Michael watched as Jennifer struck the space bar of the computer keyboard and the monitor flickered into life. It asked for a password to log on.
“Hmm,” said Jennifer, doubtfully. She turned her attention to the diary and flicked through page after page. “Meeting … meeting … doctor’s appointment … meeting.” She shut the diary. “God, could this guy be more boring?”
She moved on to a stack of drawers under the desk. She pulled the handle of the first one. It rattled against a lock and wouldn’t open. But the second slid open without objection. Inside was a collection of cardboard files. Jennifer pulled out the files and slapped them on the table. She leant forward to look, but something else caught her eye. She reached for the framed family photograph on the desk and pulled it close. She studied it.
Michael didn’t understand. It was just a photo. A man, a woman and a child of about thirteen, presumably their son. He recognised the man as Ransom from his publicity photo. Otherwise, it was an unremarkable picture of people smiling into the camera.
Jennifer turned to Michael. She looked at him with the intensity of a perceiver. He felt her burrowing. Then she turned back to the photo.
“What is it, Jen?” said Otis, approaching.
“Michael, is this you?” She pointed to the boy in the photograph.
Michael went cold. The boy in the picture stared back at him like the image in a warped mirror. A little chubbier than him, a little happier than him, face a little more boyish than his, hair a little shorter than his – but still familiar. In every real sense, the boy’s features – eyes, lips, wide-bridged nose, the shape of his chin and ears – were the same.
Otis leant over the desk and snatched the photo from Jennifer.
“Hey!” said Michael. Wanting the picture for himself. Wanting to look closer. Wanting to hide it.
But Otis saw. His gaze flicked from Michael to the picture and back again. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. They all knew what it meant.
The office door opened. Jennifer gasped. Otis turned to look. Michael ducked down behind the desk.
“What’s going on in here?” A female voice. Angry. Part of him wanted to peek out over the desk, but common sense told him to stay where he was, to crunch up his body until it was the smallest it could be.
“We were looking for Mr Ransom.” Jennifer’s voice.
“Yeah, Mr Ransom,” Otis chimed in.
“Well, he’s not here,” said the woman, stern like a schoolteacher.
“Which is why we’d thought we’d wait,” said Jennifer, just a hint of nervousness underneath her fake naivety.
“I’m going to call security to escort you out. All three of you,” said the woman.
Michael tensed. Held his breath. Closed his eyes to pretend he wasn’t there.
“Yes, I know there’s another one of you hiding behind the desk,” she said. “Come out now.”
Michael didn’t want to. He wanted to stay hidden.
“I can get security to drag you out.”
He let out the breath he was holding. There was no use pretending any more. He uncurled his body and stood up, revealing himself to the woman. And seeing her for the first time.
She was tall, slim and neat, with long brown hair pinned back behind her ears. She wore a crisp blouse of navy blue with white pinstripes, and straight black trousers. Her familiar face quickened his heart. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his and recognition passed between them.
“Doctor Page,” said Michael.
Jennifer spun round to look at him. “Doctor Page? From the clinic?”
Unbelievable. But unmistakable.
“Michael,” breathed Page. “God, Michael! What are you doing here?”
She turned to a panel of switches on the wall beside the door and flicked the top row with one swipe of her hand. The windows went suddenly dark, like someone had turned off the day. In an instant, the glass was black. The London skyline and the antechamber were hidden and the office was instantly bathed in artificial light from halogen bulbs blazing from the ceiling.
“What did you do?” said Jennifer.
“Wow,” said Otis. “It’s that special glass, Jen. The stuff with liquid crystal inside it that turns black when electric current runs through it.”
Page ignored him. “You shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“We have questions for Mr Ransom,” said Jennifer.
“Naïve little children. Just because you’re perceivers, you think you can come in here and take whatever you want?”
Otis stepped forward. The fact that she had correctly identified them as perceivers clearly wasn’t lost on him. “What the skank’s going on? Who the hell are you?”
He stood directly in front of her. In her heels, she easily matched his height, but he had the bulk and power to physically outrank her. It did nothing to intimidate her. “I’m Rachel Page. Brian Ransom’s assistant.”
“No.” Michael came out from behind the desk. “You’re Doctor Page. You work at the clinic.”
“Oh, Michael.” She sidestepped Otis and went up to Michael. She looked into him. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
He only remembered the clinic and the way she had hugged him.
“Hey!” Otis put his hand on Page’s shoulder and spun her back to face him. “I asked you what’s going on.”
Then – suddenly – Otis let go of her shoulder. Like she was diseased. He stepped away, his face ashen. “God,” he said to himself. “Oh my God.”
“Otis?” said Jennifer.
“Can’t you ’ceive it, Jen? She’s a perceiver. An adult perceiver.”
“That’s not possible,” said Jennifer, concentrating on the woman, her expression blank as she looked into her mind. Then she dropped her head and looked away. Her hand felt for the desk to support her. “It can’t be right …”
“So you know,” said Page. “Had to happen one day, I suppose. I hope I can rely on your discretion.”
“Lady, you can’t rely on skank,” said Otis. “Not till we get some answers.”
She turned on him. “You haven’t got a clue, have you? Not a damn clue. You bring Michael in here? In here?! God! Do you know how hard we …?” She took a moment, calmed herself. “Look, we need to get you out.”
“No,” said Michael, finding courage from somewhere beneath his confusion. “Otis is right. We came for answers. We’re not leaving until we get them.”
She looked directly at him. Her face softened. Like she genuinely cared, as she had seemed to care back at the clinic. But he still didn’t understand why. “Michael, I’d like to tell you, but it’s to protect you, do you understand that?”
“No.”
“I perceive your confusion, but you have to leave. Believe me when I say you can’t be found here.” She turned to Otis and Jennifer, her arms flung out to her sides, leaving her body wide open. “Perceive me. Both of you. I’m telling the truth.”
They stared. With that deep, probing stare Michael had seen so often.
“Otis,” said Jennifer.
“Shut up, Jen.”
“But I think she’s right.”
Otis sighed. “Okay, lady. I’m listening.”
“Did anyone notice you come in?” Her manner business-like now.
“No.” Otis flashed his badge at her. “Security passes, see?”
“Hang on,” said Jennifer. “There was that woman in the corridor.”
“What woman?” said Page.
“Um … I dunno, she had ugly glasses.”
“Flowery blouse?” suggested Page.
“Yeah,” said Jennifer.
“Marian!” said Page under her breath. “Terrific. Chances are she was straight onto Cooper.”
“Cooper?” Michael’s stomach cramped. The image of the man standing before him on the fire escape flashed in his mind.
“Who’s Cooper?” said Otis.
But Page was at the phone on Ransom’s desk, dialling a number.
She held up one single finger in a signal for them to be quiet. They obeyed.
“Hi, Ann, it’s Rachel,” said Page, adopting a smile and a matter-of-fact pleasantness in her voice. “Yeah, I’m well thanks … Look, don’t suppose you know anything about Bill Cooper coming today do you? Someone said he’s coming to see Brian, but there’s nothing in his diary … Yeah, thanks, if you could.” Her eyes flicked to the others. Her foot tapping. Impatient. A distorted voice muttered through the receiver at her ear and her false smile returned. “Great. Thanks, Ann. You’re a diamond.”
Page put the receiver down. “Bloody marvellous. He’s already in the sodding building.”
“Cooper’s here?” said Michael, panic rising.
“Yeah.” Page reached for the door. “I’ll stay here and stall him as much as I can. Think you can find your own way out?”
“Yeah,” said Otis. But he stopped beside her at the door and looked into her face. “This isn’t a ploy to get rid of us, is it?”
“If I can perceive Michael’s fear for the man, I’m sure you can—”
Michael felt himself blush. Cooper scared him, and everyone in that room could feel it.
“—You’ve already acknowledged I’m telling the truth,” said Page. “The question is, are you going to act on what you perceive or are you going to hang around here waiting to be caught?”
Otis turned away from her, his decision made, and walked through the door. Jennifer followed.
Michael hesitated. He looked up at the woman. He wished he understood. “Doctor Page …?”
She put a gentle finger on his lips to silence him. “Go, Michael. Please. Or it all will have been for nothing.” She held the door open. He didn’t want to go. But he didn’t want to get caught either.
Reluctantly, he passed through the glass door, into the antechamber and back into the corridor.
It was surreal. Panic inside of him, but calm all around him. The office continued as if there was no danger, no urgency. A man in a suit, carrying a sugary doughnut on a plate, opened a door leading into one of the offices off the corridor without even noticing them.
Otis and Jennifer had several metres head start on Michael and were almost at the lifts. Jennifer turned and waved for him to hurry up. Michael quickened his pace.
Otis jabbed at the button to call the lift as Michael got there, and then they were forced to wait.
Waiting for the lift when every muscle inside of him was geared up to run was almost painful. His body was flooded with adrenaline, but his brain told him to wait. Looking up at the number above the door as it counted; 4 … 5 … 6 … Getting closer to them, but ever so slowly. Otis jabbed at the button, but the lift made no concessions to his impatience. If anything, it seemed to count even slower, as if to spite them; 7 … 8 … 9 …
10 … 11 … and 12.
Cramping in his stomach as he stared at the lift doors, willing them to open. The faint jolt as, behind those dull, grey, metallic doors, the lift adjusted itself to be level with the floor. The tiniest whir of motors and the doors opened. Revealing, first a chunky black man in a suit and tie, then a tall white man in carbon copy uniform. Behind them, a slightly overweight, dark-haired white man in a black suit and open-necked white shirt. He and Michael locked eyes. It was Michael who recognised him first.
“Cooper!” he said in a terrified whisper.
Cooper’s weary eyes widened in recognition. He pushed his way past the other men.
The adrenaline in Michael’s body burst into action. He turned and ran. He didn’t see Cooper get out of the lift, but he knew he was there.
Otis’s heavy footsteps thumping behind him. “Which way?”
Michael knew which way.
He glanced back as he ran.
Jennifer was a couple of metres behind. Running wildly on high heels. The chunky black man and the tall white man closing on her, with Cooper behind.
“Jennifer!” Michael shouted.
Jennifer kicked off her shoes. One after another flew behind her. Bare feet quickened on carpet. But the men – longer legs, no broken rhythm – were at her back. Chunky black hands grabbed her jacket.
Jennifer screamed. “No!”
She struggled, trying to wrestle herself free from the material. But masculine white hands grabbed her shoulder before she got her jacket off and held onto her.
“Jen!” Otis moved to go back for her, but Michael reached for his arm. He didn’t have the strength to stop him, but it was enough to make Otis think twice. Either he perceived Michael’s fear of the men, or he realised he couldn’t help Jennifer without being caught himself.
Jennifer wriggled. Arms and legs lashing out at the men, but they were stronger and kept firm hold of her.
Cooper was trapped behind them. Shouting at them to get out of the way. He pushed past the men and their struggling prey.
“Come on!” Michael tugged at Otis’s sleeve.
A moment of hesitation and Otis continued to run down the corridor. Michael joined him, heading for the fire escape.
“Otis!” Jennifer shouted. “Michael!”
Her desperate cries were like knives plunging into him. Michael tried to block them out, knowing if all three of them were caught, it would be game over.
Michael slammed his palms against the bar of the fire escape door. It swung open. The fire alarm wailed.
Onto the concrete landing and down the spiralling flights of stairs, running for their lives as the fire alarm wailed around them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SMELL OF urine hung in the subway. With every breath, Michael was conscious of breathing it in. The narrow passage under the dual carriageway was damp and cold with the constant rumble of traffic on the road above, vibrating through the tunnel walls that curved around him and Otis.
Michael had slept in a place like this, once. When he was homeless. He remembered how the damp from the floor soaked through the cardboard he lay on. How the cold seeped through his clothes. And how it was regarded by many as a public toilet. He remembered watching a tramp unzipping his trousers right in front of him and exposing himself and peeing up the wall with no regard to anyone else around him.
He had promised himself he’d never go back to a place like that. And yet, there he was, sitting on the damp floor, resting his back on the damp wall and feeling the heat of his body leach through the shirt, trousers and jacket of his suit.
Otis paced in front of him. The heel of his smart, sensible shoes struck the concrete with repeated hollow clacks that echoed around the subway. His suit hung off him; the jacket crumpled, shirt half hanging out of his waistband, the bottom of his trousers splashed with mud.
“We should’ve gone back for her,” he said. He pulled his hair back from his face, his fingers tugging so hard on the blond strands that they stretched the skin taut on his forehead.
“They would have caught us too,” said Michael.
“You don’t know that.”
But he did. Three fully grown men and an office building full of other adults? They would’ve had no chance. They did the only thing they could have done. They ran.
Otis stopped pacing and slammed his back against the opposite wall. “Shit!” he said to the world in general. “Shit, shit, shit!” His cries reverberated around the tube of the subway until their echo dissipated into nothing.
All Michael could think of was Jennifer’s terrified face as she struggled in the hands of Cooper’s men. Her desperate cries for help and how they had turned their backs on her to save their own skin.
“I suppose you’re pleased,” said Otis.
“What do you mean?”
“You lured us there.”
Otis’s body had almost recovered from their run, but his face was still red in anger.
“I what?! No!”
Otis reached into the inside of his jacket. He pulled out something flat and rectangular and chucked it towards Michael. In reflex, he lifted his hands to catch it. A sharp corner struck his palm �
�� “Ow!” – and the object fell into his lap.
It was face down, but Michael knew instantly what it was. A piece of smooth hardboard framed by a silverish, metal border: it was the photo from Ransom’s desk.
He turned it over and looked at the unfathomable picture of Ransom, a woman – his wife? – and a boy with Michael’s face.
“Want to explain that?” said Otis.
Michael wished he could. But he had no memory of the picture having been taken. No memory of the lush garden in which they stood, with its bright greens vibrant in the summer sun. No memory of the woman who stood behind the boy (his younger self?) with a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t,” he said.
“Or won’t. Looks skankin’ obvious to me. You’re Ransom’s son. Aren’t you?”
The statement shot a shiver down Michael’s spine. From the evidence of the photo, he suspected it was true, but his conscious mind dared not believe it.
“You don’t know that.”
“Look at it!” Otis pushed himself away from the opposite wall and leant over Michael. He tapped his index finger on the glass that covered the image. Michael could feel Otis’s hot, angry breath on his face. It scared him. The teenager was bigger than him, stronger than him and fuelled with rage.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Otis.”
“Tell me why you lured us there. Did you want Jennifer to be caught, is that it?”
“No! Otis, believe me …”
Otis grabbed Michael’s tie. He’d loosened it as he ran, but the piece of cloth was still tied round his neck, allowing Otis to pull him forward like a dog on a lead. “You’re the one who said we should go.”
“Only because Jennifer’s journalist friend said—”
Otis yanked the tie again and Michael was pulled to his feet. The photo slipped from his lap and clattered to the ground.
Otis pulled the tie above Michael’s head, forcing his body to reach taller than his height, his feet scrabbling to take his weight as the cloth dug into the back of his neck.
Mind Secrets: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 1) Page 10