Shifting Sands, page 21
‘You look better,’ I tell her, ‘but I suppose you’d have to.’
‘How did I look before?’
‘Like a corpse.’
She looks me up and down slowly.
‘You look like you’ve made a bollocks of everything while I’ve been asleep. Who’s been walking on your face?’
‘You should see the other guy.’
‘I bet he’s smiling.’
‘At least I’m going home today — you’re not.’
‘And where is home nowadays? I hear you’ve trashed my sister’s van.’
‘I’m staying with Slattery.’
‘Heaven preserve us. Does that old reprobate actually have a home?’
‘Windsor Gardens.’
I’m worried the laughter might kill her.
‘Windsor Gardens?’
‘Yeah. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think it’ll last — he doesn’t like the neighbours. Besides, he thinks old age is contagious and everyone round there is infected.’
‘Wendy?’
‘Logrum have got her.’
‘I see; now I understand the bruises. Mel?’
‘She’s Sasha — and before you come over all smug and say you told me so, remember you’ve got any number of tubes I could pull out...’
She tries to sit up but fails and lets her head fall back onto the pillows.
‘Look in the cupboard, inside the dust cover of the book you’ll find there.’
I root in the cupboard and emerge with a hardback edition.
‘And the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away — you’re a fan of Brautigan, are you?’
‘Just that book; it haunts me.’
I remove the dust cover, and two photographs fall onto the bed.
‘Are these from Sally Richmond?’
‘Who?’
‘Sally Richmond, the nurse.’
‘Oh, is that her name?’ She’s off on her own single track. ‘Look at them and don’t ask foolish questions.’
I see at once they can’t have been taken by Sally Richmond. They’re grainy, strangely coloured prints; both are decades old.
‘Look inside the book — her photographs are there.’
Two colour photographs drop onto the duvet. They were taken recently and printed hastily onto plain paper. They show a white van with Logrum Logistics painted in black on its sides and a couple of guys unloading equipment. There are two people in the background, a woman with a clipboard, and a bearded elderly guy.
‘He looks like a man Wendy described,’ I say. ‘He was watching when she signed the contract at the clinic,’ and I explain to Liz about the guy she encountered. ‘He just watched, never said a word, and left as soon as she’d signed. She said he was creepy.’
‘Interesting,’ Liz says.
‘You know who he is?’
‘Oh yes, but look at the other photographs first.’
‘This is just some young guy in a tasteless polo jumper and hipster jeans. The suntan must’ve cost a fortune. It’s the sort of handsome, well-adjusted, confident, manly face I always want to slap.’
‘Envy,’ Liz says.
‘100%’ I tell her. ‘I’ve spent thirty hard years struggling to be mediocre. What do you expect? Who is he?’
‘That, Philip, is Mark Van-Doren back in the eighties when he’d just started out on his first billion.’
‘And the old guy?’
‘That was taken just last year, without the approval of the subject, and with a high-powered lens. I believe it was taken from a yacht moored off the island owned by the gentleman in question.’
‘So, who is it?’
‘You’re being irritatingly naïve, Philip; that’s Mark Van-Doren too.’
Well, that has my jaw dropping fast enough to eject a couple of loose teeth, I can tell you.
‘He was in England? At the clinic?’
‘Yes, it would appear he was. Now, what are we to make of that?’
Not much, as it happens. The nurse appears with a look which tells me the patient needs her rest and it’s time I made myself scarce. I stand up, irritatingly cowed by authority and get ready to leave, but there’s something I need to ask before I go.
‘Just two minutes?’ I ask the nurse.
‘Two minutes — no longer,’ she says and strides away to another bed and another task and, no doubt, another couple of forms to fill in.
‘What would draw a reclusive multi-billionaire from his island hideaway to spend a week in Sefton-on-Sea? It’d have to be something pretty damned big, wouldn’t you say? He’s hardly come here for the fish and chips, the cordon bleu curry sauce, or the baked potatoes.’
‘He must have a significant personal stake in the experimental work they’re doing — and not just money, either. This research matters to him.’
‘This is getting scary, Liz. I mean, what could be big enough to involve a guy like him? And why Wendy, for God’s sake? What did she ever do?’
‘She crossed his path, Philip. She registered on his radar as just a faint, inconsequential blip that he recognised and made use of.’
‘People are getting hurt, Liz, especially me. What are we going to do?’
‘I’m going back to sleep, Philip. You’re going to find out what’s going on, then you’re going to find and rescue Wendy and write the most impressive, well-referenced, watertight article you’ve ever penned; you’re going to expose these bastards for what they are. You’re going to tell the world what they’re doing.’
‘I’m relieved. For a minute there, I thought you might suggest something difficult.’
‘I have complete faith, Philip. I don’t misjudge people. They always live up to my expectations.’
‘Or suffer the consequences.’
‘Indeed. Now goodnight, Philip.’
‘Just one thing before you drift away into a land of peaceful dreams — tell me about your accident. Patience says you were playing rummy, and then you suddenly left. Of course, I put it down to early onset dementia.’
‘Naturally.’
‘So why did you walk out in front of a car?’
‘There was a young, red-headed gentleman — bearded. I was sure he was following me. He looked like an Ed Sheeran tribute act — not a very good one. By the time I’d realised he was no such thing, I’d started to run. It was only then that I saw the black limousine and the man who really was watching me. I recognised him at once.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Our friend Clive Wigmore.’
She closes her eyes, and there’s a smile on her face as if she sees something funny which has escaped the rest of us. It’s a secret that she’s going to dwell on from the safety of her hospital bed. There’s no point in asking what it is. She’d come out with some enigmatic answer which would allow her to smile more and make matters worse.
‘Sleep soundly, Liz, and don’t go worrying yourself about me,’ I say with more than a hint of sarcasm.
‘I won’t.’
I slip the photos into my pocket and leave. I figure I’ve got one thing to do before I go back to Slattery’s and get some sleep; I’ve got to speak to Mel. My car is still back at Jon’s, parked in his garage while his car takes up the tiled drive, so I get a taxi and spend the journey preparing for the kind of showdown I’ve only ever seen in films. Mostly, they’re the sort of films my nan used to watch, where a private eye gets suckered by a good-looking woman, who turns out to be playing angles of her own. They’re never together in the sequel.
Mel’s at the door before I’m out of the taxi, and she looks like she’s been preparing this speech since Wendy got abducted and I got hospitalised.
‘Liz says thanks for the flowers. Love from Sasha — nice touch,’ I manage to say before she hits me with a barrage.
‘Don’t!’ she snaps. ‘Don’t you dare accuse me of anything. Do you hear? Fact: I’ve never met Wendy before. Fact: I’m not Sasha. Fact: I don’t know what the hell is going on. Fact: I wanted to help you, and I put my neck on the line for you. Fact: I’ve been hit by a confidentiality agreement I signed in order to get the job in the first place. And now, to cap it all, I’ve given up the job and told them where to stick it, so don’t start, Phil, because I’m not in the mood.’
Well, either she’s genuine or that’s the best bit of acting I’ve seen in a long and distinguished career as an amateur film buff. My own well-rehearsed attack is beaten before it begins, and I limp disconsolately from the field.
‘I surrender,’ is the best I can manage.
Only when I get inside and we’re sitting together on the sofa do I probe a little further. I have to be careful — it’s like prodding a rattlesnake with a very short stick.
‘You’ve got to admit, Mel, this is very mysterious. I mean, why was Wendy so sure you were Sasha?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Take a wild guess — anything. I admit I’m struggling here. She flung her arms round you like you were her long-lost friend. There didn’t seem to be much doubt in her mind.’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
‘I mean, this is either the worst case of identity theft I’ve ever encountered or... Jesus...’
‘What’s the matter? You’ve gone pale. Don’t look at me like that; you’re scaring me. What is it?’
‘Shit, don’t you see?’
‘See what? I don’t see anything.’
‘But that’s it; that’s what this is all about.’
I’m rambling now, and I know it. It’s as if a door has opened and a flood of thoughts have escaped into the room, and they’re flying all over the place, round the furniture, across the window, behind the tables — everywhere. It’s like a plague of locusts.
‘They never existed — none of them,’ I say at last.
I’m standing up now and pacing back and forth across the room, and all those random thoughts are cohering like filings to a magnet.
‘Who? What are you talking about?’
I sit down next to her and take her hands.
‘They were planted in her mind and allowed to grow there — Sasha, Marcus, all those sunny afternoons, that too-good-to-be-true gentle overnight rain, the perfect garden, and the scent of sublime roses. Identity, that’s it — identity. Yeah, yeah, that’s it. They created Sasha from you. You’re Sasha. Not you but just enough of you — your face and gestures and maybe some superficial personality traits. The rest she’d fill in for herself as part of her VR therapy.’
‘You mean all the things she told you about Sasha and Marcus was a kind of dream?’
‘No, not a dream, not at all. Someone created that story for her, fed it to her, and allowed her to live it until it was so real, everything else became the dream.’
‘But Marcus?’
‘Yeah, I was wondering about that. Who the hell is Marcus?’
‘If I’m Sasha, Marcus could be anyone. I mean, he could just be some guy they picked up off the street because he had the right face.’
‘Yeah, I know, but I’ve got this weird thought creeping around my mind, and it won’t go away. I keep picturing this narcissist with an ego the size of a planet, who thinks he has the right to play with people’s lives. Do you reckon he’d let someone else play Romeo to his Juliet? Imagine entering someone else’s life — even as a virtual you — even as the “you” you haven’t been for decades. Can you imagine the kick a man like that would get out of seducing a beautiful, vulnerable young woman?’
‘Beautiful? I wouldn’t have said she was beautiful. Pretty, maybe, in an ordinary sort of way.’
‘Okay, a pretty young woman in an ordinary sort of way.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Jesus, Mel — is this the time for an analysis of male versus female perceptions of beauty?’
‘I thought we’d agreed she wasn’t beautiful. Anyway, you started it.’
‘Started what?’
‘Everything.’
I’ve been in these arguments before. The more you speak, the bigger the hole you dig yourself. It’s like walking into quicksand. It’s better not to struggle; that only makes things worse.
‘Imagine, just for a moment, that Mark Van-Doren has projected a young version of himself into this fantasy. It’d certainly explain why the bastard has been hanging around the clinics, watching everything. Mark — Marcus — it’s not too big of a stretch, is it?’
‘I still don’t understand why anyone would want to do something like that. What’s the business motive?’
‘Imagine, Mel, that you could use VR to take a person back into their past and reshape it so they could awaken with a control they never had; imagine the abused wife or partner, the sexually abused kid, the victim of violent crime, or the soldier with PTSD — just think how their lives might be improved if you could manipulate their perceptions of themselves and help them come to terms with the trauma they’ve suffered.’
‘That sounds pretty good to me, but I thought they were already experimenting with that sort of therapy.’
‘Yeah, but these guys have gone way beyond that. Look at Benny. They acted like they were judge and jury — he was a burglar, a common thief, so they could treat him how they liked. They had the power, and they had the means, and they sentenced him to a lifetime as a happy missionary, and he had no right to object — no right of appeal, no trial, no jury.’
‘What’s wrong with making someone happy?’
‘If you can’t see what’s wrong, I can’t explain it.’
‘You think the Home Office has sanctioned this?’
‘They must be mighty interested in a therapy which could be incorporated into crime prevention. Imagine it: “I sentence you to six months of VR therapy, at the end of which you will emerge as a happy pacifist who votes Conservative and goes to church on Sundays. You will never make anything of your life, but at least you won’t bother anyone else — except to irritate the hell out of them with that vapid smile you get as a bonus.”
‘So, there’s a genuine side to their work and then this secret research. And Wendy is a volunteer?’
‘Maybe, but if she was, she certainly didn’t sign up to six months of Marcus and Sasha. I don’t understand why she’s so important to them. Their work is going way beyond the official brief.’
‘So, something else is going on.’
‘Yes, but I don’t know what it is. I just know it scares the holy shit out of me.’
‘And Wendy, what happens to her now?’
‘I’ve got to get her out of there before they send her back to lover boy.’
‘No, forget it, Phil. There’s nothing you can do. You’re just one person — a nobody.’
‘A fly in an elephant’s ear,’ I tell her.
‘Who’s the elephant?’
That’s a really good question. It seems the metaphor doesn’t work in my case. I’m just buzzing around a window waiting to be swatted. There isn’t an elephant in sight.
Why is there never an elephant when you need one?
Which makes me think of Liz.
Which makes me look at my watch and check the time — ten o’clock.
Which reminds me that the best elephants are the ones you make yourself — like homemade cheese and onion pies and tomatoes from your own greenhouse.
It’s time to build my elephant.
‘I’ve got to get this down on paper. Then I’ve got to get her out before it’s too late.’
‘You’re in no fit state to write a coherent article or to rescue anyone.’
‘Well, maybe I exaggerated my injuries just a little...’
‘The broken ribs?’
‘Bruised might be a better description...’
‘Blind in one eye?’
‘Swollen... and a touch of concussion which has gone. It felt worse earlier, honest.’
‘A possible blood clot on the brain?’
‘Maybe headaches and anxiety?’
‘You said might never walk again.’
‘Bruised testicles; I think you misheard “walk.”’
‘You need some sleep.’
‘I’ve had all the sleep a sensible person needs. They don’t risk you waking up in hospitals, you know. They give you something approaching an overdose of sleeping pills, then they all bugger off home, I’m sure of it.’
‘Paranoia.’
‘I’ve got tablets for that too.’
‘You still can’t continue your article, break into the clinic, rescue Wendy, then bring her back here while you edit and redraft it. It’s madness. You’d need an army; besides, they’ll be watching, just in case you didn’t heed their warning.’
‘I know.’
‘So, it’s a really stupid plan. Write your article tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and make sure everyone knows what’s going on. There’s nothing you can do for Wendy, you know that. Besides, she might come out in a few months, happier than she’s ever been.’
‘It’s the wrong kind of happy.’
‘What gives you the right to decide what’s best for her?’
‘I don’t have any right. But I’m sure she doesn’t want what they’re offering. She’s being forced to take part on the back of some dodgy documents and the signature of a guy who doesn’t give a shit about her — someone who saw an opportunity to make a few quid. I’ve got to try, Mel. I just have to. I’ve got to live with myself for the rest of my life. I don’t think that’ll be a pleasant experience if I don’t at least try.’
‘Phone Slattery and ask him. See if he can talk sense into you.’
‘Okay.’
I don’t tell her Slattery is the one person I can think of who is even more impulsive than me — and he’s tougher too, and he’s got a grudge against the new DCI, so he’ll fancy a bit of covert two-finger raising.
Only, Slattery isn’t at home when I get him on his mobile. He sounds like he’s drinking in a football stadium. I figure it’s the Lucky Seven again, especially when I hear shouts and a chair breaking across a table — or maybe someone’s head. Slattery’s voice rises above the din.
‘Mind my fucking pint, moron.’
