‘What if you’ve got it the wrong way round?’ I was emboldened by the whisky. ‘What if Parc-Reed are trying to steal it from John?’
‘No, it wasn’t his idea, originally — ’
‘How do you know that?’
‘And even if it was,’ he continued as though I hadn’t spoken, ‘he was under contract at the time, so it still belongs to Parc-Reed.’
‘But they sacked him, so they’d broken the contract.’
He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t work like that. Anyway, we’ll soon know now that I’ve got his data.’
I sat very still. ‘Are you saying that your job’s finished?’
‘In a manner of speaking. But I want to know where Devlin is, or whether, as you think, he’s dead, and the only way I can see of doing that at the moment, is to find out who killed Sally.’
I relaxed again. ‘D’you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘All right, so long as you remember that I’ve got to be up bright and early tomorrow.’
I hesitated. ‘You do believe that it wasn’t me?’
‘You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.’
‘What made you believe me?’
He smiled wryly. ‘I’ve found that when someone’s in extremis, like you were tonight, they’re nearly always telling the truth.’
‘I’m glad for that. How did you know I’d be there?’
He grinned. ‘I spotted your binoculars flashing in the sun this morning, so I let myself out at the back, circled round and watched you.’
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘I didn’t at first, that disguise is good. But logically it had to be you, and once I’d realized that, I could see it was. So I allowed you to follow me at lunch-time to make sure, then ditched my car, found a taxi and picked you up at Devlin’s flat. Then followed you back to the hospital, then to The Pines. I was sure you’d want to get at the computer, so I waited for you there.’ He felt his neck gingerly. ‘I wasn’t expecting quite so much resistance.’
‘And I wasn’t expecting your knee…’
‘No, that’s the beauty of it. Has the pain gone now?’
‘Not quite.’
He took some of the capsules from his box and handed them to me. ‘Take a couple more now, and if it still hurts in the morning, another two.’ As I swallowed them, he said, ‘I’d better do my face again, then I think it’s time for bed.’
Although I was so tired, I lay awake for a long time. My mind wandered drowsily over the day’s events as I listened to the steady breathing of the man whom, a short while ago, I had tried to kill.
CHAPTER 15
We’d made love, Sally and I, and I slept, except that another part of me was watching, knowing what was about to happen.
The telephone rang… ‘Answer it for God’s sake,’ I mumbled, then jerked up with a shout of terror. Then I saw where I was and collapsed with relief.
Still the telephone rang. I reached for it.
‘Hel — ’ Pips, then a coin was dropped. ‘Hello?’
‘That you, Chris? It’s Tom Jones here — sorry if I woke you, but I’m about to put the advert in the paper and wanted to check the number… Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, we’re in luck. I found out this morning that if you put a prefix in front of the extension you can ring straight through to the hotel room without going through the switchboard, d’you follow me? Anyway, I thought I’d better try it first. How are you feeling?’
‘Not sure yet.’ I looked at the clock by his bed. It was just after eleven. ‘What happened this morning?’
He chuckled. ‘It went well, but I think we’d better head for the Smoke first thing this afternoon. I’ll come back lunch-time and tell you about it then.’ He disconnected.
I crawled out of bed and took stock of my body. I had a headache, felt dizzy and my groin ached. I took the last two capsules with some milk I found in the ’fridge and then ran a deep, hot bath.
I felt a bit better after that, but still just lay on the bed waiting for the pain to go.
Jones walked in at a quarter past twelve. ‘Hello. Hungry?’
‘I am a bit.’
‘Wrap yourself round these.’ He handed me a pack of sandwiches and an individual apple pie.
‘Thanks. So what happened this morning? You seem very cheerful.’
‘I am. It went like a dream.’ He sat down on the bed and told me as I ate.
He hadn’t wanted to get there too early in case it looked suspicious, but had managed to arrive at the same time as Ron.
‘Which was just as well. The ancillaries had found the mess we left but hadn’t done anything about it. Ron ’phoned the police straight away, but he’d have still had plenty of time to remove our calling card if he’d wanted. He didn’t get the chance, ’cos I stuck to him like gin and it.’
Then the police had arrived and, as Jones had guessed, they’d interviewed everyone and shown them the piece of printout. Then he’d been asked to find the program from which it came, but had regretfully confessed himself baffled.
‘You watched them all for reaction?’ I asked.
‘Like a hawk, but I didn’t spot anything. Not a flicker.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘Leave our brew to ferment over the weekend and wait for someone to contact us on Monday.’
‘What did you put in the advert in the end?’
‘Oh yes. I put “JSD 123 — for data, ring 732891 at eight sharp tonight.”’
‘And that definitely comes out on Monday?’
He nodded.
‘What do we tell him?’ I asked. ‘I mean, he’ll want to know who we are.’
‘We just tell him that if he wants the goods, it’ll cost him ten thousand. We’ve got to convince him we’re only concerned with selling.’
‘Then what?’
‘The really interesting bit, we arrange a meeting. We’ll have to play that by ear. And now,’ he said, overriding my next question, ‘I think it’s time we were on our way to London.’
‘What about my car?’ I asked.
‘We’d better not leave it at the hospital,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Give me the keys and I’ll walk over and get it now. We can leave it here for the weekend.’
‘Just one other thing,’ I said as I handed them over. ‘Did anyone connect the break-in with me, with my escape?’
‘As a matter of fact, they did. There was quite a little discussion about it in the restroom.’
‘Who started it?’
‘Well, that was rather odd. It was your little monkey-faced pal, Ian Lambourne.’
As I waited for him to return, I pondered on the significance of this, but couldn’t see it.
Half an hour later, having called at the guest-house to collect my things and settle the bill, we were on the M40 to London. Jones was still in a high good humour, so I tried pumping him about his job, and to my surprise, he gave me some of his life-story.
He’d run away from home at the age of sixteen to join the Army and after a few years had joined the police. He’d become a detective in the Fraud Squad and also an expert on computers before leaving the Force for reasons he wouldn’t go into. After a period of temporary jobs and the dole, he’d found his present work of investigating fraud and corruption in the NHS.
‘You’d be amazed at how much there is,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe my guv’nor at first when he told me the DHSS loses more than £100 million a year through villainy, but I believe it now.’
‘Something to do with low pay, perhaps,’ I suggested.
‘Not always, no. Some people want more however much they already have.’
I asked how he’d come to get this particular assignment since it involved a commercial company, and after some hesitation, he told me how a complaint from Parc-Reed had ended up on his boss’s desk and that he (Jones) had asked to work on it when he heard it involved a cure for AIDS. His brother was a ha
emophiliac who had the disease.
I was watching his profile against the window as he spoke.
‘He’s on AZT at the moment, or Zidovudine as you’re supposed to call it now.’ His expression belied the lightness of his words. ‘It’s doing him some good, I suppose, but it does have some nasty side-effects.’
‘How long has he had AIDS?’ I asked.
‘Two — two-and-half years.’
‘He’s not doing badly, then. If he can hang on a bit longer, maybe he’s got a chance.’
He smiled mirthlessly. ‘That’s what they all say: “If he can hang on a bit longer, Mr Jones, then he might just be in a position to hang on a bit longer.”’ He sighed. ‘Sorry. It’s better sometimes than others. You see, AZT’s given him hope. Hope’s important. I think he is feeling better, but another, new drug might make all the difference. That’s why I wanted to have a go at Devlin when I heard about him.’ The muscles in his face clenched. ‘People who try to make a fast buck out of AIDS, they…they’re as bad as drug-pushers, they deserve all they’ve got coming to them.’
Suddenly, he was Dave again, the man who terrorized, who went for the balls — but I could understand why, now.
I tried to tell him about the John I’d known, who’d struggled up from nowhere, whose experience had conditioned him to be always an outsider.
‘We’ve all had problems,’ said Jones unsympathetically. ‘You should know that.’
I told him about the evidence I’d seen of John’s scientific brilliance, genius almost, and how I was convinced that P7 was his own work.
‘Even if that were true,’ he said, ‘if Devlin made the discovery while he was employed by Parc-Reed, and on their premises, then the law is in their favour.’
‘D’you know that for a fact?’
There was a silence. Then:
‘If you mean, have I seen it in writing, then the answer’s No. But I’ve been assured that it’s the case.’
‘By whom?’
‘By my department.’
‘Who in turn, perhaps, have been assured by Parc-Reed.’
For a moment he looked annoyed, then his face relaxed into a grin. ‘All right, you’ve made your point. I’ll check it out, just to satisfy you.’
By now we were well into London and couldn’t be far from the hotel, which didn’t leave me much time.
‘Who do you think did it?’ I asked abruptly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You must have some idea.’
He pulled up at some traffic lights. ‘My last job showed me that you have to suspect literally everybody. Also, that speculation tends to leave you peering up your own backside — Ah, the hotel’s just round here.’
He parked outside and came in with me to check the reservation.
‘Sure you’ve got everything you need?’ he asked.
My pent-up thoughts threatened to burst as the loneliness of the weekend stretched in front of me.
‘I’ll pick you up Sunday evening. Shall we say nine? I’ll have arranged a room for you at the Churchill by then.’
‘Don’t go yet. Have a coffee with me,’ I said. ‘Please.’
He hesitated. ‘All right.’
I could tell that he didn’t want to. I said, ‘There’s so much going round my head, I — I’ve just got to talk about it. Speculate.’
He smiled then. ‘All right,’ he said again. ‘But let’s make it a beer.’
As we waited at the bar he said awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry about leaving you here, but my flat’s very small, and I haven’t seen my girlfriend for a week…’
‘It’s OK, I understand — ’
‘So take as long as you need to get your speculating off your chest.’
We took our beer to a corner table.
‘Before you begin,’ he said, ‘remember that the basic requirements of Motive and Opportunity still apply, it’s just that their parameters are wider. Now, first, who are the people we’re looking at?’
‘Ron, Phil and Carey,’ I said without hesitation. ‘They’re the obvious ones.’
‘What about Charles and Ian?’
‘That’s ridiculous, Charles was abroad at the time, so he didn’t have the opportunity, and Ian — ’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Well, because…’
‘You pulled me up just now over the law being in Parc-Reed’s favour, now you’re making the same mistake.’
‘Touché. All right, but what about Ian, what motive could he have?’
‘Money. He’s only a basic grade Scientific Officer, so with two kids he’d be critically hard up. And, he’s in a perfect position to know exactly what Devlin’s been doing. So you see what I mean, having to suspect everybody?’
‘All right, you’ve made your point.’
We both smiled.
‘Good. So let’s consider the three you mentioned, starting with Ron.’
‘Well, he had the opportunity and he couldn’t bear John, to start with.’
‘Go on.’
I told him how Ron had tried to get rid of me from the moment I’d arrived, how he played down John’s disappearance and how he’d finally set the police on to me.
‘How d’you know he did that?’
‘Sally and I worked it out. It happened just after Ron really piled the pressure on, and he’s a Mason with police connections. Who else could it have been?’
‘As a matter of fact, it was me.’ I stared at him. ‘Ron wasn’t the only one who wanted to get rid of you. At the time, I thought it might flush Devlin out — I realize now I was wrong.’
I slumped back in my seat. ‘D’you know, I couldn’t understand at the time why Ron was so much easier with me the next day.’
Jones leaned forward. ‘But that would have been when he announced that he’d had that ’phone call from Devlin. Was it Devlin, or someone else saying they were Devlin?’
I said slowly, ‘We’ve only got Ron’s word for it that there was a ’phone call.’
‘You’re learning.’
‘But it all just leaves us where we started. I can’t think of another motive for him, other than that he couldn’t stand John.’
‘But we certainly can’t eliminate him, can we? Let’s go on to Phil.’
I sat up and thought. ‘Well, Phil may have been jealous of John, but he wouldn’t have killed Sally. He loved her.’
‘But it was unrequited love, the worst kind. First Devlin got in his way, then you. Don’t forget, I saw his statement to the police, he did more than any of them to put the rope around your neck.’
‘I can believe that,’ I said quietly. ‘But where does John’s data fit into it?’
‘Perhaps it doesn’t, in which case we’re up shit creek, because he won’t go for our bait. So let’s think about Carey.’
I thought hard about Carey. ‘Motive and opportunity,’ I said at last. ‘He knew about John’s data and he wanted it.’
‘How do you know that?’
I explained how Carey had quizzed me and how he’d given himself away when he’d claimed he didn’t have the results of the work John was doing for him.
‘But he might have just wanted to know what was going on in his own laboratory,’ said Jones, ‘which would be reasonable enough.’
‘No, he wanted that data, I’m sure of it. And there’s the fact that he sacked John and then took him back, as though he’d found out what he was doing and was waiting for him to finish it.’
Jones finished his beer. ‘Even if you’re right, there’s a big difference between coveting Devlin’s work and killing for it.’
‘D’you want another?’ I asked, pointing at his glass.
‘I hadn’t better, since I’m driving.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘I lost my licence a year or so back and once is quite enough. Besides, I promised Holly I wouldn’t be too late, so I’d better go soon. But d’you see what I mean now about speculation?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, no harm’s done if it’s got it off
your chest. Let’s wait and see who walks into our trap on Monday. Oh, there’s something I didn’t tell you.’ He came closer. ‘I didn’t just leave the message on the computer last night, I left a trip-wire as well, so that I can see in the morning whether anyone’s been into the program.’
‘Will it tell you who it is?’
‘No, because they’ll have used Devlin’s password. But it will tell us that the bait’s been taken.’
I searched his face. ‘And you do think it’s one of those three, don’t you?’
‘Or Charles or Ian.’ He eyes became faraway. ‘Or X.’
‘Who’s X?’
‘Just someone we haven’t thought of.’
CHAPTER 16
At a quarter to eight on Monday evening, we sat waiting in Jones’s room, he next to the telephone on the desk, me on the bed beside the extension.
A handkerchief lay unfolded on the desk, to disguise his voice. ‘He’ll almost certainly use one too,’ he said, ‘but listen on the extension — just in case you can catch something that gives him away. But for Christ’s sake, don’t say anything.’
And so we both waited.
The weekend hadn’t been as bad as I feared. Thinking was what I was most afraid of, but the hotel had its own small library, and that and the television held most of my thoughts at mind’s length.
Jones came over to see me on Saturday evening for a drink and brought his girlfriend, Holly. I suppose I’d expected a streetwise, self-confident Londoner, but instead found myself talking to an attractive, uncomplicated girl from South Devon. Between them, they eased the evening away.
On the way back to Oxford on Sunday, I asked him about his cover job in the laboratory.
‘Oh, it’s a bona fide job,’ he said, ‘their system needed modifying and I’ve modified it. Mind you,’ he added with a grin, ‘it’s just as well things have come to a head now, I couldn’t have spun it out for much longer.’
Monday was torture. Jones didn’t come back or contact me and I spent the day prowling my room, unable to keep still, but not daring to go out.
He ’phoned me from his room just after six. ‘The bait’s been taken,’ he said softly, ‘just one person.’ He insisted that we were ready by the telephone at seven, ‘just in case he rings early to catch us off balance,’ he said.
Bad Medicine- A Life for a Life; Bed of Nails; Going Viral Page 33