Nucleus

by Rory Clements

  Clarissa handed Wilde a whisky, then ran her fingers through his hair. He shook her off and put the whisky down, untouched.

  She leant over and kissed his cheek. ‘You’re a bad boy, Tom Wilde. Does Lydia know just how bad you are? Do you think I should tell her?’

  Dexter Flood had had enough. He jumped up, grabbed Lydia by the hair and threw her down at his feet. She lay there unflinching, determined not to give them the satisfaction of begging for mercy. He swivelled the pistol from her head to Wilde’s chest, then back again to Lydia. ‘Last chance, Professor. Last chance.’

  Wilde knew he had to give in; it was just a question of timing. Too soon and they would become suspicious; too slow and one or both of them would be hurt. He held up his hands. ‘OK, OK, they’re still in the saddlebag. They’re next door in my house.’

  Flood seemed slightly taken aback. Wilde feared he had made his move too soon. But then the colonel shifted his head from side to side, like a man coming to a conclusion. ‘OK,’ he said. He pulled a second pistol from his pocket and tossed it to Clarissa, who caught it with ease. ‘If you hear a shot, shoot her,’ Flood said. ‘If I’m not back in five minutes, shoot her.’

  Flood frogmarched Wilde the twenty steps to his own front door.

  ‘Open it, quietly.’

  Wilde did as he was told.

  ‘You go first,’ said Flood. ‘I’m right behind you with a gun to your back. One bad move, you die – and then your woman dies.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I understand.’

  Wilde had left the saddlebag in the bootroom, concealed in a cupboard where he kept tools and garden equipment. He pulled it out, opened it up to show Flood the contents. ‘There you are. It’s all there.’

  Flood removed a couple of the sheets, saw the handwriting and the complicated mathematical calculations, then put them back. ‘Fine. You carry it.’

  Wilde shrugged. ‘Tell me one thing, Flood. Why did you pick me? Why did you want me close to Milt Hardiman.’

  Flood laughed. ‘You still don’t get it, Wilde, do you? You thought you were keeping an eye on him, but he was keeping an eye on you. You were the one with a house full of German physicists and an unhealthy interest in espionage. Keep your friends close, Wilde, your enemies closer.’

  They returned to Lydia’s house. She was back on the sofa, hands in her lap. Clarissa was drinking whisky, the pistol steady in her right hand. She put down the glass and lit herself a black cigarette. ‘Is that it?’

  Flood laughed. ‘This is it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t mean much to me, but this is the stuff. All in the Jew’s neat Germanic script.’

  ‘Why, Tom,’ Clarissa said. ‘I thought you’d make it a lot more difficult for us. I’m disappointed.’

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t harm us.’

  ‘Did we? Did we say that, Dexter?’

  ‘Go and get some goddamn rope or cord. Take her,’ he thrust the gun in Lydia’s direction. ‘This is her place – she’ll know where to find something. And plenty of it. I want them bound up good.’ He waved the pistol at Wilde. ‘On the floor, flat.’

  Wilde hesitated and received a blow from the butt of the pistol for his pains. The hard metal smacked into his forehead, jerking his neck. He fell to his knees.

  ‘Flat out, goddamn it!’

  Wilde lay flat on his face. He felt a slippery skein of blood on his brow where the gun had made contact.

  Flood had to get the papers to Germany. Wilde’s instinct was that he would want to deliver them personally. He had burnt his bridges in America; what better way to arrive in Hitler’s Germany than with a bag full of secrets? Clarissa was another matter. Giving up her career in Hollywood was a hell of a sacrifice – unless you believed the Nazis were going to win the impending onslaught. Either way, if they wanted a smooth departure, Flood and Clarissa would do best to avoid gunshots in the night and the unwelcome attention they could bring. He hoped.

  Lydia and Clarissa returned with lengths of cord and baggage straps.

  ‘Where are the Hardimans?’ Wilde asked. ‘Left you to it, have they?’

  ‘Milt and Peggy have had enough of England,’ Clarissa said. ‘And who can blame them? This ridiculous little country and its silly empire are done for.’

  Wilde had no chance to reply: a bundle of rags was thrust into his mouth. He grunted as Flood knelt on his back and wrenched his arms behind him and began binding his wrists together. By the time he finished, Wilde could not move and could barely breathe. Was this the end? A knife to the throat? He could only see from ground level, and even then his vision was curtailed. But he saw enough to know that Lydia was being bound and gagged, too, before she was rolled across the floor and a long luggage strap was used to bind them together, torso to torso, facing each other. Their eyes were level. How he wished he could communicate his feelings for her or transmit some hope to her. And then he heard the door opening, felt a gust of air cooling his face, and Flood was gone.

  Clarissa had not left yet. He heard her out in the hall, dialling a number. Heard her voice . . .

  ‘Geoff, darling,’ she said. ‘There’s something I must talk to you about. Yes, darling, it’s very important. Look, can you meet me at Dot’s Cafe for a quick coffee at ten past nine? No, no, it won’t take long. See you soon then, darling. And don’t be late. I mean it – I’m on a tight schedule, so don’t be even a minute late. Promise me, darling? Love and kisses.’

  The phone was replaced, and he heard Clarissa’s heels clicking back into the sitting room. She bent down and patted his cheek. ‘Our friends are embarking even now at Southampton if you must know. Lovely stateroom, every luxury a family could wish for.’ She patted him again, then kissed his forehead.

  Still bent down, she held a bottle in front of their eyes. A translucent medicine bottle but with a clear liquid inside and a device strapped to it with wires protruding. ‘Remember this from Paris? I told you it was Remy Martin Louis XIII? A little fib, I’m afraid, but you’ll find the bouquet is marvellous nonetheless. Amazing what this one little bottle will do – just think what five of them might achieve.’

  She laughed lightly. Straining his neck, he thought he saw her reach up and place the bottle on the top shelf of the bookcase. And then she was gone.

  CHAPTER 40

  Wilde and Lydia were helpless. They couldn’t move, nor could they make a sound. Lydia was struggling, though, using Wilde’s shoulder to work at the cords that held the gag in her mouth. It shifted and she was able to push the rag out with her tongue.

  For a few moments, she gasped for breath. ‘God, Tom,’ she said. ‘What have we got into?’

  He couldn’t reply, could barely breathe. But he feared the worst. They were both thinking the same thing: what was in the bloody bottle? Certainly not bloody brandy.

  The cords dug into his flesh savagely. Worst, perhaps, was the excruciating pain in his neck and spine. When would Doris turn up?

  Lydia seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Doris isn’t due in until this afternoon. I can shout if you like, but no one is going to hear me. Not unless they’re at the door. But if you think differently, then wink your left eye.’

  He didn’t wink. Perhaps better to let her save her breath until there was some hope of it being heard. What about the MI6 man, Rowlands? Shouldn’t he be here soon? Would Northgate come looking for them? Long shots, both of them.

  For ten minutes the situation seemed hopeless, but then there was a knock at the door. A second knock, then a pause. Lydia called out. The front door opened. ‘Lydia? Tom?’

  ‘In here,’ Lydia yelled. Wilde saw two feet approaching – Geoff Lancing’s size ten brogues below a pair of grey flannels with rather frayed turn-ups. The most welcome pair of shoes and trouser legs he had ever seen.

  ‘Tom and Lydia – good God!’ Lancing got down on his knees and tried to untie the cords. ‘This isn’t going to work. Stay there, you two.’

  ‘Knives. Kitchen.’ Lydia splut
tered.

  Lancing returned with a large carving knife and a sharpening steel. The rope was tough but after some deft slicing, Wilde and Lydia were shaking off the last of their bindings. Wilde rose to his feet, stretched his body and aching neck. Lydia slumped back on the sofa, panting.

  ‘Thank God you turned up, Geoff,’ Wilde said. ‘It was your sister and Dexter Flood who did this. Had us at the point of a gun. But first things first – look.’ He indicated the shelf.

  Lancing reached out for the bottle. There was a small battery, a timer, a detonator, wires. He picked up the kitchen knife from the floor where he had left it.

  ‘Careful! It might be booby-trapped,’ said Lydia.

  ‘Simple enough circuit,’ Lancing said examining it from all sides. ‘Clock’s set for nine fifteen by the look of it. I’ll just cut the wires.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Wilde said. Then, thinking aloud, he contradicted his doubts. ‘No. This thing wasn’t left for someone to find; it was left to go off at a certain time. Go ahead, Geoff.’

  Lancing slashed through the wires, ripped the strapped detonator and clock from the bottle, and then sighed with relief. ‘Looks like I was right.’

  ‘I should hope so – you’re the bloody scientist. What made you come here?’

  ‘Clarissa called me, said she wanted to meet me for coffee. I told her I had something on, which was true enough. She was so bloody insistent eventually I caved in. But I knew something wasn’t right and I didn’t go . . .’

  ‘Well – I have a powerful feeling that she is heading for Boldbourne airfield with Flood.’

  ‘Back to the airfield? Why?’

  ‘To get away from England with a bag full of secrets.’

  ‘Of course. As for the supposed coffee, I began to put two and two together like a good mathematician. I got to thinking about the Winch woman who held little Albert. She’s a cleaner at the Cavendish.’

  ‘I thought of that, too.’

  ‘Clarissa said she wanted to meet me at nine ten precisely. Why that time? It’s obvious - she was trying to save me.’

  ‘Geoff, I called at the Cavendish before coming here, but Winch had already gone. I asked them to look around, but of course they’d never notice these little bottles - not among all the glassware and other lab equipment. Clarissa mentioned there were five other bottles.’

  Lancing was already heading for the phone. He came back less than a minute later. ‘Can’t make a connection. The exchange seems to think there’s a problem at the Cavendish end.’

  ‘Then we’d better make tracks,’ said Wilde. ‘Lydia, call the police. Get Northgate and Tomlinson on the case. Most importantly, get them to bring the Winch woman along. If anyone knows where these bottles are stashed, it’s her. Then call this number.’

  He handed her Terence Carstairs’s details. ‘Tell him to give a message to Rowlands. Go directly to the Cavendish. We’ll meet him there. Then follow us.’

  *

  Arriving in Free School Lane on the Rudge, it might have been just another day. Cambridge was going about its business, bicycles and workers everywhere. Shops were opening up; clerks were hurrying to their offices; hung-over undergraduates in gowns were dashing to lectures, dizzy with excitement at the thought of the long vacation ahead.

  Wilde screeched to a halt outside the Cavendish. Ditching the bike, he and Lancing ran to the porter’s lodge.

  ‘The cleaner, Mrs Winch,’ Wilde said. ‘Where did she work?’

  The porter - not the one Wilde had spoken with earlier – looked at him as if he was mad.

  ‘Answer the man,’ Lancing ordered.

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Not the Mond?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘New Austin wing?’

  ‘No, sir, never. Not to my knowledge leastwise.’

  ‘OK – well get everyone out,’ Lancing ordered. ‘Ring the bloody fire alarm – move, man, move!’

  The porter hesitated no more than two seconds. He snapped to attention like a sergeant-major, set the fire alarm going, and then he and his assistant plunged into the labs and offices calling out for people to evacuate the building. ‘This is not a bloody test! This is real. Get out now. Evacuate! Evacuate!’

  Wilde and Lancing followed them into the heart of the building. Wilde looked at his watch.

  ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘Perhaps ten minutes.’

  ‘And you think we’re looking for five bottles?’

  Wilde shrugged. That’s what she said, wasn’t it? In his mind he was weighing the leather bag he had carried on the journey back from Paris. Five plus the one left in Lydia’s sitting room, that was about right. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Five. It has to be five. And don’t mess around. If you find one, just cut the bloody wires like you did before. Have you got a blade?’

  ‘Trusty penknife. You know your way around, Tom. Let’s split up.’

  One tour of a large, complicated building did not mean he knew the way. ‘It’s six minutes past. Our bottle was timed for nine fifteen. We have a maximum of nine minutes, then we get out.’

  ‘Wait, Tom. Take a few seconds. You were on the floor. They left the bottle above you. The contents of the bottle may be combustible – some sort of incendiary device. Or it might be released as a poisonous gas. In which case the only reason to place the bottle above you is if the gas is heavier than air. That means we should start at the top and work our way down.’

  *

  From the small office, Wilde hared up the stone staircase, two steps at a time. A grim corridor with rooms leading off, cigarette ash on the floor. Mrs Winch had obviously not bothered much with cleaning last night. He looked into each room in turn. The air was full of the clanging of a fire alarm bell and the sound of feet on stone floors as the young scientists obeyed the siren and hurried down to the exit.

  This exercise had, of course, been drilled into them. No one could work here with all the high-voltage equipment and the potentially catastrophic experiments on radioactive substances without knowing that disaster was always on the cards.

  Most of the rooms Wilde looked in were filled with jumbles of wires and untidy tables covered in glass and metal devices: it was impossible to an untrained eye to detect anything out of place. And then, on the second floor, he thought he spotted something amiss: a bottle perched on a shelf among a collection of large bulbs, test tubes, flasks and rubber tubing.

  The room was still occupied. A young woman, slim, fair-skinned, peering through spectacles, was just collecting her handbag. Wilde ignored her and picked up the bottle.

  He was right. He sliced through the wires then tore the detonator away from the bottle. Carefully, he set it aside beneath the window, where it would not be kicked and would be easily seen. One down. How many to go? Please God no more than four. This was like a hellish treasure hunt.

  ‘What’s that?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Just don’t touch it. Don’t break the glass.’

  He tried to think. Why this room in particular? It was near a stairwell. If they were hoping the foul contents would seep down through the building it might mean the bottles would all be close to staircases.

  ‘That’s the second one of those I’ve seen today,’ the young woman said. ‘I saw one in the lecture theatre and wondered what it was . . .’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Wilde as he turned to run. ‘Now please, get out!’

  Suddenly the penny dropped. She nodded briskly and left.

  He knew where the lecture theatre was. First floor. He ran there, barging his way past stragglers, and found the bottle immediately, right at the top of the high bank of seating. Once again, no ceremony; he simply slashed the wires and tore away the detonator. Two down. He looked at his watch again. Nine eleven. How accurate was the bloody thing?

  Coming out of the lecture hall, he almost ran into Lancing. ‘How many, Geoff?’

  ‘One. You?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Thank God they’re not well
concealed. Have you tried the Nursery?’

  ‘I don’t think so. That’s at the top, right?

  ‘Under the eaves.’

  ‘You go there, Geoff. I’ll go down to the ground. Just go up, one look – then down. Christ’s sake, Geoff, whatever you do, don’t hang around. Last sweep, OK?’

  Wilde ran down the stairs. The porter was standing there by the front office. ‘One of the research gentlemen found this, sir.’ He held up one of the devices, still armed. Wilde carefully removed it from his hands and cut away the wires, clock and detonator. Four disabled. One to go.

  He ran from room to room. A quick look in each, among the paperwork, the wires, the incomprehensible mass of equipment. Nothing. He strode back to the porter’s office. He had failed. But at least everyone had been evacuated.

  Everyone but Geoff Lancing. He couldn’t leave the building while Geoff was still upstairs.

  ‘The police are outside, sir,’ the porter said. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Northgate said he would like a word with you.’

  ‘Advise him and his men to stand well back. Tell them to have the fire brigade and ambulances on standby. Tell him, too, that we don’t know what is in these bottles so if they are carrying gasmasks, put them on. Our guess is poison gas, but it could equally be an incendiary device. I’m going up to find Dr Lancing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He came face to face with Geoff at the top of the second flight of steps. Lancing was ashen. He held up one of the devices, disarmed. ‘This was in the Nursery.’

  Wilde breathed out. ‘That’s five here, plus the one at Cornflowers. That must be it, please God.’

  Lancing tapped his watch. ‘I found this on the dot of nine sixteen. That’s by my watch. The clock on the device said nine fourteen. My watch says nine eighteen now. If there were any more, they should have gone off by now.’

  ‘I pray to God you’re right.’

  *

  Outside the Cavendish, in the yard beside the Mond building, the physicists and their assistants were milling around, bewildered and somewhat amused by the scare. Tomlinson marched over to Wilde and Lancing.

  ‘Now then, what’s this about? IRA bombs, I suppose.’