Apocalypse Cow (10 page)

There was a loud crack as something, or someone, stepped on a twig. Lesley was a city girl whose idea of enjoying the countryside was drinking wine and eating cake in Kelvingrove Park on a sunny day, so she had no idea if such sounds were normal deep in the woods. She didn’t wait to find out. She threw her heels into the bushes in the vague direction of the rustle and ran full tilt down the path. Branches whipped her face as she sprinted, trying to ignore the pain of stones and twigs jabbing her soles. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts and her pulse raced in her ears. As soon as she reached the picnic site, she opened the car with her key fob and virtually dived inside, slamming the door behind her and pressing the lock button. She raised her head. The only wildlife in sight was a sparrow, which had fluttered down from the trees to peck at the ground.

Lesley put her head on the steering wheel and let out a long breath. She had been spooked, that was all. She massaged her aching feet as her heart slowed down. The bottoms of her tights were shredded, which wasn’t much of an issue since they were already covered in dog snot and therefore destined for the bin. She thought about returning to the forest to
retrieve
her shoes, but the path leading into the shady interior did not look at all inviting. She wasn’t going to take the chance of meeting a real infected animal for a pair of £19.99 heels from Primark.

Lesley stopped off at her apartment to change before heading back to the office. When she got there, Colin and Alexandra were locked in discussion. The boss knocked on the glass and beckoned her in.

‘So, tell me,’ she commanded before Lesley had a chance to sit down. Lesley related her tale, leaving out all mention of the facility.

‘That fits in,’ Colin said. Alexandra nodded.

‘Fits in with what?’ Lesley asked.

Colin gestured at a map spread out on the desk. Dozens of dots surrounded Bearsden, forming a rough circle centred on the facility. ‘These are reports of animal attacks in the last twenty-four hours. The police thought they were hoaxes, at least until they checked a few out.’

‘Anybody died?’ Lesley asked.

‘Not yet,’ Colin replied.

Alexandra tapped a pen against her teeth, and then pointed it at Lesley. ‘Colin’s heading off to meet some contacts and the other guys are busy, so I need you to ring these people, find out what happened.’

‘Fine,’ Lesley said, thinking she could easily fit in a few more important calls in the process.

Colin and Alexandra both rushed off – Colin to meet his mysterious contact and Alexandra to a meeting – giving Lesley the perfect opportunity to make the call to the facility. She remained in the office and dialled the number. As it rang,
she
put the phone on speaker and turned on her recorder.

A receptionist answered. ‘The Centre for Research into Cow Herpes.’

‘I’d like to speak to Professor Martin, please,’ Lesley said.

‘Who may I say is calling?’

‘This is Martha McManus. I’m a lecturer at Aberdeen University’s virology department,’ Lesley lied. ‘I was hoping to ask the professor if he could give a talk to my students.’

‘One moment, please.’

The line clicked over to muzak until someone else came on the phone. ‘Good morning, Professor Martin speaking.’

Lesley felt a brief surge of triumph. The voice, lisp and all, matched the man she had heard on the tape.

‘Professor Martin of the Centre for Research into Cow Herpes?’ she asked.

‘The very same. I understand you wish me to talk to some students.’

Lesley took a deep breath and ploughed in. ‘Actually, no. I want to ask if the government is funding your secret research into the virus that has just escaped and is infecting all of the animals in the vicinity of your laboratory.’

There was a pause, during which Lesley was sure she could hear a shift in Martin’s breathing. ‘I don’t know where you heard that ridiculous story. We work on cow herpes, nothing more. Good day.’

He hung up, as Lesley had expected him to. It made no difference. She had his voice on tape and it matched the clandestine recording. The last piece of the puzzle was in place. Lesley uploaded the audio files and pictures to her laptop. Her next two calls were to the news editors of the
Guardian
and
The Times
. Both were out. She went back to her
own
desk and settled down to begin writing the story, her fingers trembling as she typed out the words millions of people would read. Then the phone rang.

‘Lesley McBrien,
Glasgow Tribune
.’

‘Ms McBrien, this is Arthur McClellan, from Bearsden Cat and Dog Home. You were out here this morning and talked to one of my employees, Carlo.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Lesley replied, still typing away.

‘I have some further information for you.’

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, I’ve seen some things that make me think what happened with our dogs is connected to that awful abattoir massacre.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘I don’t want to say over the phone. Some men came round this morning and took the dogs away. I think they might have been government. Can you meet me at the pound?’

Lesley looked at her watch. If the editors were anything like normal journalists, they wouldn’t be back for hours. If the owner of the pound could give her any information on the men who had taken the poodle, it could only help the story.

‘Are you there now?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes.’

When Lesley arrived back at the pound, the smell of dog still hung heavy in the air. However, whereas a few hours before the barking had been furious, the only sound now was the distant whine of a drill.

The front door was ajar, so she pushed it open a little.

‘Is anybody there?’ she called.

When no answer was forthcoming, she nudged the door fully open with a foot and peered inside. Daylight penetrated just enough to show the empty cages. She hesitated on the threshold, and then stepped inside. The room that had housed the poodle and the adjoining office were as deserted as the main area, although clear patches on the desk and the shelves indicated where a computer and box files had kept the surfaces clear of dust.

This isn’t right
, Lesley thought, just as she heard the front door creak open.

She tried to convince herself it was merely the wind. Her pulse wasn’t convinced and cranked up several notches. Then she heard what could only be footsteps, approaching way too stealthily for her comfort. She leapt onto the desk to fumble with the catch of a long, narrow window she hoped led to the outside world. The stealthy footsteps transformed into the sharp report of running feet.

Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks
, Lesley thought as she grabbed the window ledge and hauled herself up. She was far enough out of the window to see she was going to land in a pile of bin bags, when a hand closed around her ankle and yanked her back in. She landed face first onto the desk and rolled to the ground. Warm blood trickled down her forehead as she looked up, dazed. The cute young man from the back of the car leaned over her and jammed a needle into her neck. Lesley’s eyes closed and she knew no more.

Lesley woke up in a room with bare white walls, a sturdy door, a large, dark window that took up most of the opposite wall, and an intercom. She didn’t have time to get her bearings, for the door opened almost immediately and Brown walked in.
She
attempted to move away from him, the combination of fear and the after-effects of whatever he had used to drug her ensuring she scuttled like a paraplegic crab.

My legs aren’t working but that’s OK. I need to conserve my energy in case the chance to escape comes
, she thought.

She suspected conserving energy was the kind of thing an on-the-ball investigative reporter would do. The trouble was, she felt nothing like an on-the-ball investigative reporter.

‘I have a few questions to ask you, Ms McBrien. I do hope we aren’t going to have to be unpleasant about it,’ her captor said. ‘We have your laptop, notebook, voice recorder and camera. Now, I do know you are not exactly a hotshot reporter. Nonetheless, I’m sure you have some basic journalistic instincts, however underdeveloped. I need to know whether you made copies of the recordings, and if so, where they are.’

Lesley said nothing, not because she was trying to resist inter rogation or because her tongue had been replaced by a rather large and unresponsive slug. Rather, it had struck her she hadn’t considered making a copy of the evidence.

‘I should point out nobody knows where you are,’ Brown said, his voice utterly devoid of any inflection. ‘I can do whatever I like to you. Cooperating is definitely a good idea.’

He’s bluffing
, she told herself.

Her instincts disagreed. Maybe it was to do with the way he stood completely motionless, as though willing himself not to leap across the room and start beating her about the head. Or maybe it was because he looked like the stereotypical effete English bad guy in Hollywood films – the kind of man who could shoot someone in the head then casually drink a cup of Earl Grey and nibble on a fruit scone. Either way, she believed him enough to coax the slug in her mouth into life.

‘I dudn mak uh cohpie,’ Lesley mumbled.

‘Excellent! In that case, I can kill you right away.’

Brown closed the distance between them in several strides, his hand reaching into his pocket as he bore down on her. The sudden movement blew away the fuzziness in her head. She somehow managed a scrabble even less dignified than her earlier effort, even though there was nowhere for her to scrabble to. Brown came to a sudden halt and whipped his hand from his pocket. He was holding a packet of mints.

‘Would you like one?’ he asked, bending over to hold the packet under her nose.

He popped a mint into his own mouth. Lesley felt a sudden urge to bite him on the ankle, something she could quite easily have done from her position on the floor.

‘Now why don’t I believe you? You may have been stupid enough not to tell your editor straight away – which I do understand, considering you stole a story that wasn’t yours – but I’m sure you weren’t so idiotic as not to make a copy.’

I was that stupid
, she thought, suppressing an urge to shriek and slap herself about the head. Instead, she tried to buy herself time to think.

‘I didn’t steal it,’ she justified, hauling herself up into a slightly more decorous sitting position. ‘The tip came to my desk.’

‘Please don’t insult my intelligence, or rather the intelligence I so diligently gathered.’ Brown tittered at his own joke. ‘We know about the leak. We know for whom it was intended. We know that you, fortunately for us, intercepted it. Mr Drummond would have had the story plastered all over the internet within an hour of receiving this information. You were a godsend, what with your dithering.’ His knees popped as he crouched down. ‘Now I know why you’ve been playing
second
fiddle all those years. Your father would be so disappointed in you.’

Lesley would have been angry at the slight against her professionalism had she believed she actually had any. Brown was right. She had even been naive enough to walk into an obvious trap at the dog pound. Alexandra had been right to fire her.

‘Tell me where the copy is,’ Brown ordered.

Her view of his face fogged, and at first she thought it was due to the hangover from the drugs. Then she realized her eyes were filmed with tears, although whether they were for her predicament or her incompetence, she didn’t know.

‘If I tell you, you’ll kill me,’ she whimpered.

Brown’s voice softened a little. ‘Not necessarily. Think about it. If you give us the recording, you won’t have any proof. This facility will be dismantled completely. The scientists will be put to work elsewhere. We’ll have no problem fabricating evidence against some of those unfortunate Pakistanis I arranged to be arrested. And let’s be honest, who would believe you? I do so hate to keep driving this point home, but you are a small-time journalist trying to make a name for yourself. We could easily discredit you as someone who invented a story to build up a reputation. Plus, we could just kill you later if you were too persistent.’

Lesley wanted to convince him she didn’t have a copy. She wanted it all to be over with, one way or another. But a little voice whispered that if she revealed this fact, she would be as good as dead, despite his assurances to the contrary. She needed time to work out how to cut a deal that would give her a chance at survival. She remained quiet and somehow found the strength to stop the water in her eyes leaking out.

Brown slapped his knees and stood up suddenly, grabbing Lesley’s arms and pulling her up with him. ‘I guess we’ll have to resort to shock tactics. Lights up!’

Lights popped into bright life behind the window, revealing a room almost identical to the one they occupied, with the exception of what looked like a large sliding panel in one of the walls and a dishevelled man in his late forties crouched in a corner. He blinked in the sudden glare and looked straight at the window. The first thing he did when he realized he was being watched was to run a hand over his head to flatten the grey hair sticking up in clumps. It looked like he had been pulling it.