The Relic Keeper

by Anderson, N David

  With that in mind Deon flicked open his pipe and slotted a tablet into it. He sparked it up and felt the drug ease the stress in his head. He needed to sit and think and come up with a plan that worked better than the sit-and-wait one that he had at the moment. Pulling his hat down over his ears he headed across the road to the Apprentice’s Arms.

  The bar was warm and quiet. Some music played in the background and people were huddled in groups of threes and fours at various spots around the pub. Several people sat around the artificial fire, as if the illusion of flames actually gave off heat. Behind the bar a girl of about 19 stood with a vacant expression on her face. She was systematically ignoring an old man who was tacitly attempting to get her attention. She was pretty, but had the look of someone with too many chemical enhancements in their blood, and too many physical ones on their face. Deon coughed theatrically to get her attention. She ambled over, took his order and disappeared to fix his drink. He pulled a stool up to the bar and waited, both for his gin and the inspiration on how to begin working with Mathew Lyal.

  “Cold out, eh?”

  “Sorry?” Deon said, turning to the thickset stranger who had interrupted his chain of thought.

  “Said it’s cold. God, I’ve been working out in this all day. When I get the money together I’m leaving this bloody country for somewhere warm, where the beer’s cold, the wages good…and the bar staff attentive.”

  “I know, it took me about 10 minutes to get her over here,” Deon exaggerated, sipping his newly arrived gin.

  “I worked in Bangkok a few years back. There they know about service. You can get a good beer, a hot curry and the best blow-job imaginable. All at the same time if you go to the right bar.”

  The guy was strange, but livened up Deon’s day. Wonder what the fuck he’s after, he thought.

  “You out there long then? Bangkok.”

  “Couple of years when I was about 20. Worked for an offshore mining company, not on the rigs mind. Just travelled around a lot. Mad place it is. You been?”

  “No. Never really been out England. Maybe one day though, if I get lucky.”

  “No luck in it pal. Just make your own way. Beats hanging about in a bar like this on your own.”

  “Yeah, well I got a reason to be here.”

  “What’s that then?”

  This guy was starting to get pushy. He was after something, Deon could tell that. He didn’t look like a pusher, he had none of the signs of paranoia that Deon had seen in other people who’d overdone the amount of substances they’d forced into themselves. Maybe he was selling something, or stealing something. Deon tried to casually make a study of the guy for any tell-tale signs of type. The way he dressed made him look like a middle-aged office worker, not a pusher or a prostitute. Maybe he was just after a quiet after-work drink and chat with some random person. He was thickset, with short hair, which was starting to grey at the temples. His voice was low and sounded like he’d spent too long in bars. He tried to memorise his face; that small scar that looked like a red L on his cheek should make him memorable. He’d have to quiz him some to check out that he wasn’t some pig chasing Deon’s tail though.

  “I just got things to think through. Women, that sort of thing,” he lied, fishing a piece of unsavoury lemon from his gin.

  “Yeah, I been there pal. All the time. Problems, problems. What’s with ’em, eh? I get grief from mine when I get in, so I come in here, then go home and get more grief!” The stranger paused to order his drink, activated his c-pac to pay and waited for the beer to come. “Cheers,” he said, gulping almost a quarter of the litre glass in one go and inputting a generous tip into the machine on the bar.

  “Cheers,” replied Deon. “What you do then, now you’re out of the East.”

  “This an’ that, you know. I do a bit of writing, bit of admin, bit of security work, anything that comes along really.” Deon looked at the hard-set features, and heavy build of the guy. He’d been fit, but lost it sometime ago. Security work? He wasn’t police, that’s for sure. More like ex-military. “Mostly writing these days, though,” he continued.

  “Oh, right. That good is it?”

  “Pays the rent. Been writing about that place over the road actually. The Walden. You heard they got some guy brought back to life from the twentieth century? Load of old shit if you ask me. Ain’t never no-one come back to life after nearly hundred years is there?”

  “I thought there may be something to it,” said Deon edgily.

  “Why you say that, then?”

  “Well,” he paused for a second and concluded, “I’ve worked there,” and with that Deon lowered his voice and carried on. “I’ve worked there and seen him. He’s real alright. They got him tucked away on the 54th floor. Don’t know what they’ll do to him, but he’s up there at the moment, wide awake, learning to walk again and they don’t let anyone visit him. I think they’re scared.”

  “What the fuck would they be scared of? Don’t suppose they give a rat’s fuck what people think if they really can cure death. Got to be a real money-spinner.”

  “Yeah, but people in the clinic talk. They reckon that there’s a reason that they’ve only managed to get one person back from the dead. I heard that they tried before and fucked it up, and now they’re scared that some relative of some old bloke might sue them if they find out that they thawed out a shit load of stiffs unsuccessfully.”

  “Shit, no.” The man drained his glass and shook his head. “That’s bad. Do you believe that?”

  “It makes sense.”

  “Well fuck me. Do you want another drink?”

  “Yeah. Gin, large, neat. No lemon.”

  “So what else they been saying?”

  “Not much. No-one much goes in. One nurse looks after him most of the time. Jap girl. Pretty, but no sense of humour.”

  “Oh, I know the type, pal, I know them.”

  “Well this one looks after him almost exclusively. She don’t do no-one else, just Mathew. Critical eh? But he seems to like her.”

  “Really? You met him then?”

  Shit, he hadn’t wanted to let that slip. He still didn’t know this guy and had to watch what he said; he didn’t want anyone from the hospital finding out that he wasn’t Peacock.

  “I worked up there for a bit, spoke to him once or twice that’s all.”

  “Right. So what are you? Doctor?”

  “No, I just porter there.”

  “So anything else you heard?”

  “No, not really.” This guy was after something, but what the fuck was it, he wasn’t filth, that Deon was sure of, but he seemed far too interested in what people thought about Lyal. He might try to change tack and then leave. “How long you been back in the UK?”

  “Not long pal, been off round Africa and Asia mainly in the last few years. How long you been at the Walden?”

  “Couple of weeks.”

  “And before that?”

  “Why?” Deon snapped, he took a deep breath and carried on more calmly. “I mean what you want to know about that for?”

  “Hey, easy pal. Just making conversation before I go home, I told you that. I said I’m writing something about the Walden. Anything you tell me I can use I can pay for. All confidential.”

  “Pay? How much?”

  “Few hundred, maybe a couple of thou if it’s good. If it’s phenomenal even more. But, you know, you’re just some porter, you won’t have access to the sorts of files that would show any details about what happens there, would you?”

  “Look, I might be able to…for the right money. You want some info about that place? I can get it.”

  “I’m not interested in the clinic, just what’s going on with Lyal. Could you get that?”

  “I don’t want my name linked to anything, ok. But I can get into their database files, easy, if it pays right.”

  The man put his hand out and held his thumb over Deon’s c-pac, and transferred the equivalent of Deon’s weekly wage into it. “If you
can get something about this Lyal guy, or of the others that they’ve had frozen, any attempts to thaw people out, any famous names that they have, or had, in storage. Anything out of the ordinary, I can pay you for it. But it’s got to be quiet. I need to be just as secretive as you pal. Contact me on this address.” The man input some details onto Deon’s c-pac.

  “You ok with that?”

  “Yeah, I’m charmed with that alright,” he said, looking at the cash held in his machine. This could have been one of those really fortunate meetings, Deon thought as the man drained his second drink and left with a slight nod his head. He had someone who was willing to pay him to investigate Mathew, and he might have contacts that could help if he got into trouble. That meant that he could upgrade some of his equipment and get into the clinic’s databases far easier, and more quickly. And this guy needed it all kept secret, so he didn’t seem like a pig. He’d just have to keep quiet about where he’d been before the Walden; he’d just have to stay as Jamie Peacock, and hope his new ally didn’t stumble across anything linking him to the massacre at Fort Burlington. But then there was no reason why he should even have the slightest idea that Deon had been there, let alone that Deon was now James. Was there?

  He walked purposefully into the rain.

  22

  Philip was pleased how the day had gone. Warwick had been so full of himself that he’d blabbed about the clinic far more than he should have, and then his chance meeting in the bar had proved more successful than he could have managed had it been arranged. Deon was instantly recognisable, and apart from one small moment when he’d pushed too hard, he hadn’t suspected a thing. The guy was now convinced that Philip would pay him for info, and was going to start coming to him and sooner or later would start telling Philip more about his life before he assumed the personae of James Peacock. Philip just hoped he could find the money he needed to pay for it. Next month’s rent was looking shaky now. And he wouldn’t possibly tell a soul about it because he thought he was acting as an informer. And on top of all of this it was always possible that there really was a story about the clinic that Philip could uncover.

  The girl, Reiko, was a dead loss though. There didn’t seem a chance in hell that she would dish anything on her employers. That was the problem with these sorts; they come to Europe because they feel that they can do some good in the poorer countries, then get screwed by their employers, and then their sense of loyalty takes over and they start defending the fuckers that exploit them in the first place. Reiko seemed, well, nice really, but Philip didn’t think that she’d add much to the story. She wouldn’t break patient confidentiality, she’d trust her employers, and Philip would bet his life that she had no idea that Deon – or ‘James Peacock’ as she thought of him – was one of the only people to survive a major massacre, and as such had to be the main suspect. Still it wasn’t time to go the police yet, not until he had more to go on. He was chasing a story, not a criminal. Least not until a reward was put up.

  He had several reasons for this choice.

  Firstly, the story would be better if he could claw out more information. This meant that he needed to gain Deon’s trust, and that, he thought, was already happening. Secondly, he just had a gut instinct that Deon was not the sort of person to be involved in a conspiracy of that kind. He didn’t know exactly why, but having met him he didn’t strike him as a mass murderer, and Philip had come across a few in his time. Being in the army meant you came across a sizeable number of psychopaths and sociopaths. Men who hated everyone, or were obsessed with the idea of taking lives, and became addicted to the strange feeling in your gut as you watched the life drop out of someone’s eyes. He didn’t have any of the traits that haunted people who’d killed, and Philip certainly knew what that was like. Ok, looks are deceiving, and Deon was certainly not the most law-abiding citizen in Britain, but he also seemed to have a zest for life and sense of conscience that made his involvement in the massacre unlikely. And that meant that Philip couldn’t share this information with the police, who were not noted for their compassion or to taking into account some journo’s gut feeling.

  It was two days later when Philip received a note from Deon about the Walden. He had to give it to him; the guy was good; he’d managed to obtain information that Justine hadn’t, and in a shorter time. Not only had Deon swapped his identity with this James Peacock character, he’d hacked into some the clinic’s database and copied some files that had to be highly confidential. Philip now had account details, staff information, and personal letters from and to Warwick. The stuff was good, but there was little about cryogenics or the cryonic programme; which was strange. Obviously the clinic wanted to keep their techniques secret, and maybe this operation was separate from the rest of the work undertaken there. But for there to be next to nothing sounded alarm bells in Philip’s head. Still, first he had to concentrate on what he had, not what was missing.

  He studied the data for nearly eight hours continuously. Even the call of the unopened bottle of malt was ignored. There was nothing particularly immoral or illegal in any of the files, but there seemed to be omissions and, reading between the lines, Philip got the impression that there was a plan being carried out.

  Warwick had been with the clinic for eight years and had acted as Chief Executive for six, as he’d stated in their interview. His salary included options for shareholding in the Walden Centre, as well as in the parent company, Medical Line Research International. Warwick had gradually built a share portfolio in the former of these two, without taking out his options on the latter. He had started relatively small, but had increased his holding dramatically over the past two years; partly through his share option and, it seemed, partly by illegally buying shares personally from other investors. He now personally owned 48 per cent of the shares in the Walden. But the Walden hadn’t been making the kind of money that Philip had been led to believe, even with his access to the accounts that Justine had supplied. According to her it varied from heavy debt several years ago, to a position today whereby it was scraping together a small profit. The commonly held idea that Warwick had turned it into a major player was evidently untrue. That was for the patients, but anyone who had access to the accounts – the real ones, not the expurgated ones published – could see that it was not a sound investment. However, reading the accounts at source painted a different picture. The profits created by the clinic had increased since Warwick took over, especially since he’d been targeting the Far East. But these profits weren’t reflected in the accounts. Money had been moved within the organisation, and then simply disappeared from their records. The accounts were artificially low, which meant one of two things to Philip. Either Warwick, possibly with the help of someone else within the centre, was skimming money from the clinic into his own account, or the money was being redirected around the company into some secret project or account. The more creative aspects of the accounting had started around 3 years previously; about the time the cryonic programme was started.

  You sly old bastard, thought Philip. You’ve kept your company running at a minimum level of profit while you bought shares for less than their market value, and all the time you knew you were working on a medical breakthrough. Only someone with Warwick’s arrogance and over confidence would have the nerve to try something like that quite so blatantly. And now the Walden Centre’s share price had rocketed. Just let me watch you sell those shares pal, thought Philip. But there was still more to the story. Where was the rest of the money, and why was the cryonic programme so bloody secret? Philip sent a message to Deon: Good work, but need more on cryonics. Then he poured a drink, sat back, and waited.

  23

  “James?”

  He ignored her, and carried on staring at his coffee.

  “James!” repeated Rei louder. Deon looked up, remembering the name he was using. The fog was heavy in his head today.

  “Yeah. Sorry, I wasn’t really listening.”

  “Can I join you?” Rei asked, nodding at
the table he was eating at in the clinic’s canteen.

  “Yeah, please do.” He gulped some coffee down and let Rei sit next to him.

  “How you doing?”

  “I’m fine. Tired, though. I’ve been up with Mathew most of the night. You know, the patient on his own up top. He has been a feeling a little low and the pain in his left leg bothers him.”

  “Must be hard on him.”

  “I know. You speak to him a lot don’t you?”

  “No, not really. I don’t work on the 54th floor.”

  “Oh! He showed me the c-pac you left him. He says it was good to talk to you. I know you’re not really supposed to communicate, but I want to do what is best for him, and I do think that constant communication is good. I’m not going to report you or anything.”

  “He just seems a nice guy, but a little lonely,” he said, letting his guard down a little. The girl was a bit stiff, but he didn’t think she was threat to his operation. In fact, she could be the only way to really get anywhere with it. He willed his consciousness to push through the mist.

  “You can’t really understand what he’s going through can you. Waking up alone in a strange world.”

  “Not much we can do though except be there for him, is there?”

  “Well, yes and no. That is what I wanted to ask you.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, he was married with a daughter, you know. And he has been asking about them quite a lot recently.”