Alchemist (42 page)

Monty vaguely recognized the name of the firm as something in merchant banking. ‘Could I please speak to Charles Kingsley?' she asked.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Kingsley's not in today.'

Monty raised her voice to be heard above the roar of a passing bus. ‘Do you know where I could get hold of him – it's very urgent.'

‘I'll put you through to his secretary.'

Monty thanked her and waited, then a pleasant woman came on the line. ‘I'm afraid Mr Kingsley has suffered a bereavement, and I don't know when he'll be in next.'

‘I need to speak to him very urgently – it's in connection with his wife's death. Do you know where I might be able to get hold of him?'

Her tone became cooler. ‘Are you from the press?'

‘No, I'm not.'

‘All I can suggest is that you leave your name and number, and I'll pass them on when he rings in.'

‘It's OK,' Monty said. ‘I have his home number, I'll try that.'

She thanked the secretary and pressed a new series of
numbers. The phone was answered on the fourth ring by a male voice faintly muffled by crackle.

‘Hello. You've reached the London residence of Charles and Caroline Kingsley. We're sorry not to be able to take your call in person right now, but if you leave your name and number and a short message after the beep, we'll get back to you. Goodbye!'

As she heard the beep Monty hesitated, debating. She decided just to leave her name and her home number and say nothing further. But just as she started to speak, she was interrupted by a voice that came on the line.

‘Yersss, hello?'

It sounded for an instant like a tape being played at the wrong speed. Then she realized it was the same male voice that had left the message on the machine.

‘Charles Kingsley?'

‘Yes?'

‘I – I'm very sorry to hear about your wife's death. I need to talk to you urgently – I think there might be a medical cover-up going on. Do you think I could come round?'

There was a pause. ‘No, I'm sorry, no.' His voice sounded slow and distant. ‘I can't see anyone. Not at the moment. Thank you for calling.'

The phone went dead.

‘Shit!' Monty hung up, more angry at the man, for an instant, than sorry for him. Her hands were still shaking so much from the shock of what she had just witnessed that she knocked the receiver from the hook; it fell, cracked against the wall and swung from the end of its cord. She replaced it, checked the address on the sheet of paper again, then left the booth and hailed a taxi.

The Roland Gardens address was a Victorian redbrick mansion block off Old Brompton Road in the indeterminate border between South Kensington and Earl's Court, where some streets were bedsitter or hooker country and some were still gentrified. Roland Gardens had the distinct, if faded, air of the latter.

Monty pushed the bell beside the name ‘Kingsley', and waited, eyeing the grill of the speaker. There was no response.
She tried a second time and waited for a full minute, but again there was nothing. Except that a tall, elderly woman, all lipstick and rouge, with a cigarette in her hand and a silk scarf around her neck, opened the door from the inside and stepped into the porch in a cloud of scent. Monty held the door for her and the woman thanked her regally, then picked her way carefully down the steps before stopping, looking sharply at her and saying incongruously: ‘Not like South Africa, dear.'

‘South Africa?' Monty replied, puzzled by the remark, wondering if she had heard correctly.

‘Disraeli buggered it all up, of course. He was the man who ruined the postal system. Never been able to get a letter delivered on time since he died.'

‘No?'

‘One of the problems with islands, dear. Too much sea; too much bloody sea.' Then, shaking her head the old bat wandered off.

Monty went into an old-fashioned hall with a chequered floor and a lift in a brass cage. Somewhere above her she could hear the sound of hoovering. Ordinarily the old girl's dottiness might have made her smile, but today it made her feel uncomfortable, just one more symptom of a world completely out of kilter.

She took the lift to the third floor, pulling the heavy door open with some difficulty when she got there, and stepped out into a corridor of aged grandeur, well in keeping with the downstairs hall. There was a red carpet, carved surrounds to each door, and Art Deco sconces along the walls – several of them with their light bulbs blown.

She stopped outside number 215 and stared, in surprise, at the gaping strip that was torn from the jamb. The thick oak door was slightly ajar, and as she looked closer she saw the reason why: it had been jemmied open, and the solid Banham lock was skewed in its mortise.

She tensed, her nerves sparking as if they were shorting out. Had it just happened? Was the intruder still inside? No, surely not in the middle of the morning. She'd spoken to the occupant only five minutes or so ago, ten at the maximum. It
must have happened earlier. Somewhere further down the corridor in another flat she could hear the strains of a violin; its mournful sound made her feel even more uneasy.

Bracing herself for the unexpected, she rang the bell, and rang again when there was no sign of life. After giving it a full minute, she pushed the door further open, listening hard.

Complete silence greeted her. The entrance hall was dark and surprisingly high-ceilinged. Outdoor clobber of umbrellas and Wellington boots adorned an old mahogany coat stand, and a long passageway lined with doorways stretched ahead of her.

She took a breath, then called out tentatively: ‘Hello?'

She waited for a response, but heard nothing. Then she walked slowly forward, glancing back at the entrance every few moments, and stopped by the first open door – through which was a good-sized bathroom.

The cupboard doors hung open, their assorted contents scattered on the floor. Monty turned her head sharply, checking the corridor in both directions, instantly vulnerable.

Had the police been? Were they on their way? Fighting an urge to turn and run, she went on to peer through the next door into what looked like a master bedroom. It, too, had been ransacked, with almost every square inch of floor covered in clothing. This had not happened since she'd spoken to Charles Kingsley, she reasoned. Someone had spent quite a while in here.

An impression of new paint came from the next open door; it was a small child's bedroom, with a spotless cot. Monty felt a lump in her throat as she looked at the wallpaper depicting nursery rhymes, at the mobile of coloured shapes above the cot, the pretty furniture, the unused carpet, and backed out. Whoever had turned the place over had not bothered with this room.

There was a grander door, slightly ajar, at the end of the passage. She stopped outside it, held her breath, then she pushed it open very slowly, braced for it to hurtle back in her face, or for a confrontation. But nothing happened.

Still holding her breath, her eyes darting wildly, she went through into a large drawing room, handsomely furnished
with antiques, and in semi-darkness due to the curtains being drawn. She could see enough to pick out the drawers of a walnut bureau that lay upside down on the floor, their contents spilled around them. The rest of this room seemed untouched. Then she heard a sharp creak behind her. She turned, her skin crawling, and stood absolutely motionless.

The image of Dr Corbin with the metal shank embedded in his skull came back to her even more vividly than when she had actually seen it happen, and the horror squeezed her stomach like a sponge.

Christ, if I had tried harder to make him listen
, she thought.
If I hadn't let him leave his practice. If I had delayed him by just one more second, the hook would have missed him
.

She caught sight of her face reflected in the gilded mirror above a chiffonier and was startled by how pale she looked. Like a ghost, she thought. Then a shadow right behind her, darker than all the others in the room, suddenly moved.

She spun round, a silent scream of terror yammering in her throat, her brain seized up with fear. The shadow was in a chair, a deep, low armchair. But there was nothing threatening in the movement, she realized, after a long moment.

An arm raised itself, slowly, mechanically; there was a brief scrabbling sound, then a click and a weak pool of light from a table lamp that made her blink. She could see a haggard, unshaven face beneath unbrushed hair, staring at her the way a political prisoner long beaten into submission might watch a jailer bringing food.

‘I'm – sorry – I did ring – I –' Her apology trailed as she stared at the man in pity now, rather than shock. He was about forty, squarely built, wearing a thick crew-neck sweater, corduroy trousers and moccasins. Black rings as deep as bore holes encircled his bloodshot eyes.

‘Ch – Charles Kingsley?' she asked.

‘Over the weekend,' he said quietly and disjointedly, slurring some of the words. ‘Thrr police said they do it often. They know when there's a bereavement that people sometimes go away. I don't know what they've taken; it doesn't matter; I don't care what the hell they've taken.'

A colour wedding photograph in a silver frame shared the
small table beside him with the lamp. It was a happy family group, the men in top hats and tails, the women wearing hats and finery. Everyone was laughing. In the centre were the bride and groom, Caroline and a much younger Charles Kingsley, she presumed. The bride was pretty in a classic English gentry way, her brown hair pinned up in ringlets beneath her wedding veil. He was very much a male equivalent.

‘I'm sorry to intrude,' she said. ‘But there's something I need to ask. Your wife was taking medication for infertility prior to becoming pregnant, wasn't she?'

He stared back at her in silence for a long while, before speaking again. He did not smell of alcohol and Monty wondered if he was on a heavy dose of sedatives. ‘Caroline, she didn't – you see – didn't want – people to know.' He lapsed into silence again. Monty was about to prompt him when he continued. ‘She was very shy. She hid the pills. She thought even I didn't know.' He looked up and gave her a helpless, childlike smile.

Monty responded in kind. ‘She hid them from you? In a good place?'

He lowered his head and was quiet again. He seemed to be having difficulty holding his eyes open. ‘In a spice jar. I don't cook, you see. She thought I wouldn't ever find them.'

‘Are they still there now?'

But Charles Kingsley's eyes had closed completely and his breathing became deeper. This time he had gone to sleep.

Monty tiptoed quietly back into the passage. She tried one door, which opened into a broom closet. The next one opened into a large, modern kitchen which had been untouched by the intruder.

She glanced hurriedly around the work surfaces, then she spotted a row of stone spice jars with wooden tops.
Ginger, Garlic, Turmeric, Bay leaves, Chives, Oregano, Rock salt, Cumin, Basil
.

The chances of any of the Maternox still being there were remote, she thought. If Caroline Kingsley had not wanted even her husband to know that she was taking the pills, she was scarcely likely to have kept them throughout the full term of her pregnancy. And yet, Monty knew, she herself had a habit of keeping pills for years after she had finished needing them.

She began to work through the jars, opening the tops of each in turn and rummaging inside. It was as her fingers rummaged deep among the bay leaves that they struck something hard and round.

It was a white plastic vial.

She lifted it out, spilling a few leaves in the process, and shook it. There was a light rattle. The prescription label around it was headed: ‘PriceSave DrugSmart, 297 Earl's Court Road.' In smaller wording beneath was printed, ‘Keep out of reach of children.' Then: ‘10ml Maternox, two capsules four times daily with food. MS CAROLINE KINGSLEY, 11 JAN 94.'

On the reverse side of the vial was the product licence number, followed by the batch number. ‘BS-M-6575-1881-UKMR.'

She twisted and prised off the childproof lid, and saw six blue and green capsules remaining in the bottom. She replaced the lid with trembling fingers, slipped the vial into her handbag and hurried, furtively, out of the mansion flat.

‘Mr Molloy, I apologize for disturbing you from your duties this morning, but I'd like to have a word about this report you've produced.' Dr Vincent Crowe tapped the thick wodge of papers on his japanned black desk.

‘Yes, sir – about the prior art?'

‘Precisely,' Crowe said with a smile as lean as his face. He sat very upright, checked the pink silk handkerchief that bloomed from his breast pocket, and looked expectantly at Conor. ‘I was most interested to find out just how much material there is.'

‘I've included everything published by Dr Bannerman during the past decade.'

‘On what? The whole range of his work?'

‘No – this is just on the psoriasis genes. There's about twenty roomfuls of published material on the genetics research he's been doing on other diseases.'

The Chief Executive's lips pressed so tightly together they melded into one thin crimson line. In the chiaroscuro of the overhead spotlight, Conor could almost see the contours of his superior's skull and the labyrinth of veins beneath his alabaster skin.

‘You understand the importance of the acquisition of Bannerman Genetics Research Laboratories to this company, Mr Molloy?'

‘I think so, sir.'

‘The patents of four of the six largest revenue earners for Bendix Schere expire within the next five years. We need to replace them with a new generation of international best-selling drugs that will see us through into the twenty-first century. Psoriatak could be one. One in ten people are affected by psoriasis at some time during their lives. The earnings potential for a drug that will eliminate, through gene therapy, the recurrence of a broad band of psoriasis complaints is, you will agree, very substantial.'