Chapter Thirty-Two
Malice Aforethought
“But why do we have to go back there?” Matthew asked as Jayne drove the BMW back towards Salford Quays. “When Sandra phones the police it’ll all be over. Ben and the rest of them will all get arrested and that will be that.”
“Not necessarily,” Jayne replied. “The police have to believe her story first, and then they will have to get a judge to grant them a search warrant before they can even get in the building. And even once they’re inside, until they find the evidence, they can’t really arrest anybody. After all, they haven’t really done anything wrong. Not that we can prove, anyway.”
“They shot at us!” Matthew exclaimed.
“Yes, in the car we stole,” Jayne pointed out. “And after you and they had brought me back from the dead. Not quite life imprisonment, is it?”
“But it’s still the job of the police, not ours!” Matthew insisted. “Why can’t we just leave it to them?”
“Because they’ve got all your information stored in that secret computer centre of theirs at Exchange Quay. And if we wait for the police to get involved, they’ll download it to some other computers hidden away somewhere else. So even if Ben Watkins and Glen Tyler do get arrested, they can still do it again. Only next time they might not wait for someone to fall into a coma. And the person might not be just a young woman thinking about a Master’s Degree.”
Matthew knew that when Jayne said ‘they’, she was talking about the Corporation. A global giant that hid itself behind false companies and a multitude of subsidiaries like MedTec, and didn’t recognise the limitations of borders or law.
“You think it might be a politician?” he said.
“Politician, Scientist, Businessman, General. Take your pick,” Jayne replied.
Matthew’s heart sank. How could he have been so stupid. But he had never even considered the illegal uses his idea could be turned to. All he had dreamt about was the marvellous feeling success would bring him. The achievement, his Phd, the notoriety. He hadn’t even bothered to think about the money he might make. He had left all that to Ben, arrogantly believing the gesture to be altruistic. His reward would be the recognition, a saviour for all those people who were trapped in a coma, and their relatives who faced the final horror of having to use the off switch. What a hero he would have been.
Now Matthew realised that instead of being a hero, he had been a selfish, conceited fool. Sandra had called him gullible. He was much worse than that. They had taken him in completely, and only now did he realise that his idea would never have been used for those coma victims. Instead, some Head of State would have gone to bed as a compassionate statesman, and woken up as a dictator.
“I’m a dick-head,” Matthew announced.
Jayne chuckled. “It’s not your fault, Matthew. Most of the people working for MedTec didn’t even know, so how were you supposed to?”
“But I should have thought about the consequences!” Matthew insisted, still angry with himself.
“Does anybody? Do the people who experiment with genetics think of the consequences? No. They just think of the money the patent will bring them if they’re first. And those that do know the consequences ignore them. It doesn’t matter if you’re cloning sheep or making guns, it’s the profit that counts. Someone else can pay for the consequences.”
“Is that how the new Jayne thinks?”
“It’s how Julia thinks, and what the new Jayne understands. But the old Jayne didn’t know about such things. She had morels, but she didn’t know what Julia knows. That’s why I like who I am. I have Jayne’s moral character, her goodness and honesty. But I also have Julia’s worldly wisdom, her shrewdness and abilities. I like the balance it gives me. I like who I have become.”
Matthew stared at Jayne. “I never really knew the old Jayne,” he said, thoughtfully. “But I think I might have had a better chance with her than I will with the new one.”
Jayne glanced across at him as she drove. There was the same cheeky grin on her face that Matthew was beginning to find very familiar. “Don’t write yourself off just yet!” she told him. “I told you, I am very grateful, and you are kind of cute!”
Matthew tried his best not to, but he blushed. He couldn’t help it. And the sound of her chuckles made it worse.
“What are we going to do?” he asked her, quickly changing the subject.
Jayne sighed and took a deep breath. “Well, if you can keep Tyler from messing with my head through the implant, I guess we will have to trash the place and kill them all.”
Her words shocked and frightened Matthew. “How can you say that? How can you talk about killing people so casually like that?”
“Forgive me, Matthew,” she said, genuinely sorry for her words. “I must sound really bad, but you have to remember who we are dealing with. These people will kill us both if they can. Even if the police catch them all, the order will still go out. And one day, a week, a month, or even a year from now, you’ll be sitting in your living room, minding your own business, and bang! A gas explosion. What a shame. Game over. No, to be sure, we have to kill them first.”
Although Matthew caught her meaning immediately, he just couldn’t accept it. “But that was just an accident!” he said.
“Was it?” Jayne’s voice was bitter. But her accent had also changed. Gone now were the Northern tones, replaced by a very familiar Julie Andrews type voice. “Jayne would have believed that, but Julia wouldn’t. She knows them too well. They killed my parents, Matthew. I know they did. Just to get them out of the way.”
“But why? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Because in a week’s time mum and dad would have been expecting Jayne’s body to be returned to them. That was what I—” she paused before very deliberately correcting herself, “—what Julia, agreed with them. My mum wouldn’t give in to anything less. She was adamant that I should be buried properly. She and my dad loved me. And they killed them. So don’t argue with me about this, Matthew. Just keep Tyler out of my head, and don’t get in the way.”