The City Dealer

by Neil Rowland

  “Hi,” she smiled sweetly. “You’re looking nice,” she told him, peering up.

  “I did a bit of clothes shopping,” he explained dryly.

  “Really, you made good choices.”

  “I’m glad that you approve, Pixie,” he replied.

  “How’s the hotel?”

  “Why are you bothered?” Clive said. “I’m surprised you want to see me again. Considering what you found out.”

  “Do you have any idea what I found out?” she returned.

  They settled together on the bench. They looked out over that variegated crowd, which was constantly moving, and surrounding them, noisy and unruly, amidst overflowing fast food garbage, pigeons and pigeon mess.

  “You watched me running away, didn’t you? You probably assumed the worst too. I assume Sep invited you to look around the hospital.”

  “He literally invited me to visit Emmy. Did you know the hospital is actually named after him?” she explained.

  “Well, yes, I thought you had to be a singer, or an astronaut, or even the wife of a president, for that,” Clive remarked.

  “You’re not the only one who can trawl through a hard drive,” she told him.

  “What are you getting at? Whose hard drive?” he wondered.

  “Nothing as dangerous as you attempted. I just took a quick look at the hospital’s records.”

  “Did you really?” he marvelled, perking up.

  “Sep was occupied... and the staff too. Meanwhile he wasn’t keeping an eye on me. They were too busy chasing after you.”

  “Well, they didn’t catch up with me,” he said, clasping his hands between his knees, as if steadying himself.

  “I asked to sit down and have a cup of tea...the nerves of young ladies can be fragile,” she joked. “I was terribly flustered and nervous. And then I wandered by accident into the manager’s office, just off reception. While I was there I had a look through the hospital records, and patient files. You see I’m no slouch at this either Clive. I know how to turn the thing on you know.”

  “That’s clever of you, Pixie. So did you find anything?”

  Pitt raised his voice above the antics of excited teenagers on the next bench.

  “Emmy isn’t just staying there to recuperate,” she said. “This place is a type of psychiatric hospital. It’s a leading research facility into brain function.”

  Pitt’s face showed surprise. “I noticed the labs and equipment,” he added.

  “They don’t simply develop and test new drugs, but literally conduct interventions and mind experiments.”

  “Does that have to be sinister? They’re the research arm of a multinational pharmaceutical company.”

  “Listen to me, Emmy has been put there to change her character. Their idea is literally to turn her into a good girl. They don’t want to do her any physical harm, as such. Only to lose her appetite for bad boys and their edgy lifestyle,” Pixie said.

  “Are you sure? That sounds radical. You got all this from hacking the hospital records?” he asked.

  “Sep doesn’t want this kind of scandal to repeat. What’s more, he wants an ideal daughter. He wants her to forget the fact that she was raped. Any father would wish his daughter to get over those traumas. But can that be possible?”

  “I don’t know about that,” he agreed. “But I should tell you that I was not alone that day. If I was really present during the crime, as they claim, then I had an accomplice.”

  “So how did you find this out?” she replied, echoing his approach.

  “Well, I bumped into this old bloke... a gardener at Sep’s estate. He gave me an account of another guy...and this guy was dragging me along after him...away from the woods where the crime took place. And then he, and most probably a few accomplices, shoved me into the back of a car. And then they took me back to London.”

  “All right, so who might they have been?” Pixie asked.

  “They were criminal figures... most likely mafia. I don’t think that Sep knows about their motives... not fully. Other details are still shady...I can’t bring them back... maybe you can inform me.”

  “I see,” Pixie said. “We know that you were taken to that hospital. You were admitted to the institution. You literally broke out of the hospital at some stage...or maybe people enabled you to escape.”

  “The implication is that Sep didn’t know,” Clive deduced.

  “There was literally only light security at the party. Only personal body guards for some important people. There must have been a reason for that. Sep believed you to be tucked up in a hospital bed, so to speak.”

  “One of his partners at the fund was trying to hurt him. Even body guards might have done more to protect the girl. Though Sep would never admit this, as it would tend to exonerate me, to a degree,” Clive considered.

  “He’s determined to literally pin everything on you. He cannot see through his blind hatred of you, as he’s convinced you’re the man who harmed his daughter.”

  “Those ZNT guys are plotting against him. Maybe he can find the rogue element in Geneva. Can’t he understand? Just because, in his opinion, they helped to save his firm? At what cost to his reputation? Or his conscience?”

  “Is he that naïve?” Pixie wondered. “I believe that Sep is fully aware of the fraud that has occurred. I’m afraid so, Clive. It was, you know...when those transactions and agreements were finalised.”

  Clive was trying to think straight, amidst all the typical good-time chaos of the West End; trying to steady his mind amidst the background storm of voices. “I was admitted to the hospital, right? They must have done something to me. Some treatment or procedures, wouldn’t you say? Did you find out anything at all there... about what they did to me?”

  “I’m afraid that I couldn’t find your record. I think they literally threw it away. They are thorough in destroying any evidence... removing any records or traces. Or I just didn’t have enough time to find out? Or I’m really not as clever as I like to think?” she commented.

  He grinned appreciatively. “Believe me, there has to be a print there. There are always traces of information, if you know how,” he argued.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t pull anything out. You can imagine how my fingers were shaking...or how I was stopping them from shaking,” she said.

  “Well, I appreciate what you’ve done, Pix,” he told her, rubbing his face.

  “We are both mathematicians, but we understand that we are delicate creatures... you know, chemical beings... infinitely suggestible and changeable...however much we may deal with hard numbers.”

  “Turning a man in to a rapist is simple technology, comparatively speaking,” Clive argued.

  “The effects of extra testosterone or adrenaline?” Pixie said. “After all they inherited the experts from BIP. They have those resources, you know, literally at their disposal.”

  “Just simple injections, equivalent to sporting cheats... which can do tremendous damage...certainly produce extreme behaviour, if not alter my character.”

  “But in terms of procedures to wipe your memory, that is much more complex,” Pixie considered.

  “What if they damaged my brain by accident, almost... when I took that complimentary ticket to a football game...then had my head kicked in during a break to the gents’,” he argued, bitterly. “None of which, incidentally, I can remember either.”

  “Short of questioning doctors and researchers,” Pixie thought. “We can only imagine such interventions, to change neurological or cerebral balance. Who knows if they didn’t cut something out of your brain,” she declared.

  Pitt gave a desolate look and felt his temples again. “Oh God, don’t say that.”

  “My friend should feedback the results of your blood test.”

  “Ask them to report
back as soon as possible, will you?” he replied.

  “Clive, you don’t have any marks on your scalp. No cuts, anything like that,” she reminded him.

  “Only the cut under my eye,” he agreed, prodding the place.

  There was tenderness in her eyes as her gaze followed his cicatrise.

  “And that happened a while back,” he commented. “If they had left evidence... we could take everything to the authorities,” Clive argued.

  “They are more subtle than to leave scars on your skull,” Pixie argued.

  “If you didn’t find marks on me, you turned up other evidence.”

  “They are literally receiving patients from all over the world. When I was going through their database, I noticed this factor. You are thinking that there is nothing unusual there. I can see from your reaction. You are thinking that this is a global corporation? Naturally taking on an international group of patients?”

  “It is surprising that people would travel so far, even if it is a leading hospital for brain research. Can they be such a special institution?” Pitt questioned.

  “What surprised me is that the patient list is extraordinarily cosmopolitan. The guest list resembles a shadow United Nations.”

  “How do you know that?” he replied. “Are you claiming these guys have been rendered?”

  “I found a list of people who are political dissidents. If you made a list of rogue states, then you would be able to locate them. Initial notes about these people list professions... social position... or status. But also descriptions of undesirable character traits. Their activities and attitudes that posed difficulties for their governments... or in some cases, the organisations employing them.”

  “Remarkable stuff,” he declared.

  “They never expect these notes to be read by outsiders.”

  “What about the background of the patients?” Pitt asked.

  “I have never been an Amnesty International member, or any other type of campaigner,” Pixie admitted. “But these people could have been on their guest list.”

  “What kind of people are we talking about here?” he asked.

  “So this would include lecturers, doctors, artists and poets....in fact many of them were from highly cultural or intellectual backgrounds.”

  Pixie scanned the crowds in Leicester Square as a representative slice.

  “This information was stated on the records you hacked?”

  “But I was scanning through quickly. It was risky because a member of staff could have walked in. I was literally up against the clock and didn’t have time...to make a detailed analysis.”

  “You did well, Pix, to interpret the pattern... and to understand the significance of...”

  “Patients are not precisely diagnosed. They are not treated in recognisable ways. They are put into a negative description of personality type.”

  “What are you saying, Pix? That these are bogus assessments?” Pitt said.

  “In some cases the doctor lists patients as suffering from paranoia, or depression or psychosis, but these are used as general insults, not clinical descriptions.”

  “The terminology attempts to legitimise their procedures.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “If they are using psychiatric treatments and techniques for political purposes... as a weapon against political objectors and dissidents. Apparently they misused medicine during the Cold War, before the communist system collapsed, merely to silence opponents. It’s kind of shocking that they are resorting to these tactics again...though maybe not such a big surprise.”

  “Given what we already know about them,” Pixie remarked. “I never studied history or politics. I didn’t like it,” she admitted. “But I’m not mistaken about those hospital records,” she told him.

  “Highly suspicious and irregular,” he considered.

  “I have to agree... from what I saw.”

  “What have we stumbled on now?” Clive remarked.

  “Exactly,” she agreed, sharing the mood of ominous surprise.

  “If this is true, then foreign governments, and companies, are sending their opponents here... to this country... to Sep’s newly acquired research hospital, in the English countryside. These unfortunate dissidents are sent here for treatments, punishment, after upsetting their government or even just powerful interests... to be neutralised or rendered harmless.”

  “In some cases they are being used as guinea pigs... literally to test new drugs, for treating mental illnesses. I assume that ZNT would want to eventually market those new drugs and treatments,” she said.

  “There’s a type of psychological warfare going on,” Clive argued.

  “I do find this shocking,” she told him.

  “Most likely this is growing into a lucrative trade in extra-rendition. Wouldn’t you say that? With governments and powerful figures paying millions for the service? Process our troublemakers and launder their ideas for us.”

  “Then there is Emmy Winchurch,” she said. “Not quite sure how she fits in, I must say.”

  “Maybe the wealthy get their kids mentally ‘improved and modified’. Just like intelligence enhancements before important exams,” he claimed.

  “Don’t forget that you were a patient yourself,” Pixie added.

  “There’s one fact I don’t need to be reminded of,” he commented. “Most of all I rely on you. Effectively I turned up as a complete stranger.”

  “We still don’t know exactly how you lost your memory,” Pixie said.

  “There are moments when I slip back into unconsciousness,” he admitted.

  “You must come back around. We can’t lose you.”

  A frightened look broke her cool masque, like the first crack in a mirror, a sudden fissure in an ancient glass.

  “I suffer blackouts,” he confirmed. “Apart from changes in light and temperature, it’s hard to calculate how long. I still feel the effects of whatever they did to me. But what should we do from here?” he agonised.

  “I can return to the hospital. There’s evidence about the detention of prisoners by individuals and companies. I have to return to make my own record,” Pixie argued. “What’s preventing me from reporting to the authorities?”

  “You’d take a giant risk by doing that,” Clive told her.

  Pixie tried to look as if she was not putting her life in danger, simply by agreeing to meet him.

  “It’s more dangerous than arguing that I’m a good guy. Sep can take that, because he thinks you’re a deluded lover. He’s got a thing about you. He dreams about turning Emmy into somebody like you. I’ve heard some of those messages he used to leave for you. But he’ll have to drop the paternal smile if you get some hard evidence,” Clive warned.

  “Don’t imagine that I’m going to leave you alone in this,” Pixie assured him.

  She darted him an anxious gaze of expectation, as if there was an emotional point to settle.

  This connected irresistibly to Pitt’s feelings. In that moment he moved closer and kissed her. They remained in this embrace for a long time.

  37

  Clive felt all the guilt of a married man, since his wife had not divorced him. Noreen probably didn’t know about his present movements or whereabouts. On the other hand she hadn’t fully informed him; so he had no information about what she may be doing over there. His ex-wife had absconded to Seattle on a safer bet, taking their son with her. No doubt she was settling into the new house, enjoying the new lifestyle, establishing the new business over there. Why hadn’t she been in contact at all? Or had he missed her communications, due to his erratic movements? After all he only had second-hand explanations of her actions and motivations.

  Yet, for all his conflicted thoughts, he felt a powerful attraction to Pixie. Their mutual attraction was in
tensified by the danger he faced, they faced. Their passion was inflamed by an existential sense of only having each other; of only being able to depend on each other.

  This isolation induced vertigo and dread in Clive. He was in an impossibly fragile place in his life, which no man could envy. The sensation contrasted with the excitement of holding Pixie in his arms, absorbing her passionate kisses, of feeling her smooth cheeks against his face, of breathing her exquisite feminine scents. There was a dizzying unreality to this combination.

  “Are you coming back to the hotel with me?” Clive wondered.

  “That wouldn’t be a clever move,” she demurred.

  “Yes, but I thought you’d feel safer... if we stayed together,” Pitt insisted.

  “It’s true that we only have each other,” she concurred.

  “I definitely want to make love to you,” Clive said.

  “When we feel more relaxed,” she told him.

  “That’s when I can repair my thoughts,” he told her. “When I can bring back vital evidence of the deal, with your support.”

  “But I don’t know where you put your memory either. I’m literally as lost as you,” she reminded him.

  “Fair enough, but if I could get a clue about my strategy at the time,” he said, squeezing his mind again.

  “Sadly you didn’t include me on that, Clive.”

  There was a hint of fear and panic etched into her refined features. Superficially at least the scene was normal; they didn’t stand out. The Square was punctuated with such lovers, from home and abroad, on holiday or after work; as varied and cosmopolitan as the patients at the ZNT hospital, having their minds and ideas set.

  “We may be safer if we separate,” Pixie replied.

  “How can we possibly separate? I want to stick with you now!”

  “We are being watched again,” she told him.