Leo had been thrust into a freedom she didn’t quite know how to use after almost eighteen years of family habit. Like an addiction, she sometimes felt, so hard did it all-too-often seem to live a life without ties. The time she had once so avidly longed for now cascaded over her with drowning intensity. It was the little things. Sometimes she walked automatically into the supermarket or the laundry, certain that a task demanded performing, only to remember that there was no need. She would fill the fridge with food which rotted away uneaten. Or she would leap up from her desk at four o’clock and start to concoct a milkshake, only to find that it was hers alone to drink.
She had spent more time in galleries and museums and concerts this last year than she had in the entirety of her life. Luckily she had her work. That sustained her.
Time was one of the matters she had hoped to probe with Isabel. Too much of it, not too little. How did one construct a new internal clock appropriate to a life alone?
She guessed that one of Isabel’s blithe answers would have been, ‘You don’t have to be alone, you gorgeous creature. Make the most of it.’
A lover, Leo sensed, would have been only the beginning.
4
Beneath its glazed dome, Paddington Station was a morning inferno. Drills bored through concrete, sending sparks flying over sheeted scaffolding. Trains screeched and juddered as they pulled in or away. Smoke flew. A gruff male voice droned from loud-speakers chanting a litany of strangely incomprehensible destinations. Pigeons scuttled underfoot, pecking at litter. Trolleys clattered amidst the crowd. Backpackers and cyclists jostled with sprucely suited men and women. Helmeted builders in fluorescent yellow tore their way through the crowd. Digital clocks announced different times on each subsequent platform.
Sipping a cappuccino, Leo stood amidst a group who bore the appearance of star-gazers. Each and every face was turned expectantly towards the bank of computerized announcements. A number of trains had been delayed, amongst them her own and the massed ranks of impatient would-be passengers had grown with each passing minute.
At last she was able to board. She sank into the first window seat available and heaved a sigh of relief as the train lurched into motion. London’s suburbs stretched before her, grudgingly giving way to freshly green countryside. Cows looked up with consoling expressions, as if they were all too used to this gigantic worm wriggling through their landscape. Young colts, on legs so spindly-new they must have been surprised at their own motion, bolted towards indifferent mothers. Sheep dotted fields magnificent with unfurling trees.
While the train crawled, Leo sketched, her hand racing across her pad to make up for its lack of speed. Years had passed since she had last focused on landscape. She had forgotten how to see, how branches drooped or soared, how they meshed and fluttered in the breeze; had forgotten the intricate fluff of clouds, the gathering shadow at their centre.
Oxford arrived before she was quite ready for it. It wasn’t a city she knew, but she didn’t pause to take in its beauties. She was now in a hurry. When her turn came in the taxi queue, the driver refused to take her. She had no better luck with the second. The third agreed with a shrug and a murmur of ‘OK then, it’s a nice day’, but pointed out that if she was planning to taxi back into town, it would probably be cheaper for her to rent a car.
‘I’d never find my way,’ Leo replied.
She only realized the full truth of this as they crept through a tangled one-way system, sped along for some twenty miles, and then began a slow trek along winding single-track roads. Nestled round their stone churches, these Cotswold villages had an ancient peace about them, as if they had sprung from the earth without the intervention of man. Yet intervention was precisely the name of the game with the enterprise which was her destination.
She had expected an ultra-modern science park. Instead, when the driver announced, ‘We’re here’, she could see only a curving stretch of old wall in honey-grey stone overarched by generous beeches and chestnuts. On the other side of the road a steep bank gave way to a stream. And then there was nothing but hills and sheep-dotted fields.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded, turning into a gap in the wall. A paved drive, flanked by well-tended grounds, gradually led them towards a small parking lot. To its side, stood a building which had all the high-windowed grace of a Jacobean manor. An interesting form of camouflage, Leo reflected. She walked slowly towards the front of the building. She had ten minutes to spare, but maybe, just maybe, Isabel too would have arrived early. She offered a silent prayer to some goddess of good fortune and looked around. Through a momentary gap in a flank of trees, a ray of sun rebounded from steel and glass. Greenhouses. So she was at the right place. A discreet plaque at the side of the polished double doors confirmed it. Origen Plc, it whispered.
She waited. High up, tucked into the centre of the portico, she noticed the roving eye of a security camera. Better to go in. There was no point in attracting suspicion. But getting in was not so easy. The doors didn’t give. One had to announce oneself to the videophone.
‘I’m here to see Mr. Beasley.’ Leo said, mustering authority, her voice too loud in what felt like an artificial silence.
The door eased open with the slightest burr of sound.
Leo’s eyes flitted round a spacious hall converted into a reception room. She urged Isabel’s form to emerge from one of the two leather chesterfields positioned round a glass coffee table. She wanted to throw her arms around her, hug her close. The fax that had arrived at five o’clock the previous afternoon had convinced her that Isabel would be here. It cancelled an 11 o’clock meeting she had today with Roland Beasley, chief executive of Origin. But Isabel wasn’t home to receive the fax, so would turn up at Origen at the appointed time. She would. Leo was sure of it. Exactly a week had passed since she had failed to arrive in New York. The desparate logic of wish and superstition fuelled Leo’s certainty.
‘How can I help you?’ A stern voice beckoned Leo to the far corner of the room.
Leo turned to see a grey-haired woman with the chiselled features of an old-fashioned headmistress. She was poised behind an ultra-modern U of a desk.
‘I’m meeting Iris Morgenstern here,’ Leo used the name to which the fax had been addressed. It was this which had alerted her to the clandestine nature of the meeting. She understood instantly that if none of the gene technology companies would see an Isabel who had a reputation as a journalist, then a pseudonym was in order. Isabel had invented one which didn’t jar with her e-mail address. What the ploy for the meeting was, Leo had no idea.
‘We’re seeing Dr. Beasley. Has she already gone through?’
‘No.’ The woman fixed her with a diminishing stare.
‘I’ll wait then, Mrs… Mrs… Runcorn,’ Leo read the badge pinned to a suit which might have been a uniform.
‘Your name?’
Leo gave it, watched her look down a list attached to a clipboard.
‘Your name isn’t listed here. Nor is anyone called Iris Morgenstern.’ She gave it a clipped Germanic pronunciation.
‘There must be a mistake,’ Leo insisted. ‘We definitely had a meeting with Roland Beasley. I’ve come all the way from London.’
A frown creased the woman’s face. She picked up her telephone and punched out a three-digit number. Leo could hear a female voice at the other end.
‘Let me speak to her,’ she demanded in a tone which might have come straight from an assertiveness-training program.
With a disgruntled air Mrs. Runcorn passed her the receiver and turned to her computer. Her back was stiff in disapproval.
‘I’m so sorry Miss Morgenstern. Dr. Beasley was called away last night.’ A breezy voice mistakenly addressed her as Isabel. ‘I faxed you myself. But don’t worry. The publicity post is still open. Dr. Beasley will arrange for a new meeting on his return.’
‘I see,’ Leo murmured, then grew bold. ‘Since I’ve made the trek, perhaps someone can show me round.’
‘Have you got any materials to give me?’
‘Materials? You must have received the documentation pack I sent.’
‘I didn’t. Nothing arrived. You do have my correct address?’
‘I believe so.’ She read it out to her. ‘And ask Mrs. Runcorn for a documentation pack. She should have one to hand. I’ll be in touch.’
Nothing, Leo thought as she stepped out into the crisp country air, made any sense. She walked towards her cab and then, with a quick glance behind her, altered her direction. A bank of snowy spirhea hid her from the front door. She edged towards the ranked trees through which she had earlier spied the roof of a green house. Another look over her shoulder and she was through the trees. She stopped short. A high perimeter fence blocked her way. It stretched from the back of the main house and as far as she could see in the opposite direction. Within its bounds, there was nothing of the prettiness of Jacobean house and tended grounds.
Some six large greenhouses dominated the landscape, beyond them the barren geometry of rigorously ploughed fields. On a path which led towards the rear of the manor house, she could see two men in floating white lab coats. They were walking away from her. She stepped closer to the fence. A slight hiss alerted her. She moved her hands abruptly to her side. The fence was electrified. Keeping her distance, she peered through lozenge shaped mesh into the nearest greenhouse. It looked deserted. Row upon row of plantlings she couldn’t identify sprouted from well-turned black earth. On impulse, she took her pad out of her bag and sketched their shapes, added the lay-out of greenhouses and grounds for good measure.
On the train back to London, she pondered her drawings together with the ultra glossy brochure she had been given. It extolled the marvels of the agriculture of the future, showed photographs of pristine laboratories which could have been involved in any kind of research, gave statistics on earth quality, pest resistance and potential yields of genetically modified species.
None of it brought her any closer to understanding what had become of Isabel. Why hadn’t she cancelled her appointment as Iris Morgenstern herself if she knew she was going to be away? In Savannah, by now. With Leo. And if she hadn’t intended to be away, why hadn’t she turned up for a meeting which was a gem of a lead for her investigations. Only brute force would have prevented her.
Leo held back the rush of tears. Too many of them these last days. Maybe she had grown new high speed ducts, as efficient as the lauded new pest free plants. She forced herself to concentrate. If Isabel had devised a pseudonym for her application to Origen, she could just as easily have used the same name elsewhere. If something had happened to her under that name, the police, after Leo’s report to them, would have been looking for the wrong person – an Isabel Morgan instead of an Iris Morgenstern.
Would Isabel ever forgive her if Leo blew her cover just when she might be onto something important? Leo had to consider that, as well as its alternative, which was that Isabel had stumbled into secrets and been caught. Judging by Origen, stray eyes were hardly welcome in such sites.
A tremor went through her and with it came dizziness. Jet-lag, she told herself. Her mind was fuzzy. Her lids felt heavy.
Rough wool brushed her arm. The seat beside her creaked a little. She looked up abruptly to see a man next to her, a large man with bulging eyes and speckled skin, like an outsize toad.
‘Ms Morgenstern, isn’t it?’ Thin lips curled.
Leo sat up straight.
‘No, of course. You don’t know me. Gerald Kripps. I saw you at Origen.’ He pointed to the document pack which was still on her lap.
‘Saw me?’ Leo edged closer to the window.
‘Yes.’ He made a vague gesture. To Leo it suggested a hundred unseen eyes tracking her without her knowledge.
‘You made some drawings. I’d love to see them.’ There was an edge beneath the casual friendliness of his tone. Leo pretended not to notice.
‘Surely you have me confused with someone else. I never draw.’
‘Oh? You’ve applied for the PR post?’
‘I have.’
‘Funny. You haven’t a trace of an Australian accent. Yet all your experience seems to have been down under.’
‘Oh that,’ Leo’s voice sounded shrill in her own ears. She modulated it, thought quickly. ‘I spent some of my school years in California. The accent stayed. And my mother’s American.’
‘How interesting.’
The way he said it made Leo wonder whether she had just contradicted something in the application Isabel must have written. Why was she doing this? More to the point, why was this odious man interrogating her? She was suddenly angry.
‘What exactly do you do at Origen, Mr. Kripps?’
‘I work with Dr. Beasley.’
‘What kind of work?’
That vague wave again. ‘I assist him.’
‘In what?’
‘This and that.’ He turned bulging eyes on her. ‘In screening candidates sometimes. We have to be careful you know. It’s a highly competitive industry.’
The last sounded like a distinct threat. Leo felt a laugh rise to her throat. She let it emerge. ‘Origen must be losing out in the competition if it can’t afford first class seats for its executives.’
‘Don’t you worry about my seat, Miss Morgenstern.’ He eased his bulk with remarkable alacrity and as he did so pushed the brochure from her lap so that it and the drawing pad it contained tumbled to the floor.
‘So sorry.’ He reached down and extracted the pad. He whisked through it and with a tug, ripped out the two sketches she had done of the Origen grounds and greenhouse. ‘I’ll just take these if you don’t mind.’ The polite voice bore no relation to the menacing features. ‘Take care, now.’
***
At Paddington, she found herself looking over her shoulder. Where had that dreadful creep got to? The late-afternoon jostle prevented her from seeing anything but the people directly around her. Nor was it possible to stand still amidst the rush of passengers. After a moment’s hesitation, Leo made for the underground. If Mr Gerald Kripps were trying to trail her, there was no point making it easy for him by standing in a taxi queue. Nor would she lead him straight back to the loft.
A glance at the placards gave her sudden inspiration. She took the Metropolitan Line to King’s Cross, then walked along the dingy platform to the arch which indicated the Northern Line connection. It was here that she saw him, just as the train lurched out of the station. He stood at the door of the second to last carriage. He had the audacity to doff his hat at her.
Had he been following her, Leo wondered. If he had, he would get off at Moorgate and make his way to the apartment. All he would find there was that none of the names on the bells tallied with the one he was looking for. He wouldn’t dare to break in. Surely companies like Origen didn’t sanction criminal acts. Leo shrugged, almost wishing that now that she wouldn’t be there, he did break in and she had something substantial to report to the police. Something that would at last properly engender their help and erase the image of an over-the-top New Yorker she was certain they had of her.
She made her way through endless dimly-lit corridors to wait on the teeming platform of the Northern Line. When the High Barnet train finally came, she had to elbow her way into the midst of a crowd of rush-hour passengers. Beside her a gaggle of uniformed school girls giggled, their voices pitched high above the judder of the train.
Becca, too, had worn a uniform during their year in London. A brown pleated skirt, white shirt and brown blazer which made her look far more grown up than her eight years. She had a little girl’s pride in it and stood up very straight as soon as she put it on. Seeing her pleasure, Leo had felt less ambivalent about sending her to an independent school. They had finally decided on Channing because it was a mere three minute trot from their flat, whereas the local state school was beyond walking dis
tance and running a car would have cost the equivalent of school fees. And not permitted her mother the indulgence of contributing to Becca’s education.
Highgate Station hadn’t changed. As she made her way up the tree-shrouded incline and emerged at Stanhope Road, she almost felt she had come home. Home to a happier time, a time that was all present and future excitement, whereas now… now, she was forced to admit, her predominant emotion was one of loss. Leo prodded the emotion away. She was too young to be old, she told herself. Had told herself often over this last year. Too young to feel her life was behind her. Only the journey with Isabel had provided a future wish.
The white stuccoed furniture shop still occupied the corner of the street, filling it with an assortment of curving Victorian armchairs and mahogany chests. Opposite stood the neo-Gothic church, its arched interior home to a community arts centre where Becca had attended Saturday morning dance classes, while she and Jeff sipped weak cappuccinos and read papers in its slightly musty cafe. They had made casual friendships there with other parents. Another life.
Leo resisted the temptation of going in search of happier ghosts and quickened her pace. But they accompanied her. This was the road they had always climbed, up through the narrowing at its crest, all but impassable to cars, past the boys school with its tiny triangle of shaded cemetery and into the High Street where the aura of a village still clung over a hillside of eighteenth century houses. She paused in front of the newsagent’s to get her bearings. She hadn’t brought the A-Z she had examined yesterday with her, but as she remembered it, the street shouldn’t be too far down the hill.
She passed the old fashioned hardware store and the bank, a smattering of hairdressers and estate agents and before she knew it she was in front of Becca’s school. In her imagination the distances had stretched and grown. Had she come too far now?
Sanctuary Page 7
