THE DARK CORNERS

A tall hedge concealed the house from the road and the open fields on either side. Beyond it, an unkempt lawn straggled beside the curving driveway that bulged into a half-circle of gravel where it ran across the front of the building. The grey stone of the house itself had almost disappeared, now only visible in shadowed patches among the tangle of ivy that covered it.

“Ideal sort of premises,” Chapman said. He eased into neutral, and let the car coast to a gently crunching halt by the front porch. His bright bird’s eyes flicked appraisingly across the clutter of leaves and coarse vines. “Just about as isolated as anything around here, I should think. Looks as if he might have had something of the sort in mind when he moved in.”

“Except for the fact,” Hull said, “that he was left it by his uncle. That makes that line of reasoning a bit too complicated for my taste.” He pushed his door open, and swung his feet out onto the gravel. Chapman switched off the ignition, frowning slightly, then followed suit.

Hull mounted the steps leading to the front door, and thumbed the tarnished bell-push that showed among the encroaching greenery. Somewhere inside the house a bell rang faintly, followed immediately by a deep-throated bark.

Chapman paused on the steps, cocking his head. “Didn’t know he had a dog. Sounds like a big one.”

“Yes,” Hull said. He stood with his back to the house, slowly swivelling his head to study the grounds. They were in poor repair. Tufts of grass littered the driveway and the open area of gravel, and the lawn was almost knee-high and flecked with the bright yellow of dandelions. A greenhouse beyond the low privet hedge to their right was starting to weather badly, and the hedge itself was untrimmed.

Inside the house, footsteps clicked towards them. There was a pause, the grating snap of a catch, and the door opened.

The man who peered out at them was middle-aged and rather stocky, with red hair receding slowly from a freckled forehead. He wore a dark green cardigan over an open-necked shirt, and held a dirty metal dish in his hand. His roundly ageless face was very tired.

“Yes?”

Hull said, “Mr. James Pardoe?”

“That’s right.”

“My name is Inspector Hull, and this is Detective-Sergeant Chapman. We would like a few words with you if we may, sir.”

“Oh?” the red-haired man said. His face had tightened, almost perceptibly. “What about?”

Hull said, “If we could come inside for just a moment—” He let his voice trail off, his eyes on Pardoe’s face.

“Is that strictly necessary?”

Hull nodded. “I rather think that it may be.”

There was a pause. Pardoe stared past them, his mouth small and his face thoughtful. Then he shrugged, shook his head slightly, and pulled the door towards him. “Come in.”

Hull stepped past him into the shadowed coolness of a tiled corridor, Chapman following. A little way down the passage, a large alsatian stood, its tongue projecting from the side of its mouth and its eyes fixed brightly on them.

Pardoe closed the door, and said, “Here, Dan.” The dog jerked into movement, lowering its head and padding to them with relaxed, graceful steps. Pardoe fondled its muzzle, and gestured towards an open door on their left. “We’d better go in there.”

It was a living room, shabby, and stale with the mingled smells of the dog and cooked food. A cloth covered a small mahogany table, and a used plate sat on it, dull with grease. There was a beaker beside it, and a sauce bottle. Books littered the room, piled precariously on the mantel-piece and the end of a decrepit chaise-lounge.

Yellowed hunting prints were spaced precisely on two of the distempered walls.

“Sit down,” Pardoe said. He put the metal dish on the table, nodding vaguely towards the crockery. “You’ll have to excuse the dishes. I’ve been rather busy.”

“Quite all right,” Hull said. He seated himself in a worn leather armchair, placing his hat on the carpet beside him. Chapman moved a pile of magazines to the sideboard, and sat on a straight-backed dining chair. Pardoe stood by the table, one hand resting lightly on the dog’s head, a look of stiffly polite enquiry on his face.

Hull said, “Mr. Pardoe, I have to ask you some questions. It shouldn’t take very long, but before we start I feel there’s something you should be told. Certain information has been brought to our attention that has led us to some pretty damaging conclusions.”

“Really?” Pardoe said. “Involving me in some way?” His voice, like his face, was courteously empty.

Hull said, “It appears so, yes. I understand that you are employed as head of the history department at Corley Grammar School.”

“Yes.”

“One of your pupils was a boy called Philip Carver. I say was, because of his disappearance two months ago. At that time a colleague of mine questioned you, together with the rest of the staff at Corley. You stated then that you knew nothing at all that might help us with our investigations as to the boy’s whereabouts. We drew a blank all round, and until this morning we had no idea at all where he might have got to. Now we’re pretty sure we know.”

Pardoe said nothing, but his hand, which had been moving gently on the dog’s head, was now quite still. Chapman moved slightly in his chair.

Hull said, “About a mile from here, there’s a farm owned by some people called Hucker. A week ago, the Hucker children, two boys and a girl, say they were in your grounds. They were pretty quiet about it, because they were trespassing, and they took care to keep well under cover. While they were here, they heard a noise, someone shouting. They thought it might possibly be aimed at them at first, so they hid in some rhododendron bushes by the side of the house, and then they say they saw something very odd.” Hull paused, and tilted his head, queryingly. “Would you like to hazard a guess at what it was, Mr. Pardoe?”

The red-haired man’s face was suddenly very pale, and his eyes were closed. He opened his mouth, made a faint sound and then closed it again. He shook his head, very slowly.

Hull said, “They saw a boy run from this house, followed by a man. The boy looked very frightened, they say, and he was yelling something that could have been a cry for help. He fell in the driveway, and the man caught him. When he’d caught him, he hit him so hard that he almost knocked him unconscious, then he dragged him back inside the house. From their description, it would rather appear that the man was you. Was the boy Philip Carver?”

Pardoe’s teeth showed briefly, then his eyes opened. His voice sounded clogged. “Why did you take so long to get here?”

“The children were frightened, and they didn’t tell their parents about it for a couple of days. They’d been trespassing, and children can be a bit funny about things like that. They don’t know how to compare values too well at times. When they finally did speak up, their father thought about it for another couple of days before telling us. Grown-ups can be pretty silly, too, but children do make up some weird and wonderful stories.” Hull paused, and cocked his head again. “Where is he?”

Pardoe said, “Upstairs.” His voice was almost inaudible and his face was sick. Hull jerked his head at Chapman.

Chapman stood up, and said, “Is there a key?”

“Wait,” Pardoe said. He took a very deep breath, and leaned back against the table, lowering his hands to its edge. Hull saw them shaking as he gripped it. “Before you fetch him, I must tell you something.”

“There’ll be plenty of time to make a statement when we get to the station,” Hull said. He reached down for his hat. “I think that the most important thing now is to get—”

“No,” Pardoe said. It was a dryly staccato sound, more an order than a protest. Beside him, the dog growled and stiffened. “No, you must hear this before we go.”

There was a brief silence in the room. Hull said, “We have to be sure that the boy is all right first.”

Pardoe frowned, and looked at him, searchingly. “Then you’ll hear what I have to say?”

Hull nodded. “If you think it’s that important. Can you make it short?”

Pardoe shook his head, a rapid, nervous jerking that continued as he talked. “No, not very. But I must tell it before we get away from here, into a—” He lifted a hand, and helplessly dropped it again “—an official atmosphere. This is the only place where it will make sense. At least—” He stopped, and stared confusedly at the floor.

“You appreciate, of course, that anything you say may be later used in evidence,” Hull said. He looked at Chapman. “Go and find him, then take him to the kitchen, wherever that is. Make him a sandwich or something, until we’re ready.” To Pardoe, he said, “Is that all right with you?”

Pardoe nodded, silently, then reached into a trouser pocket and produced a Yale key. He handed it to Chapman without looking at him. Chapman took it, and walked to the door. The dog watched him go, poised uncertainly, and then slowly relaxed as he passed out of sight. His feet sounded, mounting the stairs.

There was silence, broken only by the almost inaudible scolding of a bird, somewhere outside the house. Pardoe leaned against the table, his head lowered and his eyes closed. When he started to speak, it was in a flat monotone, a dead voice, that sounded expressionlessly in the thick-atmosphere confines of the room.

“My reason for coming to this part of the country was this house. My uncle died just over eighteen months ago and left it to me, and I came down from Bradford, where I was teaching, simply to look it over before selling it. I liked it, despite the fact that it was really much too big for a single man, and I decided I’d like to keep it. I had a vague idea at the time that I might be able to turn it into two flats, or something of the kind, but I decided later that I preferred the idea of solitude. The job at Corley was advertised two months afterwards, and I got it and moved in here at the beginning of the winter term. That was ten months ago, and the first time that I met Philip Carver.”

Hull interrupted. “Perhaps you’d better sit down. You look rather shaky.”

“Yes,” Pardoe said. He walked to the chaise-lounge, pushed some books to one side, and sat down, resting his arms horizontally across his thighs. The dog crossed the room to him, sniffing impersonally at the carpet, then slumped loosely at his feet, its eyes closed. Pardoe continued speaking in the same dull, disinterested tone.

“He was in the upper fourth form when I first knew him. His reputation was a not unusual one among boys of that age. He produced spurts of brilliance in his work, but he was erratic. His most notable feature was a genuine oddity, though, but not recognised as such by many members of the staff. The majority seemed satisfied to refer to him as a toady, but they were rather missing the point. He seemed to have the knack of anticipating people’s wants to a remarkably accurate degree. I noticed this myself soon after I started, and it puzzled me, certainly more so than the rest of the people there. As I say, they were inclined to dismiss him as a fairly standard sort of boot-licker, but I became rapidly convinced that he was something much more than that.”

He paused. Above them, there was the slam of a door, and then, very faintly, the sound of voices. He ran his tongue across his lips, and blinked, once.

“I finally caught him out during a mock school certificate exam. I hadn’t consciously laid a trap, or anything like that, but under the circumstances it was hardly surprising that he blundered. The paper was a very general thing, dealing with no particular period of history, that I’d concocted rather hurriedly on the evening prior to the exam. That’s the way these things usually happen; they’re supposed to be prepared two or three weeks before, but they always seem to get delayed for one reason or another. There was some sickness among the staff at that time, and it was necessary to take quite a few extra classes. I hadn’t time to get it typed and duplicated, so I was going to write the questions on the blackboard. When I got to the room where the class was waiting for the exam, I had two monitors distribute pens, ink, and foolscap paper to each boy. While this was being done, I checked through the questions that I was going to put to them. I was half-way through doing this, checking them against the answers, when the headmaster’s secretary appeared. She said that if I hadn’t already started the exam, would I please go and see the head immediately. I went, taking the question paper with me.”

The footsteps that had been slowly descending the stairs stopped. Hull heard Chapman’s voice, querying, followed by a muttered, hesitant reply.

The dog’s head snapped up. Slowly, it uncurled and rose, its eyes fixed rigidly on the open doorway. Pardoe reached out a hand to its head, patting it very slowly and gently. He smiled bleakly at Hull, saying nothing.

Chapman appeared in the doorway. He looked briefly at Hull and Pardoe, then back up the stairs. He said, “Come on, son, it’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” His voice was loud, and very cheerful.

There was a pause, then dragging footsteps sounded again. Hull watched the doorway, conscious of Pardoe’s mask-like smile, and his hand, still moving rhythmically on the dog’s head.

The boy was thin and very pale, and he looked none too clean. He wore a grey flannel suit that was very crumpled, with a blue and yellow badge on breast pocket of the jacket. He was rather plain, and pimples discoloured his chin and forehead. He stared at Pardoe, saying nothing.

Hull said to him, “How are you, son?”

The boy moved his gaze from Pardoe, and looked at Hull. He seemed not to have heeded the question, then said, “Very well, thank you,” rather abruptly. His eyes moved back to Pardoe’s bleak, polite smile, and he frowned.

Hull nodded to Chapman. “Take him along and get him something to eat. We shan’t be very long.”

“Right,” Chapman said. He touched the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s go and see what there is in the pantry, shall we?

After a moment, the boy nodded, then turned away without speaking. As he moved out of sight, Hull saw the look of puzzlement on his face, and the final rapid flick of his eyes towards Pardoe. Chapman followed him out of sight, his uncomfortably genial grin still in position.

Hull looked back at Pardoe. The smile was still there, but it held a hint of exhaustion now, and the movement of his hand appeared as more of a dying reflex than a deliberate action.

Hull said, “What happened when you got there?”

Pardoe shut his eyes, then opened them again. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and very tired, but it contained expression now.

“The head produced the copy of the exam paper that I’d left with him after assembly that morning, and told me that something seemed to have gone rather amiss. He asked if, before I’d prepared my questions, I’d checked back through the papers set by my predecessor. I confessed that I hadn’t, due to circumstances of work. He then pointed out that, in fact, my paper contained several questions that were very similar to some that had been put to the same boys on previous occasions, two of them no more than a year before. He has a quite exceptional memory, and it was just the sort of thing that he would recollect. In view of this oversight, he suggested that the easiest solution to the problem would be to use a paper that had originally been put five years ago, before any of the present pupils had been at the school. I agreed to this, apologised for the trouble that was being caused, and then he had his secretary fetch the old paper from the files. We checked it as quickly as we could, and found that this time none of the questions appeared to be suspect.”

Pardoe continued his gentle massaging of the dog’s head, a faint spark of animation beginning to show in his face as he talked.

“I took the paper back to the classroom, and started to write the new questions on the blackboard. While I was doing this, the piece of chalk that I was using broke. I turned to my desk to get another piece, and saw Carver slipping something into his inside jacket pocket. I told him to bring it out to the front of the class and give it to me.” He hesitated, briefly. “I’ve never seen an expression on anyone’s face like the one that I saw then. It was a compound of terror and rage, and I was very startled by it. He stayed where he was until I told him again, much more forcefully the second time. Then he came out and handed it to me. It was a piece of foolscap, and written on it were the answers to the first two questions on my original question paper.”

Hull frowned, looking sharply at him.

“Where was the first paper?”

“I left it in the headmaster’s study when I brought the alternative paper back with me.”

“And you say you prepared the first paper the night before the exam. Where did you do it?”

“Here.”

“And you’re convinced in your own mind that it would have been impossible for this boy or anyone else to have seen it before you took it to the classroom that morning?”

“Utterly impossible.”

Hull said, flatly, “Then what are you actually saying? That the headmaster left his copy lying around for anybody to pick up, or that the boy is a mind-reader?”

“He can read minds, yes,” Pardoe said.

Hull watched him for a long silent moment, his face impassive. The dog yawned, a cavernous exercise that concluded with a muffled snap as its jaws closed. It slumped again, its chin resting across its forelegs.

Hull said, “What happened then?”

“I told him to go back to his seat, then I finished writing the questions on the board. I watched him while the exam was in progress. He wrote nothing, simply sat there staring at me for the better part of two hours. When it was over, I had the papers collected and told him to stay behind when the others had gone. When we were alone, I asked him if it was true,”

“That he was a mind-reader?”

Pardoe nodded. “Yes.”

“What did he have to say for himself?”

“He admitted it.”

Hull’s eyebrows lifted. “Just like that?” He fumbled his pipe from his pocket, and tucked it into a corner of his mouth. “Did you believe him?”

“Of course.” Something like anger showed in Pardoe’s eyes. “Don’t you see? I had to believe him. This was the culmination of it all, the label for the hundred and one demonstrations that I’d witnessed and been so puzzled by. His anticipation of things, his never-failing—preparedness. He knew what to do in any situation that involved dealing face to face with an opposite party.” He stared down at the carpet, his hand automatically reaching for the supine figure of the dog.

“I asked him if he really realised what this meant. He said yes. His facial expression when he said it was the most complex thing I’ve ever seen; contempt, malice, hatred, triumph, they were all there, and others, besides. I asked him to tell me about it, and he did. He told me what it was like for a seeing person to live in a world of the blind, where everything was etched in detail for him and only him. He talked about the unbelievable dirt of the human mental condition, and the fear and ignorance and pathetic fumbling in the darkness of not knowing. He talked about man’s lack of faith in man and how it justified itself by its existence, and the stupidity of commitments to unseen gods. Then he went on to tell me how he used these things.”

Hull watched him as he talked, sensing desperation and resignation in the tableau, the quietly talking man and the limp animal at his feet, the stale and shabby book-littered room, thick with the afternoon heat. Just how sane is he? Hull wondered. He searched for his lighter, his eyes steady on Pardoe”s dulled, waxy face.

“He used them as a tool, a procuring instrument. When he wanted something, he probed with his mind until he knew the best way to get it. He exploited misfortune, guilt and circumstance as it suited him, using anyone around him that could assist with his requirements of the moment. He described several instances of how he’d done this. The one that particularly stuck in my mind involved his sister. She’s a year older than him, and left school last year. Carver knew that she’d been out with various boys, and on one occasion had let rather more happen than was really wise. He wanted money at the time, I forget what for. He told her that he’d seen what happened on the particular evening involved, and unless she got hold of five pounds for him, he would see to it that their father was told. She got it by taking two pounds from her father’s wallet, and the rest from other girls’ clothing in the gymnasium dressing room. Since then, he’s used her as a steady source of income whenever his interests of the moment have required financial investment.”

Hull said, “Assuming for the sake of argument that all this is true, there’s one thing that puzzles me. Harking back to the time of the exam, how was it that he came to write those wrong answers at all, since he must surely have known that you were out getting a substitute set, or, alternatively, why didn’t he destroy the paper before you got back with them?”

Hull said, “His range seems to be relatively limited. He wouldn’t admit it at first, but I later found out that his effective reading area is somewhere around fifteen to twenty feet. The headmaster’s study is on the far side of the building, and I was back in the room before he fully realised what was going on. He was picking up a lot of random interference from the rest of the class, too, of course.”

Hull inclined his head, clicked his lighter, and commenced to puff his pipe alight. “All right. Then what?”

“When he’d finished telling me all this, I asked him if he simply intended to go on abusing his ability in the same sort of way. He laughed at this. He pointed out that since he had us, the fumbling, blind people, firmly by the throat, and quite unable to take any form of legal action to stop him, to abandon his present thoroughly pragmatic use of his talents would be quite senseless. What would he gain by it? His outburst of confidence, he admitted, had been largely induced by the circumstances in which he’d been trapped. It was a chance for him to boast about his power, and in the confines of the classroom, he felt perfectly safe in telling me what he did. Once outside again, of course, he would simply deny anything that I chose to make public.” Pardoe paused, briefly.

“He also told me that if I made a statement of any kind, he would retaliate with an accusation of attempted indecency and subsequent malicious slander. Despite the fact that he was confident that my awkwardness caused by my production of the written answers could be bluffed aside, he would simply prefer to be spared the trouble. In my own interests, therefore, I would be wise to destroy the only piece of evidence that could support such a claim on my part.”

Hull said, “He’d have a job proving anything himself, of course.”

Pardoe smiled, thinly. “That’s true, but he knows more than enough about the workings of human nature. In the case of his own, much more credible story, peoples’ imaginations and ingrained suspicions would accept it as readily as they would dismiss mine.” His face showed no bitterness. “Anyway, I eventually told him that he could go, and he did. I sat there for a long time, an hour at least. The caretaker was late making his rounds that evening, and it was only his arrival that snapped me out of the daze that I was in. When I left, though, I knew what I had to do. He had to be taken to a place where it would be impossible for him to continue to prey on anyone that he chose. I had a wild hope that if he could be isolated from the dirt and greed and exposed to nothing but pure theory for a time, his mind would still be open enough to accept the sense of a balanced social order and all the curtailments that are essential ingredients of it.”

Hull grunted non-committedly. “How did you get him out here?”

“He lives some way out of the town, as you know. I followed him to the cinema that evening, and then home again. He was riding a bicycle, and I had my estate car. I kept my distance until we were clear of the houses, then when the road was free of traffic I pulled up to him and ran him into the hedge. Before he had a chance to untangle himself, I was out of the car and had a chloroform pad over his face. Then I put him and the bicycle in the car and brought him here.”

“Very efficient,” Hull said, drily. He squashed the dottle in his pipe with a heavy finger, and flicked his lighter again. “I take it no traffic passed you while all this was going on.”

“No, none. When I got back here, I took him up to the attic where he’s been ever since. I had to keep him tied up for the first couple of days while I soundproofed the room and bricked up the window, because otherwise he might easily have broken his neck trying to climb down a drainpipe, or something of the sort. I took all the furniture out of the room, too, just leaving a camp-stool and a sleeping-bag. I didn’t think it wise to leave anything heavier that he might try to knock the door down with.

“When I’d done all this, I untied him and talked to him, and explained why I was doing it, a foolish procedure under the circumstances. He let me finish, and then spat at me and told me he knew all my pathetic reasons and precisely what he thought of them. I asked him if he failed to see the logic behind a disciplined society, and he told me no, he could see it very clearly. But what he could see even more clearly was the flimsiness of the façade that made such things possible, and the incurable weaknesses of the structures themselves. I tried to reason with him for the rest of the week-end, but he simply spat, or screamed or cried. I had to leave him alone, eventually. I left books with him when I went to school on the Monday, hoping that out of sheer boredom he would read them and that some fragment of their reasoning would touch him. When I got back, he’d ripped them to pieces.”

“How did he get out the other day?”

Pardoe’s smile was bitter. “He fooled me. It was bound to happen eventually. About a fortnight ago, his attitude seemed to be changing slightly, for the better. The hysterics had gone, and he seemed to be listening to what I was saying when I talked to him. One day, he asked for some books. I’d stopped giving him any after the first week; they all ended up in pieces, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of point in wasting them until he showed some indication that they might be read instead of mutilated. I was overjoyed, but cautious, of course. I gave him one or two, and it was obvious from later conversation that he’d actually read at least parts of them. He asked for others, and I gave them to him, which was where I made my mistake.” Pardoe shrugged, almost apologetically.

“One of them was a dictionary, a rather large, heavy item. He dropped some other books that I was handing him at the time, and he made as though to pick them up. Stupidly, I bent down to help him, and he hit me across the neck with it. He didn’t knock me out, but I was dazed for a few seconds. He snatched the key from my jacket pocket, unlocked the door, and then he was out. It was his intention to lock me in, but I was on my feet and at the door while he was still trying to get the key into the keyhole. He panicked and ran, and I caught him when he fell outside the house.” He paused. “You know about that, of course.”

“Yes,” Hull said. He picked with a fingernail at some exposed strands that showed through the arm of his chair. “So in fact you’ve made no real progress with him at all.”

“No”, Pardoe said. He sounded suddenly and utterly exhausted.

“And what were you planning to do with him if this continued for, say, another two or three months, with no evidence of any headway?”

Pardoe shook his head over his limply interlaced hands. “I don’t know.”

Hull watched him, biting thoughtfully on his pipe. The dog stirred by Pardoe’s feet, whined fitfully, then looked around the room with heavy eyes. Watching it, Hull said, “What do you know about his background?” He lifted his gaze to Pardoe’s suddenly blank look. “Do you know anything at all about his parents, his home life? Has he volunteered anything himself?”

After a pause, Pardoe said, “It’s not too good from what I’ve heard at the school. I’ve tried to sound him out once or twice, but he wouldn’t talk about it.”

Hull nodded. “I’m not altogether surprised to hear it. His mother pushed off with some chap a few years back, and his father’s in and out of jobs almost as often as he’s in the pub.” He busied himself with the lighter again.

“Assuming still that you’re telling me the facts as you see them, it just occurs to me to wonder which way he’d have jumped if he’d had a stable sort of home, some sort of reasonable example set him all this time.” He tucked the lighter away. “What would you say about it?”

Pardoe’s tongue appeared, briefly moistening his lips. “It may even have been the beginning of it.”

“What?”

Pardoe jerked his head, a nervously impatient dismissal. “I didn’t quite mean that. But I have wondered a lot about cause and effect, the actual reasons for it happening.” He spoke more rapidly now, a faint flicker of brightness showing far back in his eyes. “Just suppose that in fact the entire human race is on the brink of some evolutionary breakthrough; the gradual opening out of the part of our brain that we’ve never been able to categorise or map. Perhaps what you’ve just said is the key. Deprivation has caused him to seek some sort of consoling factor, a kind of refuge that only he can enter. He may have somehow jumped the gun, or discovered a short-cut, if you like, activated entirely by a lack of affection and understanding.” His eyes locked with Hull’s, and Hull saw that the brightness was a glint of fear.

“This is only theorising, but suppose I’m right? Do you realise what it means? It means that in all the dark corners of the world, uncountable millions of them, something similar may be happening. Children may be growing up possessed of the same talent, and because of their immaturity, the unformed standards of adolescence, they see it only as a means of acquisition and revenge—” He jolted to an abrupt halt, his eyes gradually re-focussing on Hull”s watchful face. He pushed a faintly vibrating hand across his mouth.

Hull said, “Then he doesn’t claim to have been born like it.”

“No,” Pardoe said, dully. He moved his feet slightly, as though they ached. “As far as he can remember, it started about three or four years ago. It began very gradually, from what I can gather.” For the first time his voice held a note of tired uncertainty. “As to what he actually is, I simply don’t know. He may be the next stage in our evolutionary programme, or he may be a sport, some kind of throwback. Perhaps he’s just a freak.” He lifted his head and stared at Hull, his eyes betraying a muted something that was hard to define.

“But whatever he is, he’s dangerous. No more dangerous person ever lived. He’s a raging megalomaniac already, and he’s incurable. Psychiatry could do nothing for him, because he sees beyond the confines of reason as we know it. He has the world in the palm of his hand, and it’s only a matter of time before he learns how to close his fingers around it.”

There was a long silence in the room. Hull stirred, reached over to a nearby table, and carefully tapped his pipe in a bulky ceramic ashtray. He returned it to his pocket, then reached down for his hat. “That is the lot, I take it?”

Pardoe nodded. His face was rigid, and his eyes were slightly glazed.

“What do you think will happen?”

“To you?” Hull said. He shrugged. “It isn’t my job to speculate on the possible outcome of court action. Whatever the charges eventually are, you can’t deny that you’ve broken the law.”

“The law,” Pardoe said. Sudden disgust and anger choked his voice. “Don’t you realise that what you’re doing at this moment is letting loose the worst lawbreaker that ever lived, an incurable abuser of privacy, decency, and all the man-made rules that have enabled societies to be built that contain at least some element of justice?” He was white and shaking. “Don’t you see that?”

Hull fiddled with the brim of his hat. He said, slowly, “If what you say about him is true, it’s hardly his fault. Someone like that is bound to make their own rules.”

Pardoe stared at him, appalled. “But don’t you see what you’re saying? You’re admitting that I’m right, but you’re still permitting it to happen!”

“You might be right, in theory at least, but even if I knew it to be fact, what could I do about it?” Hull said. He rose, set his hat on his head, and tugged it into position. “As it is, I don’t know whether I believe you or not. Perhaps I do, but whether anyone else will is another matter. Not that it will make a great deal of difference, either way.” He looked vaguely apologetic.

“No,” Pardoe said. He rose slowly to his feet. “No, of course not.” His voice had changed again, and now Hull heard fear and saw it mirrored in his face, mingled with strangely formal regret. “It would be too much to expect, of course. Dan, watch him.”

Startled, Hull swung his head towards the dog as it lurched growling to its feet. There was a blur of movement to his right. Hull stepped back, abruptly, jerking up an arm in a reflex protective action, just in time to block the clumsily wielded sauce bottle that splintered heavily against his elbow. Sudden vertigo threw him off-balance. He pitched on all fours, pawing feebly for Pardoe’s legs, sickly aware of the snarling breath of the dog by his face. He heard Pardoe’s snapped command, a flurry of movement, then abrupt slam of the door.

He levered himself to his feet, enormous pressure weighting the back of his head and blurring his vision. He stumbled to the grate, grabbed the poker that lay there, then moved unsteadily towards the corridor. Somewhere near, Chapman shouted furiously, his voice mingling with the thud of a closing door.

At the far end of the passage, the alsatian had its jaws locked on Chapman’s right forearm. Chapman was behind and astride it, his free arm locked around its neck. Beyond them was a closed door. There was no sign of either Pardoe or the boy.

Hull went forward, the poker raised. Chapman stared up at him, then swung his leg free of the dog and backed away, his caught arm stiff and straight. Hull clubbed the dog, heavily. It staggered, whining, and Chapman cried out, buckling against the wall. Hull swung again, and the dog went down. Chapman went with it, his face chalky, and his free hand pulling feebly at its lower jaw.

Hull blundered across the prone body of the alsatian, and wrenched at the handle of the door. It was locked. He backed, braced himself with a hand on either wall, and kicked heavily beside the lock.

The door crashed open to reveal a stone-floored kitchen. The boy stood at the far end, pressed back against the sink, his face working convulsively and his eyes closed. There was a bread-knife in his hand, half its blade discoloured with blood.

Pardoe was on the floor at his feet. He lay in a foetal curve on his left side, one hand buried against his stomach, the other groping for the boy. As Hull watched, the spread fingers suddenly relaxed and the hand fell.

Hull put the poker on the table, moved across the room, and gently took the knife from the boy’s hand.

The boy’s eyes were open now, staring blankly down at Pardoe. He offered no resistance as Hull took him by the arm and steered him around the body to a chair in the far corner of the room.

“Don’t look at him,” Hull said. He went to the sink, and filled a glass that was upturned on the draining-board. He took it back to the boy and handed it to him, then went back and knelt by the still figure on the floor.

Pardoe was still alive, but his eyes were gradually filming and his pulse was barely detectable. His eyes moved, very slightly, touched on Hull’s face, then fell away again. Seconds later, he was dead.

As Hull rose to his feet, Chapman appeared in the doorway, gripping his injured arm. There was blood between his fingers, and his face was wet and sick. He stared at Pardoe’s body, then at the boy, his mouth slackly open.

“Oh, Christ,” he said, faintly. He leaned against the door frame, his head back and his eyes closed.

“We’d better get a tourniquet on that arm,” Hull said. “Here, let’s have your jacket off.” He eased off Chapman’s coat, and tied his handkerchief above the elbow of the bleeding arm. “How’s the dog, by the way?”

“Dead,” Chapman said. His eyes went past Hull to Pardoe’s huddled body, then he gasped, winced, and closed them again.

Hull seated him in a chair opposite the boy, then went back into the corridor, peering into rooms until he found a telephone. He called the hospital first, then his office.

“You’d better send out a spare driver, too. Chapman can’t drive, and I don’t really feel up to it.”

He put the phone down, looked briefly out of the window, swore, then went to look for a blanket. He took one from the first bed that he found, carried it down to the kitchen, and spread it across the body. Chapman and the boy were still seated where he had left them, the boy hunched and staring sightlessly at the floor, his hands locked on the tumbler. Chapman watched him with exhausted eyes.

Hull took a second glass from a cupboard, filled it, and preferred it to Chapman. Chapman declined it with a faint shake of the head. Hull leaned against the kitchen table, sipping gently at the water and watching the boy.

After a while, the boy said without looking up, “He tried to kill—” His voice thickened, and he stopped.

“It’s all right,” Chapman said, brusquely. “It’s all right.” He turned his head towards Hull, his drawn face white and angry. “You couldn’t help it, we know that. Don’t we,” he said to Hull.

Hull nodded, shortly, took another sip of water, and looked back at the boy again. His face was quite empty, devoid of expression and movement, faint colour showing again around his rather prominent cheekbones.

God Almighty, Hull thought with sudden irritation. You’d think he’d at least have cried by now.

Perhaps a quarter of a minute passed. Then, as he watched, a tear showed on the boy’s face, leaking jaggedly down one cheek. His face crumpled, and he began to sob.

“Here,” Chapman said. He pushed himself awkwardly forward in his chair, fumbling his good hand into his trouser pocket. He cursed, still searching, and twisted his head towards Hull. “Give the kid a handkerchief, can’t you? Mine must be in my other pocket.” His voice was angry.

Hull put down his glass, took the folded handkerchief from his breast pocket, and walked across to the boy. He held it out to him.

As he took it, the boy looked up, and for a brief moment Hull saw his eyes, watching him from behind the film of water that covered them. Then the tears welled again, and the eyes were gone, masked behind the handkerchief that the boy pressed against them.

“That’s right, son, have a good cry,” Chapman said, hoarsely. His voice was at once conciliatory and furious. “Let it all out, it’ll make you feel better.” He sat back in his chair, breathing heavily. After a moment, he turned his attention to Hull, still standing looking fixedly down at the boy’s bowed head and shoulders. He shifted irritably in his chair, seeking a point of focus for his restless anger. “You’d expect him to cry, all things considered, wouldn’t you?” he said. His voice was rebelliously querulous. “It’s only natural, isn’t it?”

Hull continued to stare, shadows of recent memory flitting greyly through his mind. He thought about Pardoe, a solitary man who believed that he had found a terrifying evil, a belief that had eventually created its own tormented sense of purpose. Was this what he had really found? Were his conviction and speculations grounded in wildly improbable fact, forecasting the inexorable growth of something dark and cancerous that would one day insinuate its malignancy into places of power, or were they the fantasies of loneliness, paranoid dreams that had been woven around the tawdry but easily rationalised trickery of a child?

And if he had been right, Hull reluctantly went on to question his sense of reasoning, what then? Did others like the boy really exist in the shadowed places of the world, their strange talent somehow prematurely spawned by their emotionally barren circumstances and already warped beyond repair? Were they even then engaged in the petty stratagems of adolescence, the measure of their activities as yet confined by the boundaries of imagination and experience, but slowly, like the opening of some dark and deadly flower, awakening to awareness of the power that they could some day hold?

Dimly aware of Chapman’s pugnaciously repeated question, he listened to the keening sobs that came from the boy, his ears straining with unwilling urgency to the texture of their sound, inescapably conscious of the choking pressure of the fear that was clamped coldly and tightly to his throat and stomach.

“Yes,” he said slowly, after a long moment. “Yes, I suppose it is.”