The Lucifer Network

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  Sam sensed the girl’s bafflement was genuine.

  ‘Your father never talked to you about it?’ Corby pressed.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘And he hasn’t written to you about it recently?’ Sam asked. ‘He told me he’d prepared letters to be posted in the event of something happening to him. They haven’t come your way?’

  Julie frowned. ‘Certainly not. Nothing like that at all.’

  Sam sat back, arms folded, suddenly fearing he’d got it wrong.

  ‘What is red mercury?’ Julie asked, looking from one face to the other.

  By the time Denise Corby finished explaining, Julie had understood precisely why these people had come hotfoot to see her.

  ‘I can assure you I know nothing about it,’ she repeated, looking hard at Sam.

  He found her certainty puzzling. Jackman had been so definite that ‘Julie knew’. All at once it dawned on him. The gun-runner must have meant she would know very soon. Because after he’d died a letter would be in the post to her. Posted from where? From Zambia might take an age. But if it was from London then it could have already arrived.

  ‘Had the postman been before you left home this morning?’ he asked.

  Julie shook her head. ‘He comes mid-morning.’

  ‘You see I think your father had written to you about red mercury,’ Sam suggested. ‘Very recently. One of those letters that were to be sent after his death.’

  ‘I doubt it. I told you. He never wrote about business,’ Julie insisted.

  Denise Corby cleared her throat. ‘Nonetheless we’d better go back home with you in case it arrived this morning,’ she announced, retaking control. ‘You share a flat or live alone?’

  ‘It’s just a room,’ Julie protested. ‘In a grotty part of Acton. You can’t seriously want to go there.’

  Corby nodded.

  ‘Just to see if the postman’s brought anything? I can ring you this evening after work.’

  ‘Please, Miss Jackman. It’s in the national interest that you co-operate.’

  National interest. Julie shivered. She felt certain by now that these people were to do with intelligence. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll have to see if the lab can spare me,’ she whispered, standing up.

  ‘Do it now, please. We’ll wait by the main door until you’ve got it sorted.’

  Out in the corridor she hurried along to her own office. In reality she was playing for time. There’d be no problem about getting away for a couple of hours. What concerned her was the real reason these people had come. It had suddenly occurred to her that red mercury could be a red herring.

  Her father had been drunk when he’d ranted about the untrustworthiness of MI6 a few months ago, and at the time she’d dismissed it as paranoia. But supposing it wasn’t? What if her father had been on the point of exposing some of their dirty tricks when he died? What if they’d killed him? To silence him . . .

  ‘Oh God . . .’ Her mind was running away with itself.

  Suppose a letter had arrived that morning? Her father relying on her to expose the dirt he’d been stopped from revealing.

  She hovered by the door to her office, torn as to where her duty lay. The law-abiding half of her character told her she should assist these agents of the government. But the stronger half said that somehow she had to make damned sure they didn’t get their hands on anything her father might have sent her.

  3

  DENISE CORBY DROVE the Vectra west through the lunchtime traffic with Sam beside her in the front and their reluctant passenger in the back. Sam felt his neck prickling. The girl was no fool and he realised she was suspicious of them. She was different from what he’d imagined. He’d expected a creature with Harry Jackman’s deviousness, yet he felt she’d been open with them so far. He cautioned himself not to judge her too kindly, however. He was attracted to her. Her compact sensuality and the flashes of feistiness she’d displayed in response to Denise’s left-footed questioning had stirred up his hormones. And the tears. He was a sucker for tears.

  Denise Corby drove for forty minutes before being directed from the back seat into a particularly dreary west London street.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Julie apologised. ‘Anywhere decent in London is prohibitively expensive, especially when you’ve a child to support. Liam doesn’t like it when I buy his clothes at Oxfam.’

  ‘The trainers are the worst, aren’t they?’ Denise replied. ‘I’ve two kids of my own. Where do I stop?’

  ‘Here on the right. The house with the broken washing machine out the front. The landlord’s been promising to shift it for months.’

  Julie’s heart hammered as the Vectra pulled up. She had no idea how she was going to handle things if there was a letter from her father. She pushed open the car door and hurried towards the house, hoping to get in ahead of them and work some sleight of hand. The Yale lock played up however, and by the time she opened the front door the other two were beside her.

  The hall was carpeted in blue cord and on a small, oak table the morning’s mail had been laid out neatly by one of the other residents. Julie blocked their view until she was sure there was nothing for her.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ she said, shoulders sagging with relief. ‘You’ve had a wasted journey.’

  ‘Which is your flat?’ Denise Corby asked, disregarding her remark.

  Julie indicated a door at the far end of the hall.

  ‘We’d like to see it.’

  ‘I’d rather not. The place is a tip. I wasn’t expecting visitors.’

  ‘We’re not fussy.’

  ‘Well I am. Look. You wanted to know if there was a letter. There isn’t. If there’s one tomorrow or the day after, I’ll ring you. Okay?’

  ‘We’d like to see your flat please.’ Denise Corby squared up to her like a rugby player.

  Julie responded by jamming her hands onto her hips. ‘Why?’

  ‘To see if there’s a letter from your father,’ Corby snapped.

  ‘Please, Julie,’ Sam intervened, fearing the women were about to come to blows. ‘It won’t take long.’

  Julie gave in – because it was the man who’d asked her, and she liked him. Liked him better than the Corby woman, anyway. And when men whom she liked asked her to do something, she tended to comply.

  The bedsit was long and narrow, two small ground floor rooms knocked together. At one end was the sleeping space with a double bed and rumpled sheets. Julie walked over to it and jerked the duvet up to the pillows to tidy it. Beside the bed stood a wardrobe and a chest of drawers in bargain-basement pine. A panelled-off section in the corner contained a shower and toilet. At the other end of the room was a sitting area with a grey-covered sofa in a window bay facing the street. Halfway along stood a small dining table draped with a plastic cloth. Next to it a tiny kitchen alcove, its draining board stacked with unwashed plates.

  Julie stood with her back to the cooker, pushed her spectacles onto the bridge of her nose, then folded her arms.

  ‘As I told you, I just sleep here,’ she repeated, trying to excuse the mess. ‘It’s dirt cheap. My money goes on Liam.’

  ‘You see your little boy every weekend?’ Corby asked, with what passed for maternal interest.

  ‘Yes. And during the week if there’s a problem.’ Julie told herself to control her anger. She had nothing to hide. She opened a cupboard to see what she could offer in the way of a drink. Nothing. She’d forgotten to shop.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m out of coffee,’ she mumbled.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. We’ll just do a quick search.’

  ‘There isn’t a letter,’ she told them.

  ‘Then it won’t take long, will it?’

  Sam considered that for someone who a few hours ago had been dismissing Harry Jackman’s red mercury as ‘delirium’, Denise Corby was taking her investigating role remarkably seriously. It was a power thing with her, he decided.

  ‘You know you�
�ve no right to invade my privacy like this,’ Julie protested.

  ‘I could get a warrant very quickly . . .’ Corby told her.

  Sam winced. It was a lie. A magistrate would probably refuse.

  ‘God!’ Julie’s mouth set in a thin angry line. ‘And people think we live in a free country . . .’

  ‘It’s because people make threats to that freedom that we have to act high-handedly at times,’ Corby stated primly.

  Julie pictured her in court, sitting in a judge’s seat with a silly wig on.

  ‘Then get it over with,’ she snapped. ‘And quickly, because my work is important both to me and to the people in the lab, and I want to get back to it.’

  ‘Of course. We’ll be as quick as we can.’

  ‘Sorry about this,’ Sam mumbled as he followed Denise Corby towards the sleeping end of the room.

  When the woman started fingering the bedclothes, Julie felt sick. She watched her pillow and mattress being checked, then saw the hands feeling through the sheets and the duvet. God! What did they think she was up to?

  Sam opened the top drawer of the chest.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Julie scowled. ‘I thought you said you were a businessman?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Sam smiled uncomfortably. He’d moved without thinking.

  ‘Then how come you’re involving yourself in all this police-state activity?’

  ‘Just trying to hurry things along,’ he rejoined sheepishly. ‘I realise how unpleasant this must be for you.’

  Julie wanted to believe him. To feel that someone here was on her side. But when he began his search of the chest by putting his hands in amongst her underwear she angrily turned her head away. The two were a pair. As bad as each other.

  Sam hesitated. The girl was right to be incensed at what they were doing, but it was a job and he couldn’t afford sympathy. He pushed aside tights, pants and bras to see if they concealed anything.

  They did. An opened packet of fruit-flavoured condoms.

  He glanced towards the girl again, just as she spun back to face him. Her glare warned him that passing comment on his little discovery wouldn’t be wise. He moved quickly on to the next level – pullovers and T-shirts – idly wondering whether she had a regular lover or if the prophylactics were for chance encounters.

  The bottom drawer was empty. He closed it and turned his attention to the wardrobe. A couple of pairs of trousers dangled next to a skimpy black dress. The clothes smelled of cigar smoke. On the floor were some trainers and a Chinese lacquer box. He took it out and set it down on top of the chest. When he opened the lid music tinkled. Swan Lake.

  Suddenly Julie propelled herself towards him. ‘That’s private,’ she snapped. She grabbed the box from him and banged the lid down. The music stopped.

  ‘We’ll need to see inside,’ he told her apologetically.

  ‘We,’ she mimicked. ‘Some businessman.’

  ‘Please don’t be difficult.’

  ‘I said it’s private,’ she repeated. This whole process was beginning to feel like rape.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he suggested gently, ‘why don’t you take the stuff out while I watch? It’s a nice box, by the way.’

  ‘No it’s not,’ she retorted. ‘It’s cheap tat. But my dad gave it to me for my twelfth birthday . . .’

  ‘Then I can understand why it matters so much to you.’

  Julie had been given it full of emeralds, but she wasn’t going to tell them that. The stones weren’t worth anything. Chippings from the mines her father had said, but to her they’d been jewels worthy of a princess. Today they were in a muslin bag at her mum’s house for Liam to play with.

  ‘Please,’ Sam pressed. ‘It’s important.’

  After a few more moments she relented. Despite her certainty by now that he worked for the same organisation as the Corby woman, he had a totally different way about him. It was his eyes. There was a hazel softness about them that made her think of old cardigans.

  As she opened the lid, the music tinkled again, imperfectly. Some of the notes were broken through excessive use. She took out the photographs and old letters that were faded with age, then replaced them in the box one by one as if dealing cards. One of the envelopes looked thicker than the others.

  ‘May I?’ He reached in to take it.

  ‘That letter’s years old.’

  She was right. The Zambian postmark said 1989.

  ‘From your father?’

  ‘Yes. He sent it to me when I went to college. He wrote to say how proud he was.’

  Sam checked it cursorily then dropped the letter back in the box. ‘What did you study?’

  ‘Biology.’

  ‘Of course. Hence your work.’

  The last items were snapshots which she replaced in rapid succession, as if wanting to gloss over the years they represented.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Sam pointed to a picture of a young man with long dark hair and a leather jacket.

  ‘Liam’s father,’ she told him curtly. ‘Brendan.’

  ‘Not still around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s someone else?’ he asked idly. ‘Some other bloke?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  Sam watched her close the box. As she bent down to replace it on the floor of the wardrobe, her shoulder-length hair fell forward to reveal a neck as slender as a child’s. Creamy white skin with soft, cirrus cloud tufts at the nape. He was in love.

  He looked up to find Denise glaring, as if she’d caught him doing something disgusting behind the bike sheds. She marched over to them, questioning Julie about whether her father had been in the habit of leaving papers at her mother’s place.

  ‘For safekeeping. Legal documents. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Never seen any. At the bank, maybe. He had an account at Barclays in Ipswich.’

  ‘But there might be letters at the house in Woodbridge, even if you’ve never seen them?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Julie wavered, dreading going through a repeat performance of this.

  ‘We’d like you to accompany us there,’ Corby announced. ‘To Woodbridge.’

  ‘What, now?’ Julie turned to Sam, hoping to play him off against the woman, but he averted his eyes. ‘I’ll need to ring the lab,’ she stated testily. ‘I don’t have a phone here, but there’s a callbox on the corner.’

  ‘You can ring from the car, if you like,’ Sam told her, pleased to be having her company for a little longer. ‘I’ll lend you my mobile.’

  Julie rubbed her temples. ‘Hang on a minute. It’s the weekend coming up. I’ll be staying on at Woodbridge, which means packing a bag.’

  ‘Five minutes long enough for you?’ Denise offered.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘We’ll wait outside in the car.’

  As they emerged from the house, a black teenager was pushing a buggy along the cracked pavement with a grizzling child in it. She didn’t look up. Denise unlocked the Vectra and they sat inside.

  ‘Better get their mail intercepted from tomorrow,’ she fretted. ‘But what a waste of time. There is no red mercury, Sam.’

  He didn’t reply. There was a point to it all. Because whatever Harry Jackman had been trading in, it had put him in fear of his life.

  4

  IT WAS JUST before midnight when Sam paid off the cab a few hundred yards from his rented flat overlooking the river at Brentford. He never let a taxi drive him right up to the door. These days he was super-conscious of security after having to move from his old home down the river because of the keen interest shown in him by a hit squad. The vehicle swung in a U-turn back towards central London where Denise Corby had dropped him twenty-five minutes earlier. As the head office woman had predicted, the visit to Woodbridge had proved a waste of time.

  The house where Harry Jackman’s first wife lived was in a recently converted sailmaker’s loft on the Deben estuary, an upmarket development with most of the apartments owned by weekenders. They’d
found no letters there relating to red mercury, a pair of words as meaningless to Julie’s mother as they’d been to Julie herself.

  The Jackman home had been modest in size, three bedrooms, a decent living room, a playroom and a kitchen. Seven-year-old Liam had had an attractive, curly-haired wildness about him. He’d flung himself at his mother as soon as she opened the front door and refused to leave her in peace until she settled on the sofa and read him a story. Sam had liked the way Julie had been with the boy. They’d shared a sense of belonging. Of being integral to each other’s life. Sam had felt pangs of jealousy watching them. They had something he didn’t.

  Mrs Maeve Jackman had the same wide cheekbones as her daughter. With the docility of a woman well used to having her life messed about, she’d shown them around her home, letting them delve into anything they wanted. She’d behaved with a patent honesty which neither Sam nor Denise Corby had been inclined to doubt. If Harry Jackman had written them a letter explaining red mercury, then it was still in the post.

  There’d been rain in the last few hours and the Brentford air smelled of it. He could see the vaulted roof of the apartment block where he lived, towering over a pub at a bend in the road. He pulled the phone from his pocket and dialled the number of his flat. The answerphone voice that cut in was not his. Security had prepared the tape for him, rapper style, complete with funky music. Sam pressed four numbers in quick succession and the tape stopped. He heard a hum and then a digitised voice telling him the intruder alarm had detected no motion in the flat since the day he left it nearly a week ago. He put the phone away, walked on briskly and let himself into the building.

  The plane from Lusaka had been full last night and he’d found it hard to sleep. By now he was dog tired. He dumped his suitcase on the floor of his bedroom, deciding to wait until the morning before unpacking it.

  A drink was what he needed most urgently. He opened the cocktail cabinet that was an integral part of the rented flat’s furnishings, scowling as it struck up a tune. One day when he found the time, he would work out how to kill it. He poured himself a good measure of whisky and water, then took the tumbler to the picture window overlooking the river. The apartment block was just upstream from Kew Bridge. Directly below it, cormorants nested. Beyond the far bank lay the botanical gardens. The residence had been designed for the smart and the well-heeled and he felt out of place in it. He’d moved here two months ago because of its security arrangements – electronic gates and security guards. For the past couple of years there’d been many changes of address for him as he’d kept ahead of those intent on killing him. He tossed back the whisky and poured himself another. Two shots would be enough to put him to sleep.