Кевин Брукс - iBoy

"No," I sighed, "I"m not."

"And you're not thieving or anything either?"

I sighed again. "How can you even think anything like that?"

"I'm sorry, Tommy," she said. "But it happens ... it can happen to anyone. Even someone like you. I mean, I know that you're a really good person, a really decent person, and I know that you love me ... but I also know that because you love me, you'd do almost anything to help me. And if you knew that I was in financial difficul­ties ... well, you might do the wrong thing to help me. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yeah ... yeah, of course I understand. But I haven't done anything wrong."

Gram looked at me, nodding her head, then she picked up some letters from the table. "This," she said, showing me one of the letters, "this is confirmation that my council tax arrears have been paid off." She put down the letter and showed me another one. "And this is a statement showing that I'm all up to date on the rent payments." She looked at me. "Did you know I owed all this money?"

"No," I lied.

"Did you pay these bills?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded.

Gram sighed. "Well, someone did, and it wasn't me."

I couldn't think of anything to say then, so I just sat there, trying to look innocent.

Gram sat there in silence for a while too, just looking at the letters, occasionally shaking her head ... and then, eventually, she said to me, "Look, Tommy, I'm sorry if I've upset you or offended you or anything, but I had to ask. It's not that I don't trust you, because I do. And even if you were mixed up in something illegal, I'd still love you." She smiled at me. "And, besides, you have been acting a bit strangely recently."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're either in your room all day, doing God knows what, or you're out all the time ... especially at night. And you seem so preoccupied, so worried about things, and you look really tired —"

"I've been studying."

"Studying?"

I nodded. "In my room ... at the library. I've missed a lot of school, so I thought I'd try to catch up a bit on my own."

Gram frowned at me. "Really?"

"Yeah ... what's the matter? Don't you believe me?"

"Well, I'm not saying that I don't believe you —"

"Test me."

"Sorry?"

"You can test me. I'll prove to you that I've been study­ing."

She laughed. "You don't have to prove anything."

"No, go on," I insisted. "I've been studying British post­war history. Ask me a question."

"Don't be silly, Tommy. I believe you."

"Post-war history," I repeated. "1946 to the present day."

"I'm not going to —"

"Any question you like."

"All right," Gram sighed wearily, if you insist —"

"I do."

"OK, let me think a minute ..."

While she thought of a question to ask, I went inside my head and opened up Google. I was feeling kind of sick of myself now, wishing that I'd never got into this whole stupid lying thing ... wishing that I could just tell Gram the truth. The whole truth. But I couldn't, could I? How could I tell her the truth? How could I tell her that her grandson wasn't normal any more, that he had extraordinary powers, and that he was using those powers to seek out and punish the world of people who'd beaten and raped Lucy — the world of the O'Neil broth­ers, the world of Paul Adebajo and DeWayne Firman, the world of Jayden Carroll and Yusef Hashim and Carl Patrick ... the world of Howard Ellman.

How could I tell Gram that?

And how could I tell her that her grandson was afraid that he was not only beginning to lose any sense of compassion he may once have had, but also that he was beginning to lose his mind ...?

How could I tell her that?

I couldn't, could I?

I just couldn't.

And I hated myself for that.

"Who was the Prime Minister in 1956?"

I looked at Gram. "What?"

"You asked me to ask you a question," she said. "About post-war history."

"Oh, right... yeah."

"That's my question — who was the Prime Minister in 1956?"

I looked inside my head at a website of British Prime Ministers:

... Eden replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister in April, 1955. Later that year he attended a summit conference at Geneva with the heads of government of the USA, France and the Soviet Union ...

"Sir Anthony Eden," I said.

Gram looked surprised. "Very good."

"He was succeeded by Harold Macmillan on 10 Janu­ary 1957," I added, "and he spent his later years writing his memoirs, which were published in three volumes between 1960 and 1965. He also wrote an account of his war experiences called Another World which was pub­lished in 1976." I smiled at Gram. "He died in 1977."

Gram shook her head in disbelief. "You really have been studying."

"I told you, didn't I."

"I'm impressed."

You shouldn't be , I thought.

"Yeah, well," I said, looking at the clock on the wall. "I'll be off to the library again now, if that's OK." I grinned at her. "Get some more studying done."

She nodded. "I'd better get to work myself."

"How's it going?" I asked her.

"Not bad ..." She smiled at me. "Maybe my publishers might even give me a bonus for this one."

"Very funny," I said.

She grinned.

I got to my feet. "I'll see you later, OK?"

"OK ... but don't stay out too long. You are looking tired."

"I'll be back in a few hours," I said, heading for the door. "I promise."

"And Tommy?"

I stopped and looked back at her. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry ... sorry I doubted you."

"You don't have to apologize, Gram. Honestly ... it's OK."

"I know. But I am sorry."

I felt too bad to say anything else to her. What could I say? She was apologizing for not trusting me, but she had every right to mistrust me. I was lying to her. I was betray­ing her trust. I should have been apologizing to her ...

I very nearly told her the truth then.

I was so sick of lying to her and making her feel bad about herself that I'd just about decided that no matter how difficult it would be, I simply had to tell her the truth.

But then, just as the words were beginning to form in my mind, the doorbell rang, and before I had a chance to say anything, Gram had got up from the table, gone out into the hallway and opened the door.

"Oh, it's you," I heard her say. "What do you want?"

"Good morning, Ms Harvey," a vaguely familiar male voice said, is your grandson in?"

It took me a moment to recognize the two men who followed Gram into the kitchen. The last time I'd seen them was at the hospital, when I'd only just woken up from another dream that wasn't a dream, the non-dream about Lucy — A 15-year-old girl has been raped by a gang of youths on the Crow Lane Estate — which, understandably, had left me feeling slightly confused at the time. Now, though, as the two men stood there looking down at me, smiling their supposedly comforting smiles, I wasn't too confused to remember them. The tall fair-haired one — the one with the tobacco-stained teeth and bad skin — was DS Johnson. The other one — who was so unremarkable-looking that he didn't really look like anything — was DC Webster.

"Hi, Tom," Johnson said. "How's it going?"

I looked at Gram.

She half-shrugged. "Sorry, Tommy ... they want to ask you some questions. You can say no, if you like."

I looked at Johnson. "Questions about what?"

Without asking, he sat down at the table. "So, Tom," he said over-casually, "how's the head? That's a nice- looking scar you've got there." He smiled, winking at me. "The girls are going to like that, you know."