Peter James - Perfect People

The silence in the back of the car continued. She turned into the drive and drove up to the house, braking sharply, angrily, by the front door. She got out of the car. ‘You want to play games? Right, you sodding well play them.’

She shut the car door, hit the central locking button and marched to the house. In the shelter of the porch she looked at the car. The rain was still lashing just as hard, and through the side window she could just make out the motionless figure of Phoebe.

Then she went into the house and slammed the door. You can bloody wait out there. See how you like it when it doesn’t go all your way for once. Going to have to knock some manners and decent behaviour into you two, before you start growing into a couple of extremely unpleasant little people.

She hung her wet Barbour on the coat stand, picked the parish magazine up off the doormat and walked slowly towards the kitchen, in too much of a mist from her thoughts to read it. She put water in the kettle, switched it on and spooned coffee into a mug, then sat down and cradled her head in her hands, wondering what to do.

Expelled from bloody playschool. Shit.

She rang John, and got his voice mail. ‘Call me,’ she said. ‘We have a problem, I need to talk to you.’

The kettle boiled and clicked off. She remained where she was, thinking, trying to figure out what to do. Take them back to the behavioural psychologist, Dr Talbot, who thought they were so smart? They had to find someone to help them, this was a situation that The phone started ringing. Hoping it was John, she stood up and grabbed the receiver off the wall. ‘Hallo?’ she said curtly, aware of the anger in her voice and not caring.

A pleasant, rather earnest-sounding male American voice said, ‘Is that the Klaesson household?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d like to speak to Mrs Klaesson.’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Mrs Naomi Klaesson?’

She felt the tiniest prick of unease. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, ‘Who is that, please?’

‘Am I speaking with Mrs Naomi Klaesson?’

‘I’d like to know who you are, please.’

The phone went dead.

Naomi stared at the receiver for some moments, her anger fast curdling into a knot of dread in her stomach. She pressed down on the cradle, then released it, listened for the dial tone and punched out one-four-seven-one. Moments later she heard the automated voice:

‘You were called today at fifteen-eleven hours. We do not have the caller’s number.’

She remembered that John had a caller-ID device in his study and she went through to look at it. A red light was flashing on the top and she pressed a button to bring up the display. On the tiny LCD screen appeared the words:

A shiver rippled through her.

It felt as if some terrible ghostly tendril had reached out across the Atlantic and gripped her soul.

Am I speaking with Mrs Naomi Klaesson?

Who the hell are you? What did you want?

Disciples? Disciples of the Third Millennium?

Hurrying back to the hall, she grabbed the car keys, ran out of the front door, pressed the central locking button, ran over to the car and pulled the rear door open.

Luke and Phoebe weren’t there.

For an instant, time stopped. She stared dumbly at the empty child seats. Then, terror-stricken, she looked round, eyes darting everywhere, at the barn with the double garage doors, at the house, at the shrubs swaying crazily. ‘Luke!’ she screamed. ‘Phoebe!’

Rain pelted down on her.

‘LUKE!’ she screamed again, louder, even more panicky. ‘PHOEBE! LUKE! PHOEBE!’

She ran over to the cattle grid and stared down the long expanse of empty driveway. A white plastic bag flapped, trapped in brambles in the hedgerow. No sign of either of them. She turned in despair back towards the house. ‘LUKE! PHOEBE!’

She ran, stumbling, down the side of the house, then all the way around on the wet, boggy grass, screaming out their names.

Then she stood, frozen with fear, soaking wet, by the back door to the kitchen.

They had vanished.

‘Please, God, no, don’t do this to me. Where are they? Please, where are they?’

She ran back into the house. The phone was ringing. She dived into John’s study and grabbed the receiver. ‘Yeshallo?’

It was John.

‘They’ve vanished!’ she shouted at him. ‘I had a call from someone and they’ve vanished. Oh Christ-’

‘Hon? What do you mean? Vanished?’

‘THEY’VE VANISHED, JOHN, THEY’VE FUCKING VANISHED. I LEFT THEM IN THE CAR OUTSIDE THE HOUSE – OH GOD-’

‘Naomi, hon, tell me, what do you mean? What do you mean, they’ve vanished?’

‘THEY’VE DISAPPEARED, YOU STUPID MAN, THAT’S WHAT I MEAN. VANISHED. SOMEONE’S TAKEN THEM.’

‘Someone’s taken them? Are you sure?’

‘I don’t know. They’ve vanished.’

‘When? Where – I mean – where have you looked?’

‘EVERYWHERE!’

‘Have you looked in the house?’

‘THEY WERE OUTSIDE IN THE CAR, FOR GOD’S SAKE!’

‘Check the house. Have you checked the house?’

‘Noooo,’ she sobbed.

‘Naomi, darling, check the house. Have a look around the house. I’ll stay on the line. Just check all the rooms.’

She ran into the drawing room. Then upstairs along the corridor, water running down her face. Their bedroom door was closed. She pushed it open, and stopped in her tracks.

Luke and Phoebe were sitting contentedly on the floor, absorbed in a tower they were building from Lego bricks.

She stared at them with a mixture of relief and total disbelief.

‘I – I’ve – found them,’ she said. ‘They’re OK. I’ve found them.’

‘They OK?’

Backing out of the room she said, quietly, ‘Fine. They’re fine.’

‘Where were they?’

Feeling confused, foolish, she said nothing. Had she brought them in, taken them to her room and forgotten?

No way.

‘Where were they, hon?’

‘In their room,’ she snapped. ‘In their bloody room.’

‘Are they all right?’

‘Luke and Phoebe? Oh yes, John, they’re fine, they’re absolutely fine. They’ve been thrown out of playschool, now they know how to get out of my car all by themselves, and they refuse to say a bloody word to me. If that’s how you define all right, then yes, they are all right. Our designer babies are all right. They’ve obviously been born with all right genes.’

‘I’m cancelling my meeting and coming home, hon. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘Go to your meeting. Don’t cancel that. We have enough problems. Go to your meeting.’

‘I can come straight home.’

‘Go to your bloody meeting, John!’ she shouted. ‘Your children don’t need you. They don’t need me. They don’t need anyone.’

John sat on a chair in the children’s room, preparing to read to them as he did every night. Over the past few weeks he had read them The Gruffalo, Pooh Bear stories, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’, and various Mister Men stories.

They just lay silently in their cots, eyes open; he had no idea whether they were listening. And they never gave any reaction when he finished.

After he had kissed them goodnight, he walked heavy-heartedly downstairs and mixed himself a drink in the kitchen. Naomi was on the phone to her mother.

A strange thought suddenly crossed his mind. Were the children punishing them for what they had done? For tampering with their genes? He dismissed that, instantly. Then he took his drink through to his den and sat down in front of his laptop, and watched a dozen new emails appear.

One was from his chess opponent, Gus Santiano, in Brisbane.