Perfect People

by Peter James

  Instantly, the boy jumped down from his seat and ran down the hallway, shaking and bawling his eyes out. Pat Barley emerged from the kitchen. She shot the psychologist a worried glance, putting her arms around the boy.

  ‘What is it, Matthew? What’s the matter?’

  He buried himself into her arms, as if for protection, screaming like a frightened animal.

  His terror was infecting the psychologist now; goose bumps were breaking out on her skin. She listened, trying to hear what the boy said, but he was just babbling. At the same time she watched Luke and Phoebe, now totally engrossed with the computer they had commandeered.

  Just what had they said to the boy?

  After some minutes, Pat Barley slipped out to join the psychologist in the hall and signalled with her eyes for them to move further away from the twins.

  ‘What did little Matthew say?’ the psychologist asked the teacher. ‘What did Luke and Phoebe say to him that upset him quite so much?’

  ‘I don’t know – it’s always the same – and they upset the other children as well, just as much. I don’t think it’s so much what they say as the way they say it. And, the thing is, they look so much older.’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of children with quite appalling behavioural problems,’ Sheila Michaelides said, keeping her voice low. ‘Violent children, out-of-control children, seriously withdrawn children – but I’ve never seen anything like – like what I’ve seen here, just in these past few minutes.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything remotely like it,’ Pat Barley said. ‘And I’ve had a few terrors in my time, believe me.’

  ‘Are they ever physically violent? Have either of them ever actually attacked another child?’

  ‘No, not that any of us have seen. It’s a mental thing; they’re manipulative. If I try to talk to them they either say absolutely nothing or they spout gibberish at me.’

  ‘I very much appreciate your letting me come here and observe them,’ the psychologist said.

  ‘Perhaps now you can understand why I had to ban them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  For some moments both watched Luke and Phoebe. From behind, they looked like any normal, happy children playing together. Then Pat Barley said, ‘God knows what they’re going to be like when they’re older.’

  75

  Naomi’s Diary

  Snow! Four inches, just white as far as the eye can see! Great start to the New Year! John went out and bought a toboggan. Took L & P up on the Downs. L loved it, P grumpy. How can she not like snow? How can any child not?

  They’re starting at a new, special needs playschool next week that Sheila Michaelides (SM – appropriate initials for a sadist!!) suggested.

  At least – in my darker moments, when I worry about what we’ve done – or rather, what Dettore’s done – I’m able to convince myself that there really isn’t anything so great or special about the human species. All this crap about life being precious, sacrosanct. Maybe for those of us – a percentage of us, anyhow – who live in the First World, you could make out a case. But what was it Dettore said? Less than 20% of the world can read or write? Not sure how special I’d find life if I spent my days up to my ankles in water in a paddy field, and my nights in a tin hut with nine children. Don’t think I’d even call that living – I’d call it ‘existing’.

  Soon they’ll be three. What to get them? Debating whether to have a party and invite local kids over. Not sure how many mums would send their kids – could be embarrassing. Especially if Luke and Phoebe ignore them.

  76

  On the living-room floor, Luke sat holding a PlayStation joystick in his hand, absorbed in concentration. Phoebe, kneeling beside him, was watching the television screen, equally absorbed, and every few moments giving an urgent command to her brother.

  A man in a long cape was climbing a never-ending Gothic stairwell; oak doors opened and closed revealing strange creatures, some scary, some beautiful, some plain weird. Sometimes, at Phoebe’s urgent command, Luke pressed a button and the man ducked. Other times the man did a snap one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

  Maybe it was her imagination, Naomi wondered, but Dr Sheila Michaelides seemed very definitely to have thawed a little towards her and John. The psychologist was standing unobtrusively at the rear of the room, observing all that was going on, occasionally making a note on a small pad, saying nothing. She’d spent two days at the special needs playschool observing Luke and Phoebe, and now she’d been a fly on the wall all day here.

  But at least, she felt, for the first time they were going to get an accurate assessment of their children and, hopefully, some clear advice on how to handle them.

  The psychologist stood in the doorway of the bathroom, watching her and John bathe and dry the twins. Luke and Phoebe seemed to accept her presence the way they accepted most things: by ignoring her. To the children, she could have been invisible.

  Downstairs, they sat around the kitchen table. Sheila Michaelides put her notepad in front of her, looking uncomfortable. She stirred her coffee then accepted a ginger biscuit from the plate Naomi offered. Then she said, ‘Dr and Mrs Klaesson, I have to tell you I’m extremely concerned about Luke and Phoebe. I think there are some improvements you could make in your own parental roles, but from my observations this is not the root of the problem.’

  ‘What kind of improvements?’ Naomi demanded defensively.

  ‘What do you mean by the root of the problem?’ John followed on.

  ‘Well,’ she said, putting the biscuit down on her plate, and staring pensively for a moment at the steam rising from her cup of coffee, ‘I need some time to think about everything I’ve seen and I would like to talk to some of my colleagues. One immediate observation I have is that you are clearly not getting the levels of love and affection from your children that I would normally expect. There is a tendency for twins to be self-sufficient for much longer than single babies, but Luke and Phoebe are almost three now.’ She hesitated, looking at their faces, then added, ‘They seem cold and very withdrawn, something that ordinarily would signal something wrong with the parenting—’

  ‘Wrong?’ Naomi cut in. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘The possibility of abuse,’ Sheila Michaelides responded.

  Naomi opened her mouth, about to explode; John gripped her arm. ‘Honey, calm down!’

  ‘I’m not in any way suggesting this is the case – nothing I’ve seen suggests any maltreatment by you both. I think you are very loving, very caring parents.’

  There was a tense silence as she flicked through her notes, looking for something.

  ‘What exactly do you mean by improvements that we can make in our role as parents?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Well, let’s take an instance the first morning I came here, before playschool. You went out of the kitchen and left me alone with them. They showed no fear of me – a total stranger – at all. Children who are well bonded with their parents have a much greater fear of strangers than those who don’t.’

  ‘But we’ve been trying to bond with them ever since they were born!’ Naomi said.

  The psychologist nodded, her worried frown deepening. ‘I think that’s an area where I could give you some guidance. But there are broader problems that I don’t think stem from this lack of bonding.’

  Naomi watched her, concerned about the woman’s body language. When they had first gone to see her, she seemed supremely confident to the point of arrogance; but now she looked nervous, toying with the biscuit, playing with her hands, frowning, her whole face tightening up every few minutes as if she was struggling with some inner demon.

  ‘I’ve seen Luke and Phoebe separately and together. I’ve watched them solving puzzles, and I’ve tried as best as possible, given their lack of verbal communication, to test their memory and reasoning. What I’m finding is that they seem to have an intelligence and skill levels far in advance of their age. They seem at times to be testing everything around them. Most of the time
they’re very withdrawn, at other times, they try to assert themselves over everyone they come into contact with – over the other kids in playschool, over you, and as they don’t have any challenge in asserting themselves over their guinea pigs, they taunt them instead, seeing how far they can push them; it’s as if they are constantly testing the endurance levels of everything. I’m having a big problem with their mindsets – they respond to totally different cues to the norm, and they have a different pattern of communication. It is outside of any kind of range I’ve ever experienced.’

  ‘You mean this strange language they have?’ John asked.

  ‘That’s part of it. I was sceptical when you first told me about it, now I’m beginning to believe it.’

  ‘How do you explain it?’ John said.

  ‘For them to be so wrapped up with each other that they rarely respond to either of you, and never to other children, and to have these unique skills, is symptomatic of autism. I had dismissed that previously, but that is one possibility I would now like to explore. I’m going to suggest that we should have brain scans done.’

  ‘Autism?’ Naomi said, horrified. ‘You really think they might be autistic?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is one possibility. Clearly there is something going on that we need to diagnose.’

  Naomi looked at John. He squeezed her hand.

  The psychologist went on, ‘There are very primitive perceptual systems in the brain that recognize and respond to patterns of social behaviour. One of the tests I did shows that in Luke and Phoebe this ability is either absent, or programmed differently.’

  ‘What does that mean exactly?’ John asked.

  ‘I’m not sure that your children are able to make certain distinctions about some aspects of what constitutes normal behaviour in society.’

  John squeezed Naomi’s hand even more tightly and looked at the psychologist. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  ‘I need time to think about it,’ she said. ‘One option might be for you both to take a break, and let Luke and Phoebe go into a residential psychiatric facility for observation.’

  ‘Absolutely no way!’ Naomi said, turning to John for confirmation. He looked hesitant for a moment, then nodded in agreement with her.

  ‘I’m not proposing this as any slight on you as parents,’ she said. ‘If your children are, as I suspect, super-bright and under-stimulated, it might do them good to be in a facility for gifted children. There’s a very good residential facility I could suggest—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Naomi said. ‘That is not an option. It’s out of the question. We’re their parents; whatever problems they may have, we are going to be the ones to get them through it, whatever it takes.’

  ‘Well, the alternative would be for you to change the activities at home for them. Perhaps design a new regime for them to follow.’

  ‘Such as?’ John asked.

  ‘Giving them toys and games that would be appropriate for much older children. I think you should get them a computer – they are fascinated by computers – that’s why they monopolize the one at playschool.’

  ‘Sheila,’ John said. ‘Give me your honest answer – what would you do if you were in our position – if these were your children?’

  ‘I need to think about it,’ she said. ‘I need to talk about this with some colleagues – in confidence, of course. I’d like to do some research. I wish I could give you some magic solution, but I can’t; there isn’t one. Life’s not going to be easy for you.’

  77

  The front door was opening. The Disciple put his finger on the stopwatch start button: 7.32 in the evening. Dark. Someone came out of the house holding a big umbrella. Watching through his night glasses he could see it was the male Infidel. Moments later, as the sensors picked up the Infidel’s movement, the outside lights came on.

  Now!

  The Disciple pressed the button. He was standing well out of range of the lights, in the dark, in the wet field, in the same lined boots in which he had trudged through the snowy sidewalks of Rochester and New York City. He was wrapped up in warm layers, and his black baseball cap, pulled down tight, gave his face some small measure of protection from the brutal wind and the rain as sharp as needles.

  It was the same rain endlessly falling, endlessly sucked back up into the clouds, then dropped again. Sucked up from the sewer, dropped, sucked up again, you could never escape, didn’t matter where in the world you were, snow made from water from the sewers fell on you, rain from the sewers fell on you, there was no place you were free from it, there never would be, not until you had purged the sewers, not until you had ridded the cities and the valleys and the plains of every last atom.

  He checked that the sweep hand was moving on the stopwatch, then watched through his night glasses again; the image burned red in the glare of the lights. The Infidel escorted a middle-aged woman in a flapping coat across to a small Japanese car, held the door for her, slammed it when she had entered, then hurried back to his porch. Now the Disciple could see the woman Infidel as well, standing back inside the doorway. Both of them waved as the car drove off. No sign of a dog; one less problem to have to deal with.

  Wondering who the woman was, he watched the lights of the car brush along the hedgerow as it made its way down the long farm track, heading away into the night, into another part of the sewer. Then he raised his glasses and stared through the mist of driving rain at the house. The Infidels had closed the door.

  He lowered his glasses, put his finger on the stopwatch button and waited. It seemed like an eternity before the outside lights went off.

  Instantly he pressed the button and looked down at the watch. They were set for three minutes.

  The Disciple moved forward across the field. By morning the rain would have erased his tracks. A light came on in a downstairs window and he raised his glasses and switched off the infra-red. The male Infidel was sitting at a desk in front of a computer; he switched on a desk lamp; he raised something, a glass, a tall-stemmed glass, to his lips, and drank.

  Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. Psalm 37.

  The Disciple was staying in a small, draughty room in an old hotel on the seafront in the resort city of Brighton and Hove. His room overlooked a windblown promenade, a rusting, ruined pier, and a sea that had been churning dark and restlessly, like his heart, during the three days that he had been here.

  It would be so easy, just to wait until the lights went off in the house, make his move, do his duty and then leave, cross the Channel tonight on a ferry in his rented car. By tomorrow night he could be sleeping in the arms of Lara, and the Lord.

  But no. Like Job, his patience had to endure further testing yet. An email from his Master, from Harald Gatward, instructed him to wait a little longer, to prepare more thoroughly, to bide his time until the time was right. That at the moment, God had warned, there was danger.

  I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. Psalm 32.

  The Disciple lowered his glasses. He listened to the sounds of the night, of air hissing in the winter grasses, of a gate creaking and the distant clatter of a train, felt the rain against his face, the damp chilling his bones, but in his heart burned a deep glow of warmth. Dr and Mrs Klaesson and their Spawn were inside the walls of that little building.

  When the command came he would be in the arms of Lara and the Lord, before anyone had even discovered their bodies.

  78

  From: Kalle Almtorp, Swedish Embassy, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

  To: John Klaesson bklaesson@morleypark.org

  Subject: Disciples

  John,

  I trust this email finds you well and coping with that terrible British climate! Life here in Malay
sia is good although the heat took a while to adjust to. I am curious to know how you are. How is Naomi? Luke and Phoebe?

  I am writing with possibly good news. My contact at the FBI tells me (very confidentially!) that they now have a lead in their search for these Disciples of the Third Millennium. Still early days, but (and please don’t repeat this) there is some evidence pointing to a religious cult based in exile in a remote part of Europe. These people may be funded by the son of one of America’s richest families, but I understand the evidence is only very tentative at this stage.

  As soon as I have more news I will be in touch again. Meantime, it would be good to hear from you. Scary how time passes. How many years since we last saw each other?

  Hälsningar!

  Kalle

  John balled his fist and raised it in the air. ‘Yes!!!!!’

  Then he tugged the last olive off the cocktail stick, chewed it, and drained the rest of his martini.

  Rain spattered against the window in front of his desk. It was a truly foul night and the wind seemed to be freshening. This was great news! They were going to get those bastards. And then they would be safe, at last.

  He’d needed something to cheer him after the grim pronouncements of Dr Michaelides, who had just left half an hour or so ago.

  He tilted the cocktail glass back and let the last drips of the drink roll into his mouth. Then reality set in. Oh Jesus, what the hell did they do now?

  Wait. Wait for the psychologist to come back to them, that was all they could do.

  In an attempt to cheer Naomi, he went through to the kitchen and told her the good news from Kalle Almtorp. He embellished it a little, telling her that the FBI were days away from an arrest. From scooping up the entire damned cult.

  In just a few days, they would be free from their worries!

  But Naomi had not just drunk an extremely large martini; she was stone cold sober. She did not share any of his joy or his alcohol-fuelled optimism