The Man on Hackpen Hill Page 25

  Jesus wept. Is that what Conor is? A service user on a bloody pathway?

  ‘You’ve also invested in several UK pharmaceutical companies?’ Strover asks.

  ‘Correct,’ he says, reluctant to elaborate.

  ‘Who manufacture antipsychotics,’ Strover adds.

  He looks at Strover long and hard, and then his eyes flick to the left. ‘Among many other products, yes.’

  ‘Does your company have its own morgues in the UK?’ Silas asks.

  ‘Morgues?’ he repeats, unable to hide his surprise at the question. ‘Some of our facilities are small secure wards within bigger hospitals, which I assume have their own mortuary facilities. I believe all our stand-alone secure units do have the necessary means to deal with any service user who passes. It’s rare.’

  ‘But it does happen,’ Silas says.

  He had asked Strover to check. More than fifty people who are detained under the Mental Health Act die every year in the UK.

  ‘Sure, sometimes it happens. And every death’s a personal tragedy. May I ask why this might be relevant to Jed Lando’s passing?’

  ‘What exactly was Jed’s role in the company?’ Silas asks, ignoring the CEO’s question.

  ‘That bit of the website was also right – he oversaw our UK expansion, commissioning and operationally managing facilities at regional director level, before becoming our Chief Operating Officer.’

  ‘So he would regularly visit your various secure facilities around the country?’ Silas asks – including Conor’s, but he manages to say nothing.

  ‘Correct,’ the CEO says, glancing at his watch as he moves to stand up. ‘I have a meeting in five, guys. Unless there are any questions that can’t be answered by our website—’

  Guys. ‘Jed Lando was murdered,’ Silas interrupts. The man hovers and sits down again.

  ‘Murdered?’

  Another poor attempt at surprise. Silas hopes Strover’s getting this, filing it for future use. It’s textbook stuff, top-drawer dissembling.

  ‘Did he work from here?’ Silas asks, looking around the office.

  ‘He was based at another site,’ the CEO says.

  Silas tilts his head, encouraging the man to continue, but he says nothing.

  ‘It wasn’t on the website, that’s all,’ Silas prompts.

  ‘He worked out of our medium-secure facility in Newcastle,’ the CEO replies. His eyes flit to the left again.

  ‘Where you have a number of facilities,’ Silas says. The CEO nods.

  ‘We might head up that way tonight, pay a visit,’ Silas adds, glancing at Strover. AP Brigham began its UK investment in the north-east but Silas has no intention of driving there. Something’s niggling in the back of his mind. He went through AP Brigham’s website with Strover before they came here and he’s sure the office contact number for Lando didn’t begin with 0191 – Newcastle’s dialling code.

  ‘Now, I really must be going,’ the CEO says, handing them both his business card as he gets up to leave. ‘Call me if you have any other questions and I’ll see what I can do. Except for the curveballs – maybe you could email me those first.’

  ‘One last question,’ Silas says, refusing to return the man’s ridiculous smile. ‘Whose is the Range Rover outside?’

  The CEO doesn’t miss a beat. ‘That must be one of our courtesy cars – we use them to pick clients up from Heathrow. Like the one I’m late for a meeting with now,’ he adds, glancing again at his watch.

  Silas turns to Strover, who pulls out a photo from a wallet file on her lap.

  ‘Is that one of your “courtesy cars”?’ he asks, as the CEO takes the photo. It shows the Range Rover that was allegedly following Jim Matthews – after it had been involved in the collision with the tractor. The front is badly damaged, but the number plate is still visible.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ he says, handing back the photo. ‘All our cars have personalised plates – MFA1, MFA2 etc.’

  ‘MFA?’ Silas asks.

  ‘Medication For All,’ he says, smiling from ear to ear. ‘It’s our company motto.’

  84

  Bella

  Bella can’t read Jim’s account of his secondment to Harwell quick enough. She knows she hasn’t got much time left. The tracker will have arrived at Swanage station by now and her pursuers will have worked out what she did with it. They will be driving around the Purbeck countryside, scouring the lanes in search of her. Angry, humiliated by the trick she played on them. Her dad’s trick.

  She will write her story once she’s finished reading through all the documents. It’s the least she can do for Jim. The least she can do for Erin. Bella doesn’t know how or when it happened – during uni holidays? – but her friend must have been a volunteer at Harwell, where scientists subjected her to experiments with incapacitating agents. According to Jim, the particular pattern of the crop circle she was found in depicted LSD.

  She reads on.

  Week seven

  As part of our daily work, we are told to revisit the US military research that was conducted on BZ, as well as the UK’s own experiments at Porton Down, which means sifting through the records from Edgewood Arsenal, a former secret facility on Chesapeake Bay run by the US Army Chemical Corps in the 1960s. Under the guidance of Colonel Jim S Ketchum, a psychiatrist, some of the thousands of volunteers who passed through Edgewood were subjected to psychochemical experiments involving LSD and an anticholinergic, 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, otherwise known as BZ.

  My own human guinea pig, who has already been run pretty ragged after a month of trials, does not respond well when I increase the doses of BZ. Originally rejected as an ulcer therapy, it can induce psychosis, followed by amnesia, although I don’t think either of us will ever forget the night that brought an end to my own particular programme of experiments.

  My task is to recreate the Boomer, a 1960s CIA variant of BZ that can can trigger a sustained, two-week period of delirium and acute mental disorder. After checking the padding on the walls is intact – my volunteer has a habit of ripping it off and stuffing pieces into his mouth – I signal for one of the staff to release a cloud of the gas into the cell from the usual aerosol dispenser and we leave him alone.

  He gives me that pleading look again and starts to fidget and agitate, picking at the bare mattress on the bed, slowly at first, as if he is weeding daisies from a lawn, and then more violently, clawing at the material. And all the time he is mumbling – I can hear some of it relayed on the loudspeaker in the corridor outside, but it’s mostly gibberish.

  At one point, he stands up on the bed, looks below him and starts to shout, jumping up and down. He seems to be hallucinating, talking of giant spiders crawling all over the floors and walls, hundreds of them. And then his head begins to twitch spastically, from one side to the other. His hands flap against his chest and face, as if he is on fire and trying to dampen the flames. I can’t watch any longer and call for help.

  By the time Dr Haslam arrives, the young man is lying motionless on the floor. He has a temperature of 103.6 and we all fear the worst. But Dr Haslam is reassuring, talks of the dangers of puncturing delusions. And sure enough, two days later, after being given an antidote, the man is as right as rain.

  85

  Silas

  Silas and Strover walk across the car park towards the Range Rover with its MFA personalised number plates. Silas managed to bite his tongue when the CEO explained that the letters stood for Medication For All, didn’t take issue with him about AP Brigham’s prohibitive pricing strategies, the implication that everyone needs meds.

  ‘Put money on him watching us from his office window,’ Silas says. ‘Don’t turn around,’ he adds, sensing that Strover is about to check. ‘Just pass me the folder.’

  Strover hands over the folder and Silas drops it at the back of the Range Rover, the photos spilling out on the tarmac.

  ‘I’ll get them,’ he says, as she moves to pick up the photos. He leans down and gathers them up,
but his only interest is the number plate, which is now at eye level. The fittings are new. He glances up at the CEO’s office as he gets back to his feet. Sure enough, the man is watching them. Not in such a hurry for his meeting after all.

  ‘The rear plate’s been replaced recently,’ Silas says, back beside Strover as they walk over to their own car. ‘Find out how many courtesy vehicles are registered to the company.’

  Forensics is still trying to establish the legal owner of the impounded Range Rover that was involved in the incident with the tractor. As Silas suspected, its show number plates are illegal – they are registered to an unwitting Range Rover owner in Birmingham, who wasn’t happy to discover that his car had been cloned. The chassis and Vehicle Identification Number have also been restamped. It’s a ringer, in other words, making it impossible to trace the owner. A ghost car.

  ‘I hope you were taking notes,’ Silas says, as they drive away. ‘How to spot a liar.’

  ‘And there I was, thinking someone’s innocent until proved guilty,’ Strover says, smiling.

  ‘Unless he’s the boss of a dodgy big pharma company,’ Silas says, resisting the temptation to say something about Conor. He’s told Strover of the connection and she was as shocked as him. ‘He was also right-handed and kept looking to his left,’ Silas adds, recalling something his dad once told him. ‘Right-handed liars usually look to the right when they’re recalling facts, to the left when they’re bullshitting.’

  It’s by no means a foolproof method but Silas is surprised how often it works.

  ‘What if you’re a leftie, like me?’ Strover asks, glancing at him.

  ‘You look to your right when you’re lying. Our CEO wore a watch on his left wrist. More to the point, he also hiked the prices of three essential medicines in the US by a factor of fifty – yes, fifty – when he bought them last year,’ he adds, still incensed by the encounter, the number plates. ‘“Medication For All”, my arse. And they’ve had nothing to do with manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines or anything useful like that. I also never trust anyone over the age of forty who wears a hoodie to work.’

  ‘He’s only just turned forty,’ Strover says.

  Mel bought him a hoodie once, in an effort to refresh his middle-aged weekend wardrobe.

  ‘And he didn’t seem in the least bit surprised by Jed Lando’s death,’ Silas says. ‘He was definitely trying to throw us off the scent by mentioning Newcastle.’

  ‘Are we really driving there now?’ Strover asks, glancing at her watch.

  ‘Not if we can help it. Check Lando’s contact details on their website for me, will you? I’m sure it wasn’t a Newcastle number.’

  Strover looks it up on her phone. ‘01865 – Oxford,’ she says, scrolling through the website. ‘Where they’ve got a medium-secure psychiatric hospital – Cranham Hall.’

  ‘We need to get over there now, find out if Lando was based at the site, talk to some of his colleagues,’ Silas says, flicking on the blue lights of their unmarked car. ‘And see if the place has any mortuary facilities.’

  86

  Bella

  Bella reads and rereads Jim’s diary entry, trying to ignore a sickening feeling in her stomach. ‘Dr Haslam’ is an unusual name. Maybe it’s a coincidence? But she knows that it’s her tutor at college – and that Erin is somehow involved.

  If her friend ended up dead because she was part of some hideous experiment at Porton Down, or its affiliated site at Harwell, then Dr Haslam is the missing link that connects them. Harwell isn’t so far from Oxford – sixteen miles. But what the hell would her English tutor be doing at a government science park? Maybe he’s on some sort of retainer, siphoning off sick students to become human guinea pigs, and came to visit. It doesn’t add up.

  She knows she should drive off, keep moving, but she can’t resist one more look at the diary, to see if Dr Haslam features again. Searching for his name, she is taken to an entry near the end of the document.

  Year three, week forty-seven

  It’s time for my final assessment with Dr Haslam. He’s pleased with my three years at Harwell, and full of optimism for the future. My concluding experiment involved me being given an injection of a slow-release incapacitating agent from China. Only a few of us were chosen for the test and I’m glad I was one of them, despite having to endure another needle. For once, the side effects were minimal and we’ve all been scratching our heads, wondering how the Chinese expect to incapacitate the enemy with something so mild. It’s a high note on which to finish.

  ‘There comes a point in every person’s studies when things fall into place and it’s time to move on,’ Dr Haslam begins. ‘Time to go out into the world and put science into practice. In your case, you’ll be transferred back to Porton, as you’ve requested, to work in the labs – a short rehab stint with the animals. I know you are something of an animal lover and are keen to ensure welfare standards are maintained over there. It might seem like a sideways move, but it’s anything but. We are very conscious of the need to rehabilitate scientists after such an intense secondment here. You’ve also had a fantastic few months – you’ve lost weight, look in good shape, you’re thinking clearly, working well with colleagues. It’s what I like to call an “awakening”.’

  Bella stares at her laptop screen, open-mouthed. It’s the same Dr Haslam, using the same language as he used when she left Oxford. She had her own ‘awakening’ too, an epiphany. The day when the fog finally lifted in one of their last one-to-one tutorials and she caught a glimpse of life beyond, a way forward. Her hands are trembling.

  She looks around the woods, where the tall pine trees have started to spin, and opens the car door for some fresh air. Why’s Dr Haslam overseeing Jim’s work as a government scientist at a secret facility in Harwell? And did he play a role, however unwittingly, in Erin’s death? She needs to speak with him, get him on record for her article.

  Should she read more of what’s on the USB or head straight for Oxford, confront Dr Haslam? He might still be in Italy but she feels powerless sitting in her mum’s car. The Range Rover will be looking for her and she has a sudden urge to get as far away from here as she can.

  87

  Silas

  Silas and Strover drive on towards Cranham Hall at speed and in silence. The journey should take less than forty minutes. And they might catch the staff unawares, if the CEO bought his story of driving up to Newcastle and hasn’t warned them to expect a visit from the police.

  ‘Did you see that photo of the CEO in a rap video?’ Strover asks, scrolling down through YouTube on her phone.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Silas says.

  ‘It caused quite a stir in the US last year – they showed it at their national sales conference, hoping to persuade more GPs to prescribe their meds,’ Strover says, still glued to her phone. ‘Another pharma company did a rap video promoting their brand of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. One of the execs was dressed as a giant spray dispenser. He’s now been found guilty of racketeering and bribing doctors to prescribe their product.’

  Strover starts to play the AP Brigham video on her phone. Silas has never been a big fan of American rap music – old-school hip-hop is more his thing – but there is something truly dire about the song now playing. And then it gets even worse: a character dressed as a syringe joins the rappers.

  ‘What the hell?’ Silas says, glancing at the dancing needle. It looks like a cross between Teletubbies and a drill video.

  ‘It’s Brigham’s latest med,’ Strover says, reading from her phone. ‘An antipsychotic depot injection – slow release, slow acting. Perfect for people who forget to pop their pills. You only need to take it once a month. Once every six months, in this case – it’s a game changer, apparently. And much more expensive than daily meds, of course. Six grand a year.’

  Silas is about to ask her to tell him more – Conor was terrible at remembering to take his pills – when his phone rings. It’s Malcolm.

  ‘You still interested in
Caldicott?’ he asks, forgoing any formalities. Strover kills the video.

  ‘More than ever,’ Silas says. He’d rung Malcolm back after they’d identified Caldicott as the third victim, asked him if he could discover anything else about his past career as a pathologist.

  ‘There’s me having a go at you for being a conspiracy theorist and trying to blame Porton Down for everything,’ Malcolm says. ‘And now it seems you may be right.’

  Silas raises his eyebrows at Strover. It’s as close as he’s ever heard Malcolm admit that he’s wrong. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Caldicott did do a brief stint at Porton. Worked on human vaccines and therapies for serious pathogens. It all tends to be a bit niche over there – you either stay for life or get out quickly, worried that no one else is going to be interested in your narrow sphere of expertise. Only in his case, he was asked to leave.’

  ‘Asked?’ Silas says, surprised. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Threatened to expose some experiments he deemed unethical. No legal protection for whistle-blowers in those days. They threw the whole jingbang book at him, said he could expect to spend the rest of his life in jail for multiple breaches of the Official Secrets Act. So he shut up and became a hospital pathologist.’

  ‘Do you think he was right?’ Silas asks. ‘About the experiments being unethical?’ He hasn’t told Malcolm that Caldicott went on to have a second career as Jed Lando – with big pharma in America.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment – except to caution against judging events of the past by today’s standards. Don’t bother checking with Porton – they’ll neither confirm nor deny he ever worked there. But I’ve got it on good authority. Any progress with the other two victims?’