As the three men sat in the room there was a loud knock on the door and, a moment later, a thick-set man in the uniform of a gendarme entered.
‘Which one of you is Jean Decard?’ the uniformed man asked.
i am,’ Decard told him.
‘And you two?’ the gendarme wanted to know.
‘We both work here at the Metapsychic Centre,’ said Lasalle.
‘Step outside, please,’ the gendarme said.
‘No,’ said Decard. ‘It’s all right, what have 1 done wrong?’
‘Nothing, Monsieur,’ said the gendarme almost apologetically, i must tell you that I have some bad news.’
Lasalle and Joubert exchanged glances then directed their gaze back at the uniformed man. He had lowered his voice slightly, an air of expectant solemnity having fallen over the room.
At approximately 3.49 that afternoon, Jean Decard’s twelve-year-old daughter had been killed when a lorry smashed into the bus which was carrying her and her schoolfriends home. There had been three other deaths besides hers.
‘Where did it happen?’ Decard wanted to know, tears filling his eyes.
The gendarme cleared his throat.
‘The Rue De Bologne.’
Michel Lasalle scooped some cool water into his hand and then swallowed it. He felt the tranquilizer stick in his throat for a moment so he swallowed more water, finally wiping his hands on the towel beneath the sink. He exhaled deeply and replaced the bottle of pills in his trouser pocket. He probably didn’t need them any longer but, over the past eighteen months since the death of his wife, the pills had become more than a mere psychological crutch for him. Lasalle was dependent on them, not daring to see what life was like without the temporary relief whichthey brought him. He did not look like a man who had suffered a nervous breakdown, but then again his wife had not looked like the kind of woman who would die suddenly of heart failure aged thirty-five. Lasalle had retreated within himself after her death. Like a snail inside its shell he refused to be coaxed out again by work or friends.
He became hermit-like in his existence. He and his wife had been childless.
She had been infertile
— her Fallopian tubes blocked. Lasalle’s parents had been dead for five years so he had no one to turn to for help. His breakdown had begun slowly, gradually building up like some festering growth within his mind until, finally, his sense of reason seemed to collapse in on itself like a crumbling house.
He turned away from the sink and looked across the room at Joubert who was sitting with his eyes closed, a cigarette held delicately between his fingers.
The ash looked as if it were about to drop off and Lasalle watched as smoke rose lazily from the butt. When Joubert finally moved his hand, the ash dropped on to the carpet. Lasalle quickly trod it in.
Lasalle had worked at the Metapsychic Centre for the past twelve years. The building itself stood on the outskirts of Paris, a large modern looking edifice constructed in the shape of a gigantic ‘E’. Its smooth unbroken lines gave it the appearance of having been hewn from one single lump of rock
instead of constructed piece by piece. Lasalle lived less than a mile from the building, near the church yard where his wife was buried.
As he stood looking absently around the room he tried to drive thoughts of her from his mind but every time he heard of more death, as he had with Jean Decard’s daughter, the memories came flooding back.
His companion, Joubert, had no such ties. He was single once more after the break-up of his marriage but then again he had always found the attractions of work infinitely more exciting than those of domesticity. Despite being two years younger than Lasalle, hewas possibly better informed on the subject of the paranormal, having worked at the Laboratory of Parapsychology in Utrecht for six years where he completed his Ph.D in Human Science. He had then moved on to the University of Frieburg in West Germany prior to joining the Centre in Paris.
Joubert was every bit as different psychologically from his colleague as he was physically. There was a certain detached coldness about Joubert. He saw everyone and everything as potential sources of information and study. The human volunteers with whom he worked might as well have been laboratory rats.
He showed as much feeling towards them. To Joubert, work was everything and knowledge was the
pinnacle. He would never rest until he had solved a problem. And, at the moment, he and Lasalle had a problem.
‘Precognition.’
Lasalle looked at his companion.
‘The business with Decard,’ he continued. ‘The telepathy and then seeing the accident. It had to be precognition.’
‘Do you think he was able to see the vision because it involved his own daughter?’ Lasalle asked.
‘Decard didn’t know that his daughter was going to be one of the victoms, only that there was going to be a crash and that four people would die. The fact that he was close to one of the victims isn’t necessarily relevant.’
‘What are you getting at, Michel?’
‘We’ve tested three people, the same way we tested Decard. The results were the same in each case. Each one showed varying forms of telepathy while hypnotised but, with the other subjects, we brought them out of their trances earlier, quicker. If they had been under longer then they too may have been able to predict future events.’
Joubert got to his feet, crossed to the pot of coffee on the table nearby and poured himself a cup. He took a sip, wincing slightly as it burned the end of his tongue.
‘Depending upon the susceptibility of the subject,’ he continued, ‘there’s no limit to what future events we can learn of.’ A brief smile flickered across his face. Not only could disasters be averted but foreknowledge of events could have its more lucrative side as well. Could a subject foresee the outcome when a roulette wheel was spun? Joubert took another sip of his coffee, this time ignoring the fact that it was so hot.
‘But Decard was only able to foresee the future while in a hypnotic trance,’
Lasalle interjected.
‘Which points to the fact that there is an area of the mind which only responds when the subject is unconscious. An area previously unexplored, with the capacity for prophecy.’
There was a long silence finally broken by Lasalle.
‘I’d better phone the Institute in England,’ he said. ‘They should know about this.’
‘No,’ said Joubert. ‘I’ll do it.’
He stepped in front of his colleague and closed the door behind him, leaving Lasalle somewhat bemused. Joubert
went to his office and sat down behind his desk, pulling the phone towards him. He lifted the receiver but hesitated before dialling.
‘An area of the brain previously unexplored,’ he thought. His features hardened slightly. The discovery, once announced, would undoubtedly bring fame
to himself.
It was not a secret he wanted to share.
He tapped agitatedly on the desk top, cradling the receiver in his hand a moment longer before finally dialling.
Kelly picked up the phone and pressed it to her ear.
‘Kelly Hunt speaking,’ she said.
‘Miss Hunt, this is the Metapsychic Centre.’
She did not recognise the voice.
‘Lasalle?’ she asked.
‘No. My name is Joubert. Alain Joubert. We have not spoken before.’
Kelly disliked the coldness in his voice. She was, however, relieved that he spoke excellent English, just as Lasalle did. Her French was no more than passable.
‘Did you receive the copy of the tape recording I sent?’ Kelly asked.
‘We did,’ he told her.
