‘I didn’t catch your name,’ said the Russian, leading the way to his study.
Keogh was prepared for that. He waited a moment, following on the other’s heels until they reached the airy study with its natural light flooding in through the patio windows, then said:
‘My name is Harry. Harry Keogh . . . Stepfather.’
In front of him, Shukshin had almost reached his desk. Now he froze, poised for a moment as if turned to stone, then quickly turned to face his visitor. Keogh had expected a response something like this, but nothing quite so dramatic. The man’s face had turned to chalk in the frame of his darker sideburns and beard. His jelly lips trembled with a mixture of fear, shock . . . and rage?
‘What?’ his voice was hoarse now, a gasp. ‘What’s that you say? Harry Keogh? Is this some kind of practical – ?’
But now he looked closer and knew why he had thought he’d known this youth before. He had been only a child then, but the features were the same. Yes, and his mother had had them before him. In fact, now that he knew who this was, the resemblance was remarkable. What was more, the boy seemed to have acquired something of her wild talent, too.
Her talent! The boy was a psychic, a medium, inherited from his mother! That was it! That was what Shukshin could detect in him – echoes of his mother’s talent!
‘Stepfather?’ said Keogh, feigning concern. ‘Are you all right?’ He offered a hand but the other backed away from it into his desk. He clawed his way round the desk, flopped into his chair. ‘It’s a … shock,’ he said then. ‘I mean seeing you, here, after all these years.’ He got a grip of himself, sighed his relief and breathed more deeply, more freely. ‘A great shock.’
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ Keogh lied. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me, to learn how well I’m doing. Also, I thought it was time I got to know you. I mean, you’re the only real link I have with my past, my early childhood – my mother.’
‘Your mother?’ Shukshin immediately went on the defensive. His face was regaining a little of its former colour as he quickly composed himself. Obviously his fears that he’d been discovered by the British ESP Agency were unfounded. Keogh was simply paying him a belated visit, returning to his roots; he was genuinely interested in his past. But if that was so –
‘Then what was all that rubbish about wanting to learn German and Russian?’ he snapped. ‘Was it really necessary to go through all that just to get to see me?’
‘Oh,’ Keogh answered with a shrug, ‘yes, I admit that was just a ploy to get to see you – but it was in no way malicious. I just wanted to see if you’d recognise me before I told you who I was.’ He kept the smile on his face. Shukshin was in control of himself again, his anger plain and making his face ugly. Now seemed a good time to drop a second bombshell. ‘Anyway, I speak both German and Russian far more fluently than you ever could, stepfather. In fact, I could instruct you’
Shukshin prided himself on his linguistic ability. He could hardly believe his ears. What was this pup talking about, he could Instruct’ him? Was he insane? Shukshin had been teaching languages since before Harry Keogh was born! The Russian’s pride took precedence over his churning emotions and the hatred inside him which the presence of any ESPer invariably invoked.
‘Hah!’ he barked. ‘Ridiculous! Why, I was born a Russian. I took honours in my mother tongue when I was just seventeen. I had a diploma in German before I was twenty. I don’t know where you get your funny ideas, Harry Keogh, but they don’t make much sense! Do you honestly think that a couple of GCEs can match the work of a lifetime? Or are you deliberately trying to annoy me?’
Keogh continued to smile, but it was now a smile with hard edges. He took a chair opposite Shukshin and smiled that hard smile right across the desk and into the other’s scornful face. And he reached out his mind to an old friend of his, Klaus Grunbaum, an ex-POW who had married an English girl and settled in Hartlepool after the war. Grunbaum had died of a stroke in ’55 and was buried in the Grayfields Estate cemetery. It made no difference that that was one hundred and fifty miles away! Now Grunbaum answered Harry, spoke to him – through him – spoke in a rapid, fluent German, directly across Viktor Shukshin’s desk and into his face: