Alchemist (55 page)

‘He doesn't believe you?'

‘Treats me like a bloody student! Don't know why he bothered taking me on, half the time. Don't ask me what goes on in his mind – he seems to have some damned hidden agenda, but I'm buggered if
I
know what it is.' He turned his attention back to the screen.

Monty frowned at the words
hidden agenda
, thinking about the missing six floors on the plans, and the Maternox capsules; her mind also conjured up the names she'd seen on Conor's computer screen that morning.
Eumenides. Medici. Polyphemus
. Troubled, she examined the study. It was her favourite room and the only one that felt lived in these days. The walls were covered in pictures – one of them was an autographed black and white photograph of a much younger Dick Bannerman, in a dinner jacket and looking happily sloshed, standing between Francis Crick and Jim Watson, the discoverers of DNA.

In pride of place, surrounded by a large amount of bare wall, was the colour photo of her father, in white tie and tails, being presented with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. She had travelled to Sweden with him, just two months after her mother had died. She remembered the band playing, the applause, the pride and sadness she had felt for him then, and felt again now, tonight, seeing him so alone, ageing, and growing increasingly bitter towards Bendix Schere – which only a few months ago had seemed to promise him so much.

Hidden agenda
. The words resonated in her mind. ‘Like me to get you a drink?' she asked.

‘I think we'll eat in a minute – I'm hungry. How was the drive down?' He spoke without taking his eyes from his figures.

‘OK,' she said distractedly. ‘I'll go and get supper ready.'

‘Mrs Turnbull's laid it all up – just have to take the stew out of the oven, I think she said.'

‘It'll be a little while,' Monty said and went downstairs. She knew full well he would not have read his housekeeper's instructions and would have forgotten something.

The dining room was freezing as always, the dancing flames of the fake coal fire providing the illusion of warmth rather than any actual heat. She sat at one end of the oval walnut table, in her mother's place, and her father faced her at the other.

They ate the oxtail stew in silence for a while. When her mother had been alive, this room had felt quite different, a real log fire always burning in winter, the table laden with food and flowers, buzzing with the conversation and laughter of the distinguished guests they regularly entertained. It was as if when she had died, she had drawn the life from the room and taken it with her. Even the silverware, which used to sparkle on the sideboard, was conspicuously depleted, the best pieces stolen in a burglary five years previously.

Monty was missing Conor. He was in her mind every single minute. After the last three nights it would be strange sleeping alone again; and in her old childhood bed.

‘Tell you who really gets my goat at Bendix,' her father was saying, pouring more red wine into his glass.

‘Who?' she said.

‘That bloody Slick Willy of an American lawyer.'

She felt as if her heart had turned to stone. ‘Conor Molloy?'

‘You know – that chap from Patents who joined us for lunch last week. I don't know what his bloody game is – keeps hovering around me, picking my brains all the bloody time. Drives me nuts.'

A piece of green bean went down the wrong way and Monty gulped some water, then coughed. ‘Probably not his fault,' she said finally.

‘I know where he's coming from. He's one of those clever little shysters who've found ways of getting round the patent office examiners. He's into patenting gene sequences – that's why the company have brought him over here. They want to see just how much of human life can be patented – and they think I'm easy pickings.' He put his wine glass down angrily. ‘Christ, this Molloy man's a bloody junior, green around the gills – they haven't even got enough respect for me to bring in a major player! Do they think I was born yesterday?'

Monty smarted, wanting to rise to Conor's defence, and groped around for a reply. ‘I think you'll find it's Dr Crowe who's the problem, Daddy. I'm sure Mr – Mr Molloy just has to do what he's told.'

‘Oh, sure. He's just obeying orders, right? What is he? The commandant of a concentration camp or something? He's a
thinking
human being; no one
has
to do what they're told. I never have.'

Dick Bannerman seemed happier for having said his piece. But Monty had lost her appetite, and she refused when she was offered second helpings.

Her father ladled some more stew on to his own plate, then asked, ‘You've had no joy with the missing psoriasis and diabetes files?'

She shook her head.

‘I put those diabetes files in the Stacks myself,' he said.

‘The archivist says they couldn't have been removed without authorization.'

‘Bloody witch, she is. Creepy woman.'

‘Very.' She thought for a moment. ‘We'll have back-ups on disk or tape, so it's not too disastrous. I'll print them out for you.'

‘I'm not worried about replicating the work – I'm worried about who the hell has got their hands on it. I'm happy to share my research with anyone, but I'm buggered if I'm having it stolen.'

Monty waited whilst her father ate again, and sipped her wine. ‘Daddy, what are you doing this weekend?'

‘Working on this psoriasis stuff – doing my prep for Headmaster Bloody Crowe.'

‘At home?'

‘Yes, why?'

‘I just wondered if you were going into the old lab at all?'

He shrugged. ‘Don't have any plans to. Actually, I find it a bit bloody depressing there now.'

Good
, she thought silently.

Honolulu. Saturday 26 November, 1994

White horses glinted like tin foil on the dark blue Pacific. The pilot announced over the intercom that the line of hotels crammed shoulder to shoulder behind a strip of white sand was Waikiki Beach. Pearl Harbor, he said, was a little further on, around the point. It was twelve noon local time and the temperature on the ground was a warm twenty-five degrees Celsius. He hoped to welcome everyone back to American Airlines again soon, and wished them a nice day in Honolulu.

Charley Rowley sat in his upright seat, belt fastened, last cigarette of the flight crushed into the tiny ashtray, tiredness from the long journey and too many Bloody Marys starting to gain on him. The Boeing bumped a couple of times as it slowly lost height, banked slightly to port, and his view of the island was temporarily replaced by a view of the starboard wing. He watched it with equal lack of interest.

In the arrivals lobby a placard bearing his name was held aloft by a fair-haired man in pilot's uniform. By his side was a short, dark-skinned man, neatly attired in a chocolate brown shot-silk suit and white loafers.

The pilot immediately took his suitcase and briefcase, and the short man held out his hand.

‘Mr Rowley? Don Sontaree, President of Bendix Hilo. Welcome to Hawaii.
Ohahu
– as we say!'

Rowley took his hand; it was small and slimy, like his voice. ‘How do you do?'

‘You had a pleasant flight?' Furtive eyes raked Rowley's face.

‘Yah, was OK, thanks.' He was a little surprised to be greeted by the president of the company in person.

‘Good! We go straight on. First time in Hawaii?'

Fellow passengers all around him were being draped in garlands of scented flowers. Rowley followed the two men through the throng and into a stretch limousine. It took them on a ride of less than two minutes to another terminal and pulled up beneath the awning. A few minutes later they were out in the bright sunlight again, climbing into a large helicopter that was waiting amid an assortment of executive aircraft on the apron. Heat shimmered off the concrete and the fuselages, but the wind kept the temperature to a level that Rowley, in his linen suit, found comfortable.

In the passenger compartment the president courteously insisted that Charley sit by the window.

‘Please, we have very special views in Hawaii.'

They buckled their seat belts and the rotors began turning. ‘No one has given me any real briefing – what's this trip all about?' Rowley asked.

The Hawaiian smiled. ‘All in good time. I think you are going to find yourself playing a very big part in our future. It is a great honour for you that you are here, you know …'

‘I didn't know.'

The Hawaiian raised a knowing finger. ‘She gives us so much. Such a debt that we owe her!'

Rowley looked at him. ‘
She?
'

The engine thundered and the helicopter, vibrating furiously, lifted off. Rowley saw a faint trace of fear cross Sontaree's face, then it was gone as they gained height and he appeared to relax.

Pele.' The Hawaiian leaned across him and pointed to a plume of smoke in the distance. ‘See – she is greeting you.'

Rowley frowned. ‘I'm still not with you.'

‘Pele – it is her salute to you.' His breath smelled of chicken that had gone off, and the patent lawyer averted his cheek as far as he could without seeming rude. But he received a further blast. ‘Pele! The goddess of our volcanoes.'

‘The smoke, right?'

‘
Steam
. She is venting sulphurous steam. It is her greeting to you, you see. Her way of saying: “
Ohahu! Welcome to my island!
”'

‘I'd prefer her to give me a gin and tonic.'

The Hawaiian looked momentarily puzzled, then roared with laughter. ‘Ah, you English! All the same. Your sense of humour! Gin and tonic! You want one now?'

‘I could murder one.'

The Hawaiian produced two glasses from a cocktail compartment, a bottle of Gordon's, tonic and ice.

‘Cheers.' Rowley sipped the sharp, fresh taste gratefully, then gaped as the ocean slid by beneath them, and the massive crater of the erupting volcano loomed closer.

‘Very important,' the president said suddenly. ‘This trip is very important.'

‘You have a new discovery?'

Rowley had already decided he did not care for this character much; there was something sly, shifty about him; a wheeler dealer. He wondered how on earth such a man had achieved a position of power. Then he tried to rationalize it. Bendix Hilo was an important research and manufacturing plant for the company, but, so far as he knew, it was not a place where decision-making was done. Sontaree might have the grand title of ‘President'. But in effect he was probably a glorified factory manager; that was all.

‘New discovery?' the man answered him. ‘Yes, all the time; every day we are making new extractions from flora and fauna species. Nature is incredible, don't you think, Mr Rowley?'

‘Yup.' Rowley was thinking he could have done with a slice of lemon in his drink.

‘Over ninety per cent of our flora and fauna is endemic, to be found nowhere else on earth. We have one hundred species of native land birds evolved from just twenty ancestors. One thousand flowering plants evolved from less than three hundred colonizers; and I could go on … Not bad for what was once just an atoll of volcanic rock rising out of the ocean?'

‘Incredible.'

‘Using every living organism on this island, we are now searching for – and sometimes finding – the raw materials to develop new pharmaceuticals for the benefit of mankind. All thanks to the munificence of our goddess Pele.' His eyes widened into an expression of humbled beatitude.

You're serious
, Rowley thought with amazement.
You really fucking believe in your fucking goddess!

The ocean had given way to black sand, then slippery lava cliffs. The centre of the island was a row of mountainous volcanoes; the south side, as far along the coast as Rowley could see, was a solid black desert of lava flows.

Bypassing the dense steam from the erupting volcano, they climbed above an erratic line of dormant volcanic craters. Then as the land fell away on the far side, the scenery changed dramatically to lush green rain forest. Tall, slender trees rose majestically from a green canopy; narrow waterfalls plunged into dense gorges.

When the helicopter began to lose height, the Hawaiian leaned over and pointed. They were descending towards a huge complex of buildings in an almost hidden valley. The complex consisted of one five-sided white central block, and a mass of long, narrow buildings laid out in neat geometric rows around it. The whole site was encircled by a hostile double-wall infilled with barbed wire.

All Bendix Schere laboratories were like fortresses; Rowley knew that. Pharmaceuticals were a sensitive subject the world over; you never knew what offence you were going to cause in your host country, whether you would upset the vivisectionists, the ecological pressure groups, or now, with genetics, fundamentalist religious groups.

‘Looks like the Pentagon down there!' he commented.

‘Only one day, it will be much more powerful!' Sontaree boasted.

Rowley looked at him oddly. ‘Oh yes?'

Forty minutes later, Sontaree accompanied Rowley to the reception desk of the Waikoloan Hilton and supervised the formalities, ensuring the hotel understood all bills were to be sent to Bendix Hilo. Then he shook Rowley's hand. ‘You have
time to check in and have a rest. This evening we are having a barbecue in your honour – we collect you at five-thirty.'

‘When do we start work?'

‘Monday's plenty time enough. See you this evening. Half five!'

‘What should I wear?'

The Hawaiian hesitated, then said: ‘Beachwear. It will be very warm. Oh – and please be sure to bring a towel.'

A limousine was waiting outside at five-thirty sharp and the chauffeur opened the rear door. Rowley, dressed in a gaudy shirt and Bermuda shorts, carrying a beach towel, slipped into the chill of the air-conditioned interior.