Mind Blind Read online

  Reginald: It was what Mum wanted.

  [truth]

  James: I was happy to see the back of it.

  [truth]

  Vince: Me too.

  [truth]

  Lucy: It was my nana’s funeral. I couldn’t care less about some old bits of paper.

  [truth]

  Q: Returning to her fascinating research, I wondered about Lomond, the man Dr Shaw thought was hiding a skill that really existed rather than pretending a skill that didn’t. Have you been tempted to find out more about him?

  Lucy: My nana said that he seemed like a dangerous man. Clever, ruthless and selfish. So I don’t think I’d like to meet him. And if he could read people’s body language or emotions or whatever, then Nana wondered whether those skills were hereditary, handed down in families, because fairground businesses are usually family businesses. So if they’re anything like him, we probably wouldn’t want to meet his family either.

  [truth]

  Q: Do you mean there might be mindreading FAMILIES out there?

  Shaw Family: (General laughter.)

  [awkward but genuine]

  Vince: It’s unlikely, isn’t it? But it’s a huge shame that my grandmother never got the opportunity to continue her research.

  [truth, resentment]

  The interview tailed off there, partly because the Shaws were arguing about whether Ivy Shaw was refused research funding because she was Jamaican, because she was a woman, or because the war was over, and partly because my mum had everything she needed.

  I read the end of her report:

  Conclusion. The notes were burnt and none of the subjects we interviewed have read the names. However it’s not possible to be sure about the motives or knowledge of the older girl, Vivien. She may have deliberately avoided this interview. The answers given by her younger sister indicate that Vivien showed most interest in the report and was least willing to destroy it. Her family believe she didn’t read the report, but she may have lied to them. It would be suspicious to set up another newspaper interview, so we need a different strategy to discover what this girl knows.

  And Mum’s recommendation: Grab Vivien Shaw. Q&A her, discover whether she has our founder’s name anywhere in her head, and if she has, terminate her.

  CHAPTER 15

  Ciaran Bain, 29th Oct

  I felt a wave of relief. If they’d planned to kill Vivien anyway, her death wasn’t my fault after all. Except, probably, she didn’t have the name in her head. Probably my family had been about to let her go, until they realised she had my face in her head. Probably it was still my fault.

  If I checked Vivien’s Q&A, perhaps I could find out for sure.

  Malcolm was asking the questions this time, while Mum worked on her new way of laying out Q&As. Underneath the verbal answer, readers add the emotions, thoughts, memories and pictures they picked up, so Mum can see all the connections.

  Q: Don’t panic, Vivien. We just need to ask you some questions. If you’re completely honest with us, we won’t hurt you.

  [Target emotions: terror, confusion.]

  Q: We’re working for the government, just like your great-grandmother did.

  [Relief at the word government, sharper fear at mention of great-grandmother.]

  Q: All we need to know is what you did with the notes your great-grandmother made when she was working for us in the war.

  Vivien: We burnt them.

  [Careful truth.]

  Q: How did you burn them? In a bonfire?

  A: We burnt them with her body. They were cremated.

  [Pictures in head – yellow papers on white dress under brown hands. Bright flowers. Coffin on conveyor belt. Urn in box. Truth, truth, truth.]

  Q: Did you read them before you burnt them?

  A: No. I was crying too much.

  [Truth. Tears on flower petals. Tears on paper.]

  Q: Did you read them earlier, when your nana was alive?

  A: Yes. Some of them. She was angry we’d told the local newspaper, so she took them back before I read them all. I only read the first 100 pages. There were at least 50 more.

  [Truth, fear, anger. Memory of her nana shouting about confidentiality.]

  Q: Why did you burn the papers?

  A: She made me promise.

  [Truth.]

  Q: Did you keep your promise?

  A: Yes.

  [Truth, but a moment’s hesitation, pictures of coffin and crematorium urn.]

  Q: Did you read all the pages of the research before you burnt them?

  A: No.

  [Truth.]

  Q: Did you ever read the last pages?

  A: No.

  [Truth.]

  Q: Do you know the names of any of the subjects?

  A: No.

  [Truth.]

  Q: Why did your nana want you to burn them?

  A: Because she thought the research subjects had a right to anonymity.

  [Truth. Memory of shouted words: “ethics… human rights…”]

  Q: Why did you argue with her?

  A: I said that science should never be totally destroyed, that people’s names could be protected, but the science should be made public.

  [Truth. Target calming down. She’s confident she’s right. She’s less afraid.]

  Q: Why didn’t she agree with you?

  A: [Delay in answering.]

  [Fear again.]

  Q: Come on Vivien, why didn’t she agree?

  A: She said it was dangerous. She said one of the subjects had threatened her, so she didn’t want these notes made public. She was a frightened old lady and I didn’t want to make her any more scared. So I promised to burn them.

  [Truth. Memory of tears and hugs.]

  Q: And were you frightened?

  A: Of course not. Why would I be? This research was seventy years old. The subject who had threatened her must be very old now. Old or dead. I wasn’t scared.

  [Lie. Target is terrified. She’s trying to answer carefully but she’s remembering her nana, tears on her face, hands trembling. And her own hands, shaking, opening a box.]

  Q: Who threatened her? Which of the subjects?

  A: I don’t know any of their names.

  [Truth. The last pile of pages in her mind. Regret that she never read them.]

  Q: But you know their codenames. Who threatened her?

  A: I don’t know.

  [Lie. Absolute lie.]

  Q: That’s a lie, Vivien. Who threatened her?

  A: It’s not a lie.

  [Lie.]

  Q: Yes, it is. Which subject threatened her? I know she told you…

  (Target shakes her head.)

  (Lead questioner orders applied pressure, first level.)

  I closed my eyes. ‘Applied pressure’ means pain, designed to force answers from the target’s voice or mind. I didn’t want to read any more. But Vivien had to sit through it, the least I could do was read it.

  I opened my eyes again.

  [Target: pain, fear, pain, terror.]

  Q: I said we wouldn’t hurt you if you were honest with us. Are you ready to be honest with us?

  A: Yes! Please stop! Please!

  [Terror. Pain. Surrender.]

  Q: Who threatened her?

  A: Lomond. Lomond threatened her. He said his family would destroy her family if she ever mentioned his real name or researched this field again. So she didn’t. She resigned, moved away, got married and changed her name. She was so scared she hid. That’s why I promised to burn them, because I didn’t want her to be scared any more.

  [Truth. Guilt. Memories of tears on Nana’s face, hanky scrunched in her hands.]

  Q: Thank you for being honest with me Vivien. So now tell me, did you ever read the page with the codenames?

  A: NO. I didn’t. Please believe me.

  [Truth.]

  A: I believe you, and because you’re so good at telling me the truth, Vivien, just tell me again, where are the notes?

  A: We burnt the
m. They’re ash, they’re in the urn. It’s true.

  [Truth.]

  Q: All the notes? Every page?

  A: YES!! Please don’t hurt me again. All her notes are in the urn. Everything is in the urn.

  [Truth. Not even careful truth. She’s panicking, telling the truth. The urn is heavy in her hands, and the report is in the urn.]

  A: Please believe me. I didn’t read it. It’s all in the urn.

  [Truth. Absolute truth.]

  Q: Calm down, Vivien. I do believe you.

  A: Why do you believe me now, when you didn’t believe me before? Are you…? Are you reading my THOUGHTS? Is that why he said…?

  [A clear picture in her mind: Ciaran Bain, unmasked, saying, “Don’t even THINK about my face.”]

  That was when the Q&A stopped in chaos.

  The conclusion, hastily typed later, was that she hadn’t read the full notes, that she didn’t know the name of Billy Reid. But Mum had added a final line:

  SERIOUS OMISSION – we never asked about copies!

  That’s presumably when they decided to hunt me down to find out what I knew. So the logical file to read next was the Q&A of family liability Ciaran Reid Bain.

  It was typed in by my mum, and it was very neat and tidy. You’ve got to admire her commitment to her job. Last night I was shivering on my bed with vomit down my t-shirt and she was typing up an account of my torture. Thanks Mum.

  I loosened my grip on the mouse and looked at the first lines.

  “Let go, you horrible boy!”

  [Screaming, yelling, fear.]

  It was Mum’s account of everything they’d sucked out of me about Vivien. I could see the words − phone, sister, mask − but I didn’t think I could live through it all again, so I scrolled down to the end.

  Summary: In a moment of intense emotion, Ciaran established a connection with the target. The only concrete thought about Ivy Shaw was the target’s farewell to the urn containing Shaw’s ashes, confirming the report is also ashes in the urn. There was no mention of copies. There was no sense of hiding a name or knowledge of a name.

  Conclusion: All evidence indicates the Reid family name is still hidden and the family is in no danger.

  Three options for future action:

  1.Leave Shaw family alone

  2.Establish passive watching brief

  3.Search their houses and question other family members to ensure no loose ends.

  Proposal from Gill Bain: watching brief.

  Proposals from other senior readers: tbc.

  I wondered what the others’ proposals would be. Then I memorised a couple of details from the track and trace file, closed the folder and erased the records of my access. Roy’s dad, Dougie, our IT expert, could uncover my trail easily, but only if he knew he should be looking. And probably I would give my family no reason to check up on me.

  Probably I’d never think about the Shaw family again.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ciaran Bain, 29th October

  I lay on my bed, trying to enjoy my day off. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the folder I should never have opened, the secrets I should never have uncovered.

  Now I knew why the senior readers had needed me so urgently after Vivien died. They needed to know if I’d read anything about copies. Now, after studying my memories of her thoughts, my mum and uncles were convinced there weren’t any copies.

  They believed they were safe.

  But I wasn’t so sure that they were safe. That we were safe.

  Not because of any pictures or words or emotions I’d read or sensed. But because of something I’d felt in my fingertips, something that wasn’t in anyone’s Q&A reports because no one else is as sensitive as me.

  I’d felt grit on Vivien’s fingers when she was saying sorry and goodbye to her nana. I’d thought she was holding a vase at the time, putting it safely in a cardboard box. But someone in the Q&A had recognised it as a crematorium urn.

  Now I knew what I’d found in Vivien’s head and felt on her hands.

  An urn full of ashes.

  And grit on her fingers.

  Why would that moment have been so strong in her mind that even a second-hand memory brought me back from her death on the golf course?

  Her memory was so strong, because the grit wasn’t dirt.

  It was ash.

  She had grit on her fingertips because she’d been digging into her nana’s ashes.

  That’s not a feeling you would forget easily. Your great-grandmother’s burnt bones under your fingernails. No wonder Vivien couldn’t help thinking about it, when she thought about death, about fear, about what she might have to hide from people who’d kidnapped her.

  And what did she have to hide? Nothing, surely, apart from copies of that report.

  I felt again, in her memory, that one other sensation in her fingers. Not something in her hand, but the absence of something. Emptiness in her fingers, contrasting with the grit. The absence of something light and slim and smooth.

  If I copied a file, I wouldn’t end up with a pile of photocopies. I’d scan the pages and save them on a flash drive. A light, slim, smooth flash drive.

  If Vivien had made a secret copy on a flash drive, I thought I knew where she’d hidden it.

  Deep down in her nana’s cremated ashes.

  Gross. But effective. No one was likely to root about in burnt bones and flesh. No one but me.

  Because suddenly I wanted to see if I was right, if I could protect my family’s secret.

  And I wanted to do it on my own.

  But I wouldn’t be able to search for the copy until it was dark, and I’d have to hide my intentions until then or Malcolm would stop me.

  So once my family were back, high on the success of a job I hadn’t ruined, I had to hide my thoughts and my emotions.

  We can all hide our thoughts, by ringing the inside of our heads with a thick layer of personal privacy. It’s one of the first skills we learn, but the cover is hard to maintain. Also it’s like shouting ‘I HAVE A SECRET!’ It’s fine for adults to keep thoughts private from kids, and having secrets is expected around Christmas and birthdays. But apart from that, covering your thoughts is considered suspicious.

  The best way to avoid letting anyone know my plans was not to let anyone read my thoughts at all, by staying well away from my family. I also had to avoid giving out emotions like excitement or deceit, which might prompt someone to check up on me.

  So I decided to live in the present for a day, not worry about the past or plan for the future. I finished a book Roy had raved about, played a computer game I’d borrowed from Josh and fell asleep listening to my own favourite music. I just acted like a teenager trying to avoid his family.

  Late in the evening, I sensed someone heading for my corner of the warehouse. I live next to the laundry rather than beside everyone else’s sleeping quarters, because I sometimes have screaming nightmares if I’ve spent time near the mindblind.

  It was Roy, walking towards my isolated corner. We hadn’t spoken last night, because I’d been too bruised and upset to unlock my door for anyone. This time, I let him in, then flopped back on the bed. He turned off the music, sat on the chair in the other corner of the cabin and muttered, “Sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “For not letting you off that golf course.”

  “S’ok.”

  After a pause, I asked, “Did Malcolm give you a hard time about falling over?”

  “No. They were too busy with today’s job. Anyway, it was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “S’ok.”

  Roy stretched out his legs, taking up most of my floor. “You alright?”

  I showed him the bruises from Kerr’s golf club and Daniel’s boots, then shrugged.

  “What about the Q&A?” he asked.

  I shrugged again. “It could have been worse. I didn’t have anything to hide.”

  We both glanced at the door, automatic
ally.

  I laughed. “Really! I didn’t have anything to hide. It was just, you know, them reading me, and Mum with her hand on me.”

  Roy winced sympathetically. “So what’s next?”

  “Back to work as soon as Malcolm calms down, I suppose.”

  “Is that really what you want?”

  “What else can I do?”

  Roy raised his eyebrows, a whole friendship’s worth of good advice and irritating nagging in his eyes.

  “Not this again!” I snapped. “It’s ok for you, you can stand in a bus queue without collapsing. You could hold hands with a girl without throwing up, if any girl was daft enough to let you. You can be normal. I can’t. You can live a law-abiding life if you want. I can’t. I can’t survive outside the family, so I have to live by their rules, not by everyone else’s laws.”

  “Even if you know they’re wrong?” he said softly.

  “Yes. Because… I’m scared of out there. I’m scared without the family around me. And you’re no better, Roy, because if you didn’t care about family rules, you’d have let me off that golf course.”

  “Give me a break. I’m only fifteen. I have to live by their rules now, so they feed me and give me somewhere to sleep. I don’t fancy living in a children’s home or on the streets. But once I’m old enough to get a place at uni and a job to support myself, I’ll be off. You have to decide, Bain, are you staying or are you going?”

  “There’s no decision to make. I don’t have a choice. I can’t survive out there, so I have to stay here.”

  “You could survive out there, if you practised.”

  This was such a ridiculous suggestion that I ignored it and started hunting under my bed for nearly clean socks.

  But Roy wouldn’t shut up. “You ran away from the family yesterday. Why don’t you run a bit further, see what happens?”

  “It’s not that easy. Look at us right now. You’re my best friend, and we can’t even talk about this unless you’re on the other side of the room. How could I possibly cope with other people? So I’ll never get away from this family.”

  Roy leant forward enthusiastically. “What if you knew you could live out there? What if we could show that you can?”