Kill and Cure

by Andy Ashdown Design

  ‘Okay, here we go. This is where we are,’ he said, pointing a finger into the page, ‘and we want to get here. So we need to take the next left, first right, which is Badet Road, and the building is somewhere down on the left.’

  ‘Next left, first right?’

  Kendrick pulled back out and drove on.

  Varcy folded the map carefully and wondered where this search was leading. Ten minutes ago, a call had been patched through to his car. A member of the public claimed to have information – specific details in fact – about the disappearance of Susan Harrison. Although initially sceptical, by the time the call was over, Varcy was more than interested.

  ‘Here it is,’ said Kendrick, slowing.

  ‘Pull up and let’s see what we’ve got.’

  The small building was wedged between a car mechanic’s workshop and an outfit manufacturing 263

  kitchen furniture. Dominating the outside was a security shutter and, to the side of this, a door.

  Kendrick rapped on the door. There was silence, followed by rustling, and finally it opened.

  ‘Come in quickly,’ said the voice. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  Varcy and Kendrick followed behind the voice which led them into a short corridor, and then right into a room that was taken up with benches and equipment. ‘A laboratory?’ said Varcy, getting his bearings.

  ‘It is,’ said the man standing in front of him. He pulled up two stools. ‘Won’t you take a seat, gentlemen? I’m glad you came so swiftly. Let me introduce myself. I’m Dr Roy Burman, and this is my colleague, Dr Aaron Grant.’

  The four men shook hands. Varcy’s glance bounced between the two scientists. The one speaking – Roy – was tall, with a small head and large rimmed spectacles. He chattered in short bursts and kept pushing his spectacles high onto the bridge of his nose. He held his hands close, wringing them, like a rat clutching a morsel of food. The other one sat silently, listening carefully, his head bowed slightly, hair flopping forwards into his eyes.

  The story came out in a jumble, pieces of information mixed together. No order; just pure release. Varcy and Kendrick scribbled furiously to keep up. When it was finally over, Roy sat blinking at the two policemen.

  The low buzz from the fluorescent lighting gave the lab an eerie glow, the struts of chrome and clean, 264

  white plastic, sharp scalpels and blunt vials, like ghouls in a sea mist.

  Finally Varcy stood up and began thumbing his notebook. He had written so rapidly his handwriting had degenerated into a scrawl. He flipped pages to make sense of it. Then he printed the following: KRENTHOL, DEMO, EMAIL, SHARES.

  He studied this for a moment and then drew a box around the last two words. At last he said, ‘The email with the hyperlink; you have a copy I assume?’

  Roy sprang to attention and scurried towards a bulky PC at the back of the lab. ‘It’s sitting in my Yahoo account.’

  * * *

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Maxi, ‘we don’t have much time.’

  They had piled into a greasy spoon, both of them breathing hard. Men sat in rows, devouring fried food and rolling loose tobacco. They found an empty table and settled in. ‘How did you know where I was?’ Stich asked.

  ‘I saw you leap the newsstand at Holborn. I was waiting to meet you, remember.’

  ‘What happened to Kelvin?’

  ‘Delayed. Don’t worry he’s arranged everything.

  I’m expecting a call.’

  ‘You look well,’ said Stich. ‘Much better than before.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Maxi. ‘The euphoria of knowing we are doing something positive has helped.’

  A waitress appeared; peroxide hair and stud 265

  earrings. She smiled and Stich noticed a chewed stick of gum nestling between her teeth. ‘I’ll have tea,’ he said.

  ‘Make it two,’ added Maxi. He took out his phone and dialled into it.

  Stich waited for the waitress to go. ‘I’m worried about Alice,’ he said.

  Maxi didn’t look up. ‘Don’t be. Tench can’t use her as a bargaining chip any longer. We have him cornered.’

  ‘I thought you were going to shoot him,’ Stich said.

  Maxi shook his head. ‘The demo with you in it will do the damage for us.’ He closed the phone. ‘Are you set?’

  Stich nodded. ‘Where did you learn to use a gun like that?’

  Maxi smiled and tossed over a laminated, credit card-sized ID. West of England Revolver and Pistol Club was emblazened on the front, with Maxi’s photo off to the side smiling out into the world. ‘I’ve been a member for over fifteen years.’

  Stich shook his head. ‘Well, I’m very grateful.’

  From Maxi’s pocket, his phone rang. He raised his hand, ‘I’ll be a few moments,’ and left the table.

  The waitress came back, balancing two chipped cups, teabags still in them, on a wooden tray.

  ‘Anything else?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, thanks.’ The tea was useless to him anyway. With arms clamped behind him he’d need a straw.

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  50

  Kelvin drove west towards Euston Square and a private research facility owned by Immteck. Stich dozed. His desire to close his eyes was almost painful.

  ‘You’ll never take her from me!’

  ‘Just watch me.’

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, no … no!’ She grips his neck. He is powerless to stop it. They unhook her arms. ‘Daddy, I don’t want to go.’

  He can hardly see through his own tears. ‘You bastards,’ he cries. ‘You fucking bastards.’

  They hit a speed bump and Stich came back to reality. He tried to clear the fog in his brain. What had happened? He could hardly keep up with it. On exiting the café, Stich had felt a pair of strong hands snap onto his shoulders. It happened so fast that he was powerless to react. He stood rooted and just stared at the dinner-suit man who had taken Alice.

  Maxi was out in an instant and began ranting. High pitched and penetrating, he hurled a string of abuse.

  Whether it was the public stage or Maxi’s threats that made the man step aside, Stich wasn’t sure.

  Suffice to say, he found himself being ushered by Maxi away from the greasy spoon and the thug, towards Kelvin who stood by a parked car. Kelvin 267

  took Stich’s arm and pushed him inside. Stich watched from the back seat as Maxi returned to continue the exchange, hands gesticulating wildly.

  The thug just stood there.

  Eventually, Maxi moved towards the car and tapped the window. Kelvin, who had sat passively in the driver’s seat, lowered it electronically. ‘Just do what Kelvin tells you,’ Maxi said, ‘and it’ll all work out. Trust me on this, Stich. Tench can’t be allowed to get away with it.’

  Stich nodded back to where they had come from.

  ‘What about him?’

  Maxi shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, he knows it’s over. He daren’t do a thing.’

  ‘Will I see you at the demo?’ asked Stich as Kelvin revved the engine.

  ‘I’ll catch up with you afterwards. I’m off to the Great Eastern to meet some press people. Good luck, Stich.’

  * * *

  Kelvin pulled into a small parking area. By the look of the surroundings this was the back of the building. Four blue refuse drums formed a line off to one side and next to this was a galvanised steel roller delivery entrance. Kelvin cranked the handbrake and turned in his seat. ‘We’ll need to get rid of those.’

  Stich lifted his hands automatically, revealing the cuffs. Kelvin hopped out, opened the boot and pulled out a pair of bolt cutters.

  ‘How did you know to get those?’ asked Stich.

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  ‘Maxi called me. I had to stop at B&Q.’

  Kelvin pushed him down onto the seat, turned him over and positioned the cutters. The blades hacked at the links and then at the body of the cuffs.

  Stich, from his prone position, gazed through the open back door. A loose ball of newspaper caught the wind
and spiralled upwards out of his sight.

  How did it get to this?

  ‘Come on let’s go,’ said Kelvin, ducking out of the backseat and dropping the cutters back into the boot. He led Stich towards the building. Free of the cuffs, Stich’s arms felt feather-light.

  A freight elevator was tucked inside the entrance and they rode it upwards. Kelvin went through the drill.

  ‘Dr Aaron Grant will meet you in his office and take you through the procedure. Say as little as possible.’

  The elevator came to an abrupt halt. The doors opened and Stich followed Kelvin into a dimly lit corridor. They passed a trolley strewn with stainless steel hardware. Some scalloped, others bladed; one piece looked like a modern wine cork remover. ‘Your identity is given by a subject number. There’s a male on the trial the same age as you and your details have been substituted for his. Your file tells Grant all he needs to know.’

  ‘No awkward questions, then?’

  Kelvin shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t be.’

  Stich followed him through a network of corridors, the nerves now biting into his stomach.

  Soon they stopped at an office door. Kelvin rapped 269

  on it. Stich could hear some movement from the other side. The door opened.

  ‘Dr Grant,’ said Kelvin. ‘This is subject one-two-zero.’

  Grant reached over to shake Stich’s hand. He wore a dark brown, knitted cardigan over a check shirt and tie. The sleeves of the cardigan were pushed up to his forearms revealing bony wrists. He looked dishevelled and tired, but it was the intensity of his eyes that caught Stich’s attention. Stich glanced at Kelvin who looked at Grant then coughed slightly. ‘Are you okay, Dr Grant?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ He appeared to straighten up a little. ‘You can leave us.’

  Grant resumed his study of Stich, then smiled and opened the door further. ‘Come in. This isn’t my usual office,’ Grant said, ‘but it will do for our purposes.’ The room was cluttered and small.

  Papers and files overflowed from cardboard boxes; deep lever arch folders stacked horizontally. A tick-tock clock on the wall ate into the quiet and reminded Stich what was about to happen.

  Grant uncapped an ink pen and began shuffling paper. ‘You’ve been told what we are going to do tonight?’ he asked.

  Stich replied that he had. Grant nodded. ‘You will be lightly anesthetised while a small piece of your tumour is subjected to the drug. We’ll have a tiny camera in your body monitoring how effective the drug is, okay?’

  Grant opened a file on his desk. ‘Let me run through a few things before we get you prepared.’

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  He put on a pair of glasses and read from the form in front of him. ‘You are subject one-two-zero, you are male, your date of birth 18/7/74, and you were diagnosed on 17th April. Is that correct?’

  Stich nodded.

  He peered over his glasses for a moment. ‘This is a consent form which you must sign before we can go ahead.’

  Stich had no idea what one-two-zero’s signature looked like, so he made a squiggle. Grant took the form back and studied it for a moment. A lank strand of hair fell forwards over his face.

  Stich was taken to a side room where he was instructed to undress and shower. He was given a surgical gown to wear and then told to lie on a trolley-bed. Stich rested his head back into the cushion. This was it. He watched the ceiling move away from him as the trolley was wheeled out of the room and into a side corridor. The smell of the hospital hit him afresh. Stich closed his eyes and thought about the money Maxi had promised him when this was done.

  ‘What would you do if you won a hundred thousand pounds?’ Susan had asked, as they lay naked, staring up at the ornate ceiling of room number seventy-one in the Hotel Modigliani.

  ‘Give up work,’ Stich replied.

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘I’d open a restaurant.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could cook.’

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  ‘I can’t.’

  She missed a beat then giggled and hit him with her pillow.

  Eyes closed, about to undergo more surgery, he’d give anything to be leading that sort of carefree life right now.

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  51

  Events have a habit of catching the unsuspecting off guard. That was true in Ed Connor’s world as much as anyone else’s. It started with the call he took while Stichell’s daughter was still in his car on their way back to her aunt’s house. An ex-con café owner whose premises Ed once protected was nervous.

  Two men had just come in.

  ‘So?’ Ed had said when the call came through on his mobile.

  ‘One’s got handcuffs on.’

  ‘Is he causing trouble?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I don’t like it, that’s all.’

  Ed sighed. ‘What do they look like?’

  The owner described them.

  Ed became interested.

  ‘I can’t afford trouble, Ed. That would fuck everything up. I don’t know who they are or what they’re up to and I don’t want to. I just want them gone.’

  ‘Do nothing, I’ll be straight over.’

  Now, as the car taking Stichell away disappeared in an exhaust haze on Chancery Lane, he turned his attention back to Maxi.

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  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Maxi with a shrug.

  Ed had figured the histrionics were staged.

  ‘Tench wants that man gone,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So why is he with you?’

  ‘He called me,’ said Maxi, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Look, I need him for a couple of hours.’

  Ed shook his head. ‘I agreed to work for you as long as it didn’t interfere with Laurence Tench.

  Tench wants him gone, that’s my priority.’

  Maxi held up his hands. ‘Just give me a couple of hours.’

  Ed frowned. ‘What happened back at Immteck?

  Why isn’t he a dead man?’

  ‘Look, I’ll pay you forty thousand pounds,’ said Maxi. ‘After that, he’s yours. That’s a lot of money for just two hours, Ed.’

  The offer was a shock. Maxi had already paid him very well for the Venton hit a few weeks before.

  Forty grand was a hell of a lot of money for two hours. ‘Why do you want him?’ asked Ed weighing it all up.

  ‘I have some business to attend to. He will be very useful in completing it.’

  ‘What if I say yes?’

  ‘Then I take him away for two hours, and bring him right back. Just turn a blind eye until then. ’

  Ed gave it some more thought. There were a couple of questions rattling around in his brain. One concerned Tench. He’d never ever let Tench down, and didn’t want to start now. The other concerned 274

  the money.

  ‘When do I get paid?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  The sooner he left this life behind the better.

  ‘Okay, you got two hours.’

  Maxi nodded.

  ‘If you let me down, I’ll kill you,’ Ed said.

  ‘I know,’ said Maxi.

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  52

  Grant dabbed the perspiration from his head. This was it; his shot at redemption.

  The lecture theatre was packed. Grant looked around at all the faces peering down at him from the gallery. They were not the usual crowd of fresh-faced undergrads who normally packed a lecture hall when he was giving a talk. No, this lot were very different. Venture capitalists, money brokers, heads of companies. They all wanted to know how much they should risk.

  Would this thing fly or not?

  Grant had expected to be nervous. He always was at the beginning of his seminars. Except tonight he wasn’t at all. Instead he was surprisingly calm. He looked up at Laurence Tench in the middle of the second row, immaculately dressed.

&
nbsp; The hubbub of voices hushed as Grant prepared to address the audience. At the back of the auditorium, unseen by all except Grant, Roy Burman slipped in and took a seat.

  Stich was covered with a white sheet up to the neck and lay, eyes closed and breathing deeply.

  Behind him, a clutch of vital sign monitors and an anesthetist to read them. Half-way down the body on the right side, a square had been cut into the 276

  sheet where a long, thin, stainless steel tube pierced his flesh. It was connected to insulated electrical wires leading to a control room. To Grant’s side was a trolley on which an array of surgical equipment lay.

  Grant cleared his throat and welcomed the guests.

  ‘Now, before we get to the demonstration proper, I want to show you an electron micrograph of a biopsy taken from this subject a little earlier.’

  Up on a large screen above Grant’s head, the image appeared. ‘You’ll notice the metaplastic tissue and the adjacent healthy tissue,’ said Grant. ‘The metaplastic tissue is our target, of course, and by injecting an isotonic solution of the subject’s own immunoglobulin and granulocytes, together with Krenthol, we should get a rapid response.’

  Grant reached into an ice bucket and removed a syringe. ‘I’d like you all to focus on the screen as I inject the solution. We will view the results as they happen in this patient’s body, via this probe which is hooked up to the scanning microscope.’

  The image above Grant’s head switched to a hazy picture, then jumped as if being refocused.

  Grant glanced up at it. When it settled down, he said, ‘Okay, this is real time. What you see is exactly what is going on inside the patient.’ He used a pointer. ‘You are looking at the liver tissue. We’ve placed the camera toward the right lobule where the bulk of diseased tissue is located. Notice the contrast between the unaffected and the cancerous part of the organ.’ Grant moved back to the 277

  apparatus near Stichell and injected the solution.

  The black vibrating dots appeared at the edges of the cells. ‘The antibody is flooding the area,’ he said, moving back to the screen.

  In the audience a hand went up. Grant nodded at the man called Terence Knoeman from Drekard Pharmaceuticals in Holland. ‘I was wondering about antibody specificity. What molecule will it be targeting?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Grant. ‘We’ve characterised a molecule called Tum-8 which is uniquely expressed on all tumour cells.’