Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (37 page)

Ben looked at the group around the desk and said,

“William and Annabel I know.” Shifting his gaze to Ernest he said,

“Hi Dad didn’t think we’d meet again for a while. Who’s your friend?”

“You can see us? Me?” Ernest asked, bewildered.

Juanita sensing Ernest was on the verge of losing control took over.

“I’m Juanita. Ernest’s, your father’s, guide while he is in limbo. He has to deal with unfinished business before he can continue on his journey.”

“Unfinished business?”

“Your father died before he should have died. That has consequences. We’re dealing with the consequences, with the assistance of William, Annabel and you. Though you didn’t realise why you have been doing, what you’ve been doing. Now you do.”

Ben looked at this father and said,

”Why not me dad? Why can William and Annabel trust me, respect my abilities and see me as valuable, but you can’t?”

              Ernest stared at Ben stunned by his accusations. He looked around at the others in the room for support, for someone to say; ‘No Ben your dad was right. He had your best interests at heart.’ He looked at Juanita, who just gave him a noncommittal look. She had wanted Ben to help his brother and know why he was doing it from the beginning, but Ernest had always disagreed. Now he had to answer a difficult question surrounded by an audience.

“I wanted to protect you,” he said.

Ben looked at Ernest in disbelief,

“I thought we had gone beyond the cripple needing protection. I have a difficult leg. Period. I have no intellectual or emotional deficiencies. I am bright, very bright. I am confident and happy. Like everyone, I have my moments, but I deal with those. Me. Mum always understood that my leg wasn’t a disability, more a feature. I don’t need protecting anymore dad. You do need helping and I can help you. Is that ok?”

Ernest looked at his son with genuine pride and nodded,

“Yes, that would be ok. Ben I’m sorry.”

“You need to meet someone, someone who has been an immense help already and will be continue to be.”

Ben turned around and called through the open door,

“Jemima come in please, tomorrow we have work to do. Now, there’s someone you need to meet.”

Jemima walked into the room and saw Ben by the door, William at his desk and Annabel behind him. She stared at Ben looking confused.

“I know Annabel and William and they’re the only ones in the room apart from us.”

Jemima watched as Ben stared at the furthest corner of the room. He didn’t say anything, just looked and then cocked an eye as if he was asking a question of someone. A male voice came from the other side of the room.

“Do you think this is a good idea?”

A feminine voice answered with a tone that implied resignation. The answer was directed at Ben and not at the original questioner.

“We don’t have any choice do we Ben, not if we want to get your help with Penny?”

Jemima had begun to look scared. She kept looking at the corner that the voices were coming from and then at William, at Annabel and then back to William. Were they hearing the voices she was hearing? They each looked back at her as if the voices where the natural and normal.

“Can any of you hear the voices? Am I going fucking crazy?”

Ben slipped an arm around her.

“No, we can all hear the voices that you are hearing.”

Annabel smiled and said,

“It gets less weird. Ernest, Juanita time to meet Jemima.”

              The space in the farthest corner that Ben had been looking at shimmered. The shimmering gained form and Jemima saw an older man and a young woman. The older man looked familiar, something about his face, but she couldn’t determine what.

William looked at her and said,

“Meet Ernest Sanderson, mine and Ben’s father and his guide Juanita”

“Your father? His guide?”

“It’s a long story,” Annabel said. “One that we will be happy to tell you when we have more time”

***

              Ben got out of the car in the car park of Newnham College and thought about what they had to do. Annabel had persuaded Penny Morton to meet Ben and listen to what he had to say. Penny had said she expected he was wasting his time and effort, but would meet him and Annabel. The fact she was prepared to meet him spoke volumes about Annabel’s powers of persuasion. Dr Morton had insisted that Annabel had to be present and she would listen to Ben’s research and ideas developed so far and then decide if she was persuaded to help.

              Ben would have liked Jemima to come for the journey, but she had vetoed that idea. Having a member of the Cortez family
anywhere near Penny could risk destroying their last opportunity.

Annabel climbed out of William’s Audi and pointed at the Great Hall.

“We go there. The porte
r’
s lodge is to the right and to the left is the waiting area for guests. You know what you are going to say don’t you? This is our last shot with Dr Morton, one wrong move and we’re sunk.”

Hefting his laptop backpack onto his shoulder, he took his crutch from the back seat, nodded, and began walking towards the porters lodge.

              Dr Morton’s rooms, as they were called at Cambridge, was a large one bedroom flat with a capacious living room which doubled as a study at one end. Dr Morton had sent one of her graduate students to escort them up to her rooms, a studied snub to demonstrate their lack of importance to her. The student had shown them in and left as quickly as possible, explaining before he left that Dr Morton would be delayed by a few minutes with ‘unavoidable college business.’

“She wants us to know our place doesn’t she.” Ben said as he looked out of the window across the college grounds.

Annabel nodded,

“Don’t forget by agreeing to see us she is going against everything she has promised herself and Jonas. I liked Penny and if the circumstances allowed; I’m sure she could show us a very different side to her personality. At the moment, she is protecting the only thing she has left of Jonas; a memory.”

              Dr Penny Morton walked into the room and smiled with genuine pleasure when she saw Annabel.

“Hello Annabel,” she said, “I didn’t expect our paths to cross again so soon.”

Ben turned around at the sound of Penny’s greeting to Annabel and was going to introduce himself when he heard Penny gasp in shock and saw her legs begin to buckle. Dropping his bag he limped the short distance to her and grabbed her arm to stop her falling and eased her into her leather office chair.

“Oh my,” Penny exclaimed, pausing to sip the water that Ben had fetched from the kitchen. She looked at Ben, studying his features with care.

“With a haircut you could be Jonas. For a moment, I thought you were his ghost or had come back to life. He was a handsome man as well.” She indicated a sofa just to one side of her office chair,

“Sit here so I can see you while we talk. Annabel would you mind making a shaky old woman a cup of tea? Ben would you like anything?”

Smiling, he said to Annabel,

“Coffee two sugars please, with a splash of milk. Thanks.”

Once Annabel left the room Penny studied Ben.

“Your Ernest’s son aren’t you?”

Ben kept his answers simple.

“Yes.”

“Why should I help you to help your father? A man, I hate and despise.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Penny looked stunned,

“I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t help your father?”

“No, I need your help to fulfil uncle Jonas’s wishes. He left a huge array of documentation for his brother to act upon if he died. Why do you think he would have done that?”

Penny sat in silence looking at him, but not answering. Ben waited a moment and then continued.

“Uncle Jonas knew he might die. He didn’t want to die, he wanted to spend his life with you. That was why he was leaving CHC that evening and coming to be with you in Cambridge. He also knew that what he had discovered would ruin any chances of Charles Cortez and the Colombian arm of the business continuing to exploit the burgeoning demand for cocaine. What he couldn’t have known was how ruthless the Cortez family were prepared to be to protect themselves. I think uncle Jonas thought he had a chance of getting away and leaking the details to the authorities. I have managed to decode the two codes that he used to protect his diaries, but I think they’re incomplete.”

              Penny held her hand up for him to stop and his voice trailed off. Penny then called to Annabel to bring in the refreshments. When Annabel had joined them and served the drinks, Penny began.

“You’re quite correct, they are incomplete. I’ve been blinded by my dislike of your father. When I should have dedicated my time and efforts into finding why Jonas died and how he died. Instead, I’ve behaved like a spoilt child. Your father spent the remainder of his life searching for the answers, I just sat here in academia, teaching unwilling minds and pining for the only man I ever loved.” She stared into the distance in a private reverie, a gentle smile on her face.

“Have you read his diary?” Ben and Annabel both nodded. Annabel said,

“Yes, I concentrated on his time at CHC, but I have skimmed the rest.” Penny frowned and said,

“Then I’m afraid you missed why CHC wanted him to work for them so much. Even his brother didn’t realise.” Annabel and Ben looked at each other and then back to Penny.

“What did we miss?”

“I was introduced to Jonas by Stephen Dunting, a wonderful perceptive man. He was Jonas’s doctoral supervisor. When Jonas completed his undergraduate degree and achieved the highest grade in the universities history, he received a double first. It was accepted that he would complete his doctoral research at Cambridge and Stephen Dunting was assigned as his supervisor. He received his doctorate in the field of alternative fuels. Professor Dunting had been assigned to him because it had been expected that he would continue his study of psycho-stimulants, principally the neurochemistry of Cocaine’s action on the human brain. This had been a significant part of his undergraduate degree. The organic chemistry less so. That is why CHC were so interested in Jonas. The research he had begun was considered cutting edge and Jonas was being talked of as a potential leading light in neurochemistry circles. His research into alternative fuels was inspired and has proven groundbreaking. Jonas only realised why he had been recruited when he saw accidentally saw documents left out by Dr Johnson, the research director. Documents relating to cocaine, Colombia and Charles Cortez.” Her face had crumpled when she had said Cortez’s name, the recollection of Jonas’s death was still raw and painful. She sniffed, wiped her eyes on a lace hankie she kept in her sleeve and said,

“Now I need to, as the Americans say, ‘step up to the plate.’ Ben in the top drawer of the desk is a key can you get it please. Found it?” Ben nodded holding up a small brass key.

“Open the bottom right hand drawer. Now pull the drawer out as far as you can and you will see a small manufacturers plaque. Push down firmly on the plaque and it should pop up. Yes?” Again Ben nodded.

“Good. Lift the plaque out and underneath is a keyhole. If you could unlock the bottom of the drawer and pass me the package please.” Ben did as he had been instructed and passed the package to Penny; she held it in her hands and stared at it.

“I haven’t seen this in forty years.” Handing the package back to Ben, she continued,

“This is the complete version of your Uncle’s diary. The copy he left for your father was incomplete because he thought that one of the Cortez family had discovered where he had hidden it. As it transpired, they were too stupid to realise that a scientist documents everything. They never looked. When you have finished with it could you let me have the original back and maybe a copy of the decrypted text so I can know what he knew?”

Ben nodded.

“Of course.”

Felicity stood on the pavement outside the offices of Thrasher, Thrasher and Braebourne lost in thought. Did it matter? Did she give a shit who William Bacchus was or what his connection was to Ernest Sanderson? The issue she had with Bacchus was that he had decided to continue Sanderson’s persecution of her family. He was proving more adept at winkling out their secrets than Sanderson had been. Felicity looked at her watch and saw that Thrasher’s two hours were over.

              Felicity walked into Thrashers outer office, ignored his plain, stupid secretary and strode into his office slamming the door behind her for affect. Thrasher looked relaxed, sipping from a china cup of coffee and smiling. His indifference irritated her beyond measure and confused her. When she had left him, her voice ringing in his ears, two hours before he had been a bumbling idiot. Now his composure had been regained, a transformation achieved. Had he worked it out?

“Well?” she said, not looking at him, instead, walking past to scowl out of the window behind him. Placing his coffee cup on the blotter in front of him he opened an attachment in an email he had received and printed the high-resolution photographs of the documents. Without saying a word, he handed the photographs to her. After she had a brief moment to rifle through them, but not enough time to read and digest the contents he said,