First Horseman, The (23 page)

Jim clapped him on the back. ‘Thanks again,’ he said.

‘For what?’

‘Coming down there.’

‘Shouldn’t have let you go alone,’ he said. ‘That was rubbish of me.’

Jim shook his arm. ‘Thanks anyway.’ He grinned.

‘I’m going to have to ask you later why you showed up here,’ said Smith.

‘Sure,’ said Jim, as Stafford stepped past them. ‘There isn’t much of a story, apart from a mad genius, bunkers full of military equipment, the fountain of youth, you know the kind of thing.’

Smith nodded. ‘Just the usual, then.’

‘Come on, Jim,’ said Stafford, throwing him a beady look. ‘Mustn’t linger.’

‘Yes,’ said Jim, casting an eye at the open hatch. ‘Let’s get home.’

Cardini was seated at McCloud’s desk, in the huge leather chair that McCloud had used as a throne.

Marius had taken the rather strange investigators away. They had seemed to Cardini remarkably relaxed. Was the locale so violent that dead bodies were treated in the same way as minor road accidents?

He had expected rounds of heavy questioning but instead had received little more than a request for his personal details. He had had almost no opportunity to tell them he knew nothing of what had gone on.

They had immediately accepted that he had been asleep in his bedroom. It was almost as if they had decided already that everything was in order. The whole situation was bizarre. Perhaps it was just the beginning. Perhaps he’d be trapped there for weeks as the investigators tried to snare him with a game of cat and mouse.

He rocked in the chair as he tried to think through all the things that could possibly happen next and how he should react.

It was impossible to predict what the outcome might be. He had no idea how these things developed. It was fortunate that McCloud had disabled the surveillance systems, or Cardini’s goose would have been well and truly cooked. What a recording that would have made.

Cardini began to dwell on Jim. Who, or perhaps what, exactly was he? Cardini had met many rich men, many titans of industry and politics, but never someone so apparently plain on first impression yet so clearly dangerous. The man was a killer. What freak of probability had thrown his DNA together to produce such a remarkable chimera?

The door opened and Joe Marius came in. He closed it behind him carefully and approached the desk. ‘Professor, I’m so sorry – what can I say? I’m horrified by what’s happened. I just want to say I’m so deeply shocked and upset by everything I can hardly contain myself.’ His face didn’t match his words.

‘What now?’ said Cardini.

‘I shall arrange for you to go back to England,’ replied Marius.

‘Go back?’ boomed Cardini, surprised. ‘How soon?’

‘As soon as you wish,’ said Marius, pressing his hands together. ‘I can organise the jet whenever you want.’

Cardini studied him for several seconds. Could it be that he was free to leave? ‘That is very good of you.’ He fixed Marius with a stare. ‘Do they know what happened?’

‘Yes,’ said Marius. ‘Apparently Mr McCloud disturbed a guest who was out of bounds in the mansion. They got into a terrible fight and both died in the struggle.’

‘Incredible,’ said Cardini.

‘It’s almost too much to take in.’ Marius was fixing Cardini with his own stare. ‘Professor …’

‘Yes?’ replied Cardini, slowly.

‘Now that Mr McCloud is no longer with us …’

‘Yes?’

‘… I need to ask you something in all confidentiality.’

‘Yes?’

Marius wrung his hands and began to quiver. ‘The treatment.’

Cardini nodded.

‘It’s always seemed to me a miracle.’

Cardini nodded again.

‘And I wondered … What exactly is it?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And what would its effects be on someone young, like …’ he smiled nervously ‘… myself?’

‘The effects are remarkable,’ said Cardini.

Marius looked at him, agog. ‘Could I … might I … ?’

‘Experience it?’ Cardini leant forward, looking deep into Marius’s eyes.

‘Yes.’

Cardini sat back. ‘Certainly. Now?’

‘Now.’ Marius twisted from right to left, like a puppet yanked on its strings. ‘Of course, yes, of course.’

‘You realise the consequences?’

‘The consequences?’

‘Of looking into infinity …’

Marius stared at him, clearly riveted at the prospect.

‘… and of infinity looking back into you?’

Marius gasped. ‘Please, Professor, give it to me.’

‘Very well,’ rumbled Cardini, and picked up his doctor’s bag. He rounded the desk and loomed above Marius. He placed the bag on the table and opened it. There was a rattle of contents. He took out a small vial and removed the top. His hand dipped into the bag and returned effortlessly with a thin strip of paper. He dipped it into the liquid, the perfume of pears filling the space around them.

‘Open your mouth and put out your tongue,’ commanded Cardini.

Marius stuck it out as far as it would go.

Cardini dabbed the paper on it. ‘Hold your tongue still in your mouth and try not to wash the extract from it.’

Marius felt something like chilli burning on his tongue, a searing sensation simmering and hissing inside his mouth. Suddenly the burning was spreading, like a flame across a crumpled piece of paper. He threw back his head and grabbed his mouth. The feeling was something between pain and pleasure. Suddenly the heat was travelling up his tongue and then down his throat and thence along the nerves of his neck, up the side of his face and into his brain. His eyes opened wide in shock as his mind came alive and his whole being seemed to leap from some shadowy internment into a bright landscape of revelation.

‘My God, it’s beautiful,’ he moaned. ‘I can see – I can feel everything. Everything makes sense. How could I have been so stupid?’ He looked at Cardini, awestruck.

‘Be still,’ said Cardini. ‘Let these feelings pass through you. They will not last long.’

Marius gazed around the room as though he was seeing it for the first time. ‘So, ‘ he said, and laughed, ‘now I get it.’

‘I’m glad.’

Marius stiffened. ‘How long have I got?’

‘Another five minutes, perhaps ten.’

Marius sighed. ‘OK, I get that too.’

‘Good.’

‘I know what I need to do,’ said Marius.

‘And what is that?’

‘Have more.’

‘How can that be, Joe? That one taste was more costly than a year of your salary.’

‘There must be a way.’

Cardini said nothing.

A moment later Marius slapped his forehead. ‘Of course. The foundation.’

‘The foundation?’

‘McCloud’s foundation. It has hundreds of millions of dollars. If I controlled it, I could fund you.’

‘You could indeed,’ agreed Cardini. ‘And how could you gain control?’

‘With enough of the treatment I could outwit anyone – I could do whatever I wanted.’ He smiled at Cardini. ‘The trustees think they’re clever but I can see now how easily they could be manipulated. Stein, for example, would get behind me if the foundation was to fund his favourite museum. Gomes is easily scared – the slightest fear of litigation and he will go along with anything I ask him to agree to. Kelly is a fool. He’ll back any proposal I make so long as he gets his money. Can you believe that?’ He laughed contemptuously. ‘A billionaire caring so much about a few thousand bucks and expenses. What a Scrooge McDuck.’ He smirked. ‘That just leaves Walton, and I know how to deal with him. He has a mistress in Charlotte, some old gal he’s been tight with for thirty years. A little nudge and he’ll fall into line.’

‘Simple,’ said Cardini.

Marius’s eyes widened. ‘I can actually feel myself losing it. I can totally feel my mind shrinking. You said five minutes. Has it been that long?’

‘No, Joe, but perhaps you are not blessed with a mind that can hold such thoughts for long.’

Marius held out his hands beseechingly. ‘Please tell me you’ll help me. Please let me come back to this heavenly state.’

‘I will help you, but only once. The elixir is so precious that I can risk only one full treatment on you. You must succeed in your quest or I must let you wash up, like everyone else, an empty carapace on the beach of life.’

‘Oh, God,’ groaned Marius. ‘I can feel myself slipping away. It’s like my brain is going blind.’ He let out a half-laugh. ‘Wow, the lights are going out in my head.’ He looked at Cardini hopefully. ‘Give me more and I’ll hand you the McCloud foundation and all its money on a plate.’

‘You beg now,’ said Cardini, ‘but it will not be easy. Fail once and you will never have another chance. Are you prepared?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sit down,’ ordered Cardini. He delved into his bag and produced an ampoule. ‘You must understand that the cost of saving a life in the developing world is just two dollars. This treatment costs one hundred million dollars.’ He looked once more into Marius’s soul. ‘By accepting it you are extinguishing by proxy fifty million lives. Are you prepared to cross that line?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sacrifice the population of a whole country for your personal desires?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you understand that only I can manufacture this and that you will be for ever in my thrall?’

‘Yes.’

Cardini extracted a syringe from the bag without taking his unblinking eye off Marius. ‘Very well.’ He loaded the syringe. ‘You will have one day, perhaps two, three at the outside to effect your plan. Open your mouth.’

Marius did so.

‘Write down your plan as you will neither understand it nor believe it when you return to your normal existence.’ He aimed the needle. ‘Raise your tongue!’

Marius rolled it back.

Cardini pushed the needle home and pressed the barrel. ‘You must move fast or you will not succeed. The elixir will not keep you accelerated for long. This is your single chance, your only hope, your one throw of the die.’ He withdrew the needle.

Marius was gripping the seat of his chair. He was staring at Cardini in silence, his mouth open, trying to say something. ‘Professor,’ he said finally, ‘ I will not fail you.’

‘First get me back to London.’

Marius jumped up from his chair. ‘Right away.’ He turned to Cardini. ‘I love you.’

Cardini held up his right hand. ‘For now at least.’

Arabella walked the horse up to the ha-ha. There was no sign of Stafford. It wasn’t odd, of course, almost the opposite. It was odd that he should always be standing there and that she should ride by at roughly the same time each day. Yet she had a purpose, and she was sure it amused the butler-cum-estate-manager to be there. At some point the invitation would come and then she would see what the mysterious Mr Evans was all about.

Stafford was a good fellow. His old-fashioned manner brightened up her day. He seemed exactly the sort of retainer that every aristocrat dreamt of having. Her meagre retinue hated the family, as it seemed most servants did. Their heartfelt resentment manifested itself in little acts of sabotage passed off as fawning incompetence. She wondered whether, if the family could afford to pay more, they would get better results, but her friends, many in a significantly better financial position than her family, seemed beset by the same problems with their staff.

If only her family could improve its finances, but there was no prospect of that. They had tried everything they could think of to boost their income but were reduced to scraping by.

The Chase, on the other hand, had seen a complete reversal in fortunes. The grade-one listed Jacobean pile had been stripped down and repaired by an army of restorers from all over Europe. The sums expended on the red-brick monstrosity were rumoured to be colossal. The locals said millions had been poured into the structure and yet more millions into the contents, which included an unbelievable collection of paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough and Hogarth, to name but three of the more famous artists.

The mysterious Mr Evans had even had the grounds excavated by his team of archaeologists, who, it was said, were forbidden to remove any finds from the earth until he was there to help. That seemed a trifle eccentric, yet at the same time rather fascinating.

She pulled up and looked into the grounds. Definitely no sign of Stafford. She spurred the horse and it jumped on to the ha-ha, halting immediately. She looked over the rhododendrons to the red house, set back a quarter of a mile. Her aristocratic nose twitched: a whiff of atmosphere emanated from the old pile, thrilling her. I can put up with a certain amount of waiting, she thought, but if it continues much longer I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.

She had made up her mind.

She turned the horse. It was a pity Stafford hadn’t appeared, she thought.

The chestnut hopped off the ha-ha on to the margin of the field. They cantered towards home.

Jim was watching the US stock market close. It was the best way he knew to clear his head. He could certainly go to sleep, but he wanted to get through to midnight and avoid falling into a jetlagged sleep pattern. Watching the market calmed him. He forgot the questions that flew around his head, crazy and unanswerable, as the market traded, jittering from one price to another.

He threw a few million at the moves and made a few thousand in the process. It was like watching ducks on a lake: you had to throw some bread into the water or the spectacle was boring.

No one from America had called him. That was a small relief, but he knew the authorities were never in a hurry. The call for him to explain the goings-on in McCloud’s palace might come at any time, within hours or not for months. It would be years before he forgot the unpleasant episode.

With five minutes to go, the market was plunging down, just as it had at the start of trading hours before. It was a regular pattern these days: a tradable event that would vanish as soon as too many people cottoned on to it. He didn’t have to trade that kind of thing. He could look at a chart and trace out its progress as if he had next year’s market records in front of him. Market moves were so obvious to Jim. Armies of market analysts claimed they had such talents, but when it came to it no one but Jim appeared to possess them. While their claims seemed plausible, the fact of the matter was that if you could predict the markets just a few seconds into the future, let alone days, you could make all the money in the world.