Alchemist (50 page)

The volcano was the centre of the hot spot in the Ring of Fire, sandwiched by the Pacific Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate, the Eurasian Plate, the North American Plate. Pele's first home had been on one of the minor islands, Niihau, but the goddess of the sea had chased her from island to island, destroying each dwelling that she created. Finally she came to Mount Kilauea and settled, making it her home.

The Englishman watched the familiar but spectacular sight of the eruption from the window of the Learjet as the aircraft made its landing approach at Kona Airport. In the glare of the sunlight his gaze followed the dense plume of smoke bent by the wind and pushed towards the lush vegetation inland. A helicopter hovered around the edge of the erupting crater like
a predatory fly. Half a dozen more waited their turn behind it, each packed with tourists who had paid one hundred and fifty dollars for their view of a lifetime.

Occasionally some paid more dearly than planned. Only a few months back the sulphuric acid had eaten through the drive shaft of one sightseeing helicopter and it had plunged with four tourists into the molten lava. Pele had her own way of letting it be known she was hungry.

The Englishman had learned long ago to control his imagination, yet he allowed himself the luxury of trying to picture how it might feel to fall into molten lava. Whether incineration would be instant, or whether there would be time to feel pain, to squeal? Someone had told him, last time he was here, that if you plunged a limb into molten lava it would char into a cinder then snap off. He was not squeamish, but the thought made even him shudder. He could scarcely imagine a worse fate.

It had been a long eruption this time; fourteen months and the volcano showed no sign of quietening. It might help attract tourists to the island, but the sulphuric acid that rained down continuously was not good for the vegetation. Small quantities were insignificant, but a prolonged output like this was another matter. It could have a damaging long-term effect. And you could not switch volcanoes on and off like a tap.

You could not switch people on and off like a tap either. Some hours later the Englishman stood on the terrace of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, his thoughts elsewhere, as the Hawaiian talked earnestly, wanting to please the important foreigner. Small, swarthy, neat, in dainty dress shoes, he reminded the Englishman of a ferret. It was his eyes that did it, furtive little nut-brown creatures that never stopped moving, as if he lived in fear of the Press Gang carrying him off to sea.
You're a shifty little bastard
, the Englishman thought.
You're running some scam and ripping us off, but I don't care. You're like a dog that goes round pissing on every lamp-post, but you always return to your master because you're scared of him and you need him
.

The Hawaiian's tone had altered. ‘You are troubled?' he asked.

‘Troubled?' the Englishman echoed. ‘No, nothing troubles me.' He put an arm around the other man's shoulder and patted him reassuringly.

Beyond the terrace, palm fronds, black like cardboard silhouettes against the night sky, clattered in a sudden gust of the rising wind, making a sound like rain. There was a momentary lull in the hubbub in the lounge behind him, and he turned, casting his gaze across the chintzily elegant room.

People stood or sat in groups around the wide sofas and deep chairs. Americans, Japanese, Hawaiians. Most men wore dinner jackets or dark suits, although a few sported gaudy Hawaiian shirts with open necks. The women were in their finery, several in long dresses, others in skirts slit up to the navel, all glittering with jewellery. The Englishman frowned at the mixture of dress codes. He had acquired many airs and graces over the years, and had become the worst kind of snob, as only self-made people can.

An eight-piece band played, good-looking young men in tuxedos, accompanying a peroxided blonde singer in need of a chin lift and liposuction. When the music stopped, the gaggle of dancers looked faintly marooned, like boats caught out by a falling tide.

Midnight. Today marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Bendix Hilo research and manufacturing plant. The band struck up ‘Auld Lang Syne' because they thought that was the thing to do. Sentiment. The Englishman acknowledged the potency of cheap music. Yes, humans were sentimental creatures, their emotions easily bought, and their loyalty cheaply held.

They were letting off fireworks, now, in the darkness between the terrace and the shore. Rockets streaked upwards from behind the shrubbery and the palms. Sparks like glittering jewels cascaded on to the ocean.

‘We like to believe fireworks chase evil spirits away,' the Hawaiian said, with simple earnestness.

‘Ah.' The Englishman nodded. He watched a formation of rockets snake through the sky, making ghost-like noises.

‘Superstitious people, my people,' the Hawaiian said. ‘Chase away evil spirits and make presents to the gods.'

The air was warm in spite of the breeze, the ever-present Hawaiian wind which the Englishman liked.
Superstitious … Presents to the gods
.

The Hawaiian's words interested him for the first time that night.

The people of these islands were modern thinking when it came to business and their daily lives. They were American citizens, had been for three decades, but many had not lost their pagan origins, had not lost touch with the creators of these volcanic islands. Many still considered their gods and goddesses to be personifications of individual forces: Lono, the god of fertility; Kane, the creator of man; Kanaloa, god of the sea; and Ku, the war god. And then a host of lesser gods and demi gods; the most feared of these being Pele, goddess of the volcano and fire.

Pele, he thought and smiled drily to himself. The Hawaiian took the smile as acknowledgement of his statement.

Mount Kilauea had been erupting on and off for nine years. He wondered why he had not thought of it before, wondered why it had taken a drunken Hawaiian plant manager on a hotel terrace to put the thought into his head.

Bendix Schere had taken a lot out of this island in the past two and a half decades. Tri-Zacktol, a rheumatism cure extracted from the bark of trees in the rain forest. The richest source was here on this island, but they were deforesting faster than they were planting. Cyvodenox, a water purifier, came from extractions from volcanic lava. Then there was Phendol-Optyrvac, for reversing bacillus-induced blindness in the Third World. Something needed to be put back and he knew exactly what. He thought about the Sikorsky helicopter that had ferried him from the airport and smiled.

Perfect. Two birds with one stone. Better than perfect, it was exquisitely brilliant. He caught the eye of a waitress and ordered a large Chivas Regal on the rocks.

When the glass came he allowed himself, as a treat, to think again about the terrible agony of human flesh plunging into molten lava. Then he toasted the Hawaiian. ‘Tonight we celebrate,' he said. ‘To all the gods of Hawaii.'

The Hawaiian raised his champagne flute, and his mouth broadened into a sleazy grin. ‘To all the gods of Hawaii!' he echoed.

The Englishman felt the refreshing cold of the ice cubes jangle against his tongue as he sipped his whisky.
Especially Pele
, he thought with a private smile.

Wednesday 23 November, 1994

Monty arranged for a bouquet to be sent to Walter Hoggin's funeral, which she and her father were going to attend on Friday, then turned her attention to her eMail; there were dozens of internal queries from various names in Group Patents and Agreements, some of whom she had met, but most she had not.

She was now dealing with at least thirty different people in that department, all of them under urgent instructions to get her father's diverse areas of work protected in as many countries as possible, as quickly as possible, and the eMail traffic was getting close to overwhelming her.

Scrolling down the list she noticed a technical query from Conor Molloy and smiled. They had agreed last night that other than matters strictly business there was to be no communication between them at work.

She would be seeing him again tonight. He had invited her to dinner, but she'd told him that she needed to go to her cottage to feed the cats and get a change of clothes. He had immediately offered to come down and she had not resisted, glad that she was not going to have to spend a night there alone. The break-in continued to spook her, but she doubted she would hear anything back from PC Brangwyn.

Her watch said 9.10. She had been in an hour and a long day was still stretching ahead of her.
God, I'm in love with you, Conor Molloy
, she thought.

Trying to overcome her distraction, she finished dealing with her eMail and started on her snail mail – or physical post – scanning everything dutifully.

Then she came to a bulletin sent by a woman scientist she had befriended over the years; Monty had once hoped she might make a prospective girlfriend for her father, but he had shown no interest. The bulletin concerned the publication in France of the gene sequences of lymphatic tumours in rats. A handwritten memo was clipped to the top. ‘Thought this might interest your pa.'

She dictated a note of thanks and put the material on the side of her desk. The next item was a small envelope addressed in wonky handwriting that slanted backwards in some words and forwards in others. The sign of a neurotic, she registered without needing a graphologist to tell her the sender's mental state. The address read:
(MS I think) Montana (as in State of US) Bannerman. The Bendix Schere Empire. Euston Road. London
.

Monty slit the envelope open then looked, bemused, at the letter inside:

Dear Disciple of Satan
,

Genetic science is the work of SATAN. God made us. Your work of usurping our Lord God is forbidden in the Bible. IN CASE you are not familiar with IT, READ DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER FOUR VERSES 15–18
:

‘You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the water below.'

It carried no date or sender's address, and was unsigned. Monty placed it in a file thick with ten years' accumulation of crank letters. Bannerman Laboratories had had several attacks from Animal Rights activists in the past, and the police had advised them to keep anything that might one day be needed as evidence.

Although probably written by a harmless nutter, the letter disturbed Monty more than usual. There were a lot of strange people out there, many with strong beliefs. Genetics was an emotive subject. She thought about her intruder and the car that had followed her yesterday, and wondered if the letter was connected. She would mention it to PC Brangwyn when she next spoke to him.

There had been a time a couple of years back when her father, in a genetics experiment in the now defunct animal house attached to their Berkshire lab, had accidentally bred a litter of mutant rabbits with no eyes or ears. They had been captured, by freak chance, in an Animal Rights raid two nights later and their photograph made the front page of several newspapers. For months afterwards the entire staff had received threatening phone calls.

She thought a bit harder. It was unlikely that the writer of this letter was the intruder, if it was, surely he – or she – would have pushed it through her letter box at home rather than mailing it here?

She would almost rather think of the intruder as a burglar, or a pervert who stole women's clothing, she decided. Some of the Animal Rights groups were very scary. On a whim, she removed the letter from the file and photocopied it. Then she put the original back, folded the copy and slipped it into her handbag.

A review meeting of the Group Patents and Agreements Department, which had gone on all afternoon and into the evening, finally ended at ten to eight. Conor raced anxiously back to his office, hastily locked all the files away, grabbed his coat and hurried to the lift.

A bitter wind stung his face as he stepped out into the parking lot, as cold as Washington, he thought, digging in his pockets for his gloves. He found his right-hand one, but to his surprise the other one was missing.

‘Shit …' The gloves were a gift from an old friend and the loss bugged him. He ran back into the lobby in case it had fallen on the floor, and went over to a security guard. ‘Anyone handed in a hogskin glove?' He held up its partner.

No joy.

They settled with their drinks at a quiet table in a corner of the Plough, Monty's local, and waited for their steaks and fries to arrive.

‘Missed you all day!' he said, stroking her arm, making her smile.

‘Thank you.' She opened her handbag and handed him the photocopy of the cranky letter. ‘Guess what came in the morning post. Probably just coincidental?'

Conor read it slowly, his expression darkening for one fleeting moment then he forced a smile. ‘Satan's work, sure, of course, that's what all geneticists are, closet Satanists.' He handed back the letter. ‘Always good to hear of lucid new theories about the meaning of life from the Great Unwashed!' His voice sounded strange.

‘I wondered if there was any connection with the intruder?'

‘Oh, come on, there's a lot of crazies on the bus.' He changed the subject. ‘Did you get a chance to ask your security guard friend any more about the missing six floors?'

‘He wasn't there. Must have been his night off, or maybe he's sick. Did you speak to Charley Rowley?'

‘He was away today, at the European Patent Office in Munich; should be in tomorrow.'

‘Can you trust him?'

Conor grinned. ‘He drinks and smokes, that's a start these days!'

The barmaid had brought their cutlery and a basket of French bread over. Conor took a piece and began unwrapping a pat of butter.