Alchemist (56 page)

They drove inland, turning on to an undulating road that ran through a volcanic valley surrounded by craters of varying size. It felt like being on the moon, Rowley imagined. The day was fading rapidly and it would be dark in an hour.

They passed a military air base, a surreal site within the lava landscape, and a few miles later the car suddenly turned in between two smart white gateposts and swept up a long drive. As they rounded a curve, Rowley could see an imposing ranch-style mansion ahead. To the left of it in the dusk, he could see the hull of the helicopter and its rotors. It looked, he thought, a little sinister.

Sontaree opened the front door himself and greeted him warmly. ‘Mr Rowley! You have had a pleasant rest?'

Rowley stifled a yawn. ‘Yes, thank you.' There was a moist smell to the air that he found refreshing after the heat of the coast.

He was led through into a living room, furnished mostly in rattan, with dramatic views down to the coast, and handed a glass of champagne.

‘Your health.' Rowley gulped the champagne greedily, feeling thirsty, and the Hawaiian refilled his glass immediately. The man seemed a little edgy, he thought, and conversation was strained. He peered through the window at the view.

‘That's Waikoloa, down to the right – and Kona to the left,' Sontaree said.

Rowley suddenly found he was having a problem focusing.
He screwed up his eyes and tried again. The floor felt unstable beneath him. Drunk the champagne too fast, he thought, a little alarmed. Then the glass of the picture window rippled and it seemed as if he was looking at the view through a goldfish bowl.

He turned, startled. The president looked oddly distorted, as if he were melting. He sensed the glass being eased from his hand.

‘Need to sit down,' he mumbled.

‘We go outside. You can sit in a minute.'

Feeling increasingly strange, Rowley allowed himself to be led out of the house and towards the helicopter, which seemed to be changing shape as he got nearer. The rear door swung open and steps dropped down; like a tongue sticking out, he thought, and was surprised when he stepped on the bottom rung to find it was firm, not squidgy.

He was even more surprised at the figures seated inside. About a dozen people, he guessed, hazily; all appeared to be wearing white robes, their faces obscured by cowled hoods; and there was a cloying smell of incense.

‘Didn't realize it was a fancy dress party!' Rowley said light-headedly, looking around, expecting everyone to share the joke with him. Instead there was silence.

As he watched, the white robes seemed to expand, sliding into each other, as if they were dissolving into one amorphic mass. His brain felt as if it was gyrating inside his cranium. Hands guided him into a seat.

Noise exploded all around him. The roar of the engine starting. Vibration. The helicopter lifted off, tilted forward and began climbing. After a few moments it banked steeply. He peered down at the astronomy observatories on top of Mona Kea; in the final glow of the setting sun they reminded him of melting igloos.

They headed east and as the sun slipped behind the horizon they began a long circle around the crater of the erupting Mount Kilauea. At first all Rowley could see was the dense billowing cloud of sulphurous steam. Then as they climbed directly above the three-mile-wide rim, he could make out with increasing clarity the boiling red cauldron of the lava lake
inside. It was like a livid, inflamed larynx inside vast jaws, he thought.

Then something closed over his eyes, plunging him into total darkness.

A sudden bolt of fear curdled inside him. ‘Hey!' he exclaimed.

A soft object was slipped over his head. Cloth. It was being tightened below his chin. He was having difficulty breathing.

Pitch darkness.

He felt himself thrust face down on the floor; his hands being tied behind his back; then his ankles bound together. His face was sweltering hot; ripples of panic pulsed through him. ‘Hrrrgg! Hrrfggh!' he grunted, trying desperately to comprehend, through his drugged haze, what on earth was happening.

The helicopter stayed high for safety, the experienced pilot well aware that an erupting volcano sucked up all the air in its path. It ceased circling and began to hover, the pilot holding it as steady as he could.

Then all the robed men and women began to chant the Lord's Prayer in reverse, in Latin.

‘
Nema. Olam a son arebil des
Menoitatnet ni sacudni son en te.
Sirtson subirotibed
Summittimid son te tucis
Artson atibed sibon ettimid te
Eidoh sibon ad
Munaiditouq murtson menap
Arret ni te oleac ni
Tucis aut satnulov taif
Muut munger tainevda
Muut nemon rutecifitcnas
Sileac ni se iuq
Retson retap
.'

Charley Rowley could hear the sound. He wriggled, grunted, suffocating in the cloth hood. Then suddenly he heard the sliding of metal, the roaring of wind, and a blast of
refreshing, icy air. His head cleared a little. Some kind of joke? This had to be some prank devised by that shifty little prat Sontaree. It was then that utter terror seized him.

He was being lifted; hands under his stomach, chest, legs. The roar of the wind was getting louder, tearing at his shirt, his shorts, the bare skin of his legs.

Suddenly, he felt himself roll over. The hands were no longer supporting him. He was falling. Going to hit the floor!

Except he carried on falling.

Icy air pressed the hood around his face like a second skin; stinking sulphur seared his lungs.

Dropping.

The red heat was coming up at him; searing, furnace heat; unbearable, blistering heat. He screamed, a brief, muffled cry before his vocal chords were burned away.

From the helicopter they could see the dark figure falling headfirst, like a bomb. It erupted briefly into a ball of smoke as it hit the 2000 degrees hot surface of molten lava, then was gone.

‘Take our gift, we pray thee!' the people in the helicopter chanted. ‘Hail Satan. Hail goddess Pele!'

Berkshire, England. Saturday 26 November, 1994

‘We turn right in about a mile,' Monty said, massaging her temples, trying to relieve the splitting headache she had woken with that morning.

As Conor slowed the BMW, she delved into her handbag, pulled out the packet of Nurolief they had just bought in a chemist's and pushed two capsules out of the foil bubbles.

‘You reckon those are any good?' Conor asked.

‘Best thing I've ever found for a hangover.' She popped them in rapid succession into her mouth and swallowed, eyeing the entwined BS logo on the packet with unease. ‘Even if they are made by you know who.'

‘I might have a couple as well. Think I overdid the red wine last night.'

‘And the champagne and the brandy,' she grinned, then leaned across and slipped a capsule into his mouth, waited for him to swallow, then slipped in the next.

‘Some night,' he said. ‘It was
some
night.'

She gave his thigh a squeeze in acknowledgement and then she pointed, suddenly. ‘OK, that's it, right here.'

They turned, past a battery of signs, into the campus of Berkshire University. Monty directed him to the far end of a large car park that was less than a quarter full.

They pulled up before a faded sign saying ‘Space Reserved For Bannerman Labs', and climbed out of the car into the shadow of the massive concrete superstructure of the new science block that was under construction. A piece of loose scaffolding rattled in the wind and Monty turned warily, memories of Dr Corbin still all too vivid.

Weeds grew up through the concrete hard immediately in front of the redbrick building that housed Bannerman Genetic Research, and the window bars made the place look more like a disused prison than a laboratory.

Monty produced a suitably jailer-sized bunch of keys, unlocked the door and stepped in quickly to switch off the alarm. Conor followed and she locked the door again from the inside.

The interior smells had not changed in all the time she had known this building, and they brought a raft of memories back as the click of her heels echoed in the stillness. A calendar hung on the wall and there was a small hatch through to the accounts department, now stripped bare, which had doubled as reception. Bare old wooden desks, metal filing cabinets, mostly empty, peeling paint. She looked at Conor, wondering what he was thinking.

‘Lot of character, this place. Must be sad for you to see it go,' he said.

‘A few months ago I couldn't wait to get out,' she told him. ‘Now I really miss it. I seem to have spent so much of my life here.'

She led him into the main laboratory, with its rows of
wooden work benches still covered in the equipment and apparatus that Bendix Schere had not required, and the peeling Health and Safety warning notices Sellotaped to its walls. ‘Welcome to the hub of modern science!' she said.

‘Love it! You ought to sell this place to the Science Museum! They could move it lock, stock and barrel into one of their floors as a tribute to your father.'

‘I wish,' she said, hugging her chest with her arms against the cold. Her headache was starting to feel a little better already; it was too soon for the Nurolief to be working yet, she knew, probably just a psychological effect.

God, she had hit the booze last night. She had made Conor a meal at home and he had tried to cheer her up with champagne because she had been to Walter's funeral.

She had been deeply depressed by the service. It had been surprisingly cheery beforehand, with many ex-employees there. But as the coffin had slid through the crematorium curtains, the weeping of Mrs Hoggin and her daughters had made the interior of the small chapel feel claustrophobic, and Monty had suffered intense guilt and remorse.

What if
she
had caused his death?

Ludicrous even to think it. It was a heart attack! Mrs Hoggin had told her at the funeral that Walter had a recent history of heart trouble, which he had been trying to keep secret, and was on a waiting list for a coronary bypass. And yet Monty could not shake off the feeling that poor old Walter had gone the same way as Zandra Wollerton and Jake Seals. Whatever way that was.

And in her darker moments, a question was beginning to grow in her mind as to whether she had somehow been the cause of Dr Corbin's death. As well. She had read once, and it had always stuck in her mind, that there were certain people who were
attractors
; their mere presence drew things like poltergeists.

She shivered. Four deaths. Three freak accidents and a heart attack. She reached up and pressed a row of light switches, putting on the overhead fluorescents; the bright light they threw down felt as cold as frost.

She thought about Mrs Hoggin, who had greeted her so
warmly at her front door nearly two weeks or so earlier. Monty had barely been able to face her outside the crematorium chapel. She had dumped on her, dumped on Walter. Dumped on everyone whom she had involved. And she felt a sudden irrational anger towards Hubert Wentworth. It was all
his
fault! If the stupid old fool had never come to see her none of it would have happened.

Monty showed him the cupboard where the requirements he had itemized for her were still stored, beside an empty flow-hood.

‘I thought we were coming into a derelict shell. This place is better equipped than a lot of places I've seen in the States.' He hefted his briefcase on to the work surface beside a microscope.

‘Yes, and it all works, it's just old.'

‘Shame you ever had to sell out.'

‘Research funding's a constant nightmare. Scientists aren't valued in this country.'

‘Except by commercial organizations.'

She followed him out of the darkroom as he walked round examining some of the other apparatus in the lab. ‘You didn't have any computerized gene-sequencing machines?'

‘No – I – don't think so.'

He shook his head. ‘Probably a couple of hundred thousand dollars' more kit and you'd have been as up to date as any lab anywhere. You wouldn't have needed Bendix Schere.'

‘Maybe if my father had patented some of his work we'd have had the money,' she said ruefully.

‘You should have tried selling this stuff to a Third World dictator who wants to get into the cloning business. It's amazing what can be done with a full-scale genetics lab.'

‘I remember when Bendix Schere sent a couple of lab technicians down they were almost laughing at us. They said most of our equipment looked like it had come out of the Ark.'

‘Well, that's because Bendix don't own anything that's more than two years old.' Conor went back into the darkroom and opened his briefcase.

A brown envelope lay inside on his laptop. He removed a
folded sheet of computer paper from it and read the wording: ‘Bendix Schere Maternox. Product Code: BS PR65789/0987. Quality Control Analysis Procedure.'

Monty looked at it curiously. She had only ever seen the research side of the pharmaceutical industry, although she had a working knowledge of the production processes. A column of figures ran along the bottom of the sheet; along the top axis was a plot like a heart trace but with no spikes below the baseline.

Conor shut the door. ‘OK, I need the capsules. You got the regular ones as well, no problem?'

‘I told my doctor I'd been trying to get pregnant for two years without success. He wrote me a prescription then and there.'

He looked at her to see if she was joking. ‘Just like that? No tests? No examinations? No specialist?'

She grinned. ‘He's a family friend. Actually I told him Father needed some Maternox in a hurry to do some experiments on and it was easier than getting some sent down by the company. I think he knows me well enough to trust me not to swallow them.'

Monty removed two vials from the small, zipped compartment inside her bag and proffered them to him. One contained the capsules she had taken from the Kingsleys', the other, the brand new ones, from a totally different batch number.