Rosie and Daniel were driven back to Lawson’s house in the blue BMW with Mason sitting between them in the rear seats. He smelt stale and wet. He was jabbering to Jiff who was driving. He wouldn’t stop.
Frank drove behind them in his own car.
It was only when they got inside the house that Jiff noticed that something was different. He looked at himself in the mirror in the hall, his clothes half drying on him, and stood sideways. And then he took off his jacket and his shirt and inspected his bare torso.
‘It’s gone!’ he shouted. ‘My hump’s disappeared.’
He turned to show Frank and Mason and they looked at his back, the spine straight and the shoulders back, the hump gone. Mason took off his jacket too and undid his shirt and checked his stomach.
‘That scar, the one I got at Jimmy’s . . .’ He trailed off, his fingers feeling the skin for any blemish. He cricked his neck. Shook his shoulders. ‘How do you feel, Jiff?’
‘Marvellous.’ Jiff grinned. ‘How about you?’
Mason struck a bodybuilder pose. ‘More than marvellous.’ And he slapped Daniel on the shoulder. ‘You little beauty,’ he said.
Mason and Jiff took showers, rubbing the dust and the grime from their bodies. Cleaning off what the dirty water had left on them. They put on dry clothes and toasted each other with brandies and then Frank who had come to save them.
And, all the while, Rosie and Daniel sat on the sofa in the sitting room, as Frank kept an eye on them.
Eventually, Mason came and sat next to them, landing on the sofa with a thump. He toasted them too and drained his brandy and put the glass down on the table in front of him.
‘You know what you’ve done and I can’t put that behind me. I’m not a good man so I can’t forgive. It’s your fate to suffer for what you tried to do just as it’s my fate to go on living. It’s an indisputable fact.’ He rapped on his chest. ‘Because here I am, better than ever. Just like Jiff there.’ He pointed at Jiff on the opposite sofa who raised his glass.
‘And that’s given me an idea.’ He grinned at Daniel. ‘Go on, have a guess.’
Daniel shifted uneasily on the couch. Shook his head. But Mason kept staring. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
Mason nodded, put his hands on top of his head and then went on. ‘Well, it’s a great idea. And it involves Rosie too. You see this collector is going to pay a lot more when he sees what the flask can do. We can show him. I’ll name my price once I’ve killed Rosie and brought her back to life in front of his eyes.’ Mason beamed as Rosie’s mouth began to open slowly, her face turning even whiter. ‘I’ll be gentle, I promise. Don’t you want to be cured, Rosie? Get rid of your tumour? There’ll be no more chemotherapy then. You’ll come back even better, like Jiff and me.’
‘I’m a new man!’ shouted Jiff and downed his drink.
Mason poured another brandy and swilled it round the glass, making the early evening sunlight spin inside it. ‘And then you two’ll make the fit whenever I want you to for as long as I want. You owe me that after your little scheme. You’re in my debt.’ He drank down the brandy in one and then stood up. ‘I’m going to give this collector a call.’