Scorpion [Scorpions 01] (5 page)

    There was a strained silence, broken when Camperly regained his composure and said flatly: ‘That will be all, Doctor Brady.’

    Allan turned and left the office. He strode down the corridor, ignoring the greetings offered by members of the department he passed. Reaching the lab he went in, closing the door with a bang.

    Fergus McFee peered over the top of his bench. ‘Something tells me you’ve just been in the headmaster’s study.’

    Allan slumped down on his stool. ‘That egotistical bastard!’ he exclaimed.

    ‘Am I allowed three guesses as to who you are referring to?’ McFee asked lightly.

    ‘He’s a bloody madman, Fergus. As far as he’s concerned we’re just a bunch of raw beginners who should be grateful he’s allowed us to play with his fancy toys!’

    ‘Ah!’ McFee sighed. ‘He’s been giving you the word has he. Something along the lines of…just you keep in mind who is in charge, stay in your place, don’t speak until spoken to, and never, never even consider using your brain.’

    Allan mellowed under McFee’s perfect mimicry of Camperly’s voice.

    ‘You remember that report I did on the blood of that fellow who got himself stung? Well, Camperly’s just tossed it back in my face. Told me I’d got too carried away and made too much of it.’

    ‘Must have been a good report then,’ McFee said.

    ‘It was,’ Allan said. ‘A damn good report, and I think Camperly knew it.’

    ‘Well, laddie, that’s why he slapped you down. When you’ve been here as long as I have you’ll learn. Be like me, Allan. I keep my head down and I don’t rock the boat. Once I’ve got all my qualifications I leave.’ McFee lowered his voice. ‘But don’t tell that to yon chief, else he’s liable to have me chained to my bench.’

    ‘You know what makes it worse, Fergus?’

    ‘What?’

    ‘The patient died.’

    McFee muttered under his breath. ‘When?’ he asked.

    ‘About half an hour ago.’

    ‘Well that wouldn’t help Camperly’s mood. Not at all.’ McFee laid a hand on Allan’s arm. ‘You did what you were asked to do, laddie, so there’s no profit in sitting mooning over it.’

    ‘I suppose not,’ Allan agreed, and turned to his bench.

    He was still smarting slightly from Camperly’s dressing-down when he left the department that evening. He crossed the lawn fronting the main hospital building, making for his car, which he’d parked in the visitors’ area that morning. The staff car park had been closed due to some maintenance work. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he didn’t see the young woman standing next to his car until he walked into her.

    ‘Sorry,’ he apologized, reaching out to steady the swaying figure.

    ‘That’s all right.’

    Allan took a closer look, and liked what he saw. A dark-haired, attractive girl, dressed in slim-fitting trousers, a cream shirt and a light jacket. He saw something else too - she was very pale and her eyes were full of tears.

    ‘Bad news?’ he asked.

    Chris Lane nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve just learned that Les… a friend died this afternoon.’

    ‘Les Mason?’

    Chris glanced at him. ‘Did you know him?’

    ‘Indirectly,’ Allan explained. ‘I’m with the research unit. We were called in to try and diagnose just what had poisoned Mr. Mason. But we weren’t able to come up with anything.’

    ‘I see. Were you treating him?’ Chris asked.

    Allan shook his head. ‘Not me personally. I carried out blood tests for the head of my department.’

    ‘Then I have you to thank as much as anyone,’ Chris said. ‘I’m sure you all did everything you could.’

    Allan watched the girl closely. She really was looking pale, he decided. He indicated the Triumph Spitfire. ‘Your car?’

    ‘Actually it belonged to Les,’ Chris said. ‘I’ve been using it ever since he was taken to hospital. Mine’s off the road at the moment. I didn’t think Les would min… ‘ She trailed off and tried to hold back the tears.

    ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to drive at the moment,’ Allan pointed out. ‘Were you going into town?’

    Chris nodded.

    ‘Come on, then, I’ll give you a lift.’

    Allan unlocked his car and got Chris settled in the passenger seat. He slid behind the wheel of the Capri and started up. Reversing across the car park he swung the wheel and took the sleek car out on to the road.

    They drove in silence for a few minutes. It was Chris who spoke first.

    ‘It takes a little getting used to,’ she said. ‘Death is always a distant thing until it happens to someone close to you. I’ve never had anyone really close die yet. Both my parents are still alive.’ She gave a quick little smile. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it. There are people dying all over the world, every minute of the day, yet we aren’t bothered about it. It only hits you hard when it’s something like this.’

    Allan didn’t say anything. He knew exactly how Chris was feeling. He had gone through the experience himself four years ago, when both his parents had died in a road accident. It had taken him a long time to get over the harsh fact that they were gone, taken out of his life in a single moment. There was no magic cure for grief; it took its own time to wear off.

    ‘The funny thing is Les and I weren’t all that involved. Not… not… physically. We’d known each other for about six months. Our relationship was more or less formed through a mutual involvement.’

    ‘Business you mean?’ Allan asked.

    ‘No. You see I belong to the group formed to fight against the Long Point Nuclear Plant. Les was the local reporter for the
Long Point News,
and sympathized with our cause. I suppose our friendship developed out of constant contact with each other. Obviously it developed more than I’d realized.’

    Allan drove in silence. There wasn’t much he could say now. But there would be a time when he could speak to her; a time when the memory of Les Mason had faded. Allan knew he would be looking forward to that time, because he wanted very much to see this girl again.

    As he closed the car door after her, Allan realized that he didn’t even know her name.

    

    

    The weather continued unchanged. Cloying, overpowering, unrelenting heat. It was the kind of weather that brought the worst in people boiling to the surface. People were touchy, ready for a fight. Even families out for a break found themselves arguing over the slightest thing.

    ‘The times this happens! We get all dressed up for a nice run in the country, and what happens? This bloody old wreck lets us down! It’s time you got rid of it!’

    Jack Lippman, his head stuck under the raised bonnet of the Morris Minor, closed his ears to the ceaseless drone of his wife’s voice. If I ever get rid of anything, he thought, it’ll be you!

    ‘Are you listening, Jack?’

    Lippman took his head out from under the bonnet. ‘Hilda,’ he said pleasantly, ‘why don’t you go for a little walk.’

    Hilda Lippman stopped chattering. She leaned out of the car window, her angry face flushed from the heat. ‘What did you say?’ she demanded.

    ‘Oh, mum, he only said why don’t you stretch your legs.’

    Hilda glanced at her nineteen-year-old daughter, Jackie, who was standing beside the car. Barry, Jackie’s boyfriend, was sitting on the grass verge, listening to the family squabble with amused interest.

    ‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’ Hilda asked. She climbed out of the car. She was a tall woman, angular, with a worn face and dark hair going grey. ‘A waste of time,’ she grumbled. She slammed the door of the car with a powerful thrust of her arm.

    ‘Bloody hell!’ Jack Lippman’s head showed around the edge of the bonnet again. ‘What did you go and do that for?’

    ‘Because I felt like it!’ Hilda retorted. ‘And I feel like eating something so I’m getting the food out of the boot.’

    Jack Lippman walked round to the rear of the car and unlocked the boot. He pulled out a plastic box and a blanket. He tossed the blanket to Jackie and Barry and they spread it out over the grass.

    ‘You found out what’s wrong with the car?’ Barry asked.

    ‘Eh? Oh, yeah,’ Lippman said. ‘Just the fanbelt slipping. It’ll tighten up all right. I’ll let her cool down first though.’

    Barry glanced at Jackie and inclined his head. She gave him a slow smile.

    ‘Mum, you and dad have your food. Barry and I will have ours later.’

    Hilda glanced up. ‘Why? Where’re you going?’

    ‘A walk along the cliffs. It’s too hot to eat.’

    Hilda watched the young couple as they vanished from sight. She caught a glimpse of her husband watching her and frowned.

    ‘Well?’

    Jack Lippman shook his head and reached for a sandwich. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

    Hilda sat back against the side of the car and stared out to the green slopes leading to the cliffs. There was a densely wooded area off to their right; beyond the trees, perhaps two miles away, could be seen the white buildings of the Long Point Nuclear Plant. Hilda shivered as she looked at the place. She didn’t, like many ordinary people, understand the intricacies of such a place. She had a secondhand knowledge of nuclear energy, much of it based on popular misconception, and it left her with a feeling of ignorance, which in turn created a mindless fear.

    Hilda glanced away from the plant. She reached for the tall thermos flask and poured out two cups of tea, spooning in sugar from a plastic container. Jack put in some milk and they sat back, relaxing, experiencing a simple contentment.

    ‘You want another cup of tea?’ Hilda asked.

    Jack didn’t answer, he seemed to be asleep. Hilda put her cup down; the tea was cold. She must have dropped off herself. She yawned and ran a hand across her face. She was covered in a thin sheen of perspiration.

    ‘Jack?’ Hilda leaned over and prodded her husband’s side. He still didn’t move. A faint shadow of alarm rose in Hilda.

    ‘Come on, Jack! If you’re buggering about I’ll… ‘

    Her husband’s head rolled round so that he was facing her.

    For a split second Hilda simply stared at him, unable to believe what she was seeing. And then she screamed, her shrieks tearing the peace and calm apart.

    She scrambled away from her husband, kicking over the food spread out on the blanket, overturning the flask of tea. In her haste to get away from him she stumbled, losing a shoe. When she finally got to her feet, lurching unsteadily, she began to run down the long grassy slope.

    Jack Lippman stayed in the same position. His eyes were open and he was facing in the direction of his fleeing wife. But he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see anything. Jack Lippman would never see anything ever again - because Jack Lippman was dead. His sightless eyes bulged glassily from a face turned a deep shade of purple, almost black. His swollen tongue, protruding from between parted lips. On his right side, just above the hip, a strip of soft flesh lay exposed between the top of his trousers and where his shirt had lifted. The pigmentation here had altered too - and in the middle of the blackened flesh there was a small puncture.

    

    

    Over a mile away along the coast - a mile closer to the Long Point Nuclear Plant - in a secluded, grassy clearing a young woman lay sunbathing. Attractive, blonde, with a long-limbed, superb body, she lay completely naked on a thin blanket, her bronzed body glistening with oil. Her only items of apparel were a pair of sunglasses and two round pads of cotton wool placed over her nipples to protect them from the rays of the sun.

    Fran Collingwood was twenty-four years old and she was a photographic model. Her face and her figure were her fortune, and right at that time in her life Fran needed to protect her assets with extreme caution. She had just landed herself a fat contract which was going to keep her bank balance very juicily filled for the next year. The contract was for a modeling assignment on a prestige calendar for one of the big international business conglomerates. The calendars were give-away items, handed out to a small handful of important clients. They were hung in some of the most select offices around the world. Fran would be working with one of the world’s leading figure photographers - Nick de Maune - and she knew that she was going to have to look better than she’d ever looked in her life. De Maune, a superb artist with a camera, was also the most demanding. His work was unbeatable, his photographs of women the most erotic and beautiful ever to be shown. Fran realized that once she had completed work on the calendar, she was going to find herself deluged with offers. This was the way it had happened to girls who had previously appeared in the Nick de Maune calendar and Fran had no intention of being any different. In two days she was due to fly out to Gibraltar, to meet De Maune and commence work on the first section of the assignment. Now, in the seclusion of the copse, Fran was making certain that her suntan was at its best.

    Turning her head, Fran glanced at her watch lying on the blanket at her side. She made a quick calculation, and decided that another ten minutes would do. After that she would make her way back to her car, parked off the road behind some thick bushes. A quick drive back to her cottage just outside Long Point, a shower, a light meal, and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow she had to be back in London. There was a session with her hairdresser, a visit to her health club, and a fitting at a shop that was making her a new evening dress.

    Fran stretched slowly, enjoying the warm touch of the sun on her body. She moved her toes, flexed her long legs, allowing a faint ripple of sensual feeling to grow. It was, she knew, a combination of her being naked, covered in the translucent film of suntan oil, plus her own inner thoughts at that particular moment. Fran was aware of her beauty and of the admiration it brought her. A lot of men made it clear they wanted her, but Fran Collingwood was no easy touch. She was in a position to choose, and she did. On her mind right then was the image of a certain man. The man in her life. A man who made her feel less of an unobtainable fantasy being, and more of a healthy, loving woman. Fran began to squirm, feeling the blanket rumple beneath her firm buttocks. She sighed. Damn! Why had she let herself daydream