Alchemist
Page 73
Mack grimaced and continued with his drawing. Monty glanced at her watch. ‘Darling,’ she said quietly, ‘Daddy’s calling you. You have to get ready. Go and wash and I’ll come and help you dress.’
He shrugged, uninterested.
‘Don’t you want to go to the party? It’s Alec, your friend, you like him.’
Deaf ears.
Hurriedly Monty dunked her paint brushes into the chipped coffee mug of turps, wiped them and laid them on the lip of her easel.
It was a fine summer day. The distant sloping field which she could see from her studio window was flecked with puffs of white, and the air was alive with the buzzing of bees and the distant bleating of sheep. Through the reek of turpentine and linseed oil, she could smell the garden, flowers and freshly mown grass.
She liked the dilapidated old barn Conor had had converted into a studio for her. It was her retreat, her sanctuary. The door opened and Conor came in looking livid. ‘Mack! Come on!’ His voice sounded short and fractious, a sign that one of his black moods was approaching.
He had the moods every once in a while and they would last for several days. His temper would be ferocious, frightening her sometimes with its venom, and always they would be followed by several days in which he would be quiet and deeply gloomy.
They had started after his return from Israel. He had never talked about what had happened in the Cave of Demons. Sometimes she wondered quite how much he kept from her. There was a secretive side to his nature, but that had been part of his attraction for her, right from the beginning.
Mack would be six in a couple of months’ time, and she was four months’ pregnant now. She had miscarried twice in the intervening years and Conor, on the advice of the obstetrician, was insistent that this time she did nothing other than rest and paint until she was safely through the danger period. During the past few months he had been even kinder and more attentive than she had ever known him.
He slipped an arm around her shoulder now and eyed the unfinished painting on the easel in front of her. ‘You have the sky good,’ he said.
‘Thanks. I don’t think the colour of the water’s right, though. It’s too green.’
‘It’s too flat. You got those clouds overhead, it means there would be wind, a squall. The water should be whipped up into waves.’
She nodded; he was right. He usually was. ‘You won’t forget the necklace, darling?’ she reminded him.
‘Nope.’
They were going to the christening the next day of Katy Sterling, her god-daughter. Anna and Mark Sterling’s first child. The necklace was being inscribed with Katy’s initials. A pretty sterling silver chain with a locket. She had wanted to get gold, but Conor had insisted on silver, he had a thing about gold, an intense dislike that she had never understood, but she accepted it.
She turned and gave him a spontaneous kiss. ‘Love you,’ she said.
He squeezed her harder. ‘Love you too.’
Conor was a good man, she thought gratefully. He was kind, and a tireless worker and although he was Chairman and Chief Executive of Bendix Schere he concentrated much of his energies on charitable work, and on helping struggling research scientists. He earned warmth and respect from everyone who knew him.
Monty had had a huge struggle with her conscience when it came to determining the future of Bendix Schere. In the end she had been persuaded by Conor to accept the shares thus guaranteeing the company’s survival. First and foremost was the freedom that the money would give her father for his research. Then there was the vast funding at their disposal to hand out to other research foundations and charities who were in the same position she and her father had been in. And, as Conor pointed out, they knew the truth about Bendix Schere. Could they be sure any other pharmaceutical company they went to for funding would have any more integrity, or any fewer skeletons in the closet? Wasn’t it better to stay with the devil you knew?
Her father and Conor had reached an uneasy compromise. Dick Bannerman accepted his one third of the company stock, and the role of Director of Research and Development, on the one condition that none of his work was ever patented. For a man whose career was patent law it was a tough one for Conor, but he accepted it. In seven years Bendix Schere had not filed a single patent. The company was still in the world’s top ten league.
Following Sir Neil Rorke’s mysterious disappearance, Monty had joined the Board of Bendix Schere as Director of Human Resources, a post she held for three years, with only a short period of maternity leave for Mack. She did the best she could for the sick security guards and the other members of staff who had been held captive by their ailments, and Gunn had been remarkably efficient in helping her to weed out Rorke’s erstwhile playmates.
Eight of the remaining nine women who were still pregnant as a result of the doctored Maternox miscarried. The ninth, whose baby was the most imminent, died in a car accident which, Conor insisted, was a genuine accident.
But even now the babies in the basement lab preyed on Monty’s mind. Within twenty-four hours of Conor’s return from Israel they had disappeared. She wondered sometimes whether Conor was right and she had been hallucinating from the drug she had been given and had imagined them. But she didn’t really believe that.
Monty did not, however, regret Levine’s demise. The Detective Superintendent had been found in his bedroom, dressed in ladies’ underwear, hanging from an electric light flex. The story made all the national headlines, every single one. She had seen to that personally, had drafted the anonymous tip-off herself and faxed and eMailed it to every news editor. She liked to think that Hubert Wentworth would have approved.
The bitterest irony was that Conor had had a plaque put up in the atrium commemorating the deaths of Dr Crowe, Dr Seligman, Dr Farmer, and the other woman, Dr Baines, in a tragic accident brought about by a fire in a laboratory. He had insisted it was important for appearances. At least, she supposed, she did get some measure of satisfaction each time she went into Bendix Schere and saw the plaque. It reminded her of something her husband had become increasingly fond of saying over the years:
Sometimes,
The Devil is a gentleman.
Conor squeezed her again, as if he were frightened of something and did not want to leave her. Maybe, she thought, he was afraid of the dark mood that was looming.
‘OK, Mack! That’s it! Let’s go!’ he said.
Startled, Mack jumped up. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Going. I’m going!’ And he scampered out of the room.
Monty and Conor grinned at each other.
‘What’s he drawing?’ Conor asked.
‘I don’t know – he’s been busy on it all morning.’
Conor walked over to Mack’s little table and looked down. He stood, motionless, for some moments, the colour draining from his face.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
He continued staring at the drawing in silence. She walked over to him.
Mack’s drawings always took a while to decipher. This was of a huge black creature that looked half-bird, half-human. It seemed to be falling out of the sky, plummeting towards the jaws of a monster that was lurking in the entrance of a cave.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am always amazed at the level of enthusiasm from the people I turn to for help in the research for my novels. And this time there has been a generosity of spirit that has made the writing of Alchemist as much a tremendous (and at times hair-raising) adventure as hard work, and there are many people to whom I owe very deep gratitude.
I need to single out in particular Steve Goodman, Andy Holyer, Dr Nigel Kirkham, Joanne Larner, Chris Pert, Maxine Sanders and Dave Schmickel, who all in their individual ways came up with the inspirations that shaped the book and who gave their time warmly, whenever it was needed, for over two years. And I have a very special thank you owing also to my Deep Throat, My invaluable M.
To all the names below I thank you far more than this short space allows: Sue Ansell, David Austin,
Don Barrett of Wyeth Laboratories, Anna Beard, Felicity Beard, Mr Robert Beard FRCS, Simon Bell, Nick Bremer, Richard Blacklock, Dr Clive Cohen, Dr Michelle Cooperman of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Robert W. Esmond and Evelyn McConathy of Sterne Kessler Goldstein and Fox, Steve Goodman, Drew Granston, Dr Patrick Hall-Smith, Mike Harris of Brighton Police, Dr Stephen Hempling, Andy Holyer, Veronica Hamilton-Deeley, Bill Jones, Dr Bruce Katz, Michael Keen, Joe Kerridge, Dr Nigel Kirkham, Robert Knox, Gary Lane, Joanne Larner, Professor Alan Lehmann, Judy Lehmann, Nigel MacMillan, Roderick Main, Robert Martis, Dr Lyne Mayne of the Trafford Centre, Paul Michaels, John Parker, Chris Pert and Hanna Dzieglewska of Frank P. Dehn, Patent Agents, Dr Ken Powell of Glaxo-Wellcome plc, Blaine Price, Peter Rawlings, Brenda Robinson, Maxine Sanders, Dave Schmickel of the US Patent Office, Martin Short, Ian Stevens, Dr Duncan Stewart, Simon Thornton, Lady Helen Trafford, Michael Stott, Patent Attorney, Canon Dominic Walker OGS, Dr Jonathan Williams FCAnaes, Dr Richard Wiseman.
I owe an enormous thanks also to the creative team and tireless support of my UK agent, Jon Thurley, and his right hand, Patricia Preece, in whose presence the central idea for the novel first saw light, and to my wonderful editorial team of Richard Evans, Jo Fletcher and Katrina Whone, and my editor Liza Reeves who risked all with her studies to get the book completed – and got a First. And a deep thank you also for the invaluable input of my US agent, Michael Siegel.
And lastly, a debt of gratitude for the endless patience of my wife, Georgina, and to Bertie for not chewing all my floppy disks:-)
Peter James scary@pavilion.co.uk
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