The Invisible Assassin (20 page)

‘We have to meet,’ said Jake.

‘No,’ said Lauren. ‘They’ll be watching you. If we meet, they’ll get me.’

‘There’s this firm of lawyers called Pierce Randall,’ he said. ‘They helped me. They’ll help you. Protect you. Come with me to meet them.’

‘No,’ said Lauren.

‘Who was Carl going to sell the book to?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered.

‘Whoever it was, if they get in touch with you, give them the book,’ said Jake. ‘That’s all they want. Give them the book and they’ll stop.’

‘No!’ said Lauren. ‘Not after all this! I killed someone I cared for, who I thought cared for me! If I just hand it over, what’s all this been about?’

‘It doesn’t matter what it’s been about,’ insisted Jake. ‘What matters is you stay alive. There’ll be other books. Give them this one.’

There was a pause, then Lauren said, ‘I haven’t got it. I’ve put it somewhere safe.’

‘Where?’

‘I have to go,’ said Lauren. ‘Go home, Jake. Go home. Stay safe.’

Then the line went dead. He dialled her number, but all he got was the usual mechanical voice informing him that ‘This person’s phone is switched off’, and telling him to leave a message.

He headed into his block of flats, and shuddered as he remembered the last time he’d walked in. The fear and panic he’d fought to keep under control as he entered his flat, and the shock at finding the dead man’s body. He knew he ought to feel as apprehensive about going back, but he didn’t. He felt battered and exhausted. If anyone leapt out at him now, he’d quite likely just say to them, ‘I haven’t got the book. I don’t know where it is. Now can you please leave?’

There was no one waiting for him on the stairs, nor on the landing outside his flat. The ‘scene of crime’ tape he’d presumed the police had fixed across his flat door had gone. Everything looked the same as before.

He turned his key in the lock, pushed the door open, and found himself treading on the post: junk mail, a few envelopes with what looked like bills, and a jiffy bag.

He picked up the jiffy bag, and felt his heart pound as he recognised Lauren’s writing on it. It couldn’t be. . . !

He opened the jiffy bag. Inside was the book they’d taken from the research lab. The one everyone was looking for. The one over which people had died. And now he was holding it in his hands.

Chapter 24

Jake sat in his living room, the book on the table in front of him. That was why Lauren had stressed for him to go home. She’d sent the book to the only place she thought was safe.

Jake’s mind was in a whirl. What should he do with it? Give it to Pierce Randall and let them take it into safe keeping? Give it to Penny Johnson? But how would either of those actions help Lauren?

He reached out and touched it, being careful not to disturb it too much in case it fell open, just in case there were any fungal spores still hidden among the pages. Not that it looked as if that would happen easily – it now had an elastic band holding it shut – but Jake was still cautious after what he’d seen happen before.

The book was encased in what looked to be a sort of oilskin or leather, black in colour. A symbol was embossed into the material. It was the same symbol Lauren had on her laptop, the seal of the Order of Malichea. And, etched into the material just beneath the symbol were the Roman numerals CCCLXVII. So this was book number 367, which meant there were at least another 366 books out there from the secret library, hidden.

I have to hang on to this book, Jake told himself. I have to hang on to it until I find out who’s chasing Lauren, and use it to stop them. I’ll give it to them to keep her safe, whether she wants me to or not. As he’d said to Lauren, there’d be other books to find; but there was only one Lauren. He had to protect her.

He got up and began pacing the room – he felt useless sitting down. He needed to be
doing
something. But what? As he walked past his window, he looked out, and saw a man leaning against a low wall on the other side of the street, reading a newspaper. Warning bells went off in Jake’s head. He was sure he’d noticed that same man when he’d arrived home, in the same place, by the low wall on the other side of the road opposite the entrance to his flats.

OK, he could be just a man waiting for someone. But Jake was sure he wasn’t. He studied the man. Tall. Nothing special about him. Wearing jeans, a casual jacket and trainers. And his attention didn’t seem to be completely on the paper he was holding. Every now and then the man’s eyes darted towards the front of Jake’s block of flats, and the entrance.

They’ve been watching for me, waiting for me to come back. And now he’s seen me come in, my guess is he’s phoned the people he’s working with and let them know I’m here.

Who is he? Who are they? The Watchers? Pierce Randall? It was obvious that Sue Clark didn’t believe him when he’d said he’d been for a walk the night before.

Perhaps the man was working for the people who Carl Parsons had been going to sell the book to? Or maybe he was working for Gareth? After all, Gareth was in this up to his neck.

Or perhaps it was a completely different organisation. What was it Penny Johnson had said:
there are lots of people who’d like to lay their hands on those books and the information that’s inside them. Governments, crooks, terrorists
,
investment banks
. Which were these: the man watching his flat and his associates?

As Jake watched, a car pulled up beside the man. The man put his newspaper away, went to the car and said something to the driver. The car doors opened and two men got out. One of them looked up towards Jake’s flat, and Jake just managed to duck to one side to avoid being seen.

They’re coming for me! he thought. I have to call for help!

But who could he call? Whoever it was, they wouldn’t be here before those men got to his flat. And locking his flat door and refusing to let them in wouldn’t help. They’d got in before without trouble, when that man had been killed. And, looking at these men, he was sure that they’d just crash his door in anyway.

He chanced a look out of his window. The two men had gone to the boot of the car and were taking something out of it. As the boot lid slammed down, Jake saw that one of the men was now carrying a long dark holdall. It could be anything: a shotgun, a sledge-hammer to batter down his door.

Jake picked up the book and stuffed it into his jacket pocket, then he ran for the front door. He opened it and banged on the door of the flat opposite, Mrs O’Brien. As the door opened and Mrs O’Brien peered out, Jake pushed against the door, but the security chain held it firmly and stopped it from opening.

‘Yes?’ Mrs O’Brien asked curtly, wariness and suspicion showing clearly on her face.

‘Mrs O’Brien, please let me in!’ begged Jake. ‘It’s urgent!’

‘Why?’ demanded Mrs O’Brien. She was about fifty and regarded everything with suspicion, especially her neighbours, and in particular a young neighbour like Jake.

‘Please!!! It’s a matter of life or death!’

Mrs O’Brien glared back at him. ‘You expect me to let you in, after what happened? A dead man in your flat!’

‘I didn’t do it! That wasn’t me!’ Jake appealed to her. ‘If I had, they wouldn’t have let me go!’

Below, he heard the door from the street open.

‘Please, Mrs O’Brien, I promise you, I’m innocent! But I need your help, desperately.’

Mrs O’Brien hesitated, then very deliberately she pushed the door shut in his face.

Oh God, I’m dead! thought Jake. He could hear the men’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

Then the door opened again, released from the security chain, and Jake fell gratefully into her flat.

Mrs O’Brien shut the door again and refixed the chain in its place.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded sternly. ‘That dead man in your flat. The police arrested you . . .’

‘I didn’t do it!’ Jake told her frantically. ‘Someone tried to frame me! But the police let me go. And now the people who tried to frame me are here!’

Mrs O’Brien looked at him, shocked.

‘Here?’

Jake nodded. ‘They’re coming to my flat.’

Mrs O’Brien went towards the phone. ‘We’ll call the police.’

‘No!’ blurted out Jake. He didn’t want to be found with the book on him. They’d take it off him, and it was the only thing he had that could help Lauren.

From outside, he heard voices. The men were talking, calmly and quietly, loud enough for him to hear them, although not what they were saying. There had been no sounds of his door being broken open, nor his doorbell ringing. He guessed they must have got hold of the keys to his flat and let themselves in.

Mrs O’Brien gave Jake a glare.

‘If there are people like that out there, I’m phoning the police, whether you like it or not!’ she told him firmly.

She picked up the phone and was about to dial, when there was a knocking at her door.

‘It’s them!’ Jake said, horrified.

‘Police!’ called a voice through the door. ‘Open up, please!’

Mrs O’Brien looked at Jake, a bewildered expression on her face.

‘They say they’re police,’ she said.

‘They’re lying,’ said Jake urgently. ‘Ask to see their identification.’

‘I always do,’ said Mrs O’Brien. She put the phone down and called out, ‘All right! I’m coming!’

‘No!’ called Jake, but Mrs O’Brien had already disappeared into the small hallway of her flat. Frantically, Jake looked around. He was trapped!

He heard the door open and then Mrs O’Brien say, ‘Let me see your identification.’

Then a male voice said, ‘Certainly.’

Of course they’d have police ID cards, thought Jake. They’d have everything they needed.

‘Do you know a Mr Jake Wells, your neighbour?’ asked the voice.

‘Why?’ asked Mrs O’Brien.

‘We have reason to believe he may be hiding in one of the other flats in this block . . .’

She’s going to let them in! realised Jake with a shock. Of course she is. She thinks they’re police. And they’ll take me away and find the book, and kill me.

And then he remembered the fire escape which served the whole block, with escape doors from the flats at the back. Mrs O’Brien’s flat was at the back.

As Jake heard Mrs O’Brien saying, ‘He’s here all right. I knew something was up,’ and the sound of the security chain being unfixed, he was already running into the kitchen. Yes, there was the fire-exit door. He rushed to it, pushed it, and almost fell out on to the fire escape. And then he was running, clattering down the metal steps.

He heard a shout behind him, a man calling, ‘Stop him!’ Then the sounds of running feet. A man appeared at the bottom of the fire escape, the same man who’d been keeping watch. The man reached into his jacket and started to pull something out, but he never made it. Jake jumped, kicking out with his foot as he did so, and caught the man full in the face. The man stumbled, and fell back, clutching his face. Jake didn’t wait to see what the man had been pulling from his jacket: a knife or a gun or some other sort of weapon.

Jake ran. His lungs were full to bursting as he reached the pavement and his legs seemed as if they were going to fail him and he would fall, but he could hear the boots close behind him and a voice shout, ‘Get the car!’

A car! He’d never be able to outrun a car!

Only one set of running boots was behind him now; the other had gone to get the car. Then Jake saw a bike, a kid’s mountain bike, leaning against a wall. He grabbed it and carried on running with it, jumped on it and started pedalling, faster and faster, turning rapidly left into one of the side walkways that ran through to the next street. It went between two blocks of flats and had bollards across it to stop cars getting through.

He cycled faster, picking up speed, and he could hear the running boots behind him recede. He did another sharp turn, and another, into a maze of narrow alleyways that he knew no car could get down, and then he cycled as fast as he could until he reached a main road, busy with pedestrians and traffic. He abandoned the bike, and disappeared into a shopping mall, pushing his way through a crowd of shoppers, until he was gone from sight of the main street.

He’d done it! He’d got away! But now what? Who were those men? And where could he go now?

Chapter 25

He was barely inside the shopping mall when his mobile rang. The voice on the phone was a man’s, very coldly businesslike.

‘You have the book. We have Ms Graham. Deliver the book to us, or Ms Graham will die.’

Jake felt sick. They had Lauren.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ demanded the voice.

‘How do I know you’ve got her?’ asked Jake.

‘Wait.’

There was a pause, then Lauren’s voice was heard saying. ‘Jake . . .’ The phone was snatched away from her; but not before Jake had heard her fear and desperation in that one word.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘An exchange. When and where?’

‘We will contact you and give you the location,’ said the voice. ‘But if you make contact with the authorities or anyone else, and bring them with you, she will die.’