All Sorts of Possible (15 page)

She was aware of Mason’s heavy breathing. The velvet sounds as his nostrils flared. He was wearing a woody cologne, but there was something else beneath it, something she couldn’t
quite place. Like blood or the coppery smell of an old coin.

Closing her eyes, she tried to forget the man in front of her. Instead, she found a space and drifted into it as her fist closed round the ring.

When she looked again, Mason was still staring back. She shook her head and a tiny ticking started in his jaw then stopped and his right leg began tapping immediately.

‘I’m afraid I’m not getting anything,’ said Agatha.

‘There’s no need to be afraid.’ Mason leant back in the chair and the joints creaked. ‘We all have our off days, don’t we? Doesn’t look like you have that
many though.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Mason looked around. ‘This is a nice gaff. Business can’t be too bad.’

‘My husband was a lawyer.’

‘But he’s not now.’

When Agatha forced herself not to look away, Mason grinned as though everything was working out perfectly.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Mason, but sometimes I just don’t get the right feeling.’ She placed the ring on the desk between them. ‘The connection doesn’t work like a
switch. I can’t turn it on and off like a light.’

‘Sometimes I wish I was psychic. It would make things a whole lot easier in my line of work. I’d know who was lying to me.’

‘And what work is that?’

‘You tell me.’ He stared at Agatha. Eyes like marbles. His foot stopping mid-tap. And, for a moment, there was just the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Then Mason
blinked, shook his head and smiled. ‘I’ve run a few scams in my time too.’ And his eyebrows moved up and down like they were on strings.

Mason picked up the ring and put it in his pocket and stood up. He took a wad of money from inside his suit jacket, licked his finger and drew out a fifty-pound note and slapped it on the table
like a bet.

‘That’s not necessary. I only accept payment from satisfied clients,’ Agatha said, keen to get rid of him.

‘Oh, I’m satisfied.’ And Mason grinned and drew a line through her name in the notebook with a pencil he had found in his suit pocket.

He pushed the note further across the table, pinning it with a forefinger, and turning the tip of his fingernail white. ‘I know what certain people in my line of work would think if they
ever knew I was here.’

Agatha opened her mouth. Then closed it. She slid the note out from underneath Mason’s large finger and put it in her cardigan pocket.

After closing the front door, she listened to him crunching over the gravel and then she slid the chain across the door. Looking through the spyhole, she watched him go,
bulge-backed in the glass like a troll as he lumbered away. On the far side of the road a door of the blue BMW opened. By the time Agatha had walked into the living room and nudged back the curtain
with a finger to get a better look, the door had already shut and Mason had vanished.

The BMW remained parked there and Agatha kept wishing it would drive away. But it didn’t. The faint smell of Mason’s cologne wouldn’t leave either and she opened the back door
to flush it out of the house.

She hid the red fifty-pound note deep in a drawer full of odd buttons and offcuts of material, the nubs of pencils and little nests of string.

When she peered out of the window again, keeping close to the wall so as not to be seen, she saw the BMW’s bonnet was up and two large men were standing beside it. One of the men had a
hump on his back, which grew as he leant over the engine and started tinkering with the hoses.

Both of them looked up suddenly when one of the rear passenger doors opened and Mason appeared and pointed at something back down the street. When the two men turned round, Agatha pressed her
face closer to the window to see what Mason was pointing at.

It was Rosie.

And she was walking up the street towards the house with a boy.

The three of them sat in a row on the sofa in the living room with their hands in their laps. Mason was perched on a chair opposite, grinning, and when he slapped his thigh it
was like a gunshot.

He swore excitedly under his breath. ‘Another five minutes and I’d have missed you.’ He grinned at Daniel. ‘You think the world’s just chaos now? You know it
can’t be. Not with you meeting this lovely girl in the hospital and the two of you coming here to ask her gran about this connection of yours, and me being here too. You’ve got to
believe it’s all down to fate now, that it always lends a hand when needed. That life’s playing out according to some plan.’

Daniel shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, but no words came out. Yet Rosie seemed to know exactly what to do as she took his hand in hers and held on tight, her fingers cool and
strong.

‘If that’s what you want to believe, Mr Mason,’ she said, tucking a curl of black hair behind her ear.

‘Oh, it’s more than that,’ said Mason, shaking his head. ‘I
know
it. Go on, Daniel, tell her all about you, how life’s worked out to bring you here, right
up to this moment.’

Daniel shifted his feet. Took a breath. But, before he could say anything, Rosie was speaking.

‘Daniel told me everything on the way over here. You’re a bully and you’ve threatened to hurt his father unless he helps you find your briefcase of money and this other thing
you want, this flask. And you’ve told him that you think what’s happened to him is all down to some cosmic plan in which you happen to be involved.’

‘And
now
I think that you, you pretty thing, are the one Daniel’s been looking for to prove it, to make the fit,’ said Mason, waggling a big finger at her.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Or maybe not. If you’re the expert on making the fit then do tell me more because I’m new to all this.’ Mason’s leg pumped harder,
as though he was charging his voice to shout something loud, but Rosie carried on slowly and quietly. ‘My grandmother’s the one who’s psychic. We came to see her, not you, to find
out more about the fit and how it works.’ She leant forward until she could see herself in Mason’s eyes. ‘Daniel told me what happened to Lawson and I’m not about to let the
same thing happen to me.’

Mason grinned as she sat back. ‘You’re as pretty as a wasp, Rosie, you know that?’ And then he pointed at Agatha without looking at her. ‘I’m not sure your
gran’s going to be much use, to be honest. I’m pretty sure she’s a fake, fleecing punters for a few nuggets of made-up comfort to make them feel better about taking their money.
So I’ve got a better idea.’ He took the silver signet ring from his pocket and held it out for Rosie. ‘Let’s just get things moving ourselves. I want to
kno—’

But Rosie shook her head, cutting Mason dead, making him frown as if his brain was curdling. ‘Not until I know more.’ When Mason kept his hand stretched out, she shook her head
again. ‘You don’t scare me.’

‘Really? Why not?’ He tapped a big finger against his lips, as if mulling this over. And then he smiled. ‘You were at the hospital, so what’s wrong with you? Touch of
death, is it? Heart? Cancer?’ He nodded when Rosie’s throat moved. ‘Cancer it is. Chemo not going too well? Not got long? Or maybe you’ve only just been diagnosed and
you’re still feeling angry at the world.’ When Daniel squeezed Rosie’s hand, Mason noticed. ‘Bingo,’ he said quietly.

‘Leave her alone,’ said Daniel, his voice steely and sure. ‘It’s not her fault she’s ill.’

Mason beamed. ‘There he is! There’s the boy who survived being swallowed by the ground.’ He folded his arms and observed them. ‘You two were born to make the fit. Look at
you. Only met an hour ago and now you’re inseparable.’ He cricked his neck and grunted like a dog that’s found its itch. ‘Well, you might not be scared of me, Rosie, but
you’ll learn to be.’

Mason perched right on the edge of his seat, one hand splayed over his thigh like a giant starfish. ‘You see,’ he whispered as if they were in church. ‘I’ve got a way
with people that makes them do what I want. So pretty please. Go on. With cherries and cream on top. Or else Gran here might meet with an accident if you know what I mean.’ He held out his
other hand again, the ring in the centre of his palm and winked at Rosie.

Rosie kept watching as if expecting him to laugh and say it was all a joke. But he didn’t. When she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer, she turned to Agatha. ‘What are we
supposed to do, Gran? How does all this work?’

‘I’m sorry, Rosie,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about this.’

Mason grinned and raised his eyebrows as if he had known what she would say all along. When Agatha noticed that, she thought for a moment and sat up straighter and squared her shoulders until
something defiant shone in her eyes. ‘But Rosie darling, if you think there’s something between you and this boy, some sort of connection, then trust in it if you think it’s good.
Because there’s so little good in the world it must count for something against all the bad.’ When Agatha looked straight at Mason, he stared right back.

‘Get you, Granny,’ he said, nodding as if he approved of everything she had said.

Rosie squeezed her grandmother’s hand and then she turned and took the ring from Mason’s palm and clenched her fist round it. ‘Tell me what Lawson did, Daniel,’ she said,
ignoring Mason’s excited gasps.

As she stared at him, waiting to hear what he had to say, Daniel wondered how this delicate and beautiful girl would ever be strong enough to make the fit when it seemed she would break apart in
his arms if he simply hugged her. But when the fingers of her other hand gripped his wrist he felt a strength in them. Like wire. It strengthened something inside him too and he turned and looked
at Mason.

‘Whatever we’re going to try isn’t for you. It’s to see if we can make the fit that’s going to let us do something really good with it, like helping my dad and
Rosie too.’

Mason drummed his fingers on his great big knees. ‘Of course it is, Daniel. Whatever you say. Now let’s get on with it, shall we?’ And he took out his little black notebook
from his jacket pocket and opened it, ready to write everything down with his pencil.

‘Focus on the ring,’ said Daniel, turning to Rosie. ‘Then do whatever you did in the lift earlier. I’m going to focus on you, Rosie. I’m going to open my heart to
you and let you do your best to use what’s inside me. I’ll warn you if anything feels wrong. I’ll keep you safe.’

Rosie nodded and closed her eyes and Daniel did his best to focus on her, trying to forget about Mason as he watched. Then, in the next moment, he felt the familiar flutter in his chest and a
warmth coursing through him, as if his blood was turning golden.

He began to see moments playing out around him, like little snippets of film, just as he had done when Lawson had made the fit with him . . .

A dead man’s face, his eyes staring at nothing . . .

. . . the silver signet ring on his little finger . . .

. . . he was lying in a pool of blood on a road bordered by shops shuttered up for the night, under the glare of a street light . . .

. . . as a white car idled further on down the street.

And then the driver’s door opened.

A pair of silver boot tips stopped beside the dead man’s head and a hand picked up a leather briefcase that was lying in the road.

And then the white car began to drive away . . .

. . . A right indicator flashed as the white car reached a junction at the top of the street and then disappeared, leaving the dead man under the light.

Rosie described these things to Mason and he leant forward and asked for more. ‘Tell me who took my money, Rosie. Tell me,’ he growled.

There was not the slightest fear inside Daniel of anything feeling wrong as the warmth increased in his chest, and he knew that Rosie was trying harder to make their fit stronger. He kept
focused on her as more moments spun out of nowhere and played out around him . . .

The face of a man, thickset, with a black moustache and a scar across one side of his cheek, opening the briefcase and looking inside at bricks of money, then snapping it
shut and walking away from the body in the street . . .

. . . the leather briefcase lying on the passenger seat of the white car . . .

. . . the man with the black moustache sitting in the driver’s seat, pumping the clutch with a silver-tipped boot as he drove away from the dead man, just a dark hump on the road in
the rear-view mirror.

A letter lying crumpled in the well of the passenger seat below the briefcase. A tax demand for a Mr Gates. Address: 31 Highfield Crescent, Cambridge CB2 9BT.

Over and over Rosie repeated what she was seeing until she opened her eyes, and she was blinking in the early evening sunlight coming low through the window in front of her,
her face red and glistening with sweat.

You could have popped a marble through the ‘O’ of Mason’s mouth as he stared at them, his pencil poised above the notebook, apparently surprised neither of them had come to any
harm. When he seemed to accept it, he looked at the name and address he had written down and then flipped the notebook shut and stood up.

‘You two come with me,’ he said. When neither Daniel nor Rosie moved, Mason clicked his fingers and motioned for them to stand up. ‘It’s important. You need to see what
happens next. So you both know how serious I am about everything.’

As they stood up, he winked at Agatha. ‘Your granddaughter’s a real peach, you know that?’ He blew a kiss across the room at her. ‘See you later, Granny-gator.’

The man with the black moustache and the scar was lying on the floor of the bedsit, bloodied and beaten, his nose a nub of red putty. One of his wrists was broken, misshapen
like an overripe fruit about to burst. Frank and Jiff stood impassively in one corner, looking on as Mason showed Daniel and Rosie into the room. He clicked the door shut behind them, then turned
to survey the room, tutting disapprovingly. A cheap desk splintered and thrown on its side. The bed upturned and the stripy mattress ripped down its centre with a knife. A lamp on the floor, its
white shade askew and the bulb peeking out.