THE THE BIG BEN MYSTERY
Fernando Trujillo
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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The Big ben mystery
Copyright © 2010 Fernando Trujillo
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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THE BIG BEN MYSTERY
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PROLOGUE
Only someone who is dead inside can take charge of the preparations for his own funeral without feeling even the slightest pang of nerves. Wilfred Gord threw the coffin catalogue as far as he could, barely a metre and a half, and lay back on the bed thoughtfully. He still hadn't discounted cremation. The idea that his body would rot in a box had yet to convince him.
According to most studies, seventy years was within the average life expectancy for men. However, this failed to console Wilfred. To tell the truth, nothing did.
His life had passed too quickly. He had achieved what others could only dream of, and very few get. He had built a financial empire with his own hands, starting from scratch, and become the powerful owner of a business conglomerate that encompassed every activity imaginable. There was no job that Wilfred's employees did not occupy. But despite the uncountable successes achieved during his life, and the incredible challenges that he had overcome, he was now completely defeated by a fearful enemy that would take his own life: cancer.
His mansion was one of the most distinguished in London, the city in which he had lived all his life and in which he was about to die.
"I couldn't get here any earlier," Ethan said, poking his head through the doorway.
The two formidable bodyguards that were always posted at the entrance stopped him for an instant, then, after verifying his identity, let him enter. Ethan threw them a sharp glance that would have been angrier under other circumstances. He approached the bed where Wilfred lay, and sat down beside him with the ease of a body that had yet to reach twenty years old. His smooth, unmarked face and his abundant mat of brown hair contrasted with the bald head and deeply lined face of the old man in front of him. They both had brown eyes: Ethan's shining with the intensity of youth, Wilfred's sunken and lifeless in their sockets.
"It doesn't seem to matter now," the old man said in a voice that was little more than a whisper, turning his head so he could look Ethan in the eyes, his expression of deep pain touching the young face beside him. "None of my doctors think I can live more than two or three months."
"They don't know what I know," Ethan said, taking Wilfred's thin hand in his. "There's still hope… I think I've found a way."
Wilfred's eyebrows lifted imperceptibly. "You said you couldn't reveal the secret," he murmured with difficulty.
"Remember the first thing I explained to you. There are rules. I can't tell anyone else. I've already risked too much. Think of the greatest danger you can imagine… I can assure you I am facing something a thousand times worse."
After a considerable effort, Wilfred lifted his left hand from under the sheet. The bodyguards, understanding the gesture, left their posts.
Wilfred still didn't know what to make of Ethan. Despite the undeniable proof of his identity, a sliver of doubt remained deep within. Neither his age, nor the foul cancer itself had affected his ability to reason, of that he was completely sure. And even in his wildest dreams he knew avoiding death was impossible. Still, he had nothing to lose in listening to Ethan's suggestion, even though there were many other things to attend to. Hope urged him to listen, to consider anything new, however absurd it might be.
Ethan waited until the door was closed before he turned back towards the old man.
"Well then, you must pay attention to the little that I can tell you," he said, lowering his voice. "It's possible that I can't see you again, so it's very important that you remember what I'm going to say. Can you do that?"
Wilfred was irritated by the thought that this insolent young man didn't realize that his memory still worked better than his. His frown was a good enough answer.
"Excellent," Ethan replied showing no sign of irritation. "The first thing is that never, under any circumstances, can you mention my name. It's simply better not to add unnecessary obstacles."
"Why can't I mention you?" Wilfred asked in a whisper.
"I can't tell you. If everything works out well you will know in time," the young man answered. "You have to trust me. Just follow my instructions and you will live a lot longer. More than you can imagine. What have you got to lose?"
"In the little time left to me… nobody can cure me… maybe you have to accept that as well."
"Damn! Isn't it enough for you to know who I am? You have to believe me. I'm doing all this for you. If my identity isn't enough to convince you that it's possible, I don't know anything else that will."
A look of desperation covered Ethan's face and he frowned until his eyes hurt and a tear ran down his cheek.
The memory of the time when Ethan had revealed who he was cut through Wilfred with the speed of a lightning bolt. He had never before had the sensation of having talked with a true madman. Ethan's story had been so strange that only a mind completely detached from reality could have come up with anything like it. In spite of everything, the details had fit into the puzzle one after the other with disconcerting ease. Wilfred had demanded a DNA test and anything else that he could think of to confirm that the whole thing wasn't a horrible joke. But in the end, his doubt waned and he was forced to accept the accuracy of the test results.
"I believe you," Wilfred mused. "Go ahead and tell me. I won't forget it and I will do what you tell me to."
"Do it, please, it's your only chance," Ethan said opening his eyes again and looking at the old man. "I'm risking much more than my life in helping you."
"More than your life? What are you talking about?"
"Don't worry about that. Just remember this name: Aidan Zack. He's a detective. You have to meet him."
"A detective can cure me?"
"No, but it's part of the solution, although he doesn't know it yet. He doesn't even suspect what's coming."
"What do I say when I meet him?"
"I can't reveal that now without breaking the rules. As strange as it may seem to you, and in spite of everything that is going to happen from now on, don't forget there are rules, and that sooner or later you will learn them. Everything follows a certain logic and everything has its conseque
nces. Don't forget that."
"OK," the old man said, without sounding very convinced or even as if he understood what he had to do. "I will find this Aidan. Then, I'm afraid, I will have to improvise."
"I have to go," Ethan said, getting up abruptly and leaning over the old man, moving the bed slightly as he did. "I wish I could tell you more. I hope you will understand what this is all about before it's too late." The young man kissed Wilfred's bald head tenderly, as his hand stroked the old wrinkled skin of his face. "Look after yourself, my son. I'm always with you."
Ethan turned away to hide the pain that suddenly filled his heart, leaving the room quickly to avoid collapsing right there and then.
"Goodbye, father. I'll find that detective," Wilfred called after the young man disappearing through the door, his whole body shaking with the thought that nothing could help him get used to the fact that his father was fifty years younger than him.
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CHAPTER 1
With a threatening roar, flames leapt across the intersection of two of the principal traffic arteries of London. A tongue of fire surged out of the centre of the conflagration and enveloped several parked cars, setting off a chain of explosions that spread the fire further. The intense heat prevented anyone getting close to the scene of the accident, while further back a crowd formed at a safe distance, nervously watching the column of black smoke that swirled into the sky, where only moments before the traffic had been flowing normally.
Some pedestrians helped others who had been knocked onto the pavement by the force of the huge explosion, pulling them out of danger and looking back to see if they could help anyone else. The ground was covered with broken glass, and the smoke made breathing difficult.
"What happened here?" a tall, thin man covering his face with his arm asked. "Is anyone injured?"
"I don't know," a woman in the crowd answered. "It'd be impossible to survive this fire. It seems that a petrol tanker speeding down the street lost control in the chaos and crashed into a bus coming the other way."
From behind the poor shield that his hands offered against the burning temperatures around him, the tall man studied the fire through the space between his fingers. In the centre of the accident scene, a mass of unrecognizable metal jutted out of the flames. The man couldn't be sure what it was, but because of its size, imagined that it had been something bigger than a car. He turned his head away from the direction of the smoke, coughing violently.
"We have to get back," he said after a few seconds, "We're too close and that tanker must have been carrying petrol or something similar to cause a fire like this."
"Dear God!" a woman cried out. "There's someone alive."
To the crowd's astonishment, a portion of the fire in human form separated from the mass of flames and, after a couple of paces, stumbled. The poor soul waved his arms desperately and finally fell to the ground, dead. Someone made an effort to get close to him, but the searing heat forced him back.
After a few moments, police sirens could be heard. The squad cars quickly cordoned the area off, before the first fire engine arrived. Firemen filed out, formed groups, and in studied coordination located a fire hydrant, connected their hoses, and began to fight the fire from behind oxygen masks.
At first the jets of water made little inroad into the fire, but after a few minutes, and with the help of another fire engine, whose crew was working from the other side of the street, the flames began to subside, until, a while later, in a giant smoking mass it came under control.
"Captain!" a fireman shouted from within the cloud of smoke, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask, "If I tell you this, you're not going to believe me. You've got to come and see this for yourself."
"This isn't the time for games, Jim," the captain shouted back from his distant vantage point. "Search for heat pockets and secure the zone. You two," he said, signalling two firemen at his side, "go and see what Jim is doing and lend him a hand. And tell him I'm in no mood for jokes."
The pair nodded and entered the smoke that was beginning to disperse slowly. Stew Walton frowned as he watched them walk off, then turned to give orders to the rest.
"Let me go!" yelled a voice that Stew didn't recognize. "I'm fine."
"It's for your own safety," he heard Jim say.
Stew looked in the direction of the voices and was stunned to see Jim emerging from the smoke with a short, fair-haired man. Not only was it incredible that someone had survived the fireball, but the survivor was dressed in an impeccable white suit. His silky blond hair was perfectly combed. His movements give no indication of where he'd just been. He wasn't limping or coughing, only his clear blue eyes shone with a light expression of uncertainty.
"Get back to work," Stew said to the confused firemen who were beginning to surround the stranger. The captain cleared his way to the man and had the sensation of wanting to touch him to verify that he was real and not a hallucination. "How's it possible that he's come out of this unscathed?" he asked the two men. Jim just shrugged his shoulders. The survivor studied him without saying a word. "Is there anyone else alive?"
"No one," Jim answered. "We've found at least thirty bodies, and maybe there are more."
"I don't know what happened," the strange, white-suited man said when he noted Stew staring at him. "I was sitting in the bus when I heard the sound of tyres screeching on the asphalt. I crashed against the seat in front and I think something hit my head. The next thing I remember is finding myself in this mass of smoke with this man here," he said, pointing to Jim.
"Is that all?" the captain said, taking his mask off now that they were a fair way from the flames. "I've been working as a fireman for twenty years, more than enough time to know that no one walks away from a fire like this, let alone looking like you do." Stew could not avoid lacing his words with anger. "This is unacceptable. I need a better explanation than the one you've just given me. Who are you?"
"My name is James White," the man answered, defensively. "And I can't see why I would want to hide anything. Now leave me in peace."
Astonished, Stew watched the survivor walk away, carrying the mystery of his miraculous survival with him.
"I want you to look at every damn piece of ash you find and give me an explanation of how this individual has left these flames without a scratch," he said to Jim as he rushed after James White. "I'm afraid you can't leave," he said when he reached him. "There are a lot of dead people back there, and until we clarify the cause of the accident I can't let you go. It's possible that later on you might be able to remember something that can help us. Besides, you'll have to spend some time in observation to make sure you haven't suffered any injury."
"But I'm fine," James White complained. "How could I be walking like I am if there was something wrong with me?"
"Although there are no obvious fractures or contusions, there could be other problems," Stew said, thinking that he didn't give a damn what they might find. The only thing that he had as clear as a bell in his head was that he was going to get to the bottom of the mystery of who this James White was. "You could be intoxicated from smoke inhalation, for example. Let the professionals do their work."
After much protesting, Stew managed to get the man on to a stretcher and into an ambulance. He took a note of the hospital they were going to and returned to what was left of the fire.
# # #
Unable to stop his lips twisting into a cynical smile, Aidan Zack entered the surgery.
"You're late," Doctor Shyla said dryly.
"I had a bad night," Aidan lied without worrying too much about whether Shyla believed him or not. It was his last session for the year and he wanted to keep it as short as possible. "Besides, the traffic didn't help."
"The only thing this shows is that you don't take therapy seriously, detective," Shyla said, watching Aidan sit down in the comfortable leather armchair that he detested so much. "Do you want to talk about the causes of your bad night or admit there's another excuse?"
Aidan relaxed a little seeing the doctor take a deep breath and move in her seat. It seemed she was going to get over her anger, and for once the implacable Shyla would let him do the same. Surely she was as sick of these confrontations as he was of this damn therapy. He leaned his six-foot-ten-inch frame back in the armchair and placed his hands on his knees.
"In the end," Shyla lamented, "I still haven't decided what recommendation I will put in my report. There are many things that still worry me. I'm given to understand that your superiors aren't too happy with you either."
"They're fools," Aidan snapped. He wasn't in any mood for a chat. He'd already argued this point in previous sessions and didn't see why it was necessary to cover his feelings up to someone who knew him so well. "Maybe some of them aren't too pleased, but they know I get the job done."
"It doesn't make any sense to beat around the bush," she said, looking him straight in the eyes. "They're going to release Bradley Kenton very soon. What do you think about that?"
"Absolutely nothing," Aidan replied without any emotion. "That happened a long time ago."
"You don't expect me to believe that, do you? I know you treat it as if it happened yesterday," Shyla said, watching Aidan cross his arms, returning her stare. "Very well. I know I can't prove that you've not got over it, your self-control has stopped you talking about this man unless you're forced to, but I don't have to be a psychologist to know that nobody gets over something like that without talking about it."
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