Michael thought about it. It made sense, except … “Are you telling me Ransom sent you to rescue me?”
“Yes,” said Page.
“Doesn’t he have security people to do that sort of thing?”
Jennifer opened the back door. “Michael, will you get in the skankin’ car?” she said. “I want to go home.” She got in the back seat and sat down definitively. It had been a long day for her. An emotional ride of hope plummeting to despair and Michael had perceived every moment of it.
Otis opened the door on the opposite side and joined Jennifer on the back seat.
“Are you going to join your friends?” said Page.
Michael looked through the rear window at the two of them. “You’re taking me to my father aren’t you?”
Yes. The one word in her mind leaked from behind her mental barrier.
She must have figured it out – perceived it, probably – because she became defensive. “He cares for you, Michael.”
Her words made one statement, but her thoughts betrayed another. It was a perception so marginal he might have missed it a week ago.
“It’s you who cares for me,” he said to Page.
“Of course I care. I’ve known your father since before you were born.”
It triggered a memory inside Michael. A memory of his father’s memories. Of wanting a child with perception, of getting a perceiver to donate her eggs for the IVF treatment to make sure the child was a strong perceiver. “Are you …?” His mouth was suddenly dry. He cleared his throat. “Are you my biological mother?”
Page smiled. She tried to laugh it off. “Michael! What a question!”
He perceived the answer, but he wanted to hear it from her. “Are you?”
The smile disappeared from her face. She became more serious than he had ever seen her. “If I tell you the truth, will you get in the car?”
Michael nodded.
“Yes,” said Page. “I am your biological mother.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
MICHAEL SAT IN the front seat of Page’s car, his head still throbbing. And not just from being knocked onto the pavement. He looked across at Page. Really looked, at every curve of her face, at every aspect of her body. He had the same brown hair as her. And her nose – not especially large, not especially small – but with a wide bridge that made wearing some sunglasses difficult.
“Please don’t stare at me, Michael, you’re making me feel uncomfortable.”
He turned away and craned his neck to see his reflection in the rear-view mirror. He looked nothing like her, he decided. Even accounting for the swelling of his bloody nose.
The mirror also showed Otis and Jennifer together in the back seat. She had her head rested lightly on his shoulder. Michael subdued his feelings of jealousy. They were both just tired, he told himself.
A quietness descended on the car as they headed out of London. There was only the sound of the engine and passing traffic. Michael rested his head against the window. The rumble from the road travelled through the body of the car until it vibrated Michael’s skull. It did nothing for his headache, but the glass was cool on his skin and so he rested his head there and closed his eyes.
He may have dozed off a few times because the next time he opened his eyes, they were on the M40, with acres of green fields rushing by the window.
“Did I know?” Michael asked all of a sudden. “Before, I mean?”
The question pulled Page out of her driver’s haze. “Sorry?”
“Did I know about you before I lost my memory?”
“You may have suspected, but nobody told you. Your father asked me not to.”
“So you disobeyed him.”
“A lot’s changed, Michael.”
He wondered how it made him feel, knowing it now. He didn’t love her, he was sure of that. But did he care for her? Could he summon up any feelings for her at all?
Page flicked the indicator at the side of the steering column and the gentle tick-tock revealed to the occupants they were about to leave the motorway. The sign at the side of the road said they were heading towards Beaconsfield.
“Why are we coming all the way out here?” asked Michael.
“I’ll let Brian – your father – explain,” said Page.
They travelled another ten minutes or so. Onto a dual carriageway. Then a major A road, followed by a residential street and a cul-de-sac lined with tall trees. Page slowed the car as they approached a gap between two leylandii. She turned into the driveway and the tyres scrunched on the gravel beneath as the car drove towards the large house at the end. It was quaint-looking, built of brick with leaded windows and flowering climbers that intertwined through wooden trellis on either side of the front door.
The car came to a halt at the end of the drive and Page turned off the engine. All four got out, creating loud crunching noises on the gravel. Michael breathed in the fresh air, full of oxygen from the trees, shrubs and plants around them. It contrasted with the dull thump in his aching head. He wished he had some painkillers.
Otis groaned.
“What’s up?” said Michael.
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “He’s been whining about his stomach hurting.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” said Michael.
“How do you know?” said Otis.
“I’m a perceiver now, remember?”
“You can feel my pain?” said Otis.
“And it’s nowhere near as bad as my head,” said Michael. “So give it a rest will you?”
A ringing sound from inside attracted their attention. Page removed her finger from the doorbell and stepped a polite distance back from the doorstep.
Michael felt inexplicably nervous.
Otis, standing next to him, leant over and whispered. “We ran like skank to get away from this guy’s office once. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“No,” said Michael.
Ransom opened the door. He looked more or less the same as he had all those times Michael saw him in the cell: the same style jeans, shirt and jumper. Only, he looked older. His face was grey and drained, he was stooped over more and he rested more of his weight on the door than a fit person might. He let out a breath that sounded as if he’d been holding it in all day. “Michael,” he breathed. He stepped across the doorstep and took his son in his arms.
Michael felt his body being squeezed against the synthetic wool of his jumper until most of the breath had been wrung out of him. He perceived his father’s love, but like a dessert made with too much sugar, it tasted sickly sweet. Ransom pulled back, Michael filled his lungs and felt the disappointment inside his father. After what happened on their last meeting, what else did he expect?
“I thought I told you to get the hell away from all this mess,” said Ransom.
“I’ve done enough running away,” said Michael.
“Hmm,” said Ransom. His attention turned to Jennifer. “And you, Miss Price, I’ve seen you on television. Looks like you’ve made this mess worse.”
“I didn’t—”
Ransom waved away her explanation. He turned and went back inside the house.
The four of them – Page included – stayed uncertainly on the other side of the threshold.
“Well, come on in if you’re coming,” Ransom called after them.
Ransom’s home, like his office, was amazingly plush. The hallway alone was the size of the living room from their old squat, with stairs leading up to the left and internal doors on every other side.
Stepping into the lounge was like stepping into a cathedral. Light filtered through net curtains at the front windows and sun shone in through patio doors at the back. Polished wooden sideboards lined the walls to the left and the right, one holding a candelabra and the other a vase of fresh lilies that wafted their perfume throughout the room. Three cream leather sofas were placed around a patterned rug in the centre of the room. And yet there was still space.
The television was set to the BBC news channel w
hich was covering the events at Parliament Square. It showed a boy of maybe thirteen being carried into an ambulance, people scrambling away from a billowing cloud of tear gas, police charging at rioters, rioters charging at police. Screaming adults and teenagers – some of them no more than children.
“Bloody mess,” said Ransom. “Bloody, bloody mess.”
They stared at the television. No one said anything.
“At least five dead,” said Ransom. “God knows how many injured. The hospitals are overflowing.” He turned to Jennifer. “Got what you wanted did you?”
“No,” she said.
“I saw you on the TV telling perceivers to come out onto the streets of London,” he said. “What did you expect the population to do, stand by and do nothing?”
“I wanted a peaceful protest,” said Jennifer. “To show to the country how strongly we feel.”
Ransom gestured at the television. “Well, the whole damn country certainly knows about it now.”
Michael perceived his words were getting to her. The whole day was getting to her. Inside, her whole body was distressed. She was having trouble holding onto her composure.
Otis’s anger flared in an instant. “How dare you!” He jabbed an accusing finger in Ransom’s direction. “We didn’t create this skankin’ mess. You’re the one behind the cure clinics. Those kids wouldn’t be out there if it weren’t for you.”
Otis’s words wounded Ransom. Knocked the wind out of him so he couldn’t reply. He turned to Page. “Who is this person?”
“He’s Miss Price’s boyfriend,” she said.
Michael felt a pang of jealousy. Strong and unguarded, it was picked up by every perceiver in the room. That was everyone except Jennifer. He felt his cheeks go red.
Jennifer burst into tears. The emotion of it was all of a sudden too much. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she sobbed. “I wanted … I only wanted …” The rest of her words were obscured by her tears.
Page snatched a tissue from a box on a nearby table. “Here.” She handed it to her. Jennifer took it blindly and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Page led her to one of the sofas. “Sit down. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”
The men looked at each other – embarrassed.
It was Michael who spoke first. “Why did you get Page to bring us here?”
“To sort out this mess,” said Ransom.
“How?” Michael glanced at the television. The news was running the picture of the teenager being taken into the ambulance again.
“Try to sort it out,” Ransom corrected. “I’ve asked someone to meet us here.”
“Who?” said Michael.
The door at the far end of the lounge opened. Ransom turned. The others looked up. It was a woman. In her forties, dressed casually and wearing blue fluffy slippers. Michael recognised her but, for the moment, couldn’t think where from.
She recognised him too. “Michael? My God, Michael.” She looked accusingly at Ransom. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
“He just got here, Mary.”
She rushed towards him. In the time it took her to walk the metre or so of carpet, Michael realised who she was. She was older than her picture, her dyed blonde hair showing its grey roots at the parting. But that, and a bit of extra weight aside, she was the same woman he’d seen in the family photo he’d found in Ransom’s office.
She embraced him. Her love was so strong it blocked out every other emotion in the room – even his own. “I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you,” she said over and over as he felt her tears of joy soak into the shoulder of his T-shirt.
When she finally let him go and stood back, he was able to take a proper look at her face. He recognised nothing of himself in it. She was his mother, but genetically he had inherited nothing from her. She had brought him up, but his mind had been wiped of every memory of her. He perceived her love, but he felt nothing for her. She was a stranger.
He looked at Page. He felt nothing for her either. He was in a room with the two women who helped create him – the one who donated her genetic material and the one who had given birth to him. He wished he could return the love that he perceived in them. He wished he could know what it was like to be part of a family. But his father and his biological mother had conspired to take that from him.
“Rachel,” said Ransom, cutting through the moment, “why don’t you get our guests some water?”
“Sure,” said Page.
She went out of the same door they’d come through, presumably to go to the kitchen.
“What happened to your nose?” said Mrs Ransom.
The question surprised him. “Oh,” said Michael. “Someone hit me.”
“You’re bleeding,” said Mrs Ransom.
“Yeah.”
“You might need stitches. You should see a doctor. Brian—” she turned to her husband “—did you call the doctor?”
The chimes of a doorbell rang in the hallway.
“Saved by the bell,” said Ransom. “Excuse me.”
He left the room.
“How have you been, Michael?” said Mrs Ransom. “Brian kept telling me you were okay, but when I didn’t hear from you …”
Otis butted in, ignoring the woman. “We should go,” he said to Michael and Jennifer. “Get out now.”
“Go where?” said Jennifer. She blew her nose on the tissue.
“Who cares? Out of here. Away.”
“Wait,” said Michael. He perceived other minds who were not in the room. Many minds – and they weren’t Ransom or Page.
“What?” said Otis.
“Can’t you perceive that?” he said.
“The person at the door?” said Otis. “They’re peripheral. Why? Can you ’ceive who it is?”
“Not it,” said Michael. “Them. I perceive … ten people?”
The lounge door opened to reveal Ransom with a whole gaggle of men and women in suits behind him. He held the door open for the man at the head of the queue. It was John Pankhurst, the Prime Minister.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“SKANKIN’ HELL,” said Otis.
It may not have been the correct thing to say when the Prime Minister walked into the room, but it was what they were all thinking.
Michael stared. Prime Minister John Pankhurst was a man who appeared on the television, not a man who rings the doorbell and casually walks into someone’s living room.
“Mr Pankhurst, you know my wife of course,” said Ransom. He stepped aside so he had a clear view of her.
“Mary, of course,” said Pankhurst, leaning forward and shaking her hand.
“I don’t believe you’ve met my son, Michael.” Ransom opened his arm as an invitation to greet Michael.
Pankhurst held out his hand. Michael shook it dutifully. It seemed the thing to do.
The Prime Minister’s entourage filtered through the door to fill the room. Several of the suited men had curly bits of translucent wire coming out of one ear and a certain gun-shaped bulge under their jackets.
“What is all this about, Brian?” asked Pankhurst.
Ransom was about to answer when he was distracted by Page’s voice coming from outside in the hallway. “Excuse me … Sorry … Thank you.”
The two security men at the door gave her a suspicious glance, but parted to let her through. She carried a tray with four glasses of rattling water. She placed it on the table.
“Our guests are here, I see,” she said.
“Yes,” said Ransom. “Rachel, could you do me a favour and keep Pankhurst’s … um … ‘friends’ entertained in the other room?”
“Sure,” said Page with the professionalism of a personal assistant. “I’ll put some coffee on. Gentlemen, if you’d like to follow me.”
Page walked back the way she had come.
The men with curly wires, and the men and women without, looked to the Prime Minister for their cue.
Pankhurst turned to Ransom. “B
rian, my security people get a bit edgy if I send them away.”
“You and I have known each other a long time,” said Ransom. “You trust me, don’t you?”
Pankhurst took a moment. He nodded in an I suppose it’ll be all right kind of way and waved his entourage away.
“Why did you drag me all the way out here to your house, Brian?” said Pankhurst. “What’s wrong with coming to Downing Street?”
“I can’t,” said Ransom. “I’m under house arrest.”
Pankhurst chuckled. It was odd to see a man who’s normally so serious actually be a human being.
“No, really,” said Ransom. He grabbed the material of his trouser leg and pulled it up, revealing a wide black strap around his ankle with a black box the size of a child’s fist attached to it. A red light at the corner blinked on and off.
“What’s that?” said Pankhurst.
Otis leant forward on his chair. “It’s an electronic tag.”
Pankhurst looked at Otis, then looked at Ransom.
“The boy’s right,” he said. “I’m not allowed to leave Beaconsfield. If I do, all manner of alarms go off, or so I’m told.”
Michael perceived Pankhurst’s disbelief. The man let out a sigh and sat down. “I think my security team might be a bit concerned to know I’m consorting with a criminal. What did you do? Why are you wearing that thing? Because if you’re asking for a Prime Ministerial pardon for something, I don’t know if I can – I mean, it would be seen to be doing a favour for a friend …”
Ransom waved his concerns away. “William Cooper gave me the tag, but that’s not why I asked you here, John.”
“Cooper,” considered Pankhurst, “the head of the Perceiver Task Force. Is this about the perception thing? You know my government’s very grateful for all the work you put in at the cure clinics …”
Pankhurst trailed off as he caught sight of Jennifer sitting on the sofa across from him.
Jennifer went red.
“You’re Jennifer Price,” said Pankhurst.
“Yes, sir.”
Pankhurst turned – accusing – to Ransom. “You called me out here to meet with this girl?” Anger was inside of him. It manifested in his strong words, an echo of all the stern speeches he’d made down the years. Except, this time, Michael not only heard his anger, he perceived it.
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