Alchemist (28 page)

Ms Wollerton stared closely at her tape-recorder, checking that it was running, then pointed it in his direction again. ‘Dr
Crowe, at this moment there's a pregnant woman in Intensive Care at University College Hospital suffering from an unidentified virus, accompanied by a psoriasis-like rash, and her condition is deteriorating. She took Maternox for infertility problems – from the same suspect batch number. It will be interesting to see if her baby is all right, won't it? They're planning a Caesarean section next week if her condition hasn't improved. I shall be at the hospital.'

He waited some moments before replying, ‘I have fond memories of University College Hospital,' he said. ‘From my post-doc days.'

She switched off her recorder and stood up. ‘Let's hope they stay fond,' she said. ‘The
Thames Valley Gazette
might bow to threats, but Fleet Street won't.'

She turned and walked out of the office. Crowe immediately pressed his intercom button.

‘Sir?'

Crowe leaned forward and spoke to his secretary quietly, not that there was anyone to overhear him. ‘I need a photographic print of that young lady. Just her face.'

‘I can have one pulled off the security video in the lobby, sir. Would that do?'

‘It would do nicely,' Crowe said.

The clock on Bill Gunn's screen told him it was 4.32 p.m. He raised a cup of coffee to his lips and blew the steam off; he had lost track of how many cups he had drunk since arriving at the office at 6.50 that morning, having left it only three hours earlier. He closed his eyes for a few seconds to try to relieve a throbbing headache. Then he scrolled through the report that had just come through on his computer screen, checking it carefully.

The thirty-four hours since Jake Seals' death had been a
nightmare, and he was in no mood for another lambasting from Crowe. Privately Gunn had to admit the Chief Executive was right – up to a point. It was true that he had been distracted by Nikky, and was distracted by her again right now, this moment, as an image of her long auburn hair draped across one of her bare breasts flashed into his mind, making him, in spite of his tiredness, and in spite of having made love to her for an hour when he had finally got home early that morning, feel sharply horny.

Nevertheless he pressed the line button through to Crowe, and picked up the receiver. He was rewarded almost instantly with an irritable ‘Yes?'

‘I've found out how this Wollerton woman got her info on Maternox, sir.'

There was a pause as Gunn waited for a response. When none was forthcoming, he continued, awkwardly. ‘The information was supplied to her by an employee at Reading called Walter Hoggin. He's the one who was Chief Lab Technician at Bannerman Genetics Research and who was moved to our Reading plant. He's been put on Quality Assurance there.'

‘An outsider? You let an outsider come straight on to Quality Assurance?'

Gunn lifted the receiver away from his ear as the Chief Executive's voice raised in pitch to a near scream. ‘Have you taken complete leave of your senses, Major Gunn?'

The Director of Security did not like being attacked unjustly, but at the same time he wanted to avoid a confrontation. He reverted to the time-honoured ploy of passing the buck. ‘I'm afraid it was Sir Neil Rorke's instruction, sir.' Gunn moved on quickly. ‘We've questioned Mr Hoggin and he claims he's never heard of any Zandra Wollerton.'

‘The man's lying.'

‘I don't think so, sir. He claims he was asked for the info by Dr Linda Farmer, our Director of Medical Information. We checked with her, and she had not made any such request. I took a look at her phone log and she was telling the truth –there were no calls from her office to Mr Hoggin. But when we checked the incoming log at Reading, we found two calls to
Hoggin from a mobile phone registered in the name of the
Thames Valley Gazette
. The receptionist logged both calls as coming from Dr Farmer. Gunn eyed the report as he spoke. ‘My conclusion is that this reporter duped Mr Hoggin – she saw Dr Farmer a couple of weeks back, so she would have known her voice and a little bit about her.'

Crowe calmed down a little into a tone of quiet fury. ‘Hoggin is a senile old fool. Sir Neil wanted him reinstated somewhere to appease the Bannerman woman, but it was totally against my advice.'

‘It seems you were right, sir,' Gunn said unctuously.

There were a few moments of silence, then Crowe said tersely, ‘I think you'd better come up to my office.'

After her meeting with Vincent Crowe, Zandra Wollerton's office called on her mobile, telling her to get an interview on the problems of toxic waste with the London secretary of the National Farmers' Union.

She finally left town after seven, and found herself in a stop-go jam on the Westway. The newspaper's white Ford Fiesta pool car was brand new, with 238 miles on the clock. She wound down her window and breathed in the damp, misty air, then closed it again rapidly as a truck pulled alongside, belching diesel fumes.

She pressed the buttons on the digital radio, trying to fathom how to tune it, heard a smattering of foreign languages, the hiss of static, then the tail end of a commercial for a life assurance company. There was a tape sticking out of the cassette slot and she pushed it in, then ejected it rapidly as she heard the twang of Dolly Parton singing country and western.

‘Yech!' she said to herself, wondering which of her colleagues had left it there.

The car clock showed 7.38 and Zandra was becoming increasingly anxious. The traffic showed no signs of easing and she had a date tonight with Tony Easton;
the
Tony Easton who had his own current affairs chat show on Radio Berkshire. They had met while covering the toxic-waste story on Monday afternoon, and next morning he had rung her at the office and asked her out. He was dishy, popular and successful. And, she thought, really nice.

He was in his early thirties, and she had never been out with anyone so mature before. He was taking her to dinner, to a Thai restaurant – she had even bought a new dress, a knitted black piece that clung to her body and looked, she had to admit, pretty good.

He was picking her up at eight from her flat, and she had no way of contacting him to let him know she was going to be late – and at this rate very late.
Shit!
. Would he bother to wait if he turned up and got no reply? No, of course not. He'd think:
Stupid bitch, she's stood me up!

Had to get off this carriageway and try the back roads; if she drove like stink and got lucky with the traffic, she could still make it. The car inched forward. There was a large road sign ahead pointing to Ickenham and Ruislip. Then the traffic stopped again.

Come on, please come on, don't do this to me!
She drummed on the steering wheel with the palms of her hands.
Shift it, you morons!
She revved the engine uselessly; a siren wailed somewhere in the distance.
Why the hell does someone have to go and have an accident now?
she wondered irrationally.
Why the hell couldn't they have it some time when there's no traffic? Stupid, selfish senile bastards!

Christ, calm down, girl
, she thought.

The image of Dr Vincent Crowe's face suddenly flashed into her mind involuntarily.
And I'll get you, you smug bastard
, she thought. Get the lot of you.

She thought about the young woman, Montana Bannerman, wondering irrelevantly why she was named after a state in America.

There had been a distinct change in Montana Bannerman's attitude when she had last met her. The first time, on Tuesday
afternoon, she had got the impression of a woman who was guarded but genuinely interested in what she had to say to her. At the end of that meeting, Montana Bannerman had promised to let her know if she heard anything that might be of interest regarding Maternox.

But at their second meeting, this morning, she was quite different, unwilling to say anything. Perhaps that was because she was in shock; or maybe it was because she was
afraid –
that seemed much more likely. Zandra had picked up distinct fear vibes. Montana Bannerman knew more than she was letting on and was scared to talk.
Give her time
, she thought. Give her a few days to calm down and she would have another go at her.

There was a story here that went way beyond a simple lab accident; all her instincts were telling her to dig further. And she needed a good story that could hit the nationals, needed to build up her portfolio to make the leap to London. Bendix Schere could, if she played it right, be her first really big break. Crowe looked like a man who was hiding something.

And anyhow, it wasn't merely her own hunch, not just the wild whim of a twenty-one-year-old cub. It was her news editor who had put her on to the story. Hubert knew something was going on. He
knew
. Three deaths from Cyclops Syndrome. The lab technician. It stank.

The slip road finally came up and she turned on to it, then navigating with her
A-Z
drove madly down the side streets, heading towards the end of the suburban sprawl and the start of the Berkshire countryside.

7.46. She was ducking and weaving down a straight dual carriageway. Jumped a light that was just turning red, then another, then to her dismay saw the traffic backed up for what looked like miles ahead.

Shit
.

She braked hard, turned left into a side road and floored the accelerator. The engine was sluggish, tight, still too new and the speedometer needle climbed agonizingly slowly. 40 … 50 … 60.
Come on!
It was a 30 m.p.h. limit, but she ignored it, hurtling at over seventy, then screeched up to a roundabout and saw the sign she wanted. ‘High Hamnett.' She took the exit on to an unlit rural road that was almost free of traffic.
7.51. Might just make it yet. Might! Tony was bound to be a few minutes late. People always were, it was polite.

She fumbled with the unfamiliar controls, switched on the wipers and cleared the smeared mist from the screen, braked as she bore down on the tail lights of a car in front, checked it wasn't police, then accelerated past it. The speedometer slid past the 85 mark. She switched on the wipers again, and as they completed their first arc, her heart banged inside her chest and she let out a small cry of shock.

A hideous horned face was staring in through the windscreen, solid, three dimensional, like a hologram. It was part human skull, part emaciated goat.

She jammed her foot on the brake and slewed to a halt. There was an angry blaring behind her, then a car flashed past. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second and when she reopened them the face was gone.

She gulped, shaking uncontrollably. ‘Jesus!' The wipers made a second arc, then a third. It was cold suddenly, bitterly cold. A slick of fear slid down her spine. It felt as if there was something in the car with her, an unseen presence on the rear seat. She glanced fleetingly in the mirror but could see nothing.

She thought back to Dr Crowe seated opposite her across his desk. That venomous smile. For some inexplicable reason the face she had just seen – or imagined – made her picture him. She hesitated, afraid to look behind her for a moment, then steeled herself and turned her head.

Nothing.

She drove off again, accelerating as hard as she could. The speedometer climbed; she drove over the brow of a hill then down a long straight. 80. 85. 90. A shadow slid across her rear-view mirror and her scalp constricted in fear.

She slowed her speed a little, looked in the mirror again, turned her head, but could see nothing.

Lights flashed at her. A horn blared. The lights of an oncoming car; she had veered out into the middle of the road, she suddenly realized, and she tugged in panic on the steering wheel, swerving back to the left.

Then she saw the mask-like face again in front of her.
Pressed hard against the glass of the windscreen, the features squashed out, distorted like a crazy mirror in a funfair.

‘Go away!' she shrieked, petrified, banging the wiper switch. The wipers made another arc; she switched them to maximum speed. But there was nothing there, no face, just the dark road ahead, and two red lights flashing in the far distance.

She looked in the mirror once more. As she did so there was a tremendous bang in front of her face. Something dark, like a massive ball, exploded out of the steering wheel, striking her in the chest, flattening her back against her seat. She felt agonizing pain in her head, as though two daggers had been plunged into her ears.

The ball deflated.

Air bag, she realized. Jesus Christ, the air bag had inflated. For no reason.

Two flashing red lights strobed across the windscreen. She saw a sign, a triangle with a picture of a train on it, saw it much too late. Stamped her foot on the brake, her mouth jamming open in a silent scream. Locked tyres scrubbed furiously across wet tarmac beneath her. The car slewed to the left, heading towards the large warning circle in the centre of the barrier arm. She saw yellow to the right through the trees; hundreds of yards of winking lights; packed carriages; commuters heading home.

She thought of the black dress she had laid out on her bed that morning before setting off. Thought of the handsome radio presenter who would be ringing her doorbell in a few minutes' time, as the car jolted crazily and the barrier exploded into matchsticks in front of her eyes.

Going-to-make-it. Going-to-make-it. Going-to-make-it.

She was gripping the steering wheel as helplessly as if it were the grab-handle of a roller coaster.

Going to be all right.

The car juddered violently, then halted. Her ears filled with a screaming howl. Lights were bearing down.
Got to get out, get out!
She scrabbled for the door handle. Couldn't locate it; she still wasn't familiar enough with the car. Her hand slid uselessly up and down. Found it, yanked it, bashed the door
open with her elbow. Wind and rain lashed in. The light was getting brighter. A horn blared. A wall of thunder was hurtling down towards her.