Hidden Faults (7 page)

I didn’t know how Da put up with all the religious crap in the house now. I guessed he did as I did—remembered the time before Mam converted and turned Warna into her willing acolyte, and hoped one day she’d get over it. It had been five years since she’d joined the Children. No sign yet of her devotion waning. Da was devout too, but nothing like Mam. I’d never confessed to either of them that I was practically an atheist these days, but there was a lot they didn’t know about me. Easier to play the dutiful son, and limit the visits to the bare minimum. Returning to my house felt like escaping from prison. I loved my parents, but they had no idea who I was any more.

I felt better able to face the week. It turned out to be a highly productive, if rather busy one. Limiw’s literature search had uncovered some interesting and overlooked work by some researchers in Darsino, and after going through the tedium of getting permission to approach foreign researchers, we could start a useful dialogue. Normally the Darsinis came looking for our assistance, since Pindone led the world in genetic research (if one discounted what might be going on in the Weadenal, a closed shop to any Pindoni), but this team had reported an unusual and apparently useless side effect of a drug they’d been testing. Darno had pointed out the potential benefit to our work.

Busy as we were, I found time over that week and the succeeding one, to visit our trial subjects. They had all fully recovered, and were tested each day to see if their paranormal abilities had been altered. A new round of testing was due to start as soon as this group was released.

I was careful not to spend more time with Neim than with any of the other patients, but he understood why, and always said he appreciated my dropping in. He and the others were devouring the books to the point where I dared to suggest to Kregan a small amount should be extracted from departmental funds to pay for more. He agreed without argument, only commenting that it was ridiculous no one had brought the matter to his attention before, and then told me not to be late for dinner that night at his house.

The time until the end of the trial surely went much more slowly for our subjects than it did for me, but finally we made our last readings. Encouragingly, there actually seemed to be some response, although very slight. In Neim’s case, his powers were unchanged—but once the readings were complete, I checked the double blind register and discovered he’d been given the dummy therapy after all. I couldn’t reveal that, of course, but in the face of his disappointment, I could be optimistic about the next trial he’d be involved in. His sinecure was still in the process of being approved, but Kregan saw no reason for it to be turned down. Similar offers had been made in the past to paranormals.

“It’ll mean being interned up north, at least for a while,” I explained. “Not a prison. A secure facility. The conditions are good. I’ve heard that from people I trust.”

“Better than the street at least. Can I take the books?”

“Not these—they’re for the ward. But tell me the ones you want and I’ll arrange those to be ordered for you up there.”

We were back in the solarium. He looked better than I’d seen him in the past three weeks. The cold long banished, with the lack of naksen and alcohol, and balanced meals, he was probably as healthy as he’d been in a very long time. “But it’s not right away, is it?”

“Not at all. We still need you here. At least another month, probably more like two.”

He smiled, and it occurred to me that it was the most open expression I’d seen on his roughened features. It gave me a glimpse of the man he’d been before all this—the young father, husband, carpenter, honest citizen. I had kept trying to justify what had been done to him, and in the end, I couldn’t. It was cruel and ultimately unnecessary. There was nothing I could do about it, except what I had. “Do you think they might let me work? In the facility?”

“As a carpenter? I don’t know. I don’t know what the inma...er...patients do. Want me to find out?”

“At some point. No rush. I’ve got weeks, you said yourself. Thank you, Jodi. I feel like a man again. Like the man she wanted me to be.”

“I’m sure she’d want you to be happy, Neim.”

“I remember that story, you know. The one about the paranormals. There was a terrible war, and the paranormals brought peace without anyone being killed. The people called it a miracle. Built statues to us and everything. I think it was in Darsino, a long time ago. I remember the teacher telling us and me feeling so proud of my kind. But it’s not in the books now. Do you think it could be true?”

A very specific memory, so I thought he probably remembered something that he’d really been told, but whether the teacher made it up, who knew?

“I think...in the past, paranormals may not always have been the enemy. You’re not my enemy now.”

“No, I’m not. What a grand thing though—to bring peace without anyone being hurt.”

He smiled to himself, and if it made him happy, I wouldn’t argue with him. “Yes, it is.” I patted his shoulder. “The next trial will start at the end of next week. You should get lots of rest, keep up with the exercise regime, and eat properly. The better shape you’re in, the less the viral infection will knock you about.”

“I’ll manage. Enjoy your weekend.”

“I will.”

I left him sitting in the sun, eyes closed, an expression of contentment on his face. If he was a spy, I’d eat my right thumb.

~~~

I got the call on Parne morning—the department had a veecle at my door twenty minutes later. To my surprise I found Kregan waiting for me. He drew me into my own office before speaking.

“Jodi, I’m sorry.”

“Why?” I stared at him, unable to comprehend the news, unable to understand why Kregan was here and commiserating with me over it. “He...he was happy. I’d got him a place where he didn’t have to take the naksen. I don’t understand. Where were the guards?”

“They don’t follow people into the bathroom. He went to shower...used the cord on the light switch to...to strangle himself. They tried to revive him but it had been too long.”

I fell into the armchair, bewildered and grief-stricken. “Why would he do that now? When I’d given him a chance.”

“Jodi, he left you a note, in the book he was reading. I...took the liberty of removing it before the guards saw it. I thought it best not to tie you into this.”

I looked up at him, blinking in confusion as he handed me a piece of paper. I unfolded it—the handwriting was unfamiliar, but when would I have ever seen Neim write?

Jodi, I wanted to die happy and sober. Now I can. Good luck, and thank you.

I put my head in my hands, tears in my eyes.

“No. It’s not my fault. I didn’t...he killed himself because of me?”

Kregan put his hand on my shoulder, an unfamiliar gesture from him. “No.”

“We did this. We made him like that. I killed him.” I could still see his face, that look of peace. Had he been planning to do this to me then? His revenge on a ‘normal’ doctor, the people who’d killed his wife? “I killed him. I didn’t mean to but I—”

Kregan shook me roughly by the shoulder. “Stop it, Jodi. You didn’t kill him. Look at me.”

I stared up into his weird eyes, blinking away the tears as I wiped my nose with my hand.

“What we do to paranormals is cruel, no question. The threat they pose is too great to ignore, but the innocent are punished for the guilty. I know it, you know it. But you and I are working to change that. You have to believe that. You can’t allow yourself to be distracted by an individual, however tragic their story. It was a mistake to befriend that last group. I don’t know why you did after all these years on this work.”

“I....” I pulled my handkerchief out and blew my nose with a shaking hand. “I just.... I’m a doctor, sir. I got into medicine to help people. I wanted to remind myself that was what I was doing. And it killed him.” I hid my eyes behind my hand. “Sorry...it’s shock.”

“Yes, I know. I knew you’d take this personally, that’s why I wanted to be here to tell you. Jodi, you have got to make sure you don’t lose sight of what we’re doing here.”

“
We’re doing
nothing
, sir. Five years on this one task and
nothing
.”

“
Yet
. We’ll succeed, I know we will. We’re so damn close I can taste it. But you have to be in it for the long haul, or you’re no use to me. Are you?”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered and he nodded. “Sir...the body. What’ll happen to it?”

“A publicly-funded cremation, standard procedure. Relatives will be notified, though I believe he had no surviving kin listed on his record.”

“There was one....” I drew in a breath. “He had a son—a son with his late wife, who was adopted out when she died. He...uh...asked me to help him locate the boy. I refused...Marra, if I’d only done it, he’d be alive....”

“Jodi, stop it! You did the right thing. Jodi!”

He shook me really hard, and I looked at him in shock. Kregan didn’t touch people like this at all. “If you’d done as he’d asked, you’d have been arrested.
I’d
have had to have you arrested. The son would be at least your age, most likely not wanting any contact with a para father or any reminder of a sad childhood? What would that have done to him?” I hadn’t even thought of that. “You did the right thing. Mas Neim made his choice and there’s no going back on it now. You can’t second guess the past.”

I nodded, still choked up, still wondering if I’d said or done something to trigger Neim’s suicide. I couldn’t reconcile the last sight I’d had of him, and the desperation that led him to choke himself to death on a fucking light switch cord.

“Can I ask a favour, sir? Can we attempt to contact the son now?”

“To what purpose, Jodi? To bring more misery into his life?”

“No...I want to tell him that his Da loved him, right up to the end. Maybe he grew up not knowing that.”

His harsh features softened with something that looked like pity. “I’m going to refuse for two reasons. One—you don’t need that. Two—you don’t know what you might stir up. Let the man rest. His fight’s over.”

I clenched my fist on my knee. “Yes, sir. Permission to leave a note of contact on the son’s adoption file, should he ever enquire about his father?”

“Yes, you can do that.” He didn’t sound pleased about it, though. “You realise if the son’d had that kind of question in his mind, he could have found his father again. If he’d really wanted to.”

“Maybe he will in the future.”

“Maybe so.”

He looked me over, noted my red, runny nose, my sobbing breath, and made the correct assessment that I wasn’t fit to do any more.

“
I’m sending you home, and telling you to take two days off. Things will be shut down anyway while we reassess procedures, carry out the investigation. I’ll tell people I’ve interviewed you and found nothing improper in your handling of these subjects. Which is true. But I’m going to suggest rather forcefully that you do
not
get close to your trial subjects again, do you hear me? Nearly every person we use will have a sad story to tell, misery that we’re responsible for as a society. You can’t do a damn thing about it, Jodi. Not that way.”

“I only gave them some books.”

“And visited and talked, and worried about their futures...you think I didn’t notice?”

I looked away.

“You did nothing wrong. But that wasn’t enough. Step back, keep away, stick to the impersonal. I’m making it an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go home. Don’t spend the day on your own.”

“No, sir.” I got to my feet, feeling about a hundred years old. “Can I pay my respects?”

He sighed quietly. “If you insist. He’s in the mortuary. Briefly, Jodi. Then go home and put this behind you for the sake of the people you’ll be redeeming once we crack this.”

“Yes, sir.”

I wanted to believe him. Maybe in a few hours I would, but at that moment...I was numb. Later, I’d be angry. But Neim wouldn’t be there to hear me yell at him.
Bloody stupid fool. I wanted you to
live,
damn you!

Kregan kindly arranged a veecle to get me back to the house, and took the unusual step of telling me to call him at
home
if I needed to. His concern touched me, but didn’t absolve me. I wished I hadn’t gone to see Neim’s body. I’d seen strangling victims before, but never one I’d known while alive. I was glad in a way that his son—wherever he was—would never have that vision in his mind. I wished I could erase it from mine.

Despite Kregan’s injunction, I spent the rest of the morning on my own because I couldn’t face anyone. I tried to call Timo in the afternoon, but he was out. I trusted no one else to share my thoughts with on this, who wouldn’t judge Neim, or wouldn’t hold back from telling me he’d died because of me. I needed someone to tell me that. I didn’t want to be told that it wasn’t my fault. Kregan would never blame one of his own over a para. He was loyal and protective of all of us as far as he could be under the law. He’d stuck his neck out, removing that note. I kept looking at it, trying to work out why Neim would kill himself when he was happy. I couldn’t.