Turquoiselle (22 page)

“So now this is a hospital, and you’re the specialist, right? You’re
going to tell me I have three months to live. Or two. Is
that
it?”
Between fury and unexpected terror – he felt such emotions sweeping in on him,
and horror, that too, that extra primal sense of the darkness and the
redness
–
the 6th Level Alert, only one below Armageddon – one quarter minute to midnight
on the nuclear clock –

She kept silent. She let him
fall
silent. She let the silence
open wide its awful wings and threaten to devour them both.

And then, out of the silence, she said, “You might prefer I told
you that, Mr Carver. But it isn’t that. Your last medical check showed you
healthy and very fit. Everything in perfect working order. Much, much better
even than for many much younger men. But this other matter. That’s different.
Sit down, Mr Carver, please. It will be easier then, on us both.” And he left
the window and sat down.

As
she spoke to him, she ceased to be beautiful, or anyone he (even slightly)
knew. She became only her voice, and then the voice smoked off into the dark
and the red. Her voice became only what it said to him, and told him, the
pictures this summoned. Sometimes he thought he interrupted to ask her
questions, or to contest what she said. Did she reply? Or not–? Conceivably
he
did
not speak. Afterwards,though he could recollect his asking, denying,
challenging, he could not remember hearing his
own
voice. Therefore maybe he
had only listened, dumb.

“
Scar
.
You’ve read the file and the other notes on
Scar
. No need for subterfuge.
Please credit me when I tell you this, no one can presently either see or
eavesdrop, let alone record, our talk or actions. All Surveillance, and
affiliated systems here, have failed, or are in the full process of it.
Security and visio-audial went the first. As with any type of Third Person. Of
course, this is enemy sabotage, and connected to the other effect which has
taken hold, the generalised irrational behaviour of almost everyone on site,
the –
madness
I
may as well call it. It amounts to madness, sometimes in its most pronounced
forms. And in this case, perhaps, to judge a book by its cover is only common
sense. What else but mad was poor Charlie Hemel? Or any of the several others
who have done similar or worse things in the past forty-eight hours? But you’ve
witnessed a lot of madness, haven’t you, Mr Carver? Enough to recognise it
without too much prevarication. Accept, then, the mechanisms are also out of
their minds. And I can say freely what I must say. And you should listen in
turn as freely and openly. There will be no record. Not that a record of this
particular lesson is required. It must simply occur.
Scar
,
then, the curious clue to some unprecedented espionage or conspiracy, some
terrorist or conjunctive plan. Scar. A name for a mark on the skin, a landscape
feature. A family name. And the
Third Scar
, the enigma – the
final item – at which the deadly curse, as in a story of Mr Sherlock Holmes by
Mr Arthur Conan Doyle, will fall. I won’t now unravel the leads in this piece
of nonsense. It was and is a very open code, and meant to be suspected, if
perhaps not entirely solved. It was leaked, of course. In the same way that
Silvia Dusa – do you remember Silvia? – was intended to desert Mantik and go
over to the opposition, or rather to the branch of the opposition in whose
faltering stronghold you and I now find ourselves. Silvia Dusa had her own
mission, which she fulfilled rather well. She sold you to the enemies of
Mantik, the outfit here. And when Mantik had tangled you up sufficiently – the
faked and incriminating recording of you and Silvia, her death, the implication
of your exclusion – and left you unprotectedly alone, the opposition,
under the aegis of Mr Peter Croft moved in, and took you
and brought you here, to this cliffy retreat. And no, though in a way you are
in Britain, we are not in Kent, Mr Carver. Hopefully in a while, sooner or
later, you’ll get a proper overview of where we are. But that’s for future
reference. Meanwhile, fully to clarify
Scar
for you, the
Third
Scar. There are indeed three subjects. Not marks of old wounds, nor outcrops of
cliffs, nor, in themselves, influences, curses. They are three people. As for
the family name given them, I’m afraid this is someone’s little joke in very
bad taste. Maybe it even halfway suggested itself to you, and you dismissed it,
not unintelligently, as meaning nothing. Except, it does, you see. Or, you
will see in a moment.
Take your mother’s name, now. Zarissa, originally.
But she anglicised it, a common self-protective measure among foreign immigrants
to any unknown country; either the parents do it, or the children at last.
Molinsky becomes Mollins, perhaps, or Goldman – Oldman. Petre or Pe’ta – Peter.
Cava becomes Carver with the last A replaced and thrown off, and Andreas –
Andrew. And Zarissa – Sara. Sara Carver. S. Carver. SCARVER. Loose the last
three letters.
SCAR
.”

“It
passes down through the mothers, it seems, the relevant gene. Though the women
themselves are not, at least as is so far known, imbued with its powers. Rather
like the disease haemophilia, which passes through the mother and, again, as is
so far known, affects mostly her sons. Though an occasional daughter has, it
was eventually determined, also been afflicted by the ailment.
So it crosses from family to unrelated family, through
sexual union in or out of marriage. The woman herself ungifted, or unpoisoned,
dormant, only the conducting agent. In this case now, the three people referred
to in Mantik’s scheme do include two men and one woman. All of them fairly young,
in their early or mid thirties, as are you. Of course, as are you. Since you, Mr
Carver, are the third of their number. Let me make clear at once that the
skittish use of your mother’s name to identify both you and the rest of the
English trio, does not mean Sara, your mother, gave birth to all three. Indeed
not. Her only child, at least this far, has been yourself. The other male’s
mother was an English woman, who died during his infancy in Europe. And the
female member of the Scar Trio – well, her mother is still alive, though
perhaps not for too much longer. A frail woman, this mother, and extensively
vicious to compensate her for her frailty. How do I know to offer such a
personal insight? Why, because the bitch is my mother, naturally. Since I am the
Second Scar, Mr Carver. Drink some more of the coffee now, Mr Carver. It will
help you. Yes, good. Rest your back against the wall. Good. I will wait a
moment or two. I think we have time.”

“There
are estimates of between four hundred and six hundred other people of this,
our, type, so far identified, or largely analysed as probable, across the
accessible and investigable world. Some of these are still children, of those
many are less than ten years of age. Rather randomly then, twenty adult
candidates are scattered about the northern United States. Approximately the
same number in South America. Thirty-six or thirty-eight have been verified, or
are rumoured to have been, through Russia and her satellite countries. In the
Middle East one hundred and ten, (the bulk in Iran). In the Scandinavian
countries ten to seventeen. In China, the Koreas, and Japan, jointly, seventy-five.
Australia, at the last count, eighty-one. There are, or seem to be, un
count
able others in India, where indigenous
religious beliefs and mysticism may both camouflage, and conversely, falsely
promote, their activities. Most of Africa is in a complementary state. By and
large no data, however carefully collated, can provide an exact, numerically
accurate list. Even so, from information now available, and fully validated,
the fact that such persons exist is proven. What do they matter though, this
strange random and polyglot tribe, of which you and I, Mr Carver, are part?
They matter, and we, I and you matter, because of the
genetically bestowed powers I have mentioned.
Powers
, Mr
Carver, Natural abilities of various sorts, all of them quite extraordinary,
and of differentiated and – shall I use the word? – there is no other –
miraculous
scope. There have always been, so legend and history both inform us, such
people. Miracle workers in the literal meaning of the words. They can read
minds, or move objects without physically touching them, take on animal forms,
levitate upward into the air, heal – or harm. Cure. Or kill. You’ve seen, Mr Carver,
something of what
I
can do.
Shape–shifter
,
that would have been the name for me, back in ignorant years. I will show, in a
little while, when there is more time to spare, something of the full gamut of
my abilities. It started when I was eleven years old. I saw a movie – who was
it? Some pretty girl – I wanted to be blonde like her. My hair was black as
coal. When my mother saw me, she beat me. Extra spitefully. She thought I had
used bleach from the kitchen. She thought I had wastefully and time-wastingly
endangered myself, and wasted the bleach, and that blondes were scum from the
Devil’s fundament. In the morning, of course, I had healed my cuts and bruises
– not from any non-existent bleach but from her hands and the implement she had
wielded, a fish-slice. But my mother forgot what she had done. If she’d
recalled I think she would have accused
me
of ‘harming myself’. (This
had happened, this false accusation after one of her attacks, before.) But by
the morning also I was brunette again. When
they
began to investigate me, I
did not know – I was twelve. An agent of Mantik’s – Mr Preece he was called –
visited me when I was just fourteen. I had been discovered later than the first
of the two men, I was the second discovery. The
t
hird
and last  of whom is you. And so we arrive at you, Mr Carver.
You
.”

Carver thought, afterwards, he said to her then, “You healed your
bruises and turned back into a brunette. And your eyes are dark now. They used
to be blue. Not shape-changing. It’s called personal delusion. And wearing
contact lenses.”

But presumably he did
not
say it. He had already
stopped seeing her; she was only a voice, and words, and images that formed
from them.

Besides, by then also he knew, or something in him knew, that to
fight any longer was useless. And outside the night was black and red and made
no sound, as it crept towards them up the hill.

“Preece,
like certain others who would finally contact such people as myself, and you,
tend themselves to minor but fascinatingly odd talents. Preece could undo
locked doors without keys. Sunderland was like this too. Do you recall
Sunderland? I don’t know what he was good at. Something. But what you’ll want
to know, or you will feel that you must
have
the knowledge of, a
decision that is valid, is what
is your
personal – power –
skill
,
shall I say?
Your
special and major talent. Mr Croft mentioned something?”

“Energies,” Carver (afterward) thought he had scathingly, wearily,
said. But he had not said anything.

“Croft – his name, too, was altered in childhood – he derived
from an area off the Mediterranean, unaffiliated with either the Arab nations
or the Jews, let alone the Russian political landmass. Mr Croft was born in
Britain. But that was in the past. Now, in the recent days here, when he began firstly
to feel the effects of the induced
madness
, as we must term it, he
became somewhat fulsome, unwise... enough to alert you, maybe, or not.
I suspect you are so accustomed by now to the extreme
behaviours of others. Their unreliable and occasionally dangerous sillinesses.
Hysterical women. Eccentric men. Even the terrible and brutal rages of your
father. But Mr Croft no doubt told you, you could summon and release energies,
the nature and direction of which none of them, here in this stronghold of Croft’s
organisation, had quite been able to solve, let alone take
precautions
against
. A
pity for them, that. Mantik, on the other hand, solved the puzzle some while
back. Then, you may think unkindly, wickedly, they allowed certain aspects to
proceed, exposing to your particular
skill
persons of assembled types,
to see precisely the
results
. Do you recall the man nicknamed
Bugger Back-Scratcher
at
the place on Trench Street? The man who always, too intimately, felt the male
workers up, when performing their security checks? He was one of the people
Mantik left open to your skill. No, no, of course you had no notion. Believe
me, take it in and don’t let go of it, you were, during all these events,
innocent.
Mr
Back-Scratcher
finally sexually assaulted a man on the tube, in front of
witnesses. Mantik hushed up the business. They rescued
Mr Back–Scratcher
from the force of the Law, recompensed the assaultee.
Mr Back–Scratcher
is
elsewhere now. Treatable, apparently. His exposure was limited and intermittent.
And, obviously, some persons, as with any – shall I say,
diseases
? –
will be much more susceptible than others. It has been noted, nevertheless,
even once a formula for general protection was developed for use by Mantik,
passed off as one more essential ordinary medical shot – against ‘flu, MRSA –
there were always slight discrepancies. You may, for example, have noticed that
some people, when they are with you, even if not acting in any overtly
peculiar way, are still prone to
silly
little affectations and
mistakes. Repeating some word over and over – that’s a favourite. Jack Stuart
found it very amusing, that. He found, luckily for Mr Stuart, that once he left
your vicinity, this blip quickly corrected itself for him. Mr Carver, I have
to say, even
I
, who am virtually totally naturally immune to your skill –
your unconscious, and innocent and
deadly
skill – seem to be
repeating certain words, phrases, as I’ve sat here with you. Full, for example
even, if in different syntactical forms.
Forms
, even.
Even
,
even. But you know, don’t you, you’ve
known
in some way all your life,
that people close to you,
exposed
to you, and inevitably
those that work with you, live with you, sleep with you, fuck with you, seem to
lose their reason.”