Genius Squad Read Free Page A

inside, he received no response at all.
    Cadel passed through Sonja’s front gate without bothering to glance back. He knew that the policeman from the bus was behind him somewhere, having accompanied Cadel on both train trips as well. No doubt there had been some kind of surreptitious radio contact. No doubt one of his bodyguards had already checked the licence plate of every car parked in Sonja’s street.
    When Cadel rang the doorbell, Rosalie answered it.
    ‘Hello, Cadel,’ she said.
    ‘Hello, Rosalie. Is Sonja feeling all right today?’
    ‘Yes, come in. Sonja will be very pleased to see you for sure.’
    Once upon a time, Sonja had lived in a large institution called Weatherwood House. Then it had closed, and its occupants had been moved to smaller houses, containing fewer people. Cadel didn’t think that this change had been for the best. Sonja’s new quarters were rather shabby. She was now living in an old brick building, full of narrow hallways and awkward corners, which hadn’t been designed for people with special needs. Despite all the new ramps and doors and handrails, there was an air of discomfort about the place. Most of the floors were covered in cheap vinyl. Most of the windows were hard to open. Sonja had to share a cramped bathroom with three other people, and her own room was also quite small. Because her bed, desk and wheelchair took up so much of the available space, there wasn’t even a stool or a beanbag for her visitors to sit on. Cadel always had to use the bed. He felt awkward about that, because he couldn’t help rucking up the quilted bedcover when he sat on it. And then someone like Rosalie, the carer, would have to straighten it out.
    Rosalie was a nice woman. She would hustle Cadel through the front door with a big, beaming grin, and make him tea, and feed him biscuits. ‘Your beautiful boyfriend is here!’ she would crow. ‘Look, everyone! Sonja’s beautiful boyfriend has come!’ It was embarrassing, but well meant. Rosalie seemed genuinely fond of Sonja. Nevertheless, Sonja missed Kay-Lee, the nurse who had looked after her so well at Weatherwood House. Kay-Lee had gone overseas to work, and although she emailed Sonja every week, things just weren’t the same. They weren’t as good.
    ‘Hi, Sonya,’ Cadel said shyly, upon reaching her bedroom. ‘How’s it going?’
    He was conscious of Rosalie, hovering at his shoulder. There was no doubt in his mind that Rosalie would have liked him to greet Sonja with a smacking kiss, or some other extravagant gesture. He felt uncomfortable when the carer was around, and couldn’t really relax until she had gone to make tea.
    Then he closed the door carefully behind her.
    ‘New poster,’ he observed, his gaze fastening on an unfamiliar eye-puzzle pinned to the wall. Sonja’s bedroom was plastered with posters and printouts, most of them relating to mathematics. The parchment shade of her bedside lamp was decorated with numeric equations, written in a flowing copperplate hand. Birthday cake candles, each moulded into the shape of a different digit, were ranged across her desk. Even the geometric pattern on Sonja’s shirt was complex enough to suggest mathematical formulae.
    This shirt was worn over stiff corduroy pants and fluffy slippers. Cadel recognised the slippers. He had given them to Sonja for her birthday, because no one seemed to bother much about her feet, and it worried him. Sonja’s involuntary muscular spasms sometimes knocked her feet about quite badly; he’d decided that they needed more padding and protection.
    The spasms were always more violent when she was feeling stressed or excited. Looking now at the taut angle of her neck, Cadel could tell that she was distressed about something. And because he knew that she communicated more easily when she was calmer, he sat down and started to talk about mathematics.
    ‘I saw something really interesting on the Net, yesterday,’ he said. ‘It was on that website –