The atmosphere in the team changed afterwards. Or maybe it was just me. Barkworth pressed ahead with new candidates, but he was furious. According him, S22 was his golden ticket. We weren't so sure. Okay, if the graft held, what then? If he was trying to duplicate the connection between Molly and Jason, he needed two subjects with functional brain grafts. Who was the other candidate?
If anyone in the team found the answer, I never heard about it. A year after S22 disappeared, my annual medical came back with some anomalies. Two biopsies later and I was given the prognosis. Funny. It was a relief. Karma. Punishment.
I'm tired. I need a break. You can ask me questions later. Have I given you enough to bring Barkworth down? I hope so. It's the only way to stop Edgegen. Make it public. Take this to the police, and they'll bury it. They'll bury you, too.
I wish you luck, Mr Martino. I told you I'm not religious, but sometimes, in the middle of the night, the pain driving me crazy, I wonder if there's a higher power. But if there is a God, a heaven and a hell, then I know where I'm heading. And hell will be familiar. It will be the cry of a baby. Only this time, it won't stop, it'll go on and on, and I'll be standing in the Edgegen corridor, not doing anything to help.
I'm going to bed.
End of transcript.
It was strange, but when she discovered all her worst fears were true, Mags could handle it. Maybe it wasn't the same for everyone, but she surprised herself with her reaction. For a while, she could barely bring herself to read what was in front of her. The sickening dread that built as she read on was physical, a weight settling on her shoulders. But not inanimate; worse, the weight was alive, clammy, cold and moist, sliding its heavy limbs over hers, wrapping dark sinuous tentacles around her shoulders, chest, and stomach. Entering her body like black smoke, swimming through her bloodstream, whispering a message of death. Then, with a cold splash of clarity and decision, she refused to yield. The weight lifted. The monster evaporated.
Mags could not afford to lose her mind, to surrender to the horror. She was a mother. And her daughter needed her.
The future narrowed until she could only see a chain of events, a sequence to follow. Find Tam, drive her to the airport, leave. For now, Mags couldn't see beyond that. But it was enough. Get Tam. Get away from the Barkworths. Go home.
She closed the folder and stood up. The small study was just as it had been when she first walked in, other than the angle of the sunlight slanting in through the small window.
With no idea what she would say to Patrice Martino, she opened the door and walked into the kitchen.
The man sitting at the table looked up. It wasn't Patrice Martino.
It was Bradley.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
"Where's Patrice?" said Mags.
"It doesn't concern you anymore, Mags. Forget about him." Bradley stood up. His expression, as ever, was hard to read. "Come on. I'll drive you home."
Mags looked at her husband and saw a stranger.
"Not until you tell me where he is."
Bradley stood up. "Give me the keys."
She shook her head and gripped her bag.
"No one's gonna hurt him, Mags. But he can't publish his story. Sooner or later, he'll see it's best to drop it. Sooner would be better, for him."
A man and a woman, both wearing suits, walked through the door Ava had used earlier. They stood in the middle of the room, their posture reminding Mags of a documentary she'd watched about animal predators. They looked relaxed, bored even. Their arms hung loosely by their sides, legs planted in a wide stance, and their eyes never stopped surveying the surrounding space.
She swallowed.
"The keys," repeated Bradley.
The woman moved, took a step towards Mags and held out her hand. Mags gave her the keys, and the woman tossed them over to Bradley.
"Come on," he said. She looked back at the strangers. They were entering the office. The man paused on the threshold and looked at her. He didn't move until Mags had gone.
Outside, Bradley was waiting. She stopped outside the door.
"Where is Tam?"
"With Mom. Making cookies."
Mags fumbled her phone from her bag and called Irene Barkworth. "Irene, it's Mags. Is Tam there?"
"Yes, honey, she's right here. Wait up. Tam, wash the flour off your hands. Your mom wants to speak with you." Irene lowered her voice. "Are you okay, Mags? We were worried."
Mags wondered how much Mrs Barkworth knew about her husband's business, and her son's role in it. Irene Barkworth's whole demeanour was that of a woman who had stopped asking questions a long time ago. If she ever had. She had a lifestyle many would envy; prying too closely might jeopardise that.
Tam was on the phone. Mags pressed it to her ear. Her daughter's voice reminded her the world wasn't all darkness and despair.
"Hi, Mum. We're making peanut butter cookies. They smell divine. Where are you? I missed you."
"I missed you too. I'm coming home soon. Save some cookies for me."
"I will. Did Dad come to get you? He said he would. Did he tell you where we went this morning?"
Mags glanced at Bradley, then away again. She focused on her daughter. "No, he didn't. Where did you go?"
Tam sounded excited, and more than a little proud. "He took me to work with him. I had a tour of the whole lab. They've got those of fridges with test tubes in them, and microscopes, and loads and loads of computers. And there's an operating theatre just like in a real hospital. It's amazing, Mum"
Mags felt her stomach lurch. Tam had been to Edgegen Technology. While she had been reading Ava Marston's confession, her daughter been walking those same corridors.
The world tilted and she stepped to one side, stumbled. As her knees buckled, Bradley was beside her. He took her weight, lowering her onto the stoop. He pulled the phone out of her fingers.
"Hey, honey, we're on our way. See you soon."
Tam's tinny voice answered, "Top hole!" before Bradley thumbed the phone off.
"Let's go."
They drove for five minutes without exchanging a word. Mags watched the cars, and she watched her thoughts. Who had she married? What had Bradley done?
Her body was reacting as if it was a fight-or-flight scenario, pumping adrenaline into her system. She was alternately hot and cold, her skin becoming first hypersensitive, then numb. When she tried to deepen her breathing, she found she couldn't, concentrating instead on not letting her rapid gasps turn into an attack. She thought of Tam.
At the end of the five minutes, as they were about to leave the I-95 for the 93 back to Boston, she pointed at a half-empty business park.
"Pull over."
He made no move to obey, so she grabbed the wheel. The car left the road and bounced across the dusty shoulder.
"Jesus! Okay, okay."
Bradley pulled into the lot and turned off the engine. He shifted in his seat and looked at her. Mags forced herself to look back. She tried to spot the monster behind those movie-star blue eyes and failed, despite knowing it was there. Her stomach lurched, and she looked away before she threw up.
"This is not the time or place," he said. "We need to talk, but not now. I'll give you five minutes."
She gasped. "You've ruined my life. You've done nothing but lie. You, you—" She couldn't find the words. "Five minutes?"
"Four-and-a-half now. You've caused enough damage today."
"Me? I've caused damage?"
"Yes, you. This is a critical time for our research. We're on the brink of the scientific achievement of the century. No one can jeopardise that. No one."
"What have you done to Tam?"
"Nothing. You wouldn't understand. Jesus. As long as you have your therapy sessions and a bottle of white wine every other night, you're happy. You don't have the first idea what Dad and I have achieved. You're small-minded. It's all about you and your little family. You were useful for one reason. You're not useful anymore. When you stayed out of my way, you didn't ma
tter. But now you're interfering with my work. Jesus!"
He smacked the steering wheel. Then he let out a long sigh. "Look," he said. "I don't mean that. It's just, well, this couldn't have come at a worse time. You don't understand the importance of…" He frowned. "You just don't understand, okay?"
Mags looked out at the parking lot, the snow, crusted with ice until the next fresh fall, reflecting the low sun. A playground chant was running round her head.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
If she asked him, if he told her the truth, she thought it might kill her. There are some words no one should ever hear.
I'm stronger than I think. Sticks and stones.
"Did you kill Clara?"
He answered. At least he would not torture her.
"No. No, Mags. Of course not. Honey,—"
Mags brought her hands up as if to attack him without knowing she was doing it. "Don't call me honey, you sick bastard. Don't you ever call me that."
"If that's what you want, Mags. Clara,—"
She interrupted again. Mags couldn't bear to hear him say her name. "No more lies. No more lies."
"I agree. No more lies, Mags. I've seen some of Martino's notes. What would be the point?"
He smiled. He actually smiled.
Mags bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself ripping the skin from his skull with her fingernails.
"Mags, I couldn't tell you about Clara. I'm sorry. But now… well, I guess we're way past that. Hon—" He stopped himself saying it. "Mags. Clara isn't dead."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mags dug her nails into her thighs. When she spoke, her mouth felt as strange and numb as it did after a trip to the dentist. How could Clara be alive?
"What do you mean?"
Bradley turned away and looked out at the half-empty parking lot. His eyes were unfocused.
"Okay," he said. He spoke without turning towards her. "I don't know everything Ava Marston told Martino, but I guess it makes us look pretty bad. Wouldn't be a good story if there were two sides to it, would it?"
The question was rhetorical. Mags wasn't sure she could have spoken even if she wanted to. She waited for him to go on, and, after a time, he did.
"You need to understand something. You don't have a decision to make right now. You might think you do, but you don't. I guess you're already planning your escape, thinking about divorce, maybe criminal proceedings. It won't happen, Mags. It'll be easier if you accept that. Remember what happened to the Bedroom Killer. Disappeared without a trace after we pulled some strings. Martino will never publish. And you will never talk about this. Not if you care about Tam."
That was too much. Mags heard her own voice emerge, pushed through her teeth by a tide of hate. "Don't threaten my daughter."
"Oh, don't misunderstand me, Mags. I would never hurt Tam. She's my daughter too. Whatever you think of me, I love Tam. It's an unexpected side-effect of parenthood."
A side-effect. Right.
"There's no point making any trouble. Tam is staying right here in America. I have her passport. I have yours, too. You can go, if you like, I won't stop you. But Tam stays. If you fight for custody, if you file for divorce, you'll lose her. You can't hope to win. Think about it. I have everything to offer her. A great home with family nearby. I've been a model father, have provided well for you. You have a history of mental illness. You're unstable. You have no hand to play, Mags. Tam is staying in Boston. If you want to be in her life, you'll stay too."
Mags knew he wasn't bluffing. Everything was falling apart, and there was nothing she could do about it. He was dragging her into hell and taking Tam along too. All those times she had convinced herself she was paranoid for not trusting him. She should have paid attention to her instincts. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
"We looked for surrogates fifteen years ago," he said. "Edgegen's backers were getting jumpy. There had been a couple of scares, a leak to the press by a junior researcher. They killed the story, but they were only prepared to keep funding the project if it was secure. That's when I volunteered."
"Volunteered for what?" Mags' voice was a harsh whisper.
"Stage Three. We looked for women with twins and triplets in their family, but not in America. We concentrated our research on Britain and Australia. English-speaking countries. I admit I pushed hard for Britain when the initial results came back. I always liked London.
"Twelve candidates came back as possibilities. We eliminated five of them because of their age. Two of the remaining seven were gay. Of the other five, only three were acceptable."
"Acceptable?"
Bradley smirked. "I rejected two of them because they wouldn't have looked right dating me. I'm good-looking, Mags. People would have asked questions. Even you were borderline. Sorry, it's the truth."
Another piece of paranoia confirmed as a fact. He had been out of her league all along. Kit had been right.
"I dated three of you. One didn't work out. We weren't compatible. There's only so much pretending I can do. The relationship was never gonna work. I still tried to get her pregnant but I guess she wasn't very fertile. That left you and Joanna."
He looked across at her, as if waiting for a reaction. Mags said nothing. He was playing with her. She wanted to know about Clara. If he didn't tell her soon, she swore she would strangle the deceitful bastard.
"Joanna fell pregnant during your second trimester. I was going to move her to Boston after the birth. Better to have more than one option. In the end, it was unnecessary. The first scan showed a single foetus. She lives in Italy now. We arranged a lucrative job offer for her when the kid was two. Unlikely you and I would run into her in London, but better not to risk it.
"We had a team standing by on the day of your caesarean. We had planned for months. I anaesthetised you to avoid any unforeseen problems. One baby was driven to City Airport and flown back to Boston. The other stayed in London with us."
"Tam," said Mags. She was crying now. She couldn't help herself. But her face was rigid as the tears ran down her cheeks, dropped off her chin, and splashed onto her lap.
"We harvested stem cells from the umbilical cord, and we placed the other subject with a foster family."
"Clara. Her name is Clara."
"Clara, yes. It's not her name anymore, though. It's Ellen, I think. Or Helen."
He took his phone out of his pocket, tapped on the screen a few times, and placed it on the dashboard. Mags leaned forward. It was a video of Tam. There was no sound. Her hair was longer. Mags didn't remember it ever being that long.
Then she spoke and Mags knew it was Clara. Even without sound, the way her mouth moved was different. Her physicality, her gestures, even her smile, were like Tam's, but everything was slower. She moved like Tam did when over-tired, on the brink of sleep. Everything was sluggish. Tam's sparkiness and quick reactions were missing.
Bradley spoke throughout the thirty seconds of footage. Any love she had ever experienced for the man next to her was turning to implacable hatred; but her heart was swelling with impossible love for a daughter she had never met.
"We told the foster family she had a rare genetic disease. We said we would pay for her care, so we could learn from her condition. The foster parents needed money. He had embezzled his company, and she was an accessory to his crime. We kept them out of prison, they didn't ask questions. The arrangement worked well. It still does. When we had subjects ready for Stage Three, we brought Clara in, and removed cells from her cerebellum to use alongside the stem cells we harvested when she was a baby. We've performed this procedure three times now. There was no way to prevent some damage to the brain. She is well cared for, and she has a good life, Mags, but she has some learning difficulties. If it were possible, I would want her name known to everyone, as a pioneer. It will happen, one day. She'll be the Neil Armstrong of human evolution, the—"
"You did this to her? She was healthy, and you did this? To your
own daughter?"
Mags could no more have stopped what happened next than stop a hurricane. She pummelled Bradley's face with her fists, screaming, punching, reaching for his throat. She wanted to destroy him. There was no room in her mind for a single rational thought. In that moment, she was more animal than human.
Something hit the side of her face and she slumped in her seat. For a long moment, reality paused, and she heard a high-pitched whine. Then it faded, and she looked at the roof of the car, noticing a stain and wondering how it got there. For a few seconds, she didn't know where she was. It was like waking from an afternoon nap on holiday, confused by unfamiliar surroundings.
For a blissful second-and-a-half, she looked at Bradley and knew he was her husband, nothing more. Then her cheek throbbed, and she remembered. She brought her fingers to her mouth and winced. It was already tender, and the skin was swelling. Her teeth felt loose and she could taste blood.
"I'll break your jaw next time. Try me."
Bradley started the car and headed for home. He didn't speak again.
Mags fought to keep her focus on Tam. If she thought about the enormity of the lie she had lived with Bradley, of how she had been used, she wasn't sure she would be able to stop herself wrenching the steering wheel away from him and putting them both into the path of a truck.
What was she going to tell Tam? How could she live with the monster who had used his own children as experimental subjects?
But, if leaving him meant leaving Tam, what choice did she have?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I make my move at the end of Simon's shift. I'm sorry it's him. He has been good to me, in his own way, but I will do whatever I have to. If there was any other way, if I could escape without killing him… but there's no use thinking like that.
The Picture On The Fridge: The debut psychological thriller with the twist of the year Page 18