The Lost Years

by Colin Wade

  Thank you, Janice. I think we may have something here.

  57

  Clark had the bit between his teeth. He didn’t care how ropey some of their evidence was. Everything he was finding added more weight to the conspiracy. It was real. It was live. He had to keep going. A Proton message flashed up on his screen.

  SNAPDEVIL:

  How’s it going Krypto? Is the bank revealing its secrets?

  KRYPTO:

  Amazing dude. Your hack is holding. No alerts. No problems. You is a genius.

  SNAPDEVIL:

  Ahh, you say the nicest things.

  KRYPTO:

  No, respect man. This conspiracy is live. The bank has given us more evidence.

  SNAPDEVIL:

  How long till you go global.

  KRYPTO:

  Not yet. More to do but plans in place. Will let you know if need more help.

  SNAPDEVIL:

  No probs. Seez you later.

  It was getting late but Clark was running on pure adrenalin. He had to finish off looking at the other things Janice had told them. The courier deliveries and the drugs from Poland.

  He started off by hacking into the Fairport Medical finance system to see if he could identify the courier firm they used. The current supplier was called ‘Justin Time’, apparently named after the founder of the company, Justin Little. Lame, thought Clark.

  According to the finance system they had been a supplier for seven years, which meant there was a pretty good chance they had been the company that delivered Dr Normandy’s suspicious packages. The Fairport Medical records did not reveal any history other than the payments made to the company. There were a number of invoices over this period but it was difficult to judge which related to the deliveries he was looking for.

  Clark changed tack and hacked into the Justin Time systems to see if there was more detail. He looked over several months around the periods that Janice had mentioned. He found one requisition that had details of a collection from a Mayfair address to the clinic at about the right time with a package description of ‘Medical Supplies’. He researched the Mayfair address and found it was an exclusive members’ club that, surprise surprise, had William Hardacre as an executive director. Another compelling connection.

  Clark looked for more around that period and managed to find a series of deliveries with the same details and delivery route. Whilst these records didn’t really give up the secrets, it was at least another piece of circumstantial evidence to cement a trail between the Hardacres and the clinic.

  Clark was just about to give up on this piece of investigating when a thought came to him. He had been looking at the old deliveries because they were the ones that Janice was around for.

  I wonder if there are any recent deliveries, related to the two new girls? he mused to himself.

  It didn’t take Clark long to find what he was looking for. A recent delivery had been made from the same Mayfair address to the clinic, with the same ‘Medical Supplies’ description. Clark jumped back into the Fairport Medical systems to see if there was any more information. Apart from a record of a delivery note, nothing. He hacked into the secure Cayman Island server and looked through Dr Normandy’s private files. Nothing obvious.

  “Damn,” Clark muttered to himself. “This has to be more evidence but again, it is not enough.”

  He carried on. Mania was setting in.

  All that was left were the drug deliveries from Poland. A quick search of the finance system confirmed what Janice had told Rob. No orders placed to a Polish firm, no invoices paid, no delivery note records and no suppliers that matched what Janice thought she had observed.

  Right. This tells me that this was off the books.

  He searched the private folders again. This time he found something promising. A folder called ‘Medical Supplies’ containing various documents and image files. A sub folder entitled AHDPolska caught his attention.

  He opened up the first file in the folder and was presented with what looked like a contract for services. As he read down the page, bingo!

  It was a contract between Dr Normandy, not Fairport Medical, and a company called AHD Polska for the supply of drugs. The contract covered the supply of barbiturates, benzodiazepines and a methadone derivative. A quick trawl through the internet identified these as drugs which could be used for medically induced comas, drug induced memory suppression and drug addiction recovery. More importantly, a trawl of the UK drug licensing records showed that the specific brands Dr Normandy was ordering under this agreement were not licensed to be used in the UK. He looked at the other documents in the folder and found a series of orders around the time periods when the original five girls were in the clinic. What really made Clark smile though was an order from last month. This supported the evidence from the courier company that the doctor was running the same scam.

  Gotcha, you bastard. Real evidence. Finally!

  Clark was buzzing. He had to calm down. This was getting frighteningly real. He decided to phone Rob. He had to offload all that he had found. Rob was suitably stunned.

  “Christ Clark. What did that bastard do to Anya? Illegal drugs. Fuck me.”

  “I know. We need to get in the clinic and expose this thing. Everything we are finding is just making me more sure that we have uncovered something big. Have you had any problems with 4x4 man?”

  “No. I didn’t see him after we gave him the slip the other day and I haven’t seen him around recently.”

  “Good. Let’s hope he doesn’t suddenly escalate. How is Anya?”

  “No change.”

  “Have you tried music? Don’t they say that can often be a trigger for coma patients to wake up?”

  “No, I haven’t. The doctors tell me she can probably hear us so I just gabble on about my day, what is in the paper and sometimes what we have been doing if no one is overhearing our conversation. I will try it though. It can’t hurt. I’ll just have to download some Take That to my phone. It was always her favourite and I am sure I can cope with a bit of cheesy boyband stuff on there.”

  They ended their call. The game was definitely on and tomorrow Anya would get Take That.

  58

  The dreams. The flashbacks? They were invading Anya’s mind once again.

  LEX… LEX… LEXI… LEXIC… LEXICON. She could see it. LEXICON. The whole word. LEXICON, but what was it? Where was she?

  No!… The images were fading. The sounds were changing.

  What was that noise?

  Anya was still surrounded by the blackness but could hear… Take That.

  Was this another weird dream from the clinic? No, there had never been music playing in those horrible dreams.

  Was this part of that disconnected world where she could hear Rob’s voice, and other unidentified voices talking to her, unable to respond, trapped in her body, not able to see? Yes, she could hear Rob and Take That. What was happening?

  *

  As Rob watched Anya, he was sure her eyelids moved. My God, was this working? He stared at her, holding his breath, willing her to fight through it. There it was again, a small but perceptible movement around the eyes. He shouted for the doctor. She rushed in with the ward sister not far behind.

  “She is responding,” Rob screamed at a pitch he had never heard come out of his mouth.

  The doctor watched her for a few minutes as the music continued to play.

  There did seem to be some eye movement. She examined her. Her vitals were normal.

  “This could just be some enhanced brain activity, stimulated by the music. Keep playing it and we’ll mon
itor her.”

  An agonising thirty more minutes went past as the greatest hits of Take That continued to belt out of Rob’s phone. He was sure he had been breathing, as he hadn’t keeled over, but everything around him seemed to be stopped, hushed, waiting for something to happen. He couldn’t take his eyes off Anya. There was now a regular movement of the eye area. Whatever was happening, this was the most progress they had seen in the three months that Anya had been in the coma.

  “Come on Anya, wake up.”

  *

  She could still hear Take That. It was ‘Relight My Fire’.

  Howard was always her favourite and she loved this song. She could hear Rob again. What was he saying? Something about waking up?

  Her eyelids fluttered. What was that?

  Suddenly the darkness was interrupted by a thin shaft of light. Faint shadows, outlines. What was happening?

  Rob? Could she see Rob? And, oh my God, what was that noise?

  Rob let out a scream at a decibel level that once again he didn’t know could ever come from his body. “She is waking up!”

  The doctor and nurses rushed in. Anya was waking up.

  The images were clearer now. Faces all staring at her. Rob and three people she didn’t know. She struggled to speak, just a grunt came out. One of the new faces spoke.

  “Anya, don’t try to speak, just take it easy. You have been in a coma. You need to let your body adjust.”

  She looked at Rob. Tears were streaming down his face. He grabbed her hand. She smiled back.

  “Hello handsome,” she squeaked, barely audible.

  Rob was beside himself. Anya had come back to him. The doctor and nurses busied themselves, checking Anya over as she watched on, slightly bewildered by all the fuss. They gave her a sip of water. She coughed hard. “OK, take it easy,” said the same new face that had spoken to her the first time.

  Rob was just staring at her, holding her hand like his life depended on it. Anya suddenly realised where she was and tried to ask Rob what had happened, but another inaudible squeak came out.

  Rob instinctively knew what was going on in Anya’s mind.

  “Don’t try to speak Anya. You are in hospital. You were in a car accident and have been in a coma for the last three months. These are the doctor and nurses that have been looking after you so well. Oh my God, I have missed you. Thank you for finding your way back to me.”

  Anya’s face dropped. The accident, that man in the black car who drove her off the road and then hurtling down the hill towards that tree. Her baby! The machines started to beep. Her heart was racing, she was at risk of tachycardia. The doctor shouted some instructions to the nurse. An injection in her IV. Rob frozen in time. Anya looking terrified and trying to speak again.

  “What is happening?” demanded Rob.

  “She is getting distressed. Her heartbeat has increased rapidly but we have just given her something to calm it down. Give it a minute.”

  Anya’s heartbeat returned to normal. She beckoned Rob to her. She wanted him to hear what she was trying to say. He put his ear to her mouth.

  “Our baby,” she whispered.

  Rob looked at Anya with complete shock. “What did she say?” asked the doctor.

  “I think she said ‘our baby’. Are you trying to tell us that you are pregnant?”

  Anya smiled and nodded.

  The doctor put on that face, the one where bad news had to be delivered.

  “I am sorry Anya, but you are not pregnant. We checked all this when you were admitted and I am sorry to tell you that you were not pregnant and there were no signs that you were and lost the baby. I am afraid you were probably just a bit late.”

  Anya beckoned to Rob again.

  “I want a baby. I need a baby,” she whispered in his ear.

  The doctor asked Rob to relay the message again.

  “She really wants a baby. We have been trying for a while and no success. We are both scared it is never going to happen.”

  Anya grimaced at the doctor, who could see it meant a lot to her.

  The doctor was clearly troubled. Rob and Anya could see it on her face.

  “What is it?” said Rob. “What is wrong?”

  “Could I speak to Miss Novak alone for a minute?”

  Rob looked at Anya. Confused and hurt. She nodded for him to go.

  “I’ll be right outside.”

  The doctor sat on the side of Anya’s bed.

  “This is something I wanted to check Miss Novak, I’m a bit confused. Although there’s nothing in your medical records about a previous pregnancy, you do have what looks very much like a C-section scar and there is evidence of stretch marks on your abdominal skin. I think you have been pregnant before, but for some reason it is not on your medical records.”

  59

  The scars. That scar. Anya sat dumbfounded by what the doctor had just told her. When she left the clinic, her body was covered in cuts, bruises and scars. That bastard doctor had blamed it on her violent withdrawal rages but she never believed him. The abuse she had suffered at the hands of Bradley and all the other men had not helped. She was always nursing some injury in between getting her latest fix, to numb the pain. Her body was ravaged by the three years of hell but there had always been something about that particular scar that she couldn’t explain. It always felt and looked different to the others but her brain could never process what it was. Now it all made sense and maybe, somewhere in the awful nightmares and patchy memories, she always knew.

  After telling Rob what the doctor had said Anya asked, “Where is my baby Rob? What did that clinic do to me? Do you think it died while I was in there?”

  “I don’t know, but there is so much I have to tell you. That man that wrote to you was right. His name is Clark Kent, it wasn’t a joke, and he has uncovered a massive conspiracy which you were part of. Your accident was all part of it. Someone tried to kill you because we went back to the clinic. While you have been in a coma, I have been working with him to get all the evidence. We have found so much but have not worked out what the doctor did to you. I don’t know now whether it has anything to do with your baby.”

  Anya was devastated. She lay in bed, tears running down her face, unable to comprehend all that had happened to her. What had she done in her life to deserve such heartache?

  “I need to phone Clark, Anya, and let him know that you are awake. I need to update him on this situation as well. We will get you better and then we can go through everything. I know this is distressing but please try to get some rest. I will come and see you tomorrow. I love you and I am so relieved you have come back to me. We will get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

  Anya gave Rob a weak smile and shut her eyes. She could not believe what had happened but did need to fully recover from the trauma. Despite being in the hospital bed for so long, she was suddenly really tired. The doctor and nurses were still giving her injections and checking her vitals every hour. She did at least feel safe in the hospital.

  It pulled at Rob’s heart strings to leave Anya but he knew he had to update Clark and she needed to get some rest. The sooner they could get her better, the sooner they could put the final phase of their plan into action. Rob was acutely aware that Anya waking up probably put both their lives in greater danger, but he could only worry about one thing at a time. He phoned Clark.

  “Hi Clark, it’s Rob. Anya has woken up.”

  “Oh my God, that is absolutely amazing news. Why do you sound so solemn, I thought you would be bouncing off the walls?”

  “I am absolutely stoked Clark but something else devastating has happened.”

  “Oh no, what is it?”

  “Anya thought she was pregnant when she had the car accident. When she asked the doctor about it, after she came out of the coma, the doctor told us that she wasn’t. But, as the conversation
progressed about us wanting a baby, she dropped a bombshell that Anya has already given birth. She has a Caesarean section scar.”

  “What the hell. What happened to the baby? Did it survive?”

  “We just don’t know Clark, but this can’t be a coincidence. Surely, it has to be linked to the clinic.”

  There was a silence on the line as Clark tried to process what he had just heard.

  “Clark. Clark. Are you still there?”

  “Yes, sorry. I am just trying to make sense of what you just told me.”

  “No shit Sherlock. How the hell do you think Anya and I are feeling?”

  “I know. Sorry. It must be such a shock.”

  “Well that is the understatement of the week!”

  “Look Rob, you clearly need time to process all this and look after Anya, but I have to agree with you. This puts a different complexion on what we have found. Is it possible we have just stumbled on what this conspiracy is all about?”

  60

  He got another call from his father, who launched into his usual tirade as soon as he answered.

  “My contacts at the hospital tell me that Anya has woken up, which means that we have a real fucking mess. We need to deal with Anya and her boyfriend and sort out the loose end with that ex-employee. My problem though is I am convinced they are getting help from someone and, if we kill them, we may still be exposed and never find out who it is. My technical experts have been searching for anything around Anya and Rob that might help but there is no digital footprint. Either I am completely wrong or the person that is helping them has some serious technical wizardry that is stopping them being identified.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Kill that Janice person. We need her out of the way now. You need to monitor Anya and Rob for a bit longer. The doctors say she will be out in a couple of weeks. If they are really onto us, I am sure they will be actively pursuing whatever they think they have found. We need a break and hopefully with two of them out and about, one of them will slip up.”