Double Blind

by Carrie Bedford

  Without waiting for an answer, he started walking again, forcing me to stride fast to keep up with him. Passing a woman and a little boy feeding nuts to two squirrels, we soon reached the stand that sold drinks and sandwiches. Once I had the warm cup in my hands, I followed Clarke as he strode out again, apparently determined to do a complete loop of the huge park. I’d finished my rich, creamy chocolate by the time we reached the exit.

  “Thanks for listening to me,” I said.

  “Yes, well. You take care of yourself. Don’t approach any of these people. Leave it with me.”

  “Ok, but time is running out.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said by way of farewell.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I was on my way back to the tube station when Anita called me. “Lunch?” she said. “I’ll bring sandwiches. Let’s go the British Museum. I haven’t been there for months.”

  We’d often spend a few hours together there or at the Tate or National Gallery, chatting quietly in front of a Turner landscape or a Caulfield still life. Anita had a theory that we’d absorb knowledge and culture just by being close to the artworks. Osmosis, she called it.

  We found a bench in the Egyptian rooms, where we gazed at painted and gilded coffins and linen-wrapped mummies. It was quiet, mercifully free of groups of schoolchildren on field trips. Most of the visitors were elderly locals or American tourists in tennis shoes. A few auras drifted past over grey-haired ladies, but I ignored them.

  Anita’s aura, on the other hand, demanded my full attention, although it hadn’t changed much from the day before. It was strong but no worse, moving sinuously around her hair. The sight of it made me feel nauseous. She leaned back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of her.

  “I’m knackered,” she said. “I barely slept last night in spite of going to bed early, and I was back in the hospital at the crack of dawn. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. I can usually keep up the pace with no problem.”

  “Did you get all the check-ups I asked you to?”

  “Yes, I did. EKG, blood work, all the standard stuff. I’m fit as a fiddle, Kate. Just a little tired. And Dad’s driving me crazy.”

  “Anita, I know it seems far-fetched, but let’s just run through some scenarios. Think about those suitors your dad is lining up. Have you had any strange interactions with any of them?”

  “All the interactions are strange. Completely bizarre. My mum cooks a fabulous meal, which I don’t eat because I’m too worked up about the stranger sitting opposite me. My dad conducts the Indian equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition, bombarding the poor chap with questions about his education, his job, his prospects. And whatever his name is can’t eat because he’s too occupied answering my father.”

  “That does sound weird,” I said. “But seriously, has any of these potential inamorati behaved inappropriately? You know, like stalking?”

  “No, of course not,” Anita said, but then she frowned. “Well, there is Kai. I have to admit he’s odd. He inundated me with texts for a while until I told him to stop or I’d call the police. And I saw him lurking outside the hospital a couple of times.”

  “When was that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t remember exactly. Six months ago, I think.”

  “Ok, then keep an eye open for him.”

  “He might be weird, but he’s not going to do me in, Kate. That’s more than just far-fetched, that’s absurd.”

  I sighed. “It’s all absurd at some level,” I said. “But humor me and promise to watch out. Please?”

  She shifted on the bench to find a more comfortable position.

  “Was Dr. Reid at work this morning?” I asked, still clicking through possible connections in my head.

  “No, he’s on duty this afternoon and evening. Why? Do you want to check on his aura again?” She said “aura” as though it was a swear word.

  “I do, actually,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come over there tomorrow. Has he been okay? No more incidents?”

  “No. He’s been fine. Maybe he just had a touch of flu or something, because he’s back to his normal self now.” She frowned. “Oh, and he asked to meet with me tomorrow. It was a little odd, actually, because he looked really uncomfortable about it. That kind of look your boss has when he’s going to fire you. I hope he’s not going to tell me I’m doing a bad job. I’m giving it all I can.”

  “Did you ask him what it was about?”

  “I tried, but he was in a hurry. I’ll just have to be patient until ten tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s probably nothing important. Try not to worry.”

  Anita stood up suddenly. “Come on, let’s go to Asia. I’ve had enough of staring at dead people.”

  We strolled slowly to the Asian gallery and found another empty bench. In front of us was a group of painted earthenware figures, guardians of a tomb from the Tang dynasty. It seemed that getting away from dead people was a bit of a challenge in the British Museum.

  “I have some interesting news for you,” I said. I told her about Chris Melrose. She sat up straight and looked at me, all signs of fatigue gone. “Chris is Simon Scott’s son? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “No really.”

  She grabbed my hand. “We have to go talk to him, don’t you think? I want to see that wall for myself.”

  “I don’t want to go back to his house,” I said. “Seeing those mutilated pictures was really creepy. He could be dangerous.”

  Anita patted her Burberry handbag. “You know me. Always prepared. I’ve got my pepper spray with me. If he tries anything, we’ll take him down. That would be quite enjoyable actually. I could do with working off some pent-up aggression.”

  “You should go to the gym and hit a punchbag then.” I said, images of a fight between Chris and Anita darting through my head. Chris didn’t have an aura, which meant that Anita would lose. My pulse began to race at the thought. “No way. We’re not going to the house. In fact, we shouldn’t talk to him about it at all. I’ve already told the police.”

  Anita looked at me in surprise. “You went to the police?”

  “Of course. Scott is in danger. I’m sure that Chris is a threat. Think about it. Scott abandoned his mother when she got pregnant. She died just a few months ago, quite young and after what sounds like a tough life. Chris wants revenge.”

  “Will the police arrest him?”

  “I doubt it. There’s no evidence. But my detective friend said he’d look into it.”

  “We could get evidence,” Anita said. “We could take a photo of the hate wall. You could give it to your policeman friend.”

  “No. We’ll leave it to the police.”

  “For crying out loud, Kate. You’re no fun,” said Anita, wrapping her scarf around her neck. We were looking at Viking treasure when Anita tried again. “Let’s contact Chris and suggest a drink or something. I want to see for myself if you’re right. Does he really look like Scott? We’ll invite him out for afternoon tea and I’ll be frightfully proper, I promise.”

  Anita had put Chris’s number on her mobile when we were all traveling on the bus, in case we got split up. She rang it as soon as we got outside and he answered, somewhat to my surprise. I’d imagined him, knife in hand, in the bedroom, pinning Scott to the wall, intent on destroying him, one slash at a time.

  “Okay,” Anita spoke into the phone. “How about that tearoom just round the corner from St. Paul’s? How long do you need? Good, see you there.”

  Thirty minutes later, we were seated at a table in the cozy cafe, where white tablecloths provided the only respite from the profusion of pink, gold and blue porcelain teacups, saucers, and teapots that adorned every level surface. Most of the tables were full, and a quiet hum of conversation offered a soothing counterpoint to Vivaldi playing in the background.

  “When you said afternoon tea, I thought you were joking,” I said to Anita, who grinned, obviously happy with her chosen meeting place.

  Chris arrived
not long afterwards, bringing a rush of cold air in with him.

  “Chris, we have something to ask you,” I said when the tea had arrived. “Was your mother Phoena Stamos?”

  He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “What?”

  “I came across some information on her when I was doing some background research on Simon Scott for a story,” I said. “I learned that she was a friend of Scott’s when they were at Cambridge together.”

  He shrugged. “So what? That was a long time ago.”

  “Because I think you’re Simon Scott’s son.”

  Chris’s hand trembled and he put his teacup down slowly. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “My father was William Melrose.” His cheeks were flushed and his eyes glittered.

  “No, he wasn’t. Melrose married your mother when you were, what, five or six years old? It’s okay, Chris. I’m just interested, that’s all.”

  “Interested? Sounds like more than that to me. This is none of your business.”

  I glanced at Anita, wondering if she would say something. This had been her idea, to talk to Chris. Now she didn’t even seem to be listening.

  “I’m sorry, Chris. You’re right. It’s none of my business. Forget I said anything.”

  We were all silent for a minute. I crumbled a piece of scone into small pieces on my plate, wishing we hadn’t come.

  “Tell me why you want to know,” Chris said. “What difference does it make?”

  “It could maybe demonstrate what kind of man Simon Scott is,” I said. “Does he know about you? Did your mum ever tell him?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  He looked at his watch, then poured more tea into his cup. His hand steadied and the flush was fading from his cheeks. “I really don’t want to talk about it, Kate. Everything that happened is old history. It caused all sorts of problems for my mother, but I’m not letting it affect my life. I’ve moved on.”

  “So why are you volunteering on Scott’s campaign? That doesn’t seem like moving on.”

  His cheeks reddened again. “My mum died a few months ago. I don’t have any other relatives in England and very limited contact with my family back in Greece. I talk to my grandmother, and one of my aunts, but that’s all. I don’t know, maybe I wanted to reach out, to make a connection. Anyway, I hadn’t realized that Scott would never come to the campaign office or meet with the volunteers. I thought I’d have a chance to talk to him at some point, but that was just wishful thinking on my part.”

  “Have you tried to contact him? To tell him he’s your father?”

  “I wrote to him once, hoping to get him to apologize to my mother or something, I don’t know. I was only sixteen when I wrote the letter. I never heard back from him.”

  “So he does know you exist,” I said. I felt that information settle like a rock in my stomach. I couldn’t imagine what would drive a man to refuse to acknowledge his own son.

  He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s ancient history. I’m not going to make the same mistake my mum made, living in the past, full of regret. She was happy with my stepfather for a while, but after he died, she just seemed to give up. We never had any money. She wouldn’t look for a job. She didn’t fight back. That’s why I’m working so hard to get my doctorate.”

  I thought of Eliza Chapman and her derailed career, wondering how it could be that Simon Scott had done so much damage to the lives of two bright young women. Was he to blame? Were they?

  Anita moved her chair back. “I need to go to the loo,” she said. “Do you need to go, Kate?”

  I was about to say no, but she squeezed my arm. Not sure what was going on, I nodded. “Okay. We’ll be straight back, Chris.”

  I followed Anita, tripping over a step in my haste to keep up. I was worried that she was ill. But when we reached the pink-papered bathroom, Anita didn’t rush into a stall. Instead she turned and looked at me. An air freshener pumped out the scent of lavender.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “Did you see the stains on Chris’s fingers?”

  “I didn’t notice anything,” I said, although now I was thinking about it, I realized that he did have orange marks on both hands.

  “Nitric acid can cause that kind of marking on the skin. It starts off yellow but turns orange when it is diluted with water. You know, if you got drops of acid on your skin, you’d run your hands under water to neutralize the acid burns? And when he took off his coat, there was an odor. I’ve been trying to place it, something like acetone or peroxide.”

  “So? He’s a chemical engineering student.”

  “I know he is, but those elements I mentioned can be used to make explosives.”

  “Explosives?”

  “Yes, Kate. Isn’t that why we’re here? To find out what he’s planning against Scott? Well, I think he’s planning a bomb attack of some kind.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When we went back to our table, Chris had gone. He’d left a twenty-pound note tucked under his plate, more than enough to pay for his share of our partially-consumed meal.

  “That’s a definite sign of guilt,” said Anita. “Running away.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Chris had been blindsided by my interrogation and by Anita’s silence. If I were him, I’d have left as well. Anita gathered up her things. “Come on, I think we should tell the police at once.”

  “Just give me a minute,” I said, digging in my pocket for a clean tissue. I put on my leather gloves to pick up the note Chris had left, wrapped it carefully in the tissue and put it in my bag. An elderly couple at the nearest table watched me closely.

  “Are you a detective?” the lady asked. “Did that nice young man do something wrong?”

  “He works for Russian intelligence,” I said. “But we’ll catch him, don’t worry.”

  The lady turned to her husband in excitement. “Did you hear that, George?”

  “Can you leave money for the bill?” I asked Anita. “I’ll pay you back later.”

  “I will if you tell me why you took the note?”

  “We can have it tested to see if you’re right about the kind of chemicals Chris had on his hands. It’s possible that some traces would have transferred to the paper when he took the note out of his wallet.”

  “Not if he washed his hands thoroughly,” she said. “But it’s worth a try.”

  “Let’s go past the police station and drop off this note,” I suggested.

  When we got there, the desk sergeant told us that Clarke was out. I was disappointed; I wanted to introduce him to Anita. I left a short message, explaining the bank note, feeling a little nauseous as I wrote it. I really liked Chris and this felt like a betrayal. But if I could stop him from doing something stupid, I was doing the right thing.

  We left the police station, immediately pounded by needle sharp rain and a blustery wind that blew my hair into tangles. Anita tucked her arm through mine. Together we hurried through the darkening streets, past brightly-lit shop windows full of mannequins and dresses and shoes. Normal pursuits like shopping for clothes seemed like a vague and distant dream.

  We were cold and wet by the time we reached my flat, where I turned on lamps and music, and closed the blinds against the increasingly vile weather outside. Anita poured two glasses of wine while I checked the fridge and cupboards for dinner ingredients. Once we’d decided on fettuccine with mushrooms, we divvied up the preparations, falling seamlessly into the way we’d cooked together for years when we were students. We hadn’t done this since Anita came back from a one-year residency at a hospital in Boston. I often cooked with Josh, though, and wondered how he was doing. We’d only exchanged a few texts since our argument the previous week. It was time to mend the rift. Using my phone to take a picture of Anita and me together, I sent it to him. “Missing you,” I texted.

  He sent a message straight back “I miss you too. Out with clients talking work. I’ll ring you later.”

  “So, I’m still waiting to hear how you came to make
friends with a detective,” Anita said.

  “He investigated the death of my friend Rebecca. She and I took the same structural design classes at university, but you never met her, I don’t think. Anyway, she was one of my first aura sightings. I did what I could, but…” I trailed off, the silence broken by the rhythmic knife strokes on the chopping board as Anita diced onions. She put the knife down and looked at me, eyes wide.

  “She died? Was she murdered?”

  I nodded. Even now, it depressed me to think about it.

  “And she had an aura? Like mine?”

  “Yes.

  Anita picked up the knife and attacked the mushrooms, slicing them with surgical accuracy.

  My mobile buzzed. I picked it up, expecting it to be Josh again. Instead it was a text from Colin Butler. “Check your email. Got a hit on that photo.”

  Anita replenished our wineglasses while I opened my laptop and logged on.

  “Hey, look at this,” I said, glad of a reason to change the subject. “This is the man who was watching Scott with binoculars in the park. I gave his photo to Butler to check it out. He says the guy’s name is David Lowe, and he was once arrested for threatening Scott with a knife. That’s why his picture is on file.”

  “Let me see.” Anita turned the laptop so she could view the screen better. Colin’s email went on to say that Lowe’s wife had died during an operation performed by Simon Scott. The hospital had denied any wrongdoing but when Lowe had turned up at Scott’s medical office brandishing a knife at him, he had to be subdued by two porters. No charges were pressed because no injury had been inflicted, but Lowe was put under a restraining order.

  Anita sat back and took a big gulp of her wine. “That was eight years ago. You think he’s still holding a grudge against Scott after all that time?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Wouldn’t you, if you’d lost your spouse, and the doctor who did the surgery was about to be elected to the highest political office in England? You’d probably be resentful and angry. So now we have three possible suspects, assuming that Scott’s aura indicates death from a violent act of some kind.”