Tomaz had a windup gramophone, just like the orphans. The records were crackly and a heartbroken soprano sang in a soft, tearful voice. The two children lit their cigars and listened. Millie closed her eyes and sank deeper into her chair. “What are they doing down there?” she said, lazily. “Who are they, Tomaz?”
“They’ve been down there for years.”
Millie laughed. “And you’re the next-door neighbor.”
“I stay away,” said Tomaz. “I go sometimes, to see if I can get an animal. Otherwise, I stay away. You know,” he said, after a pause, “it may have been my fault that they were chasing you.”
“Your fault? What do you mean?”
Tomaz turned and looked at Millie. “You know they found your tie? You left it in the ventilation shaft.”
“Of course . . .” Millie’s hand had gone instinctively to her throat. She sat there, her hand around her neck, looking stunned. “That is so dumb. It had my name on it, what a fool. Tomaz, that’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever done!”
“I was in there just before you though. I stole the old man’s briefcase.” Millie stared at him. “I know it’s wrong, but I thought it was time I . . . I thought it was time I did something too, but I didn’t know what. So I took the briefcase and thought that if I could get it to Sanchez, then maybe he could look at what’s inside. They probably think that you have it and maybe that’s why they’re hunting you.”
“She did say something about a briefcase. Miss Hazlitt.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think they’d . . .”
“Where is it now? What did you do with it?”
“It’s just there.”
Millie looked across the room and got to her feet. On a small table stood the same squat metal briefcase she’d seen almost every day in the hands of Miss Hazlitt. She lifted it gently and checked the locking mechanism. Both clasps had been forced.
“You got into it. What’s inside?”
“Have a look. Pictures, files, all sorts of stuff. I took it for Sanchez, you see. I thought I would find a way of getting it to him. They’re getting ready for something—and I think it’s bad.”
Millie cleared a space and he laid it on the table in front of her. “Have you read this stuff?” she asked. She was pulling out papers and graphs. Some of the writing was typed, some of it was in the cramped hand of Miss Hazlitt. “What does it say?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“Tomaz, what have you been doing? This could actually tell us what they’re up to . . . If you went to the trouble of stealing the thing, why didn’t you read what’s inside? It’s about—the orphans.”
Tomaz paused and there was another ghost of a blush. “I can’t read, Millie. I was learning with Ruskin, but . . .”
But Millie wasn’t listening. She had picked up a sheet and was instantly, instantly absorbed. She put it to one side and picked up the next. A puff of cigar, a swig of wine. She sat down again and spread out some of the documents. They were medical reports. She saw familiar names: Asilah, Anjoli, Israel, Sanjay, Vijay, Podma, Eric—all the orphans’ names, but no sign of hers or Sam’s or Ruskin’s. Henry wasn’t there, nor was Sanchez—but then, only the orphans had been through the tests. She skimmed through, flipping the pages. For some reason Anjoli’s name was heavily underlined in a colored marker pen. Then, paperclipped together in a buff folder, measurements, graphs, information about diet and weight. It was all Anjoli now, every page. Paper after paper, with data that went into long columns of minuscule, obsessive handwriting.
“What do they say?” said Tomaz.
“I don’t know.”
Lists. Data. Photographs. “It’s the stuff she was doing in the mornings,” said Millie. “Our deputy headmistress was measuring them, all the time . . . Look at this, I don’t understand it. What’s a medial prefrontal cortex? What’s an amygdala? I can’t read half of this. I don’t understand: it’s cross-referenced with something . . . What?”
She unfolded a zigzag of paper and revealed a whole cosmos of planets.
“They’re skulls,” said Tomaz.
Millie opened another folder and a sheaf of X-rays fanned across the desk. Eye sockets, teeth, and the curve of a child’s cranium.
She said, “We shouldn’t be sitting here.” Someone had drawn the most beautiful cross sections of Anjoli’s brain, numbering and labeling. To maintain a self-regulating oxygen supply, anaesthetic is to be avoided. Administer only the minimum dose of compound 311, methodone base (see footnote 4.4)—subject to be conscious, pressure details subject to . . .
Millie’s world plunged.
The ride wasn’t over: she was on a new loop of the roller coaster and this time she was higher than ever and the drop on either side made her feel faint. “He wasn’t there,” she said, with mounting panic.
“Who?”
“In the dormitory, just before the fire. I can see them all. I was looking at them, I was trying to talk to them. They were playing some stupid game and falling off the beds. Anjoli wasn’t there. I said, ‘Where’s Anjoli?’ but then we saw the fire.”
Millie stood up. She could feel herself falling, overcome by dread. She grabbed the stove chimney to steady herself, burned her hand, and cried out. She held the papers to her chest. Then she read the annotations again, even though her hands were unsteady. Down the side, boxed in neatly, were medical details: blood group, cellular breakdowns, a chart with lists of numbers, little graphs that meant nothing. Then, most horribly, she was back in the lab, looking down at the model child and the needles. They needed a subject. They had the green light. They didn’t have Tomaz.
“I know what they’re doing!” she said suddenly. She was crying. “They’re doing it to him.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’ve been feeding them pills, but they don’t take the pills. I think she’s trying to check for changes in behavior, side effects, that kind of thing, but it hasn’t worked. Oh no, she was always checking him, more than anyone else—and she hated him! Then in the lab, I heard them talking about it, dammit, but I just didn’t understand—and that must be what the chair is for and why they had that dummy. They were planning it—they were going on and on about how it couldn’t wait, but I thought it was you!”
“How what couldn’t wait?”
“She’s working for that man. Mr. Jarman, this . . . surgeon. They must be working together and she’s running the school to provide him with children . . . Tomaz!” Millie cried out. “Tomaz! Sam was saying . . . Some of the things he was saying . . .”
“Hang on, you—”
“They’ve got Anjoli. Where’s the lab? How do we get to it?”
“You have to go up—I blocked the tunnel, so—”
“We’ve got to find the others, Tomaz! Oh, God, why didn’t you give this to us earlier? We’re going to be way too late! Is there a quick way up? They’ll be looking for me, they’ll be round the lake!”
“There’s a secret way, I’ll get you boots!”
Millie was crying harder now, in terror and frustration. She wiped away the tears. “They’ve taken him! I was going to ask, but then we saw the fire!” She pressed her palms to her eyes and sniffed back the mucus. “She’s got him and we’ve been sitting here, drinking. Tomaz, he’s my friend, he’s my friend!”
“Shh, it’s okay, there’s a quick way—”
“It’s not okay! They’re going to do something to him, Tomaz, they’ll kill him! They’ve probably already killed him, we’re too late!”