Peter James - Perfect People

It was starting to become clearer to John but he still wasn’t quite there. The linguist gave a third command. ‘Insert missing letter through line!’

Now a third line appeared:

You have to decide if you want to have a sandwich or a cake, Dumbo.

John frowned. ‘Jesus!’ he said, after some moments. ‘It – it was during a tea party – they-’

Chetwynde-Cunningham commanded the translation of the next two lines. John read them as they came up on the screen.

Dumbo’s greedy, he’s already had one piece of cake.

Elephants are big, they have to eat a lot.

‘You’re saying this was spontaneous?’ he asked. ‘Not something they’d worked out in advance, somehow, John?’

‘They’re not yet two years old,’ John said. ‘I don’t think they’d have been capable of working this out in advance – I mean-’ He shrugged, unsure quite what he was thinking about this. He felt totally thrown.

‘The calculations to do this in their heads, in some kind of simultaneous translation, would be quite phenomenal. If it was just one child, one could think perhaps it was suffering from some brain disorder, some form of autism or temporal-lobe epilepsy, perhaps causing some glitch in the neural pathways. But the laws of probability rule it out for both children to have this.’

There was a long silence. John continued to stare at the words, thinking to himself, wondering how on earth they could be doing this. The linguist interrupted him.

‘If they are doing this spontaneously, John, then I think you’ve got some pretty remarkable children. They have a skill that I would think is quite unique. I’ve never heard of it before, ever.’ He gave John a look that should have filled him with pride.

But instead, John found himself feeling very uneasy.

‘I think we should take them back to see the psychiatrist, Dr Talbot, again, don’t you, John?’

John sat at the kitchen table, cradling his martini. He was unsettled and baffled by what the linguist, Reggie Chetwynde-Cunningham, had told him, and he was fretting about the email he had received from Kalle Almtorp.

Three couples who had been to the Dettore Clinic had been murdered.

Christ.

Three couples who had been to the clinic had all had twins. The murders had happened in America; that was one small blessing – the distance.

So far.

‘Did your linguist chap at work have any explanation for – for how they could be speaking like this? Talking perfect English backwards with every fourth letter missing?’ Naomi asked.

John shook his head. ‘He didn’t.’

‘We’ve been waiting for them to speak their first words to us, for them to say Dada or Mama, and they’ve said nothing and yet they’re speaking perfect English to each other in code. Doesn’t that spook you? It sure as hell spooks me.’

He stared ahead, pensively. ‘It does. It’s just so strange.’

‘Do you think that Dettore did something? That maybe he messed up some important gene and their brains are wired up wrong?’

‘I think that’s too early to speculate. I guess if they keep speaking like this we should take them to a neurologist.’

‘Don’t you think we should take them to one now?’

John walked over to the wall where the baby-monitor speaker was mounted and listened. ‘Are they awake?’

‘Yes, I was waiting for you to get back so we could bathe them together.’

She sat down looking pale. John watched her. He felt terrible. She buried her face in her hands. ‘After all we’ve been through. God, why is life so bloody unfair?’

‘We have two beautiful children, hon.’

‘Two beautiful freaks.’

John walked back over to her, rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed her neck. ‘Don’t ever think that. Luke and Phoebe are what we wanted. They’re smart. They’re much smarter than other kids their age. We just have to learn to adjust.’

‘Why are they speaking in this code? People talk in code when they have secrets. Why are they doing this? Are they wired wrong – or are they much smarter than we realize?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said helplessly.

Naomi looked up at him. ‘We’ve made a mistake, haven’t we?’

‘No.’

‘I just wish – that we – had – you know – a normal life. Normal kids.’

‘Normal kids like Halley?’

There was a long silence. John looked again at the silent baby monitor, then picked up his glass again.

‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she said. ‘And you know that.’

John twiddled the olives on their stick, studying them pensively as if trying to read them like runes.

‘They just stare at me sometimes,’ she said. ‘Like – like I’m just nothing. Like I’m just some kind of a machine that exists to feed them and serve them.’

They went upstairs, and as they approached the children’s room, Naomi said, ‘I think we should consider giving them separate rooms soon. That was something Dr Talbot mentioned – to help them develop their own identities.’

‘He said when they were a little older.’

‘I know, but I think it might be good to start separating them now.’

John raised a finger to his lips to silence her, then stopped outside the door. Beyond, he could hear Luke and Phoebe chatting animatedly, and again it sounded like they were speaking in their code.

He opened the door and immediately they fell silent.

‘Hi, Luke, hi, Phoebe!’ he said.

Both stared up from the floor, where they were playing with wooden bricks. Luke in a striped sweatshirt, baggy jeans and trainers, his blond hair flopped over his forehead. Phoebe in a lilac tracksuit and barefoot, her hair looking neat. Both blue-eyed, the picture of utter, adorable innocence. He shot a glance at Naomi who was staring, as astounded as he was, at the intricate and geometrically perfect Mandelbrot pattern, like some elaborate miniature crop circle they had made on the floor.

‘Ebohph eklih,’ he said, his eyes darting from Luke to Phoebe and back. But there was no reaction.

‘Pretty pattern!’ Naomi said.

John left the room for a moment, hurried to the bedroom, grabbed his camera and came back.

‘Bath time!’ Naomi said breezily.

John snapped the children with their creation. ‘That’s beautiful, Luke. Beautiful, Phoebe. Did you design that together?’

They both continued to stare at him in silence. And then, as if pre-determined, they both started laughing and smiling at their parents. A rare occurrence and one they only shared with their parents, nobody else.

‘Very pretty!’ Naomi said. ‘Aren’t you both clever!’ She looked at John as if seeking some explanation, but he had none. ‘Mummy’s going to run your bath!’

She went out of the room. John stayed and took some more photographs. Both children remained motionless, just staring up at him. After a few moments he heard the sound of running water.

Shoving the camera into his trouser pocket, he kneeled down and scooped Phoebe up in his arms and kissed her. ‘Clever girl!’

‘Mittab,’ she said, with a smile

‘Mittab!’ he cooed back, then carried her through to the bathroom and handed her to Naomi. Then he went back to fetch Luke, who was staring, as if deep in thought, at the pattern of bricks on the floor.

‘Did you design this, Luke, or your sister?’

Luke pointed to himself, and smiled.

John picked him up in his arms and kissed him on his forehead. Then he stared into his son’s wide blue eyes. ‘That’s really clever, you know that? Really clever!’

Luke’s face puckered into a grin, and for a moment, John felt a sunburst of happiness explode inside him. Hugging him tightly, he said, ‘You’re such a clever little boy, aren’t you? Mummy and Daddy are so proud of you! So proud!’