The Truth

by Peter James

  She went back into the room, grabbed the two lines and forced them back together. A moment later, Casey’s chest rose and fell faintly; at least some air was now going into her again. Susan stared at her, that beautiful face, framed by her long golden hair – a much prettier colour than her own, Susan had always thought – and that terrible grey colour of her face.

  She stretched forward and touched Casey’s face. It was cold, like putty. She’d never felt human skin as cold as this.

  Grabbing the two halves of the air line, she forced them back together.

  ‘HEELLLLLLP!’ she screamed again. ‘Please, please, someone help! Oh God, please help!’

  Then the pain came. It felt like a steel band being tightened around her, crushing her, crushing everything inside her. Unable to help it, she cried out, doubling up. But somehow she managed to cling to the line, trying desperately to concentrate on holding the two halves together. And then it felt as if some huge steel blade was twisting inside her, ripping through her internal organs, and the pain was unbearable. Her head felt as if it was separating from the rest of her body, there was an unbearable pressure on her ears, they were imploding.

  She screamed in pain, screamed for help for Casey. The floor suddenly tilted, rising steeply past her face, and she was struggling to stay on her feet now, they were losing their hold. The walls swung beneath her.

  The carpet smacked her in the face.

  She lay, unable to move, her nostrils pressed against the carpet. She could smell the cleaning fluid that had been used on it.

  The pain was coming again, that blade twisted around inside her, ripping upwards through her guts. Bile was rising up her throat, she wanted to throw up and she was fighting against it with all her concentration.

  She mumbled, unable to speak because she was swallowing back the vomit, ‘Help me, someone, please, help me.’

  Somehow she was still holding the two pieces of line together, clutching them as if they were the only thing she had in the world.

  Hang in there, Casey, don’t die on me, please don’t die on me.

  And then the pain went off inside her like a detonation, and the ferocity of it this time sucked everything out of her, all the light out of her eyes and out of her brain. Everything was swallowed by a vast, unbearable vacuum of agony.

  When she next saw something, it was very dim. A face she didn’t recognise, a woman, in a white nursing gown, sleek black hair, a lapel badge right close up to her face which read, PAT CAULK, SNR NIGHT NURSE.

  ‘Casey,’ Susan whispered, urgently.

  The nurse was holding her wrist – maybe she was taking her pulse, Susan wasn’t sure. The nurse’s arm was right across her face and the sleeve of the gown was pushed almost into Susan’s mouth, muffling her voice.

  ‘Casey,’ she whispered again. ‘Please –’ Then her words slipped, along with consciousness, from her grasp.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  John cancelled a lunch meeting with clients because he was too worried about Susan to concentrate, and stayed closeted in his office, dialling home every half-hour or so in the hope that Susan might be back, or at least had left a message on the answering service.

  But the only messages all morning were just a rambling one from Joe, the builder, about materials he needed to buy, one from Liz Harrison asking Susan to lunch next week, then an incomprehensible, hysterical one from Pila.

  John immediately rang the hospital, and got himself put through to the intensive care nursing station. He lied to the nurse who answered that he was Archie Warren’s brother, and asked how he was doing.

  To his dismay, Archie was not doing well. He was still unconscious, on life support, and as yet they’d still not been able to diagnose what was wrong. The only positive news was that there appeared to be no damage consistent with a stroke, which left a mystery virus as the most likely explanation. But until they found out what it was – if they found out – they had no way of treating him. It was literally wait and see. He would either improve, remain as he was or deteriorate.

  Deeply depressed, John hung up. If Harvey Addison were alive he could have rung him, asked the name of the best neurologist in the country and pulled strings for him to see Archie. He stared gloomily at his coffee. Everything was beyond his control. He was feeling frighteningly isolated, and helpless.

  Susan was not with any of her friends or her parents. Either she’d had a breakdown and was wandering the streets somewhere, or she had gone into hiding in a hotel, or – he hesitated about this, although he knew it was a real possibility – perhaps Mr Sarotzini had abducted or kidnapped her.

  At half past five in the afternoon, John was just putting down the receiver after yet another fruitless call home and debating whether to phone the police and report Susan missing, when Gareth Noyce came into his office with a wodge of computer printout. ‘You never asked me to do this for you, right?’ he said, excitedly.

  ‘Do what?’ John asked, then realised what he was talking about. ‘You’ve decoded it?’

  ‘Not me, exactly. You now owe a big favour to a real ale expert in Gloucester. My friend could go to jail for this – we’re talking about the Official Secrets Act, right? Actually I promised him a pre-production copy of Dr Doomandgloom for his kids and he seemed pretty happy with that.’

  John seized the printout, then immediately felt disappointed as he scanned the pages. On each were just columns of trades; this was a ledger record of the Vörn Bank’s transactions, dating back about seven months. On each row was the name of a company, some of which he recognised but many he didn’t, followed by a date, the number of shares held, the total number of shares issued, the percentage of total held, the current trading price and the twelve-month high and low prices. ‘Thanks, Gareth,’ he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘This is great.’

  ‘Good, see you,’ his partner responded, and was gone.

  John rubbed his eyes, then, starting with the first of fifteen sheets, began to read carefully through the names, wondering if he might pick up any clues about the Vörn Bank. Crédit Suisse. First Boston. IBM. P&O. Glaxo Wellcome. Dai Ichy Kan Y. Espirito Santo. AOL.

  By the time he was half-way down the twelfth page, he had begun to skim and almost missed the name: CYPRESS PALISADES CLINIC.

  His eyes jumped back to it in surprise, and he read it again to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. The ledger showed that the Vörn Bank had acquired one hundred per cent of the shares in the Cypress Palisades Clinic on 7 September last year.

  He read it through yet again, then thought, carefully, trying to make double sure he wasn’t getting this wrong, CYPRESS PALISADES CLINIC. NO, he wasn’t mistaken, he knew the name too well, he’d been there himself, many times. Nerves began to stir uneasily inside him.

  It was the clinic that Susan’s kid sister, Casey, was in.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Unsmiling faces. Rows of eyes. A massive, dazzling light.

  The pain.

  It felt like two people were trying to tear her in half by twisting her. The twisting hardened, the pain roared like a furnace inside her and she rose up, crying out pitifully, thrashing, delirious, trying to get away from it. Firm but gentle hands pushed her down. Drool ran out of the corner of her mouth.

  Then another wave of this pain smashed through her, and with a sudden burst of energy, she screamed out for help, for anything. She didn’t care if she died, anything, anything would be better than this pain.

  And suddenly she heard a voice she recognised. ‘Try to relax, Susan. We’re going to give you an anaesthetic that will put you out, and when you come round, the pain will have gone.’

  English, she thought, clawing ragged bundles of thoughts out of her memory. English. An English accent. She found the face where the voice had come from, locked on to it, thinking. Large eyes. Calm, suave voice. I know you. And then it came back. Of course. She recognised these large eyes now, and finally, with a squirm of terror, she connected the face to the voice.

&n
bsp; Miles Van Rhoe.

  No no no no no no no.

  Miles Van Rhoe.

  Nooooooooooooooo.

  The obstetrician was standing over her, as if it was perfectly normal for him to be seeing her in California.

  She shook her head, yammering with fear, pleading with her eyes at the other faces. Help me. You have to help me.

  Then another surge of pain, and with it a gagging bout of nausea, and all she could do was wait until it passed.

  ‘Please!’ she gasped. ‘Someone must listen to me! This man is going to take my baby, he’s going to sacrifice it, he’s going to use it for one of his rituals, he does black magic, satanism, please, someone believe me! He has a record with the police, with Scotland Yard in England, phone them, someone, please, phone them, you must believe me!’

  Van Rhoe smiled at her, with a hurt expression. ‘Susan, you’re a little delirious and you really don’t know what you’re saying. We’re not going to harm your baby. Your baby is special. It’s going to be the most special baby that has ever been born and you’re going to be such a proud mother!’

  ‘Don’t believe him!’ she said, avoiding his stare. ‘Please, someone,’ she said, looking at each of the other faces in turn. ‘Call the police, don’t let him!’

  They all stared back, watching her with concern, like medical students grouped around some freak case. One of the faces belonged to a woman she had seen recently, but she could not work out how recently or where. A badge. This woman had been wearing a lapel badge, she remembered suddenly, and now she could attach a name to the face. Pat Caulk. Yes, the badge on her lapel, standing over her in Casey’s room, PAT CAULK. SNR NIGHT NURSE.

  ‘Where am I?’ Susan said.

  ‘You are in the Cypress Palisades Clinic, Susan,’ Van Rhoe told her. ‘You’re in a very fine place, you’re a fortunate young woman. If you’d collapsed somewhere else, you might not still be with us now.’

  ‘Casey? How – how is –?’ Then another wave of pain drowned everything.

  Through the haze of agony she saw a needle. Felt a prick in her wrist, then saw sticking plaster. She was being cannulated. She heard Van Rhoe say, quietly, ‘We must wait for him, he doesn’t want to miss this.’

  John? Was it John they were waiting for?

  The pain was subsiding, and her terror grew. She tried again, looking at everyone except Van Rhoe. ‘Please, someone believe me! He’s going to hand my baby over to Mr Sarotzini. They’re all in league. They’re satanists, they really are, I know it sounds incredible, but they really do do these things. They sacrifice babies.’

  They were looking at her, but they weren’t reacting. Didn’t they hear her? Didn’t they hear what she had just said?

  Something was going into her arm, she could feel the pressure of the fluid.

  What are you all? Shop-window dummies? Hello? Hello?

  Then, suddenly, she felt calmer. Tiredness was seeping through her. She fixed each of them in turn with her eyes. You don’t care? OK, fine. You don’t have a problem with what Mr Sarotzini wants to do with my baby? OK, that’s fine by me, do it, have it on your conscience, ’s not my problem. It isn’t.

  She smiled at them but they didn’t smile back.

  Morons, she thought. Stuffed dummies. Do you know how sh- sh-shilly you all, you –

  A voice asked quietly, ‘How much longer will she survive?’

  Another, also quietly, said, ‘We have to keep her alive, somehow, until he gets here.’

  Then silence.

  John arrived home in mental turmoil. The Vörn Bank had bought the Cypress Palisades Clinic in September. Why?

  Why?

  What the hell did they want with a clinic in California? There was only one possible reason – and that was that they wanted the clinic because Casey was there. To think it was merely chance that she was there would be stretching coincidence way beyond the bounds that he was prepared to accept.

  But why did they want or need to own the clinic where Casey was? It made no sense to him, and yet he knew there must be a reason. Mr Sarotzini would do nothing without a reason.

  He checked the phone for messages and also scrutinized the house, looking for some sign that Susan had been back, if only to collect something, but could see nothing.

  He poured himself a whisky, sat down in the kitchen and lit a cigarette. Either Susan had gone into hiding somewhere, maybe with a friend who wasn’t telling him. Or …

  Then he had a thought. Hurriedly, he changed into his grubbiest jeans and an old sweatshirt, took the step-ladder and a torch out of the garage and carried them upstairs. He set up the ladder beneath the ceiling hatch, then clambered into the loft.

  Using the flashlight and the meagre throw of the loft light for guidance, he squeezed past the chimney breast and into the right-hand side of the roof space where Susan had brought him just a couple of days ago, and where he in turn had brought the policeman, Detective Sergeant Rice. Some creature, a mouse, probably, scurried away into the shadows.

  The beam struck the strips of roofing felt that hung down like sleeping bats, and he eyed again, with revulsion, the occult symbols painted on each exposed panel. He lowered the beam to the joists, and it illuminated more of the symbols that lay exposed where the insulation had been lifted away.

  He checked out the small metal box, that Susan had thought was a ringing converter. It was about four inches long, with Telecom markings, and a cluster of wires ran out of it. They were thin and looked, to his untrained eyes, like telephone wires. He followed them across to the eaves where they entered a plastic junction box of a kind he had seen many times before.

  Ignoring it, he returned to the area where the joists had been exposed, knelt, set down the torch carefully, and began, methodically, to rip away more of the insulation.

  After five minutes of exertion, his hands prickling with fibreglass splinters, he nearly missed the wire. It was pressed down neatly, covered in black tape, which itself was camouflaged by a coating of mastic to make it look like an innocent sealant.

  He tried to lift it, but it would not budge. It had been laid expertly, nestling into a tiny channel that had been cut for it and held firm by staples. Someone had gone to enormous trouble to lay this wire, he realised, as he tracked its course through meticulously drilled holes in each joist, until he reached its destination, a small plastic-cased object, recessed into the ceiling, directly above, he calculated, their bedroom.

  He went downstairs and returned with a set of screwdrivers, a pair of insulated pliers, and insulating tape. First he cut through the wire, and wound insulating tape around the ends. Then he set about unscrewing the fixing plate that held the plastic object and, finally, after some moments of struggling, he eased out the dome-shaped object.

  It was heavy for its size, no more than a couple of inches across, and from the tiny glass lens, less than a quarter of a millimetre wide, its function was immediately evident. He stared at it in shock. He’d reckoned on finding a bugging device up here but not a video camera.

  He went down into their bedroom, switched on the light and stared up at the ceiling. It was easy to see why he had never noticed it: the hole above the bed was scarcely larger than a pin prick, and concealed within what appeared to be a natural crack.

  Back up in the loft, he traced the wire along in the opposite direction, pulling away the loft insulation as he went, and after a few minutes, arrived at its destination: a shiny black metal casing, about a foot long, eight inches wide and four inches deep, recessed snugly between the joists and carefully camouflaged by two pieces of grubby hardwood bonded around it.

  There were no clues as to what it was, although he had a good idea. Ignoring it for now, he began the laborious task of tracing the end of each of the other eleven wires than ran off the device. He found a second camera above the room that Susan had decorated for the baby, and further cameras above each of the other spare rooms, then all but one of the rest of the wires disappeared into a wall channel that appear
ed to drop down towards the next floor. No doubt there were cameras watching every downstairs room also.

  The last remaining wire was more heavily insulated than the rest and connected, he discovered, into the house’s mains electricity supply.

  When John climbed down onto the landing, holding the heavy metal box under one arm, he was shaking with anger, outraged at this invasion of his privacy but at the same time deeply disturbed. He rang Gareth Noyce’s home number and got his answering machine. Then he tried his mobile, figuring he would probably be in his local pub in Camden Town.

  From the background hubbub when Gareth answered, John knew he’d guessed right. ‘Gareth, where are you? In the Duke’s?’

  Gareth sounded giggly. ‘They’re having a regional ales night. I’m just drinking something called Dead Pig. It’s eight per cent proof, for Chrissake!’

  ‘Listen, drink it slowly. I need you to look at something for me – wait till I get to you before you get pissed, OK?’

  ‘Well, you’d better hurry,’ his partner said.

  John got in his car, and started the arduous journey to North London, hoping, desperately, Gareth would still be compos mentis when he got there.

  Focusing with some difficulty, Gareth removed one panel of the outer casing of the box with a screwdriver purloined from the publican.

  He squinted at the innards, screwing up his eyes against the trail of smoke from his cigarette, then beamed with delight. ‘Yes. Wow! Gosh, there’s an 851, I’m surprised about that. Oh, this is interesting,’ he said. ‘Yes, brilliant, that’s really clever!’

  John waited. Gareth continued his examination and running commentary. ‘This is powerful, I mean, like, there’s more power than you’re going to need here. Know how these work?’

  ‘No, that’s why I’m here,’ John said patiently. He sipped the pint of Dead Pig real ale his partner had insisted on buying him even though he was driving.

  ‘It’s the first generation that doesn’t need a wok,’ Gareth said.