must control. Something which made his eyes narrow as he thought how easily he might have swerved his car to crush the stranger against the parapet wall. The emotion was hatred, the deep and abiding hatred he felt towards all ESPers.
His rage slowly subsided and he looked at his hands. The knuckles of his fingers were white where he gripped the edges of his desk. He forced himself to release his grip and sat back, breathing deeply. It was always this way, but he had learned how to control it — almost. But if only he had not sent that letter to Borowitz. That might have been a big mistake. Perhaps he should have offered his services direct to the British instead; perhaps he still should, and without delay. Before they could investigate him any further…
Such were his thoughts when the doorbell rang, because they were guilty thoughts he gave a violent start.
Shukshin's study was downstairs in a room to the rear of the house that opened through patio windows into its own courtyard. Now he stood up from his desk, passed from bright spring sunshine into gloom as he hurried through the ground floor rooms and corridors towards the front, and midway started again as the doorbell once more tore at his nerve-endings.
'I'm coming, I'm coming!' he called ahead — but he slowed down and came to a halt on the interior threshold of the long, glazed porch. Out there beyond the frosted glass stood a well-muffled figure which Shukshin knew at once: it was that of the young man from the bridge.
Shukshin knew it in two ways, one of which was simple observation and could be in error. The other way was more certain, as positive as a fingerprint: he felt again the surge of rare energy-fields and the heat of his instinctive hatred for all such ESP-talented men. Again a tide of panic and passion rose up in him, which he forcibly put down before moving to the door. Well, he had wondered about the stranger, hadn't he? Now it seemed that he was not to be kept in suspense. One way or the other he would soon discover what was going on here.
He opened the door…
'How do you do,' said Harry Keogh, smiling and extending his hand. 'You must be Viktor Shukshin, and I believe you give private tuition in German and Russian?'
Shukshin did not take Keogh's hand but simply stood and stared at him. For his own part, Harry stared back. And for all that he continued to smile, still his flesh crawled in the knowledge that he now stood face to face with his mother's murderer. He put the thought aside; for the moment it was sufficient to just look at the other and absorb what he could of this stranger who he intended to destroy.
The Russian was in his late forties but looked at least ten years older. He had a paunch and his dark hair was streaked with grey; his sideburns ran into a neatly trimmed, pointed beard beneath a fleshy mouth; his dark eyes were red-rimmed and deeply sunken in a face lined and grey. He did not appear in good health, but Keogh suspected that there was a dangerous strength in him. Also, his hands were huge, his shoulders broad for all that they were a little hunched, and if he had stood upright he would be well over six feet tall. All in all, he was a grotesquely impressive figure of a man. And (Keogh now allowed himself to remember) he was a murderer whose blood was cold as ice.
'Er, you do give language lessons, don't you?'
Shukshin's face cracked into something approaching a smile. A nervous tic tugged at the flesh at the corner of his mouth. 'Indeed I do,' he answered, his voice liquid and deep, retaining a trace of his native accent. 'I take it I was recommended? Who, er, sent you to me?'
'Recommended?' Keogh answered. 'No, not exactly. I've seen your ads in the papers, that's all. No one sent me.'
'Ah!' Shukshin was cautious. 'And you require lessons, is that it? Excuse me if I'm slow on the uptake, but no one seems much interested in languages these days. I have one or two regulars. That's about it. I can't really afford the time to take on anyone else just now. Also, I'm rather expensive. But didn't you get enough of them at school? Languages, I mean?'
'Not school,' Keogh corrected him, 'college.' He shrugged. 'It's the old story, I'm afraid: I had no time for it when it was free, and so now I'll have to pay for it. I intend to do a lot of travelling, you see. and I thought — '
'You'd like to brush up on your German, eh?'
'And my Russian.'
Alarm bells rang in Shukshin's mind, vying with the pressures already there. This was all false and he knew it. Also, there was more to this young man than some weird ESP talent. Shukshin had the odd feeling that he knew him from somewhere. 'Oh?' he finally said. 'Then you're a rare one. Not many Englishmen go to Russia these days, and fewer still want to learn the language! Is your visit to be business or — ?'
'Purely pleasure,' Keogh cut him off. 'May I come in?'
Shukshin didn't want him in the house, would greatly prefer to slam the door in his face. But at the same time he must find out about him. He stood aside and Keogh entered, and the door closing behind him sounded to him like a lid coming down on a coffin. He could almost feel the Russian's animosity, could almost taste his hatred. But why should Shukshin hate him? He didn't even know him.
'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!
'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.
