Mind Power

by Jane Killick

  Once inside, Andy got some cat food for Trixie and moved a couple of old pizza boxes and a collection of junk mail out of the way so Michael and Pauline had somewhere to sit in his tiny living room. It was barely the size of Michael’s kitchenette and, with his furniture in there as well, there was hardly any room for people.

  “Sian was working on something when she died,” said Michael. “Did she tell you what it was?”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” said Andy.

  Michael thought about it. “Who else can you trust?”

  “I could trust the police,” he said. “Or people at work. Sian isn’t the only journalist I work with, you know.”

  “But we’re the ones who are here,” said Pauline. “We’re the ones you decided to invite into your home.”

  Andy looked directly at Michael. “You’re a perceiver, aren’t you? Sian knew you were, that’s why she did that stupid singing and caused a scene outside of the army base.” He smiled at the memory, then turned to Pauline. “I suppose you’re a perceiver too.”

  “Yes,” said Pauline.

  “Then you can perceive that I don’t trust you.”

  “But I perceive you want to,” she said.

  Andy paused. He looked to the ceiling. He looked to his hands clutching each other as he rested them in his lap. He looked at his shoes. Anywhere but directly at them. “Sian gave me something before she died. Just for safe keeping, I don’t think she thought she was in danger. I want you to know, that if I give it to you, it’s not the only copy.”

  “We understand,” said Michael.

  Andy reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a flash drive.

  “What’s on it?” asked Pauline.

  “Journalist stuff,” said Andy. “Research and notes and things. Whatever she was working on. I don’t know what it was, but she was excited about it. Like journalists get when it’s a big story.”

  Pauline reached over to take the flash drive, but he kept his hand held tight around it.

  “I don’t care about the story,” said Andy. “I care about my friend and she cared about the story. If I give you this, promise me you’ll honour her memory and find out who killed her.”

  “We promise,” said Pauline.

  Michael perceived Andy was still reluctant. Half an hour earlier he thought they’d come to kill him, after all. “I want to be honest with you,” he said. “Sian Jones has stirred up a lot of anger against perceivers and that’s been difficult for us. But it was coming sooner or later. The more perceivers were sent out to read people’s minds, the more people knew about it and the more likely it was that someone was going to blow the whistle. If there’s worse to come, if there’s something we don’t know about – something that made it worth killing to keep quiet – then we can’t sit around and wait for it to happen. We need to find out about it now so we can stop it.”

  Michael held open his hand. Andy unfurled his fist to reveal the flash drive. He tipped his palm and the drive rolled off and dropped into Michael’s possession.

  Twenty

  The onions and red peppers released their sweetness in the heat of the frying pan and filled the kitchen with the smell of their caramelised flesh. Michael gave them one last stir and pushed them with his spatula onto the warm and waiting plate next to the hob.

  He tipped a glug of olive oil into the hot pan and it instantly sizzled. Into that he tipped the raw strips of chicken from the packet and the oil spat some more as it sealed the meat.

  Pauline was at the other end of the worktop, well away from the danger of hot oil, scrolling through documents on Michael’s laptop computer. “Smells amazing,” she said. “Is it nearly ready? The only thing I had all day was that stupid milkshake.”

  “It’ll be a couple of minutes,” said Michael. He picked up the packet of spices which had been with the packet of chicken and ripped the top open with his teeth. He added the contents to the pan and the aroma of chilli and garlic overwhelmed all the other cooking smells. He realised how hungry he was.

  “How are you getting on?” he asked Pauline.

  “This isn’t just her journalist research,” she said. “It’s like Sian Jones dumped everything she had on her computer onto the flash drive. There’s everything on here, from a list of people’s birthdays she’s not supposed to forget, to how she’s saving up for a trip to Australia next year.”

  Michael laughed. “You’ll figure it out.”

  The microwave bleeped. It kept bleeping until Michael took out the plate of tortillas he’d put in there to warm up.

  “Give me a hand with all this stuff, will you?” he said.

  Pauline left the laptop and helped Michael take all the bits and pieces of the meal over to the sofa. There wasn’t actually room for everything and so they ended up putting the plates of chicken, vegetables and tortillas, and the bowls of guacamole and sour cream on the floor, and sitting down beside it as if they were Japanese.

  “Looks amazing,” said Pauline.

  “I only did what it said on the packet,” said Michael. He picked up a tortilla, spooned on some onions, peppers and chicken, dolloped a spoonful each of sour cream and guacamole and rolled it all up together. As he put one end in his mouth, a blob of sour cream fell out of the other end and dropped on the carpet.

  “Arse!” he said.

  Pauline giggled. She had also made a fajita from the assembled ingredients, but she held her hand out at the other end of the wrap to catch the drips as she took a bite.

  “You really need to get a table for this place,” she said.

  Michael finished his fajita and went back to the kitchenette to fetch a cloth. He also got a couple of extra plates for them both, even though it was shutting the fajita door after the sour cream horse had bolted.

  “Have you found anything in Sian’s computer files which aren’t when her mother’s birthday is and how much it costs to go to Australia?” asked Michael.

  Pauline finished her mouthful before speaking. “There’s a lot of stuff in there about perceivers, but it’s all mixed up. Some of it she’s reported on, some of it she hasn’t but a lot of that stuff isn’t what you’d call a big story. It’s more like other examples of perceivers being deployed in areas of public life. There also seems to be some research from other stories she’s been working on, up to around two years ago. I mean, there’s a load of background on an MP called Peter Wauluds, if you can believe a name like that.”

  “Wauluds?” said Michael.

  “Yeah – heard of him?”

  “I’ve met him. He’s a perceiver.”

  Pauline’s mouth hung open as she was about to take a bite of her fajita. “Are you sure?”

  “Bald guy? Tries to disguise it with what little wispy hair he has left?”

  “That’s him.”

  “When I told Pankhurst, he made him resign as a minister,” said Michael. “What sort of research has she got on him?”

  “Nothing that stood out,” said Pauline. “He grew up in one place, went to school in another place, first elected somewhere else … it all looked routine to me.”

  Nevertheless, when she had finished, she brought the laptop over for Michael to go through while she volunteered to clear up.

  Pauline was right. Sian’s research was not stored in any kind of logical fashion. The stuff on Wauluds, however, was in one folder which made it easier to go through. It didn’t make it any more interesting. A lot of it was just public information available with any internet search. There was even a copy of his Wikipedia entry.

  “This is interesting,” said Michael, eventually.

  “What?” said Pauline from where she was loading the dishwasher.

  “Peter Wauluds used to work for Ransom Incorporated.”

  “Your father’s old company? The one that produced the vitamin pills that made babies grow up to be perceivers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Not really.
My father gathered together a lot of natural born perceivers to work for him back then.”

  Pauline came back to the living area, drying her hands on a tea towel. She put the towel down on the sofa and sat next to it. “Give me that.”

  Michael handed her the laptop and got off the floor. His buttocks had gone numb and he decided that sitting next to her on the sofa was much more comfortable. As well as easier to look over her shoulder. She had opened the folder about Wauluds so that it filled the screen with little icons representing documents and images. One of them was a text file labelled ‘contacts’. She clicked on it.

  It was a list of recent times and dates going back a week and annotated with a kind of typed shorthand. The first three had the letters, ‘msg lft’. The fourth had, ‘not there (lied)’ next to it. The fifth was a time on the day after she died with no annotation.

  “Looks like she made several attempts to speak to him,” said Pauline.

  “Hmm,” said Michael. He went back to the folder and opened an image file which was titled ‘MP interests’. It was a screenshot from a webpage.

  “I looked at that,” said Pauline. “I thought it was going to say he was interested in golf and action movies, like the personal interests from a dating site, but it’s a list of companies.”

  The screenshot was from the parliamentary website under Peter Wauluds’s name. “MPs have to declare their financial interests to Parliament,” Michael told her. “It’s so they don’t make policy about transport when their wife runs a train company, that sort of thing.”

  One of the company names, to whom Wauluds was said to be an ‘advisor’, seemed familiar.

  “Look up Agroph Chemicals,” he said.

  “What is it?” said Pauline.

  “Just look it up.”

  She gave him a sideways glance, but did as she asked.

  The internet revealed the answer almost immediately. Agroph Chemicals had bought up a lot of the assets of Ransom Incorporated when the company was broken up after the vitamin scandal.

  “That means nothing,” said Pauline. “Your father destroyed all the equipment and the research that created the vitamin pills before he went to jail, didn’t he?”

  “As far as we know.”

  “Then the fact that a man who used to work in the pharmacy industry is still acting as an advisor doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Not until it’s found on a flash drive that used to belong to a journalist investigating perceivers. And especially not if she was killed because she was getting too close to something.”

  “What do we do now?” said Pauline.

  “Find out more about Peter Wauluds.”

  Barrington stepped out from the side of the corridor as Michael approached and blocked his path.

  “What’s going on?” said Michael.

  “This way,” said Barrington.

  He led Michael through a door into the nearest office. Michael hadn’t been in there before. It was one of the nicer offices in the House, with a window that looked out onto Parliament Square, similar to the office that Pauline had worked in, but with only one desk in it. Behind the desk sat a woman with short grey hair and glasses who looked up from the phone call she was embroiled in and gave Barrington a smile as she kept talking.

  “… I’ll be sure to pass that on,” she was saying. “Well, of course the Minister will be delighted, but I’m afraid his diary is rather full at the moment …”

  Barrington stood inside the door and stared at the woman. Michael waited beside him, perceiving that he wanted to talk to him alone.

  “Hold on a second,” said the woman, putting her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “I’m sorry, Mr Barrington, do you want something?”

  “Can I borrow your office, Maureen?”

  She continued her puzzled stare while she spoke again into the phone. “Why don’t I check with the Minister and give you a call back? … Yes, yes, I have your number … by the end of the day, absolutely. Yes, thank you. Bye.”

  She hung up the receiver.

  “Thank you, Maureen,” said Barrington.

  She headed for the door. “I’m going to get myself a cup of tea,” she told Barrington as she passed him. “Don’t touch anything on my desk while I’m gone. I’ll know if you do.”

  She left Barrington and Michael alone in the room. Barrington closed the door after her.

  Michael perceived the words Barrington was practising in his head and realised he was about to be fired.

  Barrington walked further into the room, but he did not sit. He took a moment to look out of the window at the view before turning and addressing Michael. “I’m going to have to ask you to hand in your security pass and leave,” he said.

  Michael was expecting it, but it still came as a blow. “Why?”

  “Certain members of the press have seen you with the Prime Minister and questions have started to be asked. The cover story that you are some kind of intern isn’t going to stand up to much scrutiny and, with the perceiver crisis how it is, I have concluded it best for you to leave.”

  “Does Pankhurst know about this?”

  “I’ve discussed it with him.”

  “But, with the perceiver crisis getting worse, that’s exactly the time I should be here. I’m supposed to be on the working group finding a solution.”

  “There is no working group anymore,” said Barrington. “I believe the Prime Minister is looking at a solution of his own.”

  Michael said nothing. He concentrated on Barrington’s mind to find out what he knew and found the answer. “Pankhurst is seriously considering a programme to cure everyone?”

  “All I know is that, with the murder of that journalist, the perceiver issue has risen to the top of Mr Pankhurst’s agenda. Having someone like you around will attract the wrong kind of attention. Especially, as I learn from my colleagues in the police force, that you are a suspect in the journalist case.”

  “I’m a witness!” insisted Michael.

  “Do you think the press on a witch-hunt is going to make that distinction?” Barrington held out his hand. “Your security pass, please.”

  Michael pulled the pass off from around his neck and slammed it into Barrington’s palm. “I actually came in today hoping to speak to you because I have information about a security threat,” he said.

  Barrington wrapped the cord of Michael’s security pass around his picture ID and secreted it in his pocket. “What information?”

  “If I tell you, will you promise to look into it and tell me what you find out?”

  “No,” said Barrington.

  “Fine,” said Michael. “You’ve asked me to leave, I’ll leave.” He reached out for the door handle and had opened it a crack before Barrington managed to sprint across the room and close it again.

  “I don’t make promises,” said Barrington.

  Michael figured he had nothing to lose, and if he did Barrington a favour, maybe the man would be willing to offer him the same courtesy later down the line. “You need to look more closely at Peter Wauluds,” he said. “Sian Jones was about to break a big story about perceivers. He was avoiding her calls and she was going to make one last attempt to speak to him, until someone had her killed.”

  Michael reached for the door again and Barrington let him go. But all the way to the exit, as Barrington escorted him to make sure he actually left the building, Michael was perceiving the security chief and knew that he was going to do what he asked and use his resources to investigate Peter Wauluds.

  Twenty-One

  Michael had made a promise to Patterson that he would go down to the police station and make a formal statement about Sian Jones. Pauline had already done her duty, but it was something Michael had been putting off until Patterson left a message on his phone to say that if he didn’t get his arse down to the police station before the day was out, he would send someone round to arrest him.

  So Michael made a statement. It wasn’t to Patterson himself, but to some of hi
s colleagues who plied him with predictable questions and wrote down the occasional note on their pads of paper. He suspected he learnt more from the police officers than they learnt from him, as he was perceiving them all the while.

  They didn’t think he did it, which was the main thing. His fingerprints weren’t anywhere at the crime scene and the witness who had seen him there, Andy Mostello, confirmed that he had only seen him outside of Sian’s flat. All this was confirmed by another witness and CCTV which showed Michael and Pauline following Andy from the tube station.

  The officers talked to him for less than half an hour, gave him a cup of disgusting police tea, and thanked him for his time.

  Michael had intended to go straight back to his flat, but as he walked out into the reception area of the police station, he sensed another perceiver.

  Looking up, he saw a face he had seen only a few days before on the television. The face that had caused him to utter, “oh my God”. Flanked by two plain clothes police officers was Otis, with his dull blonde hair ruffled from the wind outside and his muscular frame more obvious in the casual jacket and jeans that he wore.

  Otis? asked Michael’s mind.

  Otis looked at Michael with blue, confused eyes. He perceived him and Michael let him. Michael?

  The two police officers led Otis through the security door that led into the main part of the building.

  What are you doing here? asked Michael.

  Same as you, probably.

  The door was closed behind Otis and halted their conversation.

  Suddenly, Michael didn’t want to go home. He wanted to talk to his friend.

  Texting Pauline to say that he wasn’t going to be back at the flat anytime soon, he ventured outside to find a cup of tea that hadn’t been processed by some disgusting police tea machine. After passing by two coffee shops which were closed because it was after office hours, he ended up with a packet of crisps and a screw top bottle of Coke from a convenience store.

  The police station was quiet when he returned. Apart from the desk sergeant and a nervous woman sitting in the corner playing with the tassels on the end of her scarf, he was the only other person in there.