Mind Blind (10 page)

We walked into Grampa’s flat together and the boy pulled the door shut behind us.

Grampa had left a small light on in the hall, but that didn’t mean he was still awake. He always leaves it on. He used to claim it was so the elves could see to fix his shoes at night, but I suspect he’s scared of the dark too.

I crept up the hall to the bedroom door, heard snoring, and strode back towards the blond burglar. He put his finger to his lips.

“It’s ok,” I said in a low tone. “Grampa sleeps really deeply. When we were little and stayed overnight here, we had to jump on his bed to wake him up for breakfast.”

He nodded. He trusted me. Foolish. I was telling the truth, but he’d no way of knowing that.

He pulled off his scary hat and smiled at me. “Well done. You did fine on the way here, for someone with no training. Now, let’s search the most obvious places first. Where’s his main cupboard?”

I pointed at the coat cupboard.

“Is there a mantelpiece?”

I pointed at the living room door.

“Can you think of anywhere better for storing your nana’s ashes?”

I shook my head.

“Right. You look in the cupboard, I’ll start in the living room.”

My search didn’t take long. The cupboard was only big enough for coats, shoes, a red umbrella and a pile of leaflets.
No urns, no skeletons in the closet, not even any wellies.

I shut the cupboard door and went into the living room.

The streetlight was shining through the half-open blind. The boy was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, staring at the fireplace and mantelpiece, which were covered in…

“Books! There’s nothing here but books! Your grampa likes to read.”

“Read, uh huh, and write.”

“He wrote these?”

“Some of them.” I pointed to the line of books on the mantelpiece. “History. Politics. History of politics. Politics of history. People power. Black power. He lived it and wrote it.”

I waved my hand at the ceiling. There was no room for art on the walls, because they were covered in bookshelves, but the ceiling was plastered with posters from ancient revolutions that still hadn’t happened.

I stood to the side of the window and looked carefully out. The unmarked police car was still there, the tall man sitting inside.

I could fling the window open and yell for help.

But this boy was running rings round the police and clearly had been for days. Also he was giving me answers to some of my questions, often without meaning to. If I screamed “Help, police!” now he might get away. And, even if the police caught him, they might not get as much information from him as I was.

Once I had enough answers, though, I
would
shout for help or dial 999.

I turned back and watched the boy run his hand along the line of books my grampa had written.

He pulled out the slimmest one and read the title.
“Black Gowns: Ethnic minorities in British academia, 1900–1975
, by Reginald Shaw, PhD.”

“Nana’s in that one.” I walked over, opened the book and
pointed to the dedication:

He sighed. “She was trying to hide.”

When he flicked through the book, a cream envelope fell out. We both dived for it, but he got it first, before it even hit the floor. He grinned, then held it out so we could both read it.

The address was handwritten:

He turned it over. My nana’s name and address were printed on the back, but the flap was still stuck down.

“Why would your grandfather use this as a bookmark?”

“In this book? Grampa was probably impressed she was still corresponding with people at the best universities, even after she left to be his mum and teach at the local school.”

“But she wasn’t corresponding with this professor, was she? Or at least he wasn’t corresponding with her.” He flipped the envelope back over and pointed to a pencil scrawl beside her neat handwriting.
Return to sender. Addressee no longer at this address.

The boy turned it over again and slid a nail under the flap.

“That’s private correspondence!” I said. “Put it back.”

He shrugged. “It’s ancient history anyway.” He put the envelope back in the book and the book back on the shelf. “Ok, Lucy. Where else could the urn be?”

So we split the flat up.

I did the bathroom.

He did the kitchen.

I did the study.

He did the spare room.

Then he stood guard in the hall while I crept into the bedroom and poked about under the creaking bed as Grampa snored.

I waited until she was concentrating on her search then returned to the living room and took
Black Gowns
off the mantelpiece. I let the envelope slide out and stared at the name on the front.

Professor Adam Lawrie

I looked at the faded postmark. 1968.

Why would Ivy Shaw be writing to her wartime assistant more than twenty years after the research project ended?

I ripped the envelope open and pulled out a one-page letter.

So that’s why Ivy was so scared and why she passed that fear onto Vivien.

Billy Reid was in his nineties when I knew him, but even then he was a powerful and violent man. He must have been terrifying when he was young. Especially standing in her own home, threatening to murder children she didn’t even have yet.

It had worked, though. Ivy Shaw kept the secret right up to her death. But now she was dead, it was leaking out.

I reread the last paragraph. What was Professor Lawrie’s research? What was his ‘success’? Who were his subjects?

I pushed the letter back in the envelope, then folded it and shoved it in my pocket.

Then I sensed Lucy jerk to a stop, her quiet search halted
by a discovery. It must be the urn! I stepped out into the hall.

As I searched the bedroom, I couldn’t help thinking about Viv.

There were no family photos up in this flat, but it was filled with pictures for me. Viv sitting in front of the unlit fireplace, reading one of Grampa’s books. Viv in the kitchen, trying recipes from fair trade calendars. Viv bouncing on Grampa’s bed, when we were small.

As I opened the wardrobe, I was wondering:
What did someone so sensible and open as Viv have to hide?

I nearly fell into the wardrobe. Because suddenly I knew.

I stood up and marched into the hall.

“Did you find it?” Then the boy stopped smiling and backed away from me. He stumbled into the living room. I followed him and shut the door.

I knew what he was looking for.

Nana’s report. Her obsession with that damn report was the only thing Viv ever got in trouble about.

The boy had said Viv was meant to destroy something and we all promised Nana we would burn that report. So maybe Viv had kept it.

I remembered there were codenames at the end of the report, and I thought about how he’d jerked away from me when I said I’d call him a codename.

And all the stuff he seemed to know, before it was possible for him to know it. What those policemen were going to do, where they were. That I was grieving, that I was uncomfy, even that I had just found something.

“You knew I’d found something in the bedroom, didn’t you? How did you know
before
I came out?”

“It was obvious,” he blustered, “you came out looking so…”

“I didn’t find the urn. But I did find something in my head. An answer. And you know all about finding answers in people’s heads.”

He went pale. Even paler than normal.

“You’re Lomond, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“I know who you are. I know what you can do!”

“Keep your voice down!” He looked nervous. As nervous and wobbly as when we first met, when I’d floored him with barely a touch.

So I wondered if I could knock him down again…

“You’re Lomond.”

“I am not!”

“You’re a fortune-teller.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Yes. You can see the future. You can see when the policeman is about to get out of the car, when I’m about to come out of a room…”

“Yeah,” he grinned, shakily. “I can see you’re about to make a complete idiot of yourself, Lucy.”

“I know you’re looking for Nana’s report. You think Viv hid some digital version of the report in the urn. The report about fortune-tellers and other fairground frauds. The report about the man codenamed Lomond, the one Nana thought was trying to pretend he couldn’t read minds. That’s you, isn’t it? Lomond.”

“Aye, right. I thought we’d agreed I’m younger than you. How could I be in your nana’s seventy-year-old report?”

“See! You even know when she wrote it! You are Lomond.”

“I am not Lomond. How can I be?”

“Ok. You’re not
him
, but you’re like him. You can read minds, can’t you? And you’re trying to hide the truth about him. Is he your grandfather?”

“This is all nonsense. You surely don’t believe this. Your nana was a scientist. She spent her time
disproving
this sort
of thing.”

“So why do you want to keep her report a secret? That has to be what you’re after. The only person in my family with any secrets was Nana. And the only person in the family who paid those secrets any attention was Viv. And she’s been murdered. So I know it’s that report you want.”

He shrugged.

“I know there’s a memory stick or something in that urn with a copy of her notes.”

He looked away.

“I know it’s Lomond you’re trying to protect.”

He bit his lip.

I took a step towards him. “And I know
exactly
what I think of you.”

It didn’t matter what mysteries there were to solve, what questions there were to answer. All that mattered was that he had killed my sister. All that mattered was punishing him.

So I grabbed him.

I darted my hand in where his jacket was unzipped, I grabbed his shoulder and I thought as loudly as I could without opening my mouth.

You bastard. You murdering thieving lying cheating bastard. Killing my sister, breaking into my house and terrifying me, to protect a secret from last century. I hate you.

He dropped to the floor, falling out of my grip. I knelt down and put my hand on his collarbone again.

I thought police cars, prison cells, courthouses, lawyers, iron bars, nooses and razor blades.

He started to tremble, his eyes staring at the ceiling, his mouth clamping shut to keep in the screams I could feel shaking his ribcage.

I thought of Viv in this flat, reading, cooking and laughing. I wanted to cry. But I wanted him to cry too. I wanted him to suffer. I hated him. So I thought about hatred as hard as I could. Hatred. Punishment. Death.

I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but I knew it was working. He was shivering, sweating, whimpering. So I gripped his shoulder tighter and thought harder. About the police, about prison, about how I was going to destroy his future. But I couldn’t help seeing Viv.

I was trembling too.

So I let go.

I scrambled away and leant against the couch, then I watched him, to see if he could get up.

I didn’t care. I didn’t care if he never got up. I didn’t care if I had fried his brain or stopped his heart. I didn’t care.

I couldn’t move.

I’d never had someone think hate at me like that before.

Even after she stopped, I couldn’t push my eyelids up or lift my head. I wasn’t sure I could breathe.

I couldn’t sit up.

I had to sit up. I couldn’t let her see how much she’d destroyed me.

She knew, of course. I could read that when she was doing it. She knew what she was doing to me. I could still sense her now. Her anger, her hate, her curiosity, scratching on the raw parts of my mind.

I dragged myself up. I turned my back on her. I needed time to get my face, my head, my self back in order.

What a stinking, stupid, spectacular mess I was making of this.

This was absolute proof that I couldn’t survive out here on my own. I’d only spent a couple of hours with this girl. My first extended contact with the mindblind ever and I’d given her all the clues she needed to work out who and what I was.

I could have made it easier by wearing a t-shirt saying ‘mindreader’, but only slightly easier.

When I was anticipating all the surveillance team’s moves, was I giving my own team clear instructions, or was I just showing off?

And when she was having doubts, feeling scared, grieving, why didn’t I just let her suffer, rather than trying to distract her? Did I actually think her mental health was my responsibility?

I’d realised she knew too much when she said the word ‘Lomond’. But I didn’t realise what a dangerous mess I’d made of the night until she touched me.

Until she forced into me:

Grief

Pain

Revenge

Hate…

Hate is a powerful emotion even at a distance. But when it was so close, backed up by thoughts, pictures and memories, her hate had been overwhelming.

Only the fear of the police outside and her grandfather across the hall had prevented me screaming, prevented me begging her to stop.

I could sense her behind me, watching me. I was wrapped round my knees, my back to her.

I had to get this over with.

I turned round.

We looked at each other.

She didn’t look much better than me.

She’d had to think all that poison in her own head to get it into mine. And she’d been holding back those memories of Vivien since her sister died.

She had tears on her cheeks.

Shit. So did I. I had tears on my cheeks too. Shit.

This wasn’t just dangerous. It was
embarrassing
!

Leather jacket sleeves are useless for wiping your eyes. So I reached up for a box of hankies I’d seen on a bookshelf, took a handful and skimmed the box over to her.

She pulled one out and blew her nose.

She wasn’t sorry. She could see what she’d done to me and she wasn’t sorry. Curious. Weirded out. But not sorry. Bitch.

I cleared my throat. “So. The urn’s not in the bedroom then.”

“What? After that, you still want the urn?”

“You’ve joined a few dots, Lucy, which makes you very clever, but doesn’t change the fact that your family still has a secret that can damage my family, and I have to find it before my family come calling.”

“I’m not afraid of you or your family. All I have to do is touch you and you fall down. I’m not scared of you.”

I took a deep breath. I had to get on top again.

“I’m
not
scared of you,” she repeated.

I had to do this. “Vivien was scared of me. And she was absolutely terrified of the man who strapped her to a chair and jerked her head round so hard that he broke her neck.”

Lucy gasped. She grabbed another hankie. “You bastard!”

“Sorry. But you can’t stop being scared of my family just because… just because I’m…”

“Just because you’re a wimp?”

“Yeah. Ok.” I stood up. “Yeah. Just because I’m a wimp doesn’t mean the rest of them aren’t dangerous. You could shoot hate thoughts at them all day and they wouldn’t miss a step. So be scared of them, even if you aren’t scared of me. And give me a hand to find this bloody urn. Is it in the bedroom?”

She shook her head.

“So I’d better search your uncle’s house next. Now you know I’m a pathetic wimp and I know you’re a vengeful cow, I assume we don’t want to be a buddy movie any more. Give me the address and go home.”

She stood up and stretched. Neither of us were really in control of this situation, we were both too shaken. But she was putting on a good act.

“No,” she said. “I’m not letting you go on your own. I didn’t mind crossing Winslow with you when I knew you were a burglar and a murderer. Why should I mind a road trip with you now I know you’re a fairground freak and a crybaby?”

“No, Lucy. You’re not coming with me.”

She glared at me. “Yes I am.”

This girl seriously wanted to punish me now, so she was a
significant danger to me. And there was almost no fear or self-preservation in her any more, so she was a danger to herself too. This couldn’t get any worse.

I had to focus. “Where does your uncle live? You said a road trip. Do I need a taxi?”

She snorted into her hankie. “A taxi? I don’t think you could afford it. Uncle Vince lives in…” She indulged herself in a dramatic pause. “In… Scotland.”

Ok. Now it couldn’t get any worse.

“Scotland. Fantastic.”

“Yeah. So you can go home to Mummy and Daddy and all your little baby psychics.”

“How do you…?”

“How do I know you’re Scottish? It’s obvious every time you open your mouth and say ‘och aye the noo’. You’re not hiding your identity very well, you know.”

“Where in Scotland does he live?”

“Edinburgh. Where in Scotland are you from?”

“Not Edinburgh, that’s all you’ll ever know. Now give me his address, so I can get going before the sun is up.”

“So
we
can get going.”

“No. I’m not travelling to Edinburgh with you. It would take all day. You’d drive me nuts.”

“I hope so. A life sentence in Broadmoor might be the right punishment for killing my sister. They’re used to people hearing voices in their heads. Someone will study you for their PhD…”

“NO. No! Don’t…” I nearly sat down again. She was pressing all the wrong buttons. Curiosity had been her priority before, but now she had a few answers, she’d moved onto the next stage. Punishment, retribution, revenge.

I stepped away from her to the window. I saw the policeman in the car at the front and sensed the matching vigilance of a newly arrived colleague at the back. “They’re still out there. One front, one back. We can’t go out either door.”

“So we’re trapped?” she asked.

“I’m never trapped. We can’t go out the bottom of the building, but I can go out the top.”

“Oh yeah? Now you can fly?”

“No. I can climb. But you’d probably fall and crack your skull, so you’ll be safer staying here. Give me the address in Edinburgh, Lucy.”

“No. You can’t scare me off. I’m not scared of you any more and I’m not scared of heights or spiders or monsters under the bed either. Where you go, I go, until my family is safe and Viv’s murderer is behind bars.”

I couldn’t give away more family secrets if she came along. She knew almost everything already. And this wasn’t the best place for a long argument.

So I shrugged and left the flat, letting Lucy lock up behind me.

I walked up the stairs. I didn’t wait for her. If she couldn’t keep up with me, I’d leave her behind, travel up to Edinburgh without her, and get Roy to find the address for me before anyone else on base woke up.

Perhaps that would be easier. Perhaps I should just ditch her now. I swung round. She was two steps below me, radiating resentment and hate.

Aye. Right. Leave Lucy Kingston Shaw behind in any state of consciousness and she’d be calling her family, the police and her uncle up north before I was on the train. I’d never make it to Edinburgh, and even if I did, the police would have found the urn and read the flash drive before I got there.

No. I needed to keep her where I could see her. Or I needed to silence her. Permanently.

I looked at her. She glared right back.

I could do it. I could silence her. If I had to.

But I didn’t have to. Not yet.

So I climbed the stairs and she trailed after me.

When we reached the top landing we saw a wooden access
panel in the ceiling and a stepladder leaning against the wall.

“How did you know that was here?” she demanded. “Did you read someone’s mind?”

“I just guessed, because most flats like this have shared roof access. It’s not all mindreading. Some of it’s training, some of it’s informed guesswork.”

“Some of what?”

“Some of what we do.”

“What do you do? What job are you training for?”

Damn. There
were
more family secrets I could give away. She was so nosy.

I ignored her and opened the stepladder, then climbed up and eased the panel across slowly. There were a few creaks, but no more noise than someone would make climbing the stairs.

I grabbed the edges of the hole and pulled myself straight up. Like chin-ups on the bars in the gym. No sweat.

I turned round and watched Lucy climb up. She reached the top rung, grabbed the edges and hauled up, like I had done. But she couldn’t lift herself in. Her arms kept crumpling at the elbow.

“Wimp,” I whispered.

“I have the address. You have to pull me up!”

“Only if you think about kittens and birthday cakes while I do.”

“Why?”

“If you think about prisons and policemen again, Lucy, I will drop you. It won’t be deliberate, I just won’t be able to hold on.”

“Oh. Ok. Sugar and spice and all things nice, I promise.”

So I anchored my feet against a beam and after a moment’s consideration I took off my leather gloves. Touching her wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t want the gloves slipping off or her slipping out of my grasp. She’d make too much noise if I dropped her.

I grabbed her and yanked her up as fast as I could.

As I swung her in, she did try really hard. She thought about tiger cubs at the zoo and chocolate éclairs.

But even in those few thoughts, she couldn’t keep away from her sister, like she had no happy memories without Vivien. And even in those few seconds, too much got through and I was shivering when I tried to pull my gloves back on.

She watched me struggle to get my fingers in the right place. “Sorry. I tried not to hate you.”

“No. You were fine,” I gasped. “You did fine. I just…”

“Is it always like that? Whenever you touch someone? Whatever they’re thinking?”

“Yes.” I got the second glove on at last. “Yes. Always. Sometimes worse, like downstairs. But always a bit like that.”

“So do you ever touch anyone? Can you ever…?”

“No.”

“But, when you were little, didn’t you get cuddles from your mum? Or anyone?”

“No!” I snapped. “No! Ok! And don’t ask any more…”

Now I wasn’t just sensing a desire for revenge or curiosity. Now I was sensing pity. Wonderful.

Now Lucy felt
sorry
for me.

I twisted away from her, braced my feet against the beam again, and leant down to fold the stepladder then rock it on its feet back over to the wall. I managed it almost completely silently, with only one metallic click as it fell gently against the wall.

I was impressed.

I don’t think she even noticed.

Then I sat up and lifted the panel back over.

As soon as the wooden cover slid into place, cutting out the light, I sensed Lucy jerk into a familiar fear. She was scared of the dark. Not spiders, not heights, not me, just the dark. I didn’t say anything, but I switched my torch on.

“Walk on the beams,” I ordered. “The insulation won’t
support you.” I walked off into the attic.

“Aren’t we going onto the roof?” Lucy asked behind me.

“I hope not. If there’s access to the next block up here, we can go through their panel, down their stairs and out their door.”

I’d hoped for a continuous attic, all the way along the block. But I was balancing on a beam looking at a solid red brick wall. I swung my light left and right. Not even a door I could unlock.

“Ok, let’s go with your plan,” I said cheerfully. “Out on the roof!”

“It wasn’t my plan!”

“Yes it was. You sounded disappointed that you weren’t going to do a Mary Poppins, dancing round the chimneys.”

I flicked the torch beam up. How did workmen get onto the roof?

There was a small metal-framed hatch, above the access panel we’d come in.

We tottered back on the beams.

The hatch was held shut by a metal bar. Which I couldn’t reach.

I didn’t want to balance the stepladder from the stairwell on these narrow beams. So I searched the attic with the torchlight. There were lots of fragile cardboard boxes and flimsy rucksacks. Then I saw a pile of solid metallic suitcases. We pulled them over and made a set of steps, high enough that we could reach up and climb out without help.

Before I could clamber up, Lucy stood on the top case and pushed at the metal bar. It screeched rustily, then opened.

“Wait, Lucy! Let me go first. I need to see how steep and slippery it is out there.”

“Yeah, then go off and leave me behind in this creepy attic.”

“I’m not going to leave you behind. As you keep reminding me, you’ve got the address.”

She didn’t argue, she just slid through the hatch then
scrambled out.

I held my breath. Worried that I’d hear a scrabble and a scream and her sliding off the roof. Worried that I’d sense her terror and…

No. Satisfaction. Security. She was fine.

I climbed up the cases, slithered through the gap and onto the tiles.

Lucy was perched above the hatch, her heels jammed onto the top of the frame. She was delighted with herself.

I looked round at the map of streetlights, the slabs of tower block lights, the streams of moving headlights.

I laughed.

“What?” Lucy whispered.

“Look at the size of the outside world. And look at me, on top of it all. I wonder if I
can
do it?”

“You wonder if you can do what?”