When Daniel woke with a start, it was still night and it seemed his bedroom was fast asleep around him, with no sign of anything that could have disturbed him. As he sat up, he tried to remember what he had been dreaming about, but there were only sad feelings left inside him, a black vapour trapped and swirling in his chest.
And then the silhouette of a large man suddenly moved, as if emerging out of the wall, making Daniel cower back, too scared to cry out.
‘It’s all right, Daniel,’ said Mason calmly. He sat down on the bed, making the springs ping. He grinned and his teeth shone. ‘This is just a dream, nothing but that.’
But Daniel knew it wasn’t. He tried to move, but Mason’s weight was pinning the duvet tight across his legs.
‘Where’s my aunt?’ he asked. ‘Have you done anything to her?’
Mason shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only your dream, not your aunt’s. Do you get me, Daniel?’ Daniel nodded and stopped trying to move. Mason drummed his fingers on his thighs. ‘And anything can happen in dreams, my son. Anything’s possible. So I can be here, right now, sitting on your bed, having a perfectly ordinary conversation.’
Daniel said nothing. He could feel his heart thumping in the soles of his feet. His hands, planted behind him and holding him up, were sweating into the sheets.
‘Now,’ continued Mason, ‘a little birdy told me you came round to Lawson’s house earlier. You and a friend.’ He hooked his thumbs together and his hands fluttered around like the silhouette of a bird. ‘That birdy flew all the way and told me and I didn’t believe it. I said there’s no way Daniel would do a thing like that without asking me, not after I told him to stay away from the house. Am I right?’
Daniel nodded. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.
Mason slapped his thigh. ‘Goddam that little birdy. I’ll shoot him next time I see him. Roast him, shall I? Have him for my tea?’
‘Yes.’
Mason sighed. ‘But I like that little birdy. And we all make mistakes, don’t we? Get things wrong. So I’ll let him off this time, shall I? People should get a second chance, shouldn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK then.’
Mason got up and brushed the creases out of his trousers and fastened the middle button of his suit jacket. ‘Just a dream, remember?’ Mason clicked his fingers. ‘It’s just your brain working things out.’ He bent in closer to Daniel, his hot breath sweet and sour and garlicky. ‘Have you found anyone yet? Your fit?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you need to get a wiggle on.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’re into your last day.’
‘I don’t think there’s anyone out there.’
‘There has to be. You’re just looking in the wrong places.’ Mason made a popping sound with his lips. ‘There has to be someone, otherwise none of what’s happened to you makes sense. I mean, what was the point of you crawling out of the ground a week ago if today comes and goes and I have to mark your dad’s name down in my little black notebook of things to do?’
‘I was just lucky I got out. I went back to look. There was nothing there. No clues about anything.’
Mason shook his head. ‘Everything happens for a reason.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because life must have a design or what’s the point?’
‘Well, you need to prove it to me then.’
‘No, Daniel,’ growled Mason, ‘I don’t have to prove a thing. It’s you who’s going to have to show me it doesn’t. I have no doubt you have a talent inside you that wasn’t meant to go to waste. I don’t believe it was luck you came out of the ground. You’re part of some bigger plan, to help your father and get your life back, and to help me too, by getting me my money and the antique flask I asked Lawson to find.’
‘If my dad wakes up and starts to get better without me helping him, that’ll prove I wasn’t rescued for a reason.’
Mason just grinned. ‘What, you mean tomorrow? When the ward staff try to bring him out of the coma they’ve been keeping him in?’
Daniel opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say.
Mason shrugged. ‘One of the nurses on the ward keeps me up to date on things. She says the smart money’s on your father not waking up. That he’s too damaged inside.’ Mason tapped his forehead. ‘If there’s just mashed potato in your old dad’s head then the doctors won’t be able to do a thing to help him. It’ll be all up to you to find a way of making him better if you want your life back the way it was.’
After Mason had ordered him to let him out of the front door, Daniel went back to bed. When a car engine turned over and came to life, he peeked round the blinds and watched the blue BMW driving up the street, all the way, until it turned the corner and disappeared. He managed to breathe more easily then.
But it was difficult to sleep. Mason’s aftershave left a sickly vapour that drifted round the room, making Daniel’s head spin. The house felt fragile too, like something made of paper that Mason could tear down and ball up in a meaty fist and throw away whenever he pleased. As if he owned it now. As if he owned Daniel too and knew why everything in his life was happening to him the way it was.