Cry Darkness

by Hilary Bonner

  ‘I just wanted to see it,’ she finished lamely.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘I worked with Constance Pike and Paul Ruders years ago. I … uh … I wanted to see for myself what had happened to them, what had happened to the lab.’

  ‘You came over from the UK specially?’

  Jones considered lying. But she knew she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to successful maintain a lie.

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You were arrested just before five a.m.,’ Grant continued. ‘Funny time to be visiting a crime scene, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Jones replied, acutely aware of just how lame that sounded.

  ‘I see. So if your attentions were so innocent why did you resist arrest?’

  ‘I didn’t. Well, I didn’t mean to. I was just frightened. I wasn’t even sure it was police out there.’

  ‘You weren’t? But the officers identified themselves as police, did they not?’

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t know. They shouted “stop”. I couldn’t hear properly. Anyway, they weren’t regular cops, were they?’

  Detective Grant did not answer that question.

  ‘Were you alone at the scene, ma’am?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Our boys reported seeing someone else with you. Someone who ran away from the scene, in spite of warning shots being fired over their head.’

  ‘What?’ Jones was momentarily puzzled. ‘I don’t understand. I was alone.’ She fought to clear her head. ‘I heard the shots. I thought I was being fired at.’

  Detective Grant’s ample chins wobbled. He was well over six feet tall and probably weighed getting on for twenty stone, Jones thought obliquely.

  ‘This is Princeton and we are the New Jersey State Police. It is part of our legislation that we do not shoot suspects, except in self-defence.’ Grant paused. A small smile played around his lips. ‘In any case, if our boys had been shooting at you, ma’am, you would not be sitting here with me. You would be dead.’

  Jones’s throat, still sore from the spray, felt dry as dust. She gulped some air down. She was once more on the verge of panic. Her eyes continued to sting.

  ‘What did they do to me?’ she asked suddenly. ‘What was that stuff they sprayed in my face? I thought I was going to go blind.’

  ‘Oleoresin Capsicum, ma’am. Pepper spray. That’s all. Standard procedure when a suspect resists arrest. No danger of your sight being permanently harmed.’

  Jones grunted. She wondered how Detective Grant would like to have the stuff thrown in his face.

  ‘Right,’ continued the detective. ‘Let’s get some answers, shall we? How exactly did you come to trip and fall this morning, ma’am? You tried to run, didn’t you? Just like whoever else was out there with you.’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. I started to run, but nobody was with me. I was startled. No, frightened. I heard footsteps close by, saw a shape. I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t realize it was a police officer.’ She paused. ‘Was it a police officer?’

  Detective Grant looked down at his hands, two huge plates of pale pink meat clasped together on the table before him. Again he made no attempt to answer Jones’s question.

  ‘Ma’am, I have already informed you that it has been reported that someone else was with you when you were confronted. So please will you tell me who that was?’

  ‘Nobody was with me. I keep telling you. I mean, there was someone there, but I don’t know who the hell it was. Like I said, I was scared. I tried to get away. Only I fell, and the next thing I knew there was a knee in my back.’

  ‘So you couldn’t identify this other person?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. I couldn’t see. I knew there was someone there, but I’ve no idea whether it was a man or a woman, even. Then, after I was arrested, I just assumed it had been another police officer, or somebody from whatever security forces were out there. But you’re telling me you don’t know who that person was either, isn’t that so?’

  Jones felt shakier than ever. This interview seemed to be going in all the wrong directions. Detective Grant leaned back in his chair. The cream jacket strained against its central button. Grant undid the button and the jacket fell open, revealing his rotund belly. The chair creaked. Jones wondered if it might collapse under the strain. Grant frowned.

  ‘I’m not saying anything, ma’am. Just answer the questions please. Did you know anybody else at all who was involved in the explosion?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Not the other scientist who was named, anyway, and almost certainly not either of the injured students. It was a long time ago that I was at Princeton.’

  ‘So how exactly would you describe your relationship with Connie Pike and Paul Ruders?’

  ‘We are old friends.’

  ‘Are old friends?’

  Dear God, these people were going to pick her up on everything.

  ‘Were old friends, I suppose. I haven’t got my head around that yet.’

  ‘And is that all?’

  What on earth was the man getting at? Jones realized she really was going to have to get her act together, shake off her shock at what had happened to her. It was time she asserted herself.

  ‘Look, I’m a British National and I am also a leading academic and a television personality.’

  She felt so stupid taking this line of approach, but she really didn’t know what else to do.

  ‘I am internationally known,’ she heard herself continue. ‘I really feel—’

  ‘Unfortunately, ma’am, you appear to have no proof of any of this, do you?’ Detective Grant interrupted. ‘You do not have your passport on you, nor any other identification.’

  ‘It’s all at the Nassau Inn. I checked in there last night. Nobody’s given me a chance to explain, for God’s sake. Why don’t you just let me go and fetch my stuff?’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere until your presence in Princeton has been fully investigated. I’ll send an officer round to the Nassau. Meanwhile would you please tell me when you arrived at Princeton?’

  ‘I got here yesterday evening. I only arrived in the States yesterday afternoon. I was on the other side of the Atlantic when the lab exploded, if that’s what you’re getting at. You can check airline records, can’t you? And I can give you the names of all kinds of people in the UK who will vouch for me, at my university and so on. Even the BBC for God’s sake. Surely you can contact them?’

  ‘We are in the process of making enquiries in the United Kingdom. These things take time. Meanwhile, I would like to know if there is anyone in Princeton who can confirm your identity.’

  Jones thought first of all of Thomas Jessop, and straight away suggested him. There couldn’t, surely, be anyone much better to speak for her than the dean of the university.

  ‘I am afraid the dean isn’t here, ma’am. He was in hospital in New York having a minor operation at the time of the explosion, and I understand will not be discharged until tomorrow.’

  Jones groaned. That only left Ed. And Jones was not at all sure she wanted to involve Ed in this, or even if he would allow himself to become involved.

  She tried asserting herself again.

  ‘Now look, it would take only the most elementary of checks to establish who I am, and that the information I have given you is correct. Can’t you check online? I present a television programme back home. My presence here is completely innocent. And I’m not prepared to cooperate with you further until I’m allowed some sort of representation. I should like to contact the British Consulate in New York …’

  Suddenly the door of the interview room swung open yet again. A younger man, of average height and build swept into the room. His dark blonde hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a neat black suit, white shirt, black tie, and heavily tinted spectacles. In different circumstance Jones would have found it difficult to take him seriously. He must surely have been sent round directly fro
m Central Casting. He wasn’t just the complete stereotype of some kind of special agent. He was straight out of Men in Black.

  Jones stopped speaking. The Man in Black slammed the door shut behind him and advanced swiftly towards her. His walk was a strut, his head jutting forwards and his shoulders pushed back. He smashed his fist down on the table with tremendous force. The noise it made reverberated around the room. His hand must hurt like hell, Jones thought – but the man did not flinch.

  He leaned closer to Jones. The tinted glasses made it impossible to see his eyes properly. His breath smelt of garlic.

  Jones instinctively backed away.

  ‘I would advise you to continue to cooperate fully, Miss Jones.’

  The Man in Black’s voice was low and full of menace. Jones had little doubt that his use of the prefix ‘miss’ instead of ‘doctor’ was deliberate. It seemed clear that he had been observing the interview through the video system.

  ‘We are investigating three deaths here, Miss Jones. Several more people have serious injuries. And I don’t give a fuck who you are. You can be a four-times fucking Nobel prize winner for all I care. You will answer all questions put to you, and you should know that we have every damned right to detain you here for as long as we damned well please.’

  Jones asked herself for the umpteenth time how she had got herself into such a situation. She knew that the American police force lived by vastly different rules to the police back home, but this was surely especially heavy. And she didn’t even know whether the Man in Black was a police officer or something more sinister. He certainly liked to give the impression of being something more sinister, Jones reckoned.

  ‘Would you please tell me who you are?’ she plucked up the courage to ask. ‘Are you FBI? Who are you?’

  The man’s face was still only inches away from Jones’s. She had never before met an American who smelt so strongly of garlic, as if, almost, he’d been pickled in the stuff rather than had merely eaten it.

  ‘None of your goddamned business,’ he snarled.

  He stared at Jones for several seconds before straightening up and backing off, nodding slightly towards Detective Grant.

  ‘I will ask you again,’ said Detective Grant, sounding exaggeratedly patient. ‘Apart from the dean, is there anyone in Princeton who can vouch for you?’

  Sighing, Jones gave Ed’s name and address.

  ‘Right then, ma’am. I am now going to arrange for everything you have told us to be checked out. Meanwhile you must remain in custody.’

  He turned to the uniformed officer standing by the door.

  ‘All yours, Dave.’

  Dave stepped forward.

  ‘Stand up and put your hands behind your back,’ he ordered.

  Oh God, thought Jones. She was going to be handcuffed again. But she made no further attempt to protest.

  The officer called Dave, this time unaccompanied – which made Jones absurdly hopeful that maybe Princeton Plod was finally realizing she presented no threat to anybody – marched her back to her cell.

  Once her cuffs had been removed, Jones sat on the wooden bench bed and reflected again on her predicament. How could she have been so stupid as to go alone to a designated crime scene at such a crazy time of day. And in America too, the home of the trigger happy.

  She groaned out loud. She hoped the worst might be over, but if the American authorities did start checking her out back home before releasing her, eyebrows were sure to be raised among the hierarchy of both the university which currently employed her and the more exalted one which was about to appoint her chancellor. Not to mention the BBC. And her sons didn’t even know she had left the country. They would be worried sick.

  There was what seemed like another interminable wait before they came for her again.

  Once more it was Detective Grant, and Dave, carrying Jones’s bag, and the black leather jacket she had worn on her journey over.

  ‘Your story has checked out and you are free to go now,’ said Grant.

  ‘I should hope so,’ Jones snapped, in a vague attempt at some kind of bravado. She was relieved, nervous, and angry all at the same time.

  Detective Grant and Dave both ignored her. Grant handed her a brown envelope.

  ‘Your watch and everything that was in your pockets are in there,’ he said. ‘Just sign here for it.’

  He held out a clipboard and passed Jones a pen.

  Jones signed, tore open the envelope and straight away slipped on the old Longine. Somehow it made her feel less like a victim. She checked the time. It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon. She had been in police custody for almost seven hours.

  ‘We’ve looked through your papers and replaced them in your bag,’ Detective Grant continued.

  Jones took her bag from Dave, lifted it on to the wooden bench, and quickly made sure that both her laptop and her documents were inside, along with the few clothes she had brought with her for what she had always planned would be a short stay.

  ‘We’ve checked you out of the Nassau, and your credit card will be debited,’ said Detective Grant. ‘We assume you will have no wish to stay on now.’

  He made that sound like an order. Jones picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and wordlessly followed the two police officers out of the cell, along the corridor and up the stairs to the main foyer.

  ‘So where do you suggest I go?’ she inquired, a certain irony in her voice.

  ‘That, of course, is entirely up to you, Miss Jones.’

  The reply came from behind Jones and slightly to her right. She glanced quickly over her shoulder. The Man in Black was leaning against the wall by the glass box which enclosed the reception area.

  ‘Dr Jones,’ she corrected.

  ‘Indeed. I understand you are leaving Princeton now, Dr Jones.’

  It was another order. Jones felt an overwhelming urge to protest, to argue. She was being more or less run out of town, it seemed, a bit like a character in a Western B-movie.

  On the other hand, if she refused to leave, what exactly would she achieve apart from making her life even more difficult? She still had little real idea why she’d travelled to Princeton in the first place. Except that she had felt compelled. Maybe it was one of those bonds of consciousness which RECAP had been set up to study, she thought wryly.

  ‘You’re right, I don’t think I do have a reason to remain here,’ she responded.

  ‘Good.’

  The Man in Black straightened up, turned on his heel and disappeared behind reception back into the interior of the station.

  Jones was suddenly struck by the feeling that there was something vaguely familiar about him, but she just couldn’t place it. In any case, she couldn’t think when she would ever have been likely to have met him, or indeed, anyone like him.

  ‘Perhaps we can provide you with transport to Princeton Junction, Dr Jones?’ Detective Grant suggested. ‘As it happens I need to go that way myself, so why don’t you let me give you a ride?’

  Jones had no doubt about what lay behind the offer. The police wanted to make sure she really did leave town, even going to the extent of providing an escort, it seemed. Under the circumstances she didn’t feel at all inclined to cooperate.

  ‘No thank you, detective,’ she replied. ‘I think I have endured quite enough New Jersey police hospitality for one day.’

  She also had another reason for declining. She wanted to see Ed again, and not just for old times’ sake. She still felt there had to be something he could tell her that would shed some light on all that had happened, even if he didn’t know it.

  Detective Grant seemed about to push the point. Then, as if on cue, into the foyer from the direction of the station interior came Ed. He spotted Jones at once, and a look she could not quite decipher spread across his face.

  Was it concern? Or exasperation? Or a bit of both? She wasn’t sure.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted out without thinking.

  ‘What
would you think I’m doing here, Sandy?’ He glowered at her. ‘I was brought here, whether I liked it or not, to convince the New Jersey police that you are who you say you are and not some crazy terrorist.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What have you done to your face?’

  Jones raised a hand to her injured cheek. She assumed that her eyes still looked red and puffy too.

  ‘I had an argument with a van.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Ed couldn’t have sounded much less concerned. She wondered why he even bothered to make the enquiry.

  ‘Look,’ she began, ‘I was hoping to have another chat before I leave—’

  ‘Sandy, my two best friends in all the world have just died in the most horrible violent way. I feel as if my whole life is in ruins. And you want to drop by for a chat?’

  ‘Well, I just thought we could talk things through …’

  ‘Talk things through? No, Sandy. Everything those of us who believed in RECAP have worked for all those long years is finished. You left over twenty years ago, and you never looked back. Connie and Paul are dead. It’s over, for God’s sake. I don’t have anything more to say to you. To tell the truth, Sandy, I haven’t had anything to say to you since you walked out on me the way you did.’

  He took off then, powering his way through the police station’s big swing doors, his back stiff with anger.

  She watched him go with sorrow. She had wondered, when she’d visited him the previous evening, if there might be a chance of at least rebuilding their friendship. It now seemed clear that was out of the question.

  Detective Grant stood silently alongside her, his broad fleshy face giving little away.

  ‘Maybe I’ll take that lift to Princeton Junction after all,’ Jones muttered.

  EIGHT

  At Princeton Junction, Detective Grant carried Jones’s bag onto the platform, in spite of her protests, and stayed with her until she was able to board an Amtrak train bound for Penn Station.

  Jones really did feel as if she were being drummed out of town. She accepted, however, that it was largely her own fault. She had an IQ of 150. That meant that she was officially a genius, for Christ’s sake. But she had behaved stupidly.