What if the police were watching me now? I cautiously looked round. A front door slammed and a man came out of one of the houses. A curtain above twitched.
My heart hammering, I started the engine and drove slowly away.
Mirror. No police cars, just a taxi. As I drew further away, I began to breathe again.
I drove to the hospital, but there was no sign of Dave or his car, so I went back to the guest-house.
Nor was he there at five, when the laboratory staff went home. It was depressing, but I’d have to try again tomorrow, after I’d got the printout from the computer.
It was nearly dark when I set out for the last time. The air was warm, the city ponderous, almost sleepy. The black silhouettes of the ancient buildings hung in the sky against the sunset while lovers walked below, beneath the trees, their intimacy accentuated by the shadows. The churning in my stomach grew.
The hospital gates. I left the car in the main park and walked over to the laboratory. A nurse passed quickly the other way, clutching a file to her breast. A blackbird briefly coloured the dusk.
I climbed the steps, looked around, then put my hand into the letter-box for the key.
The door opened easily. I shut it gently and waited a few moments in the silence while my eyes adjusted. Then, softly up the stairs.
The main corridor was lit faintly from the lights outside. A ’fridge hummed. An electric clock ticked the half-minute. I slid through the shadows to John’s room.
To switch on the light or not? No, tempting fate. I could just make out the screen of the computer.
I reached behind it for the switch and the blue glow faintly lit the room. I sat in front of it and began.
John’s code, then through the menu; John’s code again, reversed… ‘Do you want to print?’ No. Through his first project, then:
‘Password?’
A second’s hesitation, then I tapped in DEERCRAP.
‘OK,’ said the screen. ‘Do you want to print?’ Yes. A heading: ‘Effect of substance P7 on in vitro growth of HIV in OKT4 cells.’
Screen after screen filled with densely packed data, tables and formulae, the printer buzzed like a demented insect while I watched the paper stream from it in waves.
Then it was finished. I’d made no attempt to understand it, that could wait. I tore off the paper, folded it and —
‘Thanks, I’ve been waiting for that.’
My nerves fused and for an instant I was paralysed, then I whipped round. He was about two yards behind me, smiling in the blue light. I didn’t think, just went for him. He dodged, tripping me with a foot so that I sprawled on to the floor.
As he stepped past me towards the computer, I grabbed an ankle and heaved.
He staggered and fell against a chair, giving me time to get up. He was at me in a flash, fist lancing for my belly, but I was ready for him, blocked it with my left and lashed out with my right.
He saw it coming and feinted, but it caught the side of his head and he fell back against the computer. The glow was extinguished as it crashed on to the floor.
I kicked, felt my toe catch his leg, then smashed at where I thought his head was. It connected and he went down.
I fell on him, reaching for his neck. He tried to wriggle away but I held on to his jacket. A fist caught the side of my face but I hardly felt it.
We slithered round together on the floor, knocking into chairs and bench-legs while he rained blows at me and I fumbled for his throat. I kept my head down and his fists glanced harmlessly from my scalp. Our breath came in sobs.
Then I found it, his throat, clutched, squeezed, felt my fingers sink in. I was killing him for what he’d done to Sally. I was executing him.
He went limp. My fingers loosened fractionally as I got on top of him for better purchase, then his knee came from nowhere into my crotch.
For a microsecond I felt nothing, just the thump; then the pain roared up through my belly, my chest, my skull. I tried to scream but the pain choked me. I remember rolling off him, clutching at myself, trying to scream, breath escaping in tiny whimpers.
Time didn’t exist, just a world of pain stretching into infinity.
I didn’t hear him get up, the first thing I was aware of outside myself was a rasping cough.
Then he kicked me. ‘I said, have you had enough?’ He started coughing again.
I think I said yes, although all I was aware of was the slightest diminishing of the agony, and with it, an overwhelming sense of relief.
He stumbled over to the door and switched on the light, then found a chair and collapsed into it, his chest heaving. I just lay where I was, trying to will the pain away.
After a while, it might have been five minutes, he pulled himself up.
‘Well, I suppose I’d better get you down to the nick,’ he said.
I looked up at him, and despite everything, found myself laughing at the supreme irony of it.
‘What’s so damn funny?’ he demanded.
‘Well, you’ve got to admit it’s good. You handing me over to the police for what you’ve done…’ I laughed some more, although it hurt.
‘They’re right — you are mad,’ he murmured.
‘Mad? Oh, that’s the end. You murder Sally, John too, get me blamed for it and then tell me I’m mad.’
He knelt beside me. ‘You killed Sally Wytham. I don’t know about Devlin, but everyone knows you killed Sally — ’
‘That’s really good. Just keep saying it like that and everyone’ll believe you. No problem.’
‘And you just tried to kill me,’ he said softly.
‘I’d try again, if I could. You deserve to die. She didn’t.’
‘You’d kill me because you think I killed her?’
‘I know you killed her. You murdered her.’
‘How? How do you know that?’
I hesitated. ‘Who else could it be?’
He took another deep breath, then he said, ‘I thought it was odd.’ A pause. ‘Well, if you didn’t kill her, and I didn’t, then who did?’
He said it so matter-of-factly that I knew it had to be true.
I dragged myself up. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Jones. I’m a DHSS investigator.’ He took a plastic-covered identification card from his wallet and handed it to me. ‘I was sent here to watch John Devlin, who’s suspected of stealing industrial secrets from Parc-Reed Pharmaceuticals.’
CHAPTER 14
I stared at the card for a long moment while my mind tried to take it all in. At last I said:
‘Where is he?’
‘Devlin? I don’t know. I thought you did.’
‘He’s dead,’ I said dully. ‘Whoever killed Sally — ’
‘What makes you say that?’
I shrugged, then winced. ‘I’d have heard from him by now.’
‘What were you going to do with that?’ He indicated the printout.
‘Give it to my solicitor, I suppose.’
‘Why?’
‘It proves some of what I told the police. They didn’t believe there was any secret work on AIDS.’
‘He’d have shopped you. They all believe you’re insane. There’s too much evidence against you.’
‘What do you believe?’
‘That you’re in the shit. Do you want to help me?’
‘Have I any choice?’
‘Not really, unless you like prison. How are you feeling?’
‘Pretty bloody awful.’
‘It’ll pass. We’d better be thinking about going.’
‘What about this mess?’ I indicated the room. ‘Hadn’t we better clear it up?’
He looked around. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I want the staff, all of them, to know there’s been a break-in. In fact, I want them to know what we’ve got, or at least have some idea.’
‘Why?’
‘A trap. In fact, I’m going to make it more obvious.’ He picked up the printout and stared at it for a moment. ‘We’ll leave som
e of this behind, perhaps just the first sheet with the title. I’ll get it off one of the other terminals.’ He looked up. ‘What is the password?’
It meant nothing to him. He went out and a moment or so later, I heard the printer buzzing in the virology lab. Then he was back with the first sheet, which he left on top of the printer.
‘Time we were going. You’d better stay at my hotel. We’ll pick up your stuff from The Pines tomorrow.’
‘How did you know where I was staying?’
‘Followed you today. After you’d followed me. Come on.’
He propped open the door with one of the fallen chairs, took a last look round, then switched off the light.
I limped down the stairs after him. He opened the door cautiously, only leaving when he was sure we were unobserved.
‘What about my car?’ I asked, as we reached his.
‘We’ll pick it up tomorrow.’ He let me in, then drove quickly to where he was staying at the Churchill Hotel. As soon as we were inside his room, a double, he took a large first-aid box from his case.
‘Does it still hurt?’
‘Yes,’ I said feelingly.
‘Take a couple of these.’ He handed me two unmarked capsules which I swallowed with some water.
Then, to my surprise, he started to examine his face minutely in the mirror and carefully dress the cuts and abrasions with lotion and a styptic pencil.
‘No, I’m not being a wimp,’ he said, catching my eye. ‘If I don’t get this bruising down, some clever sod in the laboratory might start thinking.’
He went on working. I glanced at my watch. To my astonishment, it was only a little after ten.
As he rubbed some of the lotion into his neck, he said, ‘You’ll have to stay here tonight, but tomorrow I think we’d better make a strategic withdrawal to the Smoke, just in case the police start adding three and four and decide to make a search. Now — ’ he put the lotion away, pulled open a drawer and took out a bottle of whisky — ‘we don’t have much time if we’re to set this trap up by the morning, so we’d better compare notes.’ He splashed whisky into a couple of toothglasses and handed me one.
‘Will this be all right on top of those capsules?’ I asked.
‘As long as you don’t have too much. How are you feeling now?’
‘A bit better,’ I said, surprised. ‘What’s in — ’
‘Good. As I said, we don’t have much time, so you’d better tell me what you know.’
I told him briefly how I’d come to know John and Sally, and everything I could remember since arriving in Oxford nearly three weeks before.
‘So you had no contact with Devlin at all while you were here?’ he interrupted.
‘None. Haven’t the police tried tracing him?’
‘I’ll tell you about that later. Go on with your story.’
I still found it very difficult to think about what happened that Sunday after Sally’s ’phone call, so I skated quickly around it.
‘So you’ve no idea who hit you?’ Jones asked.
‘I thought it was you.’
He leaned forward. ‘Who do you think it was now?’
I felt my mind close over. ‘Sorry, I don’t know.’
He was silent for a moment. I began asking him about John again, but he cut me short.
‘You’ll have to bear with me for a little while.’ He leaned forward again. ‘Listen. I’m going to make some assumptions; you tell me if they’re wrong, and why. First, we know that Sally found the password and was then killed. We assume that whoever killed her was also looking for the password, but didn’t get it, because if they had they would have wiped the data off the computer.’
I gave a single nod.
He continued. ‘I think we can assume that it’s someone in the laboratory — ’
‘But who?’
‘We’ll speculate on that later, but for the moment we can assume that they’re feeling pretty secure now.’
‘What about the fact that I’ve escaped?’
‘That’ll make them feel even safer if anything, since it looks like an admission of guilt. And lastly — ’ he bared his teeth briefly — ‘we’ll assume they still want the data, which is why it’s the bait for our trap.
‘Now, when that mess we left tonight is found tomorrow, the police’ll be called in. They’ll show the piece of printout we left to all the staff, so that our man will know that someone’s got the data, but he won’t know who. We’ve somehow got to let him know that it’s for sale, and where to apply. How do we do that?’
There was a silence while I grappled with his reasoning, then the ghost of something formed in my mind.
‘I’ve got an idea, but I can’t put any shape to it until you tell me how far the police got in tracing John.’
He made a slight gesture of impatience. ‘They found his mother in Glasgow, who told them she hadn’t seen him for a month, although he had ’phoned her a fortnight before to say that he might be away for a while.’
‘America,’ I said. ‘You must have seen that letter from NAP.’
‘I wondered when you’d remember that.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘It all fits. I was in the laboratory for two weeks before you came. Devlin had realized who I was and the Friday before you arrived, he accused me and we had a hell of a row. Then he disappeared and after that, you, his great and probably only buddy, turned up, so I naturally assumed you knew where he was and what he was doing.’
‘Have you tried tracing him to America?’
‘The police have questioned NAP, who admit to having been in contact with him, but deny sending him to the States. But then again, they would, wouldn’t they?’
‘But if he’d gone to America,’ I said, ‘wouldn’t he have wiped his data from the computer first? And I still think he would have let me know where he was.’
‘Why? Oh, all right, I take your point, he’s either in the States or he’s dead. Now what was your idea?’
‘We send a postcard, apparently from John, to all the lab staff. It would contain a reference to his work and a ’phone number.’
‘They’d all try it.’
‘All right — how about this? We make a reference to a newspaper on the card and then put the number in the personal column of the paper.’
‘Not bad, though we’d have to make the reference pretty obscure — no, it won’t work. The police still want to see Devlin since the killing took place in his flat, so they’d be shown the card. They’d be on to us in a second.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I think you’re on the right track.’ He swallowed the last of his drink and abstractedly poured himself some more. He said slowly, ‘We could always leave the message on the computer.’
‘But how — ?’
‘Listen! Our man will have got as far with the program as we did before you realized what the final password was. I think it’ll shake him that someone else has got there, but as soon as he’s got a minute alone, he won’t be able to resist trying the computer again, to see if he can work it out himself. That’s when he finds our message.’
‘Won’t he realize it’s a trap?’
‘Depends on how we put it.’ His eyes moved as he thought. ‘I quite like your newspaper idea…yes…the message will be a reference to a newspaper, and we’ll put a ’phone number in the personal column…’
He turned back to me. ‘Is there time to get an advert in the local daily — what’s it called?’
‘Oxford Mail.’
‘That’s it — can we get it in for Monday?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Better be sure. I wonder if they’d know in reception.’
He tried them and they did — there was time if we placed it in the morning.
I said, ‘How do you know the police won’t work this one out?’
He thought quickly. ‘Because I’ll be there to make sure they don’t. They’re bound to ask me — ’
‘Don’t the police know
who you are?’
‘Only a couple of the higher-ups. As I was saying, they’re bound to ask the visiting computer expert about this mysterious program, so I’ll fiddle around with it a bit, then say I can’t understand it. Our man will heave a sigh of relief at that — ’ He stopped short. ‘And maybe I’ll be able to spot him then. We’ll see,’ he finished abruptly.
I said, ‘How are you going to word the message?’
‘Just “Mail on Monday” should do it. After “Continue for Project II”.’ He reached for his jacket. ‘I’ll go on my own, there’s no point in you taking any more risks than you have to. Why don’t you try making some sense of that while you’re waiting?’ He pointed to the printout and then was gone.
I did as he suggested because I needed something to distract me. As I went through it, some of the phrases brought back John very clearly, especially the night he’d shown me the AIDS virus on the electron microscope. Was he in America now, trying to sell his discovery? I couldn’t make up my mind. Part of me was still sure he was dead.
Jones was back after forty minutes.
‘You’ve done it?’ I asked.
‘Piece of cake.’ He poured us both some more whisky and lit a cheroot. ‘Well, what do you think of it?’ He indicated John’s data.
‘I’ve only had time to glance through, but it strikes me as a brilliant piece of work. I have a feeling that it’s not quite finished,’ I added.
‘But finished enough to hawk around?’
‘Yes.’
There was a short silence while he sipped his drink, then he said, ‘So Devlin had you believing it was his own work?’
‘I still think so. This work is his style…’
Jones shook his head. ‘No, he pinched it from Parc-Reed. My brief was to find out what he was doing with it.’
‘If it really is Parc-Reed’s discovery, why are they so worried?’ I asked. ‘Surely with their facilities, they could have the work finished before John did.’
‘They think that what he’s doing is trying to alter it just enough to escape their patent, so that he can sell it abroad.’
I picked up the printout. ‘This doesn’t read like that, it reads like original work.’
‘I didn’t say Devlin isn’t clever.’
Bad Medicine- A Life for a Life; Bed of Nails; Going Viral Page 32