All Sorts of Possible (24 page)

. . . on the bed, Bennett was crushing his fork into a tiny ball . . .

. . . some girl yelled as she tied a knot in the floppy stem of her spoon.

Everyone was shouting, like some ancient sect in a glorious act of worship. Somebody pointed and Daniel saw that the fork in his hand was droopy like a parched flower. He smiled at the apparent
magic of it all. He wished he could bottle whatever was in this room and take it to his father and administer it to him like a medicine.

He reached out to Amanda and drew her close.

‘Tell everyone to think about my dad,’ he whispered. ‘Please. Let’s see if they can help him too. He’s very ill. I need their help.’

Amanda nodded and announced it to the room, pointing at Daniel as she spoke. ‘This is Daniel. He’s had a terrible time. Some of you might have heard about it. His dad’s very
ill. In a coma. If we try and visualize him, maybe we can help him. Do something good and bend more than just spoons and forks.’

Bennett cheered and so did his brother. Others applauded.

When Daniel felt the energy building in the room again he opened himself up to it as much as he could and he felt a surge through his body. It was so strong and sudden it made him gasp and arch
his back. The noise in the bedroom became mangled and distorted. There was no golden warmth in his chest, but an immediate burning sensation. He heard a ticking sound in his head.

He started shouting at people to stop, but everyone was looking up and grinning and nodding as his voice came out distorted, in a long, low moan.

‘Concentrate!’ shouted Amanda. ‘No sceptics. We all have to believe and help Daniel’s dad.’ She started chanting Daniel’s name and other people joined in.

The panic in Daniel’s chest was something distinct now, like fingers scrabbling to get at his heart, scraping through the skin and grating at the ribs. The ticking in his head was louder
than he remembered it being when Lawson had tried to take the fit too far. Daniel was scared. He knew what was going to happen even before it did.

Suddenly, the ticking stopped and he was full of something pure and cold.

He heard a snap like someone stepping on a twig, so loud he thought something had broken inside him until he saw a girl sitting on the floor, screaming and holding her broken forearm to her
chest.

Other arms started snapping too. Like someone had thrown firecrackers into the room. All the shouting and noise gave way to screams and crying.

Amanda was moaning, her arms held aloft, moving them around like two flippers as she looked at the faces staring back. The broken tips of the bones in her right forearm had penetrated the skin.
Her other forearm was lumpen below the elbow, swollen and misshapen where the bone was broken.

Daniel leant back against the wall. The pain in his chest was gone, but there was an empty, sore feeling. He took a sip from someone’s bottle of beer and rinsed his mouth around to try and
flush out the bad taste in his mouth.

Bennett was white-faced. He was glancing over at Daniel as he and his older brother ushered people out of the room.

Daniel heard clicking sounds as someone took a photo on their phone.

Bennett’s brother crouched beside Amanda, speaking to her, stroking her hair, and Daniel realized there must be something between them. And he felt a fool for some reason he could not pin
down.

And then Bennett’s brother was standing up and holding Daniel tight by the arm.

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t—’

‘Look what you did to her, you
freak
!’ Flecks of spit flew off his lips as Bennett tried to drag his brother away. ‘If your dad dies then I reckon you deserve
it.’

Daniel ripped his arm free and pounded down the stairs as he heard Bennett calling after him.

Once he was outside, he walked quickly away from the house, gulping in the night air to cool him down. He passed a fence overgrown with clematis, the yellow flowers like a collection of tiny,
faded stars. He stopped to breathe their perfume and tried to let it wash away what had just happened. But Daniel’s mind was sharp and quick now as the night air nipped at his neck. It began
to play tricks, telling him people had known what he’d done. He heard the click of a camera phone and saw a picture of him shouting as everyone stared back. He heard Bennett’s brother
again: ‘
. . . you freak
.’

Daniel sat down on the low wall bordering a garden with the dark against his back and the street lights throwing down an orange haze. He thought long and hard about Amanda and the others,
telling himself over and over again that he couldn’t have known what would happen. That he had not done anything on purpose.

Daniel tried to sleep, but all he managed was to slip into some hazy state when he closed his eyes. He could see the bedroom again and he could hear the arms snapping over and
over.

Eventually, he padded down the landing, past his aunt’s snoring, and went downstairs to sit in the dark of the living room with the curtains open, watching the street. When a blue BMW
pulled up outside the house, he hoped he was dreaming it, but knew he wasn’t. Mason heaved himself out and stood up, looking around. Fastening the middle button of his jacket, he walked
purposefully over the road.

Daniel listened to his footsteps echoing down the path at the side of the house and then they stopped.

When they started again, he knew that Mason had climbed the fence.

And then Daniel got up and went and picked up the landline phone from its station in the hall.

By the time he reached the kitchen, Mason was already clicking the back door shut behind him. There was a lock pick in his other hand. He didn’t seem surprised to see Daniel.

‘It isn’t a dream this time,’ said Mason.

‘I know.’

‘Where’s the phone I gave you?’

‘I lost it.’

Mason took out an iPhone and scrolled through it for a number and hit the dial button and waited. Upstairs the faint sound of a ringtone started. Mason clicked off his iPhone.

‘My aunt’s upstairs.’

‘Don’t worry about that, she won’t hear a thing. I promise.’

Daniel took the landline phone out of his dressing-gown pocket, his thumb raised over the call button.

‘What are you going to do, call for backup?’ Mason pulled out a chair from the small round table and sat down. ‘How are you getting on with finding the flask?’

‘Not so good.’

‘Really? But it’s your top priority.’

‘There was nothing at Ashwell Lodge.’

Mason took a deep breath and let it out and the room seemed to swell. He dialled the number for Daniel’s phone again and they heard the ringtone upstairs once more.

‘It’s the truth.’

Mason clicked off his iPhone again.

‘But you see my dilemma? Now that I know you’ll lie to me, how do I know I can trust you?’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Maybe you want the flask for
yourself.’

‘Why would I want it?’

‘For the same reason I do. It’s very valuable. And because I always think the worst of people.’

Mason spread a big hand on the table and seemed to be counting that all his fingers were there. ‘Why didn’t you answer your phone, Daniel?’

‘I was scared.’

‘Of what?’

Daniel felt his brain firing. He could hear it sparking. Something glittered on his tongue. ‘We went to Ashwell Lodge, but we didn’t find anything. We tried making the fit, but we
couldn’t make anything happen.’

‘So you were avoiding me because of that? Because you were scared of what I might say.’ Mason was completely focused on him, like a tiger about to spring on to its prey.

‘Yes. Something’s broken inside Rosie. It’s too dangerous for her to make the fit. I don’t know if it’s her chemotherapy. But we need to wait and see.’

‘But I can’t wait. I want that flask.’ Mason sighed. Folded his arms. ‘I know your father’s got pneumonia. One of my little birdies told me. You need Rosie. I need
Rosie. Time’s a-ticking. Where is she? I went round to her house, but there was no one there.’

Daniel hesitated, wondering what to say.

‘Where is she, Daniel?’ growled Mason.

‘At her gran’s.’

Mason drummed his fingers on the table and then he nodded and stood up, and Daniel took a step back.

When Mason came closer, Daniel raised the phone and pressed his thumb lightly on the call button, but the man just put his arm round the boy’s shoulders and hugged him. ‘Come round
to Lawson’s house in the morning. I’ve got an idea that might work. That we need to test out.’

He rubbed Daniel’s head as if the boy was a dog. ‘Don’t look so glum! You’re important to me, Daniel. You’re special. Rare. You were saved, brought back from the
brink of death for a reason, like I’ve always said. There are bigger things at work here than either of us can comprehend, and who am I to jeopardize that?’ He grinned. ‘Now let
me out of the front door, will you? I’m not climbing over that bloody fence again in this suit.’

Mason was sitting in a brand-new armchair in Lawson’s living room, the sunlight dappling his black-suited legs as the green tops of the trees moved outside. Daniel was
standing in front of him like a naughty schoolboy. The beige carpet beneath his socked feet was brand new.

Mason pointed at Daniel’s socks. ‘I don’t want muck on it, you see.’ He rubbed a set of black-socked toes up and down the pile. ‘I wasn’t sure about the
colour. What do you think?’ And Daniel just nodded. Mason wafted his hands around him as if trying to touch the sunshine as it came through the window. ‘Done the whole lot. Lick of
paint. Curtains. Freshened the place up. I might rent it out again. Or I might not. I can do what I want.’

Mason took out a silver Colt 45 from his jacket pocket and placed it on the arm of the chair, with the muzzle pointing directly at Daniel, and the boy held his breath. Mason said nothing for a
while and then rubbed at a spot on the barrel with his thumb.

‘What did you call those insects again, the grasshoppery ones?’

‘Cicadas.’

‘
Seeec-ahhhh-daaas
,’ repeated Mason. His fingers began tiptoeing backward and forward over the gun. ‘I told you I’d retire if you got me the flask. The
deal’s still on. If you find me the flask, you get to dodge the bullet, Daniel. Rosie too.’

He picked up the gun and pointed it at Daniel and pulled the trigger and there was just a dry click. But Daniel heard a
bang
and flinched anyway and clasped his hands to his stomach and
looked down, half expecting to see blood bubbling through his fingers. And then he blinked and he was staring at Mason again, the sweat on his back as prickly as hair.

Mason grinned. ‘We won’t have to see each other ever again, unless you want to come out and visit on your holidays of course.’

They heard a car pull up outside in the lane and the engine being turned off. Car doors opened and clunked shut.

‘Perfect timing!’ Mason slapped his thigh. He stood up and straightened his suit and locked the gun away in a drawer as Daniel heard footsteps coming down the path towards the house.
Two pairs of feet, he thought.

The front door opened and slammed shut and Daniel heard footsteps walking down a set of stairs.

‘Why don’t you make yourself a cup of tea?’ said Mason. ‘Give us five minutes and then we’ll get started.’

‘Started doing what?’

Mason grinned and walked out of the room and then he stopped, beckoning Daniel to follow.

‘I’ll have one too. Milk and two sugars. Sorry about the mess in the kitchen – give me a shout if you can’t find what you need. We had a break-in last night. Some
vagrant. Didn’t steal anything as far as I can tell. Just trashed the pantry, looking for grub even though there was hardly anything there. He was high. Drunk. I don’t know. Nasty
business.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Nastier for him though.’

Mason opened a door beneath the stairs and disappeared down a set of concrete steps to what Daniel presumed was a cellar.

He walked on down the hallway and opened the kitchen door. Tupperware boxes were stacked on the work surfaces. Cardboard boxes too. He filled the kettle and flicked the switch and stood looking
for a teabag until he plucked one from a white ceramic pot.

As he dropped it into a mug, Daniel stared at a hip flask sitting on the worktop near the sink. He recognized it immediately because it was Bennett’s.

He stood watching it, as if it was a bird about to flit away. He could hear Mason’s muffled voice talking in the cellar as he crept quietly to the pantry door and looked inside. The blond
pine shelves had been pulled down and were stacked loosely on the floor. The new paintwork on the walls had been scratched and scraped and thumped with something hard and black leaving dints in the
plaster.

Daniel stood looking around him, thinking about why Bobby had come here. What reason he must have had. Mason’s voice burbled downstairs, bubbling up through the floor like some dark
spring. Suddenly, Daniel heard his great booming laugh.

When he found himself staring at the black rubber doorstop screwed into the floorboards, he wondered if what he was thinking might possibly be true. That Bobby had seen that the flask was hidden
somewhere in the pantry when he and Bennett had asked him to look for it and had lied to them. He knelt down quickly and grabbed hold of the doorstop and pulled. The small section of floorboard
came away, popping free of four magnets attached to the joists below, the brown nail in each corner shorn flush to the underside of the piece of wood.

There, lying in a nest of cotton wool, was a small golden flask, almost a perfect circle about the size of a small paperweight, with a cap screwed on tight. When Daniel looked closer, he saw how
beautifully made it was, the fine gold dimpled, looking as soft as tissue paper.

‘Oh, Bobby,’ he whispered. ‘Bobby, what have you done?’

When he heard someone coming up the cellar stairs, Daniel picked up the flask and hid it in his pocket, then slotted the piece of floorboard back down on to its four magnets.