ‘I beg you—’
‘And we begged you. Didn’t we? I begged you. Do you remember?’
‘I . . . I remember,’ the professor stuttered. ‘But we didn’t know what we were doing. I was ambitious, I—’
‘Enough,’ shouted Victor, his rage surfacing. She had no right to provide any argument or excuses. She had no right to anything.
‘Sit on the swing, Alice,’ he hissed.
The professor moved as if led by an invisible chain. She climbed on, awkward in her dress and given her age. She must be eighty years old, thought Victor. He was happy he’d managed to find her before she died of natural causes.
‘Do it, Alice,’ whispered Victor. For the next thirty seconds Victor spoke, describing his wishes, pushing and prodding at the professor’s mind, exploiting the gaps and the crevices, planting the seeds.
With eyes full of tears, the professor eased the rope over her head and tightened it. The other end was already knotted to the frame, creating a gallows. She must sit upright on the swing, knowing that if she fell, the rope would tighten. Her legs weren’t long enough to touch the ground. It was a delicate balance, keeping her upright and seated. She sat motionless for several seconds as the swing wobbled beneath her body.
Standing a few feet away, Victor scanned the ground and the swings. It was nothing like the playground at Comăneşti but it would have to do.
‘Swing, Alice. Swing,’ said Victor, watching as the professor edged herself over the rim of the seat. ‘I forgive you.’
Victor watched for three minutes. The two seats hung limp in the still air. The professor swung alongside, by her neck, her lips swelling as her body failed. Her eyes never leaving Victor.
It was the way he wanted it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
In an alleyway across the street, Freak turned to Natalia.
‘You were right. We couldn’t have stopped it,’ he said.
Freak had initially suggested going for Thirteen in the middle of the night, sneaking in and catching him by surprise, but she’d refused. She hadn’t forgotten the children who’d tried that at Comăneşti. It happened, on occasion, and you had to be certain of victory.
Surprise was not enough to catch a talented master like Thirteen, and it could backfire. Thirteen could wake in shock, unleashing a torrent of damaging words, catching them both unprepared. She couldn’t risk it. Her bosses wouldn’t allow it.
It would be much safer to wait. She’d waited this long, watching, coercing, willing him into a controllable situation. She’d put in a Herculean effort over the weeks, existing in a world in which she would never live, but her efforts had so far resulted in failure.
She’d called her boss. He was unimpressed at her progress, issuing a string of Russian expletives over the phone, but didn’t offer any further help. The idea of putting a bullet in Thirteen’s head was still not acceptable. It would create more problems than it solved, and besides, he was valuable. She must handle it in her own time, so long as she didn’t drag it out for too long. She’d pleaded with them and they’d shouted back, knowing her talent, knowing if she tried anything they had their own forms of punishment. The threat was ever-present.
The Russian – Nikolai was his name – taunted her. The man who’d approached them both when they were lost and roaming the cities, surviving, but nothing more.
He knew all about them, about Natalia, about Comăneşti and the failed experiments. He knew all about the group of psychologists and doctors who were hurriedly covering their tracks, paying their bribes and disappearing under their rocks in faraway countries. He was from the old world, he said. The stable Romania, under Russian control, before the usurpers ruined it. Before the revolution that destroyed their future. He explained what would happen to them in the new world, no longer protected by the Russian government and its allies. He told them they’d be hunted and killed. There was no place for people like them in the new Romania.
He had presented them with a way out and Natalia had no choice but to become a recruit. Their new boss had offered protection and the chance to participate in something greater than the botched experiments of Comăneşti. Away from the influence of the cowards in British scientific establishments and their governments. Free to make real progress.
But progress requires sacrifice, and in exchange for this opportunity – for that’s how it was presented to Natalia – she would belong to them. She became one of them, and from then on she did their bidding. Her future suddenly had prospects. Dangerous and full of threats, but with prospects nonetheless. At least they’d live.
If the experiments continued then Natalia was not part of them. Their masters knew her capa
bilities and knew where things had gone wrong. They were merely tools now, and must be used or discarded. Freak was another matter, perhaps, but for now he was her ward.
‘I know that look,’ said Freak. He shuffled closer and held her arm. She didn’t resist, and her body relaxed. There was no romance between her and Freak, not even friendship, not in the traditional sense. But they had comradeship: a solidarity obtained by suffering together, many times, and over many years.
‘I’m tired of these stupid games,’ she said.
‘At least you get to meet people,’ said Freak. ‘I live in a car.’
She smirked, despite her growing despair. He was right. And it was better than being back there, with the Russian and his demands. He had her, mind and body, whenever he pleased. At least being on assignment gave her distance from that. At least, for these short few weeks, she belonged to herself.
‘And they should be pleased, after the university.’
Natalia nodded, not without a hint of sadness. ‘They seem keen on burying our history.’
‘I don’t object.’
‘Let’s hope they don’t bury us with it,’ she said.
They headed away from the park. Freak announced he was hungry and they found an all-night cafe on the high street. The neon sign said coffee, and the waiter behind the counter smiled. Freak took a table in the corner, away from the two other patrons, both overweight men, scruffy and disgusting, who looked Natalia up and down. One of them licked his lips and Natalia tried to shrink herself, appear unattractive. Freak often told her this was impossible. He said she had chiselled features, a button nose and piercing eyes. Men liked that sort of thing, he said. But she pulled a hood over and on to her forehead. At least she gave the appearance of someone not to be approached.
‘Hi,’ she said, walking up to the bar.
‘Hi, yourself,’ said the waiter. His smile was genuine, but he was greasy and ran his eyes too easily over Natalia’s body, resting on her chest.
‘Coffee, two,’ she said, ‘and two full breakfasts. No beans with one, extra tomatoes with the other.’
‘Sure,’ the man said, his smile disappearing at her cold manner.
‘We’ve already paid,’ she said, nudging him, her words and expressions doing the work. His face ruffled in confusion and she whispered to him, assuring him there was no problem. The money was already in the till. He’d put it there himself. He’d count it later, when his shift ended, and realise she was right.
‘Oh,’ he said. His face showed that the information still didn’t quite compute and Natalia pushed again. She was too tired and on the verge of giving up when the cracks appeared.
‘Sure. Thanks,’ he said. ‘Take a seat. It’ll be right with you.’
Natalia sighed and shuffled over to Freak. He looked worried.
‘You’ll need to do better than that.’
‘I’m tired, OK,’ she snapped. One of the fat men glanced over. She glared until he turned back around.
‘I mean it,’ said Freak. ‘What are we going to do with Thirteen if you’re struggling this much?’
‘I said I was tired.’
‘You’re acting like we’ve failed,’ said Freak. ‘You need to pull yourself together.’
‘Shut up,’ she said, and pushed the chair to one side, looking for the toilets. The ladies’ room was cleaner than she had expected. The floor was ninety-nine per cent bacteria, but the toilet bowl had seen a cup of bleach in the last twenty-four hours. She closed the cubicle and leaned against the door.
Freak was right. She needed to sort herself out. For weeks she’d been watching their prey, either unable to do anything, or too scared. Both would see her fail, and she shivered at the thought of what might happen then.
Natalia imagined life alone, in hiding and being hunted. She’d been there before and had no desire to return to the cold mountains of her homeland. As teenagers she and Freak had struggled through the winters, practising their skills but failing many times. She remembered watching the snow fall, looking enviously at the warm lights of a house. Knocking on the door had always been her job, while Freak lurked in the shadows. They’d ask for refuge, Natalia nudging with her language while Freak waited, ready to jump in if needed. Several times the person who answered the door simply slammed it again in her face. Other times they announced they were calling the police, which sent them both running. On the rarest of occasions, Natalia was successful and the inhabitant would open their door wide, puzzled, but accepting. Then Natalia would go to work, planting the seeds, widening the cracks, attempting to manipulate for as long as she could.
But her skills were incomplete and fragile back then. In the face of somebody such as Thirteen, that would have been fatal. It had taken her many years to build herself up to where she was now. Still, she worried.
But she would obey their orders. She would come through. More time, that’s all. More time. Thirteen would slip up soon, and then they’d pounce.
She hoped she was right. There were no alternatives.
CHAPTER FORTY
‘I wasn’t in Romania,’ said Rupert, ‘not at first, anyway.’
The two of them were sitting in Rupert’s study, having refused lunch from Catherine, who had fussed around Alex and expressed concern over his weight. She left a tray of drinks and went to lie down, with a promise to make tea as soon as she had the energy.
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Alex. ‘These people,’ he tossed his father a copy of the photo from Dr Petri’s files, ‘they’re your people. At least one of them was. The guy in the top left, I recognise him. He used to come here when I was young. He brought me a book once. A hardback. Enid Blyton. He’s a friend of yours.’
Alex’s father examined the photo for several moments before placing it on his desk. He closed his eyes and bit his lower lip. He pushed back from the desk and stood, pacing to the shelves, scanning the books.
‘Do you know what it was like back then?’ He paused at a particular book and wiped some dust off the top of it, frowning. ‘It wasn’t enough to earn your degree. It was good, of course, but not enough. Not for King’s. Those who had higher aspirations . . . Well, there were other things to be done. There were demands.’
Alex kept his anger in check. He didn’t want to listen to one of his father’s stories, but he needed something.
‘This research was state-sponsored. Did they tell you that? I doubt it. It wasn’t going anywhere here though,’ said his father, ‘nor in the US either. You can guess why. But the breakthroughs – accidental, of course – couldn’t be ignored.’
‘They could if they were inhumane.’ Alex bit his tongue.
‘Don’t be so small-minded,’ said his father. He looked genuinely troubled. ‘Advancement has never been achieved by the meek. We needed to be brave and bold.’
Rupert shook his head as if Alex was the one who should be apologising. Alex wanted to object, but let his father continue.
‘I would have thought your first reaction to this would have been excitement, not disgust.’ Rupert studied his son’s face, and Alex prayed he wasn’t giving anything away. He cursed his father yet again for being right. Of course Alex was excited. If he was honest, excitement was what drove him to continue with Victor’s case. But it didn’t mean he was devoid of a conscience.
‘Professional curiosity,’ said Alex, ‘of course.’
‘Please, Alex,’ said his father, ‘be a man and admit it. If you’d been given the chance to study this phenomenon, as part of a funded programme, you’d have taken it. As we did. The first experiments were incredible, centuries of old theory thrown out the window. It was control, pure and simple.’ He searched Alex’s face. ‘We’ve always tried to govern the physical. We can capture people, imprison them, force them to do certain things with physical threats. But we discovered the holy grail in our research. Controlling a person’s thoughts through suggestion, nothing more. It’s not crazy and it’s not magic. We proved that. Advertisers have been doing a very b
asic version of it for decades. They know how to make people do things, buy things, and behave in a particular way, although they clearly fall far short of what we achieved. We distilled the theory, purified and concentrated it. We developed subjects with the ability to use language in ways we didn’t think possible. They could grab the mind of another and manipulate it, completely and utterly dominate it, removing conscious control and passing it to the subject.’
His father’s eyes were sparkling. ‘I know what you’re thinking – why such extreme experiments? Couldn’t we use it to persuade people to obey the law, or buy more cars, or something quite mundane and harmless? Maybe, but mediocrity wasn’t the point. The point was to explore the boundaries. The extreme. How completely could you control another person?’
Alex shook his head. ‘It doesn’t justify . . . The kids were competing against each other. We’ve got some of the trial notes. And it doesn’t say what happened to them. Where did they all go?’
‘I know that what you found may shock you,’ said Rupert, ‘but that wasn’t the whole story. Most of the research was nothing like that. There was one project . . . the orphanages . . . yes, it may have got out of hand. But the programme as a whole was not—’
‘They were killing each other!’ Alex shouted. He bit his tongue and forced his breathing to slow. ‘And they all disappeared. Where did they go?’
‘I told you,’ said his father, ‘most of the programme was not like that. Believe me when I tell you this. What we did in Comăneşti wasn’t what we set out to do. But by the time we’d reached a certain point, there was no going back. It was out of our hands; the government was running the show. They dictated the tests and we had no other option. The competitions were part of the training. The only way to develop such strong ability was to fight the mind of another with the same ability.’
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