‘Don’t exaggerate, Dad,’ Carl said shyly.
‘I’m not, son. It was incredible,’ Drew went on telling Ben. ‘Soon there were whole crowds gathering. By the time Carl had already won two games in a row, I ran back to the house for my video camera and started filming. I had to get this on tape. Some people thought it was fixed, or that Carl was cheating somehow. But he wasn’t. After three straight defeats, Ángelo Martín lost his rag and went storming off.’
Carl couldn’t help smiling at the memory.
‘Word spread during the couple more weeks we were there,’ Drew went on. ‘A local journalist called Isabella Saura got wind of it and asked for an interview. I’ve got that on tape too. Hold on.’ Drew fast-forwarded the video. At high speed, Ben saw the disgruntled chess champion throw over his king and stomp angrily away. The picture dissolved into static for a second, then cut to the interview.
‘I hate watching myself,’ Carl muttered.
Drew let it play. Indoors now, a slightly younger Jessica was sitting proudly smiling with her arm around Carl. ‘Mrs Hunter,’ said the interviewer, Isabella Saura in lightly accented English, ‘what would you say to the sceptics who don’t believe your son is a newcomer to the game of chess?’
‘Carl’s got a special talent,’ Jessica said. ‘That’s all there is to it. Anyone who saw him play knows that he didn’t cheat. He wouldn’t have.’
Turning to Carl, the interviewer said, ‘So now, Carl, when you return home after your holiday, you will be able to tell your friends at school that you beat the Spanish chess champion. Were you nervous?’
‘Not really,’ he said, blushing and looking down at his feet. ‘It wasn’t that hard for me to win.’
‘Ugh,’ the real-life Carl snorted, watching himself in disapproval. ‘Talk about snotty.’
‘Shush, Carl,’ Drew said.
‘You certainly made it look easy,’ the interviewer chuckled. ‘What is the secret of your amazing ability?’
‘I sort of knew what he was going to do, before he did it,’ replied the on-screen Carl. ‘That’s how I could beat him so fast.’
‘You mean you could predict what the champion’s every move would be? Surely this must take years of study and practice? But you have only been playing a short time?’
‘I could read his thoughts,’ the boy said nonchalantly.
‘In Spanish?’ the interview replied, making a joke of it.
‘Doesn’t matter what language,’ the boy told her. ‘I can just read people’s minds. Anybody’s.’ He added, ‘Yours too.’
Drew turned off the tape. ‘It’s the truth,’ he said to Ben. ‘Carl has an incredible gift. That’s what I meant when I said he couldn’t get into Mike’s head. Because normally, he knows what people are thinking.’
‘Come on,’ Ben said.
‘You think it’s all bullshit, do you? You’re wrong. Telepathy, ESP, whatever you want to call it, is recognised as a reality. The Russians have been researching it for decades. The Americans too. They take it seriously enough to spend millions. It’s not a joke.’
‘Is it true, Carl?’ Ben said. ‘You can read minds?
Carl shrugged. ‘Not all of the time. Depends.’
‘Okay, then what’s on my mind?’ Ben asked him.
‘You don’t believe us. You think we’re making it up.’
Ben smiled. ‘You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure that one out.’
Carl hesitated for a moment. A defiant look coming into his eye, he said, ‘What you were thinking. Before you brought us back here. You were wrong. And you know you were wrong.’
‘Thinking?’
‘That Dad killed the detective man,’ Carl said. ‘It’s not true. Dad wouldn’t hurt anybody. And he never sent those men to get you, either.’
Ben was stunned. How could the boy have known about those suspicions that had been in his mind at the time?
‘How many men, Carl?’ he asked.
Carl thought for a moment. ‘Three.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I can see them,’ Carl said.
‘Inside my head? What else can you see?’
‘There was a lion,’ Carl said.
‘A lion?’
‘Just its head. Shiny. Like gold.’
Ben remembered the polished brass knocker on the door of the Finley & Reynolds detective agency.
‘Black door,’ Carl said. ‘There was a railing.’
Ben stared at Carl, then at Drew. It wasn’t possible. There had to be a trick. ‘He’s been to Dover. He’s just describing what he’s seen with his own eyes.’
‘How could he have been there?’ Drew replied. ‘I wasn’t allowed to see him, remember? Let alone take him with me. I went to see Paul Finley in Dover by myself.’
‘Then you told him about it.’
‘About my secret visit to the detective agency?’ Drew said. ‘You don’t think I’d have kept that to myself, in case he let something slip? He’s just a boy.’
‘Then how’s he doing this?’ Ben asked. He remembered how Carl had appeared to know he was following them earlier that day in the street. The way he’d turned to stare, picking Ben out of the crowd as if some unseen finger had just pointed down out of the sky to give him away. It had baffled him then. It baffled him even more now.
‘You tell me,’ Drew said. ‘There is no explanation. He just can. He’s special. And Mike Greerson knows it. Don’t you get it yet? That’s what this is all about.’
16
‘Tell me about Mike, Carl,’ Ben said.
The boy shrugged. ‘He bought me stuff and he was always acting nice. Wanting to be my friend. But I never liked him much. He was always hanging around me when Mum wasn’t there. Setting me these sort of tests.’
‘Tests?’
‘Yeah. Like, he’d show me a photo of someone I’d never seen before and ask me to guess what their name was, where they lived, stuff like that. Or he’d bring out a pack of cards, pick one and ask me to tell him what it was without looking. Sometimes he’d hide something in the house somewhere, a key or a spoon, all kinds of stuff. Then he’d get me tell him where they were.’
‘And could you?’
‘Most of the time,’ Carl said nonchalantly. ‘It was sort of a fun thing at first. After a while I started pretending not to be able to know the answers. I didn’t like the game any more.’
‘Did your mum know that Mike was playing these games with you?’ Ben asked.
Carl shook his head. ‘It was always just the two of us alone.’
Ben lowered his voice and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Carl, I need to ask you an important question. Don’t be afraid to tell the truth, okay? Nobody will blame you. I need to know if there was any other part of these games that you haven’t told anyone about. Did Mike ever do anything, or touch you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable?’
Carl flushed. ‘There wasn’t anything like …like that.’
‘All right. I believe you,’ Ben said, withdrawing his hand. ‘I just needed to be sure, Carl.’
‘Okay,’ Carl said.
‘How did Mike act when you pretended not to know the answers to his questions? Did he get angry?’
‘No. He was always quiet. He never yelled at me or anything. He just seemed like he didn’t believe me. He’d leave it alone, then after a while if Mum wasn’t around he’d start trying again.’
‘Tell him about the newspaper cutting, Carl,’ Drew said.
Carl nodded. ‘It was in the summer house.’
‘It used to be my studio,’ Drew explained. ‘Now it’s Mike’s office.’
‘What newspaper?’ Ben asked.
‘The chess game episode in Spain didn’t exactly make national headlines,’ Drew told Ben. ‘But Isabella Saura’s interview with Carl did make it to the local media. Carl found a clipping of the article in Mike’s briefcase. So what the hell was that doing there, eh? And since when did he understand Spanish?’