White Gold (17 page)

London

Dan parked the car on the side of the street and got out, hitting the alarm button on the key fob. He pulled his jacket closed and zipped it up against the cold breeze. He shoved the keys in his jeans pocket, checked the road for traffic then jogged over to the entrance of the apartment block.

He took the stairs two at a time. As he neared the fifth-floor landing, he happened to glance up, and then stopped in his tracks. He held onto the banister, and took another step, peering over the balustrade at the top of the stairs and across to the door to Sarah’s apartment.

It had been left slightly open.

He slunk closer to the outer wall of the staircase and crept upwards. He glanced over the staircase, listening for any movement.

Nothing.

He focused on the open door as he reached the top of the stairs. He edged closer, holding his breath. He stepped carefully over the carpet on the landing. The building was old, despite the modern renovation works, and he didn’t trust the floorboards. The last thing he wanted was for one of them to creak theatrically and forewarn anyone still in the apartment.

He took a deep, slow breath through his mouth. His heart beat hard, a vein in his neck pulsing from the adrenaline rushing through his system. He stared at the splintered door frame. Whoever had forced their way into Sarah’s apartment had considerable strength – and a crowbar.

Dan hugged the wall as he got closer until he was level with the door. The door was open no more than a few centimetres. Dan crouched down. No sense in giving someone the opportunity of a free headshot if the intruder was armed. He held out his hand and gently pushed the door open. It rocked back on its damaged frame and swung inwards.

Dan craned his neck, peered round the edge of the frame and glanced inside. His heart cranked up a notch.

The apartment had been trashed. He stood up and listened carefully. He couldn’t hear a sound. He crept into the hallway and pushed the door behind him, to keep away any nosy neighbours.

He turned left towards the living room first, keeping the shortest distance between him and the front door. He peered around the door to the room. The television had been kicked over, glass shards strewn over the fireside rug while the small coffee table lay upside down, one of the art prints stabbed over the table’s upturned legs.

He strode over to the coffee table and wrenched off one of the table legs. Testing its weight in his hand, he glared around the room at the damage and sniffed the air. No gas, at least. Perhaps he’d frightened off the intruder.

Dan tightened his grip on the makeshift weapon, then turned and edged his way along the hallway towards the kitchen. He checked the two bedrooms and bathroom as he progressed. All were turned upside down in the intruder’s haste.

He shouldered the table leg as he gently pushed the kitchen door open. Cupboards had been emptied, their contents thrown across the floor. The microwave lay in one corner, its door hanging off its hinges while the refrigerator teetered precariously on one side, water dripping out and over the tiled floor.

Dan turned around, surveying the damage, then stopped dead and stared at the wall. Two words, splashed across the wall in a red liquid.

You’re next
.

Dan’s stomach lurched.
Sarah
.

Dan felt his heart accelerate and a cold sweat creep between his shoulder blades.
Please, no
!

He walked the length of the apartment again, desperately searching for signs of a violent struggle amongst the debris of the break-in. His eyes scanned across each of the rooms as he strode down the hallway, opening doors, lifting broken furniture off the carpet.

There was no sign of Sarah. What about her computer?

Dan ran back to the guest room where, the day before, he’d spotted a small desk and a printer. He burst through the door. Everything had been smashed to pieces.

He tightened his grip on the table leg and stalked back to the kitchen. He stopped and stared at the wall, then closed his eyes, thinking hard.

He jumped as he heard the front door being pushed open. He opened his eyes and tested the weight of the table leg and then raised it to shoulder height. Someone was moving carefully along the hallway towards the kitchen, creeping along the carpeted surface.

As the kitchen door began to open in towards him, Dan raised the weapon.

He dropped it in surprise as Sarah stepped into the room, her face three shades of white as she surveyed the damage.

She stared up at Dan. ‘Been busy?’

He stepped over the debris strewn over the floor and pulled her towards him, hugging her tightly.

‘I thought they’d taken you,’ he whispered.

Sarah held him, and looked around her at the devastation. She stopped and stared at the message on the wall. ‘What happened?’

Dan followed her gaze. ‘I think they came looking for us – and the notes.’ He began to straighten the furniture, just to give himself something to do.

Then he turned to Sarah, his heart beating fast. ‘We need to go and check on Harry. The bastards might’ve got to him too.’

She nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

Darkness fell over the countryside as Dan floored the accelerator and the car sped down the motorway. The traffic lessened the further they left the city behind, the headlight beams picking out bare trees and hedgerows. Dan didn’t speak. His only thought was to get to Harry. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to his mentor, his friend.

As they approached Oxford, Dan turned left onto the ring road and hit the main road towards Swindon.

Sarah glanced at her watch. ‘It’s been two hours, Dan,’ she said.

‘I know, I know,’ he muttered, and pressed his foot to the floor.

He slowed to take a left-hand turn and pointed the car towards Uffington. As the road narrowed, it twisted and turned. Dan guided the vehicle along the lanes, switched the headlights to high beam and concentrated on the road. He noticed his knuckles turning white as they gripped the steering wheel and forced his heart rate down.

Dan turned up the lane to Harry’s house and slowed the car to a halt.

‘Oh no,’ said Sarah.

Dan looked to where she pointed. The front door was wide open. No lights shone from the windows.

‘Come on,’ he said and jumped out of the car.

Dan walked slowly up the garden path, looked at the open door and frowned. He used his elbows to push the door open and winced as it creaked on its hinges.

‘Harry?’ Dan stopped on the threshold. He could smell gas – strong, pungent. He heard a movement behind the living room door. Scratching, scraping.

‘Harry?’

He heard a groan from behind the door. Dan stepped round the wooden frame.

‘Bloody hell, Harry – what happened?’

He dropped to the floor, where Harry was lying in a congealed pool of blood. Groggy, but alive.

‘Get me out of here – and switch off the gas taps for goodness sake, I’m not insured,’ he murmured, then passed out.

Dan looked back to where Sarah was standing near the doorway, leaning on the wall, her hands over her mouth.

‘Don’t touch any light switches,’ he said. ‘Go down the road about one hundred metres and use your mobile to call an ambulance.’

She nodded, turned and ran.

Dan pulled Harry up onto his shoulder and, stooping under the weight, carried him out and away from the house. He set him down gently on the grass verge next to the car, leaning him against the vehicle. Turning, Dan ran back into the house and found the gas outlet outside the back door. He walked through the house, opening all the doors and windows, letting the breeze carry the stench and fumes out of the building.

Dan ran back down the garden path and crouched next to Harry. He picked up an arm, held Harry’s wrist in the palm of his hand and checked for a pulse. It was weak, but there.

Harry murmured in his comatose state and began to waken. He opened his eyes and looked around wildly.

‘It’s okay, Harry, I’m here,’ said Dan, putting his arm around the older man. ‘The gas is off. Ambulance is on it’s way.’

Harry nodded and closed his eyes again. ‘Thank you.’

‘Can you tell me what happened?’ Dan asked.

Harry swallowed. ‘Bastard forced his way in. Whacked me over the head and left me for dead. Probably turned the gas on to make it look like an accident.’

Dan nodded. ‘Sounds familiar. Can you remember what he looked like?’

‘Tall, thin – academic looking, wore glasses,’ murmured Harry.

The sound of a siren in the distance broke the silence.

‘You were lucky, you know that?’ said Dan. ‘A cut like that on your head, you’re lucky you didn’t bleed to death.’

Harry smiled and reached into the pocket of his cardigan. He drew out a small bottle and shook it. ‘Heart medicine. Trust me – I wasn’t going to bleed to death. This stuff could stop a flood.’

Dan grinned. ‘You’re still going in the ambulance.’

Harry grimaced. ‘Damn,’ he said, and then passed out.

Dan squirmed and tried to get comfortable on the hard plastic chair and did his best to ignore the smell of antiseptic in the air. He shivered. He could hear his own cries of pain as he was carried through to an emergency hospital unit, far away. The stench of his own blood and shit. Fiery shrapnel in gaping wounds festering in his limbs. The screams from his friends as the medical staff did their best to save lives, stop the pain.

Dan shook his head, rubbed his eyes and stood up. He wandered over to a notice-board, reading whatever was pinned there to try to keep the memories away. He looked around at the sound of heels on the tiled floor. Sarah was hurrying towards him.

‘How is he?’ Dan asked, clutching her arm as she reached him.

‘He’ll be okay. They’ve got him on a low dose of oxygen to help get the gas out of his bloodstream and they’ve given him a mild sedative to help him rest.’

Dan hugged her with relief. ‘Did you tell them what happened?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Not exactly. I told them he’s living on his own, tends to be a bit forgetful about things.’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t think you or Harry would want to make a big fuss of it, given the circumstances.’

Dan nodded. ‘Good thinking.’

Sarah looked around. ‘So the man with the glasses
did
follow us from Singapore.’

‘Looks that way. He moves fast too – Delaney must be beginning to worry about us.’

‘Do you think Harry will be safe here?’

‘Probably,’ said Dan. ‘They’ve got security on the main entrances. The nurse’s station in the ward won’t let anyone visit without an appointment and identification. I’ll have a word with someone I know and ask him to look after Harry too.’ He looked at his watch, then nodded to himself.

Sarah interrupted his thoughts. ‘What is it?’

Dan looked along the hospital corridor, then down at Sarah.

‘Come with me,’ he said, and hurried out to the visitors’ car park.

Near Denchworth, Oxfordshire

Dan swung the car left and slowed to a halt in front of two large gate pillars. A rusting wrought-iron gate blocked their way, a chain and padlock hanging between the bars.

‘What is this place?’ asked Sarah, sitting up straight in her seat.

‘Home,’ said Dan, as he opened his door and stepped out into the frosty air.

Sarah frowned and turned to ask him what he meant, but stopped short as he slammed the car door shut. She heard the muffled sound of his boots on the gravel driveway and watched as he walked towards the gates, removing a set of keys from his jeans pocket. He turned slightly back towards the car, holding the keys up in the light. Once satisfied he had the right one selected, he turned back to the gate and inserted the key in the padlock. Removing the chain, he first opened one side of the gates, then the other and walked back to the car.

Dan climbed in, throwing the chain and padlock on the floor by Sarah’s feet. Easing off the handbrake, he drove the car slowly through the gates. He stopped, retrieved the padlock and chain and got out, locking the gates behind them. He walked back to the car, pocketed the keys and got in.

‘That’s bloody freezing out there,’ he said, releasing the handbrake and guiding the car up the driveway.

Sarah remained silent, watching the headlight beams as they shone across trees and overgrown shrubs while the gravel driveway wound its way between them. After a few hundred metres, the shrubs gave way to what had once been a manicured lawn. It was now overgrown, with whole flower beds lost to a jungle of green.

Dan coaxed the vehicle round the driveway as it curved to the right, the headlights illuminating a large house. Built from brick with large bay windows facing the driveway, the house looked forbidding.

Dan glanced over at Sarah. ‘It looks better in daylight.’

‘Really?’ She looked up at the building as Dan brought the car to a halt. ‘I hope it’s got heating,’ she said as she unbuckled her seat belt.

‘It will have once I’ve lit some fires,’ he replied and opened his door. ‘It’ll be ages before the old oil furnace gets up to speed.’

Stepping round to the back of the car, he reached in and pulled their bags off the back seat. Dan’s feet crunched across the gravel as he made his way up to the front entrance, a large double door under a covered porch. Dropping the bags at his feet, he retrieved his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. He hit a switch just inside the doorway and a series of lights lit up through the hallway. He turned to Sarah and executed a mock bow.

‘After you.’

Sarah glanced at him briefly and stepped through into the house, intrigued by the thought this really
was
Dan’s home. He followed her, took off his jacket, hung it on a coat rack and placed the bags at the bottom of an ornate flight of stairs.

‘We’ll deal with those later. Let’s get a fire going then I’ll show you around.’

Sarah hugged her coat around her, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of neglect. She followed Dan through a doorway to the right of the hallway. He hit another switch and a series of wall lamps flickered to life. A couple of light bulbs had blown, sending pockets of shadows across the room in places. Dan walked into the room and leaned over an armchair, switched on a table lamp and then turned and stepped over to the large bay window and pulled large velvet drapes over the glass.

‘That’ll help keep the cold out,’ he said.

Sarah looked around the room in amazement. It was a living area, that much was evident, but most of the space had been taken up with bookcases. She walked up to one of them and cast her eye over the titles, brushing away dust and cobwebs.
Geology of Scotland
,
The Jurassic Coastline of Dorset
,
Petrified Forests of Papua New Guinea
. Journals and articles filled the spaces in between. She wandered along the display, turning her head left and right to read the spines, faded gold leaf catching the light.

In places, fossils and lumps of rock jostled for space with the books, leaving crumbs of mineral deposits scattered across the shelves and mixing with the dust. Sarah picked up one of the rocks, a large black, shiny lump of stone with small holes like pinpricks dotted over the surface.

‘Tektite,’ Dan called out from the other side of the room. ‘Driest rock on Earth.’

‘Hmm,’ said Sarah and put it back. She turned to watch Dan as he tore up an old newspaper and stacked it in the grate with kindling wood.

He rolled up his sleeves, reached up to the fireplace and felt around until his fingers found a matchbox, then lit the fire, moving the kindling around until it caught properly. He leaned over and picked up a couple of logs from a basket next to the fireplace and stacked them neatly on top of the flames.

‘Right, that should do it,’ he said standing up. He turned to Sarah. ‘What?’

She was looking at him with her arms folded across her chest. ‘You know what. When were you going to tell me about this place?’

He shrugged. ‘Probably never. But we needed somewhere safe to stay and I don’t think anyone will find us here. I hadn’t even really thought of it myself until earlier at the hospital.’

Sarah fell into one of the armchairs next to the fire and looked at the dust cloud that reached into the air. ‘When was the last time you were here?’

‘I don’t know – hang on a minute.’ Dan reached down into the fire and pulled out a piece of newspaper, the end smouldering. Squinting in the bad light, he waved it in the air to put the flames out and read the date at the bottom. ‘Here you go. January twelfth.’

Sarah looked around. ‘Only two months ago – and you didn’t clean?’

Dan laughed. ‘January twelfth –
last year
.’

Sarah stared at him. ‘Is there anyone else here?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Not unless next door’s cat still hunts in the barn.’