Edge (3 page)

    "Look at my hand," she said, her voice a living thing, every nuance of pitch and rhythm and timbre keyed to some aspect of the woman's physiology. "See the changing focus of your eyes and in a moment you might blink, that's right, and before you enter trance now" – the woman's eyelids fluttered – "you can hear the silence between sounds like time to sleep and my voice will go with you as you close your eyes… now… and sink deeper… and deeper… into a soft relaxing daydream state… That's right."

    The woman slid into trance.

    She went fast and deep, while Adam's jaw dropped. In Suzanne's office, the portable fMRI would have shown the brain's activity profoundly altered: the anterior cingulate diminished, the precuneus nucleus in spectacular, multicoloured overdrive on the monitor display. Even to an untrained observer like Adam, the effect was obvious. He remained riveted as Suzanne completed the induction, taking the woman back in time, inside her mind, to situations where she felt secure; and each time the state was at its deepest, Suzanne touched the woman's shoulder.

    "Now in the whirlwind, step outside yourself, like watching a screen, then drain the colour out and push the image off into the distance–"

    Recoding the recent memory to remove trauma, then using the shoulder pressure to trigger confidence and calm, she left an instruction for ongoing improvement in the woman's life –
"Just fixing the problem isn't good
enough,"
her teachers used to say,
"so leave them better
than before, better than they thought possible"
– before leading her back to normal consciousness.

    "And you can come awake as I count backwards. Ten, nine…"

    Finally she snapped her fingers, and the woman's eyes snapped open.

    "My God."

    "Bloody hell," said Adam.

    "I…" The woman stopped, then: "I remember that poor man, but I'm not terrified by it. How can I–? That was amazing, thank you."

    Blinking, she pulled out her phone and checked the time.

    "You have to go," said Suzanne. "You've a life to lead, after all."

    "Yes." The woman stood up. "I don't–"

    "You're welcome."

    "Oh. Thank you. Just… thank you."

    Suzanne hugged her. Then the woman turned and walked out, her posture straight.

    "Did she just grow six inches taller?" asked Adam. "Or is that an illusion?"

    "Illusion," said Suzanne. "A natural one."

    "So can I get you a cappuccino or something?"

    "Perhaps I should check whether–"

    She was intending to say, whether anyone else needed help, for she had already checked his hand and seen that he was married. The ring was white gold.

    "I know someone who should see you," said Adam. "You're a professional therapist, I take it?"

    "Yes, but my client list is…"

    "My friend is very rich." Adam grinned. "If that helps."

    A vision of her bank balance swam before Suzanne.

    "I'd love a cappuccino."

 

    "Suzanne."

    "Hi, Adam."

    "And this is Philip Broomhall."

    Obviously Broomhall liked gold, from the four rings on each hand to the glimpsed knife hilt as he unbuttoned his jacket. When he shook hands, she noted the way he turned his hand palm-down, seeking to dominate. Alpha male, primate behaviour. No challenge at all for someone with a brain who kept calm.

    
He's a potential client, that's all.

    Adam fetched drinks while Broomhall sat down and told Suzanne that she had a good reputation, with several respected clients recommending her. He'd obviously trawled the Web to check her out. In contrast to Broomhall, Suzanne noticed the lack of a bulge at Adam's hip as he rejoined them. Weaponless but confident.

    "It's my son Richard," said Broomhall. "He's scared of everything."

    "How old is Richard?"

    "Fourteen. And a damned sight softer than I was at that age."

    Adam's mouth made a stretched sideways S. "That's what all the old guys say."

    "Well, in this case it's true. Anyhow, your clients, Dr Duchesne, say you make phobias disappear like that. A few minutes, and bang, it's gone."

    "That's right," said Suzanne. "I maintain total confidentiality. Some clients post open reviews regardless, which is very kind of them."

    She had her own downloadable statistics, digitally verified, identifying no one by name, to show the effectiveness of her work. For phobic behaviours, it was ninety-seven percent success in one short session. Broomhall had either read the results, she guessed, or employed someone to do it.

    "My son needs help. From someone like you."

    Adam's grimace was outside Broomhall's peripheral vision.

    
So the boy needs saving from his father too.

    Perhaps there was something worthwhile here, more worthwhile than the fee.

    "So what's his problem specifically?" She didn't believe people were broken like damaged toys – disliking the word
problem
and hating
cure
– but she framed her questions on Broomhall's terms. "You say he's afraid?"

    "He's…" Broomhall's eyes shifted to the side. "He's hoplophobic, for God's sake."

    "Hoplophobic?"

    
I so don't want this.

    "Yes. It's embarrassing." Broomhall wiped his sweating face. "Excuse me."

    
What's embarrassing? His condition or your prejudice?

    But she said "You can feel confident it's OK to talk about this. It really is all right."

    "OK."

    Adam leaned forward. "You want me to go?"

    "No, no." Broomhall took a swig of iced coffee. "It's fine."

    "So what happens to trigger his reaction? How does he do his fear?"

    "What do you mean?"

    "I know it's a strange question." One she'd anticipated. "If you were about to draw your knife, at

what point would he look fearful?"

    "The second I walk into the room, if I'm wearing it. He cringes if someone just mentions the word
blade
."

    Suzanne understood that reaction. "I guess that is a problem, but I'm really not comfortable with–"

    "I'll offer you ten thousand if you can fix him up. Another ten if he improves in school."

    "Then I'll do it," she said.

    If you couldn't accept the need to pay the rent, you were hardly an integrated personality, not as a grownup. She helped people for free at times – like the woman this morning – so perhaps it was her turn to get rich, doing what she loved to do. Maybe with a wealthier level of clientele, starting now.

    She wondered what young Richard Broomhall was like.

    "Glad to have you on board, Dr Duchesne."

    They shook hands.

    
Marvellous.

    Had she joined Broomhall's non-nautical crew voluntarily or been press-ganged? Was this a mistake, the arrangement she'd just committed to?

    "It would be good to see Richard the day after tomorrow, if that's possible."

    "I'll bloody well make sure it is."

 

The turrets and courtyards of St Michael's Academy were two centuries old and looked much older. Some of the boys lived in, but Richard's father wanted a "normal" upbringing for his only son, so a chauffeur-driven car took him home every evening, to their enclosed manor house in deepest, richest Surrey.

    Grandfather Jack had been a merchant marine and an East End trader. There was an old family story about a dinner party when someone, hearing Jack was a trader, asked whether he was in bonds or derivatives, and Jack said: "Nah, mate. A barrow in the market." But that barrow had carried imported Japanese calculators, and over the next decade the barrow became a store on Tottenham Court Road, then half a dozen more around the country with an expanding mailorder business, before flourishing on the Web and diversifying into a dozen different sectors, from fashion to phones, continuing to boom.

    Richard missed his grandfather, while knowing he himself was nothing like the tough old man. At the funeral, Richard had cried – his father called it
blubbing
– which caused embarrassment among the business associates at the graveside, and earned him more disapproval from Mother and Father. They dealt with the matter afterwards in the usual way: getting drunk on port from the cellar and shouting at each other. Mutual blame for their son's softness and other failings.

    "Broomhall, you done your maths assignment?" It was Zajac who called out, coming across the quadrangle, swinging his bulky arms. "You have, haven't you?"

    He made it sound as if Richard had been up to something dirty, whereas he was really after a copy-and-paste of Richard's work.

    "I can't help you, Zajac."

    "Help? Why would I need your bastard help? Just for that, I'm going to–"

    But Richard had taken another step, into view of the courtyard cameras. Mr Dutton, the Head of Geography, was across the way, looking at him and Zajac, frowning. Zajac muttered something in Slovakian, then walked off.

    This was not a good start to the day.

    Within minutes, Richard was at his desk, and the big flatscreen monitor at the front of the class was displaying stacked panes of images: tropical cyclones with white surf smashing over palm trees and single-storey buildings; arid reddish dust bowls where verdant savannah once lay; concrete tower blocks in the outer banlieues of Paris where armoured cars of the Police Judiciaire patrolled; the three year-old steel border wall separating CalOrWashington – the Left Coast Republic – from Arizona and the rest of the US; the latest bomb atrocities in Amsterdam, Harare, and Jakarta; the cumulative death toll of the Adelaide Flu.

    Beijing was threatening sanctions against the US if President Brand didn't stop the arms build up on the Mexican border where
"At least the wetbacks are Chris
tian,"
according to one right-wing pundit who was trying to explain why the Left Coast was Sodom and Gomorrah – the true Obama legacy requiring destruction – while South America was a land where the real US could expand, bringing freedom to repressed citizens. They might have said the same about Canada; but the Canadians had nukes.

    The first lesson was supposed to be psychology. News displays that got the adults stressed – maybe that was what Mr Keele was going to talk about. Richard rubbed his forehead. He didn't care about adults. It seemed they'd all forgotten what it was like to be at school – logically, they must have been children once, every last one of them – and he told himself that he'd remember, if he lived long enough.

    "So, everyone." Mr Keele worked his phone, causing a new window to appear on the big wallscreen, filled with a graph and tabular figures. "What we're looking at is the Factorial Aggregate Social Tension Score as a function of increasing average temperature, for several capital cities. Even though there are peaceful hot countries, what we'll see is that the increase in temperature correlates to a FASTS index tending to–"

    And so on.

    To be fair, the lesson became more interesting when Mr Keele stilled the displays and got the class talking, but Richard found it hard to join in because he knew that Zajac was going to try to grab him during the break. Maybe more than grabbing, unless he could stay in full view of security cams. But that was just going to build up Zajac's anger, so that when they did finally meet where no one could see–

    "Master Broomhall?"

    "Uh, sorry, sir."

    "Not enough, but we'll change that. Unless you can answer the question."

    "Sir…"

    And that was how it went, until the lesson's end.

At the start of break time, heading along the parquetfloored corridor, Mal James matched pace with Richard, and asked if he'd like to come to the boarders' study instead of going outside.

    "Uh – why?"

    "Cause Zajac looks bloody mad, old mate. Keeps staring at you."

    "Oh. Right."

    So two minutes later, Richard was in the broadly octagonal study reserved for the older boarders – Mal James was in Year 11 – and occasional guests. Richard stood by himself while James went to talk with his real friends. Being charitable had limits.

    Some of the boys were playing telephone poker on their linked phones. Others were reading or just chatting. Several were watching
Knife Edge
on the big wallscreen.

    "It'll be Blades this year. The new Bloods suck."

    "They're still training. Wait till they've had another month with Fireman Carlsen."

    "Hey, Broomhall. What do you think?"

    "Er… About what?"

    "You think the Bloods will do good again, or what?"

    "Um, I don't really know. Maybe."

    Someone made a disgusted noise, then the group returned their attention to the screen. The view was a dormitory in the fighters' training camp. Richard had no idea which team it was, but he knew that the annual series was still in its early weeks, and that the hopeful fighters would be talking to the cameras about their families and their fears, and the money they hoped to make from the tournament if they survived.