The Picture On The Fridge: The debut psychological thriller with the twist of the year

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  "I just wanted you to see her face and know she is who she says she is. She was a scientist at your husband's company."

  "Why should I care who she is?"

  "Because I want you to meet her, Mags. Tomorrow morning."

  Mags finished her drink. "I made it clear I'm not interested. You may consider me naïve, turning a blind eye to the fact that my father-in-law's company was involved in some shady business deals decades ago. Maybe I am. But if this year has taught me anything, it's that family is everything. I won't do anything to jeopardise that."

  She stood up. Patrice Martino closed his eyes. His head dropped a few inches. When he looked at her again, she saw such pity there that she wanted to grab her bag and run before he said another word. Instead, she waited.

  Patrice put a business card on the table. "I guess you blocked my number. I understand. But if you decide to meet Ava tomorrow morning, call me tonight and let me know."

  "I've already told you I'm not interested. Now, if you'll excuse me—"

  "I have a question for you, Mags. It may upset you. I don't expect you to answer right away. If I'm wrong about this, it will mean nothing, and you can forget this conversation. But if it means something, you need to call me, and you need to meet Ava. Because I'm not sure your family is safe at all." He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was flat and colourless. The words came at Mags like the heavy tolling of a distant bell. She had a curious sensation of being alive and enmeshed with the present moment, while looking at herself as if out of her body, far away, disconnected, and numb.

  "Is Tam your only child?"

  Mags willed her legs to move. She couldn't look away from Patrice's face.

  "Did she have a twin?"

  Mags didn't remember leaving the café, but she found herself outside, walking past the shoe store in the direction Irene and Tam had taken. She didn't remember picking up Patrice's card either, but it was in her hand, squeezed between thumb and finger like a crucifix to ward off vampires.

  In the first clothes store she came to, she picked up a jacket three sizes too big and walked through to the fitting rooms, pulling the curtain behind her.

  She sat on the hard bench under the harsh lights and she wept.

  Patrice was a good journalist. When their lives had dovetailed in Atlanta, she had handed him a thread of a story. Since then, he had pulled that thread and begun to unravel her life.

  "Oh God, oh God. What am I going to do now?"

  The question was rhetorical. Mags knew exactly what she would do.

  She would meet Ava Marston.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mags wasn't sure how she would get through the rest of the day, but somehow she did. She made conversation, laughed at Tam's jokes, asked Irene about her charity work. At dinner, she listened to Bradley and his father, noting they never mentioned their work. She wondered what Martino had uncovered at Edgegen Technology. Several times during dinner, she thought of Patrice's words and fell silent, only rejoining the conversation with an effort.

  Soon after Tam had said goodnight, she blamed a persistent headache for an early night. When Bradley joined her later, she feigned sleep.

  She passed a restless night, waking well before dawn. Using the light from her phone, she picked out some clothes without disturbing Bradley and crept downstairs.

  At 5:45, Mags called Patrice.

  "All right. I'll meet her."

  Patrice sent her the address and ZIP code of a neighbourhood on the far side of the city. Mags took the keys to Irene's SUV. Her mother-in-law had said she could borrow it, never expecting Mags to take her up on the offer.

  She scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table.

  I have some errands to run and I couldn't sleep. Borrowed the car. Back for lunch. See you later, Mags.

  The satnav in the SUV was programmed for the Barkworth's ski lodge on Mount Sunapee. Mags punched in the new ZIP code and drove away.

  The display showed an outside temperature of minus twelve. She was glad of the heated seats and the snow tyres. The sky was an ominous slate grey. The blue line on the satnav drew her northwest, and the time to her destination ticked down.

  Ava Marston's house was a detached brick building in Burlington, a small town just outside Boston. Patrice answered the door when she rang the bell, Mags followed him through a hallway into a larger kitchen-diner. Pill boxes and pharmacy bags covered the table.

  Mags had expected a younger woman. Ava Marston had been in her twenties in the photograph, but the woman sitting in front of her was surely in her eighties. Her skin was sallow and lined, her hair wispy. Her eyes, when she raised them to look at Mags, had a yellow, jaundiced tinge. As if reading her mind, Ava Marston took a sip from a glass of water and cleared her throat.

  "It's not just my liver." Her voice was as dry and cracked as her skin. "Lungs, lymph glands. Stomach. And, in the next month or so, brain. There's no elegant way of treating cancer. In the very early stages, we zap it with radiotherapy or poison it with chemotherapy. If that fails, we grab a knife and slice it out. But, if we're not quick enough, we miss our chance, and cutting out the diseased cells would kill the patient. Many doctors would consider that outcome a failure."

  She nodded towards the pharmaceutical display on the table. "We can prolong life, and we can help with pain, but we are pissing into a hurricane."

  Patrice pulled out a chair for Mags before sitting down himself. After a moment's hesitation, Mags joined him. She didn't know how to respond. She could say she was sorry, but Ava Marston's humourless smile suggested she wasn't fishing for sympathy.

  "I get tired, and I can't speak for long. Mr Martino called me back when I could still take a shit without someone wiping my ass for me. We recorded the interview and I let him transcribe everything I said, as long as he did it right here, sitting at my computer, with the Wi-Fi turned off."

  Ava popped a pill out of a blister pack and swallowed it. "I gave Mr Martino a hell of a story. He can publish it when I die. After Edgegen pays out. I never had children myself, Mrs Barkworth, but my sister did. Good kids. I can be their fairy fucking godmother. I like that. When they have the money, Mr Martino can publish, and name me as his source. They'll deny it. But this time, some shit will stick. After we finished the interviews, Mr Martino told me about you."

  The house was too hot. Sweat pooled at the base of Mags' spine. Her mouth was dry. "Me?"

  "You. Martino here says his story will protect people. Once they know what's going on. But he said some folk need protecting now. Specifically, you and your daughter."

  Mags opened her mouth. Ava Marston shook her head and wagged a bony finger at. "Please, Mrs Barkworth. Don't say a word. Go read the document. It can't leave the house."

  She pointed at an open door leading off the kitchen. "It's in the study. We'll be in here when you're done."

  Mags stood up and looked at Patrice. He wouldn't meet her eye. She walked towards the door.

  The old woman coughed and called after her. Mags guessed Ava was in her fifties or early sixties. Cancer had made her ancient.

  "Mrs Barkworth." Was there a tremor in that acerbic voice? "Are you a religious woman?"

  "No."

  "Me neither, but I get an urge to pray these days. Always the same prayer. I pray there is no God, no judgement. You're gonna judge me, Mrs Barkworth."

  Mags let her speak.

  "And you'll have every right."

  She stood up, unhooking a stick from the chair. She stepped towards the back of the house. When she stumbled, Patrice stood up, but she snarled like a feral cat.

  "Mr Martino will show you out. I'm too much of a coward to face you after you've read my confession. You want to know the biggest lie I ever heard? The ends justify the means. That's what all monsters tell themselves. Goodbye, Mrs Barkworth."

  She shuffled away, shutting the door behind her.

  In the study, a single folder lay on the desk.

  Mags sat down, opened it, and be
gan to read.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  This transcript is an abridged compilation of conversations between Patrice Martino and Ava Marston in September, 20**. The original recordings and transcriptions are available on request.

  PATRICE MARTINO

  Ms Marston. When did you join Edgegen Technology in Boston, and when did you leave?

  AVA MARSTON

  I joined when the new lab opened in nineteen eighty-three. I worked there until two thousand-seven. When I joined the team, I was a junior research assistant fresh out of college. By the time I left, I was a senior researcher. They offered me management positions, but I was only happy in the lab. Maybe happy is the wrong word.

  Ava, when we first met, you mentioned Edgegen's military contracts. You worked on these projects, correct?

  Yes. Yes, I did. It's no secret these days that the CIA and US military were interested in psychic phenomena during the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Folk laugh at it now. Different times. I remember some Texan millionaire flew that Israeli metal-bender over, paid him a fortune to find oil. If telepathy, clairvoyance or telekinesis were real, the government wanted to be the first to find it. Remember, this was during the Cold War. We didn't know what Russia was doing, and no one wanted to fall behind in any areas of research. Todd Barkworth saw an opportunity, and he took it. Genetic research was an exciting field, and his cutting-edge knowledge impressed the politicians. If there was any truth to psychic phenomena, Barkworth said it was down to genetics. If we could find people with testable abilities, we might isolate the gene that made them special. It wasn't much of a stretch to suggest that—given enough time and money—we might stimulate similar abilities in people without that genetic advantage.

  Yeah, I remember documentaries about the CIA exploring remote viewing. Asking someone to draw images transmitted from the mind of a subject hundreds of miles away, right?

  Yes. Our initial research rejected most psychic phenomena. We could find no proof of telekinesis, the ability to affect matter with the mind. The same with clairvoyance. As much as astrology believers want it to be true, no one can see the future. It's bullshit. Lucrative bullshit. With all the advances in science in my lifetime, people still call premium phone lines so a con artist can tell them crap they want to hear. Fifty bucks, please. Jesus.

  So, you ruled out much of this phenomena as impossible. What was left?

  Well, this is where it got interesting. Although much of the evidence was anecdotal, there was a ton for telepathy. The most compelling reports suggested links between siblings, even over large distances. There were thousands of cases. And they were even more convincing when they involved twins. That's where Barkworth directed Edgegen's research.

  On twins?

  Yes. And our early studies won us a lucrative military contract. Barkworth sent researchers all over the country, running tests on twins. It was a long-term programme. Twins, triplets, quads and quins were interesting for research, but the data were tainted. The twins grew up together, went to the same schools. They adhered to identical value systems. Their genetic heritage and their environments may have produced a decision-making process so similar to their siblings that it seemed like telepathy. Like I said, much of the anecdotal evidence was compelling, but it was just that - anecdotal. There was only one area of research where laboratory-condition results were above average.

  And that was?

  Remote viewing. With one sibling kept under observation and the other sent into the field with an Edgegen observer. The lab subject might sketch a particular tree, or a distinctive building in a city he or she had never visited.The hit-rate was way above average. And we had our star performers, Waldorf and Statler.

  (Laughter and coughing on recording)

  That wasn't their real names. But even Barkworth called them Waldorf and Statler. They were in their late eighties. Brothers from Cincinnati. Farmers. In his mid-forties, a tractor rolled on Statler, pinned him to the ground. It was market day, and Waldorf was on his way into town. Halfway there, Waldorf drove like a maniac to the hospital and demanded they send an ambulance. He rode in it himself, directed them to the field where his brother was bleeding, his leg broken. Saved his life. Their history was full of similar stories.

  And they could reproduce this under laboratory conditions?

  To the extent that we couldn't find an alternative explanation for their abilities. They were unlikely cheats; god-fearing, gentle old men. But we operated on the assumption they were colluding somehow. We made the tests harder and harder. One day we sent Statler up in a light aircraft. Didn't tell Waldorf. When we started the test, Waldorf stared at the wall for a good long time. I thought he had dozed off. He was in his late eighties. But then he started drawing. Waldorf sketched a blanket of clouds as seen through a small square window.

  Todd Barkworth brought in a bottle of champagne that night. The military contract was extended, and we had a few visits from men in suits who didn't introduce themselves. We got a raise. Barkworth moved to Beacon Hill. The atmosphere was febrile. We were pioneers. Half the team was sleeping with the other half. It's hard to explain how exciting it was. God, I should have left then. I was too caught up in it.

  What went wrong?

  Statler died. We knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. Guess we were banking on later. Neither of them were in great health. That's one reason they helped us out. We gave them the best medical care. But when it's your time, it's your time. Statler had a massive stroke in his sleep. Waldorf knew it had happened, of course. He woke up in the early hours, at the moment his brother died. They were in an apartment owned by Edgegen, a block away from the lab. They didn't know it, but we placed cameras and mics in every room. We saw the tape of Waldorf sitting up, reaching for the phone. He never recovered from his loss. Died a month after Statler.

  They were our stars, our performing monkeys. Without them, we had little to show Edgegen's paymasters. Then Barkworth started the second stage of the research project.

  Which was?

  Stage Two was when we crossed a line. And we knew it. Barkworth called us in, and we got a big raise. That was all it took. Amazing how flexible my personal moral code turned out to be. My income was good, the healthcare was the best, and the retirement plans were very generous. We signed NDAs and military gag orders. The government was involved, and a scary Washington lawyer flew in for a day to explain our new contracts. We were now working for our country, and if we loved our country, we would keep our mouths shut. No one made any threats, but we knew there would be consequences if a single detail of our work ever leaked. I slept badly for weeks afterwards.

  What did Stage Two involve?

  Stage Two was an long-term study. It involved the artificial insemination of volunteers to produce multiple births. Within two years of the project's inception, we had four sets of twins, and two sets of triplets to study. We separated them after birth, placing them in foster homes all over the United States. No one was told they were siblings.

  They never met their brothers or sisters?

  It would have interfered with the integrity of the study. By separating twins and triplets, we could ensure they were brought up in different environments. Some foster families were religious, others were atheists. While none were dirt poor—because of the payments from Edgegen—there was still a large discrepancy in income across the families. One of our boys had a senator for a foster mother. Another had an alcoholic ex-con foster father who'd never held down a job.

  And how often did you study the children? If they were spread across the country, it must have been a huge project.

  It was. We used local researchers. Told them it was a nationwide psychological study of children in foster care, paid for by the government. They filmed the subjects and recorded interviews, asking questions we provided. As the children got old enough to draw, we began the real tests. We make sure the twins or triplets were interviewed on the same day, even if they were thousands of miles apart. At a specif
ied time, one twin would be shown a photograph chosen from a selection by the researcher. The other twin was given paper and crayons and told to draw whatever they liked.

  The early years weren't encouraging, but the children's brains were still developing. The researchers tested them once a month. For over a decade, results were inconclusive. There were coincidences, behavioural similarities between separated siblings. Nothing more.

  Things got interesting at puberty, but not for everyone. The hormonal changes only improved the results of some children. And only one set of twins showed significant progress. Molly and Jason. In their early teens, their remote viewing results went crazy. They scored a hit in over eighty percent of tests.

  I can't tell you how exciting that was. It was twelve years since Waldorf and Statler's successes. Our military and government backers had signed up for the long haul, but that didn't mean there wasn't pressure. They wanted a return on their investment. For years, Barkworth had nothing to give them. So we latched onto the twins as our ticket for future funding. The problem was, none of our other subjects showed any abilities like Molly and Jason's. If it wasn't for our star twins, we would have had nothing.