Transport again—the piano itself would have been better.
Pitman said, “A piano.”
Jerome gazed soberly at the doctor for a few seconds and said, “I’d like to sit down now, if you don’t mind.”
“I think you should.” Pitman was no longer smiling. “This has been quite a day for you—and unfortunately it’s far from over.”
Jerome backed away from the fallen box of provisions and lowered himself on to a bentwood chair near the living room door. He felt strangely calm, considering that his universe had undergone yet another upheaval, but his legs were rubbery. It was something of a relief to find that he could still speak without a tremor in his voice.
“The other thing I was going to ask you was how you found out in advance that I was coming here,” he said. “But I guess I already know the answer to that one.”
Pitman brought another bentwood out from the wall and straddled it, moving with the litheness of a much younger man. “You only know part of the answer. You see, I gave you the idea of coming here in the first place—and you may be pleased to hear that I also prevented you telling the whole world what happened to Sammy Birkett. I wasn’t able to exercise direct control—I’m not that powerful—but I was able to upset your judgment. What it boils down to is you’re not as bad at your job as you feared.”
“But that’s…”
“It isn’t impossible, Ray—just difficult. And very tiring. Active telepathy really takes the starch out of me, so I’m glad I don’t have to do it too often.”
“I really don’t know if I can cope with this,” Jerome said helplessly. “I didn’t believe in spontaneous human combustion until yesterday, and I didn’t believe in telepathy until a minute ago…and now…and now you’re here with my gun…Why do you need the gun, for God’s sake?”
“I need it because I may have to kill you,” Pitman replied. “I don’t want to kill you, and I deeply regret having to speak to you in these terms, but there’s so much at stake here that if I can’t get your co-operation I’ll terminate your life. Is that understood?”
“You make things very clear.” Jerome was surprised to discover that he felt a cold gloominess rather than fear. “Is there any point in my uttering the classic line?”
“I will get away with it, Ray, and I beg you to stop equating this with a scene from a play. I brought some chains in my car, and in a moment we’re going to take your rowboat out to the centre of the lake. There’ll be nobody around to hear the shot, nobody to see your body going overboard…You’ve got to take this thing very seriously.”
“I’m not laughing,” Jerome said. “Look, of course I’ll co-operate. I’d be crazy not to. I promise you I’ll go along with any plan you have in mind.”
“What else could you say?” Pitman stood up and changed his grip on the shotgun, closing his right hand around the trigger guard. “You’ve got your colour back. I do believe you’re fit enough to do a little gentle rowing. Let’s go.”
Jerome got to his feet and now, suddenly, he was afraid. Deathly afraid. “This part isn’t necessary. I swear to you that I’ll…”
Pitman shook his head. “Out to the boat, Ray. Move!”
Jerome walked slowly into the hall. The front door was still open and the scene beyond it could have graced a travel brochure—an acrylic composition of water, trees and distance-blued hills, with nothing in it to indicate that the whole world had gone monstrously wrong. Jerome had never been threatened with a firearm before and now he found himself morbidly conscious of the shotgun and all its engineered detail. As he walked out to the verandah he wondered what state of readiness the gun was in. If the doctor had neglected to release the safety catch it might be possible to wrest the weapon from him.
“Don’t try it,” Pitman said gently. “I’ve never liked guns, but I know how to use one.”
“Is it easy to tell what a person is thinking?”
“When he’s thinking graphically—the way you were doing just now.”
“I see.” Jerome stepped down off the verandah and walked towards his boat. In his mind he conjured up an image of an orange and held it there, trying to make it real, while at another level he thought about the oars lying beneath the boat’s covering. An oar would (see every pore on the orange skin; imagine the smell and the taste) make an effective club if he could get a good grip on it (see the oil spurting as your thumb goes into the peel, feel the pith under your nail) before Pitman realized what he was doing.
“That’s not much better,” Pitman said. “The orange was too irrelevant, an obvious screen. As soon as it appeared I went underneath. In any case, the oars are too heavy.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Jerome said, again wondering at his own adaptability. He was numb with dread at the prospect of a tight-packed cloud of lead pellets storming through his body, and yet his mind was swarming with questions about the doctor and his incredible powers. Was Pitman the only telepath in the world, or was he a member of a talented group? Why the secrecy about mind-reading? Fear of pogroms? And, above all, what was the connection with spontaneous human combustion? There had to be a connection—it would have been the ultimate coincidence if the man who linked two SHC cases was also a telepath by sheer chance—but Jerome could not begin to imagine it. Were it not for his worries about being shot he would be in a state of high excitement at the thought of getting some answers.
He pulled the weighted plastic cover off the boat and set it aside. A spider scuttled away when he moved the oars, which were lying on the crossbenches. Jerome lifted the spider on the blade of an oar and let it escape on to the ground, and when he turned back to the boat he saw that Pitman was retrieving some chains which had been hidden in the sedge grass.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Jerome said, hoping to affect the doctor’s plans. “A set of snow chains?”
Pitman slung the chains into the boat. “It’s enough—a corpse which has been well ventilated doesn’t develop much buoyancy.”
“Oh.” Jerome regretted having brought the subject up. “Is it all a charade, this business about trying to get my co-operation? How do I know you’re not planning to pull the trigger regardless of what I say?”
“I give you my word.”
“What good is it? Come to that, what good will my word be to you?” Jerome felt he was taking a gamble, but there were issues which had to be settled. “I could promise you anything just to get away from you in one piece, then I could go to the police.”
“You couldn’t trick me,” Pitman said. “Remember, I’m the man who can read your mind.”
“I still don’t see why we have to go out on the lake,” Jerome said doggedly. “I can tell you right now that I’m going to agree to anything you propose. That much is obvious, isn’t it?”
“No.” Pitman was smiling again, but his eyes were unreadable. “Most people would regard what I’m going to ask you to do as…well, they would call it betraying the entire human race. It’s quite possible that you’ll feel the same way, that you simply won’t be able to go along with it. Oh, you’ll say you’re going to co-operate, but in your heart you’ll know that you can’t. Perhaps you’ll even be able to deceive yourself, but you won’t be able to deceive me. And if that’s the way it works out—I’ll kill you.”
“Jesus!” Jerome gave a dispirited sigh. “And all because I saw what happened to Sammy Birkett?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Can I at least be told why some people burn up?”
“Push the rowboat into the water, Ray—then steady it while I get in.”
The boat had bedded itself into the soft ground and Jerome had difficulty shifting it until Pitman put one foot on the stern and thrust with surprising force. The craft became easier to handle as it nuzzled into the water. Keeping the shotgun aimed directly at Jerome’s stomach, the doctor stepped into the boat and positioned himself on the aft bench. His movements were easy and economical in spite of his portly form. Jerome, whose arthritic knee was protesting at the effort of dealing with the boat, was chastened to realize that even without the gun the elderly man could probably outmatch him in a struggle. Wincing as the muddy water lapped around his shins, Jerome climbed aboard and used the oars to get the boat free of the rushes and into clear water against a steady breeze. He was breathing hard and the tightness was returning to his chest.