Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Other Books

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Thank You

Yudel Gordon Novels

About Wessel Ebersohn

Novels List

A LEAGUE OF GENIUSES

Wessel Ebersohn

Copyright © 2016 Wessel Ebersohn

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Boost Book Covers

Published by Must Read Books

To Miriam, the most important person in my life.

You will forever be my other half.

Other Yudel Gordon stories now available on Amazon

A Lonely Place To Die

Set in apartheid South Africa, a prominent politician’s son is poisoned and a schizophrenic black servant is arrested. Prison psychologist Yudel Gordon does not believe he is capable of planning a poisoning. To reveal his innocence Yudel visits a remote country town, a closed and fearful community. When he gets too close to the truth he is savagely beaten up. The solution he finds is not the one he would have chosen.

“A brilliant book.” – The Daily Telegraph

“Ebersohn is a major voice in English fiction and Yudel Gordon is a character one wants to learn more about.” – Los Angeles Herald Examiner

“A rare and captivating book. Ebersohn is a fine writer.” – Newsday

“Brilliantly evoking South African society.” – Washington Post

Divide the Night

By the time Johnny Weizmann comes to Yudel Gordon for mandatory treatment, he has already killed eight alleged intruders in his convenience store. All but one of the victims are black. Set against the background of apartheid South Africa at its height, this is the story of a prison psychologist struggling for the truth in a society that cannot face it. The involvement of the security police, who see Weizmann as a hero, complicates an already dangerous situation.

“A powerful book and well written.” – the New York Times Book Review.

“This is one of those rare novels that can be read on two levels, either as a gripping suspense story or as a powerful indictment of a repressive, fear-ridden society.” – San Diego Books.

“His story is tense, his style is excellent…a really good book by a very good writer.” – Times Literary Supplement.

“Well written indeed.” – The Times.

Soon available in this series:

Closed Circle

The Robben Island List

Other Yudel Gordon titles:

The October Killings

Those who Love Night

The Top Prisoner of C-Max

Also by Wessel Ebersohn:

Store up the Anger

Klara’s Visitors

The Classifier

Sign up to Wessel Ebersohn’s newsletter and get notified of promotions and new releases

CHAPTER ONE

It was the commissioner’s idea. So many strange ideas originated with the commissioner.

At least, that was Yudel Gordon’s opinion. “People regularly get second opinions for medical problems, why not a second opinion for psychological problems?” he had asked. “This is just a suggestion.”

Yudel had been on the receiving end of the commissioner’s suggestions on other occasions. They usually meant that he had no option. So for the last month he and Cyril Daniels had exchanged desks and clients.

What Yudel was likely to achieve in a month among Daniels’s lunatics or Daniels among Yudel’s killers was an open question. When Daniels called Yudel to discuss the matter, Yudel’s reply was uncomplicated, “Don’t argue with the landlord.”

The end of the month was only a day away and Yudel wondered what he was going to put into his report. Daniels had called again a few days before. He too was wondering about what should go into his. “Shit, Yudel,” he said, “you’ve got some seriously bad dudes here.”

“I know,” Yudel told him. “That’s why they are there.”

Ordinarily, Yudel and an inadequate team of young psychologists was responsible for whatever emotional repair work could be done to the smattering of  psychopaths, sociopaths, sadists, contract killers, perpetrators of passion crimes, desperate citizens and other life threatening individuals in the province’s prison system. The white collar criminals and street thugs were not his business. Nor were those criminals who had actually been declared insane by the courts that judged them. They were handed to Cyril Daniels and his staff. In the lexicon of the Department of Correctional Services, Yudel’s clients were inmates or offenders, while Daniels’s were patients. Few of either sort were likely to see freedom again for years, perhaps decades, perhaps not at all.

Over almost four decades Yudel had done essentially the same work, for most of that period as an employee of the department, then for the last few years as a contractor. He had worked with many heads of the department and got along well with most of them. He had generally been frustrated by the sort of commissioner, and that was most of them, who showed no interest in his work. This one was different, but his interest in psychology brought Yudel new frustrations, like the present one which required him and Cyril Daniels to in a month provide second opinions on some hundreds of Cyril’s patients and a few thousand of Yudel’s offenders. On days like this he longed back for the commissioners who were only interested in security matters.

In addition to Yudel’s daytime occupation, he saw private clients in the evenings and on weekends. To bolster his income, he had started the private practice many years before. Activities of that sort were frowned upon by the department and, financially the need was no longer as great as it had been when he was younger, but it filled his evenings and occasionally he came across an interesting case. Managing the practice was also something enjoyed by Rosa, his spouse of many years. Yudel realised long before that keeping Rosa happy tended to promote his own happiness. Their only disagreements in this area were that Yudel liked interesting clients while Rosa preferred those who paid without being reminded.

Yudel was looking in the direction of Mrs Hyde-White and struggling to stay awake.

In Rosa’s view she was the perfect client. She paid promptly, did not quibble about the bill and occasionally paid a few months in advance. To Yudel she was a person of no interest. “My love, there’s nothing wrong with the woman. She’s bored and I provide someone on whom to exercise her boredom.”

“Nonsense,” Rosa said. “There’s no such thing as exercising boredom.”

“All she needs is a job,” Yudel said.

Rosa snorted. “Did you have to study at university for that diagnosis? My father would have come to the same conclusion and he had very little education.”

“I always admired the old guy’s intelligence,” Yudel said.

Halfway through the session Rosa looked in. She was not interested in, nor allowed to be part of the topic under discussion. Her only interest was that Yudel should not fall asleep. On one occasion he had to camouflage a snore, which woke him up, with an artificial bout of coughing. Mrs Hyde-White had approached Rosa afterwards. “Mr Gordon does not find my case boring, does he?”

“Of course not, my dear. He was just saying the other day how he should write a book about your case.”

That satisfied her for weeks. The idea of having such a singular neurosis that it provided material for a book improved her state of mind more than anything else Yudel could have said or done.

Yudel’s head dipped forward, but he pulled it back into an upright position before his client noticed anything. She had been describing the emotional turmoil she was experiencing as the result of the impending divorce of her golf club professional. He was such a nice man, after all.

The telephone on Yudel’s desk rang. It was Rosa. “Yudel, you’re not falling asleep, are you?”

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said to Mrs Hyde-White. Then into the phone and loud enough for his client to hear, “A matter requiring my urgent attention, you say?”

“No, Yudel, I said nothing of the sort. However, there is someone here who is more the type you like.”

The type I like? he wondered. Could there be an axe killer or a violent anti-Semite sitting opposite Rosa. He realised Mrs Hyde-White was speaking. “An emergency?” she suggested.

“I’m afraid so. But we will have a longer session next week to make up for it.”

“Can we discuss my book then?”

Yudel, who had no idea what she was talking about, said, “Of course, my dear. Why not?”

It was true that the new client was of a type Yudel liked, but not in the way he had imagined. Lucille Sturgeon was perhaps thirty years old, delicate of face and figure and blonde in the way that blonde dyes claim for their products. She was altogether pleasing to the male eye.

Long-fingered hands held a cheap patent leather bag in front of her. It was only after he noticed the bag that he saw her clothing too was worn and frayed in small ways.

Yudel told her he was pleased to meet her, which was true. She had, after all, helped him get rid of Mrs Hyde-White. Sitting opposite him, she said, “I’m Matthew Sturgeon’s wife,” as if the name should mean something to him.

“Oh, really?” he said. Who the hell is Matthew Sturgeon? he wondered.

“I believe you’ve taken over his care from Dr Daniels.”

“Ah yes.” He remembered the name vaguely from the list of Daniels’s patients. He was sure he had never seen this Matthew or read his file. “But this is my private practice. Why don’t you come to the hospital tomorrow?”

She looked down at her hands. “I didn’t want to see you at the hospital. You see the matter I want you to help me with is very delicate.” She blushed. “And I am a shy person.”

“All right then, seeing as you’re here.”

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” He blush had developed from light pink to deep red.

“No, no. Telling other people is simply not allowed. Psychologists are all sworn to secrecy. We take an oath.”

“You’re sure?”

“Altogether,” Yudel said. “Absolutely, completely.”

“Unutterably,” she suggested.

Yudel realised that, despite her embarrassment, she was trying to tease him. “Unutterably,” he agreed. “In fact, uttering never happens with psychologists. We are non-utterers.”

“I’m so relieved to hear that.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the next step in her confession, if that is what it was. “You see, next month I will be able to have conjugal visits to Matthew.”

“That’s nice.”

“That’s what I want your help with.”

“Oh?” I suppose you want to get out of them? Yudel thought.

“They are a problem to me.” The only reason the blush did not deepen further was because all available blood was already concentrated in her face.

She looked so pretty to Yudel, her face flushed, her hands massaging each other and her blue eyes signalling her femininity. Looking into her eyes, the work “sparkling” was the one that came to Yudel’s mind. Matthew was going to be disappointed if she did not turn up for her conjugal visits. “You don’t have to take part if you don’t want to. There’s no law against refusing such visits.”

“Oh no. I want to go. I love Matthew.”

“Well then?”

“It’s just he’s so…” She searched for the term. “…straight-laced.”

“Straight-laced?”

“Oh, he’s a good man. I don’t believe he did any of the things they say he did.”

Nothing like a wife who believes in her husband, Yudel thought. “I don’t understand your problem.”

“You see Matthew doesn’t understand much about women. So I hope you’ll agree to teach him. I don’t want another woman teaching him, please. I couldn’t bear that. But perhaps you could explain everything to him – man to man, if you understand me.”

Yudel looked at her, the fidgeting, the blushes, the side-long glances. He doubted she was more worldly wise than the husband who was failing her somehow. “Are we talking about foreplay?”

She covered her face with both hands. “Please, Mr Gordon,” came out in a muffled fashion from between her fingers.

Yudel thought he saw those bright eyes peeping at him between her fingers. “I need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Yes.” The sound was more muffled than before.

“So, he just gets straight into it without any preliminaries?”

“Mister Gordon!” Without removing her hands, she turned her face away, hiding her embarrassment doubly. “Must you be so blunt?”

“I just want to understand what our problem is. Is he a bit blunt in his sexual dealings?”

She nodded.

“Always?”

She took her hands away from her mouth and eyes, but kept her head turned away. “Always. When Matthew’s there it’s always like that.”

Her choice of words interested Yudel. “When Matthew’s there?”

“Only once it was better. When Luke took over.”

Luke? A threesome? “Is he a friend of Matthew?” Best friends, Yudel thought. Aren’t they always the ones?

“No, not a friend. In fact they hate each other.”

“Your husband and your lover hate each other? That’s not especially unusual.”

“Don’t call Luke my lover. He’s different.”

“You occasional lover?” Yudel suggested.

“No, no. He’s there sometimes. It was wonderful, the time with Luke, but I felt terrible about it afterwards. He brings out the worst in me. I’d never been unfaithful to Matthew before.”

The seed of understanding was starting to germinate. “This Luke, where do you meet him?”

“At home. I don’t know how. He just comes.”

He would look at Matthew’s file in the morning. In the meantime Yudel had a question: “Ma’am, have you heard your husband’s condition referred to as multiple personality syndrome?”

“That’s right. That’s what the doctor, Dr Daniels, called it.”

“Are there others?”

“Other what?”

“Personalities?”

“Yes, Mark and John. But Mark is only thirteen and John is hopeless.”

“Fascinating,” Yudel said. “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

“Matthew’s very religious,” she assured him.

“I see. Well, the answer seems to be always to have sexual relations with Luke. He is after all part of…”

“Mr Gordon!” Lucille Sturgeon was scandalised. “I may not be the church-goer my husband is, but I’m not that kind of woman. I could never agree to that. I love Matthew.”

CHAPTER TWO

Matthew Sturgeon’s file made interesting reading. He was arrested when his screams for help were heard from inside a bank vault that was being robbed. When the police swooped and arrested him, he was alone in the vault and claimed complete innocence. “I’ve been framed,” he told them. “It wasn’t me.” In court he claimed that he was innocent but three others were involved and they were all guilty by reason of insanity. The judge disagreed. He found all four guilty and insane and gave them indeterminate sentences, passing them into the care of Cyril Daniels.

Daniels’s file agreed with Lucille Sturgeon’s view that the body of the man called Matthew was home to four distinct personalities: each named for one of the gospels. Rigid, straight-laced Matthew was the one most often present. Luke was the satisfactory lover and also the safe cracker who got into the bank vault before Matthew somehow emerged and, screaming for help, blew the whistle on his activities. Mark was a boyish giggler, who claimed to be only thirteen, while according to his documentation Matthew was thirty-three. Matthew’s face was lined for his age and Luke’s eyes were normally bloodshot. Mark, on the other hand, had smooth skin and his eyes were always clear. Matthew and Luke both showed signs of premature balding while Mark had as full a head of hair as you would expect a thirteen-year-old to have. As for John, he was a rather sad depressive who rarely appeared. Yudel loved the idea of ferreting around in the minds of all four of them and was really sorry that within twenty-four hours he would have to give them back to Daniels. They were his kind of people. Had he become aware of them earlier in the month he would have spent more time with them. As for Lucille, she saw them as such different people that having sexual relations with Luke made her unfaithful to Matthew. Beautiful, Yudel thought, simply beautiful.

When Matthew came in he drew himself up like a soldier coming to attention. From behind Cyril Daniels’s desk Yudel looked at the patient’s rigid stance, heels touching, elbows pressed against his sides. Yes, he could imagine Lucille might have problems in the foreplay department. “Would you sit down, Mr Sturgeon?” he said. Addressing him as Mr Sturgeon seemed more appropriate than Matthew.

“Thank you.” Matthew sat down rigidly upright in the chair, his knees and heels touching, his hands clasped in his lap.

“I’ve been reading your file. It’s very interesting. I’ve also been visited by your wife.”

“Lucille?” A flicker of alarm crossed his face.

“Yes, Lucille. She’s looking forward to the conjugal visits which, I believe, are starting soon.”

Matthew’s eyes were fixed on some point behind Yudel. His face showed no sign of interest or emotion. “I think you misunderstood Lucille. She’s a good woman. She doesn’t like sex at all.”

“I see, so only bad women like sex?”

“Of course. Lucille endures it, like any good wife, but naturally it’s a burden to her.”

Poor Lucille, Yudel thought. “Perhaps she would suffer less if you prepared her for it.”

“Prepared her?” The idea seemed ridiculous. Matthew knew it was not possible to prepare a good woman for sex.

“Do you know what the term foreplay means?”

“Four play?” Matthew was outraged. “There are definitely only two people involved in this relationship, Lucille and I. There is certainly no question of four play.”

It took Yudel a long moment to reach an understanding of Matthew’s four as opposed to his fore. “I meant foreplay in the sense of before, before play if you like.”

Matthew’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What sort of play do you have in mind?”

It was not something that most men needed to have explained to them. “The use of fingers, and your mouth too…”

“How?” Matthew demanded.

“On your wife’s sexual organs.”

Matthew leapt to his feet. “That’s disgusting. I’m astonished to hear you suggest such actions. Lucille would never…”

With a sudden impulsive movement, the man opposite Yudel fell back into his chair. He threw back his head and laughed loud and long. He was still laughing when he reached across the desk, seized Yudel’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Luke,” he said, “I’m pleased to meet you.”

The lover, Yudel thought. “Yudel Gordon,” he said. “You’re Luke Sturgeon, I take it.”

Luke was still laughing. “Just Luke. The surname belongs to Matthew. You can’t talk sex with him,” he told Yudel between renewed spasms of laughter. “Don’t even try. Leave Lucille to me. Tell her to relax. She has always been more my woman than his anyway.”

“She spoke of just one occasion with you.”

“The naughty girl. She’d like to ignore the other times, would she?”

During his years of practice Yudel had seen many cases that involved sexual triangles, but never one in which two of the parties shared one body. Luke sprawled across the chair, his legs extended and his arms dangling to the floor. He seemed to find amusement in Yudel’s surprise.

“You and Matthew are certainly something different. I gather you’ve been following my conversation with him.”

“Certainly. I’m what Daniels calls the memory trace. I know exactly what the others are up to, but they only know about their own actions. The rest is a blank to them. I know all the family secrets. But you know all about such cases, I’m sure?”

“I’ve read about them and known a few minor cases, but nothing like you.”

Luke laughed again. “Yudel old chap, the only thing I have against the arrangement is sharing the body with such a wimp.”

“What about the other two?”

“Don’t talk about them. John is even worse than Matthew. Mark is all right, but he’s just a kid. I’m the key to everything.” He seemed to grow in size, his chest swelling. Yudel had rarely seen anyone so pleased with himself. “I’m the only one of the four of us who knows how to handle women. If Matthew left Lucille to me, we’d have no problems, and she’d be happy. I’m also the safe cracker, and I’m the best there is at that too. The rest of them would not even be able to open a safe, even if they have the combination.”

It was time to bring him down a bit. “But last time you broke into a bank vault things didn’t go too well.”

“Is that my fault?” Luke demanded. “That damned, goody-goody slipped out and saw what was happening. The fool is not bright enough to realise that if I’m caught he gets caught with me.” He stopped suddenly, and looked thoughtful. “Yudel, it is Yudel, right?” Yudel nodded. “Well, Yudel, old chap, I’ve enjoyed this little talk. We must have more.”

“I’m afraid this is my last day here. Dr Daniels will be back tomorrow.”

“What a pity. Still, I like old man Daniels, he appreciates me. He knows I am the key member of his team.”

“His team?”

“All right, Julie’s also critical. I didn’t think it was possible to hypnotise people the way that broad does…”

“Dr Daniels’s team? Do you help him care for other patients.”

Luke’s mouth had opened wide to continue telling Yudel about his many skills and the power of his personality, compared to Matthew’s. Now it snapped shut, bringing a sudden end to the confidences he was sharing.

“What team is that?” Yudel persisted.

“Clearly, I’m his most interesting case,” Luke said.

“Is this a nursing team?”

“Oh thank you, thank you.” The voice had risen at least an octave. The merry clear blue eyes shone with enthusiasm for life. “Thank you for seeing me. I don’t get much opportunity to talk to anyone.”

Yudel guessed who he was talking to. “Young Mark, I think.”

“Yes, sir, it’s me. Where’s Dr Daniels?”

“He’ll be back tomorrow. Perhaps you can tell me a little about yourself.”

“I’m glad Dr Daniels’s coming back. But please don’t see that as a reflection on yourself, sir. Can you tell me your name?”

“Yudel Gordon.”

“That’s an unusual name.”

“Yes. Luke said something about your being involved in a team.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help with that. The truth is I don’t know much. The others hardly ever let me out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. We can chat for a while, if you like.”

“I’d love that.”

The chat was not very long, Matthew’s reappearance bringing it to a premature end. After he had left, Yudel returned to the Sturgeon file. Daniels had done considerable work with Matthew and had picked up clues that led him to the conclusion that the condition resulted from a number of physical and sexual assaults in his home during his teenage years.

Probably at the age of fourteen and in the years immediately after that, Yudel thought. That would explain why young Mark was just thirteen, so bright-eyed and unspoilt. At that age he had not yet suffered the horrors to come. His was the one personality of the four that was still unsullied.

CHAPTER THREE

Yudel spent some time going through the files of other patients that had drawn his attention during the month he was relieving Cyril Daniels, and was sorry to be losing some of them. Still, Daniels was a competent professional. Yudel considered modestly that he could probably do no better. The modest thought did not last long though. Secretly he believed that he was the best there was.

Jesus, do I really believe that. In that respect, am I no better than Luke?

Physically, he was not a big man, slight in build and below average height. Despite Rosa’s chidings he rarely managed to bring under control his wild fuzz of greying black hair. If he had a striking feature it lay in his eyes. An intense desire to understand the motives of the more dangerous and less rational of human beings was reflected in them.

Yudel was late leaving for home. He stopped outside the building in which Daniels’s office was located and took in the relative calm of the evening. Within the complex the traffic sounds from the main arteries was muted. An hour before, night had settled quietly over the hospital, bringing peace to those on the inside of the razor wire fences. The idea of peaceful nights was the official position when describing the work of the hospital, but Yudel knew peace was in short supply within its fences.

The hospital was not a large one. A court had to be convinced that an accused was insane before sending the convicted one to Daniels.  Of the three blocks, Block A was the biggest. It housed two hundred and fifty-one non-violent male members of the criminally insane community. Block B was the female section, housing only twenty-two inmates. Yudel knew that, in Daniels’s view, the far smaller number of female patients was not because females were less inclined towards insanity or less criminally active. He was convinced they were simply better at hiding their crimes. The third block, Block C was for the violently insane. There were one hundred and twelve of them. There should have been more, but the others, and that included all psychopaths, were being held in regular correctional facilities where they received what treatment Yudel and understaffed teams of prison psychologists were able to provide.

Although Yudel did not know it, Daniels had not been inside Block C for three years. A junior, fresh out of university, on visiting Block C, had said afterwards, “That place is not cool, my man.” That exactly summed up Daniels’s view. Block C was not cool, my man, not in the smallest degree. Two years before he had shifted responsibility for the place to a wild-eyed young psychologist who seemed to thrive there. In fact, the young man’s eyes looked wilder every year since then.

Eventually, such peace as was possible did descend on this establishment for the treatment of the mental patients who, with varying degrees of success, had tried to make a living at the expense of others. From somewhere in C Block where the dangerous inmates were housed a voice wailed at the moon, although there was no moon that night. Only the wailing one could see it, but to him it was clear enough to inspire his vocal talents.

In Block B, the female section, a voice deep enough to be classed as a husky baritone was calling to the night staff that she needed to pee. This was a nightly occurrence. Every night she had to be reminded that she was allowed to use the toilet bowl in her cell, in fact it was there for exactly that purpose.

Briefcase in hand, Yudel turned towards the parking lot where his car was waiting. He did not expect to have anything to do with this place for some time. It would be Daniels’s in the morning.

Cyril Daniels was also late getting home. In his case, this was largely because of a present he had bought for his wife at a medical supplies outlet. By the time he drove through the gateway of his home Charlotte’s nurse was waiting for him on the front veranda. What she saw was a tall man, so lean that he might have been suffering from some hideous disease that causes weight loss. His sleeves were rolled up as far as his elbows, as they always were. His head was large and bald except for a few wisps of feathery ginger hair.

“She all right?” he asked. It was what he asked every night.

Apart from genuine crises, and there had been those, the nurse’s answer was also always the same. “She’s fine, Dr Daniels. Just see that she gets her night medication.” She nodded her head in the direction of the bedroom. “Mrs Daniels’s asleep. Perhaps you should try not to wake her.”

“I’ll be careful. Why don’t you go and make yourself some dinner.”

He waited till she was in the kitchen, then took the present from the car, unfolded it and wheeled it into the hallway. He left it there, locking the door behind him. Charlotte was asleep in her bed as the nurse said she would be. He was pleased to see that her face looked relaxed and peaceful. Sitting down in the chair at her bedside, he watched her sleeping, a slight flaring of her nostrils as she breathed. Despite everything, the advancing years and the state of her heath, she was still a good looking woman.

The fact was that Charlotte Daniels was dying. She had known it for the last six months and he for two of them. It’s a son-of-a-bitch, he told himself. His patients: inmates, offenders, prisoners, whatever you chose to call them, were no good to anyone, but most of them were in good physical health. Charlotte, who had been a truly effective human being, a fine child psychologist, a kind, generous, loving and deeply intelligent person: she was the one chosen to die. She had helped many children resolve their problems. Yet that counted for nothing in the eternal scheme of things. Who was it said, only the good die young? Everybody said it. It was a bastard, and it was not right or just. There was no arguing it though. Even Matthew Sturgeon would have to agree. Luke certainly would. Not that Charlotte was young, but she was too young for this.

A light spasm ran through her body, her eyelids flickered and she woke. “Oh, Cyril, there you are.”

“How are you, my sweet?” He leant forward and kissed her on the forehead. Confronted by his beloved Charlotte and her illness Daniels’s entire personality assumed a new aspect. The perpetual anger that in recent years had made him unpopular among both patients and staff was replaced by a gentleness the inmates of his hospital rarely saw.

“You can kiss me on the lips, you know. Just because I’m in poor health doesn’t mean you have to treat me as if I’m sexless.”

How did you show passion towards a dying woman? Daniels wondered. But he kissed her on the lips, warmly and tenderly, which was the way he felt towards her.

“That’s better,” she said. “Please help me to feel like a woman for as long as I live.”

Daniels started crying. It was the first time since he had been ten years old.

“No, Cyril,” she pleaded with him. “Don’t do that. Please, don’t do that. And I want you to know last night was all right.” He had too much to drink the previous night and she had not been able to reach him. He did not immediately understand what she meant, but she explained. “I don’t mind if, occasionally, you don’t come home. You’re still a virile man, and I’m not able...”

“No, no, no,” Cyril said. “It wasn’t another woman. I had too much brandy. I...”

Charlotte did not believe him, but she was grateful for his kindness in not wanting her to know about the other woman.

He wiped his face with his handkerchief, then took her hands in his. “I have something for you,” he said, “a present, in fact two presents.”

“My love, you’re doing so much for me. You don’t need to do any more. And there’s no sense now in your spending money on pretty things for me to wear.”

“Let me show you.” He slipped out of the room and was back a moment later with her present, the very latest in wheelchairs.

“Oh Cyril.” She looked stunned.

“You can sit upright in it, or lie flat. It has a motor so you can drive yourself.” Daniels’s hands were gesturing to the relevant parts of the wheelchair as he spoke. “It has sprung suspension that self-corrects in case you go over a bump, a hood for the sun, a built in cell phone and a seat that has a warming element for cold days. It’s got everything...”

“Oh Cyril, it’s wonderful, but we don’t need it...”

He drowned out her protestations. “We do. You know how you’ve always wanted to go to South America, to see the Andes and the Amazon, Macchu Pichu and everything else...”

“My love, I’m not sure I’m up to it and we’ve spent so much on my treatment. Do you think I don’t know what treatment costs?”

“Of course you’re up to it. I’ll look after you.” He gave her the sly smile he had been practising in the bathroom mirror. “And there are a few things you don’t know. You don’t know about my special investment fund.”

“A special investment fund?” Charlotte thought she knew everything there was to know about her Cyril, but this was something new, and she knew he was no saver. “Have you been hiding this from me all these years?”

“Just the last few years.”

“But my medical expenses. I didn’t think there’d be anything left for investing.”

“My dear, I’ve had some wonderful help.”

“From investment experts?”

He thought about the members of his team: Luke, the unmatchable safe cracker, Julie, the staggeringly skilful hypnotist and the other members of his team, all equally skilled in their specializations. “Something of the sort,” he said. “Clever people. One thing you can be sure of, the returns will be excellent.”

“And we’re going to South America?”

“As soon as it pays off, which will be soon. I’m taking you in your high-tech traveller assist – that’s what they call it. We’re going to all those places you’ve always wanted so badly to see. We’re going to have a time like we’ve never had before.”

“And these clever people are helping us?”

“They’re more than clever people. They’re a team of geniuses, our own league of geniuses.”

“Are they so brilliant?”

“You better believe it. Each is a true expert in his or her field.”

“Are they kind people?”

“They’re wonderful.”

“When can I meet them?”

A picture of the cells they occupied in the hospital flashed across his mind. “I don’t think so, my sweet. They’re usually locked into their work.”

Daniels sat with his wife until she fell asleep. He gave her a sleeping pill to allow him the time he needed. Then he raised the railings around the bed to ensure that she did not roll over and fall or get into any sort of trouble.

He called the nurse into the room. “Thanks so much,” he said. “I’ll be back by eleven. This is very good of you.”

Once he was sure Charlotte was safe and in the nurse’s capable hands, he went outside, and absorbed the night, much the same way Yudel had done an hour before. Am I really doing this? he asked himself. Am I really prepared to take such a chance? And is success possible?

Of course, it is, he told himself. Yes, they’re crazy, but they’re also brilliant. Why should we not pull it off? When the motivation is great enough, when the belief is absolute, all things are possible.

CHAPTER FOUR

Joshua always wanted to be a police officer, more specifically a detective. He applied three times and failed the testing procedure each time. He was short sighted and had to wear thick-lensed glasses to avoid being killed by the city traffic, his muscular development was way below average and he had level one diabetes, necessitating regular insulin injections. The testing officers would probably have failed him on any of those points, but with all three against him, he did not have the smallest chance.

When the police turned him down he tried the Department of Correctional Services, but their standards were much the same and he failed their tests too. After that, there seemed to be just one option left. He applied and was accepted as a security officer and assigned to the Four Seasons Shopping Centre. While his physical weaknesses were not in his favour, there was nothing wrong with his determination to succeed. He was alert and conscientious, and he was soon elevated to the position of Security Officer First Class. He was the first staff member to be entrusted with the knowledge that behind a haberdasher, down a small alley, a subsidiary entrance to the bank in the adjoining building had been created. The system’s weakness was that before long everyone knew. The apparent purpose of the alley was to provide space for refuse bins, but the manager of every outlet in the centre and a few staff members in each business, perhaps a thousand in all, knew that the real purpose was to hold cash over weekends that had been taken by the bank’s clients in the shopping centre. The system was in its trial stage and Joshua understood its weakness. He always took special care to keep an eye on the alley.

The cash depot, as the bank called it, provided a pick up point for cash without its staff having to come in on Sunday evenings. Because of this device and others like it, the bank had received the award as best employer of the year. The bank staff had been unanimous in their agreement. No one wanted to come in on the weekend.

While security was less than perfect, the proliferation of credit cards and the fact that the bank was just a small local branch meant that there was rarely more than a few thousand at any time in the strong room where the money was collected.

Joshua’s boss had told him to keep an eye on the alley, but to do it discreetly. That was what he was doing, trying not to look directly at anything or anyone. He had practised it at home in front of a mirror and prided himself that he was getting to be pretty good.

Despite his readiness for something of the sort, it was a surprise that at closing time – when some of the gates had already been locked – two men seemed to be hovering around the plate glass windows of the haberdashery store. The company manual was very specific about hovering. Anyone doing too much hovering was automatically a person of interest. To Joshua they did not look like haberdashery clients. To begin with, they were both male. Apart for the old man who owned the store, he had never seen a man inside the place. Ah hah, he thought, what have we here?

What we had there were two very different men, one jacketless, tall and lean, and looking to Joshua as if he could be a university professor. The other, a pale, corpulent man, shorter than average, wore glasses with lenses even thicker than Joshua’s. The corpulent man had on clothing that was a few sizes too small for him, as if the items had been acquired in earlier years and he had added a few pounds since then.

Joshua did not know that the tall and lean man was Cyril Daniels or that Daniels had been studying him for some time. A disgruntled former employee of the security company Joshua worked for had supplied Daniels with most of his information.

Joshua was exactly the man Daniels felt he needed. He had learnt that Joshua was hard working and imagined himself to be more intelligent than his seniors in the company. The former employee also told Daniels that Joshua was a natural stool pigeon. Joshua had ratted on him for the small matter of stealing a few cell phones, a couple of batons, a few standard issue shirts, a lap top computer, a 125cc motorbike and fifteen thousand in cash. As if that was a terrible crime. It turned out that, apart from the cash, the goods was not worth much on the informal market, netting less than a thousand for the lot.

He approached Daniels and his corpulent companion in what he thought was a nonchalant, discreet manner, one that would not arouse suspicion even in the most paranoid criminal mind. He swung his baton by its strap. It gives me a suitably playful appearance, he thought.

As soon as the two men noticed him, which was the moment he came into sight, they paid careful attention to his every move, especially to the swinging baton and the fact that he did not look directly at them.

Joshua was a church deacon and he had a special deacon smile that he used during services on Sundays. It was intended to embody a certain goodness of heart and an acknowledgement of the frailties of others. He employed his deacon smile now. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in what he thought was a conversational way. “A bit late to be exercising our interest in haberdashery, isn’t it?”

Daniels was studying his face. The corpulent one had already opened the door to the alley where the entrance to the cash depot was located. He reached for Joshua’s baton with his left hand, but Joshua tucked it away out of sight. “Good evening, Officer,” Daniels said. “Haberdashery?” he wondered aloud.

Joshua tilted his head in the direction of the window in front of which they were standing.

“Oh yes, of course. Haberdashery, how observant of you.”

Joshua pointed towards the alley where the entrance to the cash depot was located. “Do you have permission for…”

The corpulent one could not take his eyes off the club. “You have a club. It’s rather frightening. I don’t like it.” His left hand reached for the baton, but Joshua took a step back, holding the baton behind him, carefully out of sight. “It is not a club. It’s a baton. And don’t try to take it again.”

But the corpulent man was not finished. “I don’t need it,” he said. “I really don’t want it.”

“Proctor, you stop this nonsense immediately,” Daniels said to his companion. To Joshua he said, “Officer, I had better explain. I am Dr Cyril Daniels. I’m a psychologist and this man is my patient.”

“I see. Is something wrong with him?”

“Well. His name is Proctor Jones and he is a psychiatric patient. He is hospitalised at present and I am taking him for a walk to get him used to the outside world.”

“How’s it going so far?” Joshua asked. He was looking at the open door to the cash depot, and to the patient whose fingers of his left hand were twitching in his eagerness to get hold of the baton.

“It’s not going as well as I had hoped.”

“Yes, I think I can see that.”

The exchange was interrupted by a sharp slap that left red fingermarks on Proctor’s right cheek. His right hand immediately seized his left by the wrist to bring it under control. Daniels joined the struggle. “Proctor, you bad boy, you didn’t take your meds today,” Daniels told his patient. To Joshua, he said, “He’s not really responsible for what his left hand does. It’s a condition called Alien Hand.”

“Good name for it. Do you get it a lot?”

“Very rarely, I’m pleased to say. It this case it was caused by an accident that damaged one side of his brain. His left hand is at war with him now.” Daniels thought it best not to add that the accident occurred while Proctor was fleeing from the police after a jewellery store robbery. Although the damage to his cerebral cortex was considerable, Proctor’s intelligence had not been affected. The only long-term effect was that his left hand had become an alien limb, one that treated the commands of his brain like suggestions that should be ignored.

That Proctor was genuinely good in the field of alarm systems was true. No, not just good, he was unsurpassably brilliant. He had designed the alarm system of three of the biggest banks in the country, including First Central, that was located not far from the hospital. Twice, highly skilled teams of criminals had tried to break into it. All of their members were now serving time in maximum security. Proctor himself had been heard to declare that even he would not be able to break into it. The system was perfect.

Proctor’s left hand was struggling to break free of his right that had hold of it by the wrist. “Damn, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Joshua said. “Doctor, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but...”

“But we should leave?” Daniels suggested.

“Before Mr Proctor gets into real trouble.”

“Very well, officer. I’ll get him out of here quietly. And, officer, I wonder if you could do me a favour and don’t mention to anyone that you saw us here tonight.”

“Of course not,” Joshua said, having already made up his mind to report the incident to the management office first thing in the morning.

You little weasel, Daniels thought. “Thank you so much,” he said.

“Of course, Professor.” Joshua wondered if this sort of information could get you a reward. The best thing to do was go straight to the cops. They did sometimes offer rewards. Management was not likely to. “But before you go you better explain what is happening here.”

“Perhaps I can help.” A tall woman who carried herself with considerable poise and dignity had come up behind Joshua and was standing at his shoulder. He had not seen her or her male companion approach. The new male arrival was relaxed and smiling, leaning against a plate glass window just behind the woman, his hands in his pockets.

“Ma’am, I have to say...as my duty...” Joshua started.

But he got no further. He looked into her deep brown eyes and she spoke to him softly. “You are at peace,” she suggested, “completely at peace, so much at peace that your eyelids are closing. Peace is descending around you and you are about to sleep. You are sleeping now and will remain asleep on your feet until either I snap my fingers or the morning sun rises. Tomorrow morning when you wake you will not remember any of the people you met here. You will remember that you saw suspicious individuals whom you did not recognise. You overheard them talking and discovered that they intend to rob the cash depot the day after tomorrow. And you will remember that they have disabled the alarm system.” She paused and turned to Daniels, looking for any other instructions she should leave in Joshua’s mind. “Dr Daniels and the rest of you team members…”

But he was gesturing to her to be quiet. Nothing more was needed. Every time he had seen her in action, Daniels had been amazed at Julie’s powers. It was all so effortless, at times causing havoc in the hospital among both patients and staff, as people who had annoyed her were left immobilised, scattered around the hospital in unlikely poses. For a mental patient, she was astonishing. No, she was astonishing by any standards. She had been committed by a court after using her powers to rob all the branches of a small chain of jewellery stores. She explained that she had only taken this action because the owner had insulted her by refusing her an account with which to purchase diamond jewellery. Julie had never tried to sell any of the pieces to which she helped herself, but she wore them so often, in such profusion and on such inappropriate occasions that the police had her within a week. Most people found it unusual for a lady eating a hamburger in a diner to be wearing a diamond tiara, and diamonds around her neck, on her fingers and set in brooches pinned to her T-shirt. The judge was inclined to view her as an ordinary criminal until she screamed that the court was full of crocodiles, scrambled onto the bench and was trying to get onto his shoulders before the court security officer caught up to her.

Daniels acknowledged that his team could probably not function without her. He came close and looked into Joshua’s face.

“Oh, he’s out Doctor,” Julie said. “We can continue.”

“Go ahead then, Proccie, old chap,” said the man who had arrived with Julie.

“You don’t give the orders here, Luke,” Proctor said.

Daniels stepped between them. “All right, Proctor, there no need for that. Please go ahead with your work now.”

Proctor had opened the narrow door that hid the alley. A second door in the right hand wall was locked. Opening it was accomplished by sliding a credit card under the tongue of the lock. A buzzing sound issued from a small box mounted just inside the door. A screwdriver had appeared in Proctor’s right hand. Using only that hand, he loosened a screw in the side of the box, while Daniels held his left to keep it out of trouble. “Hold tight there, Doc,” Proctor said. “I’m almost done.” A cover slid away. He returned the screwdriver to his trouser pocket and replaced it with a tiny side cutter. Something was snipped, the buzzing stopped and the alarm immobilized, making Julie’s suggestion to Joshua a reality. “Five seconds,” he said. “There will be no alarm yet. Primitive really. I’m ashamed at the efforts of my colleagues in the industry.”

“So where’s this strong room?”

“Down here.” Proctor switched on a weak electric light. “There.”

The top of the strong room door was higher off the ground than the head of a tall man. Near the top was the slot into which after-hours deposits were made. Daniels looked at it in wonder. “And its back opens into the bank?”

“Yes, but just into the manager’s office,” Proctor said. “I designed the alarm for that side too. That’s the point at which the real fun starts. Once through the strong room you still have to get into the vault.”

“Is this believable?”

“Oh, I think so. Cops always believe the easiest explanation for anything. It’s part of their training, I think. In any event, I have to admit that Luke will go through that strong room like a hot knife through butter.” He was as envious of Luke’s safe-cracking skills as Luke was of his ability to manipulate alarm systems. Both were undeniable.

“Yes.” Daniels looked thoughtful. “Luke will.”

Proctor looked thoughtfully at Luke where he was still at ease against the shop window. “But only if Luke is with us.” He replaced the cover of the alarm box.

Daniels understood what he meant. So did the others. Having Luke present was not necessarily a foregone conclusion. “He will be,” Daniels said. “Luke and I are dealing with it.”

This evening there was no cause for concern. Luke was with them and already working on the strong room door. It held only a few seconds longer than the alarm system had, then he was inside. When he came out, he closed the strong room door gently and nodded to Daniels. “That’ll do it.”

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”

Daniels led the others back into the shop lights in the centre’s main hallway, while Luke walked ahead. Joshua, looking like a standing variation of Rodin’s Thinker, was still where they had left him.

Julie had not moved. “Don’t worry about him,” Daniels said. “He’ll wake up when the sun rises the way you told him he would.”

“I know he will but I have professional standards, you know. I try not to just leave people in the lurch...”

Oh God, Daniels thought. All I need is a discussion about professional standards with a bunch of lunatics. An added complexity in such a discussion was that, lately, his own professional standards had slipped to a level of which he was not especially proud.

Julie linked an arm into Proctor’s and smiled into the eyes he turned towards her. She turned back to look at Joshua one last time. At that moment a hand reached out, found its target in a shapely thigh and slid quickly upwards and over smoothly rounded buttocks. “Proctor,” she shrilled. “Which hand was that?”

“It wasn’t me. It was the alien hand. I swear.”

“Well, kindly keep it away from me.”

Daniels laughed softly. “Not that you can blame it. It’s a temptingly neat ass.”

“I’ll thank you to show a little respect, doctor,” Proctor said self-righteously. “There’s no need to talk about Julie that way.”

“Christ Almighty.” Daniels shook his head.

Proctor wrestled the offending hand into temporary submission while Julie watched him do it. “You don’t learn, do you?” he told Daniels. “You don’t talk that way to a capo in the Mafia. When I tell my Godfather about you...”

“You’re never been a member of the Mafia, except in your dreams,” Daniels snarled. “And the only Godfather you’ve got is me.”

Julie came out in Proctor’s support. “He has a past you can’t even guess at. If we don’t get respect there are going to be repercussions.”

Proctor nodded in sanctimonious agreement.

“The car’s that way.” Daniels was trying to speak through gritted teeth. Luke had already disappeared down the hallway.

“I don’t like this disrespectful behaviour,” Julie said. She stepped up to the doctor. “You are at peace,” she suggested to Daniels.

The pupils of Daniels’s eyes flared wide for a moment. “What the hell...”

But he was too late. “You are completely at peace, so much at peace that your eyelids are closing. Peace is descending around you and you are sleeping now, but you will remain on your feet. You will only wake when the sun rises.”

Moving down the passage, the portly alarm system expert and the elegant hypnotist walked close together, her fingers touching the fingers of his right hand. His left, the alien hand, writhed uncomfortably in its pocket. “Are you going to just leave them like that?” Proctor asked. “Shouldn’t you snap your fingers to wake them?”

“You know, the strange thing is I can’t snap my fingers.”

“But you told them…”

“I know.” Julie looked shamefaced. “I don’t know why I say such things. They’ll wake up when the sun rises. And in any case they have each other for company now.”

Proctor smiled up at her. She was a good hand’s breadth taller than him. “I’m very happy being with you, but just a little tired. He wears me out terribly, you know, does Dr Daniels.”

“Never mind,” Julie said. “You go and get a good night’s sleep. He won’t bother you till morning.”

Proctor smiled at her in gratitude. “Thank you. You’re such a kind person.”

She returned the smile. “And you’re a good man, despite your Mafia connections.”

In front of the plate glass window of the haberdashery, two men, one in the uniform of the centre’s security team and the other a tall, dishevelled psychologist stood close together. From a distance they may have been in deep, absorbed conversation.

CHAPTER FIVE

Neither the fences nor the gate carried a sign to tell casual passers-by that this was the city’s hospital for the criminally insane. If you were neither a staff member, nor an inmate, nor a family member who came to visit, you probably did not know the building’s purpose.

By the time they reached the hospital’s front gate, Proctor was leaning against Julie. “Not far to go now,” she said. “Just hold onto me. We’re nearly there.”

Two burly uniformed men came out of the guard house. “Stop there. The public is not allowed in...” The older, bigger guard began. Then he recognised them. “Oh, you two.”

“Proctor Jones, Block A,” Proctor said, like someone reporting for duty.

“Julie Ontong, Block B,” Julie said.

“Where the hell have you been and how did you get out?” Before he could go any further, Julie turned towards him. “All right, never mind,” he said hurriedly. “Just get inside.” The two guards scurried back into the safety of the guardhouse, trying not to look in Julie’s direction until her retreating figure was safely out of range, at least, out of what they imagined Julie’s range to be.

Proctor’s weariness did not result in his getting to sleep soon. His alien hand put up a sturdy fight before he got it into the cuff in which it was held every night. First it tried to press its fingers into his eyes, then it went over to tickling which was not entirely unpleasant, but when it got hold of his testicles and squeezed, Proctor summoned all his strength to subdue it.

Once the alien hand was securely cuffed he attended to his personal alarm system. Working with one hand was not easy, but he had been doing it for ten years now. And there was no controlling the alien hand.

He had asked for wire, a soldering iron and various electronic components to build an alarm system for his cell. But when he explained to Daniels that he needed it in case the staff decided to murder him in the night, it was refused. So he created a simpler system. He worked a long thread loose from one of his blankets, secured one end to the door and threaded it through an opening in the light fitting. The other end was fastened to a large enamelled mug in such a way that if anyone opened the door, the mug swung straight at the visitor with surprising force. After it had rendered one of the orderlies unconscious, they wanted to take the contraption down. But Daniels told them, “Proctor needs to feel safe. He needs the security of some protection.” The orderlies tried to argue the matter: “That bloody thing is no protection.” But Daniels was unmoved. “It knocked one of you out cold, didn’t it?” They had no choice, but to duck as they opened his door.

Julie would have felt comforted if she had been allowed to spend the night with Proctor, but the division between male and female accommodation was absolute. Spouses on the outside felt it was bad enough that they did not have access to their partners, without those same partners being given the opportunity to whore around inside. And, after all, what were conjugal visits for?

Julie rarely slept at all. At most, she cat-napped during the day, while sitting upright. Despite his anger that seemed always to be floating close to the surface, Daniels was not an unkind man. He had always allowed Julie the cosmetics she said she needed. Applying them judiciously hid the signs of her abiding exhaustion. Physically, she was an unusually strong woman, but she knew if you slept the crocodiles came for you in the night as they had went she was a child, and she was never going to allow that to happen again. She had developed the most effective means of protection, but she needed to be awake to apply it.

Luke was also housed in Block A. He had been let in by the block orderly who was relieved to see him, in case he got blamed for the offender’s absence. He had not entered by the front gate though and only the block warder even knew about his absence.

Once he reached his cell, he gave up the body to young Mark, who did most of the sleeping. Young as he was, his was the clearest conscience and so the one who slept best. If Luke was fond of anyone, man or woman, Mark was the one. He spent his nights watching Mark sleep, grateful that there was one of them who was able to rest so well.

Despite his youth, Mark was the engineer among the four. He had persuaded Daniels to allow him a Meccano set and was always building wonderful miniature mechanical devices. Once in bed he put his mechanical skills to use. Using the ratchet and gear system he had devised, he jacked his bed up until he was sleeping safely just below the ceiling. It was the one position in which he felt safe. It was true that the horrors that started at the age of fourteen had not yet been visited on him, but he felt their approach.

Because he was the only one who knew how to lower the bed, the others allowed him to rise first every morning. The orderlies never could understand why it took him so long to get out of bed and what the actions were that he undertook before rising. While it puzzled them, Mark knew that if he was not careful he could injure himself getting out of bed while it was at maximum height. It took a while to lower the bed. If you were not careful the ratchet might slip and the whole construction come crashing down.

The last member of Daniels’s team had not been needed at the shopping centre. This was Cornelius van der Sandt, the Cornelius van der Sandt, the great driver who had won both Le Mans and the Cannonball Run in the same year. Cornelius seemed to be sleeping soundly, but in fact he was driving the last fifty kilometres of the Mille Miglia, a race that had been discontinued a few years before he was born because of its dangerous nature. Despite never having actually even seen the running of the great race, Cornelius was driving it as he did every night.

Darkness had descended on the cars as they fled down the backroads of rural Italy. He was in second place, driving without lights, using only the lights of the car ahead to give him a sense of the road ahead. He was gaining on the leader who did not even know he was there, but moving up too slowly for his liking. It was just what Nuvolari himself had done in his time. And Cornelius knew he was as good as Nuvolari any time, perhaps even better.

Slowly, kilometre by kilometre, he drew closer until he could see not only the lights of the car in front, but the outline of the driver. Coming out of a long bend he pulled up next to the leading car and switched on his lights, just the way Nuvolari had.

It was only then that he saw the pothole, a gaping gash in the road that destroyed his front right tyre. The car lurched and spun, rocketed into the air and landed upside down, destroying his head and shoulders. In his last moment alive he screamed, loud enough to wake the entire block.

Down at the end of the hallway, an orderly sighed and looked at his watch. There he goes, the orderly thought. Thank God, now we can settle down for the night.

CHAPTER SIX

As directed by Julie, it was morning before Daniels started back to the hospital. I’ll kill them, he thought. I’ll kill them all. He was tired, having been on his feet for the last eight hours when he should have been in bed. He was also frustrated at having to spend half an hour with the crowd that had gathered around them.

Joshua demanded an explanation of him, as if the whole thing was his fault. “I blinked and it was morning.”

“I can only put it down to an act of God,” Daniels said.

“I agree,” Joshua said. “I’m a religious man and it seems obvious to me.”

The streets were still in the deep shadow cast by the buildings, but the parking spaces in front of the centre were already filling. Daniels’s car was where he had left it, in a loading zone outside a supermarket. As he got in a man wearing an apron shouted from the door. “Eh, that’s not a parking spot.”

Fuck you, Daniels thought, but said nothing. He called home to hear that Charlotte was fine and apologised to the nurse who had stayed all night without any explanation from him. Now there was the problem of where Luke, Julie and Procter had gone. If they had disappeared, all his plans would have disappeared with them. The police would be called in and that would destroy everything.

The hospital was a half hour’s drive from the shopping centre at this time of the morning. By skipping a few traffic lights Daniels got there faster. He waited at the security gate while the officer on duty, a man by the name of Philemon who had seen him a few hundred times before, examined his identity card. Like Daniels, he was an older man, nearing retirement. He handed back the card and bent over to bring his face close to Daniels’s. “By the way, doctor, two of your loon...patients came in a few hours ago. I swear I dunno how they got out. We did a patrol of the fence and couldn’t see nothing wrong. It hasn’t been cut. Anyway they’re back. One of them was that old hypnotist chick. I put on my dark glasses whenever she’s near and try not to look into her eyes and I don’t try to check her ID.”

“That’s all right,” Daniels said. The manner of their escape from the hospital was no secret to him. He was sorry they had not re-entered the same way. “But I’m not sure your sun glasses are going to protect you from her.”

“What then...” But Daniels was already driving away. The officer went back into the control room. To his colleague, a younger man, Philemon said, “The doctor looks like hell this morning. In fact, I swear he’s wearing the same clo’es he had on yesterday.”

“Prob’ly wife troubles,” the younger man said. “My wife locked me out once. She said the way I was looking at her sister you couldn’t be sure of a man like me.”

“Nah, forget it. The doc’s a shrink. They don’t have those problems like the rest of us. Shrinks are like priests, they’re different.”

It was impossible for Daniels to rest without checking on the members of his team. He first entered Block A and made his way to the cell where Proctor was still in bed and fast asleep. His left arm was outside the blankets, securely cuffed to the bed’s framework, its fingers drumming impatiently.

In Block B, Julie was wide awake in the recreation room where she had just eaten breakfast and taken her medication like the model patient she usually was. “Good morning, Dr Daniels,” she said brightly. “I’m delighted to see you.”

Daniels raised a threatening finger. “Now you listen to me, Miss...”

“Oh, doctor,” she said. “Are you never going to learn? “You are at peace,” she said so gently that he could believe it, “completely at peace...”

Daniels spun round to face away from her. “All right, all right. Just stop that...”

“Certainly. All Proctor and I want is a little respect.”

He tried not to let his annoyance show in his voice. “How did the pair of you get back last night?”

“We were given a lift by a terrible rapist.”

“A rapist?”

“All the way to the hospital I could feel his hands inspecting parts of me that no man should...”

“He was touching you?”

“He would have except Proctor, oh I do love Proctor, he was sitting between us, protecting me.”

“But you said you could feel his hands in...those places?”

“I could, but Proctor was between us so he couldn’t reach.”

“I see.”

“You don’t, but, Dr Daniels, just show us some respect and we’ll cooperate fully with your plans...” She paused a moment, one eyebrow raised meaningfully. “...your nefarious plans,” she added.

Daniels’s index finger was raised, but not in a threatening way. “My plans are no danger to you. You are safe from the authorities.”

“I know. I’m insane. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Maybe I’m the one who’s insane, Daniels thought as he walked across the campus, back to Block A where he expected to find the others. This is too high a price to pay for talent. But then he reminded himself that, while the price was high, the potential rewards were almost beyond calculation.

At his best the great Cornelius van der Sandt was unbearably condescending – but what a driver he was. No one ever in the history of crime had a better get-away driver. Of course, there were a few challenges. When on his meds he drove slowly and carefully, obeying all road rules fastidiously. Without his meds he was depressive and barely able to drive three quarters of the time. But in that last quarter when he was without his meds and not depressed, he was at his unmatchable best. And Daniels believed he had the answer to Cornelius’s depression. The driver had a ten-year-old daughter and the thing Daniels needed to do was to manipulate the driver’s love for his child. All he had to do was promise a visit by the child and Cornelius broke out of his depression. For someone who had the driver under his control night and day, and possessed no scruples, the problem was fairly easily overcome. At least, that was Daniels’s belief.

That morning, the great Cornelius had slipped into the sort of state he usually occupied. He was in the recreation room, surrounded by his fellow inmates, most of whom were involved in approved activities, like dancing, reading, working unsuccessfully on puzzles and watching television. He was in the front row of the television watchers, but instead of watching the programme, his gaze was aimed at a spot on the floor between his feet. As Daniels approached, he heard Cornelius sigh deeply. “It’s no use,” he muttered under his breath. “Nothing is any use now.”

“Shut up, van der Sandt,” a former investment banker, who had broken down shortly after his ponzi scheme broke down, shouted at him. “Some of us are trying to watch.”

Cornelius looked up, straight into Daniels’s eyes. For an instant, his face reflected something close to pleasure, but only for an instant. “Doctor,” he said. “I’ve been telling these people that you picked me for a secret mission, but they all say I’m lying. Tell them please, tell them I’m not lying. Tell them I’m a member of your special secret mission team.”

Christ, Daniels thought, if I don’t get the job done soon, Cornelius and the others will destroy all my work. Despite what he was feeling, he smiled warmly at the once-great driver. “You come with me, my boy. Let’s you and I have a chat. Remember, I’m the only one who appreciates you. I always have been.”

Daniels put an arm around Cornelius’s shoulders and guided him in the direction of the hallway. Before they reached the door of the recreation room they heard the investment banker: “I told you. It’s just a load of bull. Picking him for a special mission...hah.”

Cornelius clung to Daniels. He so badly needed someone to believe in him. When they got into the hallway, Daniels freed himself from Cornelius’s grip. “Now, my boy...” Cornelius was not that much younger than Daniels, but the psychiatrist knew what worked with him. “My boy, I explained to you that this is a secret mission,” he said reasonably. “And you know what a secret is. Nobody else may know about it, only the people who are important to the mission, people like you and me.”

“That’s right.” Cornelius was at last happy that someone understood him. “That’s what I told them. It’s a secret mission and they should keep it to themselves.”

“Let’s go through this again,” Daniels said patiently. “Now, listen carefully.”

To his great relief, Daniels found Matthew Sturgeon, stripped to the waist and working out on a machine in the ward gym. Of those occupying the body, only Matthew ever exercised. Luke felt the need to exercise, but hated any sort of physical effort, and Mark was given little opportunity. At the sight of Daniels, Matthew slid off the exercise machine, leapt to his feet and came to attention. “Matthew Sturgeon at your command,” he shouted. “Give me another two weeks and I will be in top shape for any mission, no matter how dangerous.” Somehow Matthew had picked up something of Daniels’s plans, probably when one of the other team members thought wrongly that he was speaking to Luke.

“That’s excellent,” Daniels said. “I’m delighted to have a man like you on my team.”

Matthew stood stiffly at attention, his chest out and his chin in. He lowered his voice. “Just one thing though, Dr Daniels.”

Daniels moved closer. “Yes?”

“You have to be careful of Luke. He is not a man of good character. You cannot tell what he may do. His moral standards are non-existent.”

Daniels sat down on an adjacent exercise machine. “Thank you for reminding me, but right now I do need to have word with him.”

“But why...” It was clear that Matthew was distressed by the thought.

Daniels held up a hand. “Just a second please, Matthew.” Then without looking at his patient, he whispered. “Luke, are you in there?”

Matthew shuddered. “Don’t do that, Doc. Please don’t do that. I deeply resent having to share the body with someone like him. Do you know I suspect he doesn’t even go to church.”

“Luke, get out here, will you?”

“Doctor Daniels, please. Have you any idea how much pain this causes me?”

But Daniels was not moved by his pleading. “Luke, get out here, right now.” He glanced at Matthew and saw his patient’s agonised face turn to an expression of sly self-confidence. “Ah, there you are.”

“So, my Bible-punching buddy tried to keep me inside. He should know by now there’s no way he can do that. When I want to come out no one can stop me.” Luke enjoyed bragging about his ability to manipulate access to the body.

“You ready?” Daniels demanded.

“I’m ready any time, old chap, but just one thing I want to warn you about.”

Daniels guessed what was coming. Luke regularly warned him about something Matthew might do, in much the same way Matthew cautioned him about Luke. “Oh, yes?”

“Don’t let Matthew get wind of this. That snivelling little religious creep will book us for sure. Even John is better than him.”

John was the coward of the four, his lower lip often quivering. After years of caring for them, Daniels could tell at a glance which of them was occupying the body.

“Don’t worry. There’s no chance of Matthew or John learning anything, as long as you keep them inside.” Daniels rose and straightened up carefully. “Just make sure you stay in control. I don’t think Mark will be a problem.”

“Markie will be fine, and I’m ready, waiting and in control. But, old chap, I want to say that it comes as a surprise to me that you are getting involved in this sort of enterprise. Money sure is a powerful motivation.”

Believe what you like, Daniels thought. Despite himself, he admired Luke’s confidence. He had only been arrested, and subsequently convicted, because Matthew had somehow slipped out during the job and began calling for the police. It was the first time any of the authorities involved had ever heard of a safe cracker calling for help to prevent the crime from taking place. Luke took over almost immediately, but by that time the damage had been done.

“Maybe there is another motivation,” Daniels told him. “But right now I’m going to lie down. I’ve had a difficult night. Keep yourself loose.”

“No one could be looser,” Luke said.

As Daniels reached the gym door, a light voice, almost a childish treble called after him. “Dr Daniels, do you think we can play cards today, you and me?”

The change surprised Daniels. It was not like Luke to give up the body that easily. “Not today, my boy,” Daniels told Mark. “I’m very tired.”

“But, sir, that’s what you always say,” Mark wailed. “You never want to play with me.”

“For heaven’s sake...”

“Please, sir, please, please.”

“All right. I’m going to lie down. When I wake up, we’ll play some rummy, just you and me.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you.” He released a high-pitched giggle of victory.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sergeant Williams was a vengeful man and the man against whom he most wanted revenge was Cyril Daniels. Three years before he had testified in a case, involving one of Daniels’s patients, a lunatic getaway driver of a bank robbery mob by the name of Cornelius van der Sandt. With conviction certain and van der Sandt safely in custody, this Daniels had given evidence and instead of being found guilty the prisoner was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Not only that but, in his evidence, Daniels had referred to Williams as “an ordinary police officer of limited judgement, poor understanding of the matter before him and no moral or intellectual standards.” Since that day, Williams had hated him. And now, surprisingly, a chance to get back at this insulting shrink had presented itself.

Daniels had managed to use the insanity defence to get this van der Sandt into his own care, Williams thought, but he won’t be able to use it to keep himself out of jail.

A month before, a constable had reported that Daniels had been seen in his car late at night in the company of another man. The interesting part was that the constable, an eager young officer who Williams also hated for his ambitious nature, thought the man with Daniels was Cornelius van der Sandt, the famous racing driver. Since he had reported the incident to Williams, the sergeant had stopped hating him. The constable’s excessive ambition was a small crime compared to Daniels’s insults.

For the last two weeks Sergeant Williams had pondered how he was going to investigate the matter further. He knew that one mis-step and Daniels would have him before a disciplinary hearing, demanding to know what this morally and intellectually impaired policeman thought he was doing. He was given the answer by his nephew in the vice squad. “We’ve got these tiny video cameras,” his nephew told him. “And we’ve got a man inside. I’ll have him plant one in van der Sandt’s cell and another in Dr Daniels’s office.”

Just a few nights ago they struck gold. Daniels came in and worked in his office for half an hour, then left abruptly. A moment later the door of Cornelius’s cell opened and he too left. Unfortunately for Williams, the detective who planted the camera in Cornelius’s cell did not see the need to position it so that you had a view of the doorway. But it was a fair assumption that Daniels was the one who opened the door and let the driver out.

“So,” the sergeant told his nephew, “we learnt nothing.”

“Of course we did, Uncle Willie,” the nephew said. “Dr Daniels left his office. A minute later the cell door is opened for this Cornelius to get out. It’s obvious what’s going on.”

“What?”

“It’s clear as daylight. The doctor’s using his offenders for sex.”

“No?”

“Oh,yes. We use scientific methods in the vice squad these days. We spot them right away. Check the female inmates too.”

“You think he’s running a big operation?”

“For sure. But remember, we treat our vice suspects with dignity.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. We got standards in vice these days.”

“So what now?”

“Next time they slip out together we’ll pick them up, prob’ly catch a whole group in the act.”

Williams swallowed heavily. The first time he heard that Daniels was outside the hospital fences with Cornelius van der Sandt he realised this was an opportunity that could not be missed. He knew this was going to be good, but he never guessed just how good. But was this the time to make his move? He was not sure. To delay the chance for a solid arrest was never a good thing. And when the one being arrested was this Dr Cyril Daniels it was even less so. But a mistake would expose him to more of Daniels’s insults and heaven knows what else.

Sergeant Williams was getting ready for lunch at the eatery across the road from the police station. After lunch, he thought, he should make his move. He was going to take Daniels right out of his hospital in handcuffs. Then we’ll see who has poor judgement and limited understanding, he thought.

He had risen and was getting into the jacket of his suit (officers on the way up always wore suits) when a young female constable brought him a message that a shopping centre security guard had come to see him. “The commissioner says this man has information you might find useful. He wants you to look into it immediately.” She waited for a reaction.

A shopping centre security guard? Williams considered. What information can he have that might interest me? And he turns up just as I’m going to lunch. On top of it, the old man has this irritating kid bring him the message.

“He says it’s important. He says you must see this witness now.”

“How do you know he’s a witness?”

“The commissioner says so.”

And when, he asked himself, did they start calling the bosses of police stations “commissioner?” Since when did they get so fancy? Next thing they’ll call a shift boss commissioner. Commissioner of the night shift, imagine that. He sank slowly back into his seat. “Send this witness in,” he said.

The first thing Williams noticed about Joshua was his thick-lensed spectacles. Can this guy even see a suspect, he asked himself, let alone witness anything. “So, my man, I understand you have information for me.”

Joshua held out a hand to Williams. “I am Security Officer First Class Joshua,” he said.

What an amazingly elevated rank, Williams thought. “Sergeant Williams,” he said, limply shaking the hand of the security officer first class. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Joshua could see no reason not to sit down. “I do the night shift at Four Seasons Mall.”

I’m dealing with a top man, Williams thought. Commissioner of the shopping mall’s night shift. “So, speak,” he said.

“I have information that tomorrow night a gang of criminals is going to raid the cash depot in the mall. And they’ve already disabled the alarm system.”

“What’s a cash depot?” When dealing with this matter, it was the most asked question.

Joshua told him.

“So, where does your information come from?”

It was not an easy question to answer. He did not know that Julie had implanted it in his mind, but he did remember being in that part of the mall. It could only be that he had overheard it, so he told Williams that.

“You overheard these criminals planning?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe them?”

That was the strangest part, Joshua remembered them talking, but his memory held no picture of them. “No, I didn’t see them.”

“And they said they were going to raid this cash depot tonight? Did you get any names?”

“Just one. Daniels.”

In as long as it took Joshua to say the name, Williams was on his feet and leaning over the desk. “Did you say, Daniels?”

The movement was so sudden that Joshua drew back as if being attacked. “Yes?” he asked, wondering if what he had just said was permissible. The truth was that Joshua did not know where the name came from. While implanting new information in his mind, Julie had said the name, and now it hovered in his sub-conscious in much the same way Daniels and Proctor had been hovering outside the haberdashery store. He assumed he must have overheard that too. “Dr Daniels…” he said, “…and his team.”

“And his team? Son of a bitch,” Sergeant Williams said. He was a man who had just won the national lottery or better. Then he saw the look of horror on Joshua’s face. “Not you, Joshua. You are my man.” He seized Joshua’s right hand again and this time he shook it enthusiastically. “You are critical to this matter. I want you on my team.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

It had been a busy morning in maximum security for Yudel Gordon and, he felt, probably an unprofitable one. He had spent most of the day taking a bunch of dangerous offenders through the department’s psychopath treatment. Daniels had started the treatment, but seemed to have accomplished little. To be fair, Yudel thought, nothing was ever likely to be accomplished.

In Yudel’s view, there were two things wrong with what he had been doing. Firstly, he did not believe that all of those on the course qualified as psychopaths. He reflected that just being willing and happy to kill other human beings did not necessarily make you a psychopath. In the case of some of them, he thought other diagnoses had a more likely fit. In addition, he had little faith in the effectiveness of the course. The psychopathic did not yield readily to treatment, if at all. But a friend of the commissioner had designed it. And, if you were moderately content in your work and did not want to join the swelling ranks of the unemployed, you did not refuse to conduct courses that a friend of the commissioner had designed.

For reasons that he did not understand, the idea of Cyril Daniels’s team kept returning to his mind. How did you use a team of mental patients to care for other mental patients? Yudel himself was thought of by many as pretty eccentric, but he had always thought of Daniels as worse than eccentric, if worse was the right term, more extreme perhaps.

Now, as he made his way down the hallway on the top floor of the head office building towards the commissioner’s office, he was concerned that the boss may see his thoughts on the matter as disloyal. He hoped he would not be asked his opinion of the course. The commissioner was astute enough to see through any attempt to fudge the issue, and Yudel was not always a good liar. On top of that, the message to come to the commissioner’s office had reached him while he was in the very process of leading the course. Yudel had noticed that, if you entered the commissioner’s thoughts at all then what you were busy with at the time often drove his thinking in that direction. It was a fair assumption that the commissioner would be thinking about the course by the time Yudel reached his office.

He entered the office of the commissioner’s personal assistant with some caution. As a breed, Yudel did not especially like PAs. They tended, by a process resembling osmosis, to absorb some of their boss’s power and authority. This one was less bad than the others though. She actually seemed to realise that she was not in charge, a rare good quality in her category of person.

“Good afternoon,” Yudel said. “The commissioner sent a message...”

“I know.” Two sympathetic brown eyes looked back at Yudel. “Unfortunately, he was called away. I tried to reach you, but I don’t think your cell phone was working.”

Yudel’s cell phone had not been working since he tried to replace the battery two weeks before and dropped the replacement which had skittered away as if possessed by a life of its own to lodge under a bookshelf. Down on his hands and knees, he had been able to see the offending item, but retrieving it would have meant unpacking all the books and, even then, getting muscular help to move the book case.

“Well, I’ll be on my way,” he told the PA.

“The commissioner will be disappointed that you missed each other.”

“Me too,” Yudel lied.

“No need for disappointment,” a hearty male voice boomed behind him. “I hurried so I wouldn’t miss you, Yudel…”

“Wonderful,” Yudel said. Damn, he thought. “Good of you to hurry,” he added.

“No trouble at all. Come into my office. I’ve got a major problem, a challenging problem, a complex problem, in fact, one that requires your inspired touch.”

Yudel was not impressed by the commissioner’s flattery. He had heard it too often before. “I will give it my best effort,” he said bravely.

Once settled in comfortable chairs on either side of the commissioner’s gleaming, broad oaken desk, he smiled at Yudel. Never a good sign, Yudel thought. Looking at him, Yudel considered the fact that the department always picked security officers for the position of commissioner. There had never been a psychologist in the department’s top position. It just shows you what they really feel about rehabilitation, Yudel thought. The most important matter was not to reform anyone, just keep the bastards off the streets. He mentioned none of these thoughts to the commissioner though.

The commissioner broke into Yudel’s resentful reverie. He cleared his throat loudly and began. “Yudel, I want you to handle this rather delicate matter, because I know Cyril Daniels is a friend of yours.”

Forget it, Yudel thought. “More an acquaintance really,” he said.

“Oh come, Yudel. I believe you two were at university together. And you’ve spent your adult lives working within a stone’s throw of each other. You must know him quite well.”

That does not make us blood brothers, Yudel thought. “Quite well, I suppose,” he conceded. “But we have never really been friends.”

“The fact is, Yudel, that Cyril is behaving strangely. A report came in this morning from a security guard called Joshua. There’s also a detective by the name of Williams sticking his nose into the matter. And I don’t like any of this, not in a matter that belongs in our department.”

At least he doesn’t want to talk about the psychopath course, Yudel thought. “What do they think Cyril has done?”

“They say they suspect he was in the Four Seasons shopping centre last night, casing a bank depot with the purpose of robbing it. Apparently he had a team with him. Williams suspects the team is made up of some of his patients, a really bad lot, criminals all, thereby contravening the laws that govern our profession.”

Thereby contravening…Yudel marvelled at his use of language. You had to talk that way if you wanted to become national commissioner. “You mean he’s letting offenders out...” Yudel looked at the commissioner in wonder. This was not the stuff for a gentle enquiry. It was surprising that Cyril had not already been arrested. “He’s letting them escape? Have the police picked them up?”

“Well, we had an emergency drill, but when Sergeant Williams got to the hospital the patients were all safely inside, I’m pleased to say. Only Daniels himself was missing. The place they were casing was the local bank’s cash depot.”

“What’s a cash depot?”

The commissioner told him. “The depot is an experiment,” he added.

Yudel studied the commissioner’s face thoughtfully. “And Cyril is missing?”

“No, he was still at the shopping centre this morning, seeming to be in a state of shock. But, when asked about it, he said he had been tired and fell asleep there.”

“In the shopping centre?”

“Don’t look at me that way, Yudel. I don’t like it when you look at me that way. I’m the senior here. Remember that. I haven’t gone crazy too. I got the report this morning. I’m not making this up.”

“And these offenders or escapers, whichever they are, who are kind enough to return before they cause us any real trouble, how did they get out, cut a hole in the fence?”

“No, there are no holes in the fence.”

To Yudel, the story being described by the commissioner was little more than a fairy tale. “How then? Is Cyril taking them out in the boot of his car and bringing them back?”

“No. The staff at the gate have standing orders to open the luggage compartment of any vehicle entering or leaving. And they’re doing it. We have security cameras.” The commissioner squirmed uncomfortably on his chair. “They haven’t been letting me down, Yudel...”

Of course not, Yudel thought. If they were not following your instructions, both you and they would be for the high jump. Therefore, that could not be the explanation. He had read the minister’s memo telling all staff that warders and their managers who did not carry out basic instructions were at risk of being fired. It was an order with which Yudel agreed fully.

“People and vehicles, entering and leaving our facilities, are being properly searched. This is why I need someone of your sensitivity, talent and experience to look into this.”

Amazing, Yudel thought. I have the ability to deal with a major problem, a challenging problem, a complex problem, one that requires an inspired touch, and now I have the sensitivity, talent and experience as well. I should prolong the discussion. I might get my contract extended.

The commissioner pointed an unconvincing finger at Yudel. “Yudel, I rely on you. I always have and I’ve always been good to you. And Cyril Daniels’s your friend.”

“Acquaintance.”

“Are you going to help me or aren’t you?”

Yudel smiled. The commissioner did not have to ask, he could simply instruct. But because he was puzzled and felt threatened he was almost begging. This could be useful, if the incident could be made to reside in the commissioner’s memory afterwards.

The commissioner scowled at Yudel, the man causing the trouble was a psychologist and so was Yudel. There had to be a connection, at least in their way of thinking. “Your colleague seems to have gone nuts.”

“Occupational hazard,” Yudel said. “And you say they were in this shopping centre, casing this bank depot, Cyril Daniels and certain of his patients?”

“I don’t say it. That’s what this Joshua and this Sergeant Williams are saying. They say he’s going to raid the place tomorrow night.”

“Cyril Daniels is going to conduct a bank robbery?” Yudel laughed.

“Don’t laugh, Yudel. This is serious.”

Yudel stopped laughing. “So you want me to drop in on Cyril and find out what exactly he’s doing and why before we lose inmates and the minister descends on the guilty parties, all the guilty parties, including yourself?”

“Exactly.”

“And before Cyril gets himself arrested and you have to explain the whole thing?”

“Right again.”

“Just one thing. I have a question.”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t you just tighten security, call him in to ask him what’s going on and, if the answers don’t satisfy you, replace him?”

“I haven’t got any real proof. As for asking him, he’ll lie to me for sure. And as for replacing him, you know what the labour laws are like, he’ll probably bring a law suit and then the minister will not be happy with me.”

“You do seem to have a problem,” Yudel said cruelly.

“You don’t have to tell me that, Yudel. I know it. Cyril Daniels’s a senior man. I’ve always vouched for him in evaluation meetings.”

“And you think he’ll tell me the truth?”

“No.” The commissioner looked at Yudel through round eyes to which he was trying to impart a veneer of injured innocence. “But you have all sorts of sneaky ways to make people tell you the truth.”

“Thank you very much,” Yudel said, without the slightest trace of irony.

“The pleasure’s mine,” the commissioner told him.

CHAPTER NINE

Although Yudel and Rosa Gordon would not ever be reckoned among the wealthy, he earned enough for them to live comfortably. Rosa had never been employed. To fill her days, she occupied herself with charitable work, her garden and managing Yudel’s private practice. On this evening, charitable work was on the agenda. When Yudel got home she was seated at the dining room table, planning a local fund raising drive for the Council of the Blind.

Yudel sat down opposite her without saying anything.

That was enough for Rosa. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing...” Then he realised that he was lying to her, and that was a fruitless exercise. “Nothing much.”

“So what is it?”

“The word is that Cyril is cracking up, doing crazy things.”

“Cyril Daniels?”

“He’s the only Cyril we know.”

“Shame, poor Charlotte.”

Wasn’t that the typical female response? Yudel thought. Cyril’s cracking up so we should feel sympathy for his wife. “The police think he’s taking inmates on unauthorised walk-abouts and planning to rob a bank.”

“Cyril?”

“Yes, Cyril.”

“Are you serious? You don’t jail someone for taking a patient for a walk.” Like so many other things, it was all obvious to Rosa. If someone’s intentions were good that should be an extenuating circumstance. More than an extenuating circumstance, if someone had a good heart, that should be enough for complete exoneration. “Cyril’s a good man, always has been. Robbing a bank?” The thought was ridiculous. “Cyril wouldn’t know where to start.”

Perhaps not, Yudel thought, but his patients would, and they would all be serving prison sentences of fifteen years or more if they had not been mental patients. The circumstances were somewhat different to those of your average suburban neurotic. He did not share his thoughts with Rosa. “The commissioner asked me to look into it,” he told her.

He started to rise, but she grabbed his closest hand and held it firmly. “Be nice to Cyril. I just know it will turn out to be nothing more than a big mistake. He’s a good man. He really is. And Charlotte is such a nice person, but easily upset. It would not be kind to upset her. Please don’t.”

“You really believe Cyril’s a good man? Beyond reproach?”

Rosa’s behaviour and her thinking followed identical patterns. She always tried to believe the best in people, most especially if she knew them. “I know it. So don’t visit him at work. Do this unofficially. Go to his home. And, you know, we haven’t been doing right by them. It’s shocking how long it’s been since we last saw them. I don’t think I’ve seen Charlotte for two years. I feel so guilty.”

Yudel was not sure how Cyril Daniels being a good man, therefore not guilty, and they, the Gordons, not doing right by the Daniels family were connected to Cyril’s obvious innocence, and how any of that related to Cyril’s recent behaviour. But Rosa saw it and that was all that was important. Yudel wished his view of life was that uncomplicated.

Charlotte’s nurse had been awaiting Daniels when he got home. As usual she told him that his wife was all right, but this time she added, “Please, let’s not have more nights like last night. I didn’t hear from you so I just stayed...”

“I know. I apologise. What happened to me was...it was hard to explain,” he said.

“No need to explain.” The nurse was a tolerant woman, and she lived alone, which helped. “Just please let me know next time it happens.” Daniels wondered how he could have let her know while in a deep hypnotic trance.

Charlotte was asleep again, but this time she did not wake when he sat down next to the bed. After waiting a while he left the bedroom to pour himself a brandy, which he drank too fast, then another which he drank just a little more slowly. After that he drank a third, and fourth, maybe a fifth. He did not know that Yudel was on the way to visit him.

Rosa’s advice seemed sound. Talk to Cyril at home where he would be relaxed and likely to talk freely, not feeling intimidated, she had said. Yudel expected that wheedling the truth out of Cyril Daniels would not be easy. What he had told the commissioner about his relationship with Cyril was not entirely accurate. In fact, it was not even approximately accurate. They knew each other pretty well, more than pretty well. The chances are he would spot Yudel’s tricks a mile away. Perhaps the thing to do would be just to come right out and ask him what the hell had been going on? Sometimes the blunt frontal assault worked, especially among old friends...or acquaintances.

That was Yudel’s thinking as he parked outside the front gate of the Daniels home. He hurried through a fairly heavy rain shower to reach the gate and had to press the intercom buzzer three times before he got a response. It came in form of a growl, a Daniels growl, as Yudel thought of it. “Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want this time of night? Why don’t you beggars work for a living instead of bothering me so late?  Go away. I’m broke myself.”

“Cyril, it’s Yudel.”

A long pause followed while Daniels digested this piece of information. Yudel was the last person to drop in on casual visits, and the last person you dropped in on. He and Rosa had only ever been in the the Daniels home by invitation, and here he was after dinner on a working day ringing the front doorbell – in the rain. It was not something that happened, not ever. Daniels did not mean to be unfriendly, but he asked, “What do you want?”

“To have a chat.”

“Have a chat?” The whole thing was increasingly unlikely. Yudel Gordon, the avoider of small talk, the one who never visited and rarely was visited, this same Yudel Gordon was dropping in for a chat. “What about?” But before Yudel could answer, Daniels thought better of it and, pressing the remote button, released the latch on the gate. “Of course, Yudel. Do come in.”

By the time Yudel reached the front door it was open and Daniels’s ungainly form, dressing gowned and with a double brandy in one hand, filled the doorway. He still looked puzzled. “Yudel?” It was said as a question, as if there was some doubt that this was indeed Yudel.

“Cyril,” Yudel said. “Good to see you again.”

“Really?” Daniels said. “Why’s that?” Then he thought about Charlotte and how word of her condition must have got out. “She’s asleep,” he said.

“Who is?”

“Charlotte. You heard about her sickness, right? Well, she’s asleep.”

“I’m sorry she’s ill,” Yudel said. “But I hadn’t heard of it. I came to see you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” Yudel had decided on the blunt frontal assault. “Could we sit down?”

Daniels led the way into the house. “A beer,” he suggested, “or a brandy, a glass of wine...”

“I’ll take the wine,” Yudel said.

“Red or white, dry or sweet?” Daniels growled.

“If you have an open bottle I’ll take a glass of that,” Yudel said, “whatever it is.”

“Red and sweet,” Daniels said.

“Okay.”

“No, it’s dry red.” Daniels threw back his head and laughed loudly. That Yudel was willing to accept sweet red wine was a good one.

Yudel looked closely at him. The exchange between them could only be funny after a few brandies. He saw the blur around Daniels’s eyes. Four or five doubles, Yudel thought. “That’s a relief,” Yudel said. “Dry red is good.”

They sat in Daniels’s study, Yudel with a glass of wine and Daniels with his brandy, a double as Yudel expected. Yudel began without further introduction. “The commissioner’s sent me to find out why you and some others, possibly inmates were seen roaming around the cash depot in a shopping centre last night.”

“So the bastards have been spying on me. I might have thought as much. I suspected it.”

This was the old Cyril Daniels, the one Yudel had known since their university days. In some respects he was quite as paranoid as his patients. To Yudel, who had more experience of Cyril, he was not the sainted figure Rosa imagined him to be. “No one has been spying on you, Cyril. Ordinary people, outsiders, saw you wandering around with people who may have been your patients...”

“Under control, under my strict control...”

So they were patients, Yudel thought. “I’m glad they were under your control, but...”

“But nothing.” Daniels screwed up his eyes until he was looking at Yudel suspiciously out of two thin slits. “Is this meeting covered by professional confidentiality?”

The question took Yudel by surprise. “Which one of us is the patient?”

“I am.”

“All right then. I am the psychologist and you are my patient, if that’s what you want.”

“Hah,” Daniels crowed triumphantly, louder than any cock in a farmyard. “That’s what I wanted you to say. Now I’ve got you,” he yelled.

A weak voice called from somewhere else in the house. “Cyril, Cyril, are you talking to someone?”

“Just a moment.” Daniels dashed away, but was soon back. “The noise woke Charlotte,” he said. “Try to keep your voice down.”

Thanks awfully, Yudel thought. There was something about his manner at the mention of Charlotte that caught Yudel’s attention. But before Yudel could explore the matter further, Daniels returned to his earlier subject. “Doctor patient privilege, Yudel. You agree?”

“All right, you are my patient,” Yudel said, “and this meeting is covered by doctor patient confidentiality. You can say what you like and I will not be able to repeat it.”

“Taking a chance, aren’t you.” The triumphant crowing tone was back, but the volume was inhibited this time.

“Not at all, Cyril. I have complete confidence in you.”

“Son of a bitch,” Daniels said. “I like to hear that. You’re a good friend, Yudel, and you’re in the same boat as me.”

What does that mean? Yudel wondered, but kept the question to himself.

“We are the old guys who are the backbone of this department. We have the experience and we have the knowledge. Without us, and others like us, there would be chaos. Am I right or am I wrong?”

Yudel reflected that even with Daniels present, according to recent information, his section seemed to be fairly chaotic. “We play our part,” Yudel said.

“We do more than play our part. Who deals with the criminal psychopaths, schizophrenics, multiple personality cases, bipolar lunatics and plain simple nut cases? We do. Am I right?”

“It’s our job,” Yudel said.

“Right. It’s the toughest job in the department, the toughest job in the country, and what thanks do we get for it?”

“We get our salaries,” Yudel said lamely.

Daniels was not going to be diverted. “Hah, our salaries. That’s a laugh. Young people, kids, even young women, are being promoted past us, leaving us behind. We are being ignored.”

Yudel was aware of just one woman of forty who had been promoted above them. He had never thought of her as a kid. “I know of one,” he said. “She’s extremely competent and highly qualified. And someone will have to take over from us when we go.”

“Qualified?” Daniels snorted. “Have you seen her? Have you seen that figure? Qualified? That shape is her qualification. Her heels are probably as round as a football. As for taking over from us, they’ve already let her take over from us.” Daniels was just getting into his stride. He had plenty of other complaints. “The commissioner, our so-called commissioner, he got the job because he comes from a disadvantaged community. Disadvantaged?” In Daniels’s mouth it sounded like a curse. “I come from a disadvantaged background too. They have no idea how hard it is to become a professional when you come from a retail family and everyone expects you to go into merchandising and shelf lay-outs and buying product and launching new stores and stuff like that, everyone, father, mother, siblings, uncles, aunts...”

“Cousins,” Yudel suggested.

“Damn right, cousins too. You grow up in a family like that and then you want to be a psychologist, then everyone takes you for a nut case. A family like that is as big a disadvantage as being poor and uneducated.”

“I don’t think growing up in a retail family meets the official criteria,” Yudel said.

“Exactly, Yudel, you’ve hit the nail on the head again. They’re not interested in our criteria. I had five kids to feed and clothe, and my father, the old devil, cut off my access to the family trust when I passed forty. Does our minister care? Not a damn. And when last was a psychologist made head of the department? I’ll tell you when.” This was clearly Daniels’s trump card. Yudel looked at his self-righteous face and resolved not to share his own resentments on that issue. “Never, that’s when. We, men like you and me, experienced and highly educated men, talented men, have to dance to the tune of jailers. And they promote young women past us. And they expect us to be satisfied. And, on top of all this, do you know what my pension is going to be when I retire in five years?”

“I’ve no idea.” Yudel himself had been retrenched a few years before to thin out the established staff members and balance what the minister called representivity, but he had never left, having been brought back on the contract of a consultant the same day.

“A pittance, that’s what, after a life of devoted service. Do you know I’ve never been able to take Charlotte on an overseas holiday, except once to visit her family in the States. Do you know that? She always wanted to visit South America, but I’ve never taken her, and now she’s in big trouble. Christ.” His head was in his hands.

“Charlotte’s condition is serious?” Yudel had known her well, but that was long before. Now he could all but feel Daniels’s pain, as if it were his own.

“She is. She’s been in bed most of the time for months.”

“Jesus, Cyril, that’s tough.”

“It’s not fair, Yudel. None of it is fair.”

No, Yudel thought, it’s not fair, but he could not see how Daniels’s problems at work were linked to Charlotte’s condition. He could also not believe the perceived injustices Daniels had suffered were leading where they seemed to be. Yudel had finished his wine. “You said something about brandy. I’ll take a shot after all.”

“That’s my man,” Daniels said. “It’s good stuff.” Without discussion, he poured a double for Yudel and another for himself. He downed his in a single swallow.

“Accepting that they are not treating us right...” Yudel started.

“Damn right, they’re not.”

“Accepting that, I have difficulty seeing the connection with that and you taking offenders out of the facility.”

Daniels moved closer to Yudel. “Remember, this is a professional meeting. You are the psychologist and I am the patient.”

“I do remember that,” Yudel said.

“You are my priest, and this is the confessional.”

“Since when have we become catholics?” Yudel asked.

“Don’t confuse the issue, Yudel. That is just an example, a metaphor. This is a confessional and you are sworn to secrecy.”

“I’ve already agreed to that.”

Daniels leaned towards Yudel, so close that Yudel had to lean back in his chair to stop their heads from colliding. “Have you considered the sort of talent I have at my disposal in that place: safe crackers, alarm experts, getaway drivers, forgers, all sorts?”

“And you want to make use of them, for what purpose?”

A certain slyness, a somewhat drunken slyness, appeared on Daniels’s face. “Ahah,” he said, softly this time. “Ahah, remember your oath.”

Suddenly Yudel knew that Daniels really was serious. “Don’t tell me you intend using your inmates for criminal purposes?”

Daniels was offended, alcoholically offended. “Not criminal, Yudel. The Project (Daniels liked to think of it as the Project, always with a capital P) is for the purpose of restitution, that’s all.”

“Restitution? That word suggests getting something back that was taken from you.”

“Then redistribution, after all the unfairness I’ve suffered. Perhaps reimbursement, for how badly we’ve been paid and how much we’ve suffered.”

“I wouldn’t call it suffering.”

“I would.”

“Cyril, apart from any moral complexities or ethical doubts, there is the little matter that your associates in such an endeavour would all be insane, and therefore put you at greater risk – much greater risk. Bear in mind that they are all in custody now. Their considerable talents did not stop them from getting caught in the past.”

“I can handle that aspect.”

No one can, Yudel thought. But one thing, above all, he needed to know. “Are you doing this for Charlotte?”

“Yes.” But he corrected himself immediately. “No. My Project is for retribution, redistribution, reimbursement... that kind of thing.”

“Is it for her medical treatment?”

“No. I told you it’s not.”

“And when do you intend to undertake your project?” Yudel did not manage to get the capital P into his enunciation of the word.

“Don’t ask,” Daniels commanded. “Do not ask about my Project. Never ask that.”

That soon, Yudel thought. It sounds like tomorrow night, maybe the night after. “You are serious about this project of yours, aren’t you?”

“Deadly.”

Yudel did not like Daniels’s choice of a word to describe his state of mind, but he could see that he meant it.

CHAPTER TEN

The morning after Yudel’s visit, Daniels was late coming to work. His head felt twice its normal size and it hurt when he touched it or it touched anything else. It had not been an easy night. After Yudel left, he finished the bottle of brandy, of which half had remained. He came to bed at midnight, then, at three in the morning, Charlotte woke him with a vomiting spell. He crawled out of bed and wiped away the partly digested contents of her evening meal, changed the bedding, stroked her till she slept again, and fell asleep again at four thirty. He slept until Charlotte’s nurse woke him.

Before he left home, he sat with Charlotte for a while, talking about the coming trip to South America and all the wonders she had always wanted to see and that now would be a reality. “It’s almost too good to be true,” she said.

“I may be late tonight, my love,” he said. “There’s a little something I have to attend to. I’ll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, I’ve asked the nurse to stay on. We’ll pay her overtime.”

“Will it be all night again?”

“No, my love. I will never be away all night again, not ever.”

Daniels was in an introspective mood. He was confident that, with all the talent at his disposal and his own steady hand on the tiller, they could not go off course, at least not too far off course. It was just a question of keeping the team together. All he had to do was reassure Proctor Jones that his mafia connections were real and keep his alien hand out of trouble, not annoy Julie to the extent that she might employ her hypnotic talents inappropriately, keep Matthew out of the loop altogether and Luke in control, and assure Cornelius that his daughter was on the way to visit him. No problem, he told himself.

He usually thought of himself as the brains behind the Project, but today he admitted that the real brains was Julie, poor schizophrenic, dangerous, hypnotising Julie. He found her seated on the bed in her cell, the door wide open. She was singing, “Love is lovelier the second time around.” The voice was deepish, the sound full, an altogether pleasant rendering. But from what Daniels knew of her past, and her present, he was not sure there had ever been a first time around. Some of the more unusual elements of her behaviour, which had started in childhood, soon had suitors running for the hills.

He stopped in the doorway and waited for her to notice him. When she saw him, she smiled. “Dr Daniels, I’m so glad to see you. Did you have a good night?” The events of two nights before were either forgotten or being ignored.

I had a better night than the one before, Daniels thought, but he said, “I slept well. How about yourself?”

“I hardly slept at all. I had Jack Kennedy and Nelson Mandela round. They cooked for me.”

“That’s nice,” he said. Daniels did not think it necessary to raise the fact that both of those legendary figures had passed on long before or that the cell had no facilities for cooking. If Julie remembered them cooking for her, that was fine as far as he was concerned. “What did they cook?”

“Oh, their specialities. Nelson did his own special pigeon stew and Jack made an Irish version of Yorkshire pudding.”

“Irish Yorkshire pudding? Good, was it?”

“Perfect, as only someone steeped in Irish traditions, and in President Mandela’s case African traditions, could make it.” She rose and came towards him, stopping too close for his comfort. He stepped back to reduce the invasion of his personal space, but she followed. “Let’s go to check on the Route.” The route had been her invention, so she always thought of it as having a capital R, the way in his thoughts Daniels gave the Project a capital P.

“It’s not necessary. It’s been ready for weeks.”

“It rained last night. We should look.”

“The rain was not heavy enough to cause problems.”

Julie looked straight into his eyes. “We should look.”

He turned his head away. “Julie, this is not necessary. I came here to see that you’re ready.”

“Of course, I’m ready, Cyril,” she said seductively. “I’ll always be ready for you. I just want to be sure the route is also ready.”

“All right then. Let’s go.”

After a brief inspection of the Route to satisfy Julie, Daniels’s visited his other team members. They were all ready and knew their parts in the Project. At least, they said they did.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A file arrived on Yudel’s desk, delivered personally by the commissioner’s PA. “The commissioner says these might be helpful. These are the inmates who went missing from their cells two nights ago and mysteriously reappeared. He says it makes quite interesting reading.”

Yudel knew the commissioner thought of himself as a talented amateur psychologist. Yudel was less enthusiastic about his skills. “I’m sure it will,” he told the PA.

“Actually he said it was very interesting.”

“I will study the contents,” Yudel said.

“Can I tell him you’re pleased to have received it?”

“Tell him I’m delighted.”

“He also said he’s had more information from the police, an anonymous tip.” Her eyes sparkled. If her boss had a secret desire to be a psychologist, hers was to be a detective.

“If he got it from the police, then it was not an anonymous tip.”

“I mean it was an anonymous tip to the police. The name of the person who gave them the anonymous tip is Joshua. He works in that shopping centre.”

“An anonymous sort of fellow, is he?”

“His statement is on top in the file. The first item.”

“Good. Thank the commissioner for me.”

She turned to go, but he stopped her. “Wait. Tell the commissioner I’ve seen the man he’s worried about.”

“Dr Daniels?”

“Yes, Dr Daniels. How many other people know that Dr Daniels is being investigated?”

“No one.” But she paused and bit her lower lip. She would have blushed, excepting that her skin was the colour of Albany chocolate. “Just one, my friend in reception. I told her not to tell anyone.”

Wonderful, Yudel thought. “I hope she doesn’t have any friends,” he said. The PA placed a hand over her mouth, something Yudel wished she had done earlier, much earlier, while in her friend’s company, for instance. “Tell the commissioner I’ve seen him, but I learnt very little. Tell him also that I think we are yet going to discover there’s nothing to it.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Did he tell you to say that?”

“No, but that’s what he would’ve said.”

“Most of all, tell him I’m working on it and I’m going to clear this up for him soon.”

After she had left, Yudel skimmed through the files. It seemed that Daniels’s favourites were a bi-polar getaway driver, a multiple personality safe cracker, a paranoid schizophrenic job planner who was also a skilled hypnotist, and an alarm system expert who suffered from the alien hand: experts every one. The alarm system guy particularly had installed some of the most sophisticated alarms in existence.

No, Yudel thought, this was impossible. Not even someone as desperate as Cyril now seemed to be, would try this.

One thing was sure though, Daniels was eager, and not in the way a man might be eager for something that could take place in six months or a year. His was the eagerness of something that was upon him – now, perhaps tonight.

Joshua’s anonymous tip was, in fact, the last item in the file. It had been typed out by Sergeant Williams himself. This was not something he was going to entrust to a junior. It read simply, “The alarm at the cash depot in the Four Seasons shopping complex has been disabled by the Daniels team, a raid is expected tonight.”

An anonymous tip, by a security guard called Joshua? He considered the possibility that Joshua might not be real. One of the multiple personality sufferer’s excess personalities may have had a crisis of conscience, or the alien hand may have typed the note while the alarm expert’s attention was somewhere else. No, it came from the police, he remembered, probably this Sergeant Williams.

“Can I see some identification, Mr Gordon?” the manager of the shopping complex asked. He was one of those unsmiling middle-aged men who gave the impression of never finding anything that amused or even pleased him. Yudel showed him his Correctional Services card. The manager took out his reading glasses to study it, comparing the photograph to the man in front of him, then handed it back. “Thank you, but you understand that I have to be careful.”

“Of course,” Yudel said.

“But I must say you people are surprisingly thorough.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, there’s already a team of policemen down there, and one of our staff.”

“Well, well. I’ll join them,” Yudel said.

“By all means.”

From the bend in the hallway Yudel saw the gaggle of uniformed and plain clothes policemen and one security officer, probably seven or eight altogether, around the entrance to the alley next to the haberdashery. Trying to avoid attracting attention, are they? he thought. He came up to them and joined the back of the group. A man in the uniform of the building’s security shook his hand, saying that his name was Joshua.

“Yudel Gordon,” Yudel said.

Two plain clothes officers were down on their knees at the alarm panel. A third, a burly ginger-haired man, was leaning over them, trying to get a clearer view. Yudel edged closer. “Excuse me.” Two uniformed officers stepped aside to let him through.

“The alarm’s been cut,” a voice from down at the alarm panel said.

“I told you,” Joshua said.

“You sure about that?” Yudel asked.

“Absolutely,” the officer said, then noticing Yudel, he asked, “Who’re you?”

“Yes, who the hell are you?” the burly ginger-haired officer asked.

“Yudel Gordon.”

“The prisons bloke?”

“We speak of Correctional Services these days. Who are you?”

“Detective Sergeant Williams. I know what I’m doing here. What are you doing here?”

“You’re setting a trap,” Yudel said. “I’m making sure you do it well.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Williams said. “You’re another one of those philosopher guys.”

“Psychologist guys,” Yudel said.

“Whatever. You must know this guy, Daniels.”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“The bastard is mixed up in all kinds of stuff, sex, bank robberies.”

“How many bank robberies?”

“I dunno.”

“So he’s the one you’re going to trap?”

“You can depend on it. Don’t worry about us. We know how to set a trap. As for you, you’re not allowed to mention this to a soul, specially not Daniels.”

“Sure,” Yudel said.

“Then swear.”

“I swear.”

“On your mother’s grave?”

Yudel’s mother had been cremated, and therefore had no grave. He felt he was on safe ground. “Absolutely,” he said.

When Yudel got back to his car he took out Rosa’s cellphone which he had borrowed that morning, dialled the hospital and asked for Dr Daniels. At Daniels’s office a harassed sounding female voice said that he was out and had been out most of the day and she could use a little help. If Mr Gordon actually found her boss, please tell him to call, better still tell him to come back to the hospital and do his job.

“You can depend on it,” Yudel said, having picked up the expression from Sergeant Williams, but immediately dismissed the conversation from his mind. He tried the Daniels home, but Charlotte answered.

“Charlotte, it’s Yudel Gordon.”

“Oh, Yudel. It’s so good to hear from you after all this time.”

“Sure, Charlotte.” Then he remembered about her illness and wondered whether his guilt was because of that or because he and Rosa had not seen the Danielss in two years.  “Is Cyril there?” But when you thought about it, the guilt had to be because of her illness. Although that made no sense either. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear you’re sick. I hope you’ll be better soon.”

“Not this time,” Charlotte said.

“When do you expect him home?” When Yudel’s concentration was focused in a particular direction he found it difficult to change course. It took a long moment for him to absorb what she had just said. “What do you mean, not this time?”

“It seems I’m not getting better this time. The doctors say, two months, maybe three.”

Daniels had told Yudel that she was ill, but not that she was dying. “Does Cyril know?”

“Of course he does. He’s such a lovely man, my fella. He knows I always wanted to go to South America, Brazil mostly, and now he’s going to take me. Isn’t that wonderful?”

It certainly made Yudel wonder. “Got some money saved, has he?”

“I never thought so, but he told me last night that he has a team of experts helping him to make a big score.”

“Experts?”

“That’s what he said. Some people are so kind.”

“Indeed,” Yudel said.

“But I don’t think you’ll get him easily tonight. He said he’s going to be home late.”

“I see.”

“Yudel, next time you come round, tell Cyril to bring you to see me too. I’d love to see you again before it’s all over.”

“I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other,” Yudel said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Driving round the hospital perimeter, the place looked impregnable. Little daylight remained and the lights were already on. Mercury-arc lights every ten metres lit two rows of heavy wire mesh topped by evil-looking razor wire.

By the time Yudel had driven all the way round he had passed four guards patrolling the fence. It looked as sound a way of preventing escapes in a medium security prison as anyone was likely to devise. However, Cyril Daniels’s patients were getting out and getting in without leaving a mark anywhere.

After he had completed the circumference, Yudel did it again, this time a block further from the hospital, then again two blocks away. It was not something he had planned and he had no idea why he was doing it. It just seemed a good idea to circle the place. He did it again, three blocks from the hospital, and then still further away. He was a kilometre from the hospital when he came upon something that drew his attention.

He parked the car and got out. What brought Yudel to a stop was a concrete-lined seasonal stream that ran through that part of the city. He had noticed it before but till today it had never been of any significance. Standing at the railing above the stream, he could see that the channel was lined with concrete on either side and along the bottom to form a sealed water course. The trickle of water in the bottom was no more than ankle deep.

The stream issued from a concrete pipe, about half the depth of the channel. He got back into his car and drove in the upstream direction. After a few blocks, in a street that crossed the one he was travelling on, he found a cast iron manhole cover, the kind with breathing slots cast into it. Standing over the manhole, he had to listen carefully, but a brief lull in the traffic noise allowed him to hear the gentle sound of the stream. He noted the direction from which it was flowing, then walked to the end of the block. From there he could see the hospital.

He returned to the place where the pipe emptied. Not far downstream a staircase had been built into one side of the channel to give easy access to maintenance teams. Yudel climbed the metre high steel railing with some difficulty and went down the stairs. He reached the pipe by walking slowly, crab-wise, along the sloping side of the channel. The darkness inside the pipe was broken only by a faint, fairly distant patch of light let in through the slots in a manhole cover. Probably the one where I stopped, he thought. Beyond that he could see the light of a second manhole, this time no more than a vague smudge in the distance. Now he had no doubt about the direction from which the stream flowed.

Is this really possible? he asked himself. Everything about this matter was hard to believe. Have they really built a medium security prison hospital over a servitude that carries a stream? If so, the planners had not exactly covered themselves in glory. If they were determined to assist escapers, it would have been simpler just to issue the inmates with ladders.

Yudel was not a tall man, but he would have had to bend to walk down the pipe. A tall man would have to bend almost to the waist, but even he would be able to get through.

Unexpectedly, he found himself thinking about Charlotte. Yudel remembered how, during university years, she and Cyril had met. And now she was dying and Cyril seemed to be one step, a small step, from a prison sentence that would occupy most of what remained of his life. Long before he came out, perhaps before he started serving his sentence, her life would be over.

He reflected on the more devious aspects of Cyril’s personality and how he had been no different as a young man. He remembered how Cyril had manipulated his first date with Charlotte.

Suddenly everything was clear. The revelation came as such a surprise that he had to sit down on the sloping wall of the channel to control his laughter. The action was too late though and his feet slipped into the water.

A tramp, looking down from above, wondered why this small, wild haired man, had his feet in the water, shoes and all, and was laughing so much that he had to hold onto the end of the pipe to steady himself. “You all right down there?” he shouted.

“I’m fine,” Yudel shouted back.

“What you doing?”

“Washing my shoes.”

“Jesus,” the tramp said. The things people find funny, he thought. Then he considered the situation’s possibilities. “You got a twenty for me. I didn’t eat since yesterday, the day before actually...”

“I’m coming up.”

By the time Yudel had struggled back to the stairs, slipping into the water twice more, he had gotten over his spell of laughter. The tramp was waiting at the top of the stairs. “Whyn’t you take your shoes off before you wash them?”

“I never thought of it,” Yudel said.

“That way you won’t get your socks wet, the bottom of your pants neither.”

“Here’s the twenty.”

This guy is too easy, the tramp thought. “Could you make it a fifty?”

“No.”

“My wife hasn’t eaten neither.”

“How many years since you last saw her?”

“Not so many.”

“Enjoy the twenty. That’s all you’re getting.”

“Thanks.” He started moving away. “When you coming back, to wash your shoes again?”

“So long,” Yudel said.

He got back into his car. It was all clear now. Cyril was hopelessly too subtle for the likes of Sergeant Williams. Back in their university days Cyril had a rival for Charlotte’s affections, an under graduate from the mining school. They had both met her at a student party. She answered the rival’s question as to where she was going to be on Saturday night, saying that she would be attending a free concert of classical music on campus. On Saturday morning the rival received an unsigned note, one might say an anonymous tip, saying she had changed her mind and instead would be going to a student party, an occasion at which heavy metal music was played loud enough to have a permanently deleterious effect on your hearing. The rival had gone to the party while Cyril sat next to Charlotte at the classical music concert. Almost forty years later they were still attending concerts together.

And now Sergeant Williams was being tipped off about a raid on the shopping centre’s cash depot. It was not the sort of coincidence that carried much weight in Yudel’s thinking. Cyril’s belief in the effectiveness of a good diversion had not changed with the years.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

At the depot, Sergeant Williams’s trap was taking shape. The thing to do, he thought, was to let them pass through the outer door without hindrance, which was what they expected, then let them pick the strong room lock. Once they were in the strong room they would have nowhere to go and Williams would have them all.

“This is what we’ll do,” he told his team. “Four of us will wait for them in the strong room.” He looked at his main source of information. “I want you in there with me,” he told Joshua. “You are my main man in this job.”

“Yes, sir,” Joshua said. Maybe after they saw his value the police would reconsider. “Ready and able, sir.”

“Good man. The rest will wait down the hallway at the coffee shop. When they come past, the coffee shop team will cut off the only avenue of retreat.”

It made perfect sense. The bank staff cleaned out the strong room, which only carried cash in transit, after all. Williams’s coffee shop crew, stepped back, while the chosen few, Williams at the head and Joshua following, entered the strong room.

Forty-eight hours before Luke had been in the strong room. He was an exceptional safe cracker, but also an imaginative personality. “We need a little ingenuity here,” Daniels had told him, “something unexpected.”

It was a wonderful challenge. Matthew would have been horrified. Little Mark would probably have been thrilled. John would have tried not to be involved.

As Williams’s team of four settled into the strong room, Luke’s ingenuity took effect. The door snapped closed behind them, plunging them into almost total darkness with no way of escape.

The cellar below the hospital kitchen was closed off by a bolted steel door. Daniels took the door’s only key from one of his trouser pockets and let them in. A mound of dirt on one side of the room revealed the recent efforts of Cornelius van der Sandt and Proctor Jones. There had been a little sporadic help from Luke, but he tired easily and threatened to call out Matthew every time he felt the need for a break.

This was the Route Julie had devised. Not long after Daniels first discussed his plans with her, she realised that this part of the hospital had been built across the servitude. She had marked the spot where they should dig. They found and broke into a large pipe precisely where she had said it would be. To the delight of all it was not a sewer, the pipe simply carrying the stream from a hillside on the city’s edge. Julie had been worried about the recent rain, but the stream ran only a little more strongly than usual, not enough to cause any sort of problem.

“You see,” Daniels told her, “it’s still no deeper.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that I was concerned about.”

“What did concern you then?”

“The crocodiles,” she said seriously. “I thought they might get through now the stream’s flowing faster.”

Daniels was about to say that there were no free crocodiles for five hundred kilometres when he realised that arguing against one of Julie’s pet fears would not do the Project any good. “There’s no need to worry,” he said. “I’ve had a heavy steel palisade fence erected upstream, mounted firmly in the bedrock.”

“In the bedrock,” Julie marvelled. “That’s wonderful. You are so sensible, Doc.”

“Thank you. So far we’ve caught four crocodiles trying to get through. There were others, but they took one look at our fence and turned back.”

Julie studied his face, then laughed suddenly. She punched him on the upper arm. “You old liar. There were just four crocodiles. There were no others that turned back. Do you take me for a fool?”

“You caught me out,” Daniels said. “You’re too clever for my tricks.”

“Shit,” Proctor said. “No one told me about crocodiles. You said nothing about that, Dr Daniels.”

“Let’s just go back to our rooms,” Cornelius van der Sandt said gloomily.

“The fence is blocking them, boys,” Julie explained. “It was a great idea of the doc. Now who’s going first?”

Daniels had given the matter considerable thought. He knew he should be last into the pipe to prevent any of the others from deserting at the last moment. “Cornelius, I’d like you to lead.”

Cornelius looked down at the floor, then hopefully at the way they had come. “I don’t know, Doc. I...” His voice held the plaintive note that was usual at such times.

Daniels put an arm around his shoulders and led him away from the others. From an inside pocket he took out a photograph of a beautiful ten-year-old girl, her hair hanging down to her shoulders. He held the picture for Cornelius to see. “Tomorrow. She’s coming tomorrow. You’ll see her tomorrow. I’ve arranged it.”

Cornelius eyes were transfixed. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, early. You’ll spend the day together. Let’s just get this done, then everything will be fine.”

It took less than a minute for Cornelius to process the information. “Tomorrow,” he murmured, his back straightening and his shoulders becoming squarer. Turning towards the hole they had broken in the pipe, he spoke to the others.  “All right, men. Let’s get moving. We haven’t got all day and we’ve got a job to do.” The others shuffled into line. They recognised the commanding tone of a born leader.

Cornelius lowered himself into the pipe. Julie was about to follow, with Proctor behind her, when she stopped. “No, Proctor I’m not having that hand of yours behind me.” So Proctor lowered his portly frame into the pipe behind Cornelius, with Julie next.

A glance at the last member of his team told Daniels he had a problem. The eager face of young Mark smiled up at him. “Mark, what are you doing here?”

“Please let me come, Dr Daniels, please.”

“Out of the question, kid. You’re too young and you know nothing about safes. Luke, get out here.”

“Oh, please, Dr Daniels. I’ll be so good...”

“Luke get the hell out here,” Daniels barked.

Mark’s innocence melted away and Luke’s sly grin appeared. “Just want to make sure I’m appreciated.”

“I appreciate you. We all appreciate you. Now move.”

Cornelius, who was the tallest, led the way, doubled over to avoid hitting his head against the roof of the pipe. The rest followed close behind, splashing noisily, occasionally making heavy contact with the buttocks of the one in front. Some distance down the pipe, Proctor staggered back, sitting down heavily in the water, taking Julie with him. “You pull that again,” Cornelius barked, “and I’ll drown you right here.”

“It wasn’t me,” Proctor wailed. “It was the hand.”

“Whose hand is it?”

“Geez.” Proctor’s self-pity was complete. “This is not right.”

Julie was helping him to his feet, water dripping. “It’s all right, Proctor.  He’s just mean.”

From the back, Daniels’s voice instructed them. “Keep moving. Stay close behind Cornelius.”

“Not too close,” Cornelius growled.

From somewhere up ahead a sound reached them. Cornelius came to an abrupt stop, the procession closing up like a concertina when the music is finished, heads pressing between legs and buttocks. The sound puzzled Cornelius. It was so unlikely. “Someone up there is laughing,” he whispered.

Daniels recognised the laughter. “Christ, I think it’s Yudel Gordon,” he said, his voice even lower.

“Yudel Gordon?” Cornelius wanted to know. “Who’s he?”

“A shrink who asks too many questions,” Luke said.

“What’s he doing here?” Proctor wanted to know.

“Never mind him,” Julie said, “I’ll deal with him if necessary.”

They waited till the laughter stopped, then waited another ten minutes. “This Gordon better not try to stop us,” Cornelius said. He was not going to let anyone interfere with the next day’s visit.

“And if he does, tough guy, what are you going to do about it?” Luke wanted to know.

“You’ve got to be careful around this guy,” Daniels said. “But if he does get in the way, Julie will handle it. Julie can handle anything.”

“Thank you, Doc,” Julie said coquettishly, “as long as Proctor is close by.”

Daniels’s team reached the end of the pipe at the point from which, ten minutes before, they had heard Yudel’s laughter. Cornelius stopped at the end of the pipe. “There’s no one here,” he whispered back. “Maybe it wasn’t this Gordon guy.”

“Maybe not,” Daniels said without much conviction. He led them to the hire car he had brought for the job. He had worn a blonde wig and false moustache while picking up the car. The clerk in the car hire firm had accepted the name, driver’s licence and identification number of one of Daniels’ long term patience without studying the photograph.

The team settled into the car, Cornelius behind the wheel, Daniels in the passenger seat next to him and the other three, Julie in the centre, filling the back seat. “Right,” he said to Cornelius. “Now you can take it easy till we get to the bank. No need to drive fast till then. Now you just take it easy.”

Cornelius looked at him from the corners of his eyes. “Listen, Doc, I don’t tell you your business, you don’t tell me mine. You shrink heads. I drive. The driving is my business.” His right foot flattened the accelerator pedal against the floor boards and the car surged forward, wheels spinning. An old street vendor who was unlucky enough to be crossing the road, dived for cover, leaving a trail of over-ripe oranges scattered behind him. “Son of a bitch,” Cornelius grunted. “This piece of crap’s got no guts.”

The piece of crap with no guts accelerated down the street faster than any car ever had in the street’s history, the evening traffic taking evasive action to avoid the likelihood of rapidly approaching doom. Cornelius took a hard right, the wheels drifting sideways across the street. Two old ladies on the pavement flattened themselves against a wall, a baker stepped back into his establishment and a man on a ladder, in the process of erecting a sign, clung to the bracket he had just mounted, the ladder rocking. “Cornelius, Cornelius,” Daniels was screaming, “what are you doing?”

What Cornelius did was to take a hard left two blocks down, again using his four-wheel-drift technique. Moments later he had no alternative, but to brake hard, very hard, to avoid a traffic police barrier that was stretched across the road. Daniels, who had not strapped himself in, hit his head against the wind screen, Luke made hard contact against the seat in front, bringing Matthew out for a screaming moment before Luke got him under control again, while Proctor’s alien hand clamped onto Julie’s thigh and had to be wrenched away.

An attractive female traffic officer, neatly attired in the uniform of her trade, the buttons shining, stopped next to the driver’s window. “Well, sir,” she said matter-of-factly, “how fast do you think you were driving.”

“Never over twenty-five,” Cornelius said. “I always keep half an eye on the speedometer.”

“Really? Perhaps a whole eye is necessary. We make your speed a little faster than that, maybe ten times faster.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Cornelius said patiently, “but your equipment is faulty.”

She too could be patient. “Our equipment is always faulty according to people who are exceeding the speed limit.”

While this exchange was in progress, with the considerable confusion in the back seat, Proctor’s alien hand had managed to open the window behind the driver. The shapely legs of the traffic officer, who was bending forward to get a better view of Cornelius, were within easy reach. The alien hand made contact first with the gentle swelling of the calf muscle, then travelled quickly upward, over a neat, elegant knee, and onto the inside of the thigh. The traffic officer screamed.

In a moment her male colleagues, four of them, all shouting, seemed to be everywhere. “No need for excitement, gentlemen,” Daniels was trying to say, but no one could hear him above the din.

“Everyone out. Everyone out immediately,” one of the male cops shouted. “Get out.” And as they tumbled out of the car, “Assume the position, hands on the car, legs spread.”

“Is this the right way, officer?” Julie asked. She was sitting on the bonnet, her legs crossed provocatively.

“No, not like that. Hands on the car...” He moved determinedly towards her, coming close, too close.

“Oh officer, you are at peace,” she told him, “completely at peace, so much at peace that your eyelids are closing. Peace is descending around you...” One of his fellow officers came up behind him and opened his mouth in preparation for issuing a command that never came. “You too are at peace and about to sleep.” He and the other two were also soon at peace, and likely to remain asleep until either Julie snapped her fingers, which sadly was an impossibility, or the morning sun rose. “In future whenever I tell you that peace is descending you will fall asleep immediately.”

The female officer took a moment to recover from recent events. Once she had, she walked slowly around her four peaceful male colleagues as if carrying out an inspection. “They’re a little helpless now,” Julie explained to her. “It’s your duty to care for them until they return to normal tomorrow morning.”

“Sergeant?” the female officer asked tentatively, looking into her senior’s glazed eyes. “Sergeant, is something wrong?” The sergeant said nothing, giving the appearance of being deep in thought or shock or both. Daniels and his team mates were all getting back into the car. She turned her attention to Cornelius. “You, sir. You were travelling at one hundred and eighty in a sixty area. I should impound your car, but I’ll be kind. I’ll only fine you.”

“How much?” Cornelius demanded. “And bear in mind I’m a hospital patient. I’ve been hospitalised for the last two years.”

But she was a good officer, the possessor of high ethical standards and determined not to be distracted. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t take that into account. I have to fine you one thousand. Name?”

“Cornelius van der Sandt.”

“Cornelius van der Sandt?” The officer had come to this line of work through her enthusiasm for motor sports. “You’re not the great racing driver?” Cornelius smiled modestly down, apparently examining his finger nails. “You are? Wow.” Her eyes were bright with admiration. “You can still drive, Mr van der Sandt. The way you came round that corner. I’m your biggest fan. You should never have retired. Why did you?”

“Dr Daniels...” He tilted his head towards the passenger seat. “He’s my new manager. He insisted.”

“Oh, Doctor, why?” But her attention was with Cornelius. “Mr van der Sandt, I do apologise for the ticket, but I took an oath of office...”

“It’s all right, my dear. Under different circumstances things may have been different between us, just you and me.”

The thought was too wonderful for words. The traffic officer blushed. Then she remembered her colleagues. “What do you think is wrong with my sergeant?”

Julie’s kind voice came from the back seat. “He’s just tired, sweetie. Look after him well.”

Cornelius reached out and took the ticket from her. “My manager will handle this,” he said, crumpling it up and tossing it to Daniels.

As he drove away, the traffic officer, still dazzled by the greatness she had just encountered and the thought of what may have been under other circumstances, was holding her book of traffic tickets before her, as if on display. Before she could return it to the pocket in her tunic, Proctor’s alien hand reached out and seized it. In a wonderful display of single handed dexterity the hand tore out the book’s pages, scattering them to the city streets in the wake of the car, one page at a time.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The darkness inside the strong room was total. Sergeant Williams took an elbow in his right eye from someone who, like himself, was stumbling around blindly. “Who did that?” he demanded.

“What?” Joshua said, “It wasn’t me whatever it was.” His voice ricocheted round the walls of the strong room, leaving Williams with no idea of his location.

“Who hit me in the eye?”

“Not me,” an anonymous voice said.

“Nor me,” yet another echoed.

“I can’t even see your eye,” Joshua said.

“Well, just sit still. Don’t move before you injure me again.”

“We’re in trouble here, Sergeant,” one of the anonymous voices said.

“Stand firm,” Williams assured them. “Everything’s under control. You...Jones, take off your shoe.”

“Which one?”

“For Christ’s sake, I don’t care which one.”

“Please don’t swear at me sergeant. You haven’t explained your thinking. I don’t know why you want me bare foot.”

“Just one shoe. I don’t want you bare foot. I want you to bang on the door with your shoe to alert people that we’re in here.”

“They saw us come in.”

“They don’t know we’re stuck. Get that shoe off.”

In just seconds Constable Jones was banging on the door with the heel of his shoe. A muffled voice reached them from outside. “Is that you, sergeant?”

As if rehearsed, Sergeant Williams answered, “Yes, it’s me,” while Jones responded, “No, it’s me.”

“I didn’t get that,” the muffled voice said. “Don’t all speak together next time. We’re going down to the coffee shop now to set the trap.”

The sergeant wondered how long the air in the strong room would last with four of them using it up, quite forgetting the slot that allowed the free flow of air. The thought of suffocating in this confined space was frightening. He tried to say, “Don’t go to the coffee shop,” but a burst of panicky coughing reduced it to “...coffee shop.”

From outside, agreement reached the sergeant. “Don’t worry. We’re on our way there to set the trap.”

Communication with those outside the door ended abruptly. “Jones are you hammering with that damned shoe?”

“I am, but it’s got rubber heels and soles. It’s like hammering with a marshmallow.”

“What about you, Twidale?”

“Mine are also rubber. It’s standard issue. What about yours, sergeant? You’re not in uniform.”

“I’m wearing leather soles,” Joshua said.

This Joshua was a useful man. Williams was sorry he did not have more constables like him. Joshua started tapping with the heel of his shoe, a clear, sharp sound, echoing out of the alley and among the shops.  “Tap out SOS,” Jones said helpfully. “It will show people what our problem is.”

“I don’t know Morse,” Joshua told him.

“I do,” Jones said. “I went on a course. Lend me your shoe and I’ll tap it out.”

“Forget it. I’m not lending you my shoe. Use your own.”

“Mine is rubber.”

Williams resolved the matter. “No one in this place will know Morse. Just keep tapping.”

It took a while, but eventually the centre management was alerted, and the strong room door opened from the outside. Sergeant Williams and his men stumbled into the light. In the struggle Joshua, tripped, but scrambled to his feet to follow Sergeant Williams wherever the sergeant chose to lead. It was not every day that anyone saw him as the main man.

The headquarters of First Central Bank was a grand affair, all pillars, granite and broad stair cases. The street outside had once been grand too. But it had lost much of its grandeur when the city council decided it was necessary to broaden the road outside, and to accomplish that had cut down a lovely avenue of trees. It had left the street broad though. It now had a traffic island down the centre.

Cornelius used the new breadth of the street to his advantage. He came barrelling down the street, as fast as the car’s power would allow, spun it round the island at the end of the street and stormed back in the direction from which he had come. All other traffic melted away down side streets and onto pavements as the drivers tried to avoid the destruction of their vehicles and, possibly, themselves. Workers on either side of the street started appearing at windows to observe the cause of the excitement. Late commuters slipped into doorways or alleys. A group of apprentices on their way home from the technical college cheered loudly from the roadside.

At First Central Bank, the only staff members still inside the building were security guards. By the time Cornelius had completed his first circuit of the street those in the front of the building had gathered at the windows. By the time he had finished his second circuit all the security guards, including those stationed in the back, were in the front of the building. After his third run, they were on the steps outside. The fourth and fifth had them cheering as enthusiastically as the apprentices. By the time he got to the thirteenth and fourteenth laps, people were emerged from the side streets to view the best entertainment the city could provide. And when there was no fifteenth, the bank’s security team waited in an optimistic knot in front of the building, chattering excitedly and hoping for an encore. Daniels’s devotion to diversionary tactics was still as successful as ever.

Cornelius took the car round the back of the building and down a side alley to stop next to a broad wooden door protected by an alarm Proctor had designed. Daniels, Julie and Proctor staggered from the car on legs enfeebled by Cornelius’s virtuosity. Luke would never admit to such weakness and, as for Cornelius himself, he just shook his head at them. He had not had so much fun since his last Le Mans.

“This is just a little primitive alarm,” Proctor told them. “The real thing is inside.” After the few seconds it took for Luke to pick the door’s lock, Proctor over-rode the alarm by keying in the master code he had created. Then he led them down a long concrete corridor and into the main banking hallway. Through the glass windows in front they could see the security guards out in front, waiting vainly for the crazy, but brilliantly entertaining driver to put in another appearance.

The main vault was down a flight of stairs and through an unlocked door. This was the place where the city’s big cash amounts were kept. All the week’s payments to teams of casual labourers, twenty-five million in all, was held there, so too was the cash coming and going from most large retail outlets, another hundred million. In a corner was the wealth in unmarked notes, far greater than the other amounts, of various government and business luminaries who had for years been enemies in public. They had at last found common ground by skimming off the top of construction projects to their mutual benefit. A suitable opportunity was still being sought to get it to Panama. None of the team knew how much legitimate money was in the vault, but while Proctor was still in the industry he had heard rumours of the existence of the other money. It was this cash pile at which Daniels’s team was aiming. This was the money the absence of which would be noticed last. Not only that, but the owners of this stash would be less than enthusiastic about reporting it at all. Even admitting its existence was not something anyone was likely to own up to.

Proctor stopped, the others crowding in behind him. “There it is,” he whispered. And there it was, the great steel door, secured by a series of complex combination locks and one that required a key. Proctor had already explained in detail how the system worked and how many separate elements of the system fed into each other. If any of them signalled a disturbance, alarms would sound throughout the building, the security company’s headquarters which was manned twenty-four hours a day, the nearest police station which was also supposed to be manned by day and night, police headquarters, the homes of the bank’s chief of staff, its security head and its chief executive officer. In addition a siren, loud enough to waken anyone in the city who might be asleep, would wail across the rooftops.

The devices that set it off were equally comprehensive. Once you crossed a certain line which was marked by a row of white marble tiles across the floor, any movement greater than the breathing of a robin, any sound louder than the scurrying of a mouse, any pressure on the floor’s surface that had not been there before, any unexpected light, any new smell or movement of air: all of these were enough to bring down the city’s security agencies onto the one causing the disturbance.

For more than a year, with the alien hand securely cuffed, Proctor had worked on the system’s design and manufacture. It was flawless. Well, almost. The only one who knew its weakness was Proctor himself. He knew it because he had deliberately built it into the system. Every evening at exactly twenty-one hundred hours the entire system shut down for precisely fifteen minutes. There was no outward indication that it had shut down. Your timing simply had to be good. Once shut down you would have fifteen minutes to get into the vault and close the great steel door behind you. That was Luke’s job. Two hours later the system would again shut down for another fifteen minutes, giving you time to move whatever you could from the vault and out of the danger area. After that you may run into the occasional security guard. But Julie would handle that. Afterwards the security guards would not even remember what had happened to them.

Daniels and his team surveyed the scene in complete, satisfied silence. Cornelius, who believed that without his part in it they could never have been successful, nodded confidently at the sight of the vault. Luke’s concentration wavered for a moment, allowing the excited face of young Mark to appear, but only for a moment. Julie, who had never made a score of more than a few thousand in her life, squeezed Proctor’s hand, not the alien one. He smiled at her. She looked into his face with all the admiration due to the one who was responsible for making this possible. They were all very happy, Daniels most of all. Brazil had just become an awful lot closer.

“Another thirty seconds,” Daniels whispered. He had bought a wonderful new, absurdly expensive Swiss watch and synchronised it with Greenwich Mean Time, the way Proctor had synchronised the alarm system. He felt the need to make a speech. Such an occasion had to be marked by a few choice words. “Gentlemen and ma’am,” he said, then cleared his throat. “This is the moment we have been waiting for, our moment of triumph. This is the culmination of all our preparations, our self-sacrifice, the full employment of our many skills. Every one of us has reason to be proud. It will be weeks, maybe months, before they even know there has been a break-in, still longer before they have calculated what is missing, and even longer than that before they decide if they want to report it. This moment with go down in the annals of bank robberies as the crime, not of the year, or even of the century. This job will be recognised everywhere as the crime of the millennium.”

Julie wiped away a tear, Proctor offered her his handkerchief, Cornelius lifted his square jaw towards the sky and even Luke seemed overcome. It was at that moment of joy and happiness, while success was a practical reality and could hardly be avoided, that Daniels realised that in the semi-darkness a man was seated at a desk, just outside the alarm zone. He saw him because the man was slowly rising from his seat.

“Who the hell are you?” Daniels asked. It was an unwarranted intrusion, the sudden uninvited appearance of a gatecrasher at their party.

“Good evening, gentlemen and ma’am,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for some time.”

Only Daniels recognised the voice. He took a deep breath. What the hell was Yudel doing here? He heard the sound of movement behind him. A glance over his shoulder showed that the avenue of their retreat had been filled with security personnel. “Yudel,” Daniels said. “What happened...”

“Excellent work, Dr Daniels. Thank you for your help.” Yudel sounded like the host of a television show.

Julie took this turn of events as her cue, advancing on Yudel with determined expression and fixed eyes. Before she could speak he had stepped closer, waving a small bullet-shaped crystal on a chain, pendulum style at eye level. “This is for you,” he said, “just you, only you, relaxing you, relaxing you. You are at peace, so much at peace that your eyelids are closing.”

Yudel had guessed that such a fine hypnotist would doubtless also be an excellent hypnotic subject. He was holding an arm to steady her. “Come and sit down.” He led her to the chair where he had been seated. “Close your eyes. You relax here until I snap my fingers or the sun rises tomorrow morning.” It was a better suggestion than Julie’s. Yudel was able to snap his fingers.

Almost immediately Julie began breathing deeply, truly relaxed and at peace with the world. Yudel turned to Daniels, his right arm outstretched in congratulation. “Excellent work. You’ve apprehended them all, I see...”

From behind the security personnel, a new voice was raised indignantly. “Hah, Daniels, this time I’ve got you...” Flushed and somewhat anguished, having just been rescued from the strong room where he thought he was suffocating, Sergeant Williams appeared. “Nobody move,” he commanded.

“Slow down, Sergeant,” Yudel told him. “Dr Daniels has been working with me to apprehend this band of unfortunates.”

“Come again,” the sergeant demanded. “Are you telling me...”

“I’m telling you that you can make yourself useful by getting these inmates back into the prison hospital from which they escaped. Right now, if you please.”

Williams was closely followed by Joshua, squinting through his thick lenses in the semi-darkness. “Sergeant?” He looked to Williams for reassurance.

While Williams struggled to absorb the change of events and the members of Daniels’s team looked accusingly at their mentor, Daniels drew Yudel aside. In a voice stricken with both disappointment and conscience, he murmured, “How did you know?”

“Oh, Cyril, give me some credit. I recognised your diversionary tactics. I may be a bit slower than I was in those days, but my memory is still sound.”

“Shit. You remember my first date with Charlotte when we were all kids?”

“Perfectly. But I must admit, this last diversion with Cornelius entertaining the crowd was a surprise to me. You haven’t lost your touch.”

He glanced guiltily at his team members. “But I can’t let them take the fall for me.”

In a voice as low as his, Yudel said, “Remember, they’re not responsible. They’re all insane. They’ll simply be going back to where they came from. Of course, security will need to be tightened a bit. I doubt this will even get to court.”

It took a little while to clear the bank building. More senior police officers arrived, to which Yudel explained the true course of events. Daniels’s hand was shaken by one and all. He did his best to answer questions like “When were you first aware of the plot?” And, “Weren’t you taking a chance to handle this on your own?” Yudel stayed close to Daniels to ensure he said nothing that might unduly redirect the thinking of the officers. Compassion for his team members was a noble emotion, but Yudel felt a degree of common sense would do no harm. Sergeant Williams, still puzzled, undertook the transport of the team back to the hospital.

In the alley, outside the bank, the traffic officer, who had lost her book, found the get-away car. It was parked in a no-parking zone, almost completely blocking the alley. She was sorry to have deserted her male colleagues in their moment of need, but seized the opportunity to write a ticket on the margin of a sheet of newspaper she rescued from a refuse bin.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The preacher had to be brought from outside. The flowers had come from the institution’s own garden and Daniels himself had contributed grape juice, alcoholic beverages not being allowed. He also had the duty of giving the bride away.

Julie looked sensational in a dazzling white dress, hired with funds from the department’s public relations budget. Proctor, waiting at the end of the aisle for his bride, was overcome with bride groom nerves. His left leg twitched furiously, the alien hand punching it repeatedly to try to end such embarrassment. Cornelius was the best man, wondering what the ring was worth and what he could get for it if he pretended that it was lost. But the sight of Julie in her finery won him over and he produced it when required.

The marriage turned out to be a good one, but there was no curing the alien hand. The physical damage was too great. Julie learnt to live with it though. In the months that followed she quite forgot the threat posed by her crocodiles.

After the happy couple had taken their vows, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John sang a gospel quartet. Luke’s sturdy baritone alternated with Matthew’s rather reedy tenor, Mark’s boy soprano and John’s crackling falsetto. It was a wonderful occasion.

In the days that followed, the insight into the source of their condition found by Daniels and Yudel began to take effect. Six months later only two personalities remained, one a less tense version of Matthew and the other having the finer qualities of Luke and Mark. No trace of John was ever seen again.

After the service, the great Cornelius van der Sandt retired to the garden where he found an empty bench. Now that the excitement surrounding the happiness of others was over, his head sank into his hands and he slid back into his usually depressed condition. He did not even notice the car that entered at the main gate or where it stopped and a back door opening. By the time he looked up the child was already halfway across the grass, running like the wind, her hair flying. “Daddy, Daddy,” he heard her cry. He had just risen when she was upon him, throwing herself into his arms. “Daddy,” was all she could say. Even if no one else in the world ever appreciated him again, here was the one person who would never doubt his greatness.

The child’s mother forgave Cornelius many things and the visits became more regular. The depression melted away now that Cornelius had something to live for.

“A reward, you say, Mr Gordon?” The bank’s chief executive officer did his best to look puzzled. “You want a reward?”

“No, not for me. I played a subsidiary role. I want it for Dr Daniels.”

The chief executive officer rolled his eyes skyward. “Of course the bank is grateful...”

“This goes beyond gratitude. Consider what you clients would think if they knew how easily your defences could be breached and consider the value to yourselves of being able to plug those holes.”

“You aren’t trying to blackmail me, are you, Mr Gordon?”

“Of course not, but you should know that Dr Daniels’s wife is dying. While I am not an expert in this field, a suitable reward might open the door to extensive public relations opportunities, I believe.” Yudel was trying to sound like an executive. He had little experience of executive-speak, but was doing his best.

“A suitable reward?” The chief executive’s head was cocked to one side, eyes looking at Yudel from their corners. It was the pose he adopted whenever overcome by suspicion. “Did you have an amount in mind?”

Yudel gave him the amount.

“Rather large,” he said, “and very precise. May I ask how you arrived at it?”

“It’s the price of a package tour to South America – for a dying woman who has always wanted to see that continent, and her husband who just saved you a fortune.”

The chief executive considered the matter for so long Yudel thought he was going to refuse, but eventually he slid a piece of paper across the desk. “Perhaps you could write the amount down again so I don’t forget it.”

“Certainly,” Yudel said. “I’d be happy to do that.”

The little steamer ploughed steadily along the river’s main channel. From her place on deck in her traveller assist Charlotte watched the forest sliding slowly by. She could see her husband at the rail, looking down into the deep blue water of the channel. He looked at peace with the world. For a long time he had been anxious and easily angered, but now all that was past. After his heroics in foiling the bank robbery, he was a hero to one and all, especially to Charlotte.

He’s such a wonderful man, she thought. Right up to a few days before they left he looked worried, probably fearing that the investment might not pay off in time. But it had, and here they were.

Some bare-chested boys in canoes paddled past in the down-stream direction. Charlotte waved to them and they all waved back. A dark cluster on the trunk of a tree drew her attention. The captain stopped next to her and she spoke to him. “That dark thing on the tree, what is it, a growth?”

“No, ma’am. It’s a nest of spiders, hundreds of them.” He saw Charlotte shudder. “Don’t worry. Where we sleep tonight is completely spider proof. Nothing harmful can get into our quarters. Just enjoy the trip. You’re in safe hands.”

She was more than enjoying the trip. Macchu Pichu particularly had been enchanting beyond her ability to imagine. And now this great river, and Charlotte had always loved rivers. Something moved in the water. “What was that?”

“I think it was a dolphin, ma’am.”

“I didn’t know there were dolphins in the river.” The captain was further away now, partly shrouded by the mist that had come and gone throughout the morning, but was now drifting across everything.

“We don’t see them on every trip, but they’re certainly here.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“They are.”

She felt she needed Cyril. “Do you think you could ask my husband to come to me?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

She saw Cyril approach. He placed a chair next to her and sat down. “I want you to know,” she said, “that I’ve never been happier in my life. I want you to know that.”

“I’m glad, my dear.”

He was close, and she was glad of that. The mist had thickened. “And arranging this trip was such a wonderful thing to do. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a good man as you are.”

Daniels remembered what Yudel had said, “Never tell her how the funds were acquired. Let her believe what will make her happy.” He reached out to stroke her hair.

She felt his hand on her head, the touch very gentle. “Please kiss me, Cyril.”

He leant forward and she felt his lips on hers. The mist was everywhere.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Thank You

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A Lonely Place To Die

The South African highveld, 1977

Muskiet Lesoro, terrified and schizophrenic, is accused of the murder of the local member of parliament’s son. All agree he had enough motive to murder the violent and racist young man. But this was a poisoning and, Lesoro did not have the control to be a poisoner

Yudel finds a society in which the truth is a carefully guarded secret and the townspeople, the people of the nearby black township, and the priests and brothers of a hillside monastery: all live in fear.

Yudel finds his own life at risk as he asks the questions no one else has dared ask.

Divide The Night

Johannesburg, South Africa, 1974

“From the place where Cissy stood watching, she could see the door dearly. Through the narrow opening she had been able to see the stack of biscuit boxes.

“The cement floor was cold. "Come out. I don't want any trouble." Cissy pushed the boxes away and scrambled out, her hands clasped together. "Please, Mister. Me and my brother are very hungry."

Cissy Abrahamse was the eighth person to die in or near the store room of the Twin Sisters café. Most were street children, tempted by the half open door. The killer in every case was the aged café owner Johnny Weizmann.

But Weizmann is compelled to visit prison psychologist Yudel Gordon whose  treatment brings him into conflict with the security police and Munto Majola, a mysterious black activist. The connection between the activist, the old murderer and the security police is a puzzle that complicates the search for a way to stop Weizmann killing again.

Closed Circle

Prison psychologist Gordon is hired by a white activist to investigate secret police involvement in killings of other radicals, both white and black, years earlier. In this he is unofficially aided by his best friend, Col. Freek Jordaan of the Pretoria CID.

As a government-employed South African, Gordon has the advantage of position and contacts, but as a Jew he is also an outsider. A liberal but not a radical, a South African but not an Afrikaner, he is warned by a colonel of the secret police that "Afrikanerdom is a closed circle, complete and perfect." In this compelling commentary on an unjust society, South African Ebersohn wraps up his narrative's mystery, but leaves his tale, like his country's political crisis, without an ultimate, moral resolution

The October Killings

Abigail Bukula is a brilliant lawyer in the South African justice department. For twenty years she has closed her mind to the past, trying to forget the defence force raid when a good man, fighting for an evil cause, saved her life. Or the night that followed when an evil man, fighting for a noble cause, saved her again.

But she can no longer ignore the past when she learns that on 22 October every year, since the 1985 raid, a member of the original defence force hit squad is murdered.

The date is now nine days away. Only two members of the squad are still alive: the man who saved her, and a man behind bars in the country’s highest security prison.

The days slip away too quickly as Abigail tries to stop the murders, facing forces that she does not understand. She finds an unlikely ally in the eccentric prison psychologist Yudel Gordon.

Those Who Love Night

When seven activists go missing in Zimbabwe, brilliant young lawyer Abigail Bukula is called in. Among those missing, believed to be held at the notorious Chikurubi prison, is Abigail’s cousin - a gifted writer and the child of an aunt who died in Gukurahundi massacres of the early 1980s. Reading her cousin’s work and trying to understand him, Abigail turns to eccentric psychologist Yudel Gordon, whom she hasn’t seen in years.

Yudel follows Abigail to Zimbabwe where she wind the court battle for the prisoners’ release, but at Chikurubi there is no trace of them. In the days that follow, Abigail and Udel search for the missing activists in a race against times. They uncover a relationship no one could have anticipated in a country struggling to throw off a brutal dictatorship, where success and tragedy sit like Siamese twins.

The Top Prisoner of C-Max

Ensile Kruger is a dying man, but he is the top prisoner in C-Max prison, and must name his successor. This means blood. Kruger sees an unexpected opportunity to achieve this and at the same time exact revenge on his old nemesis, Yudel Gordon. He will anoint as his heir the man who slaughters Gordon’s protege, the beautiful Beloved Childe.

A race ensues, by road and rail, across South Africa from Pretoria to Cape Town…and by the time Gordon realises something is happening it is already hopelessly late. To save Beloved, Gordon and his associate Abigail Bukula must figure out what the would-be killers are up to and quickly.

A League of Geniuses (Novella)

Dr Cyril Daniels, of the Department of Corrections, is nearing retirement and is dissatisfied with his pension. But under his care are extremely talented criminals. If he can harness their talents, he can pull off a bank job that will give him a comfortable retirement.

But those under his care are all insane. And Yudel Gordon, his colleague and friend has become aware that something is brewing.

Daniels’s team includes a brilliant hypnotist who is a schizophrenic, a safecracker who suffers from multiple personality syndrome, an alarm specialist whose left hand is in rebellion against his brain, and a getaway driver who once won Le Mans. Daniels has to prevent their lunacy from causing the whole enterprise to descend into farce.

Yudel cannot allow the bank to be robbed, but he also cannot face seeing Daniels imprisoned and his dying wife, Charlotte, deserted. Problems, conflicts and Daniels’s need for sudden wealth are compounded into a story full of both thrills and laughter.

The Robbin Island List

This is a thriller set against the reality of a still divided South Africa.

A sniper is killing former liberation activists, old men who no longer play any role in politics. But there is a pattern to the killings that seems to be leading to the most horrifying possible conclusion.

About Wessel Ebersohn

Wessel Ebersohn was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1940. He went to school in Cape Town and Somerset West.

At the age of 15 he left school to become a pupil telecommunications technician. His first book to be published was A LONELY PLACE TO DIE in 1977. The rest of his eleven titles have followed in the years since then.

In 1963 he married Miriam. They have three children, six grandchildren and a great grandchild.

In 1995 with the arrival of the democratic dispensation in South Africa, he and Miriam launched SUCCEED magazine, a magazine aimed at assisting small business. For 18 years he was its editor and Miriam its publisher.

Wessel Ebersohn, on his writing: “I have always written. At the age of eight I tried my hand at my first novel, based on a football match. It was long on action, but short on plot or characterisation. It took an apprenticeship of another 31 years before I saw a novel in print. At present I am producing one a year.

“My work has been particularly influenced by the great American novelists: Steinbeck, Hemingway, Hawthorne and James among them. But my subject matter comes from my life experiences and the continuing drama of my own country and continent.”

Ebersohn has been published in the USA, the UK and most European countries.

He is a writer of both general novels and thrillers. His favourite among his own novels is The Classifier, published in 2011.  The book is a story of teenage love between Chris, a white boy, and Ruthie, a coloured girl. It is set in the 1970s when apartheid was at its height. Their relationship is complicated by two factors: all sexual contact between the races is illegal, but also the boy’s father is head of the race classification office in the province they live in.

The book is rooted in Ebersohn’s own close contact with the race classification system in those years. Among the South African reviews, Litnet said, “Ebersohn’s evocative and satisfying The Classifier is able to demonstrate impressive insights into a bygone era that will haunt us for a long time still.” The Stellenbosch Literary Project said, “It offers a vivid way of imagining and understanding the long-term effects of policies such as race classification, and the manner in which the repercussions of these abandoned policies still reverberate through our private lives.” The Witness: “Ebersohn’s dignified prose is laced with streaks of pure pain, the personal human story never swamped by politics or preachiness.”  Coup: “Highly recommended and such a good read that I’m off to source his earlier novels.” Business Day: “This tale of young love in apartheid grimness is worth every last word.” Noseweek: “The author’s subtle, gentle approach to the appalling denouement is all the more effective for its lack of histrionics.”  Radio Today: “What an outstanding book and author! A South African novel that really touched me. Highly, highly recommended!”

Wessel Ebersohn’s Novels

Wessel Ebersohn’s general novels:

Store Up The Anger, Gollancz (London, England), 1980.

Klara’s Visitors, Gollancz (London, England), 1987.

The Classifier, Umuzi (Cape Town, South Africa), 2011.

The Yudel Gordon thrillers:

A Lonely Place To Die, Gollancz (London, England), 1979.

Divide The Night, Gollancz (London, England), 1981.

Closed Circle, Gollancz (London, England), 1992.

The October Killings, Umuzi (Cape Town, South Africa), 2009.

Those Who Love Night, Umuzi (Cape Town, South Africa), 2010.

The Top Prisoner of C-Max, Umuzi (Cape Town, South Africa, 2012).

A League of Geniuses, Must Read Books (Johannesburg, South Africa, 2016).

The Robbin Island List, Must Read Books (Johannesburg, South Africa 2016).

Biography

In Touching Distance, Paper Movie Publishing (Johannesburg, South Africa, 2004).