Perfect People

  The psychiatrist nodded. ‘A dog would be good. OK, what I’d like to do is run a few little problem-solving tests with them, relating to sub goals, and see how they handle them, if that’s OK with you? I want to do this individually, which means you take one of them out of the room. Shall we start with ladies first?’

  John went out into the hall with Luke and sat down on a chair. Naomi watched as, first, Roland Talbot laid two cloths on the coffee table. He held up a plastic cow, squeezed it and a mooing sound came out. He saw Phoebe’s eyes widen, and her arms reach out to try to grasp it. He pulled it back sharply away from her. Then he laid the cow on one cloth, well beyond Phoebe’s reach.

  ‘Let her try to get it,’ he told Naomi.

  Phoebe moved closer to the table. In seconds, Phoebe grabbed the cloth with the cow on, yanked it sharply towards her, then grabbed the cow, and squeezed a moo from it.

  ‘Well done, darling!’ Naomi praised her.

  Next, Talbot repeated the experiment, but this time he put a plastic barrier across the cloth, hiding the cow, still well out of Phoebe’s reach. The barrier could only be moved by grasping a handle attached to it.

  Within seconds, Phoebe had jerked the barrier out of the way, and had the cow back in her hands, squeezing it excitedly.

  Over the next fifteen minutes, the psychiatrist set Phoebe a series of tasks that seemed to Naomi to be progressively harder. Then he repeated the process with Luke.

  When Luke completed the last task, the psychiatrist brought Naomi and Phoebe back into the room and sat them back down on the sofa. For some moments he looked pensive. Phoebe took a sudden interest in Naomi’s hair and began twisting it into a tangle. Luke reached out towards a set of cubes he had been putting together, angry that his father was holding him back.

  The psychiatrist leaned against his chair, arms behind his head. ‘Well, John and Naomi, you do have something to worry about, but it’s not what you’ve come to see me about, I can tell you that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘You’re worried about Luke and Phoebe being backward, right?’

  Both John and Naomi hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘I can tell you this: they’re not the slightest bit backward. You know what I would worry about if they were my kids? They’re so damned smart, I’d be worrying about how the hell, in a few years time, I’m going to be able to keep up with them.’ He looked at them, giving them a chance for this to sink in.

  John and Naomi exchanged a brief glance.

  ‘These kids have very advanced skills for their age. I would say unique in my experience. They even look advanced. They are good visual learners and very auditory learners, so they have it both ways. A colleague of mine is running a research programme on exceptionally bright children – with your permission I’d like—’

  ‘No,’ Naomi interrupted, very firmly, shooting a warning glance at John. ‘I don’t want my children under any kind of scrutiny like that.’

  John, mindful of Kalle Almtorp’s warning to keep a low profile, said, ‘I’m sorry, but very definitely not.’

  There had been no further word about the Disciples of the Third Millennium for a year now, but that did not mean they could start relaxing their guard. Until these people were identified and behind bars, they could never relax – and perhaps not even then. There were always going to be fanatics out there who would resent what they had done.

  Roland Talbot put up his hands. ‘No sweat, absolutely, I understand.’

  ‘Thank you,’ John said.

  ‘But I do think you need to be prepared,’ the psychiatrist added. ‘When you start Luke and Phoebe in full-time school, it’s likely they’re going to get bored pretty quickly. You may have to fix it for them to get special treatment, otherwise you’ll hold them back and they’ll start resenting you for it.’

  John looked at Luke and Phoebe, wondering how much of this they were understanding and taking on board. They gave no sign of any reaction at all.

  As they left, ushering the kids along the hallway in front of them, John put an arm around Naomi and squeezed her, filled with immense pride and hope. Maybe, just maybe, all they had gone through was going to be worthwhile. Their children were healthy, and now a top psychologist confirmed that they were smart, way above average for their age.

  Smiling, he turned to kiss Naomi on the cheek. But she pulled away, white-faced, looking deeply disturbed.

  52

  ‘Mrs Klaesson?’

  The woman stood on the doorstep, holding a dribbling baby in her arms, was haggard and irritable. ‘Glissom?’ she retorted, her Cleveland accent sounding like an echo.

  She looked nothing like the photograph he had memorized, not remotely. ‘Mrs Naomi Klaesson?’

  He got a blank expression back.

  Politely, he said, ‘I’m looking for the Klaesson family. You’re not by any chance Mrs Naomi Klaesson?’

  ‘Naomi Glissom? No way, not me, you got the wrong address, mister. There ain’t no Naomi Glissom here.’

  Behind her a small boy rode a plastic tractor across the hallway. A television was on, loud. The woman was in her mid-thirties, tiny, with a plump face and shapeless black hair.

  ‘Maybe I have the wrong house. I was looking for fifteen twenty-six South Stearns Drive.’

  ‘You got it.’

  The woman stared at the man. He was in his late twenties, medium height, lean, serious-looking, with ginger hair shaved to stubble, a blue business suit, black shoes and a black attaché case. Out on the street there was a small blue sedan that looked very clean. He was dressed like a salesman but he lacked a salesman’s confidence. Perhaps he was a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness?

  He frowned. ‘I’m from Federal North-West Insurance; Mrs Klaesson owns a Toyota car registered at this address; she was in a collision with one of our clients and she hasn’t responded to any communications from us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know nothing about that.’

  The baby’s face scrunched up, then it took several sharp intakes of breath. It was about to start crying. The woman looked down and rocked it. ‘Glissom?’ she said again.

  ‘K-L-A-E-S-S-O-N.’ He spelled it.

  ‘Klaesson? Dr Klaesson!’ she said, suddenly. ‘OK, I got it now. I think they rented this place a few years back. Used to get mail for them.’

  Timon Cort nodded. ‘Dr John Klaesson and Naomi Klaesson.’

  ‘They’re not here any more. They went away. Long while back.’

  ‘You have any idea where they went?’

  ‘You could try the agency, the rental agency. The Bryant Mulligan agency over on Roxbury.’

  ‘The Bryant Mulligan agency?’

  The baby was crying louder. ‘Try them,’ she said. ‘They might know.’

  ‘Bryant Mulligan?’ He spelled it as she had pronounced it.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I’m obliged,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  She closed the door.

  The Disciple went back to his car, climbed inside and dialled 411 on his cellphone. He asked the operator for the number of the Bryant Mulligan agency. Then rang them.

  But the Bryant Mulligan agency had no forwarding address for the Klaessons.

  53

  It was a gloriously warm Saturday afternoon, three days after their visit to Dr Talbot, and almost certain to be one of the last summer days of the year, Naomi thought.

  She was standing on a stepladder in the orchard, holding a plastic bucket half full of plums. Through the branches of the tree she watched Luke and Phoebe a short distance away on the lawn. Earlier they had been splashing about with John in the tiny inflatable pool he had set up for them. Now they had brought out their Barbie Prince and Princess, and just about every stuffed animal they had, arranged them in a semi-circle and were serving them afternoon tea from the toy set.

  Phoebe was being Mummy, pouring the tea, while Luke passed around the plate of plasticine cakes. They appeared to be chatting happily to each o
ther and to their toys, which she was pleased to see. Normally they only ever seemed to chat to each other when they were alone in their bedroom.

  A wasp buzzed around her face and she flapped it away, then reached towards a whole clump of beautifully ripe Victorias. She’d been on edge since their session with Dr Talbot. John had been thrilled that the psychiatrist thought they were so smart. She had been less enthusiastic; it reinforced her suspicion that John and Dr Dettore had agreed on more things than she had been privy too. Maybe even to having the twins?

  She was increasingly worried, too, about how everyone commented that the children looked so much older than their age, despite that original warning from Dr Dettore that this might happen.

  Whatever the truth, I love you, darlings. I will always love you – just as much as you let me.

  With luck it would be warm enough tonight to have drinks outside. They had invited Carson and Caroline Dicks over for one of John’s Swedish crayfish evenings. Keeping his traditions was important to John and she always found that rather quaint, if somewhat contradictory in a man who believed so much more passionately in the future than in the past.

  Climbing back down from the ladder, she knelt to pick up some windfalls. She liked it in here, in the dappled sunlight and the shade; it was like being in a secret world. It reminded her of when she was a child, and how she loved to hide in secret places and spend hours on her own. Then, flapping away yet another wasp, she carried the almost full basket over to John and the children.

  He was sitting at the wooden table on the terrace, a copy of Nature magazine in front of him, staring down at Luke and Phoebe with a strange expression on his face. He was holding something in his hand that she thought for a moment was his camera, but then, looking again, realized was a tape recorder. He was aiming it at Luke and Phoebe. All part of his obsession with logging and recording almost every moment of their childhood, she thought.

  ‘See these, Luke, see these, Phoebe?’ she said, breezily.

  Neither child seemed aware of her. Luke was talking to Phoebe, his speech sounding more fluent and confident than usual. Phoebe responded, equally chattily. Then she turned to her pink, floppy-eared elephant.

  ‘Obm dekcarh cidnaaev hot nawoy fedied oevauoy.’

  Naomi frowned, wondering if she had heard correctly.

  Luke responded, ‘Eka foe eipnod hyderlseh deegsomud.’

  Then Phoebe said, ‘Olaaeo evayeh gibra snahele.’

  Naomi looked at John who raised a finger, signalling her not to disturb them.

  They continued speaking in this strange language for several minutes, oblivious to Naomi, chatting busily away to each other and their toy guests. Then, suddenly not wanting to hear any more, Naomi went inside, to the kitchen, and set the basket down on the table, feeling very disturbed in a way she couldn’t quite get her head around.

  It wasn’t baby-talk, it was as if they were communicating in a proper language, speaking it fluently. As if, somehow, this language had ramped Luke and Phoebe’s conversational skills up a whole notch.

  They were still playing, still chatting, she could see them through the window, although she couldn’t hear them from here.

  John’s voice startled her. Right behind her, suddenly. ‘Have you ever heard them speaking like that before?’

  ‘Never.’

  He pressed a button on the recorder.

  ‘Obm dekcarh cidnaaev hot nawoy fedied oevauoy.’

  ‘Eka foe eipnod hyderlseh deegsomud.’

  ‘Olaaeo evayeh gibra snahele.’

  He paused the tape. ‘I don’t recognize the language at all,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not some variation of Swedish?’

  ‘No.’ He played it for a few more moments.

  ‘Children make up languages,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s in all the books I’ve read – something that twins do quite often. You know, like secret languages?’

  ‘Idioglossia,’ John said. His voice sounded detached and distant.

  ‘Idioglossia?’

  ‘Invented speech.’

  She picked up a printed napkin, refolded it and set it back down on the table. ‘Is it a game, John? Just a harmless game? Or—’

  ‘Or?’ he prompted.

  She refolded a second napkin. ‘Are they doing it so they can say things they don’t want us to hear?’

  He smiled. ‘At twenty months, I don’t think they are old enough to be quite that devious.’

  ‘Don’t you? Are you sure about that?’

  Their eyes met in an uncomfortable silence.

  54

  ‘Helan går, sjung hopp faderallan lallan lej . . .

  ‘Helan går, sjung hopp faderallan lej!

  ‘Och den som inte helan tar,

  ‘Han heller inte halvan får . . .

  ‘Helan gåaaaarrrrrr . . . sjung hopp faderallan lej!’

  Amid a burst of laughter at the ragged singing, four glasses of Skåne aquavit clinked across the festive table in John and Naomi’s dining area.

  ‘Skål!’ John said.

  ‘Skål!’ said Naomi.

  ‘Skål!’ Carson Dicks said, putting down his song sheet.

  Then with a little less enthusiasm, as if she was embarrassed by such rowdy behaviour, Carson’s wife Caroline added her own, small ‘Skål!’

  The centrepiece of the table was a huge dish heaped with crimson freshwater crayfish, covered with sprigs of fresh dill. A small plastic Swedish flag was placed to one side of it, and several candles burned around it. Two plates were stacked with the traditional white toasted bread, and another with Greve cheese. In front of each place setting were glasses of schnapps, beer, wine and water. The tablecloth was paper printed with pictures of crayfish, and the theme was carried through on the napkins at each of the four place settings and on the bibs they were wearing.

  John, fuelled by alcohol, felt good. Naomi had made the table look wonderful. She looked beautiful, and he felt intensely proud of her. He was with his favourite friends. The air was balmy. How could you fail to be happy on a night like this?

  He stood up and raised his glass. ‘I wish to make a toast to you, my darling. You are a wonderful woman, a fantastic wife, an incredible mother, and I love you and adore you.’

  Carson and Caroline raised their glasses. Naomi mouthed an embarrassed, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘To Naomi!’ Carson said.

  ‘Naomi!’ Caroline said, leaning across the table and clinking glasses with her.

  He refilled Carson Dicks’s schnapps glass, but Caroline covered hers with her hand.

  ‘I’m driving,’ she said.

  John looked at her as if she was mental. ‘No one drives to a crayfish party. You should leave your car and take a taxi home!’

  Then he got up from the table and staggered over to the baby-monitor speaker. Just a faint hiss of static. All quiet. Good. He hoped their singing down here wouldn’t disturb the children, but hey, the annual crayfish party would become part of Luke and Phoebe’s lives too, in time. An essential cornerstone of their Swedish culture.

  ‘So, how are you finding life at the Morley Park Institute, John?’ Carson Dicks said, breaking into his thoughts.

  John nodded. ‘Good. I’m glad you persuaded me. I’m very happy.’ He looked at Naomi.

  ‘I owe you a big thank-you for bringing us back to England,’ she said.

  ‘We’re happy, too,’ Carson said, peering at both of them through his bottle-thick glasses. ‘We’re lucky to have John working for us – and we’re fortunate to have you both here. It’s worked out well. You’re married to a great man.’

  Caroline picked up her glass. ‘Who was it who said that behind every successful man there stands a truly astonished woman?’

  They all laughed.

  John beamed at Carson. He liked him so much. His boss had dressed for the occasion tonight in a blue and yellow striped T-shirt, the Swedish national colours, unbelievably baggy trousers and open-toed sandals. He looked a complete prat, and yet . . .
so adorable. Suddenly he raised his glass and stood up again. ‘Carson and Caroline – you’ve been truly good friends to us. You’ve helped us both in so many ways. I want to say thank you. I think Naomi and I are very fortunate to have your friendship.’ He drank half the glass and sat down.

  Caroline, looking a little embarrassed, smiled. Carson raised his own glass. ‘You know the definition of a true friend, John?’

  John shook his head. ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘It’s someone who knows everything about you – and still likes you.’

  John roared with laughter. ‘I guess that makes you a true friend indeed!’

  ‘Don’t you think there is a lot of serendipity in life, John?’ Caroline said. ‘That sometimes things are meant to be?’

  ‘I think that’s a cop-out,’ Naomi said.

  John, sensing an argument about to happen, picked up his song sheet. ‘Right! Time for the next song. Caroline, your turn to sing!’

  Reddening with embarrassment, she stood up, holding her sheet, and made a valiant attempt at singing the Swedish words.

  ‘Tänk om jag hade lilla nubben . . .’ she began.

  When she had finished, she sat down to raucous applause from John and her husband, who again drained their schnapps glasses.

  John refilled the glasses. He was about to sit down again, when a sound from the baby monitor caught his attention. For a moment he thought it was just the static again, but then, listening closer, he heard a sharp buzzing sound. Naomi looked up at him, catching his eye.

  ‘Problem?’ she asked.

  He listened again. A very definite angry buzzing sound. ‘I’ll go.’

  He raised a calming hand and headed, unsteadily, out into the hall. Then, swaying from side to side, he hurried to the twins’ room. Opening the door, he almost immediately had to duck as a small, dark object, barely visible in the weak glow of the night light, hurtled at him, buzzing angrily, batted against a wall, then shot away.

  He blinked, his vision a tad blurry. Shit.

  He snapped the main light switch down and the room instantly flooded with light. Moments later the insect zoomed low over the cots, then buzzed him again before racing up towards the ceiling. It was a very large wasp, a queen, or maybe even a hornet.