Dreams of Origami (7 page)

‘At this moment, I have no idea.’ Gideon empties his glass and reaches for the bottle. ‘OK, I’ll take a look. I can’t promise anything, and for all we know he’s run off with the local barmaid. But if you can fix it up, I’ll go out there with you tomorrow.’

‘Great, thank you. And is this another interest of yours?’ Lacey picks up the twist of paper he has placed on the table, finding it has undergone a metamorphosis and has now become a little horse.

‘Habit, I’m afraid. Bit like doodling.’

‘Can I keep it?’

‘Certainly. There are plenty more where that came from.’

The sun has now abandoned the city, leaving the skyline stained red and gold. By the time they finish the wine and walk back along the river to Lacey’s car, it is becoming dark and the streetlights are ablaze across the water. As Lacey steers the car away from the kerb, he catches a last glimpse of her, tossing her now loose hair like a mane.
Cassandra, my friend,
he thinks,
where are you taking me this time?

T
HE ‘FOLDING EXERCISE’ BEGAN
several years ago, yet another in a programme of mental training and development exercises devised for him by Cassandra. It was a while after they had met and established a working relationship, if that is what one called these dreamtime encounters. They had talked about the human mind and its capacity; of how our beliefs become our limitations, a circular system of self-imposed restrictions which keeps us focused on the physical world.

‘It is a necessary process, this forgetting why you are here and what you are capable of. If humankind realized what could be achieved by the process of thought, they would never have invented the wheel.’ She said it with that familiar laugh in her voice, and he didn’t know whether she was teasing him or not.

The mind can be trained through meditation and a system of regular discipline and exercise, that much he knew already. He had tried transcendental meditation shortly after he started at King’s College. After a while, he started going regularly to the Buddhist Centre where a weekly session was open to anyone interested in learning the techniques of meditation. It was there he first encountered people with whom he was able to discuss the philosophy of the Eastern religions. Not that the concepts were anything new to him—after all, he grew
up in the ‘seventies when the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a pop star and the Beatles went to India to find themselves. But, by the time he entered manhood, the age of peace and love had given way to silicon technology and most of the flower children had packed up their beads and bells and gone to work in Margaret Thatcher’s New Jerusalem. Still, nothing was ever quite the same after that magical decade. The walls of the establishment had been breached and there was a new freedom to declare one’s beliefs without raising too many eyebrows. So, when he was invited to join the Parapsychology Forum, a group of like-minded scholars who study paranormal phenomena, he had responded with enthusiasm.

‘It’s quite academically respectable,’ he explained when his father thought to ask him what he was doing up at Cambridge. ‘The word “paranormal” simply means beside or beyond the normal—you know, unusual experiences that don’t seem to be explainable in terms of our everyday understanding or known scientific principles.’

‘So, you’re still messing about with all that psychic stuff?’ his father had grumbled. ‘I thought you were supposed to be studying science. Physics or something, wasn’t it?’

‘Social science, actually. Not the same thing. But, yes, I am studying. This is only in my spare time.’ Why don’t you ever listen, Dad? is what he wanted to say, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. And while his father continued not to care, at least he also continued not to interfere. So long as Gideon didn’t cause any ripples in his father’s ecclesiastical world, good old pater would go on paying the bills and leave Gideon to go his own way.

A search for scientific proof of the weird, the wonderful and the generally unbelievable. In reality, that turned out to be endless experiments to demonstrate repeatable instances of a phenomenon. That usually meant telepathy testing, because it was relatively easy to set up controlled conditions and there was a ready stream of volunteers from the student ranks. Hours of observation as subjects turned over Zener cards and made random guesses: a triangle, a square, wavy lines. Occasionally someone would score higher than average, causing great excitement. Everything was carefully recorded.

There was a bit of ghost-hunting, too; Cambridge has its share of haunted houses. Dark nights in damp, draughty buildings with tape recorders and video cameras, which usually ended in fits of giggles or scaring each other half to death. Admittedly, results were disappointing (any self-respecting phantom would have legged it as soon as that bunch of ghostbusters arrived), but some of the other investigators were quite pretty and the nights were long.

Then there were the experiments with psycho-kinesis—mental interaction with physical objects—or, more specifically, telekinesis, the actual moving of objects. There was a Russian woman who claimed she could do this, although films of her shifting small objects around a tabletop were later exposed as fakes. Uri Geller made it fashionable, of course, and even though his performances were never accepted as proven under laboratory conditions, it did seem to work elsewhere. In homes throughout Britain, cutlery drawers were full of misshapen forks and spoons.

Gideon and his friends devised an easier experiment. A sliver of matchstick would be floated on a bowl of water, the surface of which had to be kept perfectly still. The group of experimenters would gather around the bowl, far enough away so as not to disturb the water with their breath, and with a united concentration of thought, they would ‘will’ the fragment of wood to move across the surface. And, indeed, there were occasions when the piece of match was definitely seen to move in the pre-agreed direction. This experiment was often repeated outside of laboratory conditions. Amazing results were regularly achieved at the end of a late-night party, the few remaining guests seated on the floor with the tail ends of a number of wine bottles. Of course, wholesale cheating went on at times, and yet…Gideon had begun to wonder how much the attitude of the participant affected the outcome. Perhaps the stringency of the laboratory experiment itself was a major turn-off for the psychic world.

However, as a result of all this, his social life at Cambridge was both interesting and enjoyable, and, thanks to Cassandra, his own psychic powers were developing along with his knowledge. She always encouraged him to participate, cautioning him to question everything
and to remain alert to the pitfalls as well as the moments of insight. She also urged him to keep his own counsel if he found himself disagreeing with the others. To complement his psychic activities in the waking world, she devised a personal training system of her own, although she always advised him to use a little discretion when it came to demonstrating his talents. By the time she introduced the ‘folding exercise’, he had learned to trust her as his tutor and was ready to comply.

She produced a sheet of paper, which she folded into a simple lantern. She unfolded the lantern and handed the paper to him. ‘Now you try, Gideon.’ The sheet was already lined with the necessary creases, which meant that, with very little prompting, it was easy to copy the shape Cassandra had made. A fresh sheet of paper, a few more demonstrations, a few tries on his own, and he got the hang of it. Easy enough, even had he been awake.

‘I haven’t finished with you yet,’ she said softly. ‘Now make the shape again, but do not use your hands. Concentrate on the paper, Gideon. Make your mind do the work.’

Of course he was familiar with the theory of telekinesis. He knew how difficult, probably impossible, this would be in real life. However, this was only a dream, where everything that happened arose from the mind. No problem.

Much to his surprise he found the paper would not move.

‘It will take much practice, Gideon,’ she explained. ‘Think of it as a meditation. Practise it when we are not together. Visualize the paper, just one corner, curling over. After a while it will happen, but you must be patient.’ She was right about that. In his dreams he would learn how to produce the form with his hands, and in meditation he would recreate it with his mind. So why could he not move it when he was with her? Naturally he asked her, and typically she evaded answering with a smile. It was over a year before he managed even one fold in his dreams, and a further two years, with much instruction and encouragement from his tutor, before he could reproduce the lantern.

After that it became easier and he made all manner of shapes. ‘Try
this, Gideon,’ she would say, her hands turning around themselves to create a Viking ship.

‘No problem,’ he would respond, sitting back, his gaze riveted on a white square as the edges moved together, seemingly of their own accord. They turned it into a game, a competition to see who could think up the most difficult shape. His imagination sometimes defeated even her skills. ‘No, Gideon, I don’t know how to make an amoeba.’ Sometimes the shape was too complex for his mind to sustain a hold on the paper. But more and more often he succeeded. Then she would smile with pleasure, light shimmering in the violet of her eyes, and all his efforts were worthwhile.

He had to keep reminding himself that it was only a dream. To reinforce this fact he often tried it, with a real piece of paper, when awake and conscious. Of course it did not move. But in his dreams, or in a meditative state, his mind created boats and planes and dragonflies. Yes, it was an interesting exercise. But why?

And who was she anyway? Repeatedly, he made plans to have it out with her, to demand answers. Why was she doing this with him? But then, when he was asleep, well…it was a different world, wasn’t it? She was only a dream, and in dreams things never happened quite the way one intended them to.

However, it didn’t take a genius to work out that he was being trained for some specific purpose. But, whatever it was, Cassandra kept that to herself.

Scientists set about measuring, recording and defining the universe, for science dealt only with that which is observable, verifiable and predictable. And what it observed was a universe of separate objects and types of matter.

In contrast, the magus, the mystic and the psychic, although also following a variety of diverse spiritual disciplines, have in common a basic view of the universe; namely, an awareness of the connectedness of the whole.

And so everyone agreed to disagree, dismissing each other as deluded, and their ideas, therefore, irrelevant, until some radical new theories threw a large spanner into the works by highlighting the close parallels between Eastern mysticism and modern science. The Theory of Relativity and the discoveries of quantum physics presented a hitherto unknown universe, and one of such a paradoxical nature as to render the phrase ‘solid matter’ almost meaningless.

The scientist and metaphysician now seem to be approaching their understanding of the physical world from a different starting point but arriving at the same place. Despite their use of different terminologies, they are each beginning to understand what the other is talking about. Even if the mystic is saying, ‘There you are—see, we told you so’,
and even if the scientist is saying, ‘Hang on a minute, that’s not quite

what we meant’, at least it has opened up a dialogue. And despite not being in total agreement, nevertheless they appear to be saying very similar things.

What they both seem to be saying is: the rock on which we stand, the solidity of matter, the physical universe and everything in it…is an illusion.

Extract from
The Cosmos of Illusions
by Gideon Wakefield

I
T’S MIDDAY ON FRIDAY
and Detective Inspector Fletcher is leaving the schoolhouse where he has just wasted half an hour on Mrs Caxton. This time he went on his own. Not strictly policy, but he needs to find out more about the woman, and he can concentrate better without that young sergeant hovering around. She’d spun him the same tale as before: husband disappeared, no reason, no idea where he went or how. Still begging the police to find him. He didn’t believe a word of it, especially after what came to light when they took a closer look at her past. He sat and watched her across the kitchen table, with those ridiculous white china birds. She knows how to turn on the tears, he’ll give her that, but he’s seen too many crying women to be taken in by a performance. In fact, most of the time he hadn’t bothered to listen.

Something about that place made him uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the silence. Although it wasn’t silent, was it? There was the wind outside, tree branches scraping against the windows, the incessant ticking of the clock. And something else, something underneath that, like a heavy pulse…Anyway, he’ll get back to the office, write up a report, keep everything official. And he’ll take a couple of paracetamol. Got a headache coming on. Bloody woman.

As he nears the end of Gainsborough Street, he sees a blue Citroën about to pull in. It’s her again, that reporter. He’s watched her at the morning handovers, sitting on the sidelines taking notes, crossing and uncrossing her legs and tugging down her short skirt as if she doesn’t know what she’s doing. The last thing he needs is her interference. As she turns the corner he signals to her to pull over, then winds down his window ready to have a few words.

Drew hears Lacey’s car draw up outside and has the front door open before she reaches it.

‘Christ, what a morning.’ She stomps straight past him, dragging her jacket off and kicking her shoes under a chair. ‘I could murder a cup of coffee, and something to eat wouldn’t go amiss. Have you got a sandwich on the go?’

‘Hello, and a good morning to you, too. What a delightful surprise. Do come in.’

‘And I can do without your sarcasm.’ She hurls a cushion at him and collapses onto the sofa.

‘You’re obviously serious about the coffee.’ He goes back to the kitchen, then comes to the doorway buttering a slice of toast. ‘I was about to have some baked beans. Want some?’

‘Wonderful. Oh, and sorry. I’ve just had a run-in with Fletcher. You know, the D.I. in charge of the Caxton disappearance. He was driving out of Gainsborough Street as I was coming in, and stopped me for a little chat.’

‘No sign of him yet, then?’ Drew calls from the next room.

‘Matthew? No. Three days now and still a complete blank. That bastard Fletcher’s got onto Triss’s medical history. Apparently there was an attempted suicide—an overdose.’

‘Well, I suppose that would change the picture.’

‘She was depressed, for God’s sake. They’d lost a child. Anyway, now he’s homed in on that and he’s not listening to anything else. He says her story doesn’t add up, the way Matthew left and everything, so he’s concentrating his efforts on her rather than looking for her husband.’

‘I did see Fletcher’s car outside when I came home.’

‘At the handover this morning he was even talking about checking with the domestic violence unit. He thought there might be some history there; you know, some motivation for retaliation. Hardly what the unit was set up for.’

‘So you thought you’d go round and offer Triss a friendly shoulder. This is becoming a regular routine—not that I’m complaining.’ He comes through again, carrying a mug. ‘It’s nice, this having lunch together.’

Lacey takes a deep gulp of her coffee. ‘Heaven. You’re a lifesaver.’

He drops a quick kiss on her cheek. ‘All part of the service.’ He heads back to the kitchen.

‘Actually, the reason I’m here is that I’ve arranged to meet someone.’

‘Oh, and here was I thinking it was my magnetic charisma.’

‘That, too. Do you remember that man we saw at the talk on Tuesday night? Only we couldn’t think of his name. Well, it’s Gideon Wakefield—you know, the writer. I had a drink with him last night and he’s agreed to come and take a look at the place. He’ll be here in about half an hour.’

‘Isn’t he the bloke who’s into all that psychic stuff? Are you serious? Why the hell do you want to get him involved?’

‘I told you, I’m researching an article about Fen mysteries and people who’ve disappeared. Jack suggested a psychic. It’s another slant.’

‘Your baked beans are served, madame.’ Drew comes into the room again, taking a tray to the dining table. ‘You know, you’re as bad as Fletcher.’

‘Why? What do you mean?’

‘Well, he probably imagines Matthew’s been done away with by Lucrezia Borgia and lies buried under the vegetable patch. Now you’re trying to build a case for him being spirited away into the underworld by hobgoblins.’

‘Don’t be daft. As far as I’m concerned it’s another way of keeping public interest going. It’s amazing how quickly people forget.’ She pauses. ‘This is wonderful—I’m starving. I’ve been at the hospital most of the morning, so I missed my break.’

‘Why, what’s happening at the hospital?’

‘Oh, yes, I was going to tell you—until I ran into Fletcher and everything else went out of my head. I spent most of the morning with your neighbour, Bill Henderson.’

‘Bill?’ Drew puts his knife down. ‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘The police had a call-out to attend an emergency at the farm. An accident with a tractor. They were just finishing the handover when the call came through. I recognized the name so I followed it up. Got some good photos, the thing was almost upside down.’

‘What about Bill?’

‘No, it was his son. He was trapped underneath it, and they had to haul it off in order to get him out. But of course Bill was there, so I stayed with him until his son’s wife turned up.’

‘So, is Kenny hurt?’

‘Not half as badly as he could have been. A broken arm and a few cuts and bruises.’

‘Still, that’s serious for a farmer, especially with the harvest coming up. I’d better go over to Bill’s place later and see if there’s anything I can do.’

They both finish their meal in silence, and Lacey helps clear the table. ‘Better wash them up now,’ Drew says. ‘We might not have time later.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Oh, hell, I forgot to tell you. I managed to fix it with Audrey Stanton: she’s coming around to fill us in on the history of Covington and Gainsborough Street.’

‘That’s great! Did you explain what it was about and that I’d be there?’

‘Yes. She was a bit dubious at first, I must admit, but I managed to convince her that you’re genuinely concerned. I told her what you’d said about it being important to keep it in front of the public, you know, to keep the pot boiling. It seems Triss reckons you’re OK, so that must have softened her up a bit, too. She said she’ll be around about six. I invited her for drinks and nibbles.’

‘You invited her for drinks and nibbles? What did you have in mind? A couple of cans of lager and some pork scratchings?’

‘Look, I’m not completely uncivilized. There’s plenty of wine in the cupboard—in fact, I’ll put a couple of bottles in the fridge right now.’

‘What about the nibbles?’ Lacey observes Drew’s expression shift through bafflement to defeat. ‘I’d better call in at the village supermarket, ’ she says, looking around to assess the state of the sitting room. Drew’s home is tastefully decorated and furnished, and, as always, neat and tidy, which is more than one could say for its owner. Still, he does scrub up well when the occasion demands. She slips her arms around his waist and snuggles up under his chin. ‘Thanks for asking her—you’re an angel. I’m sure she would have sent me off with a flea in my ear. Tell you what: I’ll treat you to dinner at the pub afterwards.’

‘Oh, I can think of a better way you could say thank you.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you can, but that can wait until after dinner. And right now you’ve got to get back to work.’

‘And you’ve got a date with Gandalf,’ says Drew. ‘In fact, I think that might be him now.’

Lacey turns to peer through the window at a car gliding slowly along, as if the driver were looking for an address. It pulls up behind Lacey’s Citroën. ‘Wow, what is that?’

‘Jaguar XJS, late ‘seventies if I’m not mistaken. The man has style, I’ll give him that.’

‘Come on, I’ll introduce you. He’s all right, really.’

‘Another time. I do need to get back to work. Here—’ Drew takes a key from a row of hooks by the door, ‘—you’d better have the spare. You’ll need to get in again if you’re going shopping. In fact you might as well hang onto it, especially if you’re going to be calling in more often.’ Lacey takes it as if he’s handing her a live grenade. Drew grabs his jacket and he’s gone.

Lacey looks at the key, turning it over in the palm of her hand. The key to Drew’s home. That raises a whole lot of issues, the implications of which are too far-reaching to deal with right now. She forces her mind back to work and Gideon Wakefield, who is opening his car door and looking across at the schoolhouse.

Gideon had become aware of the change as soon as he turned off the main road and headed towards Covington village. It wasn’t only the chill in the air, although the wind was definitely colder on this side of town.
It must be blowing across the open fen from Ely,
he thought, winding up the window. But that didn’t account for that other sensation, something hovering on the edge of awareness, a deep thrumming that he could neither hear nor feel; at least, not with his physical senses. But he knew it was there.

He was not familiar with the area. Although not far from the city, he’d rarely had cause to use this road and therefore had to keep a look out for signs. He found himself driving through a typical small village, resting in the routine lull of midday. Through Covington, Lacey had said, out the other side and take the first turn on the left. Yes, there was Gainsborough Street. The sound that wasn’t a sound pressed down on him again, louder this time, causing a momentary catch in his breath. He sensed it as a steady, pulsating hum, like a vast, subsonic engine.

He looked around at the shapeless land and the great dome of the sky, bright blue with streaks of trailing cloud teased by the wind. The few trees and hedgerows had become permanently misshapen by years of relentless tugging and buffeting. Wind moved across the fields of grain, turning it into a restless sea of golden green. A late harvest by the look of it. Must be due to the weather.

So, this was Gainsborough Street, a narrow lane twisting through the fields to some farmhouse, no doubt. Grass verges on either side and a few houses. The first one on the left should be the schoolhouse, yes, that was fairly obvious. Then a couple of rows of cottages, rather attractive in a chocolate-box sort of way, with another detached cottage beyond. Nothing remarkable. Ah, there was Lacey’s car, parked outside one of the cottages. He pulled in behind it and felt the small hairs rise on the back of his neck.

As he was getting out of his car, the door to the end cottage opened and a tall man with a mop of curly hair stepped out onto the pavement and called to him. ‘She’ll be right with you. I’ve got to run—see you another time.’ He darted around the side of the building. A moment later, Lacey followed him out.

‘Hi there. You found it all right. Well, of course you did.’

‘No problem.’ Gideon tries not to let his face betray his growing concern. ‘You live here?’

‘No, I had lunch with Drew. He has to get back to work.’ On cue, Drew’s van pulls around from the side of the house. He waves as he accelerates down the road.

Gideon turns to watch him, then scans the view in all directions. ‘I see what you mean. It would be very difficult to disappear from here.’

‘The way I see it,’ Lacey sighs, ‘Matthew Caxton either left or he’s still here. If he left by walking, either along the road or across a field, it would take at least twenty minutes for him to move out of sight. If he was taken in someone else’s car, it must have been an emergency because he had no time to collect anything or even tell his wife. Even so, the vehicle would have been visible for some time.’ As confirmation, they watch Drew’s van, still not at the end of the lane where it will join the other miniature vehicles on a road visible all the way to the horizon. ‘And he would have been in touch since, unless he was abducted.’