Panic Room

by Robert Goddard

  ‘I spoke to some of these people, Filippo. High-powered in their fields. The best, in fact, charging accordingly. This company’s been funding – that is, Astrid here, representing this company with your full authority – has been funding a whole range of research projects in fields which have no obvious bearing on the development of new pharmaceutical products or the improvement of existing ones.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I also have reason to believe you’ve been the conduit for a vast package of additional funding that doesn’t appear to have any booked source, which I can only assume Jack Harkness put in place for the purpose.’

  ‘I’m not an accountant.’

  ‘No. You’re a chemist. So, what is the chemical application of the work you’ve paid for so generously and abundantly?’

  ‘Bioelectronics are the future, Ingrid,’ says Jane suddenly. ‘Implants to fight pain by targeting electrical signals in damaged nerves are a therapeutic game-changer.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says Filippo.

  ‘Could well be,’ agrees Ingrid. ‘But then I have three questions. One, why is it being funded in such a surreptitious manner? Two, why is it being funded to what appears such a ruinous cost level? And three, why has the Board never been told about this … game-changer?’

  Filippo shrugs. ‘They don’t want to know anything, as long as the profits keep rolling in.’

  ‘I have checked all Board documentation for the past five years,’ says Hertha. ‘There is not even a single background briefing paper on this.’

  ‘I did what Jack asked me to,’ Filippo responds. It sounds like he thinks that’s an answer for everything. But it doesn’t sound like an answer to Ingrid. Or to me. What did Harkness really ask him to do?

  ‘Doctor Alan Tau, Cambridge University. Nanotechnology pioneer. You’re familiar with his work? Well, I should hope so, considering you’re paying for most of it. But what are you getting for all that money, Filippo? What is Harkness Pharmaceuticals getting for it?’

  ‘Deliverability.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Can I explain?’ offers Jane.

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Doctor Tau’s specialism is nanobot mobility and communication. Nanobots – that is, microscopic medical robots, about one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair – can be introduced into the human bloodstream and nervous system via any or all of Harkness Pharmaceuticals’ existing products.’

  ‘Hold on,’ says Ingrid. ‘I thought nanobots were purely theoretical devices.’

  ‘Not as such. They can be made using current technologies and delivered via drugs and cosmetics. The problem is moving them around the body and determining where and when they perform their design function.’

  ‘What function would that be?’ I ask. Maybe we’re close to an answer now.

  Jane smiles at me. Anyone would think she was enjoying herself. ‘It could be biochemical or bioelectronic, or some combination of the two.’

  ‘Is this what you’ve been working on with Harkness for the past twenty-two years?’

  Jane turns her smile on Ingrid. ‘I get the feeling Blake wants to present her theory to you that I’m actually someone called Jane Glasson.’

  Ingrid doesn’t miss a beat. ‘And are you?’

  ‘You may as well hear what she has to say. Then you’ll be able to make your mind up. Whatever you conclude won’t make any difference, though.’

  ‘No difference?’

  ‘To the future.’

  ‘Of the company, you mean?’

  Jane doesn’t answer. She just looks at me. ‘Go on, Blake,’ she says. ‘Tell her who you think I once was. I’m really looking forward to hearing all about me.’

  Delay and diversion had so far achieved nothing. Don’s last, lingering hope was that the local police might have been sent to Wortalleth West looking for Harkness on instructions from the Met. If so, he had to hope they would be there when he, Harkness, French and Zlenko eventually showed up.

  French lapsed into a grouchy silence and no one else found anything to say as they drove west to the main road, then north to Mullion.

  Considering French and Zlenko were both carrying guns, any idea of jumping out and making a run for it was suicidal. Don looked at the shoppers and holidaymakers wandering along the main shopping street and felt he was looking at a world he was no longer part of.

  The air was clear, the light bright. It was the sort of day that should have made the spirit soar. But a black cloud of foreboding had enveloped Don’s thoughts. They had not left death behind at Chybargos. It had travelled with them. He seemed to feel its cold breath on the back of his neck. French and Zlenko were killers. When they had what they had come for, what were the chances they would leave alive any witnesses to what they had done?

  Harkness took the road to Mullion Cove, then turned off down a lane signposted to Predannack. It descended into a valley, then climbed between low-hedged, patchwork fields towards a crest. Halfway to the top, he slowed and swung the car into a rough track that led off to the left.

  Ahead was a five-bar gate, beyond which the track continued to some destination out of sight round the hillside. Harkness pulled up. ‘Someone needs to open the gate,’ he said neutrally.

  French turned and nodded meaningfully at Zlenko, who nodded back, then said to Don, ‘Get out.’

  By the time Don had climbed from the car, Zlenko was out too, the gun visible now in his hand. He stayed a few yards away as Don walked to the gate, pushed it open and wedged it behind a rock.

  They got back in the car and Harkness drove on. As they rounded the next bend, the ruined farm appeared ahead: a weed-pocked yard, a house with the roof and most of the front wall gone, but the gable ends still standing; a half-collapsed barn, almost entirely overgrown; another, corrugated-iron structure, fallen in on itself, with the rusting carcass of an old tractor just visible beneath a drift of ivy.

  ‘Welcome to Tredarvas,’ said Harkness surprisingly. ‘Ancestral home of the Frys.’

  ‘Witch born here?’ Zlenko asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes,’ Harkness replied. ‘Year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-three. It would have looked very different then. As it did in my childhood.’

  ‘I don’t want to know the first fucking thing about your childhood,’ growled French as the car drew to a halt at the edge of the yard. ‘Let’s just get this done.’

  ‘Get out,’ Zlenko motioned to Don.

  ‘You too, Jack,’ French added.

  They all climbed slowly from the car. There was birdsong in the air and a freshness in the breeze. But it could not dispel the heaviness of the dread that clung to Don.

  ‘There’s a jerrycan of gasoline in the back of the car, Don,’ said French. ‘Get it.’

  Don moved to the rear of the car, raised the tailgate and grabbed the jerrycan. By its weight, it felt full. He noticed a stubby-headed screwdriver lying just clear of the tarpaulin that had been slung over the cutting gear. On some frail impulse of self-preservation, he picked up the screwdriver and slipped it into his pocket as he lifted out the jerrycan.

  ‘It’s your show now, Gennady,’ said French.

  ‘You know this place good, Harkness?’ Zlenko asked.

  Harkness smiled grimly. ‘I used to.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Harkness nodded and led the way to the ruined farmhouse. Zlenko tagged along behind him. French brought up the rear with Don.

  Harkness stepped through what must once have been the front door. They followed him as he crossed the skeletal remains of several internal walls until he was standing in the lee of one of the gable ends, next to a weed-choked fireplace.

  ‘This was the kitchen,’ he announced. ‘As close to the spiritual centre of the house as you’ll get. Calensa Fry, Wynsum’s grandmother, used to do her readings here. Wynsum learnt most of the witchcraft she knew from Calensa. And this, I’d guess, is where she did most of that learning.’

  ‘Good enough, Gennad
y?’ French asked with an edge of impatience.

  ‘Da.’ Zlenko gazed around at the little there was to see. He looked almost awestruck. ‘Da,’ he repeated. Then he moved closer to where Harkness was standing and toed away some dust and dead leaves from one of the flagstones. He bent down, opened the bag he was carrying and let the contents flop out on to the floor.

  ‘You took those off her?’ French asked Don.

  All Don could do was nod.

  ‘Rather you than me is all I can say. Get over there with the gasoline.’

  Don moved forward and offered the jerrycan to Zlenko.

  ‘No,’ said Zlenko. ‘You.’

  Don opened the can, then started pouring petrol on to the socks and knickers. He did not stop until Zlenko raised his hand.

  ‘Enough.’ Zlenko crossed himself, then took out a box of matches, struck one and dropped it on to the clothes. They started burning with a woomph and a dragon’s-tongue of blue and yellow flame.

  ‘Can we go now?’ asked French, who was standing at Don’s shoulder.

  ‘When all burnt,’ Zlenko replied, staring at the flames. ‘Then we go. Not long.’

  Looking at the fire, Don had to agree. It would not be long.

  I get the feeling Ingrid’s only really interested in the possibility that Astrid Townsend is actually Jane Glasson because it’s another example of Harkness’s double-dealing. The company’s hired her to fight fires and this is another curl of flame she has to stamp on. She doesn’t look as if she either believes or disbelieves me. All she seems to be doing, while I speak, is weighing up the potential damage of what I’m claiming.

  Jane’s playing it cool, like she has the whole time since we left Zürich. Filippo, on the other hand, is het up, squirming and twitching and muttering things in Italian I can’t understand but I guess mean he wants this over and Ingrid and Hertha out of his way so he can do whatever it is he came here to do.

  He’s getting no help from Jane in that direction, though. And Hertha wants to ask him about company funds I say have been diverted through the Nightingale account to pay for Holly Walsh’s Ditrimantelline treatment. Filippo tries to brush her off with a line he’s already used – ‘I’m not an accountant’ – but that doesn’t work. Hertha pretty obviously smells a rat. ‘The Board will require a full report on all this … unorthodox and … unapproved … use of funds that were not allocated for such purposes.’

  Ingrid probes Hertha a bit about why a mere consultant – Jane, alias Astrid – has been given so much access to company funds and the authority to spend them pretty much as she pleases. Hertha throws that back on Harkness. ‘Chairman’s discretion.’ Ingrid looks unimpressed. Black mark for Hertha in her final report to the Board, maybe.

  A lot worse for Filippo, surely. And for Jane. But she’s doing a good impression of not giving a flying fuck. When I’ve finished, she just says, ‘Total nonsense, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So,’ says Ingrid, ‘you categorically deny being Jane Glasson?’

  ‘Certainly. I’m Astrid Townsend.’ She gives a little this-is-all-madness laugh. ‘And I always have been.’

  Her phone rings at that moment. She takes it out, looks at the screen, then presses a button and puts it away. The whole move only takes a few seconds. But there’s a change in her face as those seconds flash by. I see it, though I’m not sure anyone else does.

  Except maybe Filippo. He looks at her enquiringly. He seems to want to speak, but he swallows the words. Jane shakes her head so slightly you’d have to be staring hard at her – like I am – to notice. And she smiles, faintly, reassuringly. It’s all right, she’s telling him. There’s nothing to worry about.

  But I bet there is.

  Zlenko stared at the clothes as they burnt and so did Don. He hardly noticed Harkness turning his back on the scene and reaching into his pocket. Nor did he register the muffled ping of a mobile phone.

  But French did. ‘What the fuck was that?’ he shouted.

  Harkness looked over his shoulder at him and smiled. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’ve got a second phone, haven’t you? Who’ve you just called?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Give it to me.’ French pushed past Don and strode through a thick patch of weeds to reach Harkness. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him round. In his other hand he held his gun. He was angry, as much with the situation as with Harkness’s concealment of a second phone. ‘I said—’

  Then something gave way beneath him. There was a crack of splintering wood. The floor vanished beneath French’s feet. He plunged downwards, pulling Harkness with him. Harkness lost his balance and both men tumbled into the hole that had suddenly opened. Don glimpsed the rotten frame of a wooden hatch and the treads of a steep, narrow stairway – the entrance to a cellar, he guessed.

  There were several loud thumps as the two men landed at the foot of the stairs. French’s gun went off, the noise of the shot echoing like a thunderclap. Someone moaned. Then … nothing.

  Don rushed to the edge of the hole. Below him he saw French lying on his back, apparently unconscious. The gun was a foot or so from his right hand. Harkness was slumped in a foetal position against the lowest stair. Blood was spreading from the region of his stomach, a pool of black, as it appeared in the limited light, expanding in a sea of grey.

  Don started down the stairs on instinct. They creaked beneath his weight and one tread broke away altogether, but he made it to the bottom and stepped gingerly over Harkness, clear of the blood.

  Harkness grimaced up at him. It seemed to Don he was trying to smile. ‘Looks like the bitch got me in the end, eh, Don?’ He forced the words out through gritted teeth. ‘Never should … never should have come here. That’s … down to you.’

  Don leant over him. ‘Where’s the blood coming from?’

  ‘Somewhere in my gut. That damned idiot French didn’t actually mean to shoot me. His gun … went off when we hit the floor. It doesn’t … hurt much … but I’m a goner. I can feel the life … oozing out of me.’

  ‘We’ll call an ambulance.’

  ‘Zlenko’ll never let you do that.’ Harkness craned his eyes upwards. ‘Will you, Gennady?’

  Zlenko loomed above them in the splintered, cobwebbed hatchway. ‘No calls,’ he said bluntly. ‘If you go for gun,’ he added for Don’s benefit, ‘I shoot you.’ The gun in his hand was pointing down at Don, to prove the point.

  ‘They’d be too late … anyway,’ gasped Harkness. ‘Listen, Don. Your only chance … of getting out of this alive … is to open the panic room.’ A groan came from French in that instant. His legs twitched. He began to stir. ‘These two … will be so busy … with what they find … you’ll probably be able to get away.’

  ‘I don’t know how to open it.’

  Harkness grabbed Don’s shirt and pulled him closer. Don knelt down on the cold, hard floor and leant forward until he could feel the weak fanning of the dying man’s breath against his face. ‘There’s a painting … on the drawing-room wall. Abstract by … Peter Lanyon. Far West. Behind it … there’s a safe. Inside the safe … there’s a switch. Throw it … and the panic-room door opens. Simple.’

  ‘What’s the combination?’

  ‘Three numbers. It’s an old-fashioned … mechanical safe. You know what I mean?’

  Don nodded. At the first estate agency he had worked in, there had been an old Chubb in the boss’s office. Don still remembered the combination, wheedled out of the boss’s secretary over several gin and tonics.

  ‘It’s the date … I killed Jory Fry. One. Eight. Seventy. Got it?’

  Don nodded again. ‘Got it.’

  ‘I have a couple of Lanyons. The other’s … in Zug. And I gave a third … to a friend. They’re all … from his Cornish period. Ever done any gliding … Don?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Clarity. Perspective. Freedom. That’s what you find … in the sky … with no power but the wind to keep you up there. If you can’t … make it back to the aero
drome … you have to put down … wherever you can. We call that … a field landing … Can be bumpy … Can be fatal if you get it wrong. I guess … this is my field landing … Not where I expected … but then again … Be sure … you open that door … Don. It’s got to be opened.’

  ‘I guess I should thank you, Blake,’ says Ingrid with a sickly smile. ‘You’ve demonstrated there’s no case for making any kind of settlement with you. Your claim that a company consultant may have changed her identity twenty-two years ago doesn’t represent any kind of reputational threat to Harkness Pharmaceuticals. The amount of money that may have passed through the Nightingale account is in budgetary terms insignificant. And you’ve offered nothing in the way of proof that Anna Marchant was planted in Holly Walsh’s life by Harkness. To speak frankly, there’s no good reason why we should care whether Astrid is actually Jane Glasson or not.’

  ‘Hear that, Jane?’ I’ve got nowhere else to go now. ‘You may as well admit it.’

  ‘I’m admitting nothing,’ Jane replies, with not a single flicker of a facial reaction.

  ‘How did Harkness talk you into it? What persuaded you to join his team? It went against all your principles, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘I haven’t betrayed my principles, Blake. Not then. Not now. Not ever.’

  ‘So, there was a then, was there?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Filippo cut in. ‘Didn’t you hear what Ingrid said? This is all … bullshit. We should end this meeting.’

  ‘I think you should certainly leave us, Blake,’ said Ingrid. ‘You have nothing else to contribute, I assume?’

  ‘What about Gareth Lawler?’ I’m getting desperate now. ‘He wound up in hospital for daring to ask Astrid about her past.’

  ‘That was an accident,’ says Jane coolly.

  ‘You know about this?’ Ingrid glances at Hertha.

  Hertha shakes her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Per l’amor di Dio.’ Filippo thumps his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘Who cares about Gareth Lawler?’

  ‘What happened to him was nothing to do with me,’ says Jane. ‘He was hit by a truck crossing the road outside his hotel. He probably looked the wrong way. A common mistake by people just arrived from the UK.’