First Horseman, The (14 page)

He was trying hard not to be a member of the stupid rich. The stupid rich were a small but powerful group. It didn’t take brains or class to be rich, just skill or perhaps luck. A soccer star was as easily conned by an art dealer as any little old lady by a boiler-room stock-pumping spiv. A Russian oligarch might rearrange your anatomy if you crossed him, but was just as likely to fall for a good salesman flogging crap as any country bumpkin. Jim tried to avoid stepping into the many traps laid for ‘new money’ but he wasn’t completely sure he’d managed it.

He caught up with Marius and Cardini.

They entered a lift, one in a bank of three. They went up to the fourth floor and exited into what looked like a hospital.

Is this all for McCloud? he wondered.

They walked down a long hallway and Jim tried to work out what was behind the doors, all numbered. Across from Room 4 there was a double door. ‘Operating Theatre 1’, said a silver plate on the wall next to it.

Marius opened the door at the end of the corridor. Cardini walked in past him and Jim followed. Medical equipment was neatly lined up around the room, all on racks and trolleys. Two nurses sitting by the door rose and hurried out of the room.

A bed stood by the window and in it lay a slight figure whose outline barely made its presence felt.

‘Good afternoon, Howard,’ said Cardini.

Jim stayed back. The old man in the bed was clearly very frail. The lifeless pallor of his skin, his motionlessness form, underlined how close to death he was.

Cardini opened his bag and prepared a hypodermic. He injected McCloud in his forearm, then put a plastic tip on the needle and replaced it in his bag. He turned to Marius. ‘For now our work is done.’ To Jim, he said, ‘Come, we will return later this evening.’

Jim’s room felt distinctly like a hotel room. It had the kind of sterility of a planned space rather than the warm haphazardness of a personal area. He showered and changed. It would be midnight back in London and he was starting to feel the hour, even though the sun was only just falling to the horizon here.

Renton took the Google Earth printout from the passenger seat again. Although he had memorised every inch of it under the influence of the elixir, the effects were wearing off fast and his detailed recall was fading rapidly.

The plan was simple. He would drive slowly up to the house. Ring the doorbell. Overpower the old man or whoever who came to the door, cut their throat. Find the girl, kill her and take the samples. If anyone else was there he would kill them too. He would then take all the horsemen back to the lab. Prepare the final batches and flee. The tickets to Mumbai, Lagos and Washington were booked. Nothing could stop him.

He blinked. Now that the TRT’s effect was wearing off, it seemed so much more of a daunting challenge. Even minutes ago the prospect of driving to the door of the great mansion had seemed trivial, the slitting of the old man’s throat no more than the termination of a lab rat. That clinical perspective was draining away and a sensation of panic was welling in his stomach.

He screwed up his face in anger. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the vial. It contained a few drops, leftovers that represented a weekend of heavenly bliss and flights of genius across a limitless horizon of mental clarity. There would be so much more for him once he had executed the plan, he thought. He would have such pleasure whenever he wished it and for ever.

By the faint beam of the light above his rear-view mirror, he sucked up the drops into the hypodermic, then injected them into his neck. ‘Argh,’ he gasped, rolling his eyes. A hot sensation flooded his brain, like a
wasabi
rush in the nose. He stretched his neck left, then right, and felt a satisfying pop where his skull met his spine. He started the engine. How could it be anything but easy to destroy these people when they did not even close their gate at night?

The car pulled across the road and on to the gravel of the drive, which crunched and crackled as he drove slowly along. He glanced down at the handle of the hunting knife that poked out from between the pages of a road map. He imagined it at the throat of the old man who had chased him off. He imagined the blade biting into the neck; he could see it slicing into skin, flesh and windpipe. He thrilled with anticipation. About two hundred yards ahead, the house stood, dark and brooding, looming up beyond the bushes and trees.

He was grinning to himself.

Stafford sat up in bed. When his iPhone vibrated like that, droning inside its rubber bumper, it always meant something bad was afoot. He grabbed it and his glasses. A car was coming up the drive.

DISARM??? flashed the screen of the iPhone, as the infrared image of the blue-grey car approached.

He couldn’t see who was behind the wheel of the Polo but it seemed to be moving at quite the wrong speed.

He waited for the action to start.

There was a blinding flash and Renton slammed on the brakes. The whole house and driveway were suddenly lit up like a night-time football match. Metal bollards had appeared from the ground in front of him, their caps flashing blue, their lengths red. TURN BACK, said two signs that had appeared from nowhere.

Renton steadied himself and switched off the engine. He picked up the map, pushing the knife’s handle inside the main fold to hide it, and got out of the car. He walked slowly towards the house.

*

Stafford put on his dressing-gown and saw on the screen that a man, looking rather similar to the fellow who had parked outside that afternoon, was making his way to the front door. He left his room and walked swiftly down the stairs. As he entered the main hall there was a shriek. His hand went instinctively to the right pocket of his silk dressing-gown as he spun round.

It was Kate. ‘Don’t answer the door,’ she said, running towards him on the landing. ‘Please listen to me, don’t open the door.’

He looked at her searchingly. ‘What is this about?’

‘It’s complicated,’ she said, ‘but please don’t open the door to that man.’

‘Should I call the police?’ said Stafford, leaning slightly forward and fixing her with an owl-like stare.

She looked yet more panicked. Her mouth opened and she stared at him as if a fishbone was stuck in her throat. ‘No,’ she said finally.

‘Somehow I thought you might say that,’ said Stafford. ‘Go to your room and lock the door. I’ll deal with this.’ He trotted off.

Renton looked up at the house. The lights had come on inside. He could feel a new strength in his muscles as they pumped themselves up with fresh vigour. As soon as the door was opened to him, he would tell the old man that he was lost, his GPS had broken, and ask for help with the map. Then he would push himself inside the house and strike. The excitement was invigorating.

He reached the worn red-brick steps that led up to the door. He paused, feeling the knife through the crisp paper of the map.

He placed his left foot on the first step and put on his friendliest smile.

There was a quiet rustling behind him and a tinkling sound. He turned.

The old man was standing twenty feet behind him, a Rottweiler sitting on either side. The left one was shaking its head, its nametag ringing and rattling. The old man supported himself lightly on a heavy, gnarled shillelagh, the other hand in the pocket of his burgundy silk dressing-gown. ‘How may I help you at this unearthly hour?’ he said. The dogs got up.

Renton noted that they weren’t on a leash. He turned to the old man and took two steps forward.

The dogs stepped forward too.

Renton looked uncomfortably at them. They were a little too purposeful to be pets.

‘Don’t I recognise you?’ said the old man, sounding slightly angry. The dogs stood stiffly to attention and stared at Renton as if they knew exactly what he had come for.

‘No,’ said Renton. ‘I’m looking for the Porterfield Country Hotel,’ he said, shuffling to one side, away from the house. ‘This isn’t it, is it?’ he said, in a friendly but rather scared way.

‘No, it isn’t.’

Renton was wheeling around now, the old man and the dogs moving accordingly.

‘I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before,’ barked the old man.

‘No, we’ve never met. Sorry to have bothered you,’ he said, manoeuvring himself so that he had a clear route back down the drive.

The dogs were gambolling slowly after him as he walked past the old man and away. They were humiliating him, driving him like a wayward sheep. He could turn and stab them, then go for the man, who might try to hit him with the stick, but he felt incredibly strong as the TRT pumped through his mind and body. He could take them all on and win with ease.

He stopped, grabbed the hilt of the knife in his right fist and turned.

As soon as the dogs saw the blade, they charged. Renton raised it to strike, but the first Rottweiler clamped his wrist with its open jaws, while the second crashed into his chest and flattened him.

Renton was pinned to the ground, stunned.

The second dog had his throat in its jaws. He could feel the teeth pressing down on his flesh, just short of tearing into his gullet. If the dog chose it could sever his windpipe. The knife was out of reach, on the gravel, and he lay transfixed. The second dog was only a command away from ripping him to pieces, like a brought-down stag.

The dogs made no sound. They waited motionless and throbbing above him. He could feel their heat.

The old man looked down at Renton, holding a hunting knife in his right hand. ‘The next time I see you will be the last,’ he said, fixing Renton with a beady stare.

Eventually he turned away and walked up the drive. ‘Come on, boys,’ he said.

With that, the dogs released their grip and ran to his side.

The old man turned to watch Renton run down the drive. His throat was covered with foamy dog slobber but he didn’t dare stop to wipe it off.

Stafford looked up at the house. Kate was standing in the window looking down at him.

He rubbed the dogs’ necks. ‘You can stay out tonight and play,’ he said. ‘Go on.’ They jumped at each other, wagging their stumpy tails, and dashed off across the drive into the darkness beyond.

Stafford took out the front-door key and went into the hall. At the top of the stairs, Kate was looking down at him. She was dressed and she was carrying something in her right hand. She walked down the stairs.

‘I think you have some explaining to do,’ said Stafford.

Kate looked at him with a mix of awe and terror. Words didn’t form. ‘Those dogs,’ she said, ‘are they yours?’ She blinked. ‘I don’t mean are they yours, I mean …’ She stopped. She held out the black box. ‘I took this from him.’

Stafford reached out to take the box but she held it back. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It might be very dangerous. Let me show you.’

‘Come through to the library,’ said Stafford. ‘Let me pour us a drink and you can tell me everything.’ He turned away.

‘Mr Stafford,’ she said, ‘what if he comes back?’

‘The dogs will deal with him,’ he said.

‘Mr Stafford,’ she said.

He stopped and turned back to her.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m really …’ She halted mid-sentence.

‘You are very welcome.’

‘I meant to say I’m really scared but grateful sounds better, doesn’t it?’ She let out a nervous laugh.

Unconsciously Stafford patted the pistol in his dressing-gown pocket. ‘I’m sure your story will be fascinating.’

She sat on a long green leather sofa, her legs curled underneath her. He occupied a brown leather chair, a low table between them. He had listened to thousands of witness statements and confessions, and the truth was always the same: it made sense. It flowed and fitted together. The improbabilities stuck out against the mundane and the teller told the story with the vividness of the moment, making no attempt to justify or embellish.

The man Renton was clearly some kind of insane monster. Stafford had come across such monsters before and he had worked with men like that too. The highly functional insane turned up in many places, especially in his old profession, and while they were rare, they could leave a huge wake of chaos behind them, especially when they finally lost their meagre grasp on normality.

He could smooth over the situation for her. He could make sure that there would be many red flags against Renton’s records. If anything unusual happened within five miles of Renton in future, he would be on the ‘go-see’ list.

‘Well, Renton will now find it hard to prosecute you for stabbing him, seeing as he has paid us a visit, fit as a flea, only a few hours after you fought him off. I have everything on video, of course.’ He smiled.

Kate shifted on the sofa, her feet on the floor now. She looked as if she was going to jump up, but she slumped back. ‘What about the box?’

‘Well, I was going to ask you …’

She sat forward and unclipped the top. The lid flipped back and the front fell forwards. There were four trays. Stafford leant forwards. She pulled out each tray and laid them on the table. Inside each one there was an enclosed Petri dish. In each dish, on a clear jelly, something was growing. White spindly snowflakes spread across the first, like crystals of quartz. In the second, green-white billowy mould spread like a fungus on a damp, decaying wall. In the third, patchy translucent dots were expanding into jelly-like blobs. In the fourth, red bubbles were growing in grid formations where the jelly had been contaminated with whatever was feeding and dividing in the clear incubating soup.

‘What are they?’ said Stafford, torn between the curiosity to look closely and the instinctive repugnance he felt towards whatever was growing in the dishes.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but whatever it is, it’s important to Renton. He didn’t risk everything to come after me. I think he came for this.’

‘Why do you say that?’ said Stafford.

‘I just know.’

Stafford looked at the dishes. ‘I’ll have these seen to,’ he said.

‘By whom?’

‘Acquaintances,’ he said, looking askance at them. ‘Do you think you might put them away now?’ He watched her put them back into the box and close it. He would call Porton Down in the morning and have them collected. One way or another that would be the end of the matter.