Alchemist (62 page)

Once again, they'd decided that Conor should wait in the car as she went inside. Electric doors glided open, then closed behind her. Triple glazing and white sound completely deadened the roar of London's traffic and the faint scent of flowers recalled the lobby of the Bendix Building.

The carpet was plush, interwoven with a repeat geometric pattern of the ‘BS' logo, the walls and ceiling were panelled in pine, and down the corridor to the right were an elegant gift shop, then a florist.

The feel-good factor was an important part of company philosophy. They wanted patients to have the sensation of arriving at an exclusive country hotel, not a hospital. In fact the word
patient
was never used; they were called
guests
.

Monty walked up to the reception counter and asked, as nonchalantly as possible, which room Winston Smith was in.

A platinum blonde in her early thirties, wearing the company's regulation smile as stiffly as its chalk-striped grey two-piece, touched some keys on her computer screen. The smile narrowed, just a fraction.

‘May I take your name?' she asked.

Monty was thrown by the unexpected question.

‘Surname then initials.' The receptionist's eyes had a cornflower-blue glaze as if she was wearing tinted contact lenses, adding to her automaton quality. She reminded Monty of someone from
The Stepford Wives
.

Monty's brain raced furiously. ‘Gordon,' she said, plucking a name out of thin air. ‘Mrs Lyndsey Gordon.'

‘And your address, please, Mrs Gordon?'

‘This is a little unusual, isn't it?' Monty asked.

‘It's just a security formality,' the young woman said with unswerving politeness.

‘The Coach House, Burnham Beeches Lane, Burnham, Bucks.'

‘Post code?'

Monty gave a code to go with the address she'd just made up.

The woman entered it into the computer. ‘And your phone number, please?'

Monty felt her face beginning to give her away; ‘We're ex-directory,' she said. ‘I never give the number to anyone.'

The receptionist typed something else into the computer without commenting, then her next words came like a blow: ‘I'm afraid Mr Smith is not permitted visitors.'

Monty detected a change in attitude now; an almost shifty evasiveness. ‘When will he be allowed them?'

‘I'm afraid I can't give you that information.'

Monty tried, with a warm smile, to appeal to this woman's better nature. ‘Oh dear, I've driven two hours to come here. Is it not possible just to see him for a few minutes?'

The receptionist's eyes seemed to focus on some far horizon behind Monty's head. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Smith is not permitted visitors.'

Monty parted her hands in a gesture of despair. ‘Could you let me have his room number, so I could send him some flowers?'

‘Don't worry, Mrs Gordon. If you use Mr Smith's name we'll see that they reach him. She pointed across the foyer. ‘You can give your order to our florist right there and she'll take care of it for you.'

There no longer seemed to be anybody home behind the contact lenses.

Monty turned and ambled past the gift shop towards the florist, deliberately taking her time. Two expensively dressed Asians came in as she did so, and went up to reception. Pleased that Miss Cornflower Blue was now distracted, Monty walked quickly into the florist's and bought the smallest bunch of flowers on display, a spray of six tulips, which staggered her by costing five pounds.

She carried them out, glancing in the direction of the receptionist, who was still occupied with the Asians, and went over to the lifts. As she pressed the button, the doors of one opened instantly and she stepped in, then wondered which floor to try first. For no particular reason, she pressed the sixth.

The doors opened on to a wide corridor, with the same plush carpeting as the foyer. Only a metal trolley of surgical instruments and the sight of two uniformed nurses gave away that this was a hospital, and not a five-star hotel.

She turned and walked in the opposite direction to the nurses, past doors each marked with a name card. One was ajar and she slowed as she passed it, peering in, and saw a woman with blackened eyes, her nose encased in plaster, lying in bed watching television.

‘A. Gupta' was the name on the next door. Then ‘Miss E. Carderelli'; ‘D. Patel'; ‘H. Wintergarten'. No Winston Smith.

At the end of the corridor was a recessed area with several telephones on a desk and a large planning board on the wall. It looked like a nursing station. Monty glanced behind her, but the two nurses had disappeared. She slipped across and scanned first the desk, then the notice board. Almost immediately
she saw a chart marked: ‘6th and 7th Floor Guest List'.

Nervously, she shot a glance back at the corridor, then read the names on the list. ‘W. Smith. 712.' She double-checked to make sure, then walked cautiously back into the corridor. A nurse emerged from a room a few doors in front of her and began walking towards the nursing station. Monty passed her without meeting her eyes. But as they crossed, she heard the young woman speak.

‘Can I help you, madam?'

Monty turned, blushing. The nurse was pretty, as all the Bendix nurses were, with an open, freckled face. ‘I – er – think I'm on the wrong floor. This isn't the seventh?'

‘No.' She pointed to the lift. ‘Just go up one floor.'

Monty thanked her, and complied. A few moments later she stepped out on to an identical scene and glanced at the numbers on the doors to orient herself, then turned right. 710. 711. 712.

She noted with some surprise that the card slot on number 712 was empty. It was the only door she'd seen that had no name. She glanced up and down the corridor. A female orderly was pushing a food trolley towards her. She took a breath, then turned the door handle and pushed.

The door was locked.

She tried the handle again, to make sure, then knocked softly and pressed her ear to the door. She knocked again, a little louder. Then a man's voice behind her startled her rigid.

‘Are you looking for something?'

Monty spun round and met a cold, hostile expression. She had the feeling she had seen its elegant owner somewhere before, but could not place him. His name tag read ‘Dr F. Charles Seligman' and he had dark wavy hair streaked with silver.

She took a breath, anger suddenly replacing fear. ‘Yes, I want to see my friend, Mr Smith.'

‘Mr Smith is not permitted visitors.'

‘This is a private hospital; all guests are allowed visitors. You have no regulated visiting hours.'

The man was studying her face and Monty sensed that he,
too, was trying to recall where they'd seen each other before. Then he suddenly gave a conciliatory smile.

‘Mr Smith is not at all well. Receiving visitors is too tiring for him; we can only allow close relatives to see him at the moment. If you'd like to leave the flowers and any message with the floor sister, she'll be happy to pass them on to him.'

He held out an expansive hand and propelled Monty safely away from Room 712.

‘So, this is where you live?'

Gunn stood barefoot, in his towelling dressing gown, and stared in a mixture of surprise and embarrassment at Nikky, who was standing on the gloomy landing in jeans and a duffel coat, looking totally gorgeous.

‘How did you find me?' he said quietly.

‘Think I look stupid or something?' She cocked her head teasingly, and her long auburn hair slipped over to one side. ‘Call yourself a surveillance supremo? You ought to take a better watchout for someone tailing you.'

He closed the gap between the door and the jamb a few inches. ‘Look – I'll call you tomorrow – we'll go see a film or something.'

‘Don't I get invited in? I spend three days tracking you to your lair and I don't get a cup of coffee as a reward?'

‘Niks …'

She tried to look inside and he narrowed the gap between the door and the jamb further.

He hadn't seen her since last Tuesday when they'd rowed, and he'd been missing her like crazy. But he couldn't invite her in, not right now.

‘What's in there, soldier? What are you hiding?'

‘I'm not hiding anything.'

‘Good. In that case, I'll have a coffee.' She pushed the door, but it didn't budge an inch against the solid wedge of his foot.

‘Look, soldier, do you have another woman in there? Is that it?'

‘
Niks
, I was having an early night.'

‘Oh yes, with whom?'

‘Niks, come on, I'll see you tomorrow.'

‘This is a crummy neighbourhood. I risked my skin coming here and I'm not going back out there alone at this time of night.'

‘I'll come down with you, get you a cab.'

She tossed her head petulantly. ‘I'm coming in. I want to see who you've got in there. Is she as pretty as me?
Prettier?
'

‘I'll get you that cab.'

‘I don't want a cab, I want to come in. How many times have you rung me in the past few days? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? How many tons of flowers have you sent me? I took that as a message that you wanted to see me. You let me in that door right now, or you
never
see me again. OK?'

Trapped, Gunn relented, swung the door wide open and gestured with a reluctant sweep of his arm for her to feast her eyes.

She walked in, past an electricity meter and a kitchenette into a dingy bedsit. It was furnished with a single bed, a couple of battered armchairs, a threadbare rug and grimy net curtains. There was no woman in there, nothing; just a blank television, Vivaldi playing on a CD, the glow of a laptop computer screen, and the lingering smell of a fry-up.

As he closed the door she stared at him in utter amazement. ‘You
live
here?'

‘You want coffee or a drink? Wine? Whisky?'

‘I'll have a glass of wine.'

‘Red or white?'

‘I don't care. This is your home, soldier?' Her initial surprise was fast turning to pity. She walked over to the window, distracted by a rumbling sound, and saw the lights of a train only yards below.

‘Look, I don't plan on spending the rest of my life here.
Where did you think I lived – in a palace?' He worked a corkscrew into the cap of the bottle.

‘This is why you wouldn't ever bring me to your place? You told me you had a big house, with a pool.'

‘You told me material things didn't matter to you.'

‘They don't.'

The cork came out with a pop. ‘I do have a big house with a pool. The Bitch lives in it with the kids. I'm mortgaged to the hilt and can't sell the house because there aren't any buyers around, and I'm being clobbered by the Child Support Agency. Any more questions?' He scooped out two glasses from the cupboard above the bed.

She was looking at the books stacked on a home-made shelf:
The Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science. The Magician. A Treasury of Witchcraft and Devilry. Beyond the Occult. The Left-hand Path. The Magus. The Golden Bough. The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra=Melin. The Enochian Keys. The Satanic Bible
.

‘I didn't know you were interested in the occult.'

He shrugged and handed her a glass. ‘I'm not really, don't know why I keep them. We used to monitor the key occult groups when I was at GCHQ.'

As she turned the pages of a volume entitled,
Spellcraft, Hexcraft & Witchcraft
, fascinated by its contents, she failed to notice the slight veil that the half-truth had brought to his eyes.

‘Wonder if I could find a spell in here that would make you punctual?' she said. ‘Or horny – no, maybe that would be dangerous, you're quite horny enough already.'

She took the wine glass, drank one sip, then kissed him. ‘Let's go to bed, I haven't had you inside me for four days and I'm going crazy from withdrawal symptoms.'

He hugged her hard, burying himself in the scents of her hair and her skin. Nikky looked over his shoulder at the computer screen inches from her face. On it was a long list of names with a peculiar black symbol beside each one.

She read a few of them:
Conor Molloy; Montana Bannerman; Charles Rowley; Hubert Wentworth
. Then she peered more closely at the symbol. ‘Are those Christmas trees?' she murmured.

‘Huh?'

‘On the screen.'

He jolted, as if a bolt of lightning had struck him, broke free from her, turned to the computer, hastily dimming the screen, then shut it down.

‘Is that your Christmas card list?' she teased. ‘Conor Molloy, Montana Bannerman, Charles Rowley, Hubert Thingie? Hope
I'm
on it somewhere.'

Gunn tried to make light of it. ‘Yup, that's right!'

‘Conor Molloy,
Montana
Bannerman – that's a funny name – is she American? Another of your girlfriends?'

‘No, she's not, and how come you've remembered those names – I didn't know you had a photographic memory?'

‘You don't seriously think I spent three days tailing you? I saw this address weeks ago on a phone bill in your pocket and memorized it.' She smiled sweetly. ‘There's lots of other things I don't know about you, too.' She kissed him again. ‘Bed!'

Monday 28 November, 1994

Amongst Monty's morning mail was a thick envelope bearing a Federal Express label, and printed with the wording: ‘Washington Symposium of Genetics for Medicine. 9–12 December 1994. Urgent Travel Documents.'

The contents included a covering letter from the organizer, confirming that her father would receive an honorarium of $1000 for attending as a plenary speaker, and inviting both of them to a reception at the White House on the Thursday night. There were two economy-class return tickets from London to Washington, details of the hotel reservation and a programme of events.