The Silent Sleep of the Dying (Eisenmenger-Flemming Forensic Mysteries) (34 page)

"We really need to talk to Carlos, whoever he is," Helena said.

"Or the others who were there."

"But we don't know who they are. We have no way of finding out, either, now that both Millie and Turner are dead."

"Yes," he agreed but his voice carried something else.

"I know that tone," remarked Helena. "What is it?"

"Turner died. Turner had early stage cancer, too, presumably the virus — Proteus — being switched on. Turner, though, fell to his death from the top of a multi-storey car park."

"And … ?"

"Convenient, really. If you didn't want things to get out about Proteus."

Helena was very awake now. "My God," she whispered. Until that moment this had been about a multinational company using dirty tricks to hide an accident, avoid possible litigation. Eisenmenger's remark cast altogether longer, darker shadows. "They killed him? To stop him talking?"

"Maybe."

"But what about the others? What about Carlos?"

"Yes. What about them? PEP seem to be quite efficient. Perhaps they're already dead."

He let this float between them. He said nothing more for a while. He knew what they would have to do, the problem was to persuade Helena. She said, "I can't believe this. You're asking me to accept that PEP are going about killing people to cover up a laboratory accident? That's a dangerous game, if ever there was one."

He leaned forward to pick up the wine bottle, holding it up for Helena. She declined and he emptied it into his own glass. "They tried to bug the car."

"Yes, and they blackmailed Hartmann, but what you're proposing is a different order of magnitude."

"Maybe I'm wrong. Until we find the mysterious Carlos, we won't know anything more for certain."

More of the silence, more of the night's slow pulse.

"What must it have been like? Knowing you had that thing in your body, just waiting to explode, never sure when, if ever, it would begin to kill you?"

"It would be awful," he murmured. "If you knew."

It took her a moment to appreciate what he said. "She didn't know? You think that somehow she didn't realize?"

"It would explain why they had to kill Turner. He was close to Millie and so would have known how she died. Perhaps he drew a few conclusions that they didn't like."

"But I still don't see why they should be doing this if it was just a laboratory accident. If what you say is correct, then either PEP feel that there is incontrovertible evidence of their direct liability for what happened to Millie and the others, or … "

He waited for her. She continued slowly, as perspectives shifted in her mind, " … Or they did it deliberately. They infected them with Proteus to see what would happen."

Her voice was soft with horror.

*

Rosenthal spent the night with an old friend, revisiting places and memories with her, always the gentleman, always the considerate one. Through all the quietness of their conversation and the warmth of their embraces, his mind was never gone from the problems that he now faced.

It was too early to know whether the police were officially involved in the search for Carlos Arias-Stella but he was inclined at this moment to suppose not. He had managed to acquire a brief curriculum vitae of Beverley Wharton and it was clear to him that she was a maverick. Her methods of investigation supported the contention that on this occasion, as before in the past, she was pursuing her own interests. Rosenthal was well aware, however, that this did not mean that she wasn't a threat, merely that she was a containable threat.

It seemed likely, too, that Arias-Stella had somehow come to learn something of what was going on. This was possible, since although the subjects had been fairly well separated in terms of geography in order to minimize contact, in a world of easily accessible interpersonal communication, it had proved impossible to eradicate it. Turner's original insistence that the Sweet girl should accompany him when the Proteus team had been relocated had been one of the factors working against him, one that should not have been allowed. It had, though, and there was no more to be said. Rosenthal worried about what was, not about what should have been.

Yet Rosenthal doubted that Arias-Stella knew anything much, just enough to worry him, make him run for cover. It was imperative to find him, though; find him and deal with him.

But how? Two strategies were immediately obvious. The first, the safer, was to use the resources of PEP to locate him. PEP had a well-established and efficient security and investigation section (indeed, Rosenthal was a covert part of it), who could draw on manpower and money to track Arias-Stella down, probably only taking a few days, and they were already at work. The second was to piggyback Wharton. Allow Wharton to find the quarry, then cut in. This might require rather more "cleaning up" than the first option, but he doubted it; if Wharton knew enough to want to talk to Arias-Stella, she knew enough to merit his attention anyway.

And clearly the lawyer and her friend would have to go, too.

So he might as well use both strategies in parallel, waiting to see which one was the first to succeed.

Content in his planning, he once again turned his attention to the girl beside him. She was sleeping, but not for much longer.

*

Eisenmenger woke early but found he was alone. He rose, pulling on some clothes, wondering where Helena was. The sounds of crockery took him to the kitchen where he found her emptying the dishwasher. She was dressed, bright and washed, but there was something in her attitude that Eisenmenger noticed at once; something he could not at first define.

"You're up early."

"We've got a lot to do. I've got appointments until eleven, but then I should be able to get away. I'll take a few days' leave."

He began to help her, aware that he was probably going to put everything away in exactly the wrong places. "For what reason?"

She took a large dish from him just as he was about to put it in a low cupboard; apparently it went in an eye-level cupboard on the opposite wall. "We've got to find Carlos as soon as possible. He's our only hope of sorting this thing out."

It was true, of course, something that he had realized some while ago, but her determination still left him depressed. He tried again with the cutlery, and was again ushered away. "Sit down," she suggested, the tone containing more than a hint of the imperative. He obeyed.

"Well, the first thing to do is to contact Raymond Sweet," he said.

Her back was to him while she sorted the knives, forks and spoons. "I've done that. He rises early."

Eisenmenger perked up. "And?"

"Unfortunately, he still has no further information. He was delighted to tell me, though, that the police were taking an interest in his claims."

Eisenmenger's surprise wiped everything else from his head. "What?"

Helena turned. That Eisenmenger found the look on her face odd would be untrue; he found it worrying. She looked as if she had appendicitis.

"The police called. Very sympathetic, taking many notes. Then, because he had been unable to bring himself to look through Millie's things, the police officer did it for him. He said she was very respectable. He said she found something, too. A letter from Carlos. She's taken it away with her."

Eisenmenger, guessing the answer, asked tentatively, "She?"

Helena smiled but it seemed to hurt. "Beverley Wharton."

"Bloody hell," he murmured. At once, Eisenmenger found himself trying to work out what this meant. How could she have found out? Was this official? What did it mean for them? While these questions flowed into him, he dropped his eyes to the surface before him.

"John?"

It took a moment before he responded. "Mmm?"

"You didn't tell her, did you?"

He found the question so surprising that there was another delay before it found the right connections in his brain. "No." He said this quietly but firmly and, hopefully, convincingly. An involuntary recollection of his last encounter with Beverley Wharton almost blinded him. Helena stared for a second or two, then nodded. "Well, she knows something. More than we do, apparently."

Eisenmenger was moving on to the ramifications of the news. It made it all the harder for them, especially if they were going to work on their own …

He missed Helena's next remark.

Would it, he wondered, be possible to contact Turner's wife? Perhaps she knew something …

"What?" he said, his auditory cortex suddenly getting the attention it deserved.

"I said, you'll have to contact her."

He eyed her cautiously, not wanting to misinterpret her words. "Who?"

"Beverley Wharton." Through a face that appeared to have been vacuum-packed to her facial skeleton she went on, "I may be ill-disposed to her, but I'm a realist, John. As you said, she's the only one we know who has the resources and expertise. Now she has the one piece of information we could have used to get further in this matter, especially now that we may be dealing with murder, we have to make contact with her, see what she knows, let the police take over."

"Are you sure?"

She sat down opposite him.

"I'd rather work the docks as a prostitute than have contact with that cow, but I'd never forgive myself if people died because of my opinions about someone. Yes, I'm sure."

He nodded, relieved and at the same time aware that this was not a happy moment for her. She said, "You'll have to make the first contact, though, John. I couldn't bring myself to do that."

He took her clasped hands. "Okay. I'll arrange a meeting."

*

Eisenmenger wasn't even sure if she still lived at the same address. If she'd moved, he wouldn't have known what to do.

Even if she were still there, would she help?

She had no reason to like Eisenmenger, plenty to wish him ill. And he knew that she didn't do things for charity, just for Beverley Wharton. Which meant that the only way he was going to get her on side was to make it worth her while.

He rang the bell to her flat and waited. It was nine in the evening and he began to think that she wasn't in. He had first called the police station where she now worked, had been told that she was off duty, but that didn't mean she was at home.

There was a peephole in the door, making him feel observed and uncomfortable. The air smelled of furniture polish and, quite strongly, money.

He was just about to go, having decided that she was either not in or at least not in to John Eisenmenger, when he heard the sounds of locks turning and a chain being pulled back.

She had clearly been asleep for her hair, somewhat longer than he recalled, was a mess and her eyes were slightly puffy. She wore a black silk dressing gown and a look on her face that was part hatred, part amusement and part curiosity.

"John Eisenmenger," she said flatly, as if telling him to leave two pints of semi-skimmed.

He smiled. "Apologies. I didn't realize you'd be in bed."

Without saying anything she stood aside so that he could enter, but she stayed where she was as he walked into the room, only closing the door when he was standing in the middle of the large lounge area. He said, "I'd forgotten how nice this place is." She lived on the top floor of a converted warehouse, complete with beautiful view of the city from a corner of the lounge that was completely glazed.

"Perhaps you've forgotten a few other things, too."

She was stunning. Nothing wrong with his memory on that one. "I expect you're surprised to see me."

She laughed, though it would have killed a comedian to hear it. "You could say that," she said. She walked slowly towards him. "I should kill you. At the very least gouge your eyes out."

"I don't know what you mean."

"At least try to make it sound convincing."

"Beverley … "

By now she was standing in front of him. In her eyes there was no sign of emotion. "They carpeted me," she said. "They took me apart. I'm lucky still to be on the force."

"You tried to screw me," he reminded her. "All I did was find the truth that you tried to hide."

For a moment she was still angered, then she was bemused, then she said, "And I thought you were trying to screw me." There was a sly humour in her voice. She laughed and this time it sounded happy. Which made the slap when it came all the more unexpected and all the more painful. It rang in his ears and made the mast cells in his skin explode with unpleasant substances.

"Don't ever stab me in the back again," she suggested, her eyes suddenly bright, hard and bright, bright blue. She turned away and sat down.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" she asked. If there hadn't been a host of inflammatory chemicals spreading throughout his left cheek, he might have been fooled into thinking that nothing had happened.

He indicated the seat opposite her and sat when she nodded.

"I think you can help me."

"Of course, John, dear. And you can help me by finding something toxic and swallowing it."