The Man on Hackpen Hill Page 14

  ‘Everyone out of their beds!’ a voice of authority had announced over the loudspeakers. ‘Everyone out of their beds and assemble downstairs immediately, outside the main entrance.’

  The first time it happened, she slept through the alarm and had to be woken by a porter – unfortunately, the same one they’d shut into Erin’s room a few weeks earlier.

  ‘Get your fat arse downstairs,’ he’d shouted, on a final safety check of the college building. They could be cruel when no one was looking, not the quaint, bowler-hatted gents of Oxbridge folklore.

  Bella looks around the station. She needs to calm down, compose herself. Recapture the mindset that got her through her final examinations. Her train is about to appear. There’s no need to panic. But then, as the level-crossing barriers shudder into position, the police car appears on the opposite side of the tracks, slipping into a space in the car park. Have they seen her?

  She is about to run back down to the high street when the train noses around the corner, hiding her from the police car as it draws into the station. The doors take too long to open. Come on. And then they are sliding apart and Bella steps on board. What if the police have asked the driver to wait? The blood is so loud in her head, beating on her eardrums like an enemy at the gate. Close the fucking train doors.

  Two police officers appear on the bridge. Bella slinks down in her seat, hoping she’s got this wrong, that they’re just walking into town, but the officers step onto the platform and move towards her, checking the train windows as they go. Bella looks around, sees the loo at the far end of the carriage and makes a dash for it. A moment later, she closes the loo door, checking first that the police haven’t seen her. They are at the seat where she was sitting a moment ago, shielding their eyes from the sun as they press their faces against the greasy window.

  Remember, the police are not your friend.

  47

  Silas

  ‘Any luck?’ Silas asks, as Strover comes off the phone. They’re sitting in the major incident mobile command vehicle, parked up outside the front of the hospital.

  ‘Straight to voicemail,’ Strover says. She is keen to talk to Bella, convinced that she had a friend called Erin – the name of the second victim left by an anonymous caller to Crimestoppers. ‘I’ve also rung a mate at Hackney police station, someone I trained with. Owes me a favour – he’s going to pay her a visit.’

  Silas turns away, unconvinced. A uniform comes into the command vehicle as two others step outside. He’s got more important things on his mind, like overseeing the ongoing lockdown of a large regional hospital. And everyone is on the back foot, playing catch-up. The ICU has become a major crime scene, but there’s no sign of the fake doctor and, as yet, no security photos of him. Dr Armitage is also not answering his phone. His wife last saw him this morning at their home in Ogbourne Maizey, when he left for the hospital. At least Noah is still alive.

  ‘It’s not the biggest lead we’ve ever had,’ Silas continues, looking again at the message about Erin. Crimestoppers does invaluable work – it’s led to the arrest of more than 145,000 suspects – but sometimes he wishes it wasn’t quite so strict about anonymity. If they could just provide him with the caller’s phone number, for example… But he knows it’s an impossible request, the reason the charity’s so successful. They never disclose details of callers.

  ‘Bella definitely mentioned that she had a friend called Erin,’ Strover says.

  ‘So does my wife,’ Silas snaps, suddenly irritated. ‘We’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why Bella was in Wiltshire,’ Strover continues, undeterred. ‘Looking for her friend.’ Silas remains silent.

  ‘Just a hunch,’ Strover adds, using one of Silas’s favourite expressions. She’s clever like that, plays things back at people. Subliminal flattery.

  ‘Try speaking to her, by all means, but it’s not a priority,’ Silas says. He doesn’t want to discourage Strover from having hunches, which have served him well over the years, but the death of the third victim, the ‘zombie’ patient, is their main priority. Silas is now SIO of a triple murder inquiry. And, as the media have gleefully pointed out, three deaths technically classifies the murderer as a serial killer. Finding the Range Rover driver and passenger who were brought in to hospital will help. The farmer involved in the traffic accident has given a statement, which should be with Silas any minute. Forensics is also combing the damaged Range Rover for evidence.

  ‘I contacted Bella’s newspaper,’ Strover continues. It’s hard not to admire her doggedness. ‘She isn’t on the staff, but someone in the post room recognised the name, said she was a junior work experience.’

  ‘Not exactly a top investigative hack then,’ Silas says. ‘Why would they send someone on work experience to get Jim to talk about Porton Down? She’s irrelevant, met Jim at the pub by chance.’

  Before Strover can reply, Silas’s phone rings. It’s Malcolm.

  ‘Sorry to hear about your “zombie” victim,’ he says, still clearly disapproving of the moniker. ‘All sounds a bit careless.’

  Silas rolls his eyes. The last thing he needs is a lecture from Malcolm.

  ‘Now that he’s dead, he’s my problem, of course, not the consultant’s, who I’ve just been speaking to,’ Malcolm continues. ‘The initial toxicology report found enough tetrodotoxin in the victim’s system to slay a shire horse.’

  ‘So your theory might be right, then?’ Silas asks. ‘About someone sending a message.’

  ‘All I’ll say at this stage is that whoever poisoned him clearly wanted the tetrodotoxin to be found by pathology,’ Malcolm says, pausing. ‘And yes, tetrodotoxin will always be associated with zombieism in Haiti, despite considerable medical evidence to the contrary.’

  ‘Could it have caused his death?’ Silas asks. There’s a chance the fake doctor was just checking on him in ICU, to make sure he was dying.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Malcolm says. ‘His condition was apparently stabilising. Tetrodotoxin attacks the body by blocking sodium ion channels. His was starting to grow new ones.’

  ‘You mean he could have made a full recovery?’ Silas asks. The thought that he might have been able to question the victim is too frustrating to consider.

  ‘Quite possibly. It’s a bit like recovering from classical nerve agent poisoning. It can happen. Witness the Skripals, Alexei Navalny.’

  Silas’s ears prick up at the mention of nerve agents. Jim’s analysis of the crop circles is still haunting him, the mention of BZ, or buzz.

  ‘Have you ever had any dealings with Porton Down?’ he asks.

  ‘Not that I can tell you about,’ Malcolm says. ‘I get the odd call, most recently asking me to analyse the ballistic injury patterns after a pig’s head had been shot at through a military helicopter windscreen. Why?’

  Silas wished he’d never asked.

  ‘I’m just wondering if there could be a link between these coded crop circles and various chemical weapons that have been tested at Porton.’

  ‘Interesting. And frankly disappointing, Silas. I thought a respectable detective like you would be above such nonsense.’

  ‘What nonsense?’ Silas asks defensively.

  ‘Conspiracy theories about Porton Down. Sensationalist paranoia.’ A short, derisive laugh. ‘Did you know there’s an official statement on the government website confirming that no aliens, either alive or dead, have ever been taken to Porton Down?’

  ‘Did I mention aliens?’ Silas says. He doesn’t want to seem a killjoy but he’s in no mood for banter right now. ‘We just have to rule certain things out, that’s all.’

  ‘Actually, I gather there is a bit of unrest over at Porton. The novichok case could have been handled better. Politics and science have never been easy bedfellows. But leaving dead bodies in crop circles? That’s not really the British way. A bit de trop. More Moscow’s style, I’d have thought.’

  ‘I’ll call you later.’

  Silas ends the conversatio
n with Malcolm just as Strover comes off the phone.

  ‘Give me some good news,’ he says. All this talk of Porton Down, novichok and Moscow is giving him bad flashbacks.

  ‘Just spoken to the officer who’s sending over the RTC report,’ Strover says. The glint in Strover’s eyes is promising. ‘Seems like the farmer’s on the ball. He took a photo on his phone of the other car involved – the one he says caused the accident and drove away. The officer’s already checked the number plate and it belongs to Jim Matthews.’

  Silas sits back. Jim’s less of a fantasist than he thought. Except that last night he was claiming the Range Rover had tried to make him crash. Now he’s the one accused of causing an accident. ‘And the farmer thinks that Jim was actually responsible for the RTC?’ he asks.

  ‘He was certain. And ANPR’s already come up with a result – Jim was picked up heading south out of Salisbury a couple of hours ago. An obs request has been put out across all southern counties.’

  48

  Jim

  Jim doesn’t head straight back to his dad’s old home in Swanage. He needs to confirm that the Range Rover he spotted on the seafront is here for him. It seemed identical to the one he saw at Hackpen Hill, which was similar to the vehicle involved in the accident. If that’s the case, there must be at least two Range Rovers, as one of them would have been badly damaged by the tractor. He also needs to pick up his bag from the boot of his car. Checking the busy car park, he removes it and walks up towards the Catholic church and the road where he used to live.

  He’s still five hundred yards away, cresting a small incline, when he spots the Range Rover up ahead, beyond the house and driving slowly towards him. It’s the same car he saw at Hackpen Hill, he’s sure of it. Trying not to attract any attention, he slips into the small park that sits between the road and the beach below, and waits behind a thick hedge, winking at a young boy nearby who eyes him with suspicion.

  ‘Shhhh,’ Jim says, finger to his lips. ‘Hide-and-seek.’

  Jim used to be so good at hide-and-seek at school that he was never found. Or perhaps no one was looking. The boy nods solemnly as the Range Rover drives past. Jim doesn’t get a clear look at the driver but he recognises the number plate. It’s definitely the same vehicle. Which means they must have turned around in Marlborough and followed him down to Swanage. But do they know about his old house or are they just driving through the town looking for him? It’s a busy road, a popular cut through.

  He waits in the park for a couple of minutes before making his way to the house. No one is around. The neighbour on one side is elderly, the other is often away travelling. Jim’s stayed here occasionally in the past twelve months, when he’s come to visit his dad for a weekend. He walks around the back and across the parched lawn to the once brightly coloured summer house, pressing his nose against the glass. Plants are climbing up through the floor and walls and a solitary blue plastic boules ball lies cracked in the far corner. He used to spend hours in here with his fossils. They seemed to offer a break from thinking, a way to calm his brain.

  He walks back across to the house, takes a deep breath and unlocks the side door. A wave of sadness hits him as he enters the kitchen. The place is empty but there are memories everywhere. Dad’s study, straight ahead, a mark on the wall where the weather station was once installed. The sitting room to his left, where he learnt to play the piano. The old metronome imposing order on his music – on his life. And the nanny’s room to the right, a constant reminder that his mum had died too young.

  Five minutes later, he’s upstairs at his old desk, sitting in the window that looks out over Swanage Bay. Everything’s been erased from here, all traces of his childhood apart from a tiny piece of graffiti that the decorators missed – ‘Phuck Physics’, carved into the edge of the windowsill. It had felt so rebellious at the time. He’d always preferred chemistry, much to his his dad’s irritation. In truth, he found all the sciences easy at school, taking the exams a year early. Advanced maths too.

  He opens his laptop and scrolls through a file called ‘Modern Maddison’ – the same file that he downloaded onto the USB and gave to Bella. Has he got enough proof yet? Was it a mistake to give the USB to her? She won’t be able to open it without the password. It’s on a draft text, ready to send to her in an emergency.

  He gets up from the desk and looks out of the window. The Needles on the Isle of Wight are bathed in warm afternoon sun. He always preferred Swanage after the summer, when the place was reclaimed by the locals and beat to a calmer rhythm. No more queuing for cod and chips at the Fish Plaice on a Friday. If only he knew who was sending him messages through the crop circles. How much do they know about his own research? If the first circle is the incapacitating agent BZ, the second one LSD, and the third one the nerve agent VX, they are both singing from the same song sheet. All three substances have played a significant role in Porton Down’s controversial history of human trials.

  Jim leans back, mulling over the implications. It’s not just in the past – old habits die hard. Twenty thousand human guinea pigs have passed through Porton Down since the place was founded in 1916 and its volunteer programme is very much ongoing. Young squaddies continue to take part in tests to improve protective clothing and medical countermeasures for today’s armed forces, most recently for women on the battlefield. A couple of days away from their regiment, a chance to earn some beer money. What’s not to like? But there’s another story to be told, one that Jim discovered during his three years at Harwell, the affiliated site where no one would ever think to look. It’s here that the unethical experiments continue as if the death of Ronald Maddison in 1953 had never happened. BZ, LSD, VX and more.

  Jim will let Bella tell the world but first he needs to discover who is sharing his concerns so publicly. Closing his laptop, he’s about to go downstairs when the front doorbell rings. Nobody calls here any more. All mail is redirected and it’s known locally that the house is empty. Walking quietly across the landing, he looks down onto the street. A black Range Rover is parked up outside the house.

  49

  Bella

  Bella checks up and down the street and opens the front door of her house in Homerton. It’s been a stressful journey back to east London and she’s calmed by the familiar smell of incense. She stayed in the train loo until Reading, only coming out when a desperate passenger knocked on the door and pleaded with her. There were no police on the train or at Paddington, but a patrol car drove past as she walked from Hackney Central station.

  ‘Mum, I’m back,’ she calls out in the hall, but without much confidence. She has put the battery in her phone half a dozen times and tried to ring her.

  The house feels empty, uneasy. Interrupted. Her mum’s reading glasses are on the kitchen table, next to a copy of the book on Somalia that she was engrossed in two nights ago. Beside it, dried orange peel. She once showed Bella how to light a fire with it. A newspaper is folded, unread. She walks over to the sideboard. An unused herbal teabag in a mug. The kettle warm. She must have left in a hurry.

  A man’s voice, faint but close. She stands still, straining to hear, pulse picking up. Is it coming from another room? She sees the radio on the dresser and walks over. It’s on, very quietly. The World Service. Her mum either has the radio on loud or off. It’s not like her to leave it like this. Did she turn the radio down when she was trying to hear something?

  Bella walks back through to the hall, scalp tingling. The door to where the two lodgers are staying is closed. She knocks once.

  ‘Hello?’ she calls out. ‘Anybody home?’

  Silence. She tries the door but it’s locked. Her mum insisted on them having some privacy when they moved in. They’re usually out during the day, either helping at the migrant centre or at Ridley Road market in Dalston. Slowly she climbs the stairs, glancing at the African-print drapes hanging over the banister.

  ‘Mum?’ she says again, less confident now.

  Her bedroom’s empty. Bell
a checks the spare room – Helen’s room. Her mum left it unchanged for months after she emigrated, but her stuff is packed away in the loft now and the room is used for guests. At least, it was when Bella was living at home before college. Her mum’s former aid agency colleagues passing through London, old friends from Kenya. Should she ring Helen now? It’s the middle of the night but she’d understand.

  She walks down the landing and looks in on her own room. Nothing’s changed – except for a typewriter on her desk. And a handwritten note beside it.

  Been rummaging in the attic and found this. Thought you might like it, now you’re an intrepid reporter. It’s Dad’s trusty old Remington, the one he wrote all his stories on. He would have loved the thought of you using it to file your first piece for a national newspaper. So proud of you. Mum xx

  At the end of the note, she’s drawn a flower. Bella presses the keys of the typewriter, watching the levers swing forward like miniature golf clubs. Her dad’s staccato typing used to echo through their house from his study in Mombasa. She and Helen knew to be quiet when the typing sped up. It meant a deadline was looming. He could have switched to using a laptop but he preferred his typewriter. Steeped in old-school journalism, he insisted on reading out his story to copy-takers in London and Washington, using cheap burner phones bought in the market that were untraceable. It was safer than using hard drives that could be hacked, emails that could be intercepted. He had made too many government enemies, exposed too many corporate crooks.

  What would he do in her position now? He wouldn’t have taken no for an answer about Erin’s illness. And he would definitely have investigated her death. Whatever the personal risk. Once he was away for two whole months. A friend of his, a human rights campaigner, had been murdered in south Mogadishu and he wanted to track down his killers, expose them. Bella has since discovered that when the investigative article finally came out, it won awards and he was hailed a hero. Except by the friends of the arrested killers, who got their revenge in the end.