by Sibel Hodge
‘I know you feel a lot of guilt about the things you’ve done. But you need to make peace with your conscience.’
‘But nothing.’ He carried on staring out into the night. ‘I was a nasty bastard. I did some terrible things. There’s no getting over that. It’s a bitter pill that will always be stuck in my throat. Your dad died for nothing. Millions of people died for nothing. It’s all on them. Everything. All on the deep state who pull the puppet strings in the shadows. And now they’re doing it all again with this to their own people. I wish…’
‘I know. You wish you could bring him back.’
He nodded.
‘But you’re not the same person anymore. And it’s the guilt that makes you do what you do now. You’ve harnessed it into a motivator. But you’re right. There is a real threat now. A threat to all of us. We still need to keep fighting for the underdog. And we’re going to win,’ I said with more confidence than I felt.
Mitchell’s shoulders tightened again, his back still to me. Finally, he wiped his eyes, turned around, and cleared his throat. ‘Yep.’ He sat beside me again.
I clenched his hand tight in mine as he composed himself.
He sniffed, swallowed. ‘Right. Back to it.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Klein keeps an online diary on his home laptop that Lee got a look at. Tomorrow, he’s got patients at the university all day from nine till five. It’ll probably take about forty-five minutes to get there, so I’ll pick you up at half eight. Wear some jogging gear. Neutral colours—dark green, black, brown, if you’ve got them. And leave your mobile at home. Because with modern smartphones, where you can’t remove the batteries, they can still track you. Even if you think they’re switched off.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
Chapter 45
Detective Becky Harris
From my hiding spot in the store cupboard, I listened to all the sounds of the building, wondering again if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
At just gone five, there was a wave of footsteps and calls of goodbyes from out in the corridor then silence for a while.
My arse had gone to sleep while I was sitting on the floor, and my back ached, so I stood up for a minute and looked at my watch for the hundredth time. It was still too early to risk moving.
A door opened then closed, and footsteps trod along the corridor. The toilet flushed next door. I heard nothing for a while. And the more time passed, the more I realised how stupid my plan was, if I could even call it a plan. It was more a desperate hope than anything else. I didn’t know if Klein’s records would be paper copies or digital. Was the laptop on his desk his personal one, or did it belong to the university? I had a couple of flash drives in my pocket to download anything if I found it. But if his laptop was password protected, I’d be buggered. I could always steal the laptop, but who would I give it to? It wasn’t like I could hand it over to the special operations technical team and ask them to have a look at it. Klein might even take the laptop home with him every day.
I pulled a bottle of water from my bag and took a couple of swigs to quench my parched mouth before replacing it. Then I looked at my watch again. Just gone 8.00 p.m., and the building had been silent for over an hour. It was time to make a move.
I stood up and stretched my arms over my head, leaning side to side to work out the kinks. I did a few hamstring curls and knee lifts to get the circulation going again. Then I strode to the door, silent in my trainers. I reached for the handle and pressed it down slowly without a sound. I was about to pull the door open when I heard footsteps outside, coming closer.
My fingers clenched around the depressed handle, not wanting to lift it back up in case it gave a telltale squeak.
The footsteps stopped outside the door I was hiding behind.
I held my breath, the soles of my trainers glued to the spot.
A phone rang from out in the corridor.
I recognised Klein’s voice as he answered then said, ‘No, I’m on my own. Everyone’s gone home.’ There was a long silence from him as I prayed he wouldn’t look at the door and see the handle was down and wonder why.
‘What?’ Klein hissed. ‘Why the hell were the police asking questions?’ A pause. ‘I can assure you any kind of leak most definitely did not come from me.’ His tone was agitated, unnerved. ‘No. No I did not give anyone any details. How can you ask that?’ More silence while he listened. ‘You’re sure White’s shut it down?’ Relief filled his voice, then there was another pause. ‘No, of course I’m not stupid enough for that.’ Silence for a moment. ‘Not if they can’t find Farzad.’ Another pause as I heard his footsteps pacing up and down outside. ‘Good. That’s good.’
My hand shook with the effort of holding the handle down.
‘Yes, I’ll speak to you later,’ Klein said. ‘Please keep me updated.’
Cramps gripped my fingers as I willed him to go away. Then I heard him say goodbye to the caller, but he didn’t leave. I could hear his heavy breathing outside the door, and I pictured him staring at the handle. My heart rate went through the roof.
Ten seconds, and he didn’t move.
Twenty.
I bit my lip, my whole arm shaking now.
Then his footsteps finally disappeared down the corridor towards the stairs.
I exhaled slowly, my heart racing as I carefully let the handle go.
Who the hell was White? The secret service guy who’d threatened Sutherby? And what had they done to Farzad Nuri? Turned him into a basket case like Natalie? Or killed him?
I waited another half an hour but heard no more sounds. Klein had said everyone had left, and I didn’t want to wait any longer.
I got my Maglite torch out of my backpack before I inched open the door. I looked up and down the corridor. The lights were off, and it was in darkness. Softly, I walked towards Klein’s office and tried the handle, hoping it wouldn’t be locked. It wasn’t—which was good in one way. I wouldn’t have to pick it. But if it wasn’t locked, surely he couldn’t be hiding sensitive information in there, where any staff could stumble across it. But then criminals could be incredibly stupid. People made mistakes all the time. They’d already made a huge one by not realising there was CCTV footage of Hoodie Guy outside Ajay’s house and from the camera footage in St Peters Street. Maybe they’d made others, too.
I stepped inside, shut the door, and turned on the torch. I did a sweep of the room. His laptop was still on his desk, blue-coloured files piled up next to it beside a diary and a mug filled with pens. I strode across the room, sat at his desk, lifted the laptop screen, and pressed the power button. While it booted up, I looked at the paper files on his desk. None of them had Vicky’s, Natalie’s, Ajay’s, or Farzad’s names. I flicked through just in case, but they were for elderly people who were involved in a stroke study.
The welcome screen came up on the laptop, and it wasn’t password protected, which, again, most likely meant there was nothing incriminating on it. I read through the icons on the desktop. There was the usual Word and Excel shortcuts, as well as others I didn’t recognise, which must’ve been medical-type programmes. I clicked on the file manager. Several hundreds of files and documents came up. I scrolled through the alphabetical list and found one with Vicky’s name on it.
My heart rate quickened as I opened it. There were documents inside—PDF copies of Vicky’s health questionnaire, results of blood and urine tests, and a single paragraph note on a separate document, written by Klein. I honed in on one line: The subject is not suitable for participation in any study group.
I stared at the screen, completely thrown. Had I been so wrong about all of this?
I scrolled through more files and found ones for Ajay, Farzad, and Natalie. As I read through, a huge doubt niggled inside. They were all marked unsuitable for a study.
But then I realised that made complete sense if Klein wasn’t working with the university on this and they didn’t know what was going on. He’d want it covered up that the students were te
st patients for his programme. And I could see exactly how it worked now. He’d tell the students they were unsuitable for one study but offer them another one, which paid more and gave them more incentive to stick to a confidentiality clause to keep it secret. One where they’d come back for so-called tests late at night, out of usual patient hours, so the regular staff weren’t aware of it.
I scanned the names on more files and one jumped out at me: Marcelina Claybourn.
I frowned. Marcelina? The car accident?
I opened her file and quickly read through. It was exactly the same, marked as unsuitable for the study programme. I shook my head, mentally kicking myself. So her accident was related to all this after all. I’d been so wrong about that.
My stomach swirled with nausea as I looked through the rest of the files. There were no documents about any bizarre testing methods, brainwashing, or nanochip technology, but I carried on looking anyway.
When I didn’t discover anything else pertinent, I clicked on an icon for the uni’s own email system, but it wouldn’t let me in without a password. That was frustrating, but I doubted Klein would be emailing anything suspicious using the intranet account anyway, where it could also easily be found by any member of staff.
I opened up Klein’s desk drawers but didn’t find anything else that would help me, so I went to the filing cabinet in the corner of the room. It was locked, but it only had the generic, flimsy lock made by the manufacturer. I pulled out a small penknife from my backpack, shoved the tip inside, and jiggled it around a bit until I heard a telltale click. The top drawer sprung open. Inside were paper patient files, arranged alphabetically. I found duplicate records of the students’ files that I’d already read, but that was it.
I went back to the desk and opened his diary, searching through the next day’s date, checking what Klein was up to. He had patient appointments all day from 9.00 a.m.
I was just shutting down the laptop when I heard a noise. I turned off my torch and froze in the chair. Over the laptop fan whirring, I caught the faint whistling of a tune. Most likely, it was the cleaner. I had to find some way to get out of there without being seen.
The laptop screen went black as it switched off. I shut the lid, leaving it how I found it, then padded over to the door. I opened it a sliver and peered through the gap into the darkness, ears straining to listen over the pulse pounding in my ears. The whistling was more muffled now, definitely coming from downstairs somewhere. A light had been switched on in the stairwell, illuminating the end of the corridor.
I stepped out, closing the door behind me, and treaded softly towards the stairs. I crept down them one by one into the light, praying the cleaner would be working in one of the rooms and not reception.
At the bottom of the stairs, I leaned against the wall and poked my head around it. A woman dressed in a green overall was pushing a cart with a bin and cleaning products on it. Her back to me, she halted the cart outside the pathology lab and reached forward to open the door.
I darted around the wall to the reception’s double doors, keeping my eyes on her until a recess in the wall blocked my view. I held my breath as I pulled open the door—and nearly crapped myself when it creaked loudly.
‘Is someone there?’ she called out.
I winced.
The reception was bathed in bright light. Even though she couldn’t see me from her position down the corridor, I was in full view of the glass entrance door and anyone walking past outside. But luck was shining on me, because a set of keys were hanging in the lock.
I sprang towards the main entrance door as I heard her footsteps coming closer. I unlocked it and opened the door as my heart stuttered. I made it outside and shut the door.
Just as I saw her shoulder round the edge of the wall behind the doors to reception, I darted back against the side of the building, pressing myself onto the warm brickwork, breathing hard.
Then I ran across the grass behind the Watling Centre, out of view, heading through the silent campus.
It was gone 2.00 a.m. when I got back to my room. I quickly packed all my belongings in my suitcase and backpack and left the accommodation block, heading home. In the morning, I’d send a text to the students whose phone numbers I had, citing a family emergency as a reason for my sudden departure.
I opened my front door to a stale smell, as it had been shut up for days. Pickle ran into the hallway to say hi as I kicked off my trainers and dumped my bags on the floor. She rubbed her head against my ankles before I scooped her up and gave her a kiss. ‘Missed me, did you?’
I walked into the kitchen to check her bowls. They were still half full of food and water, thanks to Warren. It was too late to send him a text to say there’d been a change of plan and I’d come home early. I’d fire off an email to him instead that he’d see when he woke up.
Pickle wriggled to get out of my arms when she saw the food bowl, the pig. She hadn’t missed me that much then.
I poured a huge glass of wine and sat at the kitchen table with my laptop. I yawned, but I couldn’t even think about sleep. I had to prepare for tomorrow. So I called up Google maps and found a satellite image of Klein’s house, studying it carefully.
Sutherby’s voice echoed in my ears to leave it alone. I was now acting unlawfully, breaking into properties with no search warrant, trying to steal information. And it might not be just my job in danger; it could be my life, with the kind of reach the intelligence services had. I knew I should stop. But I couldn’t. I was a police officer. A detective. I was supposed to protect people—vulnerable, innocent people. I was supposed to get justice for victims. Ajay, Vicky, Farzad, Natalie, and Marcelina would never get justice with a quashed investigation and cover-up. Never. Unless I exposed what was happening.
A big part of me wanted to run away, but the other part knew I was going to run headlong into it. Whatever the consequences.
DAY FIVE
“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.”
~ Julian Assange
Chapter 46
Detective Becky Harris
Dressed in dark-green-and-black running gear, I tucked my hair up under a balaclava that I’d rolled up into a beanie hat. Then I drove to Klein’s house, mentally going over the layout I’d seen on the satellite map.
The rear of Klein’s house was accessible from a narrow pathway that ran alongside the River Lea. That would be my point of entry. From the voter’s register, it appeared he lived alone. I had no idea if he had any private CCTV set up, but I’d cover that possible angle by wearing the balaclava. I’d accessed our police databases remotely and confirmed that Klein had an alarm system, but it wasn’t automatically monitored by police, because it hadn’t been fitted by an approved alarm company affiliated with the required inspectorate body. So it was an audible deterrent only. The nearest properties were an abandoned factory about thirty metres away and a detached house about two hundred metres away. Even if the neighbour in the house was in, heard the alarm, and called the police, I’d already checked and found that there were only two patrol vehicles on shift. For once, the cutbacks in policing budgets could work in my favour. A low-level alarm wasn’t going to be a high priority, so I reckoned I’d probably have ample time to look around.
After driving by the front of Klein’s house to make sure his car wasn’t there, I carried on down the country lane until it forked left and right. I took the right turn as it swung along the outskirts of some woods. I pulled off at the entrance to another lane that led to the abandoned factory and drove a bumpy five minutes over potholed concrete with weeds bursting through.
The factory came into view, looking ominous and spooky. The upper windows, dark and smashed, seemed to be staring back at me like eyes. The lower floor had decaying brickwork, and all the doors and windows were boarded up. Rubbish was strewn across the mossy ground in front of it. A du
mped, half-filled black bin liner fluttered in the breeze.
I parked up and got out, staring at the building. Glancing around the surrounding area, everything was quiet, apart from the sound of a plane overhead and birds flapping their wings in the nearby trees. The factory backed onto the river, a throwback to the days when whatever it manufactured was transported by boat. At the side boundary was a line of broken fencing before the woods began.
It was 9.20 a.m. when I phoned the Watling Centre and asked to speak to Professor Klein, wanting to make sure he was still there. I breathed a sigh of relief as the receptionist told me he was with a patient and offered to take a message. I declined and hung up.
I slipped on my lightweight backpack, which held flash drives, a digital camera, a lock pick set, gloves, shoe coveralls, duct tape, and an ASP baton. In my pocket, I put my canister of PAVA spray, an incapacitant similar to pepper spray.
After taking one last look at the factory, I headed for the fencing. Slipping through a gap in the warped slats, I entered the woods and started jogging into the overgrowth.
So far so good.
I wound my way through oaks, sycamores, and vegetation that ran parallel to the riverbank. The distant sounds of gently lapping water grew louder with every step. Then the trees thinned and opened up on my right, revealing the hard, dusty path alongside the River Lea, worn by years of walkers, joggers, cyclists, and probably a few kids using it as a private spot for a sneaky hideaway. No one was around, and even if there had been, I’d just look like a million other joggers.
