still got them stuck up on her fridge.”
He rubbed the back of his head with his invisible hand. “Sure,” he said. “Quite the young Damian Hirst. Where does he put it all, by the way? He should be fat as a pig.”
“It’s his glands,” the old man said sadly. “They never been right, his glands, but he never complains.”
“How could he? His mouth’s always full of sandwiches.”
The old man couldn’t bring himself to answer that, and looked away. So did Theo, who was scanning his immediate environment for something he could use as a weapon. The old man looked reasonably harmless, but Theo had seen enough martial arts movies to know that the deadliest fighters on the planet are doddery ninety-year-old Chinese. The old man didn’t look Chinese, but the way his luck had been running lately, he wasn’t inclined to take chances. Unfortunately, the most lethal object within arm’s reach was a large pink stuffed rabbit, with a satin bow round its neck and a sort of twisted Anthony Perkins look on its face that sent a cold shiver down Theo’s spine. So what. Necessity is the mother of invention, which probably explains why invention’s father left home on the pretext of buying a newspaper and hasn’t been heard of since.
“So,” Theo said, “where exactly are we? Oh, I forgot, you can’t tell me that.”
“Sorry, Mr Bernstein.”
“How about telling me who you’re working for?”
“Sorry, Mr Bernstein.”
“Well, I know the answer to that one. Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz, obviously. You had enough of my sister, then.”
“No comment.”
“God knows I don’t blame you. She was bad enough when she was ten. Tried to letterbomb the local zoo as a protest against man’s inhumanity to small furry animals. Would’ve succeeded too, except she hadn’t quite appreciated that not all fertilisers make good explosives. What they got was an improvised timing device strapped to a bottle of Baby Bio.”
“That’s very sad, Mr Bernstein. Probably she was unhappy at home.”
“No more so than the rest of us,” Theo replied, yawning and stretching, and in the process grabbing the horrible rabbit with his invisible hand. “My mother had the good sense to clear out, but the rest of us were stuck there: me, Janine, Max and Dad. It wasn’t a good combination. We got complaints from the vipers’ nest next door saying we lowered the tone of the neighbourhood.”
“Is that right?”
“You bet.” Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he dragged the rabbit under the covers. “On balance, I guess Max was the worst, but Janine came pretty close, bless her. She never liked me, I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever did anything to deserve it. Quite the opposite. I was always the one trying to keep her from getting into trouble. Don’t do it, I said, you’ll regret it later, it’ll all end in tears. But Max kept egging her on.”
“Some people are funny like that, Mr Bernstein. Not me. I like everybody.”
“Me too. Well, everybody except Max. As far as Janine goes, I try very hard not to bear a grudge. Mind you, when it rains I try not to get wet, but sometimes you can’t get your coat on in time, you know?”
“I got a sister myself. We’ve always got on very well. Would you like to see some photos?”
“Freeze.” With a snake-like movement, Theo pulled Disturbed Rabbit out from under the bedclothes and thrust it at the old man as though it was a gun. “There’s an improvised explosive device hidden inside this toy,” he said. “Try anything and I’ll blow us both to hell.”
The old man frowned. “You sure, Mr Bernstein? I been here all the time and you only just woke up. There wasn’t time.”
“I work quickly.”
“Improvised out of what, exactly?”
“I’m a physicist,” Theo snarled. “It was physicists who split the atom, remember? Well, this thing’s crawling with atoms.”
“Yes, but—”
“Listen,” Theo said. “You know the Very Very Large Hadron Collider? I blew that up using nothing but a pencil and a scrap of paper. Don’t mess with me. I mean it.”
“Now then, Mr Bernstein. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“What, like rescuing my brother? No chance. That’s why I’m getting out of here. In one piece, for choice, but if not, in lots and lots of little tiny bits.” He gave the rabbit a wild shake, and its ears waggled alarmingly. “I’m going to count to three, and then—”
“All right.” The old man’s eyes were wide with fear. “Don’t blow us up, Mr Bernstein, young Art could be back any minute, I