by CJ Carver
He caught Lucy by surprise because the next thing he yelled was, ‘GO!’
She responded a heartbeat too slow because he was already lunging for Jasmine, both arms wide, encompassing her in a giant bear hug.
Jasmine was shouting as she struggled to break free, but Christopher was silent as he hugged her.
Lucy staggered forward. Dodged past them. Pushed open the door. Ran across the hallway and down the corridor, ankle scorching. She battled a wave of dizziness as she lurched through reception. Nausea roiled through her. And then she was outside and stumbling for Grace’s car, fumbling for the keys, but her legs were trembling, her vision wavering.
You’re nearly there. Don’t stop.
She beeped open the Golf. Only ten yards to go.
She heard footsteps behind her and glanced over her shoulder.
Jasmine was coming for her, hard and low. Her face was split in a snarl. She held the syringe at her side as she ran.
Dan’s voice in Lucy’s mind: Approximately one gram is sufficient to cause death . . .
Lucy put every ounce of effort into her run, but she was weak after her incarceration, her body exhausted, her damaged ankle and bleeding shoulder slowing her even further. Jasmine was catching up.
The car came from nowhere. Engine roaring, it squealed around the corner and accelerated hard.
Lucy turned her head.
She saw a grey sedan going flat out. Headed straight for Jasmine. She saw Jasmine try to dodge away but she was too late. The car hit her without slowing. Lucy heard the soft thud of flesh against metal.
Jasmine’s body tumbled over the sedan’s bonnet, smacked into the windscreen and slid away, slamming on to the asphalt.
The car shrieked to a halt.
A man leaped out and ran to Jasmine. Stamped on her hand. Kicked the syringe aside. Kicked it again and again, until it was beneath the car and out of reach.
Then he turned to her.
Broad shoulders. Curly brown hair. Mismatched grey eyes.
Mac. Her DI was here.
Faris.
Lucy’s legs gave way. She folded to the ground.
Mac pelted for her. Skidded to her side.
She looked into his eyes. She wanted to say, ‘I love you,’ not because he’d saved her life but because she’d promised it would be the first thing she’d say to him if she got out of the hole alive, but her lips wouldn’t work properly.
She tried to speak but whether she said anything she never knew because a violet cloud started to close in on her vision and as it grew darker and darker, bright bolts of white lightning sparked through and it was so beautiful she reached out a hand, wanting to touch them and when she did, she was surprised at how warm they were.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Three days later (Sunday)
Lucy lay curled on the sofa in Grace and Ross’s kitchen, reading the newspapers. It was chucking rain outside but with the Aga and log fire blazing, the cold and darkness of the stone hole where Bao Zhi had thrown her felt a million miles away. Grace was at the surgery, Ross was insulating the roof of one of the cottages.
She’d been discharged from hospital on Friday. They’d given her twenty-five stitches across her shoulder and told her she was lucky the knife hadn’t lacerated any tendons or done any lasting damage. They’d washed and bathed her. Put antiseptic cream on her hands and arnica on her bruises. She hadn’t cared she was in a busy, noisy ward. It made her feel safe. She spent most of her time dozing in between meals and hospital visits.
Mac had come to see her several times. Grace and Ross too. And Dan. He’d been with her for ages. After he left, she slept solidly for two hours, exhausted not just with talking, but from all the revelations in Germany and how they tied into Connor’s death in Scotland.
Four university friends, and now there were two: Gordon and Arne. Arne was in police custody along with Anneke, as was Gordon Baird. Gordon had been devastated when he had learned how his son and grandson had died. Gordon had, albeit unwittingly, orchestrated both their deaths. Poetic justice for all those innocents he’d played God with, Lucy decided, not feeling much sympathy.
Jasmine had suffered two broken legs, a broken pelvis and a fractured collarbone. Her wrists were both fractured and she’d sustained a brain injury when her head had hit the ground. She was in the same hospital but under guard. Lucy had no intention of visiting her.
Bao Zhi was dead, his head caved in by the computer monitor Christopher had smashed against his skull. Christopher had died saving Lucy. He’d taken most of the syringe of phenol and when Mac got to him, he was no longer breathing. His heart had stopped. Lucy wasn’t sure how she felt about Christopher. It was because of him that all this had started. Or should Gordon take the blame? After all, it had been Gordon who’d told Christopher all about what he and his fellow colleagues at Porton Down had been working on all those years ago.
Gordon hadn’t wanted Snowbank to be forgotten, at least that’s what he said, ‘I just wanted Christopher to know there was a whole project to draw on if he wanted to look at the subject of ageing, to help people in the future.’
Christopher, however, had seen his chance to make a fortune.
‘You just want the money. To buy the Glenallen Estate back,’ Jasmine had said.
Christopher’s hunger for the past, to walk his childhood moors and fish the same rivers, had in effect, killed his son.
Lucy flipped the page on her tablet. More comment on Project Snowbank. It had certainly fired up the public imagination. Some advocated it, others abhorred it. Everybody had a view. It made for some interesting reading. Rain rattled against the windows. Her neck and shoulder ached. She was still very tired. Her eyes began to close.
The next thing she knew, Mac was there, droplets of rain in his hair and on his coat.
‘Hello, sleeping beauty.’ He was smiling and looked as handsome as hell.
‘I’m not sure about the beauty bit.’ Her face was a mess, her nose still swollen, the skin around her eyes coloured green, purple and blue.
‘Shame Halloween’s not for a bit.’ His smile broadened. ‘You wouldn’t need to dress up.’
‘Thanks a bunch.’
He took off his coat, hung it over the back of an armchair. Came over and to her surprise said, ‘Budge up.’
She raised her legs to make room. He sat down with a sigh. She was going to curl her legs beneath her but he caught them and gently hooked them across his lap. Stroked her calves then her instep. He looked into the flames of the log fire, seemingly content.
Heat flushed her skin. A combination of nervousness and discomfort. Had she missed something? She knew she’d promised to declare her feelings for him if she got out of the hole, but since her release all they’d talked about was the case. And the more they’d talked about Murray Peterson, Jasmine and Bao Zhi, the more she realised she didn’t have the guts to say anything.
He was her DI. Full stop.
She had to respect that.
‘Er . . .’ She suddenly felt exquisitely embarrassed. ‘Boss?’
He quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘Something wrong?’
‘You’re, ah . . . being quite intimate.’
He looked surprised. ‘Am I?’
‘Well, yes.’ But she didn’t move. It felt so good to feel his thighs beneath her calves, his hands on her legs, her feet; she felt as though she could stay like this for ever.
‘Don’t you remember what you said to me?’ He was frowning.
She stared at him. ‘When?’
‘After I hit Jasmine Zhang with my car, I ran to you and you reached up and touched my face and told me . . .’
He looked at her expectantly.
Her cheeks flamed red. ‘I didn’t know I said anything.’
‘Oh, but you did.’ He quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘Do you fancy saying it again, maybe? I’d quite like to hear it a second time.’
You can do it, she told herself. You promised yourself, remember?
She licked her lips. Looked into his eyes. Took a breath.
‘I love you.’
‘Well, DC Davies.’ He held her gaze solemnly. ‘That’s good to know because as it happens, I love you too.’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Grace hooked her arm under Ross’s and walked with him across the car park to the crematorium where Christopher’s funeral ceremony was to be held. Lucy and Mac were just ahead. They were holding hands. Grace wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen Lucy so happy, and Mac obviously adored her, which was a relief. She couldn’t have borne it if her friend had given her heart to someone who didn’t give theirs back.
They passed a couple of police officers at the door, another two inside. They’d had to show their IDs to more officers at the crematorium gate thanks to the hordes of media that had descended on the area. Grace had reluctantly sold her story to one of the national newspapers, but only because by signing up to an exclusive it meant that other outlets would leave her alone.
Project Snowbank was on the front page of every newspaper, headlined on radio and TV. They’d had French, American and German journalists in Duncaid as well as Chinese, and even someone from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region had turned up. The effects of Project Snowbank were of global interest, and there was constant debate over the ethics of it, the moralities and principles of such a scheme, which was keeping just about every journalist in the world occupied.
Gordon Baird had been devastated and delighted.
Devastated that his past had caught up to cause his son and grandson’s deaths, but delighted that the project was finally getting the attention and dialogue it deserved.
Grace had gone to see him in prison where he was awaiting trial.
He’d been surprised to see her, but pleased too.
‘You’re not taking the job in Edinburgh then?’
She’d surveyed him at length. ‘You wanted me out of the way, didn’t you?’
He raised his hands as if to say, what choice did I have?
‘You flattered and manipulated me.’ Her voice was flat.
‘Hardly,’ he snorted. ‘You’re a top GP and that’s the honest truth. But yes, you’re right in that you were making me slightly nervous with all those autopsy requests. You knew something was up.’ He nodded in approbation.
‘And Brice Kendrick?’
‘He didn’t want the stigma of Snowbank on him or the family. Nobody did.’ His expression distant. ‘If Christopher hadn’t missed Glenallen quite so much, then none of us would be here.’
‘Did you know he was selling Snowbank?’ Grace asked curiously.
He looked shocked. ‘Absolutely not. And if I had known, I would have put a stop to it. It’s not for sale. It was a government project don’t forget. It was designed for the people.’
‘What about Peter Kendrick? The funeral director?’
‘He always was a greedy little man. I’ve heard through my solicitor that Jasmine bribed him to supply her with corpses so she and Bao Zhi could conduct post-mortems. See exactly how Snowbank had worked.’
‘So the coffin’s buried were—’
‘Empty, yes.’
Forensics had already found trace evidence of body fluids, hair and fibres in the Green Test Lab – Jasmine and Bao Zhi’s secret research centre for the Kou Shaiming Company.
Grace couldn’t think of any other questions so she’d looked at him squarely.
She despised him, loathed him for what he’d done to all those people, her patients.
‘Hey,’ he said, his hands were rising in protest but she let the full force of her disgust for him show before she rose and walked out of the room without looking back.
*
A low rumble came from above and a smatter of raindrops fell. Ross flipped open the umbrella he’d brought and sheltered them as the rain began to fall harder. Ahead, Mac snapped open his umbrella and did the same for him and Lucy.
‘All right, Gracie?’ Ross looked down at her, solicitous and loving.
‘Yes, thanks.’ She squeezed his arm.
She’d told Ross about Sirius and what Christopher had said about sharing the same birthmark, and he’d immediately suggested she ring Bernard Gilpin, the Director General of MI5.
‘He was a good friend of your mother’s for a long time,’ Ross reminded her. ‘If anyone knows whether Sirius is related to you or not, it would be him.’
It had been a strange phone call. The last time she’d seen Bernard had been ten days after her mother had died, when he’d explained a lot about her mother’s past. He’d sounded surprised to hear from her, but not unfriendly, and when she asked if it was possible she might be related to Sirius Thiele, he fell silent.
Grace didn’t say anything to prompt him. She sat in her country kitchen, skin prickling with nerves, waiting for him to say something.
‘Whatever makes you think that?’ he eventually asked.
When she described what had happened, how Sirius had treated her with an odd respect, Bernard said, ‘I don’t know anything about his past, I’m afraid. I don’t know where he came from, or who his parents are. Nobody does.’
‘Did you know my father?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
There was a small silence.
‘Without a DNA test,’ Bernard said, ‘you’ll never know if you’re related to him. Do you really want to undertake such a thing?’
‘No, not really.’
The realisation that she didn’t need to know if she was related to Sirius suddenly lifted the anxiety that had been dogging her, pressing her down into depression. If she was related to such a person, it wasn’t as though she could do anything about it. And if she wasn’t, well . . . she shared a birthmark with a trained assassin, a killer, that was all.
‘Then let’s leave it like that,’ Bernard told her.
‘Yes.’
Grace eased her clasp on Ross’s arm as they walked into the crematorium. She saw Sam and her mother in the front pew, little Dougie on Sam’s lap. Grace had prescribed a short-term sedative for Sam, to help her sleep as well as function for the funeral, but she’d advised not taking it for long or it might interfere with the ability to grieve. Both Sam and her mother were seeking counselling.
Several patients came up to greet them. Disa and Sorcha hugged her – both were now getting support for Sorcha’s Alzheimer’s. Iona Ainsley’s husband also came over. Lachlan, the paramedic, gave her a wave. Constable Murdoch nodded at her but he was still unable to hold her gaze. She may have done the right thing requesting all those autopsies but it didn’t mean he liked it.
Grace wasn’t sure whether they were there to pay their respects to Christopher or to get some sort of closure, but most of the village was there.
Gordon Baird had been told he couldn’t attend. He may have been Christopher’s father, but if he’d turned up, he probably would have been lynched.
Murderer.
The word had smoldered through Duncaid’s streets, swirling around its residents like a poisonous gas.
How the town was going to come to terms with Snowbank was anyone’s guess, but given how tough, strong and compassionate its inhabitants were, she reckoned they’d pull together to create some kind of new way of living.
Her heart bled for the descendants of the babies who’d been injected in Duncaid and Braunschweig all those years ago. Duncaid’s GP records showed that the practice nurse’s grandmother, Belinda McCreedy, had injected twenty babies with Gordon Baird’s experimental serum. Between them, those babies had eventually had thirty-two children, which made a total of fifty-two people who were going to die young thanks to Snowbank.
So far eighteen had died.
The remaining thirty-four, mostly in their teens and early twenties, were being counselled by psychotherapists, psychiatrists and every mental health expert in between.
There was talk of government compensation. Insurances were cancelled. Scientists were working frantically to find a way of hal
ting the ageing process, keep everyone’s telomeres long. But nobody was holding out any immediate hope, least of all her friend Ben at Barts.
‘I’m so sorry, Grace,’ he’d said. ‘It’s awful.’
‘You’ll get your Society membership.’
‘Christ, I was only joking about that. Those poor people.’
Through it all, Grace talked to her patients. She visited them at home, walked with them, held them when they cried.
She confessed to Ross that she could now see how shallow she’d been by being tempted to work in Edinburgh.
‘And now?’ His eyes were keen on hers.
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to stay.’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Dan sat with Gustav and Sophie inside the crematorium, watching Christopher’s coffin being brought inside. He’d been asked by Sam to carry the coffin and although he’d been honoured by the request, he’d had to decline. He didn’t say why, just told her he’d explain later.
He opened the Order of Ceremony. Saw one of the hymns was ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, which had been their favourite as kids. Dan hadn’t appreciated nature before he’d been introduced to the Bairds. He’d been a city boy, with no real understanding of animals and birds or the cycles they lived. How salmon out at sea returned to the river of their birth to spawn. How stags and hinds lived in separate herds for most of the year. He could understand Christopher’s passion for the land and how his soul felt as though it atrophied living on the edge of what he believed was his and being unable to set foot upon a single square inch of its moss, a single stem of grass.
His friend had made a catastrophic error trying to sell Snowbank to a Chinese pharma company. He’d been blinded by what he wanted to hear – that the Kou Shaiming Company was going to do nothing but good with the science – against the reality of a highly competitive business in a morally unscrupulous country.
Christopher had died to protect Lucy. But he’d also died to atone.
Sophie reached across and put her hand over his. Gave it a squeeze. He squeezed back. For the first time since his son Luke had died, he felt like crying.
