Panic Room

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Yes. But according to his boss he crashed because he was upset after being grilled about Wortalleth West by a couple of heavies.’

  ‘Heavies? Aren’t you being rather melodramatic?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jack.’ Now she looked at him. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Just get on with the sale.’

  ‘All right.’ Fran sighed. ‘I’ll go down there tonight on the sleeper and start things moving.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He paused, then added, ‘You will take care, won’t you?’

  Now Don’s wrist is OK, he insists on doing all the driving. It’s obviously a relief to him he doesn’t have to trust me with the MG. He even says it’s a relief to her. Apparently he can tell by how smoothly she – it – is running. I let this go over my head and focus instead on where we’re going – and why.

  It turns out to be a five-hour-plus drive to Brockenhurst. Even with her master at the wheel, the MG can’t beat the traffic. Don’s bumper-hugging and lane-dodging doesn’t make any difference, though occasionally – just occasionally – he manages a throaty burst of acceleration that pins me back in my seat.

  He starts asking too many questions. It’s light conversation to him, I s’pose. But I’m not going to tell him anything about myself I don’t want him to know and, for the time being, decent guy though he basically is, what I want him to know about the early life of Blake is as close to zero as I can get.

  Don isn’t hard to deflect. He has a lot of estate agency anecdotes he can work his way through. And he’s the butt of a few of them, which is nice. Don is way short of perfect, but at least he knows it. And he doesn’t try to hide it.

  We stop for lunch at a pub near Honiton. While we sit out in the garden, soaking up the sun and in Don’s case the local beer, I ask him what he thinks we’re going to learn from Holly Walsh. He says he doesn’t know, but I get the message just by the way he says it. He wants us to learn nothing. He wants it to be a dead end. So we can just give up. Bad luck, Don, I don’t say. It’s not going to be a dead end. I’ve got a feeling about Holly Walsh. There’s a secret she wants to share. All we have to do is help her share it.

  Don gets a couple of emails from Fran – working on a Sunday, she must be a woman under pressure – while we’re at the pub. One’s termination of his contract. The other’s a request for information. That sets him fuming.

  Eventually, he fires back a reply to Fran, giving her Pawley’s name as an agent who’ll arrange a quick sale of Wortalleth West. Then we get back on the road.

  I’ve never been to the New Forest before. The roads are busy, with cars towing caravans and horseboxes. It’s a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. There are picnickers and hikers out and about. The woods are thick and full-leafed, the stretches of heathland purple with drifts of heather. There are ponies, too, and wandering cattle. Everything looks softer and sleeker here. We’re a long way from Cornwall.

  I suppose I thought Holly Walsh’s home was going to be a chocolate-box cottage: thatched roof, creaky wooden gate, hollyhocks round the front door. In fact, Furzelands turns out to be a modern bungalow in a cul-de-sac of other modern bungalows on the outskirts of Brockenhurst. There’s a big garden, though, and lots of flowers. Somebody works hard to keep the place up.

  We’re expected. A woman who moves far too lithely to have MS comes out to meet us as Don unwinds himself from the car. She’s slim and brisk, wearing a neat skirt and top. She has bobbed fair hair and a face that could be pretty but for a tight little mouth that gives her a kind of perma-pout.

  There’s a round of smiles, introductions and handshakes. She’s Anna Marchant, Holly’s partner – and carer, I guess. She says a lot of friendly, welcoming things that Don seems to swallow, but there’s a brittleness about her. Maybe she’s worried we’ll upset Holly or stir up trouble. I don’t live with an MS sufferer, so what do I know? I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  She takes us round the back of the house, trilling about how nice it’s warm enough for tea in the garden. Everything’s trimmed and prinked and colourful. Glenys wouldn’t like it. ‘You’ve got to give plants a bit of freedom,’ I can hear her saying. ‘Otherwise they go stir-crazy.’

  Holly Walsh is waiting for us on the patio, sitting in one of four chairs drawn up round a table. The furniture’s trad wrought iron. There’s a big parasol, sheltering Holly from the sun. She doesn’t get up. She’s sitting on two cushions and there’s a crutch propped against her chair. She’s thin and pale, dark-haired, with a heart-shaped face and big engaging eyes. There’s a tinge of pink in her cheeks, though, and her smile is the kind it’s hard to fake. She looks fragile rather than frail. But spirited.

  More introductions. Anna goes to make tea. They’ve already had some. There’s cake as well. Don wolfs down a slice so greedily you wouldn’t believe he’s had roast lamb and apple crumble for lunch.

  While Anna’s away, Holly tells us what a wonder the woman is. I get the feeling they haven’t been together that long, though Holly doesn’t say exactly how long. But she talks about Anna and Ditrimantelline – the wonder drug that got her out of a wheelchair – as if they arrived in her life kind of around the same time.

  I ask if I can use the loo. I need a pee, but it’s also an excuse to see inside the house before we get caught up discussing what’s brought us here. Holly gives me directions and off I go, while Don agonizes over whether to have a second slice of cake. I bet I’ll see it on his plate when I get back.

  Inside, everything’s spick and span – like a bit too spick and span. Wonder woman’s probably a whizz at housekeeping as well as gardening. It’s all a bit clinical, uncluttered, controlled. I meet Anna coming out of the kitchen with the tea-tray as I head for the bathroom and catch her frown. We’re some kind of threat to her. You can see it in her eyes.

  The knitted cover over the lid of the loo’s a bit of a surprise. Likewise the yellow rubber duck eyeing me from the side of the bath. There are wall-mounted grab-handles to help Holly move herself around and an electric toothbrush she probably uses. I take a look in the cabinet above the basin. Elixtris face cream and body scrub. Do they both use Elixtris, I wonder? There are lots of pills as well, including several cartons of Ditrimantelline. Ten-milligram tablets to be taken daily. Warning: do not drive, operate machinery or drink alcohol while using this medicine. Then there’s Made in Switzerland and the manufacturer’s name: Harkness Pharmaceuticals.

  I look at the carton and wonder how much it’s worth. Harkness is everywhere. You just can’t get away from him.

  Don was beginning to think the second slice of cake was a mistake. He had wanted to please Holly by accepting it. Her frailty and her captivating, wide-eyed gaze were hard to resist. The return of Anna, with more tea, and Blake shortly afterwards supplied cover for him to push his plate to one side.

  There was further superficial chit-chat while Anna poured tea, then she – rather than Holly – asked exactly how Don and Blake had come to know the Glasson family. Blake answered, with a substantially accurate account of her own involvement. Don’s she glossed over. He said he was ‘just trying to help’, which Holly seemed to have no difficulty accepting. As for Anna, she subtly pressed Don to say what he did for a living. He told her readily enough, without mentioning the sale of Wortalleth West.

  ‘I feel terribly sorry for Mr Glasson,’ said Holly. ‘Jane’s disappearance must eat away at him, especially since his wife died. I stayed with the family several times during school holidays and university vacations. Lovely people.’

  ‘Muriel doesn’t sound so lovely,’ remarked Anna.

  ‘No. Well, having a younger sister as beautiful and intelligent as Jane can’t have been easy.’

  ‘You and Jane were close friends, then?’ Don asked, before wondering if the question came across as crass. Perhaps they were more than friends.

  If so, Holly took the issue in her stride. ‘She was the best,’ she said. ‘So alive. So … inspiring.’

  ‘Maybe she’s still t
he best,’ said Blake softly.

  ‘Maybe,’ Holly acknowledged. ‘I don’t think the opinion of this fortune-teller Mr Glasson went to is significant one way or the other, though. Put simply, I can’t believe Jane would put her parents – or me – through the agony of not knowing what happened to her. What would be the point? Why would she do such a thing?’

  ‘Nothing occurred on the day she disappeared that made you think later she was planning something?’ Don asked.

  ‘No, nothing at all. Everything was completely normal. We had coffee at King’s Cross before we went our separate ways on the Underground. We chatted about this and that. Jane had just ditched some soppy young man from King’s who thought he was her boyfriend. I teased her about that. But teasing Jane wasn’t really possible. She soared above most things. We agreed I’d go down to Cornwall at the beginning of September, after we’d both earnt some spending money. It never occurred to me – never would have in a million years – that I was never going to see her again. And now …’

  Holly looked for a moment as if she was about to cry. Anna moved consolingly towards her, but Holly waved her away and summoned a smile.

  ‘Sorry. Anyway, that’s twenty-two years ago. In the end, you just have to accept … Well, you just have to accept. I don’t know what happened to her and I almost certainly never will, which is probably for the best, because, whatever it was, it can’t have been anything good.’ She swallowed hard. ‘We lost her. It’s as bleak and as simple as that.’

  ‘Surely,’ ventured Blake, ‘the anonymous offer of funding for your supply of Ditrimantelline … must’ve made you think.’

  ‘Some people prefer to do good without personal recognition,’ Anna jumped in. She was keen – maybe keener than Holly – to block the suggestion that Jane might be responsible.

  ‘Of course it made me think,’ said Holly. ‘But to believe Jane is the source of the money would require me to believe she deliberately and calculatingly abandoned her family and friends twenty-two years ago. That makes no sense to me. Not a scrap.’

  ‘Where does the, er, money actually come from?’ Don asked hesitantly.

  ‘Credit Suisse, London. An account in the name of Nightingale. They won’t reveal whether that’s a personal or company name.’

  ‘So, you have asked?’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Anna, her tone sharpened by otherwise well-disguised irritation.

  ‘How did your benefactor first contact you?’ Don pressed on.

  ‘An email. From someone called Luscinia. Or more likely not called Luscinia, since that’s Latin for nightingale. She said she worked in pharmaceuticals and was appalled by how expensive some of the most effective drugs had become. She’d read my blogs about living with MS and wanted to help by supplying Ditrimantelline. It had to be done anonymously or she’d get into trouble. Well, I’d heard about how successful Ditrimantelline had been in the States. I wasn’t likely to say no. It was an answer to a prayer. If you’d met me eighteen months ago, you’d be amazed by the difference.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Anna. ‘The treatment’s been transformative.’

  ‘Who makes the drug?’ asked Blake.

  ‘Harkness Pharmaceuticals,’ Holly replied. And Don was instantly alert.

  ‘So,’ Blake went on, ‘d’you think Luscinia works for them?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Anna cut in. ‘It’s quite possible she works for an independent lab that supplies Harkness with the drug. A manufacturer’s label on a box doesn’t prove they actually produce the contents.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Holly asked, frowning slightly.

  ‘It might,’ said Blake. ‘After all, Jane did know Jack Harkness, didn’t she?’

  ‘Did she?’ Holly’s frown deepened.

  ‘He was born in Mullion. That’s only about six miles from Helston.’

  ‘Even so …’

  ‘And she had a holiday job at a café in Mullion where Harkness was a customer.’

  ‘Well, she never mentioned him to me,’ said Holly. ‘Of course, he wasn’t so famous back then, but still I don’t recall her saying anything about him. Besides, a less likely recruit to the pharmaceuticals industry than Jane is hard to imagine.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Don.

  ‘For a start, she was a biologist rather than a chemist. But the real objection would be the strong principles she held. Jane was horrified by the harm being done to the environment. She was worried about global warming while most people of our age, including me, were hopelessly blasé on the subject. I remember her giving me a lecture about what a let-down the Rio Earth Summit had been. We were in the sixth form. 1992, it would have been. Then, during our gap year, we travelled together to Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. I was all for spending as much time on the beach as possible. She was more concerned about the shrinkage of the rain forest and the degradation of coral reefs. Later, at Cambridge, I remember her railing against the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. She believed the human race was upsetting the balance of the ecosystem without understanding how interdependent all life forms are.’ Holly shook her head as she drew on her memories. ‘I hear her voice whenever I see a dead bee. And I see a lot of dead bees these days.’

  ‘She must’ve been great to have as a friend,’ said Blake.

  ‘Oh yes, she was.’ Holly sighed. ‘Have you ever seen a photograph of her?’

  ‘Andrew Glasson showed me a snap of Jane and her sister when they were in their early teens,’ said Don.

  ‘You should see a later picture.’ Holly looked across at Anna. ‘Can you get the one from my bedroom, Anna?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Anna sprang up and headed into the house.

  ‘Did Jane ever travel to Switzerland?’ Blake enquired gently.

  ‘I don’t think so. Although …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, she went to Italy with the soppy boy from King’s during the Easter vacation the year she disappeared. They went by train, so I suppose they might’ve gone by way of Switzerland. But … why do you ask?’

  ‘Harkness Pharmaceuticals’ HQ is in Switzerland. And Credit Suisse is a Swiss bank, right?’

  ‘Luscinia isn’t Jane,’ Holly said emphatically. ‘I’m certain of that.’

  ‘We’re simply doing everything we can for Jane’s father, Holly,’ Don cut in to soften the exchanges. ‘Asking every question that can be asked.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Holly, signalling with a nod that she understood.

  Anna reappeared then with a framed photograph she handed to Don.

  ‘We hired a punt on Jane’s twenty-first birthday,’ said Holly. ‘I took that picture somewhere along the Backs.’

  The Jane Glasson Don saw in the photograph was eight or nine years older than the one he had seen in the photograph in Helston. She also looked older than twenty-one, more mature somehow, though unquestionably very attractive, in the full bloom of early womanhood. She was wearing a cheesecloth blouse and jeans. Her hair was slightly darker than it had been in her teens. And her eyes had acquired a cast of mysteriousness, of unknowability it seemed to Don. He passed the picture on to Blake.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Blake said at once.

  ‘She was, wasn’t she?’ mused Holly.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Blake, though exactly what she was sorry for remained unclear to Don.

  Holly, on the other hand, seemed to grasp her meaning quite distinctly. She looked directly at Blake and said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘The soppy boy from King’s,’ said Blake softly. ‘D’you remember his name?’

  ‘Gareth something. Beyond that … I don’t know. I never actually met him.’

  ‘Not even after Jane’s disappearance? It must’ve been a shock to all her friends at Cambridge.’

  ‘I never went back to Cambridge,’ Holly replied, her voice heavy now with sadness. ‘I had a breakdown. There were physical symptoms as well. The start of all this.’ She raised her hands in an expressive gesture. ‘I sometimes wonde
r whether I’d have contracted MS if Jane hadn’t vanished, though my doctors say there’s no reason to think that. It’s just … bad luck.’ She sighed. ‘All of it’s bad luck really. Nothing more. Nothing less.’

  There aren’t many more questions we can ask. Holly just goes on insisting Luscinia isn’t – can’t be – Jane. Whether she’s as sure as she says she is I don’t know. She and Anna keep glancing at one another. What the glances mean I can’t tell. They both bottle up their emotions.

  They’re on safer ground – or think they are – talking about how they met. Anna rented a house nearby when she moved to the area to open a recruitment agency in Lyndhurst. That’s just over a year ago. They act like they’ve been together a long time, but they haven’t really. I suppose you’d call that instant compatibility, if you weren’t kind of suspicious of Anna’s whole loving support act, like I am.

  I want to ask Holly exactly when she first heard from Luscinia. I’m still trying to work the question into the conversation when she successfully pours herself some tea and supplies the answer herself. ‘The winter before last I couldn’t have done that. It was the worst I’ve ever felt. Then Luscinia’s email landed in my inbox. What a New Year’s gift it turned out to be. I’ve been improving ever since I started taking Ditrimantelline.’

  So, here’s the sequence. Luscinia makes contact, early last year. Then Anna breezes into town in the spring. And Holly’s got a new lease of life.

  She doesn’t get up when we leave, though. I guess we’ve exhausted her. Anna walks us out to the car. Don thanks her for the tea as we go and blathers on about how delicious the cake was. Anna gives him one of her smiles, which are beginning to remind me of a crack in a sheet of ice when you drop a rock on it.

  Don’s relieved. I can tell. He wanted this to be a dead end and he thinks it is. But I don’t reckon it is. And it looks like Anna can tell I don’t.

  ‘Are you going back to Cornwall tonight?’ she asks as we reach the pavement.

  ‘No,’ Don replies. ‘We’re—’

  ‘There are more leads to follow up,’ I cut in. ‘We haven’t given up on Jane.’ I look at Anna as I say that. I don’t want her to think we can be brushed off so easily. I can sense Don frowning at me as I speak. What leads? he’s wondering.