Organ Music Read Free Page B

was saying as they advanced. One of the three people answered in a language David did not understand. He seemed to be translating the woman’s words aloud, perhaps to the man in the wheelchair. None of them glanced at Winnie Finney and the boys as they swept on by.
    â€˜We specialize,’ said Winnie Finney, once the group had retreated around the curve of the corridor, ‘in developing aids of various kinds for people who have suffered accidents – who can’t get around as easily as you or I do. Now then! This way. You both look rather disreputable, but never mind. You’ll have a chance to tidy yourselves before you meet Dr Fabrice.’
    â€˜Dr who?’ asked Harley.
    â€˜Oh no! Not Dr Who,’ said Winnie Finney beaming as if Harley had made a good joke on purpose. ‘Fabrice! A very talented man. Highly thought of in intellectual circles.’
    â€˜Really, we just want to go home,’ said David as politely as he could. ‘And I want to ring my mother.’
    But Winnie Finney was pointing his opener at a door which obediently swung open. Skipping to one side, he gestured them in.
    â€˜If you just wait here,’ he said, ‘I’ll have someone with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. You’ll probably have to take a few tests and fill out some forms. Security!’
    â€˜We aren’t security risks,’ said Harley quickly.
    â€˜Ah, but you aren’t particularly reliable, are you?’ said Winnie Finney. ‘You can’t be, or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.’
    â€˜We’re sorry,’ said David. ‘It was a big mistake. Can’t we just ...’
    â€˜The difficulty about a place like this is that we have to be so very security conscious,’ Winnie Finney interrupted him, still beaming. ‘Dr Fabrice will be with you as soon as possible.’
    The last thing David saw of him, before the door clicked shut, was a cheerfully winking eye. The music faded, but did not altogether disappear. It continued to sound like the voice of an alien insect caught in the mazes of his ear.
    David and Harley were now in a pale blue room with tightly shut blue doors in three of its walls. Four chairs, upholstered in blue linen, were placed precisely around a low, glass table spread with magazines in various languages. In one corner of the room stood a television set which looked far too ponderous to show anything as light-hearted as soap operas or cartoons. In the opposite corner was a bench which supported a water dispenser with a plastic tap, and a coffee machine with paper cups beside it. David suddenly became aware of how thirsty he was. He went over to get himself a drink. Harley, though, leaped to test first one door, then another.
    â€˜None of them have got handles ,’ he said incredulously. ‘We can’t get out.’
    â€˜Did you think they’d let you wander around?’ asked a voice – a girl’s voice.
    And there she was – the girl they’d seen in the garage doorway. It was hard to be sure of anything in a place like this, but David was sure she had not been in the room when they first came into it.

‘How did you get in?’ asked Harley.
    â€˜I’ve been waiting for you,’ she answered. ‘I knew they’d bring you here.’
    â€˜No, but how did you actually get in?’ Harley persisted.
    â€˜Oh, I can come and go,’ she answered carelessly.
    She was still wearing her big, round, dark glasses, and still hugging the long black jacket around her, almost as if she were cold. This made David register how very warm it was down here. For all that, the girl seemed to be shivering. Her bare legs vanished into high, black, laced Doc Martens.
    â€˜Just tell us,’ said Harley. ‘How do we get out? I mean, supposing we have to.’
    The girl smiled. She had very white teeth, pointed and foxy. ‘How did you get in?’ she asked, mimicking