Healer by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online

felt like a session. She had a fluty, upper-crust voice which wasn’t quite the real thing. The man sounded like an old army officer. Other voices and faces were different—you might have found them in the supermarket at Marsden Ash. Some seemed to be foreign. But they’d all paid. Paid to be conned. Barry felt the muscles around his mouth hardening into contempt and disgust but managed to convert the grimace into what must have looked like a pretty stupid grin.
    On the far side of the door a woman in a tweed suit was watching with an anxious frown as the patients emerged. Her face cleared as she spotted Barry. He braced himself for more gush, then noticed the purple badge on her jacket.
    â€œOh, Mr. Evans,” she cooed. “Would you be kind enough to come with me for a moment? Mr. Freeman is anxious to talk to you.”
    She led him with the crowd for a few yards but then took him through a door marked “Private” into a long corridor that stretched toward the back of the building. Several doors down she knocked and waited. At length a man’s voice answered from inside. She held the door for Barry and closed it behind him.
    Mr. Freeman turned out to be the Moses-man.
    He had been sitting at a large desk, studying the contents of one of the purple files Barry had seen in Dr. Geare’s office, but rose as Barry came in. Close to he seemed even larger than he had in the Hall of Harmony, more than a foot taller than Barry, a great slab of a man in his white coat. The whiteness made a shock of contrast with the gold of his hair and beard and the gold of his eyes and the brown, even tan of his face.
    â€œMr. Evans,” he said, and gestured to Barry to sit in a swivelling black leather chair.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Barry.
    â€œFeeling better?”
    Having had some practice, Barry got his response right this time.
    â€œTerrific,” he said. “A bit dazed, I suppose.”
    â€œDazed?”
    â€œWell … it’s natural. You’re feeling rotten and then—pow!”
    â€œBut Pinkie tells me you are used to it. She says she has taken your headaches away before.”
    â€œNot like this. Anyway, it was only a couple of times. Three, maybe.”
    â€œIn what way was it different?”
    â€œOh … course I felt better those times, but … well, just sort of empty and peaceful. Not like this. I feel terrific.”
    Pushing it? Apparently not. It was true anyway. He was still on a self-induced high. He leaned back in the big, comfortable chair and relaxed. Mr. Freeman picked up the purple folder and sat looking at something in it, still and silent. The room seemed to hum with his presence. He was just as impressive sitting here quietly reading as he’d been when he was putting over his stuff in the Hall of Harmony. He might be a crook, in charge of a crooked outfit, but still Barry felt a strong urge to make a good impression on the man—not merely to string him along and con him into believing that Barry Evans was just another sucker to take a fee off, but actually to make him remember Barry Evans as a person, somebody different.
    While he waited, he glanced around the room. It was small but reeked of money. The big desk was made of glossy red wood with brass fittings, and beside it stood a computer terminal. There were several other high-tech gadgets on show, the furniture looked new and luxuriously comfortable, and there were two large abstract paintings— bright curves in primary colours—on the walls.
    Mr. Freeman looked up.
    â€œDr. Geare does not mention that you had known the Healer before you came to us,” he said.
    Barry had been ready for this question for days.
    â€œI didn’t tell him, sir.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œYou see, I’ve had these headaches since I was a kid, until I met up with Pinkie and she made them better. I must have been about thirteen then. And I was okay for a couple of years