The Minders

by John Marrs

  It was a bittersweet moment. Bruno wanted to be the one teaching his son new skills, not a stranger. Louie was growing up without him.

  “They’re doing better with him in a few months than you did in twelve years, aren’t they?” a second Echo sneered. “You weren’t enough for your wife and now it appears you weren’t enough for your son either.”

  “Go away,” Bruno muttered, the elation at seeing Louie diminishing with the Echo’s cruel tongue.

  “Have you ever seen him looking so content?” it continued. “If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was normal.”

  Bruno clenched his fists and concentrated hard, trying to take back control of whoever was trying to wrestle reality away from him.

  “I wonder what Louie would be like now if you’d given him up years ago? At least Zoe didn’t fool herself into thinking she was any good for him.” The Echo gave a throaty laugh. “Yep, you failed her and you failed that retard.”

  Bruno rose to his feet and slammed his hands on the table so hard, his cutlery and plate jumped. “Just fuck off and leave me alone!” he yelled. “All of you, just fuck off!”

  A speedy hush came over the rest of the cafe’s patrons as all eyes rested upon him. And as he hurried out, he couldn’t be sure if he was imagining them too or if they were real.

  CHAPTER 31

  FLICK, ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK

  But I know nothing about art!” insisted Flick.

  “Hold still,” Grace replied, “and keep your eyes closed.” She took a brush from her makeup bag and began to dust Flick’s eyelids with a dark, smoky colour.

  “You don’t have to know anything about art to enjoy it. It’s not like they’re going to quiz us at the end of the night, is it?”

  “I don’t even know what to wear!”

  “I’ve already laid out on my bed some of my outfits and a few pairs of shoes for you to choose from. Okay, now you can look. What do you think?”

  Flick barely recognised the woman in the reflection of Grace’s mum’s dressing-table mirror. Aside from lipstick and a little foundation, it had been an age since Flick had made an effort with her appearance. “I scrub up okay, don’t I?”

  Some time had passed since Flick had enjoyed a close friendship with a member of the same sex. Most of her friends had been in catering and the majority were male. But with Grace, she was able to be a girl’s girl again. They made their way to Grace’s bedroom, where she chose a white-and-yellow summery floral dress and a casual pair of shoes with a kitten heel.

  “How can you travel so light?” Grace asked, commenting on Flick’s near-empty wardrobe. “I need a team of Sherpas to get me from A to B.”

  “I don’t like baggage.”

  “Emotional or physical?”

  Flick didn’t reply.

  “Both, then,” Grace said for her. “I know that you talk very little about the past, but . . .”

  “I prefer to keep looking forward.”

  “Okay, I can take a hint.”

  Flick appreciated her concern, and was tempted to make light of her offer, but held back because it was coming from a heartfelt place.

  “Who is Aldeburgh’s equivalent of Andy Warhol that we’re dressing up for?” she teased.

  “Elijah Beckworth.”

  “Elijah?” Flick repeated, and turned to look at her. “Did you say Elijah?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I think he came to the pub last week. Dark blond hair, beard . . .”

  “. . . twinkly blue eyes and a smile that’s warm enough to melt an iceberg? That’s the one.”

  “And this is his show?”

  “It’s an exhibition. Les Misérables is a show.”

  “Sorry, exhibition?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He drew me a picture while he was sitting at the bar.”

  “You should keep that because his stuff sells for a fortune.”

  Grace continued to talk but Flick wasn’t listening. Instead, she concentrated on how inexplicably nervous she was growing at the idea of coming face to face with Elijah again.

  CHAPTER 32

  EMILIA

  Two people awaited a cautious Emilia when she reached the private dining room at the rear of the near-empty pub. On impulse she made a mental note of all available exits before closing the door behind her. Even then, she questioned whether this was a good idea or a foolish one.

  Inside, a man and woman were sitting together on one side of a wooden table. Emilia pegged him as somewhere in his forties, with a lantern-square jaw, receding hairline, and dark eyes that were impossible to read. She was younger than him, with a rich brown complexion and prominent cheekbones. Her expression was part curious and part satisfied that Emilia had come.

  “Take a seat,” the woman began, pointing to a chair opposite. “You will likely have a lot of questions.”

  “Who are you?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she replied, batting the question away with her hand.

  The casual dismissal confused Emilia. “It does to me.”

  “Move on.”

  “Who am I?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “The woman who gave me your number told me Ted’s not my husband. Who is he?”

  “I can’t tell you that either.”

  “Then why the hell am I here?” Emilia huffed.

  “Because there are people out there who can give you those answers. But not us.”

  “Who? How do I find them?”

  “All in due course, Emilia.”

  “I’m wasting my time.” She kicked back her chair and climbed to her feet. “If you don’t know who I am, this is pointless.”

  “All we can tell you is what we’ve pieced together. We know for certain that you and Ted aren’t married, and you’d never been associated before he appeared in your hospital room.”

  “He showed me our wedding photos and videos.”

  “And honeymoon ones, no doubt. Along with visual records of your university graduation, pictures of you on a gap year travelling the world and breaking ground on your new home. Am I right?”

  “Um . . . yes . . .”

  “He’s offered you the perfect life, hasn’t he? An idyllic existence that most people would accept regardless of whether they remembered it or not. It’s a tried and tested technique. Some call it brainwashing, others refer to it as coercive persuasion, mind control, thought manipulation, re-education, et cetera. It doesn’t matter because they’re all the same thing. With enough reinforcement and regular stimuli, in time you will believe what he wants you to believe.”

  Emilia’s chest tightened. “Why should I trust you over him when you won’t even tell me who you are?”

  “Do you have feelings for Ted?”

  Emilia went to reply but couldn’t answer.

  “Do you love him? Is there at least a physical attraction there? A familiarity you can’t put your finger on, but that is present nonetheless?”

  “No, but that’s as a result of my amnesia.”

  “You don’t have amnesia, Emilia.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve had multiple tests, I’ve seen specialists, it was diagnosed.”

  “For the right price, even professionals can be persuaded to offer no more than a surface-level diagnosis. That includes your consultant, Dr. Fazul Choudary, who mysteriously found himself free of a burdensome mortgage recently. Amnesia is not the reason that you cannot remember, it’s as a result of what they have done to you.”

  “They? Who are they? And what have they done?”

  She turned to her colleague. “Adrian?”

  His voice was low and resonant, his words clipped. “Something has happened to you that means your past has been locked away and neither you nor we know how to open it. But as Bianca says, there are five pe
ople who can assist you. They knew the old you. You just need to identify and locate them.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Four are scattered around the country, buried away under different guises, living different lives in different locations. You are living with the fifth.”

  “Ted?” she asked, and frowned. “What does he know?”

  “That’s for us all to discover. He has had ample opportunity to help you to date but has chosen to construct an alternate narrative. We would like to assist you in every way possible in finding the truth.”

  “In return for what?”

  “Our sources inform us that Ted is travelling to Europe next week. We have a business opportunity of our own that we’d like to discuss with him.”

  “And if I don’t agree? If I just walk away from you right now, what will happen?”

  “Be our guest, there’s nothing stopping you. But something’s a little off about your perfect life, isn’t it? None of it feels real. You are here because you don’t want to remain trapped in a world of uncertainty. Without us, that’s where you’ll remain for the foreseeable future—or until Ted decides enough is enough and has you killed.”

  CHAPTER 33

  FLICK, ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK

  Flick had yet to take a sip from the glass of champagne she had been handed on her arrival at Aldeburgh’s High Street Gallery.

  She surveyed the room of a hundred or so guests and recognised some of their faces as pub regulars. But all she knew of art was from the secrets she held and was forbidden to share. She knew the whereabouts of undeclared works that had been stolen from Jewish families by the Nazis in the Second World War and were now under the secret charge of British aristocrats. And she recalled several old masterworks that were missing and presumed destroyed but had actually been given away by the government to foreign leaders in return for favours.

  But even to her uneducated eye, Elijah’s work was remarkable. It featured a mixture of floor-to-ceiling oil paintings and smaller, intricate lino etchings of faces. His level of detail and understanding of his subjects captivated her. Every wrinkle, mole, pore, stray eyebrow, ear hair, or unaligned tooth was on display, allowing them to be honest and unforgiving. The doodle of her that he’d left her at the bar had been merciful in comparison.

  One image in particular caught her attention; it was of an elderly man with deep crevices across his furrowed brow, mottled skin, and blue irises that retained their hue despite a long-departed youth. She became lost in him, imagining the stories such a weathered face must contain. But the painting suddenly stopped halfway across the left-hand side of his face.

  “That’s Jacob.” A voice came from behind, and goose bumps immediately dappled her arms.

  Flick turned to face Elijah. Even just a glimpse of his smile stirred the sleeping butterflies inside her stomach. She took in his smart black shirt with three buttons loosened and a hint of chest hair poking from the top. She resisted the urge to rip it open. “Who’s Jacob?” she asked casually.

  “A local who lived here all his life.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Elijah looked up to the ceiling, down to the ground, and shrugged. “He was a funny old bugger so he could have gone either way, who knows? But he was either the nicest man you could ever meet or your worst nightmare, it depends on which way the wind was blowing. He made for an interesting subject, though.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died on his trawler. He was a lobster fisherman but one evening his boat didn’t return. The coast guard found him slumped in his cabin, as dead as the water. Heart attack.”

  “But what a wonderful way to go,” Flick said. “Doing what he enjoyed the most.” She brushed away an image of a burning Christopher. He had also died doing something he loved: killing. “Why isn’t it complete?”

  “I could’ve completed it from memory or from the photos I took at earlier sittings, but I think its incompleteness makes more of an impact. Not knowing everything makes something more interesting.”

  “Are you telling her about your uncle Jacob?” Mick, the landlord of the Fox & Hounds, interrupted. “Funny bugger, that one.”

  Flick looked to Elijah, curious as to why he’d failed to mention the relationship between artist and subject. “Case in point,” he said, without giving her the chance to speak first. “It’s always what we don’t know about someone that piques our curiosity. Would you like to join me outside for some air?”

  “But it’s your exhibition,” said Flick.

  “Which means I get to make the rules. Please excuse us, Mick.”

  Grace reappeared from another room in time to wink at Flick as she followed Elijah along a corridor and into a back room, then into a courtyard garden framed by railway sleepers and flower beds. He held his hand out towards a nest of tables and chairs, inviting her to sit.

  “Your paintings don’t have price tags,” Flick began, unsure why she had chosen money as her opening gambit.

  “Why, is there one that you’d like to purchase?”

  “I think they probably have more zeros on them than my wage slip.”

  “There aren’t any prices attached because they’re not for sale.”

  “Then why organise an exhibition?”

  “It’s what I’ve always done and I’m a stickler for tradition. I hold an exhibition in my hometown first, see which paintings people are drawn to and which ones they’re not, and then make a judgement on whether they’ll make my official exhibition in Birmingham in a few weeks. You should sit for me sometime.”

  “I already have. At the bar. Only you didn’t tell me.”

  “I mean properly. That was only a doodle.”

  “It’ll do.”

  “It’s a no, then?”

  Flick laughed. “I’m flattered but it’s a no, thank you.” Bringing undue attention to herself, even in the form of a painting, was not advisable.

  “That’s twice you’ve rejected me within a week,” Elijah pursued.

  “There’s a difference between saying ‘No, thank you’ and rejection.”

  “So when you turned down my offer of dinner, it wasn’t a rejection?”

  Flick nodded. “It was a no, thank you.”

  Elijah gave a playful shrug. “Unless I’ve read this completely incorrectly, then there’s a connection between us, but you’re doing everything in your power to thwart it.”

  Flick diverted her attention to her shoes. “It’s complicated.”

  “Are you married?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you single?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you attracted to me?”

  Despite herself, this was one lie Flick couldn’t bring herself to tell. She tried hard not to imagine how his lips felt. “You’re very direct, aren’t you?” she replied.

  “I’ll take that deflection to mean yes. But someone hurt you quite badly so now you struggle to trust anyone.”

  Flick didn’t need to reply. The look she gave him admitted as much.

  “That’s fine, I’m a patient man, I can wait.”

  “We should go back inside.”

  “Must we?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, but I will persuade you to sit for me one day.”

  “Would you rather paint me or take me out for dinner?”

  “We can combine the two. I’ll paint you while you eat.”

  “It’s a no, thanks to that too.”

  “You’re a tough cookie.”

  Elijah placed his hand on the small of her back as he escorted her back to the gallery and the two went their separate ways. Grace slipped her arm around Flick’s and pulled her into a quieter section, grabbing another glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray as she moved. “Tell me everything,” she began.

  “The
re’s nothing to tell.”

  “You disappear outside with Elijah Beckworth for twenty minutes and return as if nothing has happened but with a smile the size of the Cheddar Gorge across your face.”

  “We just talked. You know I’m not looking for a relationship.”

  “And that’s precisely when you’re most likely to find it. Do you want to see him again?”

  Flick couldn’t deny that she wanted to get to know him. She told herself that it was because Karczewski had encouraged them to blend into their new surroundings, which included becoming involved in relationships. But only if they were confident no emotion was involved and they could leave without notice if ordered to. She tried to kid herself that there was no more to it than that.

  A hangover from the past made Flick question whether she trusted Elijah. She understood the irony in expecting honesty from someone else when she was unable to offer it herself.

  “Perhaps this is why you’re in Aldeburgh,” Grace continued. “Despite all that happened to you before you arrived, this is the person you’re meant to be now. And Elijah is the person you’re meant to be with.”

  CHAPTER 34

  CHARLIE, MANCHESTER

  Andrew!” snapped Vicky. “Enough! You’ll have to excuse my boyfriend, Charlie; he might be a great life coach, but he could benefit from paying someone to guide him in appropriate dining conversation.”

  “I’ve played footie with him for a few weeks now, so I’m used to it,” Charlie replied, and winked at his friend.

  The truth was that Charlie had no idea what Vicky was apologising for. He had been dipping in and out of the conversation for much of dinner, uninterested in what either his work colleague or his wife-to-be had to say. The last thing he’d heard was Andrew recalling a client who appeared to be using Andrew’s voice to satisfy more than just her mentoring needs.

  “None of this matters anyway, as it’ll be AI which has to deal with these freaks before long,” continued Andrew. “The rise of machine learning means we’ll be replaced within the next couple of years by robo-advisers and chatbots in the same way bookkeepers, estate agents, couriers, and car salesmen were.”