“What?” Aubrey said, annoyed. “I didn’t know you don’t get pandas in Africa. Look, I’m a bloody good Shifter, right? I never bothered much with zoology. Stop smirking.”
I tried.
“Pandora Worldwide,” she read out from a website she’d just pulled up. “Providing hope for lost children. There’s stuff here about how long it’s been running, how many children it’s helped,” she muttered, scanning the page. “Here!” she said triumphantly. “It was set up by a woman called Francesca Goodwin. Francesca! You were right. And would you look at that?”
She handed me the tablet that was showing a picture of a woman. She was gazing into the camera, a soft, almost sad smile on her face. It was the same face I’d seen before from the ARES’ files, only older. She had a long, thin nose, large full lips and scar on her forehead that managed to make her look even more beautiful somehow. Highlighting her otherwise perfect face.
“Goodwin?” I said. “Not Anderson?”
“Maybe she married again. I don’t know. But look at her scar,” Aubrey said tapping the picture.
There was no denying it. This was the woman we were after.
“It could just be a coincidence.”
“Another one? Like Greene was a coincidence? I don’t believe it. He was right,” she said. “He wanted us to follow the trail to Pandora. To her.”
The excitement in her voice made my stomach twist. Because I knew it wasn’t the idea of finally finding Anderson that interested her. It was finding her father. I shouldn’t have told her. I should have lied. I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. The idea of her seeing that broken, crazed man, rather than the knight in shining armour she’d dreamt about as a kid, was crushing.
“She doesn’t look much like a witch,” I said.
“He said she’d taken all the children?” Aubrey asked.
I nodded.
“Well, that’s what she does.”
“To help them,” I said, pointing at the website. “To give them their hope back.”
“We can’t be sure unless we go and see for ourselves,” Aubrey said and I couldn’t read her expression. Was it anger or hope?
I shook my head. “No way. Sir Richard told me that the Ganymede file was shut. That I was to focus on the attack on the President.”
“Oh, come on Scott!” she shouted, throwing her arms in the air. “You were the one who wanted to find Anderson. Unfinished business, remember? What was it you said you wanted? Closure? Well, maybe if we take Anderson in, you’ll get it. Maybe you’ll finally sleep again.”
She was wrong. The closure I needed had nothing to do with finding Anderson and bringing her to justice. It was about me and what I’d done with my power. In fact, I wanted to forget all about Ganymede and Greyfield’s and Abbott and everything that had happened that night. For the first time in months, I felt like my power could be put to some good use in finding whoever tried to kill the President.
“He won’t be there, Aubrey,” I said, and she flinched as if I’d slapped her. “I’m sorry. But if you’re hoping to find your dad, he won’t be there.”
“Why not?” she said, fighting back the tears that threatened to come again.
“Because he said he had to stay away from you. If that man even was your dad and not some nutter.” I took her hand in mine, marvelling at how tiny it was.
“But we could try,” she said looking up at me, her eyes glittering like still pools.
Any resolve I had melted.
“OK,” I said, letting out a long sigh. “I’ll tell Sir Richard that Anderson is tied up in the attack somehow.” Aubrey smiled. “But,” I added quickly, “when we’re done you have to help me find out who was really responsible.”
“Shifter’s honour,” she said, holding up three fingers.
“There’s only one problem,” I said.
“Which is?”
“You quit,” I pointed at her jacket, which I’d thrown over the arm of her sofa.
She picked it up, brushed dust off the arms, then slipped it on. “Well, maybe I can hold on for a little longer.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The building looked ancient. More like a castle than a stately home.
I’d driven this time. Although I wished I’d let Aubrey take the wheel. The whole way down she’d huffed and rolled her eyes at how slowly I was going.
“This is going to take forever,” she said, when we had just got onto the motorway.
Turned out, she was right. We’d got stuck in the worst traffic I’d ever seen and the journey that should have only taken two hours ended up taking five.
My legs were aching by the time we pulled into the long driveway. I parked in front of the house and killed the engine. The sudden silence was eerie. I was used to the constant noise of London, the background buzz of life. But here, I couldn’t hear anything but the ticking of the engine cooling and the wind blowing in the trees.
“We’re here,” I said, unnecessarily, as I opened the door.
Aubrey jumped out of the van. The gravel crunched loudly under her feet. She looked up at the house and whistled. “Fancy,” she said.
“Spooky,” I said. “So how are we going to play it this time?”
“Well, I guess we start by knocking.”
We stepped up onto the porch and I reached out to the brass lion’s head. I jumped as I heard a scream in the distance that sounded like a child being murdered.
“What the hell…?”
“It’s just a peacock,” Aubrey said, laughing at me.
She pointed at a scrawny-looking peacock. Its beady eyes were trained on me. I raised the knocker and let it fall. All I needed now was for the door to creak open and reveal a hunchback.
Instead it was opened by a small girl, with enormous hazel eyes and a hairless dolly tucked under her arm. She was sucking her thumb.
“Kushi! What have I told you about opening the door?” A tall, dark-haired woman wearing a pair of green combats, no shoes and a large scarf strode into the hallway.
She patted Kushi on the head and pushed her gently away. The little girl waved the hand of her plastic doll at us. Aubrey waved back. The girl burst out laughing and then ran away through one of the many doors in the hallway.
“Sorry about that, we don’t get many visitors. Especially not from ARES,” she said, eyeing our Bluecoats.
“Are you Francesca Goodwin? Previously Francesca Anderson?”
“Yes,” the woman replied. “How can I help the old agency today?”
“I’m Aubrey Jones and this is Scott Tyler,” Aubrey said. “We’d like to have a word with you.”
“Aubrey Jones?” Frankie said, tilting her head and looking intently at Aubrey. “What a… lovely name. Come in. I’ll make you some tea if you like?”
Aubrey gave me a look that I struggled to read. But as far as I was concerned, tea was a good sign. Number four had made us tea.
“That would be lovely, Mrs Goodwin,” Aubrey said, barely hiding her distrust of the woman.
“Oh, call me Frankie,” she said, waving away Aubrey’s formality. “Everyone does.”
We followed Frankie into the hallway, through a long room lined with shields and swords. A group of kids ran past, chasing each other, their high-pitched laughs echoing around the room.
Frankie didn’t even tell them to slow down, she just laughed along. She was not like any of the members of Project Ganymede we’d come across so far, that was for sure.
She led us down a narrow flight of stairs into a huge kitchen. Two boys of about twelve or thirteen were sat on either side of the wooden table playing cards. They had black hair and wore shabby, loose fitting T-shirts and scuffed trainers. They were engrossed in their game and didn’t look up as we came in. I watched as the cards that were already on the table suddenly flipped, replaced with another set. The kids were definitely Shifters. The boy on the left threw his hands up and started complaining loudly in a lyrical language I couldn’t understand. Arabic maybe?
“Boys, behave now. We have guests.”
The two boys turned to face us and I had to hold onto the doorframe to stop myself from falling over. It looked as if a large part of both their foreheads had been crushed. I heard Aubrey let out a tiny gasp next to me and was glad I wasn’t the only one shocked.
Frankie picked up a fallen card from the floor and placed it back on the table. “This is Hamid and Hazid,” she said pointing from the boy on the right to the boy on the left. “They were born joined at the head.”
“Siamese twins?” Aubrey said, finding her voice.
“Actually, we prefer the term conjoined twins. Siam, after all, no longer exists. I found them in a souk freak show in Marrakech three years ago. Half-starved, they were forced to beg tourists for food. Shocking, just shocking. Luckily, I was able to bring them here and after a great deal of medical consultation, they had the separating operation a year ago and seem to be doing fine.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Aubrey said, shaking their hands. “I’m Aubrey and my silent friend over there is Scott.”
I managed to let go of the doorframe and waved.
“You’re both Shifters?” Hamid asked, his English perfect despite a strong accent.
“Yes, we work for ARES.”
“Can you do this?” Hazid asked. He turned and focused on his brother who was wearing a blue top.
Hamid sighed. “Stop showing…”
But before he had a chance to finish he was suddenly wearing a red top. Hamid shook his head and scowled at his brother who was now laughing. Hamid in turn squinted his eyes and suddenly Hazid was wearing a baseball cap.
“Boys, stop it. You’ll only end up fighting again.”
“What’s going on?” Aubrey asked.
“When they Shift, they change each other’s decisions,” Frankie said, filling up a large kettle under a tap. “A side effect of the separation.”
“But… that’s incredible,” Aubrey said.
“Yes, the power to change what other people do. Quite incredible.”
Aubrey threw me a quick look before Frankie turned around. “Unfortunately, all Hazid and Hamid use it for is to annoy each other. Isn’t that right, boys?”
The two boys were now smacking each other around the head.
“I give up!”
Frankie walked over to them and pulled them apart. “You two. Rooms now. And I want you on your separate sides as we discussed.”
Hamid and Hazid sloped away, nudging each other as they did. I didn’t speak a word of Arabic, but I spoke sibling well enough to understand what they were saying.
“So, how do you take your tea?”
“White and one sugar for me please,” Aubrey said, watching Frankie through tight eyes. It was clear she didn’t trust her one bit.
“Oh, just white for me. I’m sweet enough already,” I said automatically.
Frankie smiled kindly and finished making the tea. Aubrey just shook her head.
“So, you haven’t just come here to visit the charity, that much is clear,” Frankie said handing us our mugs.
“It’s about Project Ganymede,” Aubrey said.
Aubrey and I both watched Frankie, looking for anything. A flinch, a twitch, a grimace that might give her away. There were two usual responses when we confronted the members of the project: tears and screaming.
“Oh, I’ve not heard that name in a long time,” Frankie said casually, readjusting her scarf. “What about it?”
Aubrey blinked, looking surprised. “So you were a part of it?”
“Yes. I was one of the first candidates.” There wasn’t a hint of embarrassment. Clearly Frankie hadn’t known what the project really involved. At least if she was in the first phase of the project we didn’t need to worry about the cortex bomb. Dr Lawrence had only put that little back-up device into his later subjects.
“And so you’re a Shifter?” I said.
“Well, yes. I can Shift. But I tend not to. I find that it leads to unhappiness – never settled with your decisions. Never happy with your lot. I reserve the power for life and death situations only. And I don’t face too many of them around here.” She smiled and it was infectious.
“What exactly do you do around here?” I said.
“Oh, that’s simple. I find abandoned and endangered Shifters and bring them here. I have a leaflet around somewhere.” She started digging around in a pile of papers on the dresser behind her and pulled out a slim, folded flyer. “For fundraising purposes. No mention of the Shifting power in there, obviously. I just talk about the street children and the child soldiers desperate for a home. I set up Pandora after my second husband died, leaving me all alone in this place.” She indicated the old building. “I think without the project to keep me going after he’d passed, I’d have just given up and died myself. Hope, you see. That’s why I called the charity Pandora. The last thing left in Pandora’s box of evils? Hope. It’s what this place has given me. And what I hope it gives the children.”
“How many kids do you have here?” Aubrey asked.
“Twenty-eight at the moment. But sometimes, it’s as many as fifty. I’ve had nearly two hundred children pass through here, all needing some kind of special help. It’s terrifying what some people will do to children. But we do what we can to help them recover and go on to lead productive, valuable lives. No one is forced to do anything against their wills here. That’s one of our most important rules. Everything has to be their choice. How else can they really come to grips with their powers otherwise?”
“Are you able to help everyone?” I asked. “I mean, all the children here.”
“We try. But sometimes, the children just have to learn to live with what has happened to them. Even with their powers, they’re just children after all.” Frankie looked me with kind, sympathetic eyes. And I felt like I wanted to tell her everything. Not just about Ganymede, but about me and what I’d done.
“Do any of the children from here go on to join ARES?” Aubrey asked.
“Well, not many of the children I look after are really suited to the agency life. They’ve not had any real structure and so the limitations placed on them during training can be unsettling. Besides, given what most of them have been through they’re not all entirely, how should I say, stable. Their powers often manifest in rather unusual ways.”