But the presence of the prison doctor was concerning. What were they doing together? Were they laughing at him, taunting him for his weakness?
‘No, you can’t help me,’ Victor said, turning to stare at the young man. ‘You should get into your van and stay there. When you leave, in ten minutes’ time, you won’t remember me.’
Victor continued to stare at the man and whispered several phrases, his voice clear and concise. Pushing, gently at first, then with more urgency. The man nodded, slowly, before opening the van door. He climbed in and sat, facing forward, his arms resting on the wheel.
The headache hit like a thunderclap and Victor cursed in his native tongue. The delivery driver didn’t flinch. He sat, dribbling out of the right side of his mouth, eyes glazed.
Victor staggered away, around the corner of the street into the main road. His car was unlocked and he crawled in, rummaging for painkillers. A police car cruised by, neither of the uniformed officers glancing his way. Victor’s heart missed a beat as the car slowed, but then sped up, passing the turn-off to Dr Rupert Madison’s house and continuing on the main road, headed out of the city.
He would allow himself two hours’ rest, after which his next visit was due. He had a feeling he must speed things up. He hoped, for Laura’s sake, the next person on his list was ready, waiting for their death.
Victor parked in a bay marked ‘Visitors’. UCL hospital was undergoing renovations. It looked as if the old concrete façade and slit windows were being replaced with an abundance of glass walls. Victor hid his disgust as he entered the emergency room, pausing to study the map and several of the corridors leading to other parts of the hospital.
He sauntered through a set of double doors, heading for a grouping of departments in the mental health wing. He found himself in a long grey corridor with direction markings on the floor. To each side were wards, labelled with letters.
He approached one and listened. There were beeps and hisses, overlaid with the squeaking and banging of staff going about their business: nurses checking on patients, cleaners dusting around the beds. It was like any other hospital ward, except that the sounds unearthed flashes of memory that sprang into his consciousness for seconds before disappearing again. He crept into the ward, mesmerised. He glanced at the walls and the ceiling. It was all unfamiliar. His own treatment had never warranted the safety of a real hospital.
He touched the end of a vacant bed. Cold metal. There was a table next to it, extendable over the bed, so patients could eat, or rest a book. Victor had a flash of a plate. It had cold bread on it with a lump of salted butter. A doctor had leaned over and told him to eat it.
He shook his head and backed out of the ward. He’d never stayed in such a place, but he remembered the sick ward at Comăneşti. The metal beds and the sounds. It was all tucked away in there. Victor struggled to forget.
Heading for the next ward, Victor paid more attention to the people he saw. The face was etched into his memories. The professor would be older, much older, but Victor would never forget him. The professor worked here as a consultant psychiatrist, with hundreds of people under his care. Victor knew how caring the man could be. He’d remind him of it.
Victor kept his head down and shuffled along. He was practised in keeping to the side, using the posture and mannerisms that guaranteed nobody noticed him. They wouldn’t see him come or go, and few would remember he was ever here. He’d persuade people if he had to, but his energy was best saved.
Pausing to take his bearings, Victor leaned against a row of chairs. They were empty, and he sat on one, swallowing the frequent acid that insisted on forcing its way into his throat. He couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. He pictured the house of Dr Madison again. He saw the other young doctor leaving in his grotesque sports car.
What if the devil had some other plan? Did he know all about Victor and his journey? Surely he must know righteousness would prevail? There was no avoiding fate. And yet, something tugged at Victor’s gut. He’d had all the time in the world. Now, he sensed the distant urgency of a countdown.
He stood, lurching forward, barging into an elderly couple. They apologised. He didn’t. He shuffled off towards what he knew to be the correct department. If time was running out, he needed to be faster, more efficient. He could do it. Swallow the pain and just do it.
Victor was seething now, furious his hand was being forced. How dare they? How dare they make him feel rushed? He was executing what he knew to be the correct course of action. There was no option other than to forgive these people. Why couldn’t they see that?
He turned a corner and stopped in his tracks. At the far end of the corridor was a reception desk, quiet, with one lady behind it, peering over her glasses at the two people in front of her. Victor gulped back his anger and frustration. The two people were police officers. They were uniformed and looked alert, capable. One talked to the receptionist and the other stood to the side, one hand on his hip, the other on his radio. Victor’s eyes were drawn to the side of the corridor, where a third officer appeared. This one wore a bulletproof vest and a cap with a chequered strip and carried a firearm on his belt.
Victor’s jaw clenched and he let out a stifled breath. He backed away behind a cleaning cupboard, giving himself just enough space to see that the police were serious and here in force.
He glanced back, observing their movements. All three were twitchy, anxious. They knew they were dealing with something unpredictable and dangerous, but how much had they been told? In Victor’s experience, not enough.
In previous years this wouldn’t have bothered him. Police, soldiers, customs officials. Many carried guns and many were much stronger than he. He’d passed borders, walked through checkpoints, even escaped the prison.
In his early twenties Victor had faced six officers in Romania. At a random checkpoint, they had wanted Victor to identify himself and his intentions. Why was he passing through the area? What was his job? Who was waiting for him in the next district?
It had been easy. Armed or not, the officers bowed to his will, one by one, dominoes rattling into place as he whispered to them. He didn’t need to identify himself or his intentions. It wasn’t important and nor was his destination. Nobody waited for him. They would let him pass and they would have no recollection of it. It worked, and he smiled, and back then only the murmurs of a headache disturbed him. He’d feel unsteady, tired, as if he’d drunk too much red wine at too early an hour. But he recovered quickly.
Never was he in any doubt of his ability.
But Victor knew things were changing. In the last few years, the crucial years during which he’d defined his purpose, he had changed.
The pain was more frequent and never left him. It pulsed and soared, from the top of his head, deep into his neck. It pervaded every crack in his being. His eyes watered and his ears rang. The tinnitus diminished in the early morning, but was back again by lunch, dampening his hearing, driving him to distraction, irritating his every move.
He had constant nausea, every waking hour, and no longer tried to suppress it. His gut wrenched and convulsed, and his teeth were starting to yellow from the bile and vomiting.
He knew he was rotting inside, and suspected the end wasn’t far off.
Glancing down the corridor, he judged the impact he’d need to make if he was to take on all three of the police before they reacted. With anger and dejection, he realised he couldn’t. Not if they were expecting him. Not if they knew his face. They would overpower or kill him.
Victor wasn’t scared of death – far from it. But he couldn’t die yet. He owed Laura and the others. He had people to repay, people to forgive. If the police were already here, his plan was ruined. His carefully memorised list was over. He was back to being nothing more than a fugitive.
He had no choice but to leave. They’d kill him on sight.
If this was the end, Victor knew what he must do. Given a chance of one more, Victor had no doubt who it must be. He
cursed the fact that he hadn’t taken the opportunity earlier, but that wasn’t the order on his list. Without order he got confused.
One more. Then death. He was comfortable with that.
He left the hospital, reversed out of the parking space and headed back the way he’d come, towards the house of Dr Rupert Madison.
It was the devil’s turn to dance, and Victor would be playing the fiddle.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Victor’s head throbbed as he stepped out of the car. The pain in his neck and shoulders forced him to stoop. He was crowded with noise. Any clarity was gone. His ability surged and waned. He was sick, a deep damaging disease, countered only by his anger, the burning rage ignited all those years ago and never extinguished.
It was this rage he used to force himself into the front garden and along the driveway towards a garage, offset from Dr Madison’s house. A large garden lay at the rear.
He then waited for a reasonable time but the police were absent. Surely they knew about this one. If not, they would soon. He didn’t have much time.
He paused at the back door and checked his bag. He’d brought no props along this time. For this one, he simply needed to look the man in the eyes and see the recognition. Recognition was what he craved, what he demanded. There was never any escape for this man. He was the worst and the most deserving of the lot.
He’d show them. He’d kill the devil himself and then they’d see what he could do. Then he could go to his death and know he’d be forgiven.
The door opened; it was unlocked. He found himself in the kitchen. There was an old lady staring at him, but she didn’t scream or shout. She looked confused and held a tea towel in one hand, a handful of knives in the other.
Victor smiled and whispered to her. He was gentle and polite. He needed to save his energy. She nodded and turned, walking out of the kitchen, into a reception room at the back of the house. Victor tilted his head and listened. Footsteps from the front of the house: a creaking of floorboards.
He crept along the hallway, although he had little fear of being caught this time, such was his fury and his physical pain. He remembered creeping along so many corridors and hallways in his life. This one, at least, was short and there was no threat at the end of it. Nothing he couldn’t deal with.
The study door opened and the man at the desk looked up. There were several moments of silence as Victor eased himself in and closed the door behind him.
It was the doctor who broke the silence. He trembled, but remained seated. ‘So you’ve come,’ he said. ‘He was right.’
Victor ignored the thump at the back of his skull.
‘I came,’ he said.
‘I don’t remember you,’ said the doctor. ‘Should I? Did we work together?’ The old doctor twisted his face into a smile. Conciliatory. Pained. Fake.
‘Work together?’ Victor screwed his own face up. ‘That was not what we did.’
‘My colleagues, then? They didn’t behave as they should have done. I know this. We could have treated you much better than we—’
‘You know what you did,’ said Victor. ‘You know what you are. Save the pitiful attempts. I was one of the best. And I was treated the worst.’
The doctor’s hand shook again. He scratched his face, picking at the skin on his chin. He was scared, but it wasn’t enough. He pretended not to remember Victor. Unacceptable.
‘You presided over my injections,’ hissed Victor. ‘Mondays. Monthly at first, then weekly. They hurt. I screamed. You watched. Look at me – I’m Thirteen.’
The doctor strained his eyes but they were cold. No flicker behind them. The hand stopped trembling.
‘It doesn’t need to end like this,’ said the doctor, straightening up. ‘I know what I did. I won’t apologise and I won’t explain.’
Victor bared his teeth and stepped closer to the desk. The doctor flinched but kept talking.
‘You were one of the best. A puppet master.’ The doctor paused, searching Victor’s face. Victor tried not to show any emotion at hearing that title.
‘There is a future for you. You can come in from the cold. Work with me. I can’t promise you won’t be punished for what you’ve done, but I have influence. We might be able to work together again . . .’
Victor let out a cry of surprise. ‘You can’t promise I won’t be punished?’ he shouted. ‘You?’ He turned away in anger. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He shouldn’t be letting the man talk, let alone make him angry. Even now, the doctor was trying to manipulate him.
‘My son is also an expert in this field,’ said the doctor. ‘You’ve already met – he assessed you at Whitemoor. We can both work with you. I was talking to him just now, as it happens.’
Victor paused. ‘Your son?’
Of course. It hit him. A sickness in his gut as the realisation dawned. They looked alike. The recognition in the prison was because this old man had looked the same many years ago. He should have pieced it together. The father sent the son. To continue his work. To continue his torture.
How could he have been so stupid? They were plotting against him all along. The devil’s son was after him and he didn’t even know it.
Victor reeled in anger. ‘You sent him?’
The doctor shook his head. Surprised, his face creased. ‘No. Not . . . No. That’s not what—’
Victor screamed. ‘Your son caved in an instant.’ He saw the surprise on the doctor’s face. ‘He didn’t tell you that, did he? I plucked his mind from him and made him cower in front of me. I told him to stay away from me. Your son?’
Victor seethed at the thought of having this man’s son in front of him and letting him go. Why couldn’t he see it at the time? He could have killed him then and there. That would have been enough, wouldn’t it? To kill this man’s son would have healed so much; it would have made up for such a great number of deaths.
But he’d been cheated.
‘He’s way ahead of you,’ said the doctor, shifting backwards in his chair. ‘The police know what you are. You have limited time left. Why not stop now? My offer stands.’
Victor shook his head and closed his eyes. He blocked the lies and focused on his purpose. This cowering, snivelling man in front of him wouldn’t live to make any more offers, and he wouldn’t inflict any more of his pain on others.
And that wasn’t all. Dr Rupert Madison had just offered up his son. And Victor would take great pleasure in taking him.
Whispering, Victor planted his first words, watching the doctor’s face as his suggestion took hold. The shaking returned, and the panic on the doctor’s face satisfied Victor.
‘I won’t beg,’ said the doctor, his voice wavering. ‘I did what I thought was right.’
Victor responded. He cultivated his phrases and hissed them across the air between them. The words hung in the air and the doctor shook his head, trying to ward them off. But he did it without hope. He knew he couldn’t stop it.
‘Stand, Doctor Madison,’ said Victor. The man stood, mechanically, jerking to his feet. The panic in his eyes increased. It was one thing to create the puppet masters and oversee their development, it was quite another to be controlled by one. Victor doubted the doctors ever anticipated this outcome – one of their children hunting them down.
But Victor wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.
‘It’s time, Dr Madison. Time to die. Take off your belt.’
The trembling increased and the doctor pulled his leather belt from his trousers, staring at the buckle.
‘You’ll die today, Dr Madison,’ he said. ‘And so will your son. He’s next. He’s the only one I want now.’
It hit home. The doctor’s eyes were wide and the terror was complete. He opened his mouth to plead but his voice was cut off. He gasped and failed.
Victor was satisfied, and he smiled as he issued his final command.
Victor staggered out of the driveway and into the street. A truck passed and the driver eyed him with curiosity,
but Victor ducked his head down and headed towards his car. He struggled into the seat and allowed himself a few seconds of deep breaths. The throbbing behind his eyes was unbearable; the back of his neck felt as if it was caving in.
But he smiled, for he had a renewed purpose. He forced aside the nausea and the bile. He had taken the devil, and now the child of the devil was within reach. A prize above all else.
It would please her. Laura. If she knew, she’d cheer him on. He’d take the weak, scheming doctor’s son and show him what the devil had created.
Victor turned the key and winced as the engine roared into life. He drove slowly, along backstreets, focusing hard on the road, squinting as the pain caused his vision to blur. He allowed himself to stop when he was several miles from the Madisons’ house, at which point he opened the door and vomited on to the street.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Natalia and Freak had watched Thirteen’s departure from the home of Dr Madison, senior. They sat at a bus stop, inconspicuous, smiling at anybody who approached them. She waited for the next bus to leave, waving it on, before turning to Freak.
‘Did you see what I saw?’
Freak nodded.
‘Is that good?’
‘He’s struggling,’ said Freak in a small croak. ‘He’s got the fever. He may be too far gone. Good for us, but not good for . . . Well.’
Natalia turned to her companion. He looked like a freak, of that there was no question. Short, malformed and with a crooked face. They called him other things too at the centre, during their training. The Russians didn’t hold back in their insults, and Freak soon became accustomed to being the joke. There, but for her grace. She had enough sway – not much, but some – to keep him from being retired. He was not retarded, not in the way they said he was. Damaged, yes, but no more than she was. No more than any of the children who found their way out of Comăneşti or one of the other orphanages. He’d suffered a reaction to the drugs they pumped into him week on week. A gross overdose of psychotic drugs and conditioning. Comatose for three days then kicked back into the dorm, reeking of urine and sweat.
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