Requiem (24 page)

‘I was going to,’ he admitted. ‘I got the files ready – that was when I thought I was going to get fired.’

‘Where are they? Have you got them with you?’

Dublensky had to think for a moment. In the confusion of leaving the office and Reedy’s kindness in seeing him off, he realized what had happened. ‘They’re still at the office. In my briefcase.’

Anne sat back with a harsh sigh. ‘Well, that’s the last we’ll see of them then.’

Dublensky shot her a horrified look, dismayed at the implication. ‘This isn’t the Mob, you know. This isn’t some kind of Mafia that makes things disappear overnight. Those documents will be there in the morning. Believe me. I’ll bet my last dollar on it. They’ll be there.’ Even as he said it, the doubts flourished. Was it possible? Would someone actually remove the documents? If so, who? MKI’s security people? No, they wouldn’t know what to look for. Reedy then? No. Tough he might be, but a collaborator in dark matters of chicanery he was not.

‘Listen,’ Dublensky added. ‘If those documents aren’t there in the morning I’ll make one hell of a stink, believe me! One hell of a stink.’ Dublensky had never made a real stink in his life – he preferred to raise awkward matters on paper – but on this issue he was pretty certain he could raise enough steam to propel himself into action.

Anne was silent; but then her silences were far worse than anything she might say because she reserved them for her moments of greatest displeasure.

Dublensky drained his glass and poured himself another. A moderate drinker, he had the sudden urge to throw prudence aside and take the consequences. ‘Listen, let’s just wait until tomorrow, shall we?’ he said plaintively. ‘Let’s just wait and see.’

He woke early the next morning with an unfamiliar headache and a dry mouth, and hurried out of the house before seven. The ploughs were barely out, the dawn little more than a glimmer, but the snow had stopped and the sky was hard and clear. Apart from a section of uncleared drift on Lincoln Avenue, he had a smooth run across town to the familiar copper roofs of the MKI building.

The security man in the main lobby glanced up and gave him a perfunctory nod. Dublensky felt a small burst of relief. In some of the wilder nightmares that had haunted him during the long night, the security men had refused him entry to the building. Now, amid the sounds of floor polishers and the chatter of the cleaners, his fears seemed absurd. They were promoting him, weren’t they? They’d hardly give him the lock-out treatment reserved for abrupt departures.

Nevertheless his heart beat a little harder as he approached the security gate. He inserted his card. The green light flashed on, the gate opened, and he was through. When the elevator disgorged him at the sixth floor, his confidence had returned. Anne would be proved wrong; the documents would still be there.

The door of his office was open, an electrical cable snaking in from the passage. A cleaner was in the centre of the room, vacuuming in a desultory manner. Dublensky side-stepped the cleaning trolley and the cleaner and peered at the side of his desk. The briefcase stood there, just as he’d left it. He pulled it onto the desk and opened it. He allowed himself a small smile of relief and triumph.

Untouched.

He pulled the Aurora file to the top and opened it, just to be sure.

Complete. He’d known it. Anne had overreacted. There was nothing sinister going on at all. There never had been.

Nevertheless he would take the documents to the office supply store on his way home that evening, and get them copied, just in case.

After the uncertainties of the night, he felt a surge of euphoria which manifested itself in a spurt of manic energy, and he set about putting his papers into some sort of order, ready for the new incumbent, whoever that might be.

It wasn’t long before he found out. Soon after eight thirty there was a knock and Don Reedy entered with a young woman.

‘Well, how’s our new man in Virginia?’ Reedy said with forced joviality. Dublensky thought he looked strained. ‘John – meet Mary Cummins,’ said Reedy. ‘She’ll be taking over from you here.’

‘Where have you come from, Mary?’ Dublensky asked.

‘Pharmaceuticals.’

‘Been there long?’

‘A couple of years.’

She seemed rather young for the job, though Dublensky was far too polite to say so. ‘Welcome,’ he said amiably. ‘I wish I’d had longer to get things straight for you.’ He glanced apologetically at the disorder of his desk. ‘If you can give me a couple of hours …’

‘Sure,’ Reedy answered for her. ‘In the meantime it would help Mary if she could get on with some reading.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Dublensky said, surveying his cluttered shelves. ‘Where would you like to start?’

They picked their way through product performance reports, field reports and projects in hand – mainly toxicology trials on development products.

‘That should keep you busy,’ Dublensky smiled.

‘It’ll make a good start,’ Mary Cummins said earnestly.

Reedy looked over the selection. ‘Oh, and do you have the Aurora file, John? I need to have a look at it. Then I’ll pass it on to Mary. Now we’re doing this rerun.’

Dublensky’s smile faltered. ‘Sure.’ His eyes were held by Reedy’s, and for an instant he felt like a rabbit caught in the lights of a car. He forced himself to look away, only to find he was staring down at his open briefcase. The Aurora file, complete with inscribed title, gazed up at him.

Dublensky felt his heart banging against his chest just as it used to when, in his teens, he’d attempted to challenge his father’s awesome authority. He felt the same sort of paralysis, too, a progressive deadening of the will that always seemed to overcome him in moments of stress.

‘Er … give me a moment, would you?’ With an enormous effort, he lifted his head and made a show of looking over the shelves. ‘I’ll have to think …’

No one spoke. The pause extended and intensified. Reedy stood back, waiting stoically; Dublensky could almost sense his determination. What was behind this doggedness? Was it just a matter of professional competence? Or was Reedy forcing the matter? In which case … Dublensky shied from some of the more uncomfortable conclusions.

Moving back along the shelf, Dublensky stole a glance at Reedy. He was beginning to look irritated, though this could well have been in response to Dublensky’s embarrassing display of inefficiency.

The next moment Reedy gave an unexpected laugh and said to Mary Cummins: ‘I’m afraid John here is not the most organized of people.’ Approaching, he clapped a friendly hand on Dublensky’s shoulder and beamed at him. ‘But he’s done a fine job, and we shall miss him.’

Dublensky stared dumbly. Even before Reedy glanced down towards the desk, Dublensky knew what was going to happen, and his heart squeezed painfully.

‘Here!’ Reedy exclaimed. ‘What’s this?’ He picked up the Aurora file. He gave a small indulgent shake of the head. ‘Wasn’t so far away after all.’

Dublensky could hardly breathe. Watching the file being removed was like seeing his own child kidnapped. The suddenness of it, the loss of all his painstaking work, overwhelmed him.

Yet – wasn’t he overreacting? The file was coming to no harm, after all; it was just changing hands. But even as he tried to convince himself of this, he could hear Anne’s weary sigh and harsh reproaches. She would say he’d been gullible and foolish. And he was depressingly aware that she might be right.

Reedy tucked the file under his arm and made for the door. Dublensky realized that, by some tacit arrangement, Mary was to remain in his office.

Reedy paused. ‘Oh, and there are some documents which I can’t seem to lay my hands on,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I thought you may have them, John. Perhaps you could look them out for me later this morning?’

He handed a sheet to Dublensky. On it was a list and there, among the ten or more items, were three documents belonging to the slim file still remaining in Dublensky’s briefcase.

‘Sure.’ Dublensky tried to sound normal. ‘Sure. By the end of the morning.’

It was two hours before Dublensky could persuade himself that it was safe to tuck the file in among some other documents and slip away. He remembered having seen a large automatic photocopier in the anonymous recesses of the west tower when he had visited the sales department some months before.

Perspiring, unable to prevent himself from glancing over his shoulder, he made his way across. Twice he had to ask for directions and then, having located the copier, he found himself explaining his visit to the clerk. A mumbled story about broken copiers and a meeting in the west tower seemed to suffice and, five minutes later, he had a duplicate in his hands.

Returning to his office, he waited until Mary Cummins went for a coffee then, rolling the duplicate into a scroll, slid it into the inner pocket of his overcoat.

Something, at least, had been salvaged. Anne couldn’t accuse him of complete failure.

Now, only the doubts remained. Had Reedy been genuine? Had his request for the lost paperwork been the natural fruit of a tidy mind? Or had his apparent concern for Dublensky’s welfare been fabricated from the outset?

Worse, had he been aware of what was in the briefcase? Had he been told to retrieve the missing documents?

It was possible. But if Dublensky accepted that, then the implications were almost too painful to think about.

N
ICK HAD FORGOTTEN
how very long the nights were. He woke early, before six, and lay staring out through the uncurtained window, waiting for the dawn to light the giant beeches in the park and reveal, far beyond, the faint line of the hills of Cowal. But the darkness clung stubbornly to the house, dense and unmoving. Even at seven when, careful not to wake Alusha, he dressed noiselessly and slipped downstairs, no glimmering of light showed through the tall windows of the lower rooms.

Whenever he’d imagined Ashard in midwinter he’d pictured bare trees, grey landscape, snow, even a certain bleakness, but not darkness. In the old days he and Alusha had always left Scotland by early October when the dawns were still respectable early-morning occasions.

He gave up his plan for a pre-breakfast walk and wandered slowly from room to room, turning on lights, pausing in doorways. Everything was the same, yet disconcertingly unfamiliar. Not a thing was out of place, every cushion had been plumped, flowers had been placed on the tables, the polished surfaces of the furniture gleamed immaculately; and yet the effect was dark and cold and curiously lifeless.

Even his studio, which in his imagination was always as he had left it – cluttered with his favourite books and gadgets – was so tidy that it looked as if it had never seen a person, let alone a note of music. The sight rather depressed him.

Some non-essential bags still stood in the hall, waiting to be taken upstairs. Among them was a case belonging to the nurse who’d accompanied them from Boston. He hoped she wasn’t planning on unpacking because she wouldn’t be staying long. Nothing personal, but he never wanted to see another medical professional as long as he lived.

Sounds issued from the kitchen and he found Mrs Alton making coffee and laying out the breakfast things. She asked in a hushed reverential voice if Mrs Mackenzie would be wanting all her meals upstairs, and if so, would he be wanting to take them with her.

He got a fairly good picture of what Mrs Alton was thinking. Well, she’d have to think again.

‘Of course not,’ he said firmly. ‘Only breakfast.’

‘I see,’ said Mrs Alton, nodding uncertainly. ‘But if you’d like her to have something on a tray, in the library or wherever, you only have to say.’

‘But she can tell you herself, Mrs Alton. Just like before.’

‘Oh.’ She blinked. ‘Of course. It was just … I wanted to make everything as easy as possible …’

But he wasn’t having any of this. ‘Mrs Mackenzie’s fine, Mrs Alton. Getting better all the time. And she’s extremely happy to be back. So am I. We’re really looking forward to Christmas.’

‘Christmas,’ she echoed, brightening a little. ‘I’ve made the pudding. And a cake.’

‘Good,’ he said briskly. ‘So – everything’s fine then, isn’t it, Mrs Alton?’

‘Oh yes …’ She was finally getting the idea. ‘Yes, of course.’

Nick started to prepare Alusha’s breakfast tray.

‘Let me do that,’ said Mrs Alton.

But he refused; he found an extraordinary satisfaction in choosing the food for Alusha, laying out the china, making the tray look attractive. He enjoyed the rhythm of the daily preparations and the challenge of finding new and exotic things to tempt Alusha’s appetite. During the months in America it had made him feel useful.

He put out organic oranges ready for squeezing, some sesame thins, unhydrogenated vegetable margarine, organic marmalade and camomile tea, then added a slice of watermelon and half a papaya – also organic: everything was organic. He’d had it flown up specially from London.

When the food was set out, he opened the medicine box and started on the supplements, placing Alusha’s morning dose of vitamins, minerals and amino acids in a small bowl on one side of the tray. Medicine box was actually a bit of a misnomer because it contained almost no medicines. Just before leaving Boston, he and Alusha had emptied every extraneous drug, antibiotic and allopathic medicine into the hotel waste bin. The cartons and bottles numbered an incredible fifty-eight, and that wasn’t counting the stuff that’d been pumped into Alusha during her various spells in clinics and hospitals. Now, apart from vitamins and minerals, a few Chinese herbal medicines and some homeopathic drops, there were no drugs except for a few standard painkillers and sleeping tablets. And the morphine, of course. He kept that separately, with his own things. Originally the morphine had gone into the waste bin along with everything else, but a few hours later, when Alusha was asleep, he had retrieved it, despising himself for the deception, hating himself for admitting that there might be a need for it, yet doing it all the same. Doubter. Judas. Snake in the grass.