The Descartes Evolution

by N. J. Croft

  “No. My father was his business partner.”

  “Was?”

  “My father died just over a week ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t answer; the comment didn’t seem to require one. “Detective Mitchell, there was a man leaving as I arrived here.”

  “Was he someone you knew?”

  “No. That’s why I noticed him. This is a small place, and strangers are rare. He came out of the surgery as I was parking the car. It had to be him.”

  “Sarah.” Mitchell called the other officer over. “Go see if there’s a CCTV camera in the car park, and if there is, get hold of the tapes.”

  He pulled a small handheld recorder out of his pocket and turned back to Jenna. “Can you describe him?”

  Jenna attempted to picture the man, but his face remained vague, shadowy. “My mind was on other things. I noticed him, but he didn’t really register.”

  “Try.”

  “He was average. I think that’s why he’s so hard to remember. Average height, probably about the same as me.”

  “And that is?”

  “Five eight, five nine maybe.”

  “Go on.”

  “His hair looked medium brown, but it was dark. He was dressed in jeans and a black jacket of some sort.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry I’m not being much help.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  Detective Jameson came back at that moment, stopping in front of them, hands on her hips. “You’re not going to like this. There are CCTV cameras.”

  “Good so far. So what aren’t I going to like?”

  “They’ve both been taken out. Smashed.”

  “Damn.”

  A white van pulled up outside. Mitchell stood and stretched. “That will be the crime scene team,” he said to Jenna. “I need to speak to them, but I’ll be back in a little while, and we can finish up.”

  “Will I be able to go?” she asked.

  “I think so, though we’ll need you to come in to Scotland Yard first thing tomorrow.”

  “Fine. I’m staying at my father’s house tonight, but I work in London. I’ll come in on my way.”

  “Okay.” He frowned as the door opened, then gave her a brief nod. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

  He left her, and she watched as he spoke to the new arrivals. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing; soon flashes were going off and people wandered around with clipboards, taking notes, measuring things.

  Someone handed her a coffee, and she sipped it, craving the heat. Her insides felt frozen despite the warmth of the night. Her life had never been normal, always overshadowed by her illness, but now everything seemed to be falling apart.

  She dug into her bag and pulled out the letter. She smoothed the paper open with trembling fingers and reread her father’s words. He’d told her not to speak to anyone about her illness.

  But she had spoken to someone.

  She’d spoken to David, shown him the letter.

  And now he was dead.

  Chapter Nine

  Luke had a premonition of bad news when his cell phone rang as he entered his apartment.

  “Carson’s dead,” Callum said.

  Luke rubbed his temples and forced down the anger that burned to life inside him. He smashed his fist into the table. “Goddammit. How did that happen?”

  “He knew I was tailing him and set an ambush. I had no choice.”

  “He must have spotted you.”

  “No way,” Callum said. “I’d bet he already knew we were on to him.”

  “What about the body?” Luke asked.

  “Not going to be a problem. I’ve set it up so it looks like a hit-and-run.”

  Another cover-up. But there was no reason for the authorities to connect a car crash in New York with a hit-and-run in the UK. Of course the Conclave would know they were connected. “Okay,” he told Callum. “Come back here. There’s nothing more we can do about Carson.”

  After the call, he headed into the bathroom, splashing his face with cold water. He needed to work out their next move, and right now, he had no clue.

  Taking a seat at his desk, Luke switched on the computer and stared at the screen for a long while, finally pulling up the recording of Carson’s interrogation of the doctor.

  “Tell me about Professor Merrick. What’s your connection?”

  “I don’t know him. I never heard of him until yesterday.”

  “How did you hear?”

  Screams that died to whimpers.

  “A patient. It was a patient. I wanted to consult with Merrick on a case.”

  “Give me a name.”

  For a moment, Luke thought the man wouldn’t answer.

  He whimpered again and finally spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Jenna Young. Her name’s Jenna Young, but she doesn’t know anything, nothing. I heard Merrick might have information on her illness—it was a consult, nothing more.”

  There was a small silence before Carson spoke again, this time presumably on his cell phone.

  “He knows nothing. I’ll follow up on a lead, a Jenna Young, but as far as Descartes goes, he’s clean.”

  A few moments of silence as he apparently listened to the other side of the telephone conversation.

  “It’s done.”

  Then the quiet thud of a silenced revolver.

  So what did Luke have? Project Descartes, a dead general practitioner, Griffith, his patient, Jenna Young, and finally, a Professor Merrick. With the exception of Descartes, Luke had never come across any of those names before.

  What could the connection be?

  He typed in Jenna Young, added the name of the village where the doctor had lived, and came up with one candidate immediately.

  The picture flashed up on the screen. The beautiful blond from the car park. Jenna Young.

  He read the brief bio. Twenty-six years old. Mother and father both dead. She had a doctorate in anthropology and worked in the Museum of Anthropology in the center of London.

  He’d get the analysts working on her. At first sight, she appeared clean, but from experience, he knew that meant nothing. In the meantime, he was going to discover exactly what Ms. Young knew about Descartes.

  He could set someone tailing her, but perhaps there was a better way. Picking up his phone, he tapped in a number.

  “I need a cover.”

  Chapter Ten

  In the end, Jenna hadn’t mentioned Descartes or Professor Merrick to the police. And through the long night, she’d convinced herself she was being paranoid even thinking they might be connected to David’s death.

  Unable to sleep, she’d spent the night going through her father’s papers, searching for her nonexistent medical records. She’d found a few old documents that might shed some light on the past but nothing about her or her medication.

  Without the medicine, the disease would cause progressive damage to the cells in her brain. Areas involved in control of movement, planning, motivation, and personality. If it ever caught hold, she could lose her mind, her very self, and eventually turn into a living vegetable. The image had haunted her adolescence ever since her father had told her the consequences, shown her pictures of people with advanced cases of the disease.

  The night had been interminable, and she’d been glad when morning had come and she could get out of her father’s house and head to the city.

  Now, straight ahead of her loomed a huge building of glass and steel, the words Metropolitan Police in large letters on the wall and a rotating sign that read New Scotland Yard outside the entrance. She entered the building into a large reception area and approached a uniformed police officer behind a counter at one end.

  “I’m here to see Detective Inspector Mitchell,” she said. “My name is Jenna Youn
g.”

  Taking a seat, she tried to relax her tense muscles. But even after rubbing her forehead, the dull, throbbing ache refused to shift. She wanted desperately to get to her lab and immerse herself in her work, to try to forget this for a little while.

  Minutes later, a set of swinging doors opened, and the detective’s tall figure emerged. He was in the same clothes he’d worn last night, and there were shadows under his eyes, darker shadows on his cheeks. She rose to her feet as he came to a halt in front of her. He studied her for a moment, head cocked to one side, then reached out a hand. His felt warm and strong, the handshake firm.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Not brilliant.” She glanced away and bit her lip. “I can’t get the image of David out of my head. What they did to him.”

  “That’s not unusual. You might need to see someone, talk it out. I can get you a list of therapists who deal with this sort of thing.”

  “I’d rather get through it myself, but thank you.”

  “Okay, your choice.” He searched her face, but then nodded. “Come on, I have one of our artists waiting to work with you.”

  Jenna followed him through the double doors and up one flight of stairs. He paused in front of a door and entered without knocking. They were in a small, cluttered room. A man sat at a desk, facing a computer monitor.

  “This is Jeff Mailer,” Detective Mitchell said.

  Jeff was young, more like some college kid than a policeman. He examined Jenna in return and grinned. “I wondered why Mitchell was giving you the personal treatment; now I can see why.”

  “Piss off, Mailer.”

  The other man ignored the comment. “Call me Jeff.”

  “Jenna.”

  “Okay, Jenna. Come and tell me everything you know.”

  She sat down beside him and watched, curious, as he switched on the program. Mitchell leaned against the wall opposite, arms folded across his chest. Jeff glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. “If you’re not going to go out and catch the bad guys, you might as well do something useful like get us some coffee.”

  “Hey, I’m off duty.”

  “You could go home, then. It’s what normal people do.”

  Mitchell stared at him broodingly as he pushed away from the wall. “Jenna, how do you like your coffee?”

  “Black, please.”

  She waited until he’d left the room before turning back to the other man.

  “I think our rough, tough DI Mitchell is in lurve,” Jeff said with another grin. “But I’m guessing you’re used to that reaction.”

  She was, but she also knew it meant nothing, so she just gave a small meaningless smile.

  “Okay, back to work.” He typed in a few words, and the figure of a man flashed up on the screen. “I’ve put in some data from your interview last night. Now we have to fine-tune it.”

  Finally, she sat back, satisfied she had remembered all she could. “That’s him. Or pretty close.” A shiver ran through her as she studied the face. “He seems so ordinary.”

  “They often do,” Mitchell said from behind her. “This was no off the cuff murder—the guy is a professional. They do their best to blend into their surroundings and be as unobtrusive as possible.”

  “Yes, I wouldn’t have noticed him except he was leaving as I drove up. He was caught in the headlights, so I saw him clearly.” She shivered again and rubbed her arms. “So is that it? Can I go?”

  “Yes. We’ll be in touch if we need you for anything else.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jenna picked up the fragment of bone and lowered it gently into place. The skeleton was nearly complete and one of the finest she’d reconstructed. The sounds of the museum faded into the background as she worked methodically.

  Her lab smelled of dust and ancient decay. She loved this place. It filled her with a sense of peace and continuity.

  She’d always presumed the lack of knowledge of her own past had resulted in her passion for discovering the history of the human race. This particular skeleton dated back to the beginning of the Neolithic period, probably around 9500 BC.

  She stroked a finger over the smooth curve of the yellowed skull. So much history.

  Losing herself in piecing together the puzzle of her skeleton, she looked up only when one of the assistants entered the lab.

  “Jenna, there’s someone to see you.”

  Her first thought was the police, and the memory of David flooded over her again, followed swiftly by a dull ache in her chest.

  But for some reason, the stranger who stood in the doorway didn’t make her think “police.” He was tall, at least six three, with a lean body beneath black pants and a black shirt open at the throat. His face was pale, his hair short and black.

  When he saw she’d noticed him, he stepped into the room and came toward her, each step controlled, giving the impression of leashed power.

  Halting in front of her, he held out his hand. His eyes were a hazel, green-brown flecked with gold, and he had a scar down the right side of his face. His smile was polite, and she shook his hand briefly then pulled free and edged back.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  He studied her, head tilted to one side. “My name is Luke Grafton. I’m David’s cousin.”

  Shock locked her muscles. “I don’t understand. Have you heard—” She broke off as he nodded, his expression somber. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even know David had a cousin.”

  “We were close when we were younger, but we’d lost touch over the last few years.” He glanced around the lab, his eyebrows rising as he took in the half-formed skeleton on the table beside her. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “Of course.” Visitors were often uncomfortable around her work, though she had the impression very little would bother this man. “We can go to my office.”

  She led him out of the lab and along the corridor to her tiny cubicle, leaving the door open behind them. With this man beside her, she realized how minute the space really was. He was big, not only tall, but also broad at the shoulders, and she couldn’t help but be conscious of his closeness.

  She shook off the feeling as she cleared a box of bones from one of the two chairs. Skirting the desk, she sank into her own seat and indicated the one she had cleared. He sat on the too-small chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, arms folded across his chest, studying her intently, as though he could pierce her mind. Find her secrets.

  Almost squirming under the concentrated stare, she picked up a pencil from the desk, twiddled it between her finger and thumb, then put it down again and focused somewhere over his left shoulder. “I’m sorry about David. He was a good friend, but I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  “David called me last night.”

  Her gaze flashed to his face. “He did?”

  “I hadn’t heard from him in a while—I was surprised. He told me he thought he was being followed. He was frightened.”

  “Oh.” A tremor of unease skittered down her spine. She frowned as she thought about his words. “Why did he go to you and not the police?”

  “I run a security firm, and he asked me to investigate something for him. I also provide protection for prominent people.”

  “You mean like bodyguards?”

  He nodded.

  “David wanted you to provide him with a bodyguard?”

  “Not exactly. He wanted me to provide you with a bodyguard.”

  “I don’t understand.” Nor did she want to. She didn’t like where this conversation was going.

  “I don’t want to alarm you, Ms. Young, but David believed whoever was following him was a result of something he was looking into for you.”

  Jenna rubbed a finger over the spot between her brows. Her headache had returned with a vengeance along with her—supposedly
paranoid—fears of the night before. “I don’t understand. Why would he think that?”

  “He told me he’d received a phone call asking him about something related to you.”

  “Asking what?”

  “Does the word ‘Descartes’ mean anything to you?”

  He was still watching her intently, as though searching for some sort of reaction.

  She stood up and smoothed her skirt down over her thighs. “Are you telling me David was killed because of me? That’s crazy.”

  “Descartes?” he persisted.

  Her fists clenched at her side. “It’s a place on the moon, or so David told me.”

  “Why were you discussing it?”

  It occurred to her that she had absolutely no proof this man was who he said he was. An image of David’s tortured body flashed before her, and she edged sideways so that she was between him and the door, every muscle ready to run.

  His lips quirked, but the smile vanished quickly. As though he knew what she was thinking, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet, and handed her a business card.

  Luke Grafton, Security Services.

  He also handed her his driving license and finally, a photograph of a much younger David with his arms around the shoulders of Luke Grafton. The knot in her stomach eased slightly, and she handed back the photo and license.

  “I want to find out who killed David,” he said, putting the wallet in his pocket.

  “Can’t you leave it to the police?”

  “No.” His answer was vehement. “David came to me.” He shrugged and some emotion—guilt, maybe—flickered across his face. “He was worried, but I thought there was no urgency. I told him to stay calm, and I’d be with him today. If I’d listened to him, he’d still be alive.”

  That was understandable; she would do anything to find David’s killers. But until she had looked into this man’s background, she wasn’t telling him anything more. Jenna glanced down at the card in her hand. Once he’d left, she would do a search on him and decide how much she could safely tell him. Besides, she didn’t believe there could be a connection to David’s research for her and his death. It was a coincidence.