Alchemist (18 page)

‘Professionals?' she said.

‘Oh yes, no doubt of that. Not a fingerprint in the place. Nothing. The police said it seemed as if someone knew exactly what they wanted.' He paused. ‘You see, there's something else curious. On the afternoon of Sarah's funeral, her home was burgled, ransacked. Alan could find nothing missing at all.' He frowned. ‘Burglars are normally after consumer goods, jewellery, silverware, cash. These ignored all that. Possibly they were disturbed, but it seems strange that they found time to riffle through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, wouldn't you think?'

She said nothing, a tight lump forming in her throat.

‘Now you understand, perhaps, why I decided to come and see you in person, and not risk a telephone call?'

Monty nodded bleakly. The man was irritating her slightly and yet there was something about him that prevented her from dismissing him totally; sincerity. ‘You are making some very big suppositions, Mr Wentworth.'

‘Yes, and I might be quite wrong. Let's hope I am.'

‘And how can
I
help you in all this?'

‘I need someone inside Bendix Schere to dig out more information. Sarah used to talk to me about you and your father's integrity. I hoped perhaps – under the circumstances – I – ah – might persuade you to have a go for me? In confidence, of course. No names, nothing to connect you.'

She sat, thinking hard for some moments, trying to organize her thoughts. She looked back at him, suddenly feeling very apprehensive, as if the darkness outside were pressing in hard all around her. ‘Tell me what you need,' she said. ‘And I'll try.'

London. Monday 7 November
,
1994

Shortly after ten o'clock, Monty drove the MG down off the Westway ramp, the small wipers clumping away almost
uselessly against the rain. Two politicians were arguing about Bosnia on the radio, and an intermittent dribble of water fell on to her forehead from a patched rip in the roof. She had gone into their old laboratory first thing to search for some files Conor Molloy needed, and had hoped that by driving into London a couple of hours later than normal she would miss the rush-hour jams, but the traffic was still bad.

She felt tired and irritable, having barely slept. Her mood had been swinging throughout the night from shock and sadness at the news of Sarah Johnson's death to confusion about Bendix Schere. Was Hubert Wentworth mad? Paranoid? Or was there something in what he'd suggested?

She knew that, inevitably, with almost every drug on the market there was a downside; there were always a small number of people who suffered side-effects. It was perfectly understandable that the newspaperman was distraught about what had happened to his own family, and would clutch at any explanation for the horror – but was the discovery that two other people had experienced similar symptoms going to prove anything at all?

And there was a deeper moral issue beyond this: even if there was a link to Maternox, millions of people around the world had been helped by the drug: there were numerous healthy children in the world who owed their existence to it. With all pharmaceuticals, it was a question of weighing the good and the bad and making cold, hard decisions. Percentage chances. It was easy to look at percentage chances when you were dealing with anonymous statistics. Much harder when it was a real human being whom you loved – and difficult to accept the risk if it involved someone you loved.

But if the newspaperman was right in connecting the break-ins, that pointed to something altogether more sinister. She needed more information, she decided, before she did anything at all; it was far too early in the Bannermans' relationship with Bendix Schere for her to start making waves – she was having enough problems preventing her father from upsetting people, without going around asking awkward questions herself; and she had a horror of suddenly finding her name plastered all over the media.

Mr Wentworth seemed a decent enough sort, but he was a journalist and she'd had enough experience over the years to know that the press considered the pharmaceutical industry – and everyone connected with it – a legitimate target. You had to be very careful indeed with them.

She indicated left and nudged her way aggressively into the clogged near-side lane, returning a furious blast of a horn with a two-fingered flick, then turned sharply into a side street, slowed down and scanned the pavement.

She braked as she saw an empty call-box ahead, pulled over and hurried in, yanking the door shut behind her. She pushed a coin in the slot, opened her diary, turned to the page where she'd written the number Wentworth had given her last night, and called it.

‘Thames Valley Gazette,' a woman answered.

‘May I speak to Zandra Wollerton, please?'

‘Her line's busy – shall I put you through to the News Desk?'

‘I'll hold.'

The black digits on the indicator displayed 97p credit left. She tapped the small shelf, and glanced at the business cards stuck to the wall.
Monica. French Masseuse. Soothe away those tensions. Gabriella. Latin lessons and correction therapy. Donyelle. Ebony; skin two
.

She often wondered who these women really were. She had read an article in the
Independent
recently that said a lot of them were educated types making easy money. Through the misting window, she saw a tramp shambling along in a filthy coat, clutching a ragged bundle.

‘Putting you through now,' the switchboard receptionist said, interrupting her thoughts.

A moment later she heard a hard, sharp voice that sounded in a hurry. ‘Zandra Wollerton.'

‘Hello – my name's Montana Bannerman – Hubert Wentworth asked me to get in touch –'

‘Right,' the reporter cut in, abruptly. ‘He told me you'd be calling. Be best if we could meet somewhere. Some place near your office.'

‘Or I can meet you in Berkshire, if that's easier?'

‘I have to be in London at midday tomorrow. Are you free late afternoon?'

‘Yes – I'm flexible – I could fit in with –'

‘How about four o'clock? Trying to think of somewhere near you where we could talk. Do you know the Thistle Hotel?'

‘No.'

‘It's about five minutes' walk. Corner of Mottram and Gower Place – big ugly building, looks like a multi-storey.'

‘I'll find it.'

‘There's a coffee shop on the first floor, called the Woolsack.'

‘Can you tell me what you look like – so I can recognize you?'

‘It's OK, got your photo on file from the takeover article. I have cropped black curly hair and glasses, and I'm short, OK?'

‘I'm short too,' Monty said.

‘Has its advantages. Four o'clock, the Thistle,' said the reporter, and hung up.

Charming, Monty thought. Anyone would think she was doing
me
a favour. She replaced the receiver and change spattered into the slot.

She scooped it up, then as she turned, her heart jumped. The doorway was blocked by a tall man in a turned-up raincoat, wearing dark glasses in spite of the rain. A shimmy of fear ran through her. He was standing absolutely motionless, staring straight at her.

Instinctively she stepped back. Wild thoughts raced through her mind. Could call the police. Just punch 999; her mouth felt dry with panic. The booth suddenly felt like a prison. There was only one way out, and he was standing right in front of it. Thoughts of the break-ins the newspaperman had told her about flashed through her mind. Ruthless, shadowy men in masks and leather gloves stopping at nothing. Christ, hadn't done anything, just spoken to – then she noticed the golden dog beside the man, the retriever with the short handle to his wrist and she suddenly laughed at her stupidity in panicking and pushed open the door.

‘It's free, sorry to have kept you,' she said. ‘I'll hold the door for you.'

The blind man murmured his thanks and stepped carefully past his dog into the booth.

Monty walked along the corridor, peering in through each lab window in search of Jake Seals. She finally saw the Chief Technician in a small, otherwise empty laboratory at the far end, where a number of her father's experiments were in progress.

Wearing a protective suit, gloves and glasses, he was standing just beyond the massive chromium head of an emergency shower, carefully hefting a blue bucket out of a Perspex-fronted fume cabinet labelled;
DANGER! BIO-HAZARD!

He placed the container on a white speckled work top, unscrewed the lid and set it down; then lifted out an amber half-gallon Winchester bottle that was covered in a protective film, and set that down on the work top, using all the care and respect that the handling of corrosive and toxic substances required.

Monty waited until the bottle was standing safely, then said: ‘Good morning, Mr Seals.'

He turned and looked at her, removed his glasses and shook his long, lank hair away from his face. ‘How you doing?'

‘OK, thanks. Did you have a good weekend?'

‘It was all right,' he said, with a sly grin. ‘You?'

She shrugged, feeling awkward under the intensity of his gaze. His eyes seemed to be X-raying her as if he was trying to pry out any secrets. He did this constantly and it irked her. His whole manner irked her. ‘Reasonable, I suppose. What's in that bottle?'

‘Bendix Soup.'

‘Oh yes? What do you have with it – croutons?'

‘You can have croutons if you want. Problem is they'd dissolve before you got a chance to eat them. So would the spoon and most of your face.'

‘Nice!'

‘I can think of a few people I'd like to serve it up to.'

‘I'm sure you can. Does it have any other name?'

‘BS93L5021.' He raised his eyebrows.

‘Sounds a mouthful.'

‘You don't want to know it; it shouldn't even be here – ought to be in an isolation chamber. Typical of the kind of shit Bendix Schere produces. It doesn't even officially exist.' He shook his mane of hair. ‘Ever read Kurt Vonnegut's
Cat's Cradle?
'

‘Yes – it's one of my favourite books.'

‘Remember the chemical
Ice Nine?
'

‘The stuff that was developed for the Vietnam war or something? If you dropped it in a swamp the whole caboodle would freeze over?'

Seals nodded. ‘This is about as potent. Dump a gallon of this in a swimming pool and it would strip your hide off in seconds if you jumped in. It's really horrible. Get it on your bare skin and there is
nothing
you can do – there's nothing that will neutralize it. It's the most highly carcinogenic substance in existence; it dissolves flesh and absorbs into the blood stream simultaneously, causing almost instant internal haemorrhaging and destroying the lungs. It's the foulest concoction I've ever come across. If I told the Department of Environment about this stuff they'd cordon the whole building off, and I'm not exaggerating.'

Monty was used to being in the vicinity of toxic substances, but even so this made her uncomfortable and she edged slightly back from the cabinet. ‘Presumably it has a use?'

He gave her one of the withering looks that always made her feel like an imbecile. ‘I'm sure Bendix Schere would have made it just for fun, even if it didn't.'

She smiled, a little uncertainly.

‘Actually, although it's horrible, it is clever stuff. Still under development, so nothing's been done about registering or patenting it. Part of our existing work here is the area of genetically engineering resistance to pollutants in crops and simple life forms. Right now toxic-waste levels are rising in the oceans all the time and getting in the food chain. A lot of natural substances are being turned carcinogenic by pollution.' He tapped the jar. ‘What this little darling does is
replicate the effect of toxic waste, with a high magnification factor.'

She glanced up at the massive head of the shower bolted to the ceiling a few yards behind her, wondering how effective water would be if any of the toxin got splashed on to human skin, then back at the bottle. ‘What's my father using it for?'

‘Quite a few applications – basically it speeds up lab experiments when you're examining the effect of carcinogens on susceptible genes.'

‘I'm surprised he's allowed it in here – he's got very definite views on these kind of substances.'

‘I've noticed,' Seals said. ‘Actually, I think he shares a few of my opinions about this company.'

Monty hesitated. ‘Last week you hinted there were things you wanted to tell me about Bendix Schere, and said we should have a talk some time, away from here?' She looked back at him. His face was expressionless for a moment. ‘Are you free for lunch in the next few days?'

‘Free today,' he said.

They sat in a gloomy pub with blaring rock music, too close to a speaker for Monty's comfort. Jake drank his way steadily through his second pint of beer; Monty had only taken a few sips of her glass of white wine.

‘I've never heard of Cyclops Syndrome,' he said and tossed his hair back. He shook a Marlboro out of a pack, without offering her one, and lit it with a book match. ‘Three cases doesn't sound much.'

‘Number thirty-two!' a voice called out.

Monty looked at the ticket in front of her. ‘That's us, I'll get them.'

She went to the counter, collected the sausages and chips for Jake and the tuna salad for herself and took them back to the table. ‘Want any mustard or ketchup?'

‘Ketchup,' Jake said.

She brought the ketchup over, together with knives, forks and napkins, and sat down again.

‘Maternox is made at several different sites,' Seals said. ‘At Reading, Plymouth and Carlisle here in the UK. In Connecticut,
Maryland and Hawaii in the US. In Korea, and I think in Cape Town and Melbourne. There's also a plant making it under licence in Russia. There's always a chance of a rogue batch – but the quality-control procedures make it pretty improbable that it would ever reach the retailers.'