Bring Him Back

15

Ben waited, confused and impatient, while Drew fished a video cassette out of a bag and fed it into a VCR. Prince Al-Naseem’s giant TV screen flashed into life. ‘What are you showing me, Drew?’ he asked. The ten minutes had been up long ago.

‘Just watch,’ Drew said. As the video began to play, Carl put his head round the door and came back into the room. ‘Is this—?’ he began, and his father nodded.

Ben quickly realised that he was watching a high-quality home video. The image was steady, as if the camera had been mounted on a tripod in the hands of an expert. ‘Did you film this?’ he asked.

‘August 2001,’ Drew said. ‘Our family holiday near Málaga.’

The screen showed a village square, surrounded by old whitewashed houses and shaded from the sun. The square was bustling with people, who seemed to be crowding to watch some spectacle taking place, many of them craning their necks to see. Whatever it was, it was generating an excited buzz of chatter.

As Ben watched, the camera panned smoothly across to reveal what the crowd were so interested in. Sitting opposite one another at a café table were two chess players. On one side, playing black with a look of intense concentration, was a swarthy middle-aged man with the deep tan of a native of southern Spain; on the other side, playing white, was a younger, smaller Carl in shorts and a T-shirt. However long the game had been going on for, there were only a few pieces remaining on the board. After a few more moments’ careful deliberation, the Spaniard picked up his surviving bishop and cut diagonally across the board to threaten a white rook. The move caused a murmur among the crowd.

‘That’s Ángelo Martín,’ Drew said. ‘He was the Spanish chess champion eight years running.’

With hardly a pause, Carl reached for his threatened rook and slid it across to capture the second black knight. It took a couple of moments for the spectators to realise why Ángelo Martín was now gaping at the chessboard in disbelief. Gasps broke out.

‘Checkmate,’ Carl said calmly.

Cameras began to flash. ‘He’s done it again!’ said on offscreen voice in Spanish. ‘It’s impossible,’ said another. ‘Nobody beats Ángelo Martín just like that. He’s the champion, for Christ’s sake!’

Drew paused the video, the frozen image of the humiliated champ’s dark expression filling the screen. ‘He hadn’t been playing long. Had you, Carl?’

‘’Bout four months,’ the boy replied casually, trying not to look too proud of himself.

Ben stared at them both. ‘Explain what this is about.’

‘It was just a fluke, how it happened,’ Drew told him. ‘We’d rented a place in this little village, and that afternoon the three of us were having a drink in the square. I’d bought Carl his chess computer not long before, and he was sitting quietly playing when this friendly local guy at a nearby table took an interest in what he was doing. He spoke English and seemed pretty impressed with Carl’s moves, giving him tips and advice. Before Jessica and I knew it, a proper chessboard had been brought out and the two of them were playing a real game.

‘It was only then that we realised the man was Ángelo Martín. He started out playing gently, letting Carl take a few pawns. But then things started getting more serious. Carl was wiping the board with him. He seemed to be able to anticipate every move in the champion’s mind, foil every strategy before it even had a chance to develop. Carl had always shown some odd abilities, but this was the first time I began to realise how strong his gift was.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Dad,’ Carl said shyly.

‘I’m not, son. It was incredible,’ Drew went on telling Ben. ‘Soon there were whole crowds gathering. By the time Carl had already won two games in a row, I ran back to the house for my video camera and started filming. I had to get this on tape. Some people thought it was fixed, or that Carl was cheating somehow. But he wasn’t. After three straight defeats, Ángelo Martín lost his rag and went storming off.’

Carl couldn’t help smiling at the memory.

‘Word spread during the couple more weeks we were there,’ Drew went on. ‘A local journalist called Isabella Saura got wind of it and asked for an interview. I’ve got that on tape too. Hold on.’ Drew fast-forwarded the video. At high speed, Ben saw the disgruntled chess champion throw over his king and stomp angrily away. The picture dissolved into static for a second, then cut to the interview.

‘I hate watching myself,’ Carl muttered.

Drew let it play. Indoors now, a slightly younger Jessica was sitting proudly smiling with her arm around Carl. ‘Mrs Hunter,’ said the interviewer, Isabella Saura in lightly accented English, ‘what would you say to the sceptics who don’t believe your son is a newcomer to the game of chess?’

‘Carl’s got a special talent,’ Jessica said. ‘That’s all there is to it. Anyone who saw him play knows that he didn’t cheat. He wouldn’t have.’

Turning to Carl, the interviewer said, ‘So now, Carl, when you return home after your holiday, you will be able to tell your friends at school that you beat the Spanish chess champion. Were you nervous?’

‘Not really,’ he said, blushing and looking down at his feet. ‘It wasn’t that hard for me to win.’

‘Ugh,’ the real-life Carl snorted, watching himself in disapproval. ‘Talk about snotty.’

‘Shush, Carl,’ Drew said.

‘You certainly made it look easy,’ the interviewer chuckled. ‘What is the secret of your amazing ability?’

‘I sort of knew what he was going to do, before he did it,’ replied the on-screen Carl. ‘That’s how I could beat him so fast.’

‘You mean you could predict what the champion’s every move would be? Surely this must take years of study and practice? But you have only been playing a short time?’

‘I could read his thoughts,’ the boy said nonchalantly.

‘In Spanish?’ the interview replied, making a joke of it.

‘Doesn’t matter what language,’ the boy told her. ‘I can just read people’s minds. Anybody’s.’ He added, ‘Yours too.’

Drew turned off the tape. ‘It’s the truth,’ he said to Ben. ‘Carl has an incredible gift. That’s what I meant when I said he couldn’t get into Mike’s head. Because normally, he knows what people are thinking.’

‘Come on,’ Ben said.

‘You think it’s all bullshit, do you? You’re wrong. Telepathy, ESP, whatever you want to call it, is recognised as a reality. The Russians have been researching it for decades. The Americans too. They take it seriously enough to spend millions. It’s not a joke.’

‘Is it true, Carl?’ Ben said. ‘You can read minds?

Carl shrugged. ‘Not all of the time. Depends.’

‘Okay, then what’s on my mind?’ Ben asked him.

‘You don’t believe us. You think we’re making it up.’

Ben smiled. ‘You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure that one out.’

Carl hesitated for a moment. A defiant look coming into his eye, he said, ‘What you were thinking. Before you brought us back here. You were wrong. And you know you were wrong.’

‘Thinking?’

‘That Dad killed the detective man,’ Carl said. ‘It’s not true. Dad wouldn’t hurt anybody. And he never sent those men to get you, either.’

Ben was stunned. How could the boy have known about those suspicions that had been in his mind at the time?

‘How many men, Carl?’ he asked.

Carl thought for a moment. ‘Three.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I can see them,’ Carl said.

‘Inside my head? What else can you see?’

‘There was a lion,’ Carl said.

‘A lion?’

‘Just its head. Shiny. Like gold.’

Ben remembered the polished brass knocker on the door of the Finley & Reynolds detective agency.

‘Black door,’ Carl said. ‘There was a railing.’

Ben stared at Carl, then at Drew. It wasn’t possible. There had to be a trick. ‘He’s been to Dover. He’s just describing what he’s seen with his own eyes.’

‘How could he have been there?’ Drew replied. ‘I wasn’t allowed to see him, remember? Let alone take him with me. I went to see Paul Finley in Dover by myself.’

‘Then you told him about it.’

‘About my secret visit to the detective agency?’ Drew said. ‘You don’t think I’d have kept that to myself, in case he let something slip? He’s just a boy.’

‘Then how’s he doing this?’ Ben asked. He remembered how Carl had appeared to know he was following them earlier that day in the street. The way he’d turned to stare, picking Ben out of the crowd as if some unseen finger had just pointed down out of the sky to give him away. It had baffled him then. It baffled him even more now.

‘You tell me,’ Drew said. ‘There is no explanation. He just can. He’s special. And Mike Greerson knows it. Don’t you get it yet? That’s what this is all about.’