Genius Squad (6 page)

‘Oh yes. Don’t worry. He’s in his own room now, with Hazel. Poor little kid, he’s so traumatised.’ Fiona’s gaze shifted, and Cadel turned to see what had caught her interest.

It was Saul Greeniaus, quietly re-entering the kitchen.

‘Sorry about that,’ said the detective. ‘That shouldn’t have happened. Some kind of glitch.’

‘Hazel’s the one you should apologise to,’ was Fiona’s tart response. ‘It’s her house, after all.’

‘Yes.’ Saul nodded in agreement. ‘Where is she?’

‘In there,’ said Fiona, jerking a thumb. ‘Counselling her foster-kids. Are you finished with Cadel now?’

‘I think so. I don’t think there’s much point trying to continue, in these circumstances.’

‘Then don’t feel you have to hang around,’ Fiona declared – quite rudely, in Cadel’s opinion. The detective must have shared this view, because he fixed Fiona with such an intent, questioning look that she was compelled to elaborate. ‘Those poor kids in there have had some very bad experiences involving the police,’ she explained. ‘They don’t respond well to any kind of police presence.’

‘No,’ Mr Greeniaus said thoughtfully. ‘I’ve just been told about Thomas Logge’s experiences with the police.’ He turned to Cadel, and reached into his jacket. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I want you to call me if you’re worried about anything. Do you have a mobile phone?’

‘No,’ Cadel answered.

‘Well – take this anyway.’ Saul crossed the room, holding out a small white card inscribed with his name, rank and contact numbers. He pressed it into Cadel’s palm. ‘Night or day, you call me. Understand?’

But Fiona was bristling.

‘He’s not supposed to talk to the police unless I’m present!’ she protested. ‘You
know
that!’

‘Ms Currey, this is only a precaution,’ the detective replied. ‘In case there’s a problem like the one we just saw. Or something similar.’

‘He wouldn’t have
had
a problem if there weren’t so many police hanging about all the time!’

‘That’s non-negotiable.’ Saul spoke flatly. ‘We can’t afford to leave him alone. You should understand that by now.’ He extended his hand, which Cadel shook for the second time. Though Fiona received only a nod, there was a gleam in Saul’s quiet gaze as he said goodbye to her. ‘I don’t want to outstay my welcome,’ he remarked, deadpan. ‘So I guess I’d better be leaving.’

Then he walked out the door.

‘Well!’ said Fiona, heaving a sigh. ‘I’m glad
he’s
gone, at last!’

But Cadel wasn’t. For some reason, the detective’s withdrawal had left him feeling vulnerable and exposed. Perhaps it had something to do with Mace, and his toxic temper.

Cadel was uneasy about his foster-brother’s state of mind.

FIVE

When he returned to his bedroom after saying goodbye to Fiona, Cadel discovered that he was too late. Mace had already been there. With Janan and Hazel finally out of the way, Mace had scanned the room, seen Cadel’s rescued computer monitor, and emptied half a can of lemonade into its air-vents.

‘He can’t call
that
a joke!’ Cadel cried, upon reporting this crime to Hazel. ‘It’s deliberate sabotage! How am I supposed to use it now, when its guts are full of sugar?’

‘I’m sorry, dear, I’ll have a word with him.’ Hazel was apologetic but distracted. Though the police were long gone, Janan remained curled up under his bedclothes in a state of shock. Hazel didn’t know what to do. She had left a message with his case worker. ‘Mace isn’t
really
angry with you,’ she said. ‘He’s upset about the police coming here.’

‘Well, that’s not
my
fault!’

‘I know.’ Hazel patted Cadel’s shoulder. ‘You have to understand, Thomas is very mixed up. He’s hitting back because that’s all he’s been taught to do. You’re such a clever boy, Cadel, I know you’ll be able to fix your computer. I know you’ll cope, you’ve so much sense. Just put yourself in Thomas’s shoes for a moment, that’s all. When he looks at you, he can’t help feeling clumsy and stupid in comparison, so he lashes out.’

‘And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?’

‘Just be patient, dear. I’ll talk to Thomas. I’ll have a word with him.’

Cadel set his jaw. ‘When you do,’ he said, through his teeth, ‘you can tell him that if he comes into my room again, he’ll get himself electrocuted.’

Hazel blinked.

‘Oh, now Cadel – ’ she began, looking worried.

‘I mean it! He’s twice as big as me! I have to defend myself somehow!’

‘There’s no question – you mustn’t – I’m going to talk to Miss Currey,’ Hazel stammered, much to Cadel’s surprise. He had been expecting another placid reminder that consensus was the best way of handling disputes. Hazel’s fearful expression was something he’d never seen before.

It took him a moment to realise that she must have heard certain stories about him. From Fiona, perhaps? Fiona was familiar with some of his background. She may have warned Hazel Donkin that her new foster-son could be very, very dangerous if sufficiently provoked. And Hazel had believed her.

The police were the same. They didn’t trust Cadel. They were afraid of his high IQ. (Not to mention his warped upbringing.) And the last thing Cadel wanted now was to ring any more alarm bells. Finally, after months of being as good as gold, he had begun to sense that Fiona, for one, no longer regarded him as a kind of human time bomb. He honestly believed that she liked him. And he didn’t want Hazel calling her with the news that he had threatened to electrocute his foster-brother.

If that happened, he would find himself back at square one.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, swallowing his rage. ‘I wouldn’t really electrocute Thomas.’ And he put on his most innocent face, which seemed to reassure Hazel somewhat. She looked relieved. She even managed a smile. When she spoke, however, her voice was still shaky.

‘I’ll be reporting this to Thomas’s social worker,’ she said. ‘It’s a problem he’s going to have to work through. A problem we’ll
all
have to work through.’

Lying in bed that night, Cadel wondered why
he
should have to work through Mace’s problems. He didn’t want anything to do with Mace’s problems – or Mace himself, for that matter – and was still seething at what had been done to his defenceless equipment. A brief inspection had told him that the damage would be almost impossible to rectify. What
right
did that hulking great moron have to bully him like this?

In the old days, he could have dealt with Mace quite easily. Mace was no different from a lot of mean-spirited kids who had paid for their bad treatment of Cadel over the years. Not that they’d ever understood that they were being punished. Oh, no. Back in high school, when various bullies had received their just deserts, no one had understood that Cadel was ultimately responsible. He had disguised his involvement far too well. He had planned his many acts of revenge so carefully that there was never any obvious link between himself and each peculiar sequence of events that resulted in the downfall of yet another foe.

Of course, Cadel had long ago rejected his murky past. Such petty, vindictive schemes were nothing to be proud of. All the same, he couldn’t help pondering the possible alternatives, should he ever decide to teach Mace a lesson. Plotting variables was so much easier when your target lived in the same house, followed the same schedule, and used the same bathroom . . .

By the time he fell asleep, Cadel had devised a neat little scenario which, though it would hurt Mace cruelly, could not possibly be blamed on Cadel. A perfect crime, in other words. But when he woke up in the morning, he felt ashamed. He told himself that such thoughts were unworthy of Sonja – that they were part of Prosper’s poisonous legacy. And he got out of bed resolved to be more tolerant of his foster-brother’s quirks.

Unfortunately, his good intentions came to nothing. After he’d been sneezed over, tripped up and trodden on, Cadel lost patience. None of these incidents had been ‘accidental’, despite what Mace said. As far as Cadel was concerned, they had been hostile acts.

So he set about robbing Mace of his most prized possessions.

These happened to be a set of dirt-bike magazines sent to Mace by his elder brother, who was in prison. Cadel had been forbidden to touch them, of course. He knew, however, that Mace kept them near his bedroom window. He also knew that their covers were very sticky, because Mace would often read them while he was eating sweets. And he knew that Mace’s room had once been invaded by ants when a glass of soft drink had been left on the window-sill.

Knowing all this, Cadel could make some fairly detailed calculations, using a series of complicated probability algorithms that he had developed himself. Though his method was by no means perfect, it had served him well enough in the past. And this time, too, it was successful.

All he had to do was swap Mace’s packed lunch with Janan’s. Then, after his two foster-brothers had left for school, he laid a trail of sugar particles from Mace’s bedroom window-sill to his treasured magazines. Once these two steps were accomplished, Cadel had no further
active
role to play in the process. He could simply sit back and watch events unfold, from a discreet vantage point.

He had a while to wait. Hazel never collected any discarded clothes from the bedrooms until she had finished her data-entry work, at about midday. So Cadel entertained himself by answering the NSA’s list of questions. He could have gone out, but it was threatening to rain – and besides, he wanted to be on hand. It was very, very important that the timing was right. Any variations would have to be dealt with at short notice. (By delaying Hazel with a brief talk, for instance.)

Cadel found it hard to concentrate. He was restless, and couldn’t settle, making many trips to the kitchen and bathroom during the course of the morning. On one of these trips, he noticed something that made him do a double take.

Frowning, he approached Hazel’s computer – and crouched in front of it.

Had he imagined that flash? Were his eyes playing tricks on him?

Hazel had taken a phone break. He could hear her chatting to her sister in the kitchen. Her computer, meanwhile, had lapsed into ‘sleep’ mode. Yet he could have sworn he’d seen the little light blink on her hard-drive.

For a while he squatted, motionless, waiting for another hint. Another clue. It came just as Hazel appeared in the kitchen doorway: the light blinked again. ‘What is it, dear?’ Hazel asked.

‘Oh – nothing.’ Cadel leapt to his feet. ‘I thought I saw a spider.’

In fact, he’d seen a different kind of bug. An invader. Something running on the system that shouldn’t have been there. But he couldn’t do much about it – not while Hazel was working. So he wandered back to his room, where he occupied himself with mental arithmetic until the moment of truth arrived. Lying on his bed, he heard Hazel enter Mace’s room. She must have seen at once that the dirt-bike magazines were crawling with ants; there was a shriek, followed by a slapping noise that may have been the sound of Hazel hitting the magazines with a dirty sock or a pair of underpants. As Cadel had predicted, she then rushed back out to the laundry, where she grabbed a can of flyspray. The hiss of it was audible in Cadel’s bedroom as Hazel covered most of Mace’s belongings with a fine layer of insecticide.

After that, she picked up the magazines and took them out of Mace’s room, heading for the garden. Here she was probably planning to shake and swat the infested journals until every ant clinging to them had dropped into an empty flower bed. But she was halfway to the door when the phone rang – at which point she set her burden down on the hall table so that she could pick up a nearby telephone receiver.

Cadel, who was watching from behind his bedroom door, heaved a sigh of relief. His calculations so far seemed to be panning out.

As expected, the caller was from Janan’s school. Apparently Janan was throwing a tantrum because Hazel had not packed his chocolate bar. ‘But I did!’ Hazel protested, all in vain. A nougat bar had been substituted for the chocolate one. Hazel would therefore have to replace the unwanted nougat variety with Janan’s regular chocolate treat.

It had happened once before, when Hazel herself had mixed up the packed lunches. This time, though not to blame, she was nevertheless forced to fix the problem. She had to rush off to Janan’s school with a new chocolate bar before Janan hurt himself – or someone else. And in all the commotion, she forgot about the pile of magazines left on the hall table.

Cadel had been counting on this memory lapse.

Owing to the placement of the telephone, lamp and address book, Mace’s magazines had been dumped directly above a black plastic bin full of old paper and cardboard, destined for recycling. Cadel checked the relative positions of these two bundles with a measuring tape. He was satisfied with what he found. Then he positioned himself in front of Hazel’s computer, from which vantage point he could look down the hallway if he leaned sideways a little and turned his head.

He was waiting for Leslie to return home from his early shift. Unless this happened while Hazel was out, the whole plan would be ruined. Nervously, Cadel glanced at his watch. Distractedly he logged onto Hazel’s email address, one ear cocked for the noise of Leslie’s car engine. For the moment he had forgotten about the mysterious activity on his foster-mother’s hard-drive. He was far too concerned about the success of his scheme.

Cadel always made a habit of cleaning out the Donkins’ electronic mailbox. He had been shocked – even appalled – to discover how much garbage had accumulated there before his arrival. For months, spam had been piling up among the meagre trickle of personal messages, because neither Hazel nor Leslie knew how to filter or erase unwanted mail. It had been like walking into a house and finding that the entire building was piled high with rotten food and old newspapers. Cadel had never seen anything like it before.

His offer to clean out the trash had been met with heartfelt gratitude. Hazel had even given him her password – apparently without a second thought. This too had appalled Cadel. No one knew any of his passwords, and nobody ever would. Not even Sonja.