Chapter 24.
The room was white, brilliant, intense white, and completely clean, spotless. Nat sat on a white leather chair, his elbows resting on a white metal table, looking around him. He almost had to catch his breath to deal with the whiteness of the room. The walls, floor and ceiling were so clearly, cleanly white that you couldn’t make out where one started and the other ended. The white door that they had entered through blended so completely with the white walls as to have become invisible. The white chairs and table had no other features, no other colours, so that they became almost impossible to distinguish, and the one time Nat had stood up, he had to sit down again straight away - he’d almost fallen over, overcome by vertigo.
He sat staring at the only non-white things in the room – the three cups of coffee that had been poured (and the only reason they were visible was because of the blackness of the coffee still inside the brilliant white mugs) and the black, futuristic conference phone that emitted a strange blue light. There was one other strange thing about this room. It was absolutely freezing. He’d followed Strange in from an innocuous prison corridor, amid the normal dirt and grime and slightly over-heated, smelly, muggy atmosphere, through a bland looking metal door, and found himself in here. “Sit down, Nathanial” Strange had said with a reassuring smile, “make yourself comfortable. I will only be a few minutes” and he’d disappeared back out of the room, shutting the door behind him. It must have taken Nat ten minutes to figure out where the chairs were.
Tentatively Nat reached out and took a mug, sipping at the strong, hot coffee. He wrapped his hands around the mug to warm them up. It was so cold in this room that his breath looked like ice; he could imagine it freezing and crashing down onto the white table.
He had some vague impression that it was Monday morning today, and that he probably should have been at work, and that he would probably be fired this time, having run out of second chances. He could just imagine his boss now, glancing at the clock on the wall then back to Nat’s desk, over and over, his patience growing thinner and thinner. It actually made Nat smile, thinking about the conversation that would never happen, explaining the reason for his lateness, yet again. For once he wouldn’t have to think of a plausible excuse to cover up for his lethargy, for the drudgery of his everyday existence. The irony, he thought. The shame about never being able to see that smug, self-righteous expression dissolve into shock. Ah, he could live with it. What a shit job, anyway. What a waste of my time and my life, Nat thought. When I get out of here, he thought, I will… But he didn’t follow the thought through; nervously he glanced over his shoulder because he thought he had heard a noise.
Nothing.
Except.
His eye caught a movement, slight but unmistakable against the whiteness of the room. Slight because it was so small, and he had to concentrate to focus, to see what it was. A tiny black shape, on the other side of the room, moving towards him, crawling on the floor. He leaned forward in his chair and squinted as the object became clearer. A spider. Crawling slowly, deliberately across the floor, its blackness glinting against the harsh white light. It stopped a couple of metres away from Nat. It stopped and cocked its head up to study Nat, or at least that’s the way it appeared. He could swear that he could see its eyes glint in the light. Did spiders have eyes?
He didn’t get to answer that question. This time there was a loud noise, and straight ahead, right in front of him, a split appeared in the whiteness; a split and a crash and there in front of him was the door, opened back out towards the prison corridor, and Nat’s first feeling was a strange sense of sea-sickness, he had been sure that the door had been behind him. He instinctively reached out and put his hands on the table (or at least where he thought the table was) to steady himself as his brain lurched, but he didn’t quite get it right and instead he swiped at the table, knocking one of the mugs of coffee onto its side and spilling the black liquid onto the table. The liquid swirled outwards, rapidly at first, making a black puddle that seemed to hover in midair in the whiteness of the room.
“Shit!” Nat cursed half under his breath, just as Strange and a woman walked into the room and allowed the door to shut behind them.
“Nathanial, I do believe you’ve split our guest’s coffee” said Strange as the two of them walked slowly to the table. They walked lightly, easily, not seeming to have any of the difficulty Nat seemed to have in dealing with the intense whiteness.
The woman put her hands up and gave a small smile. “It doesn’t matter.”
Nat looked at her. She was young, slim, dressed in a deep black suit, her handsome face serious, her hair long and extremely black. Her eyes were fixed on Nat’s as she took a seat, placed her black briefcase carefully on the table next to her and rested her arms in front of her, all just out of reach of the puddle of coffee. Strange, with a deep sigh of effort, lowered himself onto the chair next to her, so that they both faced Nat. He grunted as he sat.
“What say we clean this mess up, Nathanial?” He tilted his head slightly towards Nat. Nat stared at him, and then suddenly realised that Strange was expecting him to do it.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sorry!” He pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket that he started to use to mop up the coffee, as best he could. It didn’t go very well, there were still splodges of coffee all over the table and as he leaned forward to try and catch all of it, he ended up pushing some of the coffee over the edge of the table and onto the woman’s lap. “Shit, sorry” he started, looking up at her, but she didn’t react, just regarded him with a cool silence.
“I think that will have to do now, Nathanial” Strange said wearily. “Now, let’s get to business.”
He glanced over at the woman. She cleared her throat. “Good afternoon, Nathanial, my name is Alice Stevens. I am a colleague of Richard’s, and he has informed me of your current issues. Firstly, we need to establish contractual terms.”
“Contractual terms for what?”
“Hm.” She spoke confidently and quietly. “If we are to help you, Nathanial, we need to ensure that we have a clear understanding of the contract between yourself and Axiom International.” Nat got the distinct feeling that she thought she was going to have to explain everything to him carefully.
“That’s the name of our firm” Strange added.
“Oh, right. Your private investigation firm, right?”
Strange and Alice glanced at each other. “That’s right, Nathanial.”
“Erm, call me Nat.”
“All right, Nat.” She opened the briefcase and pulled out a file, which she held in her lap. She flicked through it and brought out a piece of paper, which she studied for a few seconds. “Yes, this is it. Would you please sign at the bottom?” She held the paper out to him, careful to avoid it touching the table.
Nat took it tentatively, and then the pen that was offered (silver, heavy, expensive). He scanned through the text. It started with the slightly ominous words “Lifetime Agreement between Nathanial Jones (undersigned) and Axiom International, Cayman Islands, The World” and went on to describe strange terms like “Associated Tax Model”, “Zero Based Axiom Liability”, “The funding model is based on standard Axiom Terms and Conditions and is not negotiable by the client. Terms and pricing can be changed without notice by Axiom.” At the bottom, there was a paragraph entitled “Services Provided by Axiom: Due to the requirements to keep client confidentiality and the sensitive nature of activities carried out, the exact identity of services provided shall be subject to disclosure within the terms set about by any and all non-disclosure clauses that shall be determined by Axiom. Any requests for disclosure shall be reviewed within the complete non-disclosure agreement.”
He waved it at Strange, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what this means?”
“Nathanial, you are about to be interviewed as the prime suspect in what we believe is, or will soon become, a murder investigation. Ms Stevens is a renowned investigator. Clearly, as we have
been discussing, it is imperative that we understand much more information about Ms Jenkins, and you will need our help for this. If you would please sign below, it means that we can start putting real focus and resources behind this.”
Nat shook his head. Well, sign this strange document for these strange people? It had been that kind of day, though. He opened the pen, signed the paper and handed it back.
Alice Stevens gave him a small smile. “Thank you, Nat. Now, Richard has briefed me on your current circumstances. I have put a trace on any and all information regarding Ms Jenkins…”
“And what have you found?” Strange asked.
“Firstly, would you please be able to confirm that this is her.” She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a folder. She took a single photograph out of it and turned it for Nat to see. Strange angled his head to see it too.
“Wow” Strange said.
Nat nodded. “That’s her.” The photograph showed Terri sitting on a bench in what looked like a park, with a half-smile, half frown on her lips. With her hair swept behind her, the sun caught her face and her head and made it almost seem that she was glowing, her eyes sparkled with the reflection of the sunlight.
Alice turned the picture towards her and studied it. “She is quite striking.” She squinted at the photo and frowned, reached back into the folder and brought out a sheet of paper, which she studied for a second, then looked back at the photo. “It says in the information that I have that her eyes are white. White?” she looked questioningly at Nat.
“Well, yeah, they kind of were. Sort of milky, yellowy white, you know? I thought they must be artificial, like you know, contacts or something?”
“Yes…. well, it’s hard to tell here. No matter.” She put the photo back into the folder. “Now, to business.”
She shot a glance at him, and studied the paper for a second before looking back at Strange, not Nat.
“Firstly, it was relatively easy to determine which Terri Jenkins we were dealing with. A missing person’s report was filed on Friday 18th April – that’s three days ago – by the subject’s mother. Her full name is Teresa Wilhelmina Stephanie Jenkins, twenty two years of age. According to the subject’s mother, a Mrs Ada Frost Jenkins, she first went missing on the morning of Friday 18th April, when she didn’t turn up to a planned breakfast date with her mother. She…”
“So” interrupted Strange, “a missing person’s report was filed on the day she went missing? Why so soon?”
“I was coming to that. Mrs Frost Jenkins is from an extremely wealthy and privileged family. Perhaps you have heard of them – the Frost Jenkins?”
Nat gave her a blank look and she tutted. “No, of course not. They have significant interests in a number of businesses, most notably in the pharmaceuticals industry. Mrs Frost Jenkins is CEO of Frost Science, itself not known widely outside of the industry, but with a majority shareholding in …”
“Is this going anywhere?” Strange asked.
Alice put her pen on the table and looked at the stain. “The background is important to the case. I thought you would have known that, as you are a private investigator” she emphasized these last words with what sounded like sarcasm to Nat. “However, if you think there are more valuable things to do, perhaps you could have the desk cleaned for me.”
Strange looked at her, then at the desk, then back at her. He glanced at Nat, and winked at him, then, with an effort, pulled himself up out of his chair and took slow, lumbering steps towards the whiteness beyond. Clearly, he knew where the door was because he stopped, reached into the whiteness and touched something that seemed to have some effect. He waited for a few seconds, then turned back, and made his way slowly back to the desk where, with a relieved sigh, he sat down again. He looked at Nat, but talked to Alice.
“You were saying…?”
She gave a tight smile. “Let’s wait for this to be cleared up, shall we?”
Just then the invisible door slid open again, and a small man, seemingly dressed entirely in white, came shuffling in. He wore a white cap, white overalls and white shoes, and he seemed almost invisible against the room as he came to the desk; his silhouette moved vaguely against the room, like some ghost. He glanced nervously at Nat as he reached over the desk with a cloth, and proceeded to wipe it clean. He looked up at Strange who gave him a small nod, and then he shuffled back towards the door, pulled it shut behind him and disappeared.
“All better?” Strange asked sarcastically, looking at Nat.
Nat gulped. “Err, yes, thanks.”
“I believe he was addressing me” Alice said. “Yes, I think we can proceed now. As I was saying, Mrs Frost Jenkins is a woman of significant influence and power, and she instructed the police to begin their investigations immediately…”
“And she did this just because her daughter didn’t turn up for breakfast?”
“Ahem. Yes, that’s right. However, from what we understand, she had real concerns about her daughter’s behavior in the weeks and months preceding this. None of Mrs Frost’s associates have been forthcoming on the exact nature of these concerns, as it appears that Ms Jenkins was an extremely private person, however from what we understand, they did appear to relate to Ms Jenkins’ associations with a, ahem, man.”
Nat leaned forward, excitedly. “Joshua?”
She glanced at him, and looked back down at her notes. “Now, this is interesting. We haven’t been able to establish the identity of this man, or, it seems – “. She stopped and read something again, “– even been able to one hundred percent establish that he does actually exist. That is very unusual, wouldn’t you say, Richard?”
He looked at her. “Oh, after my opinion, now are we?”
“Grow up, Richard” she said in a tired voice, and Richard Strange actually blushed a little. He coughed. “Yes, ok, as you were saying, yes, very unusual.”
“Unusual why?” Nat asked.
Alice lent back in her chair. “We have significant resources at our disposal, Nat. It is normally quite straightforward for us to establish facts, however, here, we appear to have encountered something of a wall of silence. We’ll continue to investigate, but it does appear that either Miss Terri Jenkins was very good at hiding this relationship from pretty much everyone, or that it was closely guarded family secret, and her mother didn’t want any details exposed.”
“Tarnishing the family name?” Strange asked.
Alice snorted. “Hardly. The family name has been tarnished enough for one or two lifetimes already.”
“Really? How so?”
“Well, let me see…” she scanned the page. “Unethical working practices, health and safety contraventions, forced labour, hmm… insider trading, support to totalitarian regimes, all the usual stuff… let me see…oh, this is interesting, apparently Mrs Frost Jenkins’ husband has been convicted for murder and is currently serving a life sentence, hmm” she smiled, “in this prison, as luck would have it.” She looked at something else. “Actually, correction, he is Mrs Frost Jenkins’ soon to be ex-husband, she appears to have filed for divorce straight after the conviction.”
“Who did he murder?” Strange asked.
“That’s another strange thing. All the police records and the subsequent trial, all of the records have been redacted. Even with our contacts, it’s not possible to establish who the victim was.”
“I suppose” mused Strange “that these things can happen. They had enough influence to stop that coming out, if they wanted to.”
“But…” Nat started, and they both looked at him, startled, almost as if they had forgotten he was there. He felt suddenly nervous, as if what he was going to say was incredibly stupid, but took a deep breath and carried on.
“But… if they did that, why wouldn’t they stop all of that stuff about forced labour and everything coming out…?”
Strange raised his eyebrows. “Not a bad question, Nathanial,” and Nat, despite himself, could feel his cheeks go red.
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br /> “No, it’s a good point,” said Alice, “but it’s probably not relevant.”
“Oh” said Nat.
“No… you see, it can be quite a positive, to be seen as ruthless in business. They may want their competitors to be aware of it. The murder, though, I would imagine would be more personal in nature.”
“I see” Strange said. “Well, perhaps we can follow up on the murder. Follow further sources, understand if we can’t establish more details. It may not be relevant, but it is certainly possible.”
Alice gave him a frosty look. “Yes. I can assure you we are following that up.”
Strange gave her a warm smile. “Out of curiosity, you mentioned unethical working practices. Are you able to enlighten us as to what these were, more precisely?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh,” he smiled, “just a hunch.”
“Hmm. Let me see…” she studied the page, running her fingers across it. “Apparently, there was a law suit filed against them, when, erm, about… yes, just over ten years ago. It was… let me see… settled out of court. Yes… it concerned… clinical trials on human subjects. The drugs, it seems, weren’t approved for that, or even for any sort of trials. Yes, it looks like some sort of clandestine testing was going on, and the results weren’t always in line with expectations. They applied for a license for trials, it was refused, they appealed… the whole thing went on for a long time, well over a year, and it seems that they put an awful lot of pressure on the relevant authorities, but ultimately it was unsuccessful. They then appear to have… wait a minute… yes, they carried on their own pilot programme, recruiting people who were willing to be paid an awful lot of money to sign their lives away and take these drugs…”
“What did the drugs do?” Nat asked, suddenly.
Alice looked at him. “I’m sorry?”
“The drugs they were testing… what were they supposed to do?”
She sighed. “We don’t know. The trials were abandoned and all documents destroyed, after what appears to be significant fatalities. However…”
“However?” Strange asked.
“However, and before I say this, I must stress that I am not sure how reliable this information is. But we did manage to isolate one of the people who worked in Mrs Frost-Jenkins’ estate. After – let us say – robust – questioning, he did divulge that Miss Teresa Jenkins had an extremely rare medical condition, one with no known cure, and that her mother put significant focus and resources on…”
“Trying to find a cure” Strange finished.
“Exactly.”
“What was it?” Nat asked.
“What was what?”
“The condition?”
“Ah” Alice said. “Well, apparently, there was a medical term for it, however our source wasn’t exactly sure of this. It is extremely painful and always fatal. Physically, it always starts with the eyes, and it turns them very pale, almost white, they look like the moon, or so someone believed. Hmm” she muttered, “that explains the white eyes.” She studied her notes again. “It was referred to more commonly within the household as Moondance syndrome.”
Nat drew in a breath. “Moondance?”
Strange looked at him sharply. “What?”
But Nat shook his head. “I don’t know. Just thought it rang a bell.”
“Think hard.”
“No. Nothing. Sorry. I just can’t remember.” Nat wasn’t entirely sure why he was lying, and he wished Strange would stop looking at him.
“Richard?” Alice asked.
“Hmmm?” He turned to her and Nat breathed out with relief.
“What is your amazing intuition telling you?”
He looked up. “Oh, oh, nothing, probably.” Alice looked at him, then back down at the paper. “Well, if your razor-sharp mind does come up with something, do please remember to let us know.”
“I will, I will” he said, deliberately, Nat guessed, ignoring the sarcasm in his voice. “Was there anything else?” he asked.
She scanned through the paper again. “Yes, one more thing. It appears that the relationship between Teresa and her mother was, shall we say, extremely brittle.”
“Oh?” Strange looked at her, interested.
“Again, details are very patchy, the information was extremely hard to obtain…”
“So you keep saying.”
Alice ignored him and carried out, “however, from what we can gather, Teresa was very close to her father, yet quite distant from her mother. It would appear that she held her mother accountable for her father’s incarceration, and…”
“Hmmm… interesting” said Strange.
“Isn’t it just?” Alice forgot her sarcasm for a second. “It makes the circumstances of his incarceration all the more interesting. However, Mrs Frost Jenkins was, apparently, very controlling of Teresa, which we assume is partly driven by the illness, but which I also assume Teresa rejected. The ongoing relationship proved extremely hard, and, we conject, culminated in her getting involved in things that her mother didn’t approve of, presumably including this potential relationship. It’s also for that reason, I assume, that her mother notified the police as soon as Teresa didn’t turn up. She was keeping her on a very tight leash.”
“And I assume that there is, as yet, no sign of Terri?” Strange asked.
Alice was putting the page back in her briefcase. “None, not as yet. We are closely monitoring all potential avenues. I think, though, it would be worth us investigating your apartment, Nat?”
“Investigating it how?”
“Well, searching it. The police have a forensics team there at the moment, and…”
“They do?” Nat could feel the cold sweat come over him again, and he shivered.
“Well, yes, of course. They are trying to convict you for murder…”
“And no doubt they will find the evidence they need” Strange added.
Alice gave him a look, and went back to Nat. “I would strongly advise that we do our own review.”
Nat shrugged. “Okay” and Alice nodded. “Good.”
“What about the finger?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Terri’s finger. What did you find out about that?”
Alice looked at Strange, as if for guidance. He folded his arms. “We discussed it, Alice. The loss of her finger, it being found in Nathanial’s apartment, and Joshua Reeves’ obsession with retrieving it.”
“I know we discussed it.” Her voice was sharp. “We discussed it and agreed it would be part of phase two.”
“Ah. Yes, you do have a point.”
“Phase 2?” Nat asked.
Strange looked down. “Perhaps you could explain, Alice?”
“Yes, of course. Phase two we will carry out once we have payment for phase one.”
“Payment?” Nat asked.
Alice looked at Strange. “You did explain payment terms?”
Strange waved his hands in the air. “It was all in that thingy… that contract. Anyway” and he looked sheepishly at Nat, “we did have this conversation.”
“We did?”
“When you first started with your sorry tale. You told me that money wasn’t a problem. You told me, I believe, that your parents were, as you put it, loaded. I took that to mean having significant amounts of money, and not being high on drugs.”
Nat looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“You were telling me the truth, Nathanial?”
“Yes! I mean, I, erm, well… look.”
“He doesn’t have any money” Alice said sourly. “I told you we should have asked for payment up front.”
“Patience, Alice.” Strange was smiling. “Nathanial, you were telling the truth about your parents, were you not?”
“Erm…yeah, though the thing is…”
“The thing is” Strange took over, “that they are disappointed in you, potentially even wanting to disown you now that you have been incarcerated, and although the
y are extremely rich, or loaded as you so colourfully put it, you don’t feel in a position to be able to ask them for their help.”
Nat looked helplessly at Strange. “Yeah, yeah, that’s kind of right. I’ve always, you know, been – I mean I’ve never, never really met their expectations. You know, I missed out on a, I mean, I didn’t get to university, I ended up in a shitty job in a shitty town, I mean, everything I’ve done has just been shit! You know, they don’t even know I’m here, I haven’t had the heart to tell them, I mean look at me, twenty eight years old and still lying to my parents…” his voice started to raise, “I mean, the first they would have known of me being shot by that psycho out there would have been…”
“All right, all right” Strange said.
“Enough already!” Alice said. “We’re not social services. I think we get the picture.”
“And you can stop that as well” she added. Nat had started sniffling. He looked up towards her, and dug in his pocket for a handkerchief, which he wrapped around his nose, trying to control his sobs.
Strange gave a large sigh. “All right, Nathanial, this is what you need to understand.” He put his hands on the table. “You owe us a reasonably significant sum for phase 1 of the work that we have carried out for you, that is to say, establishment of the background behind Terri Jenkins. I think you would have to agree that we have carried out a thorough investigation.”
Nat started to say something but Strange put up his hand. “Furthermore, although you are, as you put it, estranged from your parents…”
“I’m not estranged as such, I’m just…”
“All the better. Although you may be distant from them, I think it is still very fair to say that they would be shocked if they realised that you were concerned they may not want to help you out. I think we can all assume that they would want to do as much as they could to provide you the best assistance possible, the best, as they say, that money can buy…”
“Erm, well I’m not entirely sure they would…”
“Of course they would. They may, of course, need a little encouragement, and pointing in the right direction, but we have ample experience of this sort of thing, don’t we, Alice?”
She gave a small nod.
Nat looked at Strange, then at Alice, then back at Strange. “Are you… threatening my parents?”
“No, no” Strange said.
“Well, in fact, we are.” Alice added. “It’s in the contract that you just signed. We have the right, through any means, legal, or illegal, to obtain moneys owed to us, directly or indirectly, from you or your immediate, or extended, family.”
“I don’t remember reading that?”
“It’s in the small print.”
“Oh.”
“Now of course, Nathanial, this never results in actual physical violence towards you or your family.”
“Very rarely” Alice corrected.
“Yes, very rarely. But only in cases where we are unable to obtain the money through other means. And, as you have rightly pointed out, your parents are people of significant means. And therefore, that is not an issue.” He leaned forward towards Nat. “What I suggest we do, Nathanial, is instigate actions to obtain the sums you owe us from your kin. This will be done painlessly, remotely, and without any possible trace back to you. I am sure that your parents will be able to recoup the sums lost through their insurance.”
“Well…”
“Good. What we will do, Nathanial, is obtain the full settlement for phases 1, 2 and 3. Our experience shows that a single payment causes far less long term problems than multiple activities. I’m sure you understand.”
“I guess?”
“Excellent.” Strange clapped his hands together. “You see, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
Alice nodded. She slipped a phone out of her jacket pocket and typed on it quickly. “Good. That’s in progress. We can now proceed with Phase 2.”
She took another sheet from her briefcase, put it down in front of her, and began reading, making occasional notes. Nat leaned forward to try and see, but the writing was tiny.
“And what about Joshua?” he asked, suddenly.
“Joshua” Strange said, “is phase 3.”
“But” Nat protested, “but that doesn’t make any sense! How can I prove my innocence without having anything on Joshua? I mean, what if he was her boyfriend? He’s bound to know where she is... I mean…”
“Best leave the detective work to us, Nat” Alice said.
“But…”
“Nathanial” Strange said calmly. “Please be reasonable. These investigations require a lot of time, effort and, of course, investment. We initiated a limited degree scope review in order to ascertain, first, what results we may be able to obtain, and second, to confirm, of course, your ability to support this venture financially. Now that we have confirmed that both are in the positive, we will proceed with all of your questions, please do not worry.”
“Yeah, but in the meantime, I’ve got these two joker detectives trying to pin a murder I didn’t commit on me…”
“May not have committed” Strange corrected.
“Yeah, ok, whatever, and I’ve also got some psycho killer here in this prison trying to blow my brains out. It’s not like I’ve got a lot of time, seriously. I need to get out of here.” He looked at their calm faces, waiting for him to finish his rant. “Please” he added.
“Rest assured. We will do everything with the appropriate urgency.”
“Yeah” said Nat, “but appropriate for who?”
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