The Lucifer Network

by Geoffrey Archer

‘It’s just an impression I got, Duncan. I never did pass GCSE mind-reading.’

  ‘Sketch him for me,’ said Corby briskly. ‘A gullible type?’

  ‘Gullible isn’t right. But a conspiracy theorist, yes.’

  ‘People who still believe in red mercury usually are.’

  ‘Don’t dismiss him as a nutter,’ Sam warned. ‘Harry Jackman was scared about what he’d got mixed up in. He was paying for protection. Had the appearance of a man who thought he was going to be topped.’

  Waddell swung his legs down to the floor again. ‘And you reckon his death was not unconnected with this deal he was supposedly so worried about.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Robbery sounds a more likely scenario to me,’ Waddell insisted.

  ‘The staging was too elaborate. The soldiers he’d hired to look after him had pulled off the road for a piss just before the road block. Coincidence? I don’t think so. And if it was just robbery why didn’t they do me over too?’

  ‘You were in a Toyota. Jackman’s car was a Merc.’

  ‘An old one.’

  ‘Well, whatever.’ Waddell shrugged and put his hands on the table as if about to rise. ‘I have to take my leave of you. There’s a minister needs briefing, heading out from Heathrow for talks on Kosovo. The Foreign Office should have sent a car for me. There’s only one way forward on this Jackman case, and that’s if his girl Julie really does know something about his fantasies. You two go and find out.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘But I tell you, unless she opens doors, this particular red mercury trail is heading for the bin like all the others.’

  Waddell strutted towards the door and left them to it. Sam could see from Corby’s face that she shared her boss’s scepticism.

  ‘I really have got better things to do than this, but let’s get it over with,’ she said, picking up her bag and slipping its long strap onto her shoulder.

  ‘What’s the arrangement?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Noon,’ she replied. ‘You and me at the place where she works, off Tottenham Court Road.’

  ‘Any idea what sort of state she’s in?’ He hated interviews with the newly bereaved.

  ‘Sounded okay on the phone. Suspicious more than anything else.’

  The Central Virology Laboratory,

  St Michael’s Hospital

  11.50

  Julie Jackman sat on a stool by the bench in the laboratory, her rubber-gloved hands working a measured-dose pipette to fill a grid of tiny test tubes for an immunoassay. A white lab coat covered her normal clothes – blue jeans and a grey T-shirt. She had a pretty, heart-shaped face with wispy brown hair, some strands of which fell forward to the corner of her mouth. From time to time she brushed them away with the back of her wrist. From behind the oval lenses of small, silver-framed spectacles, her pale, grey-green eyes concentrated hard. One mistake and the whole test procedure would need to be started again.

  She was finding it difficult to work, with her father’s death preying on her mind. It hadn’t truly sunk in that she wouldn’t see him again. The fact that the funeral was happening that very morning in a place half a world away seemed quite unreal. Her mother had suggested asking for a delay so she could travel to Zambia to attend it, but she’d decided not to go. She knew next to nothing of his life in Africa. In a strange land surrounded by strangers. Questions would be asked which she wouldn’t want to answer. And she was afraid. Superstitiously scared that whatever evil had struck him down might seek her out too.

  Her relationship with her father had always been more shade than light. She’d come to think of him as a serial deserter. The first time, when she was two years old, she’d been unaware of what was going on, but the act of abandonment had repeated each time he returned to the house in Ipswich for a visit. Her mother used to say ‘this is your father,’ like he was a complete stranger. Then he would start acting the part, showering her with gifts and affection until sure he’d secured her adoration again. Then he would leave. Suddenly. Without a ‘goodbye’ or a ‘see you soon’. And each time those flights in the night had broken her heart.

  And now he’d gone for good. It had been a hell of a jolt when her mother had rung to tell her. She’d been shocked at the news. Shocked too to discover she wasn’t able to cry about it.

  She looked up at the wall clock. The Foreign Office people would be here any minute. She dreaded talking to them, yet at the same time wanted to hear what they had to say, hoping for some explanation, some reason for what had happened. To make it real.

  She put down the pipette. The test was almost prepared, but her mind was wandering and she feared making a mess of the final set of insertions. In the next bay sat a fellow scientific officer. He was the sort of earnest, reliable type her mother would have loved her to settle with, but his efforts to arouse her interest in him during the past few months had been fruitless.

  ‘George . . .’ She removed her glasses and ducked her head to one side to see through a gap in the shelving separating the bays. ‘Would you do me a favour?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just say yes.’

  ‘All right then, yes.’

  ‘There’s only the antigen to be added to these samples. Do it for me, would you? I’m running out of time.’

  ‘Time?’ he asked tetchily.

  ‘I’ve got people coming in to see me any minute. To do with my dad.’ She’d already told the lab staff about her father’s murder.

  ‘Oh, sure.’ He was suddenly sympathetic. ‘You run along. I’ll look after everything. When the results are through I’ll put the printout on your desk.’

  ‘God, I’ll be back long before it goes into the analyser, George,’ she assured him, peeling off her rubber gloves and slipping them into the yellow bin for contaminated waste. She stood up and thrust her hands deep into her lab coat pockets. ‘It’s just Foreign Office officials. Don’t suppose it’ll take long. They’re probably after some of his back tax.’

  ‘Want me to sit in with you?’

  ‘Thanks, but no.’

  She crossed to the hooks by the door and hung up the coat. Outside in the corridor she walked the five paces to the small office she shared with George and a woman called Janet. For now the office was empty. She sat at her computer terminal, logged in and checked for e-mail. There were a couple of messages to do with a correspondence with a virologist in Memphis, but nothing interesting. She logged off again then put her head in her hands, massaging her forehead. The conversation she was about to have concerned something far more sinister than tax, she suspected. From the little she’d known about her father’s business life, she’d guessed that most of it had been on the wrong side of the law.

  It had been sweaty in the lab because the air conditioning was on the blink. She decided to freshen up. She grabbed her backpack from the floor beside her desk and hurried past the labs to the washrooms. Inside she found the department’s receptionist Ailsa Mackinley checking her eye make-up and hair. She had long, dark, spiralling curls which required maintenance in front of a mirror at least once an hour.

  ‘I told you about these people coming to see me?’ Julie checked, concerned that Ailsa mightn’t be back at her desk before they arrived.

  ‘You did, Jul. A Ms Corby, you said. Twelve o’clock. Where will you be?’

  ‘At my desk.’ For the first time she began to think of the mechanics of the visit. It would be hopeless receiving them in her office if George and Janet wanted to be in there too. ‘God, Ailsa! Where can I talk to them that’s private?’

  ‘The professor’s away for the day. You could use his room. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. He’s so amenable.’

  ‘Great idea. Thanks, Ailsa. You’re certain he’s not coming back?’

  ‘He’s in Birmingham. Rang from there ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘What’s it all about, Jul?’

  Julie ducked the answer by feigning an urgent need for the loo and diving into one of the cubicles.
Then, when she heard the door bang with Ailsa’s departure, she re-emerged and splashed water onto her face in a vain attempt to get rid of the shadows under her eyes. She’d hardly slept the last two nights. She dried her skin, ran a comb through her hair, then replaced her spectacles. Straightening her grey T-shirt and tucking the hem more tightly into her jeans, she returned to her office and began tidying papers. The professor ran a clean desk policy, which she, like the others in her office, tended to ignore.

  Then the phone rang. Her visitors were here.

  Sam had been dreading this meeting. There were no right words to say to the daughter of someone you’d watched being shot to death. The first thing he noticed as she walked towards them was that she was pretty. Shiny hair, wide cheekbones and a small mouth. None of her father’s clown-faced looks.

  ‘Miss Jackman?’ The Vauxhall Cross woman held out her hand. ‘Denise Corby from the Foreign Office.’

  Sam let his companion take the lead. This was a head office show.

  ‘And my colleague here,’ she went on, turning to Sam, ‘is a businessman. I asked him to come along with me because he was actually with your father when he died. They’d just had dinner together.’

  ‘Oh!’

  For the first time Julie felt she was about to cry. She searched the man’s visage for some sign of his having been there – shock, sorrow, or just plain distress. But all she saw was a pleasant face despite the beard – which looked wrong on him – and a pair of kindly eyes.

  ‘We’re so sorry,’ Corby whispered. ‘You must have been terribly shocked.’

  ‘Not quite sunk in,’ she said.

  ‘Of course not.’

  They stood there in the entrance lobby, not moving, each waiting for the other to take the next step.

  ‘Is there some place we can talk in private?’ Corby prompted.

  ‘Yes. Yes of course. I’m sorry.’ Julie led them through the first set of swing doors. ‘My boss, Professor Norton, he’s away. We can use his office . . .’ She ushered them into it. Apart from the virginally clean desk there was a small boardroom table with six chairs.

  ‘What do you work on here, Miss Jackman?’ Sam asked in an effort to normalise things. He closed the door behind them.

  ‘HIV mostly. The hospitals in the group have four wards for AIDS patients.’

  ‘Interesting work,’ Denise Corby commented.

  ‘Yes. It is.’ As she lowered herself into a chair, Julie removed her spectacles and placed them on the table, an automatic action, done without thinking whenever a male registered on her personal radar. She felt drawn to this man, as if the fact that he’d been with her father in the last moments of his life had made him a part of hers.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ she said, looking at Sam’s now slightly out-of-focus face. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘I’d rather keep my name out of it, if you don’t mind,’ he told her. ‘I deal in a lot of confidential projects. Wouldn’t be helpful if my competitors knew I’d been talking to your father.’

  Julie felt rebuffed. Suddenly she wanted this business over with as quickly as possible.

  ‘Would you tell me what happened exactly? It was at a road block, wasn’t it? Soldiers?’

  ‘Yes. Men in uniform, anyway. And wearing masks. Your father and I were driving back to his place for a night-cap. In two cars. He was in front. Suddenly a red light was waved in the road. We both braked. There were soldiers all around us. One of them stopped me short of where your father pulled up. The soldiers grabbed him from his car. I thought they wanted to search him for money, but instead they shot him. There was a gun at my head, so there was nothing I could do. I’m . . . I’m sorry.’

  Julie shivered at his matter-of-fact description.

  ‘But why did they kill him?’ she asked, her voice breaking.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Denise Corby told her, reaching across the table to comfort her.

  Julie shuddered at the gesture and withdrew her own hand quickly.

  ‘The police think it was robbery,’ Sam told her. ‘The soldiers took his car.’

  ‘Which hasn’t been found,’ Corby added. ‘There’s always a market for Mercedes Benzes.’

  Julie wiped her eyes. To die for a car was so horrible. ‘Was it quick?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t think he suffered,’ Sam assured her. ‘And you – your name – was the last thing that crossed his lips before he died.’

  Suddenly the dam broke. The tears she’d been unable to weep since learning of the murder coursed down her cheeks. Her body shook uncontrollably. She buried her face in her hands. Denise Corby offered a tissue from a new pack in her bag, which Julie took gratefully. It was nearly a minute before she could speak again.

  ‘It’s just such a waste,’ she said. ‘I mean I never really knew what he thought about . . .’ She was going to say ‘me’, but stopped herself in time. ‘About anything . . .’

  ‘I understand.’ Denise Corby pulled a large notebook from her handbag. ‘Would it be all right if I ask you some questions now?’

  Julie nodded. ‘Of course.’

  Corby straightened her back and cleared her throat. ‘First, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know a little bit more about your relationship with your father.’

  Sam raised his eyebrows, surprised by Corby’s indirect approach. As far as he was concerned there was only one question that needed asking.

  Julie recoiled. The big notebook. The inquisitorial stare. Suddenly this was an interrogation. ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, with him living in Africa and you in England, you can’t have seen each other very often,’ Corby continued.

  ‘No. We didn’t.’ That much was obvious.

  ‘You were pretty young when your parents’ marriage broke up.’

  ‘I was two.’

  ‘So you would hardly have known him when you were small. How often did you actually see him?’

  Julie wondered why this could possibly matter. ‘I don’t know. Once a year, perhaps.’

  ‘You must have resented his abandoning you and your mother,’ Corby suggested, in a ham-fisted attempt at being sympathetic.

  Julie bristled. ‘That’s hardly any of your business.’

  Sam wondered if departmental budget cuts had eaten into interview training for SIS desk officers.

  ‘It’s just that your father gave my colleague here the impression that you and he were really close,’ Corby explained, steaming on regardless. ‘I wondered if that’s the way you saw it, that’s all.’

  Close? How could one be truly close to someone who was hardly ever there when you needed them? Julie squared her shoulders and directed her response at Sam.

  ‘What exactly did dad say about me when he was dying?’

  ‘He said he thought you were great,’ Sam soothed, finessing the truth. ‘I think he loved you very much.’

  The tears came back. Julie turned away. ‘Well . . .’ she sniffed. She didn’t want to talk about it, yet in a sense she did. ‘People show their love in different ways, I suppose. His was mostly with a chequebook.’

  Denise Corby hunched forward. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she floundered, wishing she hadn’t got into this. ‘Meaning that I may not have seen him very often, but he did pay for me to go to a nice school. He funded me through university and . . . and he bailed me out when I was having personal problems.’ The last part spilled out before she’d thought to stop herself.

  ‘Personal problems?’ Corby prodded. ‘Would that have been to do with your becoming a single mother?’

  Julie jerked bolt upright. ‘You know about Liam?’

  ‘It’s on the file.’

  Sam raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  For the first time Julie began to wonder exactly who these people were. A chilly finger ran down her back, as if some unseen presence was warning her to take care. She was recalling a late night conversation with her father on his last visit hom
e. Talk of his having got involved with MI6, saying they were people he didn’t trust. He’d been rambling and she’d paid no heed to his words. But she vaguely remembered mention of letters he’d written about MI6, to be posted if something happened to him.

  ‘How old would Liam be now?’ Corby asked, softening her tone.

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘And your father helped with the boy. Financially?’

  Again Julie wondered why it mattered. She hesitated, thought carefully, then told herself that she really had nothing to hide when it came to her son.

  ‘Liam was a kind of catalyst for our family,’ she explained. ‘In a way, his birth brought my father back into my life. The bloke I’d been having a relationship with had dumped me, you see. In the same way that Dad had dumped my mother twenty years earlier.’

  ‘History repeating itself,’ Corby noted.

  ‘That’s what he felt. That he’d passed his own bad judgement about relationships on to me. There was more contact after that – letters, phone calls. And there’d been almost none before.’

  ‘And in recent years?’ Corby pressed. ‘The letters continued? He was still writing you cheques?’

  Julie bristled. ‘Look, I earn my own living, right?’ She snatched the spectacles from the table and put them back on. ‘What is the point of all this?’

  ‘I’m simply trying to establish how close you two were,’ Corby pleaded. ‘In order to judge how much you’d have known about his business activities.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Julie insisted. ‘He never talked to me about his work.’

  Denise Corby glanced at Sam as if to say I told you so. He took it as a cue to intervene.

  ‘Julie . . . That evening I spent with your father, he had something on his mind.’ Sam spoke gently. If she knew anything it would need to be coaxed from her. ‘He hinted at it during dinner. Some business transaction he’d done that was troubling him. After he was shot he started telling me about it, but didn’t get far. He was fading fast. But the very last thing he said was that you knew about it.’

  ‘What?’ Julie shivered, sensing that finger down her spine again. ‘What was I supposed to know about?’

  ‘Something to do with red mercury,’ Corby interjected.