Double Blind (2 page)

It had been almost a year since I saw my first aura. Since then, I’d become quite good at looking past them, the way we sometimes pretend we don’t see a conspicuous birthmark or a missing limb. Often I could get through a week or two without acknowledging that I’d seen one.

But now this. Two of them, which meant that both men were in danger. That probably ruled out health issues, but left open a world of other possibilities: an accident in a car, a train or a plane, or perhaps a terrorist attack. That was what the auras meant. That the person would die very soon. Trying to calm down, I clenched my fists, digging my nails into the palms of my hands. It wasn’t my responsibility to save everyone who faced a premature death. At least that was the argument I had with myself whenever I saw an aura. But I hadn’t seen one over the head of a leading politician before.

The clouds opened, releasing fat drops of water that quickly coalesced into a downpour. Through the deluge, I saw that the birdwatcher was rowing his boat towards a dock on the other side of the lake. I knew I should go home, dry off and get warm, but I was so preoccupied with the auras that I didn’t have the energy to stand up. So I just sat on the cold clammy bench, feeling the rain soak my running clothes.

Finally, drenched and shivering, I jogged back to my fourth-floor flat in an old Victorian house in Bayswater. After what had happened last year, I sometimes thought about moving. I still had nightmares about the front door being broken down, a man with a knife stalking through the hallway. But I loved my flat, with its soothing olive green walls and whitewashed pine floors, the evening light that poured through the dormer windows, and the views towards the park. Josh had fitted an extra high-tech lock on the front door and, when he wasn’t traveling, he usually stayed over. We’d eat by candlelight at the kitchen window that overlooked the slate rooftops.

Josh knew all about my aura-sighting ability. We’d started dating around the time that I had seen my first aura. My strange behavior as I struggled to understand what was happening to me might have been enough to derail our nascent romance. But it didn’t. Once he’d had time to think about it, Josh had come to terms with the auras, and the way they made me act.

I wished he were here with me right now, but he was working on a project in Bristol for a few weeks, coming home to London most weekends. It wasn’t easy, being apart, but we were managing. He’d recently been promoted at the architectural firm where we both worked. Where I
had
worked, I reminded myself. Following the tragic events of the previous year, when one of my bosses had been convicted of murder, the company was going through a rocky period. The loss of a major client had created a major financial shortfall, so I’d volunteered to take a few months off until things stabilized. I’m an architect, but I was doing something different for the moment — filling in time and making some money using my skills as a photographer and graphics designer on a variety of freelance projects.

After slipping off my soggy running shoes just inside the door, I walked slowly up the hallway towards the bathroom, pausing to straighten one of the framed black and white photos that I’d taken in Tuscany where my father lived. It reminded me that I should call him later to see how he was doing.

Poor Dad. Our phone calls were difficult for both of us, stilted and superficial. We’d chat about the weather or gardening, anything to avoid talking about what really mattered. My mother had been killed by a speeding car the previous spring, leaving him alone and bereft in the rambling eighteenth-century villa that they had restored together. And, at the time when he’d needed me the most, we’d had a falling out. The auras were to blame. While he was mourning my mother, I was telling him stories of swirling air that predicted death.

I think that my sudden ability to see auras was a way of dealing with my terrifying realization that we live in a world of risk and unpredictability. Seeing auras gave me a sense of control, however illusory. I could tell when someone was about to die. In theory, I could do something to stop it happening. In practice, of course, it didn’t always work that way.

In the bathroom, I turned on the shower, savoring the heat of the water, which warmed my chilled skin and helped to clear my head, but I still had no idea what to do about the auras over Simon Scott and Kevin Lewis. The last time I’d tried to intervene, things hadn’t turned out too well. I scrubbed my skin until it turned pink. I’d saved my nephew Aidan, I reminded myself, and a homeless man. Maybe I could save Scott and Lewis too. But I couldn’t exactly call and tell them I knew they were going to die.

That evening, I took the Central Line from Lancaster Gate to Shepherd’s Bush, just a few stops on the tube. Most days, I took the escalators down to the tracks without a second thought. Sometimes, and this was one of them, I found myself wondering what possessed us to descend so far underground, to hurtle through dark tunnels deep beneath the gas lines, electrical cables, and tarmac streets of the city above.

Despite my apprehensions, however, I reached my destination without incident, and emerged through the windblown concourse into cold rain that quickly soaked my woolen jacket. Avoiding puddles on the potholed pavement, I walked past rows of small shops, closed at this time in the evening. A hair salon stood next to a hardware store that displayed an ambitious pyramid of galvanized buckets in its darkened window. Further on, rap music spilled from an all-night convenience shop where the owner stood in the doorway, keeping an eye on the racks of exotic fruits and vegetables that sheltered under a green awning.

The campaign office next door to it had also been a shop at one time. Now its windows were plastered with poster-sized photos of a beaming Simon Scott and placards exhorting passersby to get out and vote.

When I pushed the door open, a bell chimed but was barely audible above the racket inside. The large space was warm, smelling of burned coffee and wet wool with an undertone of glue and permanent marker. A dozen people talked on phones at long tables down one side, while a group of young men with stubbled chins huddled around a laptop, loudly debating with each other. They were probably political science students. At the back, bent over a trestle table, were Anita and four other women, all with paintbrushes in hand.

Anita looked up and waved me over. “You came! Here, let me introduce you.” As she reeled off a list of names, the volunteers nodded, smiled or held out a hand to shake mine.

“Will you help us with this banner?” Anita asked. “You have a good eye for graphics.”

“Okay.” I dumped my bag under the table. The poster was horrible. Wrong colors, wrong everything. I made some tactful suggestions, which the volunteers seemed happy to implement, and my assistance earned me a cup of tea, freshly brewed by Anita. The mugs were thick and chipped, but the tea was good, and hot. I needed the heat. My skin was still chilled from my run in the rain that morning, but the cold went deeper than that. I had an icy feeling in my stomach, a sense of dread. I hadn’t been able to put those auras out of my mind.

“Come and sit over here,” Anita said, indicating a small formica table that leaned against the wall. I took a seat on a wobbly wooden stool.

“I wasn’t sure that you’d come,” Anita said. “Did I prick your conscience?”

“Something like that.” I couldn’t tell her I was there because of the auras over Scott and Lewis. She didn’t know anything about my aura-seeing gift. The previous year, when I’d first started seeing auras, she’d been working at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Although we’d promised to stay in touch, to talk on the phone every weekend, it hadn’t happened. We’d ended up communicating through short texts. There’d never been a good opportunity to tell her about my newfound ability to see portents in moving air.

She’d been back in London for several months now, and I still hadn’t told her. She was my best friend and I loved her dearly, but my bizarre ability would make no sense to her. It didn’t follow the scientific rules she lived by. She wouldn’t understand and I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship.

Taking tiny sips of the scalding hot tea, I looked at her over the rim of my mug. Her dark brown eyes usually sparkled with energy. Tonight, they were dull and flat, barely meeting mine as she twirled a lock of black hair around her finger.

“What’s wrong, Anita?” I asked. “Did you fight with your dad again?”

She shook her head. “That’s an ongoing problem. Nothing new.”

“So what’s upsetting you?”

She looked around as though to make sure no one else was paying attention. “I can’t put my finger on it, but Dr. Reid has been behaving strangely. Distracted.” She put her mug down on the table. “I caught him prescribing the wrong medication for a juvenile patient yesterday. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I just amended the prescription before the child’s mother could take it to the hospital pharmacy.”

Dr. Reid was Anita’s head of department, a doctor of god-like abilities by all accounts.

“Was it dangerous? The wrong prescription?”

She shrugged. “It could have been. What if I don’t catch it next time?”

“Have you tried talking with him? Suggested he take a week off or something?”

She cocked her head to one side. “First-year residents don’t suggest
anything
to head of department. They definitely don’t suggest that he’s losing his marbles and writing out bad prescriptions.”

“Well, it seems as though you should do something.”

The hair stood up on my arms. Here I was dishing out advice to Anita while I was achieving nothing to ensure the safety of Scott and Lewis. I’d read up everything I could find on the Internet about Simon Scott. Married, no children, popular, he’d become leader of the Opposition party the previous year, when his predecessor retired due to illness. Scott had been a doctor, then a Member of Parliament. Two years ago, he’d been appointed Shadow Under-Secretary of State for Health, and he served on a clutch of Committees on global health, women’s health and veterans’ health. From what I’d read, his party was ahead in the polls. But his distinct aura meant he was going to die, probably before the election.

Anita waved a hand in front of my face. “Hellooo? Where did you go?”

“I’m sorry. So, what will happen, do you think, with Dr. Reid?”

“Nothing, with any luck. I’m hoping he’s just tired and will bounce back soon. I’ll keep an eye open but I don’t feel as though there’s anything concrete I can do.”

That’s how I felt too. Useless, as I always did when I saw an aura in a situation where I had no chance of intervening. Once, I’d approached a young woman to strike up a conversation in an attempt to identify whatever it was that threatened her. She had been friendly at first and then quickly retreated, understandably wary of a complete stranger asking her personal questions on a station platform. I often wondered what had happened to her.

I looked around the room at the volunteers, who were all intent on their tasks. They were here because they believed in Scott and his political party. My motives were very different. I wanted to spend time with Anita. And I needed to find out more about Scott.

“I suppose Simon Scott never comes over here, does he?” I asked. “To meet the worker bees?”

Anita shook her head. “He’s never been here as far as I know. I was hoping I’d meet him at the hospital some time. He’s really into health issues, and he did his residency in Pediatric surgery.” She raised her eyebrows. “Why do you want to meet him? Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly got all excited about politics?”

“Well, maybe a little.”

“Good. Then you should plan on coming here for the next couple of weeks. We’ll have a lot to do with the run-up to the election. And you never know, maybe we’ll get to speak to him if we go to some of the campaign rallies.”

She sipped her tea. “I’m feeling quite proud of myself. I’ve made a convert. You’re now a fully-functioning citizen, exercising your right to participate fully in the electoral process.”

She was smiling so I knew she was teasing me. Still, I wanted to tell her the truth, that I didn’t really care about politics at all, but that I did feel an obligation to try to stop something bad from happening before the election. Now was the right time to tell Anita about the auras. She was committed to ensuring the successful appointment of Scott as Prime Minister. If I didn’t tell her now, when an aura was over someone she cared about, when would I? Besides, it felt wrong to me that I hadn’t shared this intimate detail of my life with her. Keeping something so important from her skewed our friendship, threw it off balance.

“Anita, there’s something—”

“Anita?” A middle-aged woman in a grey pantsuit interrupted me. “Sorry, love, but can you give us a hand with the script for the weekend phone bank?”

Draining the last of her tea, Anita stood up. “Come on, Kate. We’re needed.”

Once we’d finished the script, Anita said she needed to go back to the hospital. Her working hours were not only long, but also erratic. We walked to the tube station together, but the moment to tell her about the auras had gone. She was quiet and distracted. I couldn’t tell whether she was more upset about the fight with her father or her boss’s unusual behavior.

“Let’s have lunch tomorrow,” I suggested.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m going to be crammed with work for the next couple of days. But we’ll talk. I’ll text you when I’m free.”

Accepting that as the best I’d get out of her in her current mood, I gave her a hug goodbye before hurrying to catch the tube back home. When I got off the train, my phone buzzed with three texts, all from my boyfriend, saying he was coming home for the night. He’d taken a late train from Bristol. Elated, I walked along Queensway, where ethnic restaurants were still busy with diners, and groups of locals and tourists strolled past the souvenir shops, enjoying a break in the rain. Above the brightly-lit buzz of commerce below, the silver moon hung low in the sky, garlanded with threads of ebony cloud. Perhaps there was a chance of clear weather tomorrow.