First Horseman, The

by Chambers, Clem

  ‘Do it,’ said Jim.

  He slumped into a chair by a porthole overlooking the private terminal. Any minute now he would see a squadron of police careering in. He was praying his shedload of karma was going to be enough.

  56

  Stafford’s right knee was giving him a bit of trouble so he’d brought his shooting stick to the ha-ha and now sat on it heavily.

  Right on time, there was Lady Arabella on her hunter, cantering around the field. Something in the far right-hand corner of his vision piqued his attention. He looked towards it without moving his head. A giant wood pigeon was gliding towards the tree to his right. How unfortunate for it, he thought, snapping the breech of his shotgun. The stupid bird had flown at the wrong time and in the wrong direction.

  Stafford had no desire to kill it, but he could hardly keep up his pretence of hunting if he let another pest float by him in full view of Lady Arabella. He raised the gun and fired, the pigeon falling a few feet from him. Suddenly another was on its way towards him. ‘Good grief,’ he muttered. He fired again and the second bird fell obligingly close to the first. He broke the shotgun gently so the cartridge did not fly and took the cases out carefully, putting them in his pocket. He reloaded but left the gun broken.

  ‘Top shot,’ said Arabella, still some yards away, her high, clear voice carrying to him through the still air.

  Stafford gave a little bow. ‘I think perhaps pigeon pie is now on the menu,’ he said.

  ‘Does your Mr Evans have you shoot his dinner for him?’ she asked. ‘How very economical.’ She smiled.

  ‘On occasion.’

  ‘Perhaps I should invite him to sample some of our estate’s produce.’ The horse stood perfectly still under her.

  ‘I’m sure he would be delighted.’

  She studied him for what felt like a long time. ‘You’re interesting, Stafford,’ she said. ‘Yes. In your way you’re almost as mysterious as Mr Evans.’

  ‘I can’t see how,’ said Stafford, more than a little flustered.

  ‘Good day,’ she said, giving him a sideways look as she lightly pushed the horse onwards.

  He watched her go, then collected the two birds. He would clean them and send them over to her.

  57

  Jim was on his way back and Stafford could tell from the message he had left that all was not well. He was therefore somewhat distracted when a car came up the drive and the familiar figure of Superintendent Smith got out. ‘What’s he doing here?’ Stafford said aloud, and headed for the front door.

  He opened it as Smith reached the steps.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Stafford. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘You, as a matter of fact,’ said Smith, his voice spiced with a hint of sarcasm. ‘Saving your skin as always.’ He skipped athletically up the worn stone staircase. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course. I take it it’s about the package I despatched.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad they’ve sent you, old chap.’

  Smith strode into the grand hall and had a quick look around. ‘We need to know right away where those samples you sent to Porton Down came from,’ he said, after his quick survey. ‘Is Jim about?’

  ‘No,’ said Stafford. ‘He’s flying back from America as we speak.’

  Smith nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘Right,’ said Stafford. ‘Wait here while I fetch the gal.’ He turned on his heel and headed off.

  So this was Jim’s new pad, he thought. Very nice. Jim had once tried to give him ten million pounds as a present. He had just laughed and handed it back. ‘Go on,’ Jim had said. ‘I’d be dead twice over if it wasn’t for you.’

  Smith had smiled rather grimly. ‘It might not be a fortune to you, Jim, but it would kill my reason to be alive. I’ve got to have something pushing me to get out of bed in the morning. With ten mil I’d buy myself a big armchair and a tanker of whisky and drink till I rotted away.’

  Jim had hopped up and down in frustration – it had made Smith’s day. ‘Well, consider it banked,’ he’d said. ‘So long as I’ve got it, it’s yours.’

  The hall walls were covered with fine old paintings and other ancient decorations. He found it hard even to contemplate what it all cost to keep up. You needed to be extremely rich to maintain premises like these, but Jim was a lot wealthier than that. ‘It’s another world,’ he nearly said, as Stafford arrived with a pretty young woman in tow.

  ‘Superintendent Smith, this is Kate,’ he said, standing to attention. ‘Kate, this is Superintendent Smith from Counter-terrorism Command.’

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘It was Kate who came by the samples,’ continued Stafford.

  ‘Good to meet you,’ said Smith. ‘And where, may I ask, did you come by them?’

  Kate’s face was burning and she could tell she had gone bright red. ‘Professor Cardini’s lab in Cambridge.’

  ‘It’s far more complicated than that,’ said Stafford. ‘Kate was attacked there by some kind of mad lab technician. He followed her here.’

  Kate was nodding and trying to watch them both closely at the same time.

  Smith’s head was bowed forward, his arms behind his back. ‘Can you take me straight to where you got them?’ he asked, lifting his face and peering at her intently.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘We’d better get going then, right away. I have half of Porton Down waiting on the road outside.’ He turned to Stafford. ‘Some of them will want to come in here and check everything. The rest will follow us.’

  Smith put one hand on Stafford’s left shoulder, the other on Kate’s right. ‘There’s a medic in my car and he will inoculate you both immediately,’ he told them.

  ‘Against what?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Everything,’ said Smith.

  Kate went pale.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Smith, gently.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘We should get going then.’ Smith threw a glance at Stafford, then led the way to the door. ‘Is Jim involved in this?’ he asked over his shoulder.

  ‘To no great extent,’ replied Stafford.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

  58

  From the car window, Kate watched the countryside rushing by. She turned to Smith. ‘I’m scared,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ he replied. ‘Helping us like this is incredibly brave.’

  ‘I don’t feel brave,’ she said.

  ‘But you are,’ said Smith.

  ‘I’m kind of excited too,’ she said, laughing nervously.

  ‘So am I,’ said Smith, ‘excited and scared. You can’t beat the feeling.’

  Kate shifted in her seat. ‘What happens when we find Renton?’

  ‘Hopefully your nasty lab assistant will be under arrest before we get there. They’ll be tracking him down right now.’

  ‘And if they don’t find him?’

  ‘Well, we’ll go into the lab and you’ll take us to his bit of it and see if he’s there. I’ll go ahead with my officers and you’ll be at the back directing us.’ He smiled. ‘It sounds dramatic but it isn’t in practice. We won’t be breaking any doors down.’

  ‘Superintendent,’ called Stafford, from the front seat. ‘I take it local officers can’t investigate the labs before we get there because of the nature of the potential biohazard.’

  ‘That’s right,’ replied Smith, watching for panic in Kate’s face. ‘How do you feel about that risk, Kate?’

  ‘I’ve already been in his lab,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t germs that were dangerous, it was Renton.’ She sat up stiffly, suddenly resolved. ‘But I’m relying on you to deal with him, OK?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Smith. ‘If he’s at the lab we need to swoop and grab him before he gets any ideas.’

  Kate was scared but at the same time she seemed to be riding a wave of adrenalin. The conflicting emotions wrestled within her as the convoy charged along the country lanes, siren
s shrieking all around.

  Stafford seemed to know the police guy very well indeed. That was an odd relationship, a butler and a senior officer.

  She had poured out her story to the superintendent. She didn’t know why but she’d kept saying she was sorry, as if somehow it was her fault. He had reassured her that she was a brave and resourceful woman but that hadn’t really helped. She felt weak and isolated, like someone who had set off an avalanche and was watching it sweep down the mountain towards them. None of this was her doing, but if she had done something differently, even something small, perhaps the whole mess might never have come about. She tugged at her hair. She was going to see it through with Smith and Stafford; she was going to do everything she could to make sure that Renton was caught. She was going to overcome her terror and do what had to be done to make sure she and everyone else was safe from this maniac.

  59

  Renton looked up at the tiny video feed window on his giant computer monitor. A line of vehicles had stopped outside the university grounds. He studied it in mild panic, then clicked on an icon, opening a series of video windows. He zoomed in on one of the vans. It had a ‘hazmat’ symbol on the side. He told himself not to jump to conclusions. It was almost certainly a coincidence. In a moment the convoy would set off and nothing would come of it.

  As he watched, a sudden sweat broke out on his furrowed brow. He shot back in his chair as men appeared from the vehicles, some in biohazard suits. They appeared to be assembling and, as they did so, three cars passed them at speed and turned into the university. They were on to him.

  He pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a small package covered with layers of clear Sellotape. He opened the top drawer, took out a scalpel, sawed it open and took out two ampoules. This was his treasure, the result of five years’ devoted servitude to Cardini. Each ampoule would perhaps add a decade to his life or represent a month of heavenly bliss armed with supernormal intelligence. It was now his only escape. He opened the top drawer and took out a syringe, filling it as fast as his shaking hands allowed. They were in the building as he stabbed the needle into his neck. He pressed the serum into his blood, feeling it burning through him like acid.

  He fell from his chair as the last of the liquid entered him and lay on the floor, panting. His mind raced. Perhaps so much of the elixir would kill him, just as an overdose of heroin or cocaine might. He grunted – his body felt as if it had been tipped into freezing cold water. He flipped on to his back. Every bone ached, and now a hot wave spread into his torso, as if his blood had turned to boiling metal.

  His mind suddenly cleared.

  They would try to take him but they were stupid and clumsy. He would overcome them as easily as any adult can outwit a child.

  He jumped up and took a deep breath. ‘Let’s have some fun,’ he said, grinning widely.

  Stafford wasn’t answering, so Jim gave up calling. The cab that picked him up at the airport was no substitute for a Maybach and appeared to have been modified to take people in wheel-chairs to hospital. It was less than comfortable, but Jim didn’t mind that Stafford had not shown up as planned and had instead booked him a ropy old minicab. He didn’t mind Stafford not answering his phone either: he was not in the mood for interaction.

  He had recently killed two men with his bare hands, and a lingering self-loathing had settled on him. The world would be a better place if he sat quietly in his comfortable home and shut everything out. Maybe he should do as the previous owner of his house had done: go to bed and stay there for the rest of his life. Maybe he could become the world’s next Howard Hughes, or turn into a crackpot like McCloud, addled by all the money he had almost accidentally accumulated for himself.

  He looked out of the small passenger window to his left. Was it an ugly-looking day or was his mood colouring the horizon?

  60

  There were three policemen ahead of Smith and Kate. They looked as though they spent a large part of the day either practising controlled violence or wielding it. They rolled down the concrete stairwell in the way doormen or rugby players do.

  The silence unnerved her.

  Then the lights went out. There were curses.

  ‘Hold on,’ she heard Smith say, among the commotion. ‘Let’s get those torches on.’

  She took a step back up and looked around, attempting to see something, anything, in the pitch black. She held out her arms and grasped the banister in her left hand, stepping up.

  Seconds later, Smith took her right hand and led her up the stairs. She wanted to run, but he was already leading her faster than she would dare to go in the dark. She knew they had to get out of there fast.

  Was it Smith’s hand?

  Smith turned on his flashlight and turned to Kate. She was gone.

  61

  ‘This is not the way out,’ said Kate.

  A door slammed behind them.

  ‘No,’ said a voice she didn’t immediately recognise.

  A beam of light lit Renton’s face and his hand was on her mouth.

  ‘I will slit your throat if you disobey me even once. I may slit it at any time anyway, so do exactly as I tell you.’ He let go of her mouth.

  She could see a scalpel illuminated in his hand, which he held in front of his face, just below his wicked grin.

  ‘Come.’ He grabbed her hand and drew her along the dark corridor.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ he said. Suddenly his head shuddered with a violent tic. He grasped her arm and yanked her forward. They ran, Kate lurching behind him, down dark passages illuminated only sparsely by dim skylights or flickering emergency lamps. He opened a door and pulled up a hatch. ‘In,’ he said.

  She reared back but checked herself.

  ‘Tunnels,’ he said. ‘Miles of them. They run under the university. Get in,’ he said softly, pointing at the hole with the scalpel. ‘Now.’

  She shuffled forward, sat on the lip of the hatch and lowered herself down to a ladder, banging her left leg as she went. She stifled a cry and tried not to lose her grip as the pain went through her.

  He came down directly after her, pulling the hatch closed behind them. ‘Keep going. It’s not deep,’ he said.

  Every step down in the dark was agonising, each rung a vast gap in time and space. It was pitch black in the tunnel, not the slightest flicker of light. As she lowered herself, she felt she might slip and fall to her death. Her hands were wet with perspiration, thin strands of cobweb catching her face. Her left shin was throbbing painfully and she banged it again as she climbed down. She cried out.

  ‘Faster,’ he said. ‘Not much further now.’

  The smell of stale dust filled her nostrils as she went down another rung.

  ‘Hurry,’ said Renton, ‘or I will punish you.’

  Her right foot hit the ground, with a gritty echoing crunch. She had the sudden impulse to run. It was so dark that there might be a place to hide. If she ran, she might come across an alcove to squat in. If Renton missed her, he would never find her again in the dark.

  Yes, no. Yes, no. Go, stop. Her mind froze. She heard Renton’s feet on the concrete. There was a shuffling sound, followed by a rattle, then a metallic click and ping.

  She was dazzled by the light of a torch. When her eyes adjusted she could see Renton in outline as he lit her and the path ahead. Where was he taking her?

  62

  Smith was pacing up and down outside the lab, speaking rapidly into his phone. ‘I want the whole college cordoned off,’ he barked. He swung round. ‘If necessary, the whole university.’ He pivoted again. ‘The entire city.’ He walked past Stafford. ‘That’s correct … Yes … Yes.’ Pain and fury were etched on his face. ‘I feel such an idiot,’ he said, in Stafford’s direction.

  Stafford’s expression conveyed ‘Quite,’ but he said, ‘One cannot simply vanish into thin air.’

  Smith’s face screwed into a caricature of disgust.

  A sergeant i
n plain clothes ran up to them. ‘Power’s back on, Chief.’

  ‘Right,’ said Smith. ‘Let’s get to it.’ He added, to Stafford, ‘You stay back.’ He turned and began to jog for the lab entrance.

  Stafford sighed. Smith was doing both the right and the wrong thing. He should have remained behind to direct matters and would be criticised for not doing so, yet to wait was to condemn Kate. She had to be found fast or she would not be found at all.

  His phone rang. It was Jim again. If he told him what was going on he was sure to have yet more insanity and chaos on his hands. A thought struck him: perhaps Jim wasn’t all right. He answered the phone.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Having terrible trouble with my phone, what was that?’

  ‘What is going on? Are you OK?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Sorry, can’t hear a thing. Running out of batteries to boot. Will try to get back this evening.’ He hung up. No need to worry about Jim.

  More police were showing up, some in uniform, some not. Soon an incident centre would form, but unless Smith managed a rescue in minutes it would likely be to no avail. Instead Renton would be wanted for murder and Kate would be dead.

  He was imagining the dog’s mouth around Renton’s throat. If only he had issued the command. He had added another regret to the mountain.

  63

  Jim walked through the house, the smell of beeswax polish pervading the air. Something was wrong. He knew it. He had the ache in his gut that he got when he was caught in a losing trade. It told him something was draining away, like clean air turning lifeless in a stuffy room.

  Stafford would be here unless something was badly screwed. Whatever was happening, Jim couldn’t let it lie.

  He went into Stafford’s office, which was effectively the control room of their lives. Here, Stafford ran Jim’s empire, puny as it might be. Twenty billion dollars was a lot of money, but a trivial amount when placed in US treasuries at next to zero per cent interest, alongside another twenty trillion of American debt. He had tried to do some good but his money, like blood dripping into an ocean, had seemed only to attract predators.