by CJ Carver
Lucy splashed her way around the Green Test Lab, trying to peer inside, but all the blinds were drawn. Her jacket pattered with raindrops and she was glad she was wearing her waterproof boots otherwise the leather would be soaked through by now.
Around the back were four industrial-sized waste bins chained together and locked to a steel bar. Two had double lids and were plastered with yellow hazard notices. Her eyes went to the security cameras secured on each corner of the building, then to the double lock doors and windows: what are they trying to hide?
Using her phone, she went to the Companies House website to see that Green Test Lab, a private limited company, had been dissolved on the thirteenth of July the previous year. Its last annual return had been made up to the twentieth of February the year before that. Nature of business: soil research. She made a note of the registered office address, in London N14. Was it still in use?
She walked around the rest of the trading estate, deathly quiet on a sopping wet Saturday except for an auto-electrical workshop.
‘Sorry,’ the electrician told her. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen anyone I could recognise as working at Green Test Lab. That goes for half the places here, really. Unlike some trading estates, we don’t have a snack van, which makes it harder to get to know one another.’
‘How about Biofoods?’
‘Oh, you mean Christopher? Sure, we know him. Awful what happened to his kid.’ He shook his head. ‘Nice lad, that. Damn shame.’
‘When did you last see Connor?’
Luckily the electrician didn’t seem to find her question odd and said, ‘Not in ages.’ He glanced to the sky as he thought. ‘Probably in town last month sometime. On his bike. Went everywhere on that thing.’
‘Did you ever see him here?’
He shook his head. ‘Not exactly the place for kids, is it?’ he said, looking pointedly around at the rows of industrial-style buildings and aluminium roller doors.
‘Some kids might like the fact it’s quiet.’
He pulled a face. ‘You mean drinking and taking drugs? Never seen that around here. They tend to go to the other side of the park, under the bridge by the river. It’s out of sight and if it’s raining they get a bit of shelter.’
He was opening his mouth again and the expression on his face told her he was about to ask why all the questions? so she said goodbye cheerily and walked away.
After skirting a handful more business units, which included a clock repairer and a funeral director’s – THE ULTIMATE FUNERAL PROFESSIONALS – she came to a stand-alone building. Biofoods. Here all the blinds were wide open. Talk about a contrast to Green Test Lab. Even though she’d already peeked through the windows yesterday, she had another look. A couple of offices, both utilitarian. A storage area, half-filled with large white plastic sacks with VERM MEDIUM stamped on their sides.
As she moved to the other side of the building, she saw a battered old Renault arrive. A young guy in his early twenties hopped out, gave her a wave. Gangly, brown hair tied back in a ponytail, jeans and hoody, which he pulled over his head in an attempt to keep the rain off. He was jingling keys as he approached, his face open and friendly.
‘Hi,’ he greeted her.
‘Hi.’
‘Can I help you?’
‘You work here?’
‘Yep. I’m on watering duty. My official title is “laboratory assistant” but rather than give me anything interesting to do, I’m charged with making everyone tea, running errands and watering a shed-load of plants.’ There was no resentment in his tone and his manner was jovial.
‘I’m Lucy.’ She stuck out her hand. He gave it a shake.
‘Tim.’
‘I’m a friend of Christopher Baird’s,’ she told him. ‘I’m helping him to try and find out what happened to his son, Connor.’
At that, Tim’s face sobered. ‘Awful. I never met Connor – I come from Elgin – but what a shock.’
‘Would you mind if I asked you some questions? Maybe out of this weather?’ She glanced ruefully up to the sky. The rain was now falling heavily and her jeans were getting wet.
‘Sure.’
She followed him to the lab door. Watched him unlock it and step inside to the sound of a beeping security system. He flicked back his hoody and punched in a number, 5793, and she said, ‘You really should hide the code from someone standing right behind you.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘And now, you really should change the code so I can’t come back later and steal all your drugs.’
‘We don’t keep drugs here.’ He seemed indifferent.
‘Even so’ – the police officer in her wouldn’t let it go – ‘you wouldn’t want an anti-GM mob coming in here and trashing the lab would you?’
The dismay on his face was all she needed.
‘Change it,’ she told him.
‘Yes, yes,’ he agreed hastily. ‘I’ll get Jasmine to do it when she gets in. I’d do it but I don’t know how.’
The mat was sticky underfoot and as she glanced down he said, ‘It’s to pick up any seeds when we leave.’
They were in a small lobby lined with pictures of people wearing conical straw hats, knee-deep in vivid green rice paddies. On the back of the door was a life-sized poster of a cute looking baby being fed from an overflowing bowl of rice.
Lucy pointed at the poster. ‘Jasmine told me about Christopher’s strong rice.’
A flash of excitement crossed his face. ‘You want a look at the chamber?’
She had no idea what he was referring to but she said, ‘I’d love to.’
She followed him down a corridor to a door in which was placed a small window. As she peered inside, her eyes widened. She’d never seen anything like it. Endless rows of perfectly spaced grasses. Some were short and vivid green, others tall and wispy, the colour of straw. There were chunky grasses, stubby grasses, elegant fronds and broad leaf blades. As she marvelled, she realised a lot of them had seeds. Some were tiny, almost microscopic, but others were thick and oval, and belatedly she realised she was looking at rice. Lots and lots of different varieties of rice.
‘It’s incredible,’ she said.
‘Incredible all right, it’s like walking into a tropical rainforest.’
Everything was labelled. Every pot had a number, along with each bench. There were arrows as well as more numbers marked on the heavy plastic surrounding each container.
‘How long have you worked here?’
‘I’ve only been here for the summer,’ he told her. ‘It’s just a holiday job. I go back to uni next week. Jasmine wants me to stay on but I can’t. It was Jasmine who told me about Connor. Jesus.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘I can’t believe he was murdered.’
‘Jasmine said she works here most Saturdays. Is she due here today?’
‘Yeah.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Any time now. She says she likes a bit of a lie-in in the morning, but she works late sometimes. She says it’s nice and quiet without anyone else clattering around.’
‘Do you know the Green Test Lab?’
‘Who?’
‘They’re the next building next door.’
‘Sorry.’
‘They’ve got some quite serious security.’
‘They’ll have stuff worth stealing, then.’
‘Like what?’
He gave a shrug and when she realised he assumed she knew what he meant, she said, ‘Seriously, give me an example. I’m really interested.’
‘Oh.’ His expression cleared. ‘Well, at the lab I worked in last year, we caught a meth head trying to steal an ammonia tank. Umm . . .’ He thought further. ‘We used to lock up the disposable syringes because the janitors were notorious for nicking them. Jesus, can you imagine shooting up with an 18G needle?’ He gave a theatrical shudder. ‘I also knew someone who lifted a ton of stuff from his grad school lab to manufacture meth in his basement. He had an entire lab’s worth of Roundbottoms and Erlenmeyers, some brand new bottles of solvent and e
ven a vacuum pump.’
‘What if a thief wasn’t interested in making meth? What else might someone want to steal?’
‘Well, hexanes make great fuel. Vermiculite’s pretty useful . . .’
He paused when Lucy held up a hand. ‘Sorry, neither name means anything to me.’
‘OK. Hexanes are significant constituents of petrol. Vermiculite’s used as a moisture-retentive medium for growing plants. We have loads of it here.’
‘What about phenol?’
He blinked. ‘You mean benzene?’
‘Is it the same thing?’
‘Phenol’s also known as carbolic acid, if that helps.’
Not much, she thought.
‘Would any laboratory have phenol around?’ she asked. He obviously didn’t know that Connor had been killed with a dose of phenol.
‘I can’t say,’ he told her. ‘But any tame chemist can make phenol. It’s easy.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Dan drove down the M4 filled with energy, his fingertips tingling. Jenny was right. He would have gone crazy if he’d been forced to stay at home, infuriated at not being part of the investigation and, potentially, not finding any answers.
Germany was an hour ahead of the UK, making it 10 a.m. He called DSI Didrika Weber.
‘I’m flying over today. Can we meet, perhaps tomorrow?’ Then he remembered it was the weekend and hastily added, ‘It’s Sunday, will that matter?’
‘Not at all. You will be staying in Isterberg?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perfect.’ She sounded pleased. ‘I shall collect you from your hotel. Please text me the details in due course.’
He’d planned on booking his hotel as well as an open return flight to Hanover under his own name – keeping Michael Wilson’s passport as an emergency backup – but when he realised he had a watcher on him, he decided to use Michael Wilson’s passport instead of his own. Whoever was behind the watchers were obviously part of the security services. If they’d been agitated enough to use Sirius to warn him off, then his guess would be that they’d have his passport flagged at all ports.
Whether they knew about Michael Wilson’s passport was a different matter, but he was hoping they didn’t and by the time someone noticed he’d used it, he’d be back home. On balance, he thought using Wilson’s passport was worth the risk but more importantly, if he got away with it, nobody would know he’d been overseas. And with Sirius around, that had to be a good thing.
Now all he had to do was to get to Heathrow without being seen.
Earlier, he’d rung his boss, Philip Denton, to ask for his help. In case his phone was tapped, he’d taken the precaution of using the public phone box in the village. He kept waiting for it to be taken out of service, but it was still operating, albeit for credit cards only, and was a godsend today.
‘I won’t ask why,’ said Philip when Dan made his request, ‘but you will tell me when I next see you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I will leave the key in the usual place.’
‘I’ll owe you.’
‘Oh you will, Dan.’ Philip’s voice sounded pleased. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t forget.’
As far as Dan could tell, when he arrived in Mayfair he had one watcher following him – the man who’d crewed with Joanna Loxton to follow him in Weston-super-Mare – but when he left Mayfair, however, Dan was in Philip’s Jaguar having lost that watcher. He had to cross his fingers the simple car swap had done the trick.
Dan queued at the airline desk, trying not to imagine what would happen if Michael Wilson’s passport was flagged up on the system. Even though he’d booked his flight late, he knew the API – Advance Passenger Information – would have been cross-checked on a database, and if the airline agent saw an alert against Wilson’s passport, they’d signal the authorities.
He pictured Aimee as he last saw her, building a blanket fort in the sitting room. Jenny had looked slightly weary at having the sitting room requisitioned, along with clothes pegs and sheets, but you couldn’t fault the idea as Aimee was one hundred per cent occupied stocking her new home with a sleeping bag, torch, apple juice and crisps.
‘When’s the housewarming?’ he’d asked.
‘Now.’
She’d created a front entrance using a cardboard box as a tunnel, but it was too small for Dan and he’d lain flat on the floor with just his head inside instead, which had made them both laugh.
‘Sir?’
Dan heard the airline agent’s voice and roused himself in a nicely relaxed fashion, handing over his passport, saying, ‘’afternoon.’
The agent gave a nod. He opened Wilson’s passport at the page with Dan’s photograph and slotted it into a scanner, withdrew it. Was it his imagination or had a tension fallen over the man? He watched as he tapped on a keyboard out of sight. He didn’t return Dan’s passport.
Dan waited.
At the next desk, a passenger who had arrived at the same time as Dan was waved towards the departure gate.
Dan kept his breathing level but he could feel his skin starting to warm.
‘Business or pleasure, sir?’ the agent asked.
‘Pleasure. I’m visiting an old friend.’
More taps on the keyboard.
Next to him, Dan watched another passenger being processed.
‘Is something wrong?’ Dan asked.
‘Sorry, sir. My system’s slow, that’s all.’
He didn’t believe him. Something was up. There was nothing he could do, however, except wait and try and think calm thoughts and not picture himself being thrown into a tiny windowless room for hours before being interrogated by an officer with hunched shoulders and bags under his eyes from a decade of shift work.
Dan had already visualised three scenarios on how to deal with being arrested when, to his surprise, the agent returned his passport. ‘Apologies for the delay, sir.’
‘No problem.’
Dan didn’t realise how tense he’d become until he was sitting on the plane. He wasn’t shaking but he was jumpy, his nerves feeling as though they were on the outside of his skin.
Was he under surveillance?
Dan spent the flight reviewing everything he knew, which wasn’t much. All that was certain was that someone in the establishment didn’t want him digging into his father’s death. Why? Was it something to do with Project Snowbank? He still hadn’t found any mention of it anywhere and knew he’d have to speak to Rafe again. And what about Connor? Why in the world would someone want to murder a thirteen-year-old boy? He’d spoken to Lucy earlier and neither of them had managed to come to any conclusions. The tracking device in Christopher’s car continued to worry them both, but as Lucy had said, there was no point in calling her off until the job was finished. She was nothing if not determined.
‘I’ll owe you,’ he’d told her, repeating the same words he’d spoken to Philip earlier.
‘Yup,’ she agreed. ‘When I find myself banged up in some Turkish jail I’ll call you directly, don’t worry.’
*
To his relief, the immigration officer at Hanover gave his passport a cursory glance, waving him through without fuss. Dan zipped through arrivals to find Arne waiting. Dan’s heart hollowed. When he’d last seen his dad’s old friend, his skin may have been speckled with age but his eyes had been bright behind his spectacles and gleaming with intelligence. Now he’d shrunk, his wrinkles deepened into canyons of grief. The light had gone out of his eyes. For the first time, he looked every one of his eighty years.
‘It is good to see you again,’ Arne told him. ‘But I am so sorry it is in such circumstances.’
Dan embraced him. For all the solidity of Arne’s frame, Dan couldn’t shake the feeling the old man felt fragile.
‘Who would do such a thing?’ Arne raised rheumy eyes to his. ‘What do you know, Dan? What tipped you off to make you ask for a post-mortem? Did Bill tell you something?’
Dan warred against revealing his father’s
letter. Even to friends, he hated giving away information. ‘He mentioned something,’ he admitted. ‘But it wasn’t anything concrete. Just that he was concerned for his safety.’
‘I see,’ Arne said. ‘Let us go to the car. We can talk on the way.’
Arne’s car was a Mercedes S-Class Saloon, top of the range and with a price tag to match. It felt effortlessly fast and smooth once on the road, but Dan couldn’t say the same for Arne’s driving, which was overly fast and erratic.
‘Are you sure you won’t stay with us? Anneke would really like it.’
‘I’d love to,’ Dan lied. ‘But I have other business in Isterberg.’ Until he knew what was going on, he didn’t want to involve his father’s friends and had booked himself into a hotel in the centre of town.
‘You’ll come now for some refreshment? Afterwards, I can drive you to your hotel.’
‘That would be nice. Thank you.’
They made it to Isterberg in just over half an hour. Dan peered through the windscreen to see a picture-postcard pretty old town with ancient timber-frame houses leaning over cobbled streets. He immediately thought of the fairy tale Hänsel and Gretel.
‘It is beautiful, yes?’ Arne asked, swinging down a street empty of pedestrians.
‘Jenny would like it,’ Dan replied.
‘She and Aimee should come and visit. We could take you walking in the Harz Mountains. Now, they are really beautiful.’
He eventually pulled up outside the last house on the road out of town and overlooking a small river. At first glance Arne’s house looked like any other fifteenth-century building except, Arne told him, its timber frames were false and every brick brand new.
In the distance were some other dwellings. Dan stared. He couldn’t think of a starker contrast to Isterberg’s historic charm. Instead of ancient, warm coloured houses, stood blocks of stained concrete. An old fortress, Dan guessed. A watchtower loomed between the two settlements; a sharp reminder that Germany used to be divided.
‘A lot of people wanted to destroy it,’ Arne told him when he saw Dan gazing at the fortifications. ‘But Anneke and I campaigned to keep it. It is where we used to live, you see. It is now a museum. I think it is a good thing, not to forget.’
