by Sibel Hodge
‘Oh, dear. I’m very sorry to hear that.’ Phil’s expression morphed into one of sadness.
‘Me, too,’ Janet said, shaking her head. ‘Very awful news.’
‘Come into my office for a minute, Toni.’ Phil led the way, and I followed him in. He waited until we were both seated before saying, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
I took a breath. Part of me wanted to tell him what Mitchell and I had discovered, but I couldn’t. For one thing, it sounded so crazy that he probably wouldn’t believe me. And also, if we were going to expose Regen Logistix and Professor Klein, no one could know I’d been involved in it. Not if I wanted to live. I had no doubt the intelligence services could and would arrange for me to have an ‘accident’ or ‘commit suicide’ if they found out what we were about to do. ‘No. I’m okay. I didn’t even know her, really.’ But that wasn’t true. I felt like I knew her.
‘I know we were going to do the supervision session later, but that can wait. In fact, I’m happy for you to go home. Take a bit of time for self-care.’
‘I don’t want to let people down.’
‘No, I insist. Your mind won’t be on your job. I’ll take your afternoon clients. And you’re not in tomorrow, anyway, so take a mini-break away from here and work on yourself instead.’
I opened my mouth, about to object again, but I’d already been useless in my job throughout the morning. I’d only be going over and over everything in my head and not concentrating on the people I was supposed to be helping. So I gave Phil my thanks and then drove home, my head throbbing, as I thought about a novel sitting on my bookshelf. George Orwell’s classic 1984 was a favourite of mine, and I’d read it from cover to cover many times over. But it was supposed to be a warning. Not an instruction manual.
Chapter 43
Detective Becky Harris
I left my mobile phone in my room so it couldn’t be tracked and then walked through the campus with my baseball cap on, my gaze scanning for Anthea again. I removed my cap as I stepped inside the Watling Centre and tucked it in my backpack. I smiled at the receptionist inside, wondering just how many people knew about what Klein and Hoodie Guy had been doing. Did she know what was going on? I suspected it would only be the top bods in the know.
I gave my name, and the receptionist told me to take a seat.
‘Actually, can I use the toilet first, please?’ I asked.
‘Of course, but you might need to do a urine sample when you see Professor Klein.’
‘Oh, I’m absolutely bursting. But I’ll make sure I save a bit.’ I grinned.
She pointed to a set of double glass doors behind her. ‘If you go through there and turn right. It’s the second door on your left.’
I headed through the doors and turned right, finding myself in a long corridor. I walked down it, past a stairwell, towards the toilets at the end, but didn’t go inside. Instead, I went back up the corridor in the opposite direction and found several rooms which had warnings on them about what was inside and not to enter: X-ray machines, an MRI scanner, a CT, and an EEG scanner. If they were used for diagnostic tests, by multiple members of staff, it was unlikely Klein would be hiding records of clandestine experiments in them. The last room read Pathology. I opened the door and looked inside. A male and female in white coats were hunched over desktop lab equipment. The female had a vial of blood in one hand, and with the other, she was aspirating some of it into a machine with a needle. The male looked up at me.
‘Sorry, I was looking for the toilet,’ I said.
‘It’s further down the corridor,’ he replied. ‘Just past the doors to reception.’
‘Great, thanks.’
He looked down again, and my gaze did a full sweep of the room before I left. There were two laptops on two desks in the corner of the room next to a large fancy printer. A filing cabinet stood beside that, next to a glass storage unit with more vials, needles, and other medical equipment. Again, it was unlikely Klein would be hiding anything in there.
I went into the loo, just for show, and washed my hands, thinking that the downstairs seemed to be out of the equation for finding what I wanted.
I sat in the waiting room, fiddling with my hands, trying not to clench them. My stomach was in knots. I was nervous about pulling this off without any backup and nervous about what was at stake if I didn’t find anything. But I was more furious than anything else.
I jigged my knee up and down and glanced around at the other patients, all of whom were elderly. The receptionist came over and handed me a medical questionnaire attached to a clipboard to fill in. The usual questions: age, physical and mental health history, and was I on any drugs. I filled it in and handed it back to the receptionist, who disappeared with it.
Ten minutes later, my name was called by a nurse dressed in a pale-blue uniform, and I followed her through the glass doors and up the stairs to the top floor. She knocked on a door with Professor’s Klein’s nameplate on it and told me to go inside.
I entered and came face-to-face with someone I was convinced was a devil in disguise as an angel. He smiled as he looked up from my patient questionnaire in front of him on the desk, stood, and shook my hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Becky.’
I plastered on a smile. ‘Thank you.’
He sat, and I did the same on the opposite side of the desk.
‘I’ve been looking through your questionnaire and can’t see any reason here why you wouldn’t be a good candidate for us.’ As he looked back down at the form, I glanced around the office. This was the second room from the end of the building, definitely where I’d seen the light on when Hoodie Guy had visited.
Klein’s briefcase was on a chair behind his desk. It was closed, but the latch flaps were up, so he hadn’t engaged the lock. There was a laptop on his desk. Files were piled up next to it. A filing cabinet sat in the corner. Along one wall stood an examination bench.
‘Great,’ I said as he looked up at me again. ‘Although… um… I was worried about one thing. There’s nothing dangerous about doing this, is there?’ I did my best meek-little-mouse impression. ‘I mean, you don’t test new drugs on me or anything like that?’
He smiled again. ‘Oh, no. Absolutely nothing like that. There are no drugs in the tests for the healthy volunteer programmes. We use a number of different methods, including diagnostic tests, which could include functional magnetic resonance imaging, blood tests, etcetera. If you’re accepted, you could be suitable for our memory research study, which focuses on using behavioural measures and brain imaging to help us understand memory and emotional function in the healthy population. We’ll need to do a few tests first. Just to make sure you’re suitable. And if everything’s in order, I’ll call you back, and at that stage, we’ll get you to sign a confidentiality clause and make the first instalment of a one-thousand-pound research remuneration fee. Does that seem acceptable to you?’ He smiled pleasantly.
The figure startled me. One thousand pounds? Ajay had had three thousand before he’d died. Natalie, Vicky, and Farzad had over two thousand. But before I could think about that anomaly any more, Klein was talking again.
‘Volunteers are so important for furthering innovating medical advances. If you’re ready, we can do a few tests now.’ He came across as smooth and confident, but I sensed something there behind the façade, something cold—a lack of compassion that a doctor should have or a lack of a guilty conscience. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on showed in his eyes and raised my hackles.
I gave him a relieved smile. ‘The money would really help me out, and I’m happy to be doing something that’ll benefit your research. But what kind of tests do you need to do now?’
‘Just some simple weight and height measurements. A urine test. And our nurse will do a blood test.’
Klein picked up the phone and asked someone to come into the room.
A few minutes later, the same nurse arrived. She measured my weight and height and took my pulse and blood pressure. When it
came to the blood test, I watched her like a hawk as she unwrapped a brand-new syringe from the plastic packaging, making sure it was empty of any kind of nanochip. She swabbed my inner elbow, slid the needle inside my vein, and aspirated some blood. Afterwards, I had to nip out to the toilet to do a urine sample. I came back in the office and handed her the sample bottle wrapped in tissue paper before she disappeared.
‘The test results will be back in a few days,’ Klein said after I’d sat back down. ‘If everything looks good, I’ll ring you personally to arrange an appointment for the next step, which is to have an MRI or CT scan and get some brain and head images. But don’t worry; it’s perfectly painless and harmless. We may give you a contrast solution through an IV to allow the machine to see certain parts of your brain more easily. And it may well be out of usual patient hours, as I’m juggling a lot of research and struggling to keep up with all the studies. Is that okay for you?’
I smiled. ‘Yes, absolutely. I’m flexible. I know you must be really busy. I—’ I stopped speaking suddenly and leaned forward, clutching my stomach. ‘Sorry, I just feel a bit woozy. I didn’t have breakfast this morning.’
‘Oh, dear. Just bend over and put your head between your legs and see if that helps.’ He stood up and rounded his desk. ‘If you haven’t eaten, that could be why.’
‘Would it be possible to get a drink of water, please? I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute.’
‘Of course.’ He left the room.
I jumped up, went behind his desk to the chair, and flipped open the lid of the briefcase. Inside were a couple of blue files. I pulled them out and checked the names written on the outside but didn’t recognise any. I quickly opened them and found a document at the front giving the patient’s pertinent details. They weren’t students. They were elderly patients in an Alzheimer’s research programme. Klein also had a notepad inside which wasn’t written on, a couple of pens, and a calculator. Nothing that related to what I was interested in.
I replaced everything as I’d found it and rushed back to the chair. I sat down just as the door swung open.
Klein had a glass of water in his hand and a couple of biscuits on a plate.
‘Here you are. Maybe you just need a bit of sugar for energy.’ He popped the plate on his desk in front of me and handed me the glass, glancing down with concern. In that moment, it was hard to believe he was a psychopath who thought it was okay to test dangerous mind-bending technology on unsuspecting, innocent people.
‘Thanks.’ I drank the water in one go.
‘Have a biscuit, too.’
I took a biscuit and chomped away as he sat at his desk again.
When I’d finished, I said, ‘I’m feeling much better now.’
‘Maybe you should have a bit more to eat when you leave here. It’s probably just low blood sugar. Your blood pressure is absolutely fine. But if you do have any more problems in the meantime, you should see a doctor.’
Not likely.
I stood up. ‘I’m sure that’s it. Thanks for being so kind.’
He reached over the desk and shook my hand again. ‘I’ll be in contact soon.’
I walked out of the office, shut the door behind me, and looked up and down the corridor. The toilets on this floor were further along at the end, but there was no way I could hide in a cubicle until everyone had left for the day without someone noticing. But on the way to the loos to do the urine sample, I’d passed a store cupboard which was unlocked. I’d poked my head inside the small room filled with medical supplies, with shelving units arranged around the room and cardboard boxes piled up in one corner. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best I could come up with. It was just gone quarter to four, and their ‘official’ patient hours would be over at five, so I was hoping no one would need anything from the supply room before the staff left for the day.
I started towards it then heard people coming up the stairs. I recognised the receptionist’s voice talking to someone and waited until she’d reached the top of the stairwell, accompanying a middle-aged man who’d been in the waiting area with me.
I walked slowly towards her, as if I were going downstairs to leave. She smiled at me, and I paused at the top of the stairs, pulling my mobile from my bag and looking at the screen like I was checking a text message.
She knocked on Klein’s door and entered the room with the man. I quickly doubled back and hurried towards the storeroom, my heart thumping as I grabbed the door handle, pressed it down, and stepped inside. I darted around the shelving units and sat on the floor behind a pile of boxes, completely hidden from view. With any luck, she’d think I’d left the building when she went back downstairs.
Chapter 44
Toni
By the time I buzzed Mitchell up to my flat that evening, I had a casserole in the oven and potatoes boiling on the hob. I still wasn’t hungry, but I’d needed something to do to take my mind off my thoughts.
‘Smells good.’ Mitchell hugged me. ‘Are you okay?’
I hugged him tighter and said yes.
He let me go and looked into my eyes. ‘Sure?’
‘I’ll be better when we get them.’
He sat down and shrugged off a laptop bag strapped over his shoulder onto the sofa.
‘Do you want something to drink?’
‘A beer if you’ve got it.’
I grabbed two bottles of Corona from the fridge, and by the time I came back, the laptop was open on the coffee table in front of him.
‘Lee and I have done a bit of research and found that Klein lives alone and doesn’t have any CCTV at his house, but he does have an alarm. It’s an audible system only, not monitored by police, but Lee’s been able to hack into it, anyway, and he’ll disable it prior to our arrival.’ His forehead furrowed as he looked at me. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
‘Absolutely.’ I handed him a beer and put mine on the coffee table. Yes, I was scared. And nervous. But that was nothing compared to what would happen if we didn’t expose this.
‘He lives in a detached house on the outskirts of Ware. There are no CCTV cameras within three miles.’ He brought up a satellite view of Klein’s house on his laptop.
I sat next to him and peered at the screen, tapping the tip of my right little finger against the pad of my thumb.
Klein’s property was quite isolated and accessed via a country lane that ran past it. I leaned over and clicked to zoom in. The front of the house was open to the view of anyone driving down the lane, as he only had a low-level privet hedge, so if we approached from that way, there was a good chance we could be spotted. At the rear, though, his garden backed onto a wide expanse of the River Lea, just a grassy path separating the riverbank from Klein’s back fence. I zoomed out and took in the surrounding area. To the north was a warren of country lanes leading to more spaced-out, detached houses. To the west, about thirty metres away, was a lane that led to what looked like an old abandoned factory. In between the factory and Klein’s property was a large copse of wood, the river pathway undulating in and out as the foliage thickened and thinned. Further west of the factory, about fifty metres away, was a housing estate that also backed onto the waterway.
‘As you can see, it’s quite remote and private at the back,’ Mitchell said. ‘We go through the woods, along the riverbank, and then over his fence.’ He clicked on the mouse and brought up another screen with internal building plans. ‘Lee got these plans from the council’s website. Klein had an extension done four years ago.’ He pointed to the rear doors. ‘There are double-glazed French doors leading to the kitchen-diner. It’ll be easy to pick them.’
‘Great.’ I sensed Mitchell watching me and slid my gaze away from the laptop to him. He had an intense, haunted look in his eyes that I recognised from when he was about to have a PTSD flashback to his military days. I touched his forearm. ‘Are you all right?’
He carried on staring at my face for a moment then looked down at my hand. ‘It’s all right. It’s not a flashbac
k. It’s just…’ He blinked rapidly, his eyes glistening. ‘Your dad used to do that.’ He nodded at my fingertips tapping each other.
I glanced down, not realising I was even doing it. ‘Really? I sometimes do it subconsciously when I’m concentrating.’ I smiled at the thought of my dad doing the same thing. Mitchell had told me stories about him before, but I’d never heard this one.
‘And you look so much like him. And…’ He trailed off, his voice cracking. Mitchell blamed himself for the fact that my dad had never returned from combat when he had. Dad had been shot and killed on a job that had gone seriously wrong. A job Mitchell was in charge of. ‘Even your mannerisms. Your personality. The way you’re calm under pressure. The way you want to fight for the underdog. We were like this together so many times, going over operations, planning routes in and out, talking about intel, poring over aerial photographs. Living in dumps in the arse-end of nowhere for months at a time, getting shot at and blown up together. We were more than friends. He was like a brother to me.’ He gestured to the laptop, to us sitting close together. ‘It’s like déjà vu.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I miss him.’
I missed Dad, too, and I’d never even met him. Mum hadn’t told him about the pregnancy before he went off to fight that last time. ‘So do I.’
Mitchell stood up and walked towards the window, rubbing his hands over his shaved head as he stared outside. ‘And it was all just bollocks. Another fake war, built on more lies, just like every other fucking war we marched into, after being force-fed the bullshit of politicians and their corporate cartels. And for what? There was no threat to us. It was all about oil. Regime change. And protecting the military industrial complex at all costs. Pushing their secret little agendas so we’d smash the shit out of yet another Middle Eastern country.’ He spat the words out with venom and dropped his hands to his sides, the muscles in his shoulders taut. ‘I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. And I’m not just talking about combat. I’m talking about the things our own side did to us, as if we were all some massive experiment, while the bastards giving the orders sat in their plush offices, counting the trillions of pounds they were making off the back of death and destruction.’ His fists opened and closed, opened and closed. ‘I was brainwashed, too. All those years, I thought I was a patriot. Thought I was serving Queen and country, but that was a lie, as well.’ He blew out a laugh laced with steely rage, his fists balling again. ‘They want us all hating each other so they can divide and conquer.’
