Mind Blind (3 page)

Now that everyone was in bed, I could start to search again. The urn wasn’t in this house, but perhaps I could find the addresses of the houses I had to search next.

I switched on my torch and opened the top drawer of the desk. It was filled with notebooks and printer paper.

The next drawer contained pens, compasses and rulers.

The bottom drawer held old CD roms and dusty cables, as well as a multipack of slim silver flash drives. The pack had been torn open and there was only one left inside.

I tipped out the single flash drive and weighed it in my hand. Did it feel familiar? To be sure, I had to go back into Vivien’s memory again.

I was spending a lot of time in this dead girl’s head, much more time than I’d spent with her when she’d been alive.

I hadn’t spent that much time with her, because the grab had only taken a few minutes and the getaway had been fast too.

The whole job had felt weird and unsettling right from the beginning.

At the briefing, I had sat at the back, as far away from everyone else as possible. I don’t like sitting too close to anyone, even people I’ve known all my life. I don’t want to sense their emotions, even if they’re feeling the same emotions as me.

So I hate briefings, I hate parties, I hate car journeys, I hate sharing a bedroom and I only ever touch another human being by choice if I’m trying to beat them in a fight.

I sat at the very back of the room, my chair pushed hard into the corner, while my mum clicked information up onto the big screen, and my Uncle Malcolm talked us through the job.

I watched the screen, but I also watched my cousins nodding keenly in front of me. I could sense their desire to impress the senior readers. All except Roy, who was worried about something (possibly the welfare of the target); his little brother Josh, who was nervous (probably because this was his first job outside Scotland); and Daniel, who was confident he didn’t have to impress anyone because his dad already thought he was wonderful.

All this felt entirely normal. What felt weird was the information we weren’t getting.

Uncle Malcolm gave us details about times, locations and escape routes, and handed out a pile of maps, but there were no details about the background of the job, nor the intended outcome. He showed us pictures of the target, but didn’t tell us why the client wanted the target grabbed.

This lack of detail suggested it was a rush job. I’d guessed that already, when all the younger generation were summoned from Scotland at short notice.

A team of senior readers had come south earlier in the month. Mum and most of my uncles and aunts had vanished in the middle of the night a fortnight ago, rushing down to the Surrey warehouse we use as a base for our regular London operations.

They’d left all the teenagers behind, with only Aunt Rose and Uncle Greg in charge of training, which meant hours of martial arts with Aunt Rose and hours of getting in touch with our feelings with Uncle Greg. But we had plenty of time to skive off too, which meant lots of fishing and football
during the day and lots of pizza and action films at night.

None of us had had a full night’s sleep or eaten any fruit and veg for a couple of weeks.

Now here we were, after an overnight drive down in three uncomfortably packed people carriers, about to take part in a grab that clearly hadn’t been fully thought through.

But I couldn’t say that. I’m only a foot soldier. I don’t get to question the bosses’ decisions. I don’t even get to do the exciting stuff. I just hang about at the back, picking up any mess. No one trusts me to do more than that.

Though the briefing was sketchy, it was clear why they needed the fourth generation of readers in London. We were the best team for this job.

Because the job was to identify, follow and grab a teenage target as she came out of school. Half a dozen strange adults hanging about the school gates would have been suspicious, but half a dozen teenagers would blend in perfectly.

So we were shown pictures of the target, and a map of her usual route to her flamenco class, with an ‘x’ at the spot where Daniel and Martha would grab her and put her in the van, as well as the locations of the back-up van and the senior readers’ cars, and the safest routes back to base.

That was it.

My mum stood up. “Come on. We need to be there before the bell goes.” We grabbed our equipment and left the briefing room, which was really just a large shed in the middle of the warehouse. All our bedrooms and offices are in boxy little portacabins scattered around the cold grey space.

We climbed into two blue people carriers and two white vans parked near the shuttered front doors, and drove off.

I was in the second people carrier. Laura sat in the front with my mum. Becky, Roy and Josh sat in the middle. I sat in the back, on my own, as usual, wearing my black leather jacket and gloves, as usual.

It’s not a fashion statement. Leather gives me some
protection. Not against emotions, nothing can stop them getting through, but against the thoughts I read whenever I touch someone. Leather is much better than fabric. With another animal’s skin between me and the rest of the world, it isn’t quite so overwhelming. Perhaps I’ll get a motorbike when I’m old enough, so I can wear black leather from head to toe for the rest of my life.

I sat on my own, studying the map. After about twenty minutes, Roy turned round and flicked the corner of the printout. “Nearly there, mate. Are you ready?”

We checked we had all the essentials. Cash, in case we got stranded. False ID, in case we got lifted. Masks, mobile phones and microphones. Then we all pulled on stripy green-and-blue school ties, badly knotted and deliberately squint.

We couldn’t hang around outside the school before the final bell – we’d look like truants. Also Malcolm said that the target was never first out of the door. So we stayed in the vehicles until we heard shrill ringing, then got swiftly into position.

All four teams were in place by the time pupils started to come out of Winslow Academy’s wide green doors and down the dozen steps to the street.

Team 1 was the grab team – Daniel and Martha, Malcolm’s kids and the most efficient readers in our generation. They were out of sight, in the alley, inside the van driven by Uncle Paul, our usual getaway driver. Both of them were already masked, waiting to leap out and grab the target as she went past.

Team 2 was the follow team – Becky and Laura, Roy’s big sisters. They were waiting at the bottom of the steps. Teenage girls don’t expect to be followed by other teenage girls, so Becky and Laura walking behind the target wouldn’t make her suspicious. Neither of them were strong readers, but all they had to do was follow a target in plain sight.

Team 3 was the advance team – two readers leaning
against a wall further down the road. No one expects to be followed by someone in front, but if you can anticipate where a target is going, you can keep ahead of them and make sure nothing gets in the way of the job. The advance team was Roy, who can’t read worth a damn but is smarter than the rest of us, and Sam, who can read well enough but lacks Roy’s brains.

Team 4 was the loser team, just there to pick up rubbish.

I was in team 4. Obviously. Me and Roy’s little brother. Like all Auntie Susan’s kids, Josh is a fairly weak reader, and he’s only just turned twelve. So he’s the rookie and I’m the wimp. Team 4. Team Loser.

Josh and I were stationed opposite the school, to watch the pupils leaving and to act as the main contact with the senior readers, so the active teams didn’t have to walk and talk at the same time. Once the target was en route, we’d circle round to the other end of the alley, so we could clear away any evidence after the grab.

We were the bin men. But at least we were out on the job this time, rather than sitting back at base doing homework.

Normal boys hanging about outside a school would probably moan about their parents or make admiring comments about passing girls. But we were wearing throat mikes and earpieces, so our family could hear every word we said. We would only talk if it was relevant to the job.

I said, “You all set?”

Josh answered, “Yeah.”

And that was it. Male bonding on the job.

Josh stood beside me fiddling with his phone, while I perched on a low wall, leaning against a lamppost. I was trying to look casual, but I also knew that standing upright might be a bit of a struggle in the next few minutes. Because we were now watching a stream of kids coming out of Winslow Academy.

Dozens of them, then hundreds, pouring out of the doors,
barging around each other, then hanging about at the bottom of the steps. Most of the kids were wearing ties, but this wasn’t a school with blazers, so there was a colourful mix of denim jackets, cardigans, hoodies, duffel coats and even a few unfortunate anoraks.

I could see them, and hear them yelling and chatting.

I could sense them too.

I could sense every single emotion, of every person in that crowd. Waves of emotion were crashing into me, knocking me off balance.

More pupils flowed out of the school and the crowd started to push across the road towards us. I was struggling to breathe through the overwhelming weight of their advancing feelings.

I hate crowds. I don’t enjoy being close to my family, but at least their feelings are familiar. This was like being attacked by an army of strangers. All these new emotions battering up against me, swirling around in my head, pushing me backwards…

“You ok?” asked Josh.

I was clinging onto the lamppost, hugging it.

Then my mum’s voice in my ear, alerted by Josh’s question. “Are you ok, son? Can you cope, do you need me to take you home?”

This was so humiliating. Everyone was hearing this.

“I’m fine, I can cope.”

I loosened my grip on the lamppost. I let the wall and the lamppost support me. I let the waves of people’s feelings tear into me and over me, and I did cope. But only just.

I concentrated on looking for the target. Lots of the girls walking down the steps looked similar to the girl in the photos, so I was looking at bags too, assuming that however fashion-conscious a girl was, she probably only had one schoolbag.

But I kept being knocked off-balance by the increasing number of kids swarming out of the school, radiating more feelings straight at me.

At least most of the emotions assaulting me were positive. Relief at getting out of school. Pleasure at seeing friends. Excitement about the free hours ahead. There were ripples of sadness from lonely kids and spikes of aggression from boys squaring up to each other. But it was mostly happy feelings slamming into me. That was probably better than an angry crowd or a grieving one.

Then I saw her. So did Josh. He lifted his hand to point at her.

I kicked him. I prefer to kick than hit. With strong boots and thick soles, fewer thoughts get through.

So I kicked his hand down and muttered, “Don’t point, you idiot.”

Then I said more formally, “Team 4, target spotted.”

Because there she was. In the blue coat she’d been wearing in two of the surveillance pictures. With the same stripy schoolbag on her shoulder. Walking down the steps, laughing with a friend.

The target.

“Are you sure?” asked Malcolm.

“Yes,” I said.

“Confirmed,” said Josh.

“Team 2 confirms sighting,” said Becky.

“Then do your job,” said Malcolm.

So we did.

Becky and Laura waited until the target got to the bottom step and turned left, then they wandered casually after her.

“Team 2 following,” I said quietly. I checked further down the road and saw Roy glance round at the target.

“Team 3 keeping ahead,” Roy said, then he and Sam started walking down the road, kicking an empty can between them.

“Target is following expected route,” I said. “Team 3 ahead and Team 2 behind. I’m not sensing suspicion or fear from the target. She’s calm and happy.”

She was happy. She was chatting to her friend, on her way home from school.

I nodded to Josh and said, “Team 4 heading for the alley.”

“Good move, son. Well done,” said my mum, carefully not using any names.

Malcolm snorted. “He’s not doing anything special, he’s just following my plan.”

I grinned. My mum was a senior and very loyal member of the family firm, but every time she praised me, it seriously annoyed Malcolm. Her encouragement and Malcolm’s irritation gave me the energy to jump off the wall.

As the overwhelming crowd of kids began to thin out, Josh and I turned the opposite way from the other teams.

We were going to sprint right round a large residential block to the other end of the alley our target used as a short cut to her dance studio. However, we didn’t want any witnesses saying, “Oh yes I saw a couple of lads running like they’d robbed a bank,” so Josh held his jacket loosely in his left hand and I whirled round, grabbed it from him and ran off.

“Hey! Give that back!” And he chased me.

So people just saw a couple of kids fooling around.

As we sprinted round one corner, then another, I knew from the calmness of my family’s distant feelings and the silence in my ear that it was all going to plan.

If the target did what she’d done last week and the week before, she’d walk to the next street corner, say goodbye, then as her friend went one way, the target would go the other, through her shortcut.

But then I sensed a jolt of surprise and concern, coming from several cousins at once.

I heard Laura’s voice sharp in my ear. “There’s a problem.”

“What?” asked Malcolm.

“Target didn’t turn off at the alley you identified. She’s still walking down the road with her friend.”

Josh stopped running. I didn’t. I turned and beckoned at him. Even if the job was changing, we were no help to anyone hanging about here on the pavement.

“Keep following,” ordered Malcolm. “Everyone stick to the plan. She might turn back.”