‘The boat,’ said Alice. ‘We’ll use the boat to get to the ship.’
Hurley jumped in his seat. ‘Alice is right! It’s tied up below.’
I knew sooner or later someone would bring up the boat. I couldn’t allow anyone to leave, not yet. Everyone spoke at once, I had to raise my voice to be heard. ‘We’d be dead in minutes.’ They turned. ‘Are any of you sailors? No? There’s a six-foot swell out there and it’ll be worse round that northern shore. That’s if we could even get away from the breakers; we’d probably be smashed on the rocks before drowning.’
The mental image shut them up. It had been a perilous journey for experienced Royal Marines and the storm had only worsened since then. With the exception of perhaps Hurley and Marie these were, for the most part, hapless lab-bound scientists who’d probably brought a note from their mum every PE lesson; they had no chance in the great outdoors.
‘John’s right. Storm’s ragin’, we ain’t goin’ nowhere,’ said Dash, acknowledging his limitations, and perhaps his mass.
‘Once the Dauntless realises the radios are dead they’ll get in touch,’ said Greenbow. ‘Our check-in is hours overdue.’
‘They’ll have already realised, but they can’t do any more about it than we can,’ I said.
‘Protocol says they’ll send a launch to check on us.’
‘They can’t send one in these seas.’
Obviously Greenbow was entirely right; my first bit of luck had been intercepting the Marines before they reached the base. We looked at one another. I could tell they weren’t all sold on waiting it out and I wanted everyone where I could see them. I needed to sweeten the deal.
‘We’ll signal the ship with Morse,’ I said.
‘In this weather?’ said Dash.
‘I saw a big battery-powered work lamp up at Camp Vollum. We’ll signal from the cliffs, request a helicopter evac soon as the wind drops.’
‘Well I’m not going out there,’ said Alice. ‘Not in this storm and especially not with a killer on the loose.’
The room descended into chaos again, I had to shout this time.
‘We’ll split up.’ I stood to draw a line under the argument. ‘A couple of people go to signal the ship, the rest stay here to secure the base.’
‘Does anyone even know Morse?’ asked Hurley.
‘Greenbow does,’ I said. I did too, and I wanted to talk to the ship myself, but having the military man with me might be of benefit. ‘We’ll both go back to Camp Vollum.’ I turned to him. ‘You’ll need to leave your gun with them.’
He shrank back into his chair. ‘Alice is right, Demeter could still be out there. I should stay here to protect everyone.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Marie.
Hurley, Dash and Alice made no attempt to move. The decision was made. Marie wouldn’t be my first tag-team pick in a physical fight, but she seemed to know her stuff and I’d take her brains and enthusiasm for now.
Alice gave me a knowing look that suggested she’d keep an eye on the others and tip me off if anyone acted suspiciously in our absence.
‘Right, Marie, let’s get suited.’ I looked around the others, all happy that affirmative action was being taken as long as they didn’t have to be involved.
Chapter Forty-five
The rain stung through the thin suits, pushing us sideways with each step forwards, forcing us to crab-walk through the thick mud. Occasionally a gust would pull at the filter of our gas masks, threatening to tear them from our faces. We had to shout to be heard, and even then it was difficult to understand each other.
‘You’d have been safer staying in the base, Marie. You should go back; I’ll go up to Vollum on my own.’
‘No chance. It’s safer to stay close to you.’
Probably the opposite was true; I had a target painted on my back. ‘Well I’ll do what I can to keep you safe.’
‘You worry about yourself,’ she snapped. ‘I mean, if you’re next I want to see where the shot comes from rather than be hiding under a table.’
I smiled to myself, but it turned to a frown when I wondered whether there was another reason she wanted to come out here with me. Suddenly I didn’t feel that confident with her walking behind me.
‘How well did you know Gambetta?’ I asked.
‘Not at all, really.’
‘He was French.’
‘So’s Gérard Depardieu, but I don’t know him either. Look, before this project I’d met him a couple of times, that’s all.’
‘Fair enough. Why do you think Demeter killed him?’
‘I thought we knew why?’
I mumbled and switched tack. ‘What were you talking about this aft? You looked pretty cosy.’
‘Did we?’ She shrugged again.
I let her overtake me as we started down the far side of the hill, the rain and thunder making further conversation impossible. The wind wrapped the baggy suit tight around Marie, outlining her curves, the only way to tell who was under there. Somehow we made it to the steps without being blown over or having the suits ripped from our bodies. I punched in the code for the door and stepped inside.
It slid behind us with a hiss as the room pressurised, sealing out the storm. We could still hear the rain nailing the sides and roof, but it was quiet enough to hear the hum of the strip lights, until the showers started up and pelted us with bleach.
We moved through, Marie dropping her mask into the tub of bleach and looking at me, eyebrows raised. ‘How did you know the code for the door?’
I waved an arm around. ‘We built them.’
‘Rubbish, Clay came up with the code and apart from me only three people knew it – and they wouldn’t have told you. We’re a suspicious lot.’
‘Ingrid told me,’ I said, pulling off my boots.
‘No, she didn’t. Demeter and I are the only others, and we didn’t tell you either.’
‘Must have been Clay, then.’
That alarm was ringing in my head again, the one I’d learned to listen to carefully. Marie was frowning, still demanding answers as she pulled herself out of the suit, but I was fully focused on a new line of thinking.
Of course Demeter had known the code for the door; Greenbow had mentioned it earlier, but that was before…
‘There were two gunshots… quickly, Marie, come with me.’ I pushed my suit into the chute and grabbed her, pulling her inside. No time for showers, if I was right the integrity of the base had already been compromised anyway. We went straight through the corridors, stopping in the link tunnel to the last hut. I felt her hand pull away, tugging backwards, I realised she’d just seen Ingrid’s body.
‘Don’t look.’ I left her in the tunnel while I ran to the common room, grabbing a lab coat from the chair. I returned to the corridor, laying it over the body. By now she was cold, her already pale skin blue, translucent almost. The lab coat stuck to the floor where the congealed blood hadn’t yet dried. I took Marie’s hand and gently guided her into the last hut.
She looked at the coat, trembling. I pulled her forward.
‘Look at the window.’
She shuddered again when she saw the bullet holes in the safety glass, her eyes started to drift back to the floor.
‘Marie, look at the windows, what do you see?’
‘Bullet holes.’
‘Okay, now stand here.’ I ushered her to the wall. Ingrid’s body lay a few metres in front of us, with the window another couple of metres beyond that. I pointed Marie’s arm out, aiming an imaginary gun.
‘Demeter entered the base and made his way here, the last corridor. Ingrid came out of the common room, where she’d been on the radio. She must have appeared right in front of him. He shoots.’ I pointed her arm wide to the right. ‘The first shot misses, goes through the window.’ I moved her arm to the left. ‘He shoots again. The bullet goes through her head, out the back, then through the window there.’ This time her arm lined up perfectly with the body and the window behind. ‘Makes
sense?’
Marie nodded. ‘Yes, I guess so.’
‘Yeah, Hurley and Greenbow thought so too, but they’re wrong. I should have seen before, it couldn’t have happened like that.’
‘Why not? Seems logical.’
‘No, it doesn’t. You’re squeezing the facts together to make it fit but you’re ignoring the things that don’t make sense.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like why the hell Demeter fired in completely the wrong direction the first time. Look.’ I pointed her arm to the right again, swinging it away from the common room door. ‘Why did he shoot that way? What’s over there? Nothing.’
‘Maybe Ingrid moved? She dodged?’
‘But why would she have been standing there? It’s empty corridor.’
Marie knitted her eyebrows together. ‘So he must have fired at someone else, or something else, that was in that corner? Something that’s been moved?’ She was pleased with herself. ‘Maybe that’s what Ingrid came out to see, and that’s when he shot her?’
‘Sorry, no. Good idea though – you’re thinking along different lines, at least.’
She pouted. ‘What, then?’
‘Well first, don’t you think the position of the two bullet holes is odd?’
She scrutinised them. The one on the left had punched a neat circle halfway up the window – about five centimetres in from the right-hand edge of the pane. The bullet hole on the right was larger and jagged. Here the bullet had pulverised the glass, taking some shards with it, but it was easy enough to tell that this too had hit halfway up the window. This time the shooter had aimed far over to the right, the hole about ten centimetres from the edge.
‘I don’t see it,’ said Marie.
I walked over to the window, fished out the key, clicked the latch, sliding it open. The rain was deafening but the wind took the worst of it away from us.
I backed away from the window, standing next to Marie. ‘Now what do you see?’
‘I see an idiot who’s opened a window to a sealed base, on an anthrax-infested island. Where did you steal that key from?’
‘Ignore the key. Come on, this area’s been decontaminated, plus you know with all this rain falling there’s minimal risk of airborne spores.’
She nodded but didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm.
‘Just look at the window, Marie.’
She let out a squeak. I held her arm out again, tracing the path of the bullet as it had flown from the pistol, through Ingrid’s head, through the first bullet hole – and straight on through the second bullet hole which, now that the window was open, aligned perfectly with the first.
‘There was only one shot.’
She looked puzzled.
I said it another way to help the penny drop. ‘When Ingrid was shot, the window was open.’
‘Why would she open the window? And how, if she didn’t have a key?’
‘You’re a scientist. Theorise.’
Marie thought about it for a moment and said, ‘She didn’t, so… the killer opened it?’
‘Why?’
‘To get in or out?’ she said.
‘And since you need a code to open the door into the base, but not one to get out? And the mud on the floor?’
‘The killer came in through the window?’
I could see from her eyes that the implication was hitting. I summarised to speed it along. ‘Demeter had the code for the door, but the killer came in the window. The killer had a window key but not the door code.’ I stepped over the body and slid the window shut. I repeated it for her. ‘The killer didn’t have the door code. Demeter isn’t the killer.’
Chapter Forty-six
Marie thought about it for a few seconds, looking between me and the holes in the window.
‘That’s a bit of a leap. We know Demeter killed them.’
‘The CCTV data stick is missing. If Demeter killed Ingrid, why did he remove it? He’d know he was the only suspect, and he didn’t give a shit about us knowing he was at the main base. Nope, the killer removed the data stick because of what it wouldn’t show. It wouldn’t show anyone entering the base.’
Marie soaked up what I’d suspected for some time. Then the inevitable challenges came. ‘Who?’ ‘Why?’ ‘When?’ Questions I didn’t know the answer to.
I left her, taking the opportunity to grab the high-powered work lamp from the shelves next to the radio, and while I did I pondered some more, because there was of course another explanation. The killer removed the data stick because it showed them – and not Demeter – entering the base. Which would make the killer one of the people who knew the code. If not Demeter, or Ingrid or Clay, both dead – then was it Marie?
When I returned she was still staring at the window. I decided to keep that recent line of thought to myself and concentrated on the other.
‘The killer makes their way here and finds the lab lights on. The blinds are shut but they assume Ingrid’s in there – the logical place for her to be. They creep to this end of the base, less chance of being heard, and open the window from outside.
‘But Ingrid’s not in the lab. She’s in the common room, still on the radio – she’s just finished her 7 p.m. check-in. She puts her iPod on and stands up.
‘The killer climbs in through the window. They leave it open and dash inside – as far as they know, Ingrid could have heard it, so they’ve got to get her quickly before she raises the alarm. They know they can shut the window later. Wellies off but keep the suit on – no muddy footprints. Straight past the common room, towards the lab where the lights are blazing. Gun ready.
‘Ingrid doesn’t hear the window, or the killer, because she has her headphones in. She steps into the corridor, sees the suited figure right in front of her.
‘The killer hears her, turns round, fires – one shot, through Ingrid and the two window panes.
‘Then they smash the radio, take the CCTV data stick, close the window. Collect their boots and leave the base by the HADU. They either don’t care about the two bullet holes, or more likely don’t even notice – we can assume they’re still wearing a gas mask streaked with rain, it’s a bugger to see.
‘Gambetta’s next; the killer has to get to him quickly, because if he’s on the radio and Ingrid doesn’t reply, Gambetta will raise the alarm and the ship will get involved. The plan is to get back to the main base, dispose of Gambetta and the radio, quickly.’
‘It sounds plausible,’ said Marie. ‘But we saw Demeter.’
‘All we saw was a red suit.’
‘But why?’
I kept it vague. ‘Covering their tracks – I don’t know why at the moment. All I know is Demeter didn’t kill Ingrid. That means he probably didn’t kill Gambetta either. Once you establish that, it seems likely he didn’t kill Andy Kyle or Donald Clay.’ Or try killing me.
‘But the note, his escape?’
‘Why would Demeter keep the note?’
‘I’m not sure, but that doesn’t prove—’
‘If he got it a while ago, on the mainland – why bring it with him?’
‘Because—’
‘And the killer question – if it was written to Demeter, a Russian, from Russian Intelligence, the GU or someone else, why is it in English?’
This time she didn’t even bother to open her mouth.
‘Someone on the island is trying hard to frame Demeter. He was always the obvious candidate, the first person anyone would suspect.’
‘But the divers?’
‘There’s still another question we need to think about.’
‘I don’t think I can take any more.’
‘If someone’s framing Demeter – where’s he gone?’
‘I think the fact he’s missing probably quashes your theory.’
‘I don’t think so. If he’s been set up they’d have got rid of him, too.’
There was only one way to be sure.
I gave Marie the lamp and sent her back to the HADU to get suited up.
Meanwhile I had a quick search for anything out of place, anything that might give us a clue to where Demeter might have gone. I checked the lounge, rooting through the clothes discarded by the others when they’d had to sleep in here, opening cupboards, pulling out batteries, torches, books, a first aid kit. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, and couldn’t find it anyway.
The lab next door was full of equipment, I’d no clue what it was used for but still nowt interesting was jumping out at me. The cupboards were crammed with petri dishes, microscopes, boxes of labels and forms and documents and manuals.
I stood looking out of the window at the bright spot lamp attached to the pump. The incinerator taunted me from the edge of the circle of light.
I’d gone over and over it, was convinced now one of the other five was a killer, had a pile of clues as tall as me, but nothing to string them together. My concern was that their plan seemed to have come to an end. They’d acquired a sample. They’d tested it on Andy. They knew the authorities would suspect something if an autopsy was carried out, so they’d disposed of the body – setting me up as the idiot who’d lost it. They’d implicated Demeter. Everything had been tied up nicely. I probably got Ingrid killed by asking her to test the tea, she’d had to die.
And Gambetta? Maybe he had just been murdered because the killer wanted the radio out of action. Slow everyone down, increase tensions in the base and ensure the authorities didn’t get here too quickly. Just enough time for these fictitious divers to disappear, supposedly taking Demeter with them.
Now all the killer had to do was wait it out. Lie low, hide among us, confident there was no evidence to connect them to the deaths. Come tomorrow morning when the storm abated, rescue would arrive in the form of a motor launch or helicopter from HMS Dauntless, and we’d all be back on the mainland in time for dinner. We’d be debriefed, of course, but our stories would corroborate and exonerate each other. Captain Greenbow would probably spin the situation around and end up vouching for everyone’s innocence. Case closed, the killer is free.
Anthrax Island Page 17