Be Not Afraid (9781301650996)

by Ellis, Tim

  ‘Constable Richards is fine. We have someone there who looks like your nanny, and the place is surrounded by agents.’

  ‘Somebody could have told us.’

  ‘We don’t normally tell strangers about our operations.’

  ‘Then you didn’t count on Richards. If you’d have told us, we wouldn’t be here. Richards thought you weren’t doing anything, and she’s the nosiest person you’ll ever meet. She had to come and find out what was going on, and I got dragged into it because otherwise she’d have come on her own, and I couldn’t allow that.’

  ‘There, it’s all over,’ she said pointing to a man being taken into custody.

  ‘There what? You’ve arrested someone, but what was it all about?’

  ‘In a word – espionage. Your nanny was a Russian sleeper agent, as was the man she was planning to meet.’

  ‘I thought all that had stopped when the Cold War ended.’

  ‘No, the collapse of Communism has not stopped Russia building an espionage capability in the United Kingdom and America. Your nanny has led us to the Russian paymaster of American sleepers. From him we will get the details of all their agents. The second part of the code you gave us was his name and telephone number: MIKHAL ZOTTOLI 804-819-2293.’

  Richards came hurrying up. ‘Are you all right, Sir?’

  ‘No thanks to you, Richards.’

  ‘There are FBI agents all over the place.’

  ‘That’s because they’re here to arrest you for interfering with their investigation again. They’re going to deport you now, you’d better come back with me and pack your things.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ***

  Xena really wanted to go to the Keep, and open the dungeon door with the rusty old key, but they needed to eliminate this last woman from their enquires.

  Her name was Holly Morgan, and she was a medical student at St Winifred’s Hospital in Epping, and lived at 27 Torrington Drive in Debden, which was in the opposite direction to the way she really wanted to go.

  ‘Aren’t you curious about the Keep?’

  Stick glanced at her. ‘I’m too tired to be curious.’

  ‘You have the staying power of a wimp.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you have a million hours sleep on the way to the Jamieson house?’

  ‘I think you’re a couple of hours out there, but it was hardly high quality sleep. It was more like sleeping on a park bench type of sleep...’

  ‘I bet you’ve never slept on a park bench?’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘When I was working undercover.’

  ‘Undercover! Doing what! With Special Ops?’

  ‘Sorry. I’ve said too much already.’

  ‘I’m going to kill you if you continue to hide secrets from me.’

  ‘That’s what people do with secrets, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not partners.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you tell me earlier that as soon as you got promoted, I’ll be history.’

  ‘Do you have to remember everything I say?’

  ‘We’re here. At least you haven’t got slobber all down your front this time.’

  ‘Why do I need a mirror when I’ve got you?’

  ‘Just trying to help.’

  Holly Morgan was in her early twenties, had long dark hair, a fabulous figure, and even before she spoke Xena took an instant dislike to her.

  ‘Police,’ she snapped, flashing her warrant card so quickly that no normal person could have read it.

  ‘Rufus Jamieson?’

  Xena nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’d better come in then.’

  She led them through the house into a bright warm conservatory that looked out onto an overgrown garden with two drooping pear trees.

  ‘Drinks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘...Please,’ Stick finished for her.’

  The woman left to make the drinks, and they dropped wearily into the rattan seats.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Stick asked.

  ‘Me? It’s her.’

  ‘She hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘She hasn’t done anything,’ Xena mimicked him. ‘She doesn’t need to. She’s the type of person who gets everything given to her on a silver platter.’

  ‘And what type is that... beautiful?’

  ‘I suppose you could call her that if you were looking through a telescope the wrong way round from five miles away.’

  ‘This is about me mentioning the slobber, isn’t it?’

  Xena checked that the zip on the front of her jacket was pulled up. ‘I don’t think that’s relevant to our current conversation.’

  ‘Oh, I think it is. I think it’s all about you. Your tiredness, your hormones, your slobber, and the fact that you didn’t get your promotion.’

  ‘Did I say you could talk about my hormones? Leave my hormones alone, if you know what’s good for you.’

  Holly Morgan came back in with a tray, and put it on the sideboard. ‘Help yourself, and don’t complain if it doesn’t taste like Costa coffee. I hate cooking, and I hate making people drinks.’

  Stick played mother. There were no biscuits.

  ‘So, I was beginning to think you people weren’t interested in what I had to say.’

  ‘We’ve been busy. What is it that you’ve got to say?’

  She opened the door on the left-hand side of the sideboard, and pulled out a thick file before sitting down with it resting on her thighs.

  ‘You know I’m a medical student?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If anyone finds out I gave you this, I’ll probably be struck off.’

  ‘Gave us what?’

  ‘Who’s telling this story?’

  ‘Please carry on, Miss Morgan,’ Stick intervened.

  ‘I was down in the archives...’

  ‘Where?’ Xena was getting really annoyed.

  ‘I told the person on the telephone. I work at St Winifred’s Hospital.’

  ‘We’re tired,’ Stick said. ‘We’ve been up all night.’

  ‘Medical students work seventy-two hour shifts, so don’t tell me about being up all night. As I was saying, I was in the archives looking for some old notes belonging to a patient when I came across a box...’

  Xena opened her mouth.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to interrupt me?’

  ‘She wasn’t,’ Stick said.

  ‘The box had “Top Secret” on it. Now, curiosity runs in the family. My mother is a right nosy cow. I couldn’t wait to move out, so that I could get some privacy. Anyway, I thought somebody must have written that on the box as a joke, but I had a peek inside anyway. Christ! When I saw what was in that box – it was Top Secret. Now don’t ask me why or how a box full of Top Secret files got into our archives, I have no idea. Except... I’ve heard rumours that there was a secret wing to the hospital. It’s not there now. It was demolished in 1998 when the Trust system was introduced.’

  ‘Is this going to take long? We have other work, you know.’

  ‘No, I can finish now.’ She threw the file at Stick and stood up. ‘I’ll show you out, shall I?’

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘She’s going through the menopause. Here...’ He passed the file back. ‘Please continue.’

  She sat down again. ‘One more time, and I’ll go back to bed,’ she said, challenging Xena with her eyes. ‘So, I looked in the box, and I found files from the early nineties. This is one of them, but there were three others. As well as the files being stamped “Top Secret” in red, they were also labelled “Epsilon 1, 2, 3 or 4”. They describe genetic experiments on monozygotic twins conducted by a Dr Orvil Lorenz. The Jamieson twins were “Epsilon 2”.’

  Holly Morgan seemed to have finished speaking.

  ‘Is it all right to ask a question?’ Stick said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, two questions really. First, isn’t human genetic manipulation illegal?’

  �
��Yes.’

  ‘Second, when you say, “experiments” what exactly do you mean?’

  ‘I’m a medical student, as I’ve already said, but I did understand some of the notes. From what I can make out, Dr Lorenz was looking at the two sides of human nature – good and evil. He was experimenting on one twin, and using the other as a control. If you don’t know, twins are...’

  ‘...The ideal experimental subjects?’ Stick finished for her.

  ‘That’s right. In a way, and call me paranoid, but when we do medical ethics, we learn about the experiments of Josef Mengele – the Angel of Death – at Auschwitz. These experiments remind me of those ones.’

  ‘Still confused,’ Stick said.

  Xena was keeping quiet, and wondering how Stick knew enough of what she was talking about to ask questions.

  ‘St Winifred’s Hospital in the early nineties was hardly Auschwitz in the early forties,’ Stick said. ‘Did the parents give their permission?’

  ‘There are no consent forms in the files.’

  ‘Who authorised these experiments?’

  ‘I have no idea. The only name in the files is that of Dr Lorenz. There are some initials against certain procedures, but I presume these belong to nurses.’

  Stick scratched his head. ‘Where did Dr Lorenz get the twins from?’

  ‘From the maternity ward.’

  ‘Jesus! Sorry.’

  ‘It’s nothing to what I said when I read the files.’

  ‘So, someone on the maternity ward must have been helping Dr Lorenz?’

  ‘I suppose so, but you have to ask yourself what Dr Lorenz was doing at St Winifred’s Hospital. He was in a secret wing, what was he doing there? The people in charge must have known about the wing, and about the experiments going on in there. I think a lot of people knew about this.’

  She stood up. ‘Anyway, I’m done with it. The box with the other files inside is by the front door. You can take it with you. I never want to hear from you again, and if you say I gave you the files I’ll see you in court – my father is a lawyer.’

  ***

  ‘How come you knew enough about medical procedures to ask questions?’

  ‘I guess I was just lucky.’

  They’d pulled into the Fat Badger pub on the A1165 – Rectory Lane. Xena said she was going to look like Stick if she didn’t get something to eat. She ordered the Haddock, chips and mushy peas; he had the Cumbrian rump steak, béarnaise sauce, and fat chips.

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish. You knew things I would never have known.’

  ‘You know things I don’t know.’

  ‘That goes without saying, but...’

  ‘What are we going to do with that bomb we’ve got in the boot?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do – we’re not going to tell anyone we’ve got it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You can be as sorry as you like, but that Holly Morgan had her head screwed on. Think about it, numpty. We’ve got a box marked “Top Secret” with four files inside also marked “Top Secret”. Are you cleared for “Top Secret”?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘How did we get the box?’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘No we didn’t. You heard that bitch – we didn’t get the box from her. So, where did we get it from?’

  ‘Hmmm, I see what you’re saying.’

  ‘Whoever we hand the box to, it’ll lead back to us. We’ll be arrested – not by our own people, but by spooks. You’ve been in Special Ops, they’re a law unto themselves. We could disappear, and nobody would even notice we’d gone.’

  ‘What are we going to do with the box then?’

  ‘You can take it home with you. Get another box, and some blank files, and then bring it to work tomorrow. We’ll log it into the evidence store under Smith. Nobody will even bother, because Smith is now Jamieson. It’ll effectively disappear.’

  ‘But... wouldn’t Jamieson have a defence if...?’

  ‘It was in my genes, m’lud?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Everybody has free will...’

  ‘But... he was genetically modified to be evil.’

  ‘He still had free will. The judge might accept it in mitigation, but in the end... Jamieson still had a choice, and he made the wrong one. Also, do you want a killing machine living next door to you?’

  ‘Well no...’

  ‘Neither would the judge. Anyway, I’ve decided that as much as I want to peek in the Keep, and dally in the dungeon – I’m not going to – I need to sleep. You can ring the Duty Sergeant and get them to pick up Kevin Beattie. There can’t be many odd job men with that name in the area. Give them the description that smelly old man gave us. I’ll ring Dr Genius and arrange for a forensics team to go there this afternoon. Someone can come over to my flat and get the bunch of keys. You can pick me up tomorrow at ten o’clock – well it is Sunday tomorrow – and then we’ll go over there and see what they’ve discovered.’

  ‘I’m happy with that.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  Aftermath

  Sunday, 2nd March

  ‘You’re lucky they’re letting us stay in the country to finish our visit off,’ Parish said.

  ‘I know.’

  They were having a leisurely breakfast in the room. Angie was still trying to pack. The television news was droning in the corner, and outside it was raining.

  ‘Next time we apply for a visa to come here, I think we’ll get refused.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They’ll have flagged us as “Troublemakers”.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘When the Prime Minister asks his Deputy, “Did the trip ease American – British relations?” The Deputy will tell him that the Americans will be our friends as long as they don’t send us over to their country again.’

  ‘I know, but...’

  ‘No buts, you’re nothing but trouble. Of all those offers of marriage, have any of them come back to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not. They’d have re-evaluated the offer in the cold light of day, and decided that you were high maintenance.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re being a bit hard on her, Jed,’ Angie said. In the end, she hadn’t been able to find enough space in the available luggage for everything she’d bought, so she’d asked Gus to get her another suitcase – a big one.

  ‘Hard on her! Do you know she rifled through my pockets to find out what someone had given me.’

  ‘Oh, and what was that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what it was, it was mine and I didn’t want to show her.’

  ‘Oh, and why not?’

  ‘Because I didn’t.’

  ‘Mary will tell me after.’

  ‘See, right there! That’s the problem. It runs in the family.’

  ‘You’re over-reacting. If she wasn’t who she was, she wouldn’t be such a good detective and a good partner.’

  ‘Who said she was a good partner?’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘I’m still here, you know.’

  Parish sighed. ‘Well, what I’d like, if it’s not too much trouble, is some peace and quiet. For the next two days, I’d like to womble around the sights at a snail’s pace, chill out, and generally have a bit of a holiday. Do you think we can do that?’

  ‘I’m sure we can, darling. Can’t we, Mary?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ***

  ‘Have you got it with you?’

  ‘In the boot.’

  ‘Got rid of “Top Secret”?’

  ‘Eliminated. There’s only “Smith” written on the files and on the outside of the box.’

  ‘Good. You agree, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t disagree.’

  ‘You must have a really sore arse.’

  When they arrived at the Keep forensic officers were still there, and a uni
formed copper minced about outside.

  The winding lane had led them from the road to a leafy idyll, and the outside of the building looked like any other part-renovated fourteenth century Keep.

  Toadstone wasn’t there. He’d put one of his minions – Luisa Beer – in charge.

  Inside, it was a work in progress. There was nothing of much interest above ground. Except... all the normal clutter you’d find in a house was here – bills, letters, paperwork and items that told them that Rufus Jamieson lived in the place. They’d also found paperwork addressed to John Smith at 74 Ivy Chimneys Road, which was an important link in the evidential chain. Nobody doubted that Jamieson was the killer, but it was important to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

  It was the dungeon they’d really come to see.

  ‘I don’t know how you didn’t come to see it yesterday,’ Stick said. ‘I was impressed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you’re a woman.’

  ‘You want to look both ways now before you step off the pavement, numpty.’

  ‘Women are nosy, everybody knows that.’

  ‘You’re a clot. It’s like you can see the juggernaut bearing down on you, but you still walk out in front of it.’

  Xena pushed him ahead of her. ‘Get into that dungeon. I hope there’s a rack down there.’

  ‘Oh, why’s that?’

  All around the walls were drawings and paintings of evil. This was where Jamieson had tried to work out who or what he was. The art – if that’s what it could be called – was a manifestation of a tortured soul. Dr Lorenz had created a monster.

  ‘I didn’t expect this,’ Stick said.

  ‘Jamieson knew he was a monster. The only place to keep a monster is in a dungeon.’

  ‘I have a question.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘For the moment. Aren’t there three other monsters in that box?’

  ‘Don’t even go there, Stickamundo. If we open that box, God knows what’s going to jump out and bite us. That’s the stuff nightmares are made of.’

  ***

  The handcuffs had been taken off. The uniformed officer had been redeployed doing something useful like making the tea. The nurses were smiling instead of scowling at him, and he felt as though he could play a full game of rugby, and sing the chorus of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in the bar afterwards, while drinking a yard of ale.