Chapter Thirty-Eight
Loose Ends
As the wind whistled through the broken window, Jayne dropped the empty automatic to the floor. She rubbed at her face and at her head, running her hand through her hair. For a moment she was surprised by it’s length, but then quickly remembered that Julia’s hair had been much shorter than hers. The thought made her glance at Julia once more. And it was then that she noticed the incendiary device Rosanna had attached to the computer.
Jayne stepped closer and checked the settings. There was only a few minutes left.
“Shit!”
Jayne ran for the stairway. She flung open the door, and was swiftly hit in the stomach. She doubled up, gasping, and fell to her knees, only to feel another blow to the back of her head. She slumped to the floor.
When Jayne awoke, she found herself tied to a chair near the computer console. She strained at her bindings, feeling them give slightly. They felt like plastic.
“Ah! I see you’re awake,” a slightly familiar voice said.
Jayne turned to see someone standing behind her.
“Sandra!” she exclaimed and immediately began to struggle in the chair.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Sandra told her. “You’re not going anywhere, at least not for a minute or two.”
Jayne kept struggling. “You killed Matthew!” she burst out angrily.
“I thought Matt was typing on that little computer of his when I was chasing him,” Sandra said, thoughtfully. “Nice of you to confirm it. Shame about him, really. He was very clever. Now he’s at the bottom of the river.”
Jayne became tearful. “You rotten Bitch! You killed Matthew and you killed my parents! You killed mum and dad!”
“Yes,” Sandra said, very simply.
Jayne stopped struggling and slumped in her chair. “I’m going to kill you,” she muttered, and began to sob.
“Yes, yes. Very melodramatic.” Sandra said, unimpressed by Jayne’s threat. She seemed to have lost her Mancunian accent along with her nurse’s uniform. Instead she was now dressed in a black trouser-suit. “I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t kill you back at the house, and why I still haven’t killed you,” she went on. “Well, it’s all down to orders. You’re only alive now because I didn’t want you to have any holes in your body when they found you. You see, when they investigate all this, they’ll find that Matt’s project produced a psychopathic killer. You will get the blame for everything, including your own final suicide when you blew up the computers that twisted your mind. Good, isn’t it?”
“You’re the one that’s mad,” Jayne said, sadly. “How could you kill my parents? How could you kill Matthew like that? You must be mad.”
“Not mad, just detached. I don’t hate you, Jayne. Even though you blew my boss out the window. I thought she was taking too long, that’s the only reason why I came up. No, this is just work. As was causing the explosion in the house next door to your parents. Casarotto speaks, I act. Simple as that. The same goes for you, Matthew, Rawlston and all the rest.”
“And what about the real Sandra? Is she dead, too?”
“No.” Sandra headed for the lift. “She and her daughter are on a cruise holiday in the Caribbean. They won’t be back until next Sunday. I’ve just been house-sitting. Or you could say ‘identity sitting’. Far less bother than having to explain another body. And, of course, all record of her presence at MedTec has been erased.”
Sandra reached the lift and pressed the call button. “Now I must leave you,” she said. “I have a plane to catch and an appointment in Sydney tomorrow.”
“You think you’re very clever, don’t you?” Jayne accused her. “Well, you’re not! The Corporation won’t get away with this.”
“Oh, but it will! It always does.”
“Then how will you explain away the fact that I’m tied to this chair? Even after the explosion, they’ll find out.”
“Ah!” Sandra said, holding up a finger. “I’m glad you mentioned that! But first, I have to admit that none of this was my idea. Casarotto was very good at tying up loose ends, she had years of practice, so you’ll have to thank her for all of this.” There was a ding as the lift arrived. “And secondly, I’ve tied you to the chair with a special kind of plastic material that melts at 35 degrees Centigrade. One of the Corporation’s subsidiaries makes it for some use or other,” she waved her hands dismissively. “It doesn’t really matter what for. What does matter is that it will be a lot more hotter than 35 degrees in here when that bomb goes off. Very much hotter. They won’t find a trace of it. Only bits of you.”
Sandra got into the lift and pressed the ground floor button. As the doors began to close she suddenly held them back. “Oh, by the way,” she asked. “Are you Julia or Jayne? You have Julia’s voice, so I favour the former. Am I right?”
“No. I’m neither,” Jayne replied in a depressed tone, her head down. “The one thing I’ve learned from all this is that you are what you remember. I suppose that’s why people who’ve lost their memories lose their true identity. I remember everything that Jayne and Julia remembered. Therefore I am both. Julia was older than Jayne, so I have more of her in my head. But this is Jayne’s body, so it seems only fitting that I should use Julia’s voice.”
Sandra seemed to consider Jayne’s words. “Yes,” she said. “I like that thought.” She let go of the lift doors and they slowly closed.
Jayne was now alone. She quickly shook her left arm until she felt Casarotto’s thin blade slide down into her hand. A tense few moments followed as she turned it in her fingers, fearing that she might drop it. She didn’t, and in a few seconds she began to saw through her bonds. The plastic was quite soft, and the blade went through it easily. Jayne’s left hand was suddenly free, and she quickly sliced through the rest of her bonds and sprang from the chair. Pulling the incendiary device from the computer, Jayne ran for the lift.
Sandra stood in silence in the lift, staring at the indicator panel by the door. It told her that the lift was passing the third floor.
When Jayne put the incendiary device down and began to prize the lift doors apart, there was only a few seconds left on the timer. She slid the blade between the doors, twisting it and breaking it just as the doors parted wide enough for her to jam the heel of one of her shoes into the gap. Dropping both her shoe and the broken blade, Jayne pushed one of the doors back with her bare foot, pulling the other door with her hands. With the doors now wide open, Jayne stared down the darkened lift shaft. Out of sight below, the lift was already at the ground floor. Jayne picked up the incendiary device, held it out over the lift shaft, and dropped it.
Sandra heard a loud thud on the roof of the lift just as the doors began to open. She stared upwards, and instantly knew what had caused it.
In the lobby of Exchange Quay, the lift dinged, and the doors slid open to omit an enormous ball of flame. Fire engulfed the reception, and blew out all the ground floor windows, exploding out into the darkness.
On the eighth floor, Jayne hurled herself backwards as another ball of fire shot up the lift shaft and blew through the open doors behind her. Fire immediately spread over the ceiling like a wave, and burning tiles began to fall all around her. They set fire to the furniture, and even to the clothes of the bodies all littered about. Soon the fire was raging everywhere.
Alarms went off all over Exchange Quay as the fire began to spread. And by the time the fire brigade arrived, some of the men still dirty and tired from fighting the blaze at MedTec, it had spread to two more floors. It took three hours to put out the fires, and when it was done, no one in the building was found alive.