Alchemist (88 page)

She addressed the driver once more. ‘Do you by any chance know a church that stays open all night?'

Saturday 10 December, 1994

It's an alms house. They have a soup kitchen in the crypt for the homeless. Never shuts
.

That's what Monty's taxi driver had said, and that's how she'd come to spend the night in the house of God. With the intermittent company of a ponytailed clergyman who had worked his way round all the troubled souls sleeping on his pews, and prayed with them. But come morning, her father was still in the wrong hands, and the mother of the man she loved was still dead.

She admired the grand entrance enviously. She'd taken a fast train to Tunbridge Wells from Charing Cross and then travelled by taxi to the Kent village where Sir Neil Rorke had his country residence. The gates were open and a gravel
driveway lined with laurel bushes curved away towards the house, which was not visible from the road. At this stage she chose to make her approach by foot, and as she rounded the first bend, the house appeared about a hundred yards ahead, behind a formal grass circle in the driveway – in the centre of which lay an ornamental pond.

It was just as she'd expected from the photo-feature she'd seen a couple of weeks back in
Hello!
, an imposing, if rather cold-looking property. The front façade was Georgian, square and handsomely proportioned, with grey walls, a slate roof and an elegant white porch. An immaculate black Range Rover was casually parked to one side, and Monty skirted it.

As she walked up to the porch, she heard frenetic barking coming from inside the house. The sky had darkened in the last few minutes, and an icy gust tossed flecks of sleet around her. She was all too conscious that her presence was uninvited, as she pressed the bell.

Instantly the barking intensified, then she heard a familiar baritone voice booming: ‘Bartholomew! Simeon! Sit! Sit!'

The door opened and she saw Sir Neil Rorke himself, in a silk paisley dressing gown and black leather slippers, semi-kneeling, holding the collars of two huge, frisky, mastiff puppies, and struggling to keep his balance.

For one fleeting instant there was an expression of complete hostility as if he was angered at having the privacy of his weekend disturbed, Monty assumed. She suddenly remembered one of the captions she had read in
Hello!
:

‘With his business and charity commitments, my husband spends most of the year travelling. We try to keep our country home as our one sanctuary.'

But before she could fully register it, all traces of hostility had vanished and Rorke's eyes twinkled with what seemed like genuine delight.

‘Miss Bannerman! What a lovely surprise!'

‘I'm really sorry to disturb you at the weekend, Sir Neil.'

‘Not at all; always delighted to see you, my dear. Come in, please.' The dogs began barking again, and he bellowed at them to be quiet. ‘You'll have to forgive my appearance – I
was just having a bath and change – got to attend a local Christmas charity.'

The hall had a flagstone floor scattered with Persian rugs, oak-panelled walls hung with tapestries, oil paintings and gilded mirrors, and a wide, elegant staircase leading up from it. He closed the door and released the dogs, which jumped up excitedly at Monty, almost bowling her over.

‘
Quiet!
' he bellowed again. ‘Bartholomew! Simeon! Baskets!'

The two dogs seemed to take this as a cue for a game and both leapt up at him simultaneously, catching him off-balance. The rug skidded under him and he made a lurch for the nearest secure object – a bentwood hatstand. As he leaned against it, he stretched an arm back to smoothe his wavy hair. The action caused his dressing gown to slip off one shoulder for a moment and Monty saw, to her surprise, a line of numbers and letters there, about a quarter of an inch high and two inches wide; the skin around them was scarred, as if they had been branded on.

‘Bloody dogs!' Rorke was saying, making light of the incident. He had straightened his dressing gown, seemingly oblivious of what had just happened. ‘Tea, coffee – or a glass of sherry?'

‘Coffee would be great.'

He led her through into a room she also recognized from the
Hello!
feature, a fine period drawing room, elegantly furnished, with rows of Christmas cards on the marble mantelpiece. She thought again about the strange markings on Rorke's shoulder, puzzling; then realized, with a chill, what it must be: concentration camp branding.

She sat on a sofa. The Nazis had branded all the Jews. Rorke must be Jewish. Yes, she thought, he could be with his dark wavy hair and his heavy face, there were definitely Semitic traces in his features. But was he old enough to have been interned? He must be in his late fifties, early sixties. Yes, he could have been, as a child.

She was distracted by the ping of a telephone, as if a receiver had just been lifted or replaced. But she had to focus on the way she planned to tackle Sir Neil. She removed the dictating
machine from her handbag and checked that the tape was wound back to the start.

A few minutes later Rorke reappeared, apologizing for the absence of his wife. He had changed into a suit and striped shirt and was carrying a tray laden with coffee and biscuits.

He put the tray down, raising his eyebrows at the dictating machine, then eased himself on to the opposite sofa, leaned forward and pushed a coffee cup, then milk and sugar, towards his guest. ‘Right, my dear,' he spoke good-humouredly. ‘Are you going to interview me?'

She smiled thinly, feeling very nervous. ‘No. There's something on this tape I want you to hear. I'm afraid it's going to shock you.'

Rorke listened intently to the tape and to Monty's story, which she made as detailed as she could. He looked increasingly incredulous, but also receptive. Monty had the feeling throughout that it was almost as if he was waiting for proof of something he already knew.

He stood up decisively when he had heard everything. Instead of wasting time expressing his horror, he was ready for action. ‘The immediate priorities are to find your father, to protect you and Mr Molloy, and then to see what we can do about your Anna Sterling, and all the other women on that evil list.

‘One of my closest friends is Sir Patrick Norton, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Whoever this little squirt Levine is, he can't have that much influence. Obviously we need to move quickly; if you're being watched, they'll know you're here now. I'm going to call Patrick at home immediately. I want to see Crowe under arrest by the end of today. And that's just for starters!'

As she watched Rorke stalk out of the room, Monty suddenly felt sorry for him, and strangely guilty at having been the one who'd had to break the grim news to him about the company he chaired.

She heard the ping of the phone again, then, less than a minute later, a second ping. That had been a short conversation, she thought. Then she realized that the number might
have been engaged and he was trying again. She slipped the dictating machine back into her handbag, feeling drained. She heard the phone ping a couple more times.

Rorke came back down after ten minutes; he seemed to have aged ten years, and he had a coat slung over his arm. ‘Right, let's get moving. Sir Patrick's arranged for the Chief Constable of Kent to be here in person in about five minutes. He's going to take us to the Bendix Hammersmith with an escort.'

Monty was impressed by the level of Rorke's contacts; the big cogs were turning now. If only she'd done this earlier, she chastised herself, instead of trusting that creep Levine.

‘Your lunch?' she said suddenly. It was 1.30. ‘Aren't you expected?'

‘I phoned,' he said curtly. ‘Dealt with it.'

After that there was an awkward silence between them; the situation had gone beyond words, Monty acknowledged.

The doorbell rang and generated fits of barking which sounded muffled now, as if the dogs had been locked in somewhere. Rorke stood up to walk out into the hall, and Monty followed. Through the window, she could see the front half of a black Mercedes with smoked windows, waiting in the drive.

Rorke opened the front door with a flourish and gestured for Monty to go first. She took one step forward and stopped dead.

Doctors Crowe and Seligman were standing inside the porch, shoulder to shoulder, completely blocking it.

She spun round in terror, looking to Rorke for help. His face was a mask of cold, white fury. A second later she realized his anger was directed not at the two men, but at herself.

‘You snivelling, filthy, trouble-making little bitch! How dare you behave the way you have?'

She felt a sharp prick in her thigh, like a wasp sting. She had time to notice that Rorke's face suddenly looked oddly distorted, as if it was melting. Then her legs started to buckle.

Conor crawled the rented Ford up Euston Road towards the Bendix Building. He sat in a cocoon of numbed grief.

Dead. His mother was dead.

His ears rang with the echo of her words on the night before he had left Washington.
Think again while you still have the chance
.

If he'd heeded her, Bendix Schere would have gone on, unchecked. And he would not have met Monty.

But his mother would still be alive.

And where the hell was Monty? In that bastard Crowe's clutches?

He could see the windowless monolith of the Bendix Building rising ahead to the right, and with it rose all the hatred he had been harbouring for twenty-six years.

He swung the car into the Bendix lot, pulled up at the security gate and handed his pass through the window.

The guard peered at the windscreen. ‘Where's the tag?'

‘Tag?'

‘Your parking ID tag. Can't bring an unauthorized car in.'

‘Fuck you!' Conor exploded. ‘This is a rental – my car's in dock.'

The guard closed the window, sat back behind his desk and picked up a mug of coffee. In front of Conor, instead of the customary green light, a red light flashed accompanied by words on a screen:
ENTRY REFUSED. REVERSE AT ONCE. YOU ARE TRESPASSING
.

Conor had to reverse back into the main road, and park on a meter around the corner. As he walked back he noticed the tail of a black Mercedes disappearing up the ramp of the car park that Monty had told him was owned by the company.

The automatic doors slid open and he walked into the white marble atrium and up to the security desk, which was manned by just one guard, a black man in his fifties. Conor almost mistook him for Winston Smith, Monty's friend.

‘Hi. I need to contact Dr Crowe urgently. I guess he's not in, right?'

The guard's voice was neutral, neither pleasant nor hostile. ‘Sometimes come in Saturday mornings but I ain't seen him today.'

Conor continued awkwardly. ‘Look this is something that can't wait – do you have an emergency number for him? I'm one of his patent attorneys.'

‘Got identification?'

Conor showed him his card.

The guard nodded and with some reluctance said: ‘Got a couple of numbers I can try. Ain't going to be too pleased to be disturbed at the weekend.'

‘It's an emergency.'

The American was unshaven, his eyes were bloodshot and his clothes were dishevelled. The guard looked at him and wondered if he'd been drinking.
Mr Conor Molloy
. That rang a bell. A definite ding-dong. He glanced down at his computer workstation and was about to tap the name in, when to his shock, he saw it was already up on the screen.

He swallowed and gave the American a nervous smile. Of course! The name had been up there all day.
Mr Conor Molloy
. He smiled again, in a way that he hoped was reassuring, then, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, he rang the number of Major Gunn's mobile phone.

There was an eerie stillness inside the Mercedes, which was accentuated by the artificial darkness from the black windows. The rich smell of leather filled Monty's nostrils, as the car glided silently through the London traffic.

Sandwiched on the back seat between Crowe and Seligman, her body felt set in cement. For a time she must have been asleep or unconscious, she realized, but she was awake
again now, and confused. They were driving up Park Lane.
Came here last night
, she thought, and tried to remember why. They drove around Marble Arch. Of course. They were heading down to the Marylebone Road, then the Euston Road.

Her fear returned, quietly but insistently, like the scrabbling of tiny paws of a creature trapped inside her chest. The traffic and the buildings and people slid past the windows, a sinister, unfamiliar London dark as a nuclear winter.

Need to wave, she thought. Need to shout, to attract someone's attention. But no one could see or hear her in here.

They were driving along Euston Road now, past Euston Station. The Bendix Building rose up on their right, but instead of moving into the right-hand lane the Mercedes moved over to the left and began to slow. It turned into a wide road lined on both sides with high-rise office buildings, accelerated briefly, then swung sharp left into the entrance of the multi-storey car park.

She stared in terror at the orange and black sign on the wall:
LRG CAR PARKS
. Then at the bold red sign by the lowered barrier that was now rising:
FULL. CONTRACT PARKING ONLY
.

The Mercedes rose up the steep, curving concrete ramp; she heard the wheels rattle over a loose drain; saw the attendants' booth ahead, recognized an unsmiling face inside it. In front of a second barrier the chauffeur reached out, pushed a card into the pod beside him.

The car park was far larger than she had imagined; most of the bays were empty. Of course. It was Saturday. The Mercedes made a sharp right then stopped beside a bank of lifts.

The chauffeur opened Crowe's door and held it for him. Seligman indicated for her to follow him, and she slid across the seat, her body heavy and leaden.