Alchemist

  ‘I don’t think any of us intended –’ Monty began.

  Tabitha cut her short. ‘Uh oh. Conor very definitely intended. From the day his daddy died it’s been there, chewing him up, the thought of those big bad guys who harmed his pa. It’s driven his whole life.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’ve tried for twenty-six years to talk him into letting it go; tried to tell him that he doesn’t understand the power of what he’s up against. Now, at last, I think he does understand. But perhaps just a little bit too late in the day.’

  ‘Whatever the reasons, Mrs Donoghue, he’s done the right thing. Wasn’t it Edmund Burke who said, All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing?’

  Tabitha stared at her with dark eyes that combined respect and anguish. Monty felt the first hint of acknowledgement of a bond between them.

  ‘My mother was a medium and a healer, Monty. She spent her life rescuing people who had gotten caught up in the occult.’ Tabitha took out another cigarette. ‘You did your history at school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Remember when people laid siege to a walled city? Very few attackers ever won by knocking those walls down. They won by patience, by tactics, by infiltration, getting inside knowledge, inside help, sneaking inside with the wooden horse of Troy, attacking from within, opening the gates from the inside.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we’ve been doing,’ Conor said, looking up.

  ‘Bullshit!’ Tabitha said. ‘How long have you been there? Less than two months and you’ve caused mayhem. You tried to knock down the castle walls in one go and now they’re swarming out at you, mad as hell. You’re not going to beat them this way, Conor, no way in Hell.’

  ‘I’m going to beat them,’ he said quietly. ‘You’d better believe it.’

  His mother looked at him in silence with an expression of such sadness on her face that it made Monty feel for her. ‘That’s what your daddy said. Those were his exact words.’

  115

  Thursday 8 December, 1994

  Nikky Fitzhugh-Porter listened, eyes closed in an attempt to return to sleep, through the sequence of Gunn’s morning ablutions. The ringing of his long, hard stream of urine; the vigorous shower; the scraping of his razor; the hiss of his deodorant spray. Footsteps; the rustle of clothes.

  Then she was aware of him standing over her, could smell his indifferent Yardley cologne, felt the brief touch of his lips on her cheek.

  ‘Call you later,’ he said.

  She heard the door open and close. A train rumbled by outside. She opened her eyes and squinted at the clock-radio. It was 6.45. Too early, much too early. She should wait until after nine, she decided, but in her agitated state, brain whirring, she was unable to go back to sleep. She passed the time by trying to concentrate her thoughts on the term paper she had done on Graham Greene and which she was scheduled to discuss with her tutor at midday.

  At 7.30, unable to lie still, she got up and showered. When she towelled herself, the crummy bedsitting room felt even more cold and draughty than usual. Perhaps it was her nerves.

  When she had dressed, she walked across the threadbare carpet to the door and peered out at the landing. No one there; no footsteps; he was an efficient man and she had never known him return home because he’d forgotten something, but even so she did not want the embarrassment of being caught.

  Satisfied the coast was clear, she began a hasty search of the room: cupboards, drawers, careful not to disturb anything. Then she looked under the bed, and even under the carpet, but she found nothing. What she was looking for was stored safely away on the hard disk of his laptop computer which he had taken with him, as always, in his briefcase.

  But there was a small copy of it still stored inside her own brain. Not much, not enough to provide her with any answers, but enough to provide plenty of concern.

  The phone had rung at three o’clock that morning. Gunn had answered it, whispering, and she had pretended to be asleep. The conversation had been brief and Gunn had sounded furious.

  Molloy? And the Bannerman woman? They’re not? What the hell’s going on over there? You have them nailed down? In a house? Can’t you go in and neutralize? Why not? – is it a house or is it fucking Fort Knox?

  Molloy and the Bannerman woman. Two names on the list that’d had black Christmas trees marked beside them on Gunn’s computer. She went into the tiny kitchenette to make herself a cup of coffee. The atmosphere stank permanently of the fry-ups on which Gunn lived when she didn’t cook for him. For some reason she found that the lack of fresh air stimulated her. She could picture that list clearly.

  Charles Rowley had been on it. He had drowned in Hawaii, she had read in the Bendix Schere magazine. Molloy had been there too. And so had Bannerman.

  The Bannerman woman’s MG had been blown up by a bomb. After what she had listened to during the night, she figured it did not need a degree in rocket science to work out that her soldier boy had been instructing someone to kill.

  She left the bedsit for Ealing Broadway, and passed the next hour by having a café breakfast. Then she went off in search of a pay phone.

  A woman’s voice answered, brisk and efficient. ‘New Scotland Yard.’

  Nikky glanced warily through the windows of the booth. There was no need to be scared, she knew, there was no way that Gunn was suddenly going to appear. So why had she got the shakes? ‘I want to report something suspicious,’ she said.

  ‘Could you give me a few details so I can put you through to the right section, please.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nikky said, her eyes scouring the passers-by and then the traffic. ‘It’s to do with the car bomb the night before last – and the pharmaceutical company Bendix Schere. I – I think that two of their employees may be in danger.’

  ‘Can you hold one moment, please.’

  There was silence for about thirty seconds, followed by a click, then a man’s voice. ‘Detective Superintendent Levine,’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’

  116

  Friday 9 December, 1994

  In the mêlée surrounding the baggage carousels of Heathrow’s Terminal One, no one noticed the trio who had been camped for three hours in one corner of the hall behind a clutch of phone booths.

  Conor, wearing his Crombie coat over casual clothes, shifted his position, his backside numb from the hard shell of his Samsonite which he had been using as a seat, his concentration barely faltering as he worked furiously on his laptop. The power indicator was low and the display had already dimmed; he was on the last of his spare batteries and had maybe another thirty minutes’ usage, if he was lucky.

  Tabitha Donoghue, seated on her folded coat and leaning back against the wall was reading her way through a series of pamphlets and publications. Monty was trying to study a book on Satanism which Tabitha had lent her, but really she was keeping a steady eye on the crowds for anyone who might be watching them.

  She felt more together today; she had phoned the Bendix Hammersmith Clinic a couple of hours back and tried to speak to her father without success. She had then asked for the doctor in charge of him, and had been told that Dr Seligman was off duty.

  Seligman. She remembered the smoothie with the suntan who had all but ejected her from the Clinic when she had gone there to see Winston Smith. She had been tempted to tell the snooty receptionist that she was organizing a neurologist to see her father, and that she was going to have him transferred, but she didn’t want to stir up a hornet’s nest that might result in Bendix Schere killing her father in panic. She also had not wanted to stay on the line too long in case the call was traced.

  Next she phoned the Thames Valley Gazette and asked for Hubert Wentworth. The receptionist informed her that he was not in. Deeply anxious, she had twice rung Wentworth’s home number, but there was no answer.

  She had also rung her own home number and checked her answering machine. There was a garbled message from Anna Sterling who sounded quite distraught. Monty had called her back immediately,
but only got her machine. Had Anna had another scan? Had something hideous showed up on it? Or had she started the first manifestations of the virus that would eventually kill her?

  Now she was watching Conor examine the small dictating machine he had bought at Dulles Airport last night, which he had used to make several back-up copies of her father’s tape. He held it up to his ear, playing something and simultaneously typing as if making a transcript.

  It was 11.30. By Tabitha’s reckoning, the last flight from Washington should have landed a good couple of hours back. Anyone watching for them in Arrivals should have given up by now. But even so they continued to wait, to improve their chances of leaving undetected by another hour.

  Conor had said very little since yesterday morning; every time Monty had opened her eyes during her fitful sleep on the cramped airline seat, he had been hunched over his screen entering rows of digits, letters and instructions which she’d recognized as some form of programming code.

  Conor had a plan.

  She had a plan also. Her enthusiasm for it had waxed and waned, but it was still there. Sir Neil Rorke.

  He was a universally respected figure. He sat on charities of which the Queen Mother and Prince Charles were patrons. He had been knighted by the Queen. He was the chairman of a government think tank and had been photographed with John Major. He would be appalled by what was going on in the company of which he was nominal chairman.

  He would have to be, because he was the one constant to which her hopes kept returning. The one person with enough connections to be able to circumvent any influence that Levine had within the police. And surely he was the sort of man to put morality first? Regardless of what personal shareholding he might have in the company?

  But before she went to Rorke, she needed Wentworth safely in place in a national newspaper’s office with a copy of the tape and a printout of the Medici File. Which meant her plan was academic for now. So that left it all down to Conor.

  He had stood up and was trying to catch her eye. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’re outta here.’

  The three of them exchanged glances, then Conor hefted his suitcase on to a baggage trolley and left. Five minutes later, Tabitha Donoghue did the same. Monty waited a further five minutes, then wheeled her own suitcase out.

  She went through the Green channel in the customs hall, and as she emerged Conor and his mother had already gone.

  She made her own way by taxi to her pre-booked room at the Sheraton Skyline. She intended to register there for appearances only, and after that she was a free agent.

  Thirty minutes later she was on the M4, driving a small maroon Rover hired from Thrifty Car Rental. It was a fine sunny day, unseasonally warm, she thought.

  She felt a sudden sharp twinge in her head and for a moment was afraid that she was coming under attack again. Then it softened into a dull, throbbing ache. Tiredness, that was all, she thought. Probably a little dehydrated as well; her mouth was parched and she was longing for a drink. She settled for lowering her window. Soon be there now.

  Hubert Wentworth’s blue Nissan was on the carport in front of his garage and the sight of it relieved her; except that she was a little surprised to see that, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the living-room curtains were drawn. She pressed the bell; no response. She raised the brass knocker and rapped. No response.

  Monty walked round to the back door. Two pints of milk stood by the step. She rapped loudly; then, on a whim, she tried the door handle. To her surprise, it opened.

  Hesitant at intruding, nevertheless she stepped in and was surprised to hear conversation. She froze, listening. A man whose voice she did not recognize was expounding on human relationships and physical attraction. ‘What we do not realize is quite how much has to do with our own parents. For instance, even the attraction in the colour of skin. We take for granted –’

  Television, she twigged. She took a breath and called out: ‘Mr Wentworth? Hello?’ A used plate lay in the sink and some fresh tangerine peel sat on the draining board. He had to be here.

  Puzzled, Monty tried the living room. It felt uncomfortably hot. The television was on, and all three bars of the electric fire were blazing, giving the impression someone had just popped out for a moment.

  She closed the door and looked reluctantly up the stairs, nervousness setting in. After calling out a couple more times, she began climbing towards the gloomy landing.

  ‘Mr Wentworth?’ Her own voice sounded strange, higher than normal. She knocked on a door, then opened it slowly, fearfully. But the room was empty; just a small study. Then she knocked on the next door along, which was slightly ajar, and waited.

  A stench of excrement was coming from this room.

  Her stomach knotted tight, she pushed the door open a little further, holding her breath against the smell.

  The first thing she noticed was a wooden chair lying on its side. Then she saw what at first, for one fleeting second, she was convinced must be a dummy. It was hanging from the ceiling light flex, a plastic bag over its head, its almost hairless torso naked apart from a lace brassiere, matching knickers, suspenders and fishnets.

  Oh God in heaven, no! Please! A low whine of terror shimmied from her lips.

  NO.

  Oh God, Dr Crowe, she thought, you sick bastard. You sick, sick bastard.

  Trying to compose herself, using every ounce of her reserves, Monty stepped forward and touched Hubert Wentworth’s bare arm; it was stone cold and the flesh felt like putty.

  Thinking fast, she backed out, ran downstairs to the phone and called 999. When the operator answered, she placed the receiver on the floor, saying nothing – aware from a magazine article a while back that if an emergency call was made and no one spoke, the police would be sent to investigate. Then she left the house by the same way she had entered.

  ‘Hello? Hello, caller? Can you speak, caller? Hello, caller?’

  117

  Brighton, England. Friday 9 December, 1994

  ‘Ah, Mr Eumenides!’

  Conor smiled at the greeting as he entered the chaotic hi-tech offices of Minaret Internet. He recognized the man who was standing behind the desk in the bay window with his arm outstretched, and tried to recall his name.

  Long, prematurely greying hair; a face like Nick Nolte after a long fast, green jacket over a purple t-shirt, silver ‘&’ sign pinned to the left earlobe; glasses.

  Andy Holyer, he remembered just as he shook hands. ‘How are you, Andy?’

  ‘OK.’ He smiled. ‘I like the Eumenides bit. The Furies, the merciless goddesses of vengeance, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Andy Holyer tilted his head to one side in concentration. ‘I think what I like most about those ladies is their concept of punishments that continue after death.’ He pointed to a chair. ‘Sit down, Bob – it is Bob, isn’t it? Bob Frost?’

  Through the window Conor could see the domed minarets of the Brighton Pavilion sparkling in the early afternoon sun. Down at the street, he could also see the Ford he had rented from Avis at the airport parked on double yellows. ‘Yup, Bob Frost,’ he said, repeating the name he’d given when he had opened the eMail account. He sat down and put his briefcase on his lap. ‘Tell me something, do you guys have any kind of international connectivity facility here?’

  ‘How do you mean exactly?’

  ‘You have a working relationship with Internet access providers in other countries?’

  ‘Well – I suppose you could call it that – I mean, sure, we communicate with quite a lot, regularly.’

  ‘Where? The States? Europe? Asia?’

  ‘All of those.’ Andy Holyer shrugged. ‘China, Russia – particularly Russia, there are some cool types there. If you speak Russian I can give you some terrific Web sites.’ He sat down, tapped something on his keyboard, then twisted the monitor on his desk so that Conor could see it. The ball-shaped purple logo of the company had expanded into a rotating virtual globe. In almost every country on it, tiny lights w
inked. ‘See those lights,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Each one represents an Internet point-of-presence.’

  He tapped his keyboard again. The globe disappeared and was replaced by a list of cities: Vienna; Moscow; Vladivostok; St Petersburg; Paris; Cape Town; Warsaw; Hong Kong. The names were endless.

  Conor pressed. ‘From here, you could set me up with an Internet account in any of these cities?’

  Holyer nodded. ‘Be expensive, but we could do it. How many were you thinking of?’

  ‘Two hundred.’

  Holyer blinked. ‘This is a joke, right?’

  ‘I’m not joking. How fast could you do it?’

  ‘Just accounts set up, yeah?’

  ‘Just accounts.’

  Holyer reached for his cigarettes. ‘OK, look, no guarantees but I would guess a week to ten days.’

  ‘Is it business that you’d like to have?’

  ‘Sure, very much.’

  Conor nodded. ‘OK, here’s the problem. I don’t have ten days. I don’t have a week. I appreciate the factor of varying time zones and all that, but I need everything up and running inside twenty-four hours.’

  ‘All two hundred accounts?’ Holyer asked in horror.

  ‘All two hundred.’

  118

  London. Friday 9 December, 1994

  Monty drove to Winston Smith’s address in a daze, the image of Hubert Wentworth superimposed on her every thought.

  Traffic thundered past. Cars, vans, lorries. Normality. Normal life. Friday afternoon. There were people out there who were living lives untouched by Bendix Schere, people who would soon be heading home to begin their weekends.

  Not her father, she thought bitterly.

  Not Hubert Wentworth.

  She’d already tried ringing Rorke but had learned from his secretary that he was away from the office, spending a long weekend in the country. Hunting, shooting, fishing, she supposed bleakly. Well, those were three things she had a mind to put in hand too. And with any luck she was about to stock up on vital ammunition.