Mind Control: A Science Fiction Telepathy Thriller (Perceivers Book 2) (16 page)

“I sat at the table by the window … actually, Rublev didn’t want to be public, so we sat in a corner out of the way … or maybe that was when I met Naoki Yang last year … does it really matter where we sat?”

His mind was trying to remember, but every time he honed in on something particular, it became fuzzy. Like a bar of soap in the bath, he could see glimpses of it beneath the bubbles, but every time he tried to grab it, it slipped away. The concentration made him feel ill and a layer of sweat formed on his face, giving it a glassy sheen.

“The details are important, Mr Elkins,” said Patterson. “It would help to tell me everything that happened, everything that you saw. Maybe it wasn’t you who poisoned him, maybe you are a witness to who did.”

“Yes, right,” said Elkins, taking a few deep breaths, relieved that the police didn’t necessarily think he was a murderer, even though he still felt nauseous. “So I …”

The soap slipped away again. He couldn’t remember. He tried to take a run at the events by going back to the flat and the memory of packing his bag, realising he needed batteries, putting on his jacket because it wasn’t cold enough for a coat, getting off the bus and heading for the shop. And coming home again … listening to the recording of his discussion with Rublev, remembering the lingering taste of tea and cake in his mouth, even though he had no memory of actually eating it.

As he mentally took himself back to the restaurant, his mind swam with images of a waiter standing with a notebook ready to take his order, of a three-tiered stand of sandwiches arriving on a table, of trying not to spill tea down his tie. But, in his mind, every time he looked across the table at his companion, he saw a Chinese man, or an elderly German man, or a woman. He didn’t see Rublev. The harder he tried to remember, the more his mind looked into darkness.

The nausea mushroomed inside of Elkins so suddenly that Michael tasted the sick in his own mouth. Revolted, he pulled out his perception.

“Oh no,” said Elkins, his face now almost entirely green and shiny with sweat. He stood up so quickly that his chair fell over. He rushed to the door, but he didn’t even have time to reach for the handle before he was controlled by a vomiting spasm. He reached out his palm for the wall and rested his weight there as he retched. The contents of his stomach came flying out in an arc of lumpy, orangey gloop that splattered to the floor and on his shoes, splashing back against his trousers and the wall. He stood panting, looking down at the puddle of vomit he had created. The smell of bile and semi-digested food rose into the room.

Patterson stood. Michael perceived the policeman was about to hit the panic alarm when they were interrupted by a gentle double tap on the door.

Without waiting for an answer, the person opened the door to reveal herself to be Tania Baker. She lifted a foot to step inside, saw the vomit she was about to tread in, and thought better of it. Her nose wrinkled.

“Get the doctor, Tania,” said Patterson.

“We’ve got the results back,” she said, somehow feeling the need to finish what she came in to do. “They’re positive.”

“
Tania
.” Patterson glared at her. “
Doctor!
”

“Right,” said Baker, and disappeared into the corridor.

~

INSPECTOR JONES
closed down his computer and looked across his desk to where Michael and Patterson were sitting. He was tired, Michael perceived. His head was full of recent conversations with detectives, the details of several cases merging together with his life outside the police station. His wife was annoyed he forgot to put the rubbish outside for the bin men that morning, he’d had to scale back surveillance on a terrorist suspect he personally felt was still a risk, and his doctor had told him off for forgetting to take his statins. The usually neat man had loosened his tie a little and undone the top button of his shirt, allowing a couple of grey chest hairs to peek out.

“I don’t understand why you don’t arrest Oscar Elkins,” said Jones.

“Because he didn’t do it,” said Patterson, sitting forward in his chair, excited by all the thoughts going round in his head.

“I thought Tania’s report said they found traces of radiation at both the restaurant and his flat. That puts him square in the frame, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Patterson. “And no.”

Jones put his fingers to his temple and rested the weight of his head on them as he closed his eyes for a moment to hold onto sanity. “It’s been a long week, Tony. I haven’t got the energy to listen to you unravel some Agatha Christie plot.”

“Oscar Elkins almost certainly poisoned Victor Rublev,” said Patterson. “As you say, we found traces of radiation at both his flat and the restaurant, so he definitely came into contact with the offending isotope.”

“More so than if he’d been an innocent bystander, according to Tania’s report,” said Jones.

“Right,” said Patterson. “Which kind of knocks any theory on the head that someone might have bribed a waiter to do it. We’re checking into all the restaurant staff, of course, just in case. However, it’s fairly certain Elkins was the conduit, especially as he was one of the names on Rublev’s list.”

“Then charge him.”

“I would, except …”

“Except what?”

“Have you read the article Elkins wrote based on his interview with Rublev?”

Jones put his other hand to his other temple and rested his weight on both arms. “Tony, I’m starting to get a headache. Can we just assume that I’m not as well read as I appear?”

“The article isn’t exactly what I would call neutral journalism,” said Patterson. “He practically worships the guy for standing up against the Russian government. So wanting to murder him seems unlikely and, even if he was the killer, I would’ve expected a journalist with the intelligence of Elkins not to have poisoned himself at the same time.”

“He’s definitely suffering from radiation poisoning, then?” said Jones.

“A mild form, the doctor thinks. We’re just waiting on the result of tests to confirm.”

“We’ve still got enough to charge him,” said Jones. “It’ll put him under pressure to talk, if nothing else. I’ve read the transcript of your interview with him and he didn’t tell you anything about his meeting with Rublev. That suggests to me that he’s hiding something.”

“Michael has a theory about that,” said Patterson.

Jones turned to Michael, as if only noticing him there for the first time, then back to Patterson. “Are you two friends now?”

Patterson smiled at that. “I haven’t invited him to my birthday party yet, but let’s say I think he has skills which could be useful.”

“So,” Jones asked Michael. “What’s your theory?”

“I perceived him,” said Michael, “and I don’t think he was hiding anything. He genuinely doesn’t remember anything about his meeting with Rublev.”

“Perhaps he’s getting old,” said Jones with a chuckle. “I forgot my car keys this morning – had to go back into the house to get them!” He looked to Patterson to share in his little joke, but all he got back from his sergeant was a serious expression and the chuckle died on his lips.

“This isn’t ordinary forgetfulness,” said Michael. “When he tried to access that part of his memory, he came up against nothing. A blankness. Not like he has forgotten, but like he hadn’t laid down the memories in the first place.”

“Similar to people not remembering the trauma of a car crash?” said Jones.

“Possibly,” said Michael. “It’s the same sort of blankness that I perceived in Tyler and Bailecki. Do you remember I said there was nothing in Tyler’s head except the need to get a bus? And Bailecki’s mind was stuck in a loop waiting for the delegates so he could detonate the bomb? It was like the minds of the gang who left me to die in the fire. I think someone got into their heads and pushed them into doing it. Elkins doesn’t remember poisoning Rublev because the person who programmed him didn’t want him to remember.”

Michael’s words stopped and quiet came into the room. Only the fan in Jones’s computer rumbled softly as it worked to keep the electronics cool.

He perceived the reaction of the policemen. Patterson had already accepted the crazy theory and was hoping his boss would do the same. Jones was confused, as he tried to process the implications all at once.

A loud knock made all of them jump. Michael turned to see the chubby policeman open the door and lean in.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But there’s some CCTV footage you need to see.”

~

THEY CROWDED AROUND
Chubby’s desk which seemed to exist as an anti-monument to the neatness of Jones’s office. A plastic supermarket sandwich container lay empty beside his computer mouse, half a mug of cold coffee sat on top of a stack of paper files, and there were at least four pens strewn around, none of which was inside the dusty pen holder. No one, however, was looking at the mess. Michael, Patterson, Jones and the remaining three members of the team were all focussed on the screen of Chubby’s computer. It showed a paused video image of a canal towpath from the vantage point of a camera mounted on a narrowboat.

Chubby – sitting in his swivel chair at the controls – clicked the mouse. The image unfroze and the grass at the edge of the towpath rocked gently in the breeze of a dry, overcast day. A woman in a knee-length navy coat, walking a small black dog, came into frame. Her face was away from the camera as she strode past in sturdy walking boots, her dog jerking on its lead as she tried to keep up with it.

“This is footage from a canal boat owner on the Grand Union,” said Chubby. “He had his barge broken into a couple of times by a bunch of yobbos, so he installed CCTV a couple of months back, lucky for us.”

The woman and her dog soon walked out of shot and the assembled police officers, along with Michael, witnessed several seconds of nothing other than willowing grass. Then a man entered the frame: first his arm, then his back and finally the back of his head. Michael recognised the brown padded jacket he wore as the same one Elkins put on before heading to his meeting with Rublev.

“That’s Elkins,” said Patterson.

“Yes,” said Chubby, not realising that his pride at having found the piece of evidence was being picked up by the perceiver at his shoulder. “He got off the bus early, as he said, to go to the shop before his meeting. From there, it seems he took the scenic route to the restaurant – typical arty-farty journalist type – and this is where we pick him up.”

The video continued to play and nothing significant happened. Elkins walked down the towpath until he disappeared into a shadow and out of shot.

“Fascinating, Detective,” scoffed Patterson. “That’s going to blow their socks off in court.”

“Wait,” said Chubby, not knowing that Michael was perceiving how he loved to turn on the suspense, so his colleagues would appreciate his detective work all the more. “You can just about see the bridge he’s walked under at the end of the towpath.”

Michael strained to see the bridge Chubby was talking about, but that part of the picture was out of focus and it still looked like a shadow to him.

“This is the bridge from the other side,” said Chubby, and with another couple of clicks, brought up a second video image, this time looking down on the towpath from above. It had a good view of a brick Victorian road bridge that arched across the canal, as well as the steps leading up the bank to street level. The woman and her dog appeared from out of the shadow of the bridge and continued to walk along the towpath. “It’s the CCTV from the pub on the bank on the other side of the bridge. The landlord reckoned dealers were selling drugs there, so he installed the camera – gotta love the Big Brother society, right?”

“Get on with it,” said Jones.

Chubby did nothing, just let the footage play. Michael perceived the anticipation of the police officers around him as they leant forward, waiting for something to happen. For a moment, nothing did. If it hadn’t been for a bird flying past, the video would have looked like a still image.

What the others didn’t know, and what Michael perceived, was Chubby’s silent amusement as he sat back in his chair and waited for someone to figure it out. The longer they watched, the more amused he became.

“Hold on,” said Patterson. “Where’s Elkins?”

Chubby turned around with a grin. “Exactly. He walks under the bridge and that’s where he stays for …” He turned back to the controls and fast forwarded the footage. “… about ten minutes.”

At high speed, it was possible to see the flow of the water in the canal, but that was all that moved, until a flash of brown appeared from under the bridge. Chubby returned playback to normal speed to show Elkins come into view. Elkins turned from the path to climb the stone steps cut into the bank and, for one moment, his face looked almost directly at the camera. It was definitely Elkins. Apart from his cheeks being a little red from being out in the fresh air, he looked perfectly normal as he walked out of shot.

“From there, he went straight to the restaurant,” said Chubby. “We don’t have the whole lot on CCTV, but I timed it and I don’t think he stopped anywhere else.”

“What was he doing under the bridge?” said Patterson.

“Having a cigarette out of the wind, probably,” said Jones. “Or checking his email on his phone.”

“I don’t think so,” said Chubby. “Because you haven’t seen the best bit.”

Everyone waited. Chubby soaked up the dramatic tension like a comedian waiting to deliver his punchline. He watched the screen with the others.

Another figure emerged from under the bridge. Smaller and thinner than both Elkins and the woman with the dog, he wore a black hoodie rather than a coat or jacket. It was a teenage boy. The boy took three steps down the towpath before he turned to climb the steps and Michael saw his face. Recognising him immediately, he felt suddenly hot.

“That’s James Hetherington,” said Baker, vocalising what Michael already knew.

“Who’s that?” said Jones.

“The kid Tony thinks was in the same gang as the bomber,” she added. “Tony asked me to track him down, but he seems to have gone AWOL. His mother says he hasn’t been home for a week.”