“I ask myself that sometimes.” She pressed a couple of buttons and held up the screen to him. “Some kid’s been told he can’t sit his exams because he might perceive the answers off other pupils.”
Michael hadn’t time to see the screen before she’d whipped it away again, tapped another button, and flashed a different screen. “A girl wants to know if she should go to her cure clinic appointment. What the skank are we supposed to do?” She tossed the phone down on the worktop. It bounced to rest by the toaster.
“What about your perceivers network?” said Michael.
“We text and post and chat. Anytime someone suggests doing something, it all breaks down into stupid arguments. No one knows what to do.”
The kettle shuddered to the boil.
“Fancy a coffee?” said Jennifer.
“Not for me,” said Michael.
She grabbed a single mug from the draining board and took the coffee jar from the cupboard. Michael enjoyed watching her coffee routine. She seemed at home doing it.
She shook a spoon from the draining board and unscrewed the coffee jar. She tipped the jar towards Michael so he saw the brown grains inside. “Sure?”
“Don’t like the stuff,” said Michael. “Not tea neither. Even with three sugars. Bleh!”
She took a spoonful of granules, dropped it in the mug with the clink of metal on china and poured water from the kettle. The coffee fizzed a little and sent a plume of its distinctive smell into the air. “I remember the first time I had coffee,” she said. “My dad used to drink it all the time. The smell would come wafting out of the kitchen. I kept asking to have some and he kept saying I was too young. When he finally caved in and made me a cup, it tasted horrible. Strong and bitter. But I drank it anyway. I wanted to be grown up, I suppose.”
She stirred her drink and dropped the spoon into the sink, where it plopped into one of the pans and sunk to the bottom of the cold curry water.
“I never heard you speak about your dad before,” said Michael.
Jennifer sniffed, bringing herself out of her nostalgic haze. “Yeah, well … Dad wanted a normal little girl.”
She picked up her mug, stuffed her phone into her pocket and made her way to the lounge. Michael followed and sat in the chair opposite her. “I … didn’t exactly tell Otis everything,” he said eventually.
“I know,” said Jennifer.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have to perceive me all the time?”
“Sorry,” said Jennifer. “Your thoughts are loud, I can’t help it.”
Michael composed himself. “The doctor at the clinic … she knew me.”
“What do you mean, ‘knew you’?”
“Knew my name. She hugged me! Said she was glad I was okay.”
“Who was she? Did you ask her where you’re from and what happened to you?”
“Didn’t get a chance. Her name was Doctor Page, that’s all I know.”
“First name?”
“No.”
Jennifer frowned. She pulled out her phone and tapped her index finger across the screen. She nodded at the display. “Doctor Page, cure clinic – there you are.”
She handed the device to Michael. She’d pulled up several reports. All fairly bland and uninformative. They were blogs from parents or patients who mentioned her in passing: “My son was treated by Doctor Page, a pleasant woman whose bedside manner … Doctor Page said my mum could hold my hand while she gave me the injection …” and so on.
“I suppose it proves she works there,” said Michael, passing back Jennifer’s phone.
She perused it a little longer. Frowned again. “Hmm. No biographical details. No photo. No first name. Weird, though, that she should be working there.”
“Yeah, weird.” He thought about it for a moment. Everything he’d experienced at the clinic was still a jumble. Like a mixed up jigsaw puzzle he didn’t know how to put together.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” said Jennifer.
“You’re perceiving me again.”
“But I won’t know what it is until you tell me.”
Michael sighed. “Cooper was there.”
“Cooper?” she said. “The man-you-ran-away-from-Cooper?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he got to do with the cure clinic?”
“I don’t know!” said Michael in frustration. “The doctor said all the details get sent to him. Our names, pictures and addresses …”
“Someone’s keeping records of all the perceivers that go for the cure?”
Michael shrugged. “Apparently.”
Jennifer tapped her nails on the back of her phone. “Something’s going on in those clinics they’re not telling us about.”
“That’s my theory,” said Michael. “But how do we find out? I can’t go back there. Neither can you or Otis without the risk of being cured.”
“Maybe we can come at it from a different angle,” said Jennifer.
“Like what?”
“Otis isn’t the only one who knows people, you know.” She grinned.
~
JENNIFER HAD DONE one week’s work experience at The Daily News while she was still at school. She’d got to know a reporter there called Sian Jones. Sian was one of its recent intake of internet-savvy reporters who recognised the days of rushing to get a story ready for the morning edition were part of history. ‘Up to the minute’ was the latest buzzword and she was the epitome of it. Smart, yet fashionable, full of energy and ready to go at a moment’s notice, she was all-London. Thriving in a grimy, ethnically diverse city, unfazed by its pollution and crowded streets, like she was born into it. Only the occasional hint of her accent suggested that she was born and brought up in Wales.
Sian worked at the newspaper offices on Gray’s Inn Road and suggested meeting Jennifer and Michael in an American-style diner a few streets away.
“You can’t have a private meeting in a building full of journalists,” she explained as she sat down with them in an enclosed booth in the corner of the restaurant. “Even if you book a private room, nosy people will watch you walk into it.”
Jennifer had become more than just a work experience girl when she had worked alongside Sian back in her schooldays. They had been sent to report on a salacious murder case at the Old Bailey and, over a lunchtime sandwich, Jennifer admitted that she knew the man in the dock was guilty. She had perceived it from him. Sian, rather than being scared or shocked by what she had done, had been excited and wanted to run a story on the potential uses of perception. It came to nothing because her editor wasn’t interested, but it meant she remembered Jennifer when she rang to ask for her help.
Sian had steak and chips, and a tea. Jennifer went for coffee and chicken salad. Michael wanted everything he saw in the mouth-watering pictures on the menu, but settled for Coke and a burger, despite not having any money. He hoped Jennifer was going to foot the bill, otherwise he was going to have to eat and run. He’d done that once when he was living rough. The cafe owner had chased him for two streets before Michael finally lost him. He didn’t want to do that again.
“I’ve been doing some research into cure clinics, as it happens,” said Sian, for an opening gambit.
“Are you working on a story?” said Jennifer.
“That’s the idea,” said Sian. “My editor has a different opinion.”
“We think there’s more going on than they’re telling us,” said Jennifer.
“Interesting,” said Sian. She leant back to allow the waitress to put a mug of tea down in front of her. It was a pale, milky-looking liquid with the teabag still bobbing about on the top. Jennifer’s coffee smelt as strong as it was black. Michael’s Coke was half full of ice. He shivered. It was a dull and overcast day outside and he didn’t see the point of being cooled down any further.
“If the cure’s just an injection, why does it take specialist nurses to administer it?” said Jennifer, keeping her voice low. “If it’s so important for all pe
rceivers to be cured, why are there so few clinics? And why do they operate only one day in the week and move on?”
“All good questions,” said Sian, twirling the teabag around in her mug with her spoon and giving it a squeeze before dropping it on the table. It sat there abandoned, scrunched up and steaming like something left by a dog on a cold winter morning.
“Answers?” said Jennifer.
“Difficult to come by,” said Sian.
Michael wasn’t impressed. All that way across London to talk to a woman who, apparently, knew little more than they did.
“What I can tell you,” said the journalist, “is that the clinics aren’t run by the Department of Health.”
“I thought …” began Jennifer.
“So did I. But I’ve been doing some digging. It’s Department of Health on the posters and the signs and the adverts, all right, but the running of the actual clinics is contracted out to a private company: Panoplia Healthcare.”
She looked at Jennifer, as if waiting for a response. Then she glanced across at Michael. Michael shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s a subsidiary of Advanced Medical Investments which is owned by …?” Sian waited for them to finish the sentence.
Jennifer shook her head.
“Ransom Incorporated,” Sian concluded. “Headed by Brian Ransom.”
“The pill guy?” said Jennifer.
“The pill guy, exactly,” said Sian. She sipped her tea.
“Who?” said Michael.
“Brian Ransom supplies vitamin pills to pregnant women for free,” said Jennifer.
“What’s he do that for?” said Michael.
“To ensure that every baby born in this country gets the best start in life,” said Sian. “Or so he claims. Had something to do with his wife desperately wanting a child and having to undergo IVF, or something. He made a personal fortune out of that flu vaccine his company developed, so he could afford it at the time.”
“They thought those vitamin pills caused perception at one stage, didn’t they?” said Jennifer.
“That was a storm in a teacup.” Sian sipped from her mug. “Turns out some perceivers were born before the pills came out.”
“Otis is one of those,” said Jennifer.
“Plus, they analysed the pills and discovered they contained …” The journalist paused for dramatic effect. “Vitamins! Not exactly headline news: Vitamin Pills Contain Vitamins Shock!”
The waitress arrived with their food. Michael’s burger and chips smelt amazing. It was almost enough to wipe away his concern about paying the bill. He sprinkled salt on his chips, picked up one with his fingers and bit into it. It was piping hot, but he ate it anyway, sucking in cool air between his teeth in an attempt to avoid burning his mouth.
“Basically,” said Sian, spearing one of her own chips with a fork, “Ransom’s your man if you want to know more about the cure clinics. I’ve been trying to get an interview with him for ages, but he seems to have gone to ground. Odd for a man who was all over the news when he launched the great vitamin pill giveaway.”
“He’s rich,” said Jennifer. “I suppose he doesn’t need the publicity.”
“Or doesn’t want it,” added Sian. “Turns out the cure clinics aren’t the only contract he’s got from the government. He recently picked up a big order to supply flu vaccines to GP surgeries across the country. Since the patent ran out on his original vaccine, he’s had a tough time maintaining his share of the market. The Health Minister – in the longest and most boring document I think I’ve ever read – said, despite the increased cost to the NHS of buying the vaccines from Ransom, it would save the country money in the long run by securing the jobs of British workers.”
Michael’s eyes had started to glaze over with all the talk about politics. “What does that mean?”
“It means, his company’s not as flush with cash as it first appears. It’s only being propped up by government contracts.”
“Why’s that important?” said Michael.
“Dunno,” said Sian. “Interesting though, isn’t it?” She bit down on a chip and chewed with self-satisfaction.
And then it was time for swapsies. It was a condition for their meet. The journalist gave something to them and they gave her information in return. Michael told her about the cure clinic. He said nothing about Cooper and Doctor Page, but he did mention the nurse he thought was a perceiver. Sian’s eyebrows rose at that piece of information and she made a note on her phone.
When they had finished, Sian put her phone in her bag. “I was curious when you phoned,” she said to Jennifer. “I wondered what happened to the smart work experience student I remembered, so I looked you up on the internet. I thought maybe there would be something about you winning a journalism prize or something. But there’s nothing like that. The only place I found you was on a missing persons’ list. Several missing persons’ lists, actually.”
“What do you mean?” said Jennifer.
“Your parents have reported you missing. They say you ran away six months ago.”
Jennifer went pale. “You had no right to poke your nose into my business.”
“Your parents are really worried about you.”
“You didn’t call them?”
“No,” said Sian. “But I think you should.”
Jennifer sat with her mouth open, eyes wide, breathing faster than normal.
“They’ve left messages all over the web,” Sian continued. “They really care about you.”
“Yeah? Well, they’ve got a funny way of showing it.” Jennifer stood up. Her chair scraped noisily against the hard floor. “Excuse me.” She turned away and headed for the back of the diner. Michael watched her disappear into the women’s toilets.
Sian called over the waitress and asked for the bill.
The journalist paid for everyone’s lunch with her credit card, much to Michael’s relief. “Thanks,” he said. “For the food.”
“Don’t forget to pay me back when you get that interview with Ransom.” She put her credit card away in her purse and pulled out a business card. She handed it to Michael. “It’s quaint and old-fashioned, but my editor insisted we had some printed. Contact me when you get that scoop.”
She looked up. Jennifer was coming back from the toilets.
“Look,” said Sian. “I know Jennifer won’t listen to me, but she might to you. There’s a charity called Missing People that can get in touch with her parents for her. She doesn’t have to say where she is, only that she’s alive and well.”
Sian took the card from Michael, turned it over and scribbled a number on the back. He secreted it in the back pocket of his jeans just as Jennifer returned to the table.
“I’ve been thinking,” Jennifer announced, not bothering to sit down. “We should keep this relationship strictly professional.”
“Absolutely,” said Sian.
“So we don’t talk about personal stuff?”
“Agreed.”
“And that bit of information you found out about me – you’re not going to do anything about it, are you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to,” said Sian. “I protect my sources.”
“Good,” said Jennifer. “Thank you for your time, Miss Jones. We’ll see how far we get with Brian Ransom and let you know. Come on, Michael.”
Surprised at her authoritative tone, he got to his feet and followed her out of the diner.
Jennifer was silent as they went to catch the bus. They climbed up to the top deck where she gazed through the window, her breath gently steaming up the glass. Michael watched her, realising how little he knew about her. Ironic that while he was trying to remember his past, she was running away from hers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MICHAEL WOKE TO the bleep of a reversing lorry and the sound of inconsiderate dustmen shouting to each other as they emptied the bins from outside the flats. He squinted at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen to see what ungodly time of the morning it was.
All he saw were blurred green numbers. He decided it was too early to get up and he leant his head back on the arm of the sofa where he’d been sleeping.
It was then he noticed the rectangular black object on the table in front of him. It was Otis’s phone. For some reason, he hadn’t taken it with him when he’d gone to bed that night. Michael picked it up and tried to figure out how to use it. He thought back to the code he had seen Otis use to unlock it. After a couple of tries, he found the correct four digits and opened the internet browser to run a search on Brian Ransom:
The founder of Ransom Incorporated, Brian Ransom, is a self-made businessman, proclaimed his entry on whoswho.net. Born in Leicester, the son of a local government official and a teacher, he was academically gifted and found an easy path to university. While there, in his spare time, he wrote the computer game Monsters and Mayhem. The trial version became a cult favourite online, which convinced him to launch it commercially. By the time he graduated with a degree in biosciences, Ransom had amassed a personal fortune.
Ransom’s picture made him look more laid back than business-like. Rather than wearing a suit, he wore a jumper with a red and black checked pattern like someone about to step onto the golf course. His black hair was wavy and a bit longer than the standard cut for a man and his smile was wide and grinning, almost cheeky. Not the sort of look one would expect from the CEO of a multi-million-pound corporation.
Michael flicked through the links at the bottom of his bio. Sian Jones had been right, most detailed his early career – from computer game whiz-kid to vitamin pill philanthropist – and gave precious little information about his recent years. There was, however, an old Daily News article by Sian Jones herself:
… The emergence of cure clinics has surprised many in the scientific community who have questioned where the treatment has come from. Nothing has been published in any scientific journal, leading to suggestions research was carried out in secret.
“This is highly unusual,” says Saleem Khan of New Scientist magazine. “Medical advances occur through a lengthy and expensive research process, ending with clinical trials, that take years to complete. I can’t remember the last time a treatment was launched fully fledged onto the market in this way.”
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