The Colours of Death

  She starts to shake her head. ‘I don’t—’

  It’s the thud of the dart hitting the board that pulls her attention away. Normal in a place like this except – she feels like she missed something. She twists further in her seat and registers absently Dr Alves thanking the waitress.

  The darts players are a man and a woman, a couple by the way the woman is teasing before dropping a kiss on his cheek as he takes a step closer to the board for his turn.

  Isabel narrows her eyes, confused about what caught her attention when everything looks so—

  The man lifts his hand but it’s palm side up and fisted, the tip of the dart peeking out between his middle and index finger. And then he flicks his hand open and the dart cuts through the distance to pierce the board with a loud thud.

  Isabel blinks.

  What?

  ‘You saw it?’

  Dr Alves’s voice is closer than it had been and Isabel glances over her shoulder to find that she’s drawn her chair closer to Isabel’s. There’s a smile playing at the corner of her mouth, a little wry.

  ‘Yeah,’ Isabel says and then looks back around to watch as he repeats the same thing again with the other two darts, the exact same way. An open flick of his hand and the darts firing out of it like a giant super-powered magnet is calling them home. Not that any of them land anywhere near the bullseye and his partner is laughing at his side. ‘Gifted. He’s using his Gift to play,’ she says, and then she registers what she’s said, what she knows is definitely true, and tenses up, eyes darting all over in anticipation of someone walking up to the couple and starting trouble.

  But there’s no one.

  Everyone is minding their own business, carrying on with their evening as if two people aren’t blatantly displaying their Gift in the room.

  ‘Relax.’ Dr Alves curls a gentle hand around Isabel’s shoulder and draws her to look back around. The smile is gone now as she takes in Isabel’s expression. ‘Don’t worry, this place is a little different. They don’t tolerate that kind of crap here, and that couple aren’t the only ones playing this way. Take a look at the people playing draughts,’ she says with a nod of her chin.

  Isabel looks. It takes a little time because one of the players is considering their move, but when they do make the move they don’t touch the pieces at all. The piece moves quietly across the board on its own to settle on a black square.

  ‘See? They’re not the only ones.’

  Isabel settles back in her chair, bewildered. She’s so used to seeing the hostility that she’s shocked that there are still places like this where people can relax and just be, comfortable enough to show their Gifts in such a way.

  ‘This is a nice place,’ Dr Alves goes on.

  When Isabel finally peels her attention away from the players and looks at her, not knowing what to say.

  Dr Alves shrugs. ‘I understand your surprise. There aren’t many places with this level of openness any more. The owner’s daughter is Gifted herself.’

  Isabel shakes her head. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen a place as . . . relaxed as this.’ Or maybe I don’t go out enough to actually see these things, she thinks.

  ‘I understand that. We both know that the world isn’t getting any easier for Gifted.’ Dr Alves looks over her shoulder at the players. ‘If it were me, I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable exposing myself like this, even in a place that is supposedly “safe”.’

  Isabel nods.

  ‘But I am surprised that you aren’t aware of these kinds of places,’ Dr Alves says.

  The waitress comes back then and places their beers on the table, tells them the pizza will be out in twenty minutes. Isabel murmurs a thanks as she picks up her bottle and takes a swallow.

  Isabel sighs. ‘I guess I should be. Maybe I need to get out more,’ she jokes.

  Except that’s not it entirely. Even when places like this were abundant, Isabel hadn’t gone. Hadn’t experienced it, not really. In her mother’s eyes it was bad enough that she was Gifted. Isabel had never dared flaunt it in her face. Anyone she’d hung out with had always been Regular; it had even bled into her romantic relationships – she knows that. Didn’t like to admit it, but it was there. A deep-rooted thing that she can’t quite make herself look at because if she does, she’s scared of what she’ll find.

  ‘Still,’ Isabel says, ‘I understand why you picked this place.’ She gets up and shifts her chair so that they can both face the players. ‘Their control is something else,’ she says as she sinks lower in the chair, stretching her legs out before her and crossing them at the ankle. She picks up her bottle again.

  Dr Alves nods. ‘Most telekinetics actually learn to have a decent control over their Gift quite early on.’

  ‘As opposed to telepaths?’ Isabel touches the mouth of her bottle to her temple, indicating herself.

  ‘In a way, yes. Telekinetic Gifted in general are viewed as less intrusive. They can’t enter anyone’s mind; they can’t sense emotions. They’re like a Regular person.’

  Isabel arches an eyebrow. ‘Except for the part where they can move things without touching them.’

  ‘True. But that’s an obvious thing, people can at least defend against it. It’s a thing that can be seen.’

  Is it? Isabel thinks about Gil dos Santos and she’s not sure that’s a true statement. Or that anyone, after details of his death come to light – because the press will uncover it eventually – will believe that that’s true.

  ‘And telekinetics in general are able to practise their Gift more. A simple game of marbles in the playground, getting a pen from across the room. Little things. They may not seem so big but it’s a daily practice of control.’

  Isabel nods her head at the players. ‘Like them? Where does their Gift factor in, level-wise? How exactly does it work?’ Isabel is familiar with her own Gift, with how it works for her; she knows enough from her lessons with Rosario to understand the weight of the different levels in the telepathy ranks. She’s never given much thought to the mechanics of telekinetics.

  ‘I’m not sure what level they are. What they’re showing here could be less than their actual level. But the ability they’re displaying here would be maybe a three. The items they’re moving are relatively small.’

  Isabel frowns. ‘So, what, it’s down to weight? What about distance?’

  Dr Alves nods. ‘Weight, distance – both of those things play a big part in it. The bigger or heavier the object, the bigger the fight to disrupt the gravitational pull. It’s a lot. You have to lift it and then carve out a route for it, and move the object in that direction, while fighting that pull. Quite draining for the Gifted in question, depending on their level.’

  ‘I see.’ Makes sense. ‘So,’ she twists in her chair and sets her bottle on the table, leaning closer and lowering her voice, ‘something like the Gifted girl in Colombo. How does that happen?’

  Dr Alves pauses at that question. ‘She was misdiagnosed.’

  Isabel tilts her head. ‘Diagnosed? She wasn’t ill, Doctor,’ she says.

  ‘No,’ Dr Alves says, ‘poor choice of words. But something must have gone wrong with her test, and they registered her at an incorrect level.’

  ‘Yes,’ Isabel says, ‘that much I know. But I’m not asking about what the test got wrong. She levelled a whole floor in a shopping centre. That isn’t even in the same realm as them.’ She jerks a thumb at the players. ‘If throwing a dart with your Gift makes you a three, how do you measure what that girl did? Did they even test her eventually? When we talked at the precinct you said it would take a ten to cause an incident like what happened in the carriage.’

  Dr Alves takes a deep breath. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And this only assumed control of one person,’ Isabel says.

  ‘Yes.’ Dr Alves leans forward, crossing her arms on the table. Her voice goes quieter too. ‘Let’s say that what happened in the carriage was caused by a Gifted, by your own analysis and that
of your team a deliberate attack, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which points at control. An incredible amount of control. In fact, a greater amount of control than it would take to do what that girl did in Colombo. That incident was caused by a lack of it. She was overwhelmed and that was the outcome of not knowing how to handle that kind of level. It’s why so many Gifted level seven and above are monitored. Because control is much harder at that level of power, and that kind of incident is the consequence of not being able to handle it. I don’t know what the results of her retesting were – we both know the government is never going to release that. But it’s a ten. It couldn’t be anything less.’

  Then Dr Alves leans in a little bit further.

  ‘But Isabel,’ she says, and the dropping of Isabel’s title takes her by surprise, ‘imagine this. Imagine someone who is a ten, who can do that kind of damage simply by not having control. And now imagine them with total control of all that power. And now imagine that we have no idea this person exists.’

  Someone with that kind of power but with the control to wield it at will?

  The waitress arrives with their pizza and Dr Alves settles back in her chair.

  Isabel finishes her drink and asks for another one. The smell of red onions and cheese is strong and makes her mouth water. She reaches for a slice.

  She doesn’t want to think about it, if she’s honest.

  Armindas is a 7. By what Dr Alves has said, it sounds to Isabel like that’s high enough for her to be able to pick up Gil and send him flying into a window. Though then they have another problem. Armindas wasn’t in that carriage. Not that they know of. Not that they can prove with their current evidence, anyway.

  The waitress puts a full bottle in front of her and Isabel toasts Dr Alves.

  Isabel picks at the corner of the label on the bottle, the softened paper damp with condensation and rolling under her thumb. She sighs and takes a bite of the pizza.

  Imagining someone like that—

  Just her luck that it seems like that’s exactly the kind of Gifted they might be dealing with.

  Chapter 30

  Isabel gets to the precinct around 10 a.m. the next day, to the sight of Voronov closing the Chief’s door quietly behind him as he leaves her office. And though Isabel has never had any reason to fear anything from the Chief and she doesn’t think that will change now, it still makes her uneasy.

  Voronov pauses when he spots her coming down the hallway, hand still on the door handle.

  Isabel nods good morning and heads straight to her desk without waiting for him.

  It had been close to midnight when she’d got home the night before. After the novelty of good conversation and a few drinks in a place she’d felt comfortable enough to relax in, she’d felt too mellow to go out for a run. There had been a voicemail on her phone from Rita, but Isabel had left it, slipping into a T-shirt and then straight into bed.

  She’d been feeling an unusual quiet peace and hadn’t been ready to give that up so quickly.

  Waking up to the shrill sound of her phone alarm this morning had been a surprise too. Rarely did she experience the luxury of an uninterrupted night’s sleep. But she’d set the time for earlier so she could squeeze in a short run before work. She could’ve done with a little more time though, she thinks as she speed-walks into the precinct coffee-less and food-less, with nothing but one of her pills lining her stomach and the start of that familiar ache at the base of her skull. Not the best thing to do.

  She didn’t feel too bad about being late either, considering she’d been out until that time for work reasons. Well, mostly. She doubted the Chief would say anything about it anyway.

  Outside the sun is as bright as the cold is biting, and the light shines through into the precinct, outshining the room’s artificial light and drawing the eye to the old windows.

  Isabel shrugs out of her coat as she goes, the soft soles of her boots tapping on the freshly varnished floor; the smell of the varnish fills the air and the floor is so shiny that it reflects a near mirror image of Isabel up at her. They must’ve done it overnight. The heat from rushing warms her cheeks and the back of her jumper is a little damp from sweat.

  ‘Morning.’

  Isabel glances up at Voronov and rests her hands on the back of her chair, absently smoothing her coat into place. ‘Hey.’ The end of her scarf snags on the wheels of her chair and she jerks the chunky wool up with a yank and drops it on the seat.

  ‘How did it go last night?’

  Isabel leans back and folds her arms, looking him dead in the face. ‘It went fine. Did the Chief have something for us?’

  To his credit he doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Unrelated to the case.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She pushes off the desk and switches on her PC. ‘Any updates?’

  ‘Some,’ he says, ‘Daniel has already spoken to the Registry. They’re not going to talk about Célia’s Monitor, not without a warrant.’

  Shit. She’d known it was a long shot. ‘Want to bet she’ll know we’re sniffing around by the end of the day?’ And probably make a fuss about it too. Célia didn’t strike Isabel as the type of woman who would take this lying down. She was the type of woman who had made it to the top of the top very early on in her career. That takes a certain degree of cut-throat.

  Voronov nods. ‘They work too closely together not to have a mutual beneficial agreement going on between their two agencies.’

  Not to mention they were snooping in her place of work too. No. She definitely won’t take that lying down.

  Briefly, Isabel fills Voronov in on Dr Alves’ mini Gifted lesson from the night before but when she finishes, she sees him giving her a peculiar look.

  ‘What?’ she asks. Her stomach growls, loudly, and she scowls before yanking open one of her drawers and scouring the contents. Shit. She’s forgotten to stock up on energy bars. She’ll have to duck back out.

  ‘You’re Gifted yourself,’ Voronov says.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I guess I assumed you’d be more familiar with levels and what Gifted people would be capable of doing.’

  Isabel sits down and spins the chair around to face Voronov. The tail end of her scarf falls back over her seat and she huffs before picking it back up. ‘I know more than a regular person, yes. But I’m not an expert. We’re individuals,’ she shrugs, ‘our experiences are different, and just like Regulars we learn differently. What’s easy for me isn’t easy for someone else, even if they’re the same level as I am. So how can I know what a higher level than me would be capable of? And with a different affinity at that?’

  Voronov tilts his head in agreement.

  ‘Your previous partner was Gifted,’ she says and sharpens her focus, curiosity winning out against her need to bury other people’s emotions as far away from her as possible, ‘what was his affinity?’

  His face remains unchanged. There’s no spike of anything and Isabel wonders if he’s one of those people who just has natural barriers. Some people do, those who have less reactive personalities, used to processing and calculating their next step. Jacinta is like this too and it’s rare that Isabel is bombarded with emotions from her. At least not when Isabel’s under the protection of S3.

  ‘He was a level two telekinetic.’ His voice is even, not even a ripple of discomfort.

  ‘Did you learn anything from him about Gifted? It seems like a lot of this is pretty new to you, too.’ And yeah, she’s still fishing but it’s true. Most people won’t learn more than what they’re told by the newspapers. Isabel herself is guilty of not having looked beyond her own nose.

  That gets a reaction. A little smidge of emotion that slips out, murky, like water stirred over dirt. She thinks that without the pill she could have played her fingers through it, cleared the soot to see what lay beneath.

  It feels like bitterness.

  ‘He never talked about it and he didn’t use his Gift in front of me,’ Voronov finally says.

  That
surprises her. She opens her mouth to ask how long they had worked together for, but she’s interrupted by Carla popping up on the other side of Isabel’s desk. ‘Can I borrow you both for a moment?’

  Isabel’s disconcerted for a second because something’s different about her. She realises that for once Carla’s wearing her hair down. Its thick, dark length is straight as a razor, accentuating the sharp angles of her face.

  Voronov and Isabel share a glance as they round the desk to follow Carla to the case room. As soon as they get in there, Carla slips in behind them and shuts the door. The room is stupidly cold, the windows having been open overnight, presumably to air out the smell of the floor varnish, which is even stronger in this small space.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I went to NTI yesterday to see who I could get something out of. Lingered for a bit because they didn’t want to let me past reception,’ she smiles wryly, ‘not even when I flashed my badge. Apparently, they had big names in the building yesterday and no one else was allowed in. Didn’t stop me from standing outside and having a few words with the security guard and the receptionist.’

  ‘Oh?’ Isabel drags out a chair and sits down, crossing her arms. ‘Good?’

  Carla pushes her hair back from her face. ‘Good enough. That argument you both mentioned seeing at the function? According to the security guard it’s not the first time and there’s been friction. Everyone there seems to have witnessed it at one time or another.’

  ‘Célia and Gil?’

  Carla shakes her head. ‘Actually, it’s a little more than that. The security guard was talking about Julio Soares. Says that once Gil stormed out of a meeting with Célia and Julio. No one overheard what it was about but apparently neither of them were happy with Gil. That was about two weeks before Gil’s death.’

  ‘Anything after that?’

  ‘No. Julio steered clear of the facility and according to the filtered-down gossip, the relationship between Gil and Célia was strained. Meetings were kept short. They said Célia kept making attempts to speak to Gil but he was keeping himself to himself and refusing to engage unless he had to.’