The Invisible Assassin (3 page)

‘Why?’ asked Jake. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘We’re not sure,’ said the doctor. ‘You’ve apparently been exposed to some kind of toxic gas, but there’s no indication of what sort of gas it is, what the constituents are. All we know are the symptoms, a kind of hallucination.’

It was on the tip of Jake’s tongue to say, ‘It wasn’t a hallucination! I saw a man turn into some kind of heaving mass of vegetation!’ but he decided against it. It might make the doctor send him for psychiatric reports, and who knew what that might unleash?

Jake took the prescription.

‘So, what are these things?’

‘They’re anti-hallucinogens,’ said the doctor. ‘You should be back to normal in a day or so, once they’ve cleared through your system.’ He scribbled on another piece of paper, tore it off a pad, and handed it to Jake. ‘This is a sick certificate for twenty-four hours. Come back and see me on Thursday and we’ll check you over again. Make an appointment with the nurse on your way out.’

As Jake left the room, he was sure of one thing: he wasn’t going to be taking the pills. What he’d seen hadn’t been a hallucination.

Chapter 3

Ten minutes later, Jake was back in Gareth’s office, showing him the sick note and the prescription. This time Gareth didn’t smile. Instead he sighed heavily and sympathetically.

‘My poor Jake,’ he said. ‘It looks like you’ve become a victim of this tragedy.’ Then the sigh switched back to a reassuring smile again as he added, ‘But only temporarily, if the medico’s right. And there’s no reason to think he isn’t. After all, this is the Department of Science, and if we can’t have the best that modern medicine has to offer in this country, then who can?’

Taking Jake’s arm and steering him towards the outer office and Janet, Gareth continued, ‘Twenty-four hours, then I’m sure everything’ll be fine. And don’t worry about work. I’ve detailed Paul Evans to take care of your stuff until you get back. The main thing is: rest and recovery.’ Gareth opened his door and patted Jake on the back in a blokey sort of way. ‘You’re a good man, Jake, with a future here. You’ve already shown that with the way you handled this situation. We need you, and we need you in good form. Look after yourself.’

Jake trudged down the marble stairs with their brass handrails, crossing the boundary to stairs with metal handrails, and back to the big open-plan office. Paul was sitting at his desk, on the phone, which he hung up as Jake returned.

‘I’ve got the news,’ he said. ‘Janet phoned me. You’ve got tomorrow off and I’ve got your workload.’ He grinned. ‘Lucky beggar. Maybe I ought to pretend to be seeing things and get a day off.’

Jake shrugged and forced a grin. ‘It worked for me,’ he said.

He saw that Paul had already added Jake’s most recent files to his own pile of work in his pending file. On the top was a fresh folder marked ‘Bedfordshire Incident’.

‘Things have moved fast,’ said Jake, pointing to the file.

Paul nodded.

‘Remember the first rule: being in the press office means being one step ahead,’ he said. ‘The modern media work by split seconds, not hours. Something happens in the UK, within seconds the rest of the world knows about it.’

Jake flicked opened the file. Inside was his own report on the incident, along with a list of names and addresses: the people who’d been there: building contractors, protestors, Penny Johnson, the paramedics who’d attended, even the SAS men who’d arrived, although they were only identified as ‘Soldier A’ and ‘Soldier B’, and so on. Halfway down the second page, where there was the description of the man ‘apparently becoming infected’ (the phrase was in inverted commas and the letters ‘H or H’ next to it), someone had written the word ‘SIGMA’ in capitals.

‘What’s this mean?’ asked Jake. ‘Sigma?’

Paul looked.

‘Ah yes, I’ve seen that before,’ he said. ‘Gareth’s writing. I think it’s a kind of shorthand for H or H.’

‘Hardly shorthand,’ said Jake. ‘It would take longer to write.’

Paul shrugged. ‘You know these Oxford types. They like to use phrases that sound classical. Have you noticed the amount of Latin they use when they talk to one another. A bit pretentious, if you ask me.’

Paul was a Cambridge man.

‘Possibly.’ Jake nodded.

‘So,’ Paul grinned, ‘that’s you off. What will you do?’

‘Rest and recover,’ said Jake. ‘Those are my orders from upstairs, and I mean to obey them to the letter.’ He headed to his own desk. ‘I just need to sort out a couple of things, and then I’m off.’

‘No need,’ said Paul. ‘Janet was most insistent that you just pack up and go now. Gareth’s orders. She said he’s worried about you.’

‘That’s very flattering,’ said Jake. Then Paul’s phone rang.

‘Evans, press office,’ he said briskly, and whatever the query was immediately grabbed his full attention, so Jake was able to get back to his desk without further arguments.

Beneath his apparent happiness at getting two days off on full pay, Jake was puzzled. It was all too easy. Was it really concern about his health? And he
had
seen what he’d seen at that building site, he was sure of it. But had that really been a hallucination, as Gareth and the doctor suggested? And was this feeling that something wasn’t right an extension of that, a linked form of paranoia?

Jake sat down at his computer. He was about to switch it off, when something made him go to the department’s internal search engine and type in ‘Sigma’. Immediately, the message came up: ‘Restricted to Level 4 or above.’ Jake’s security clearance was Level 2. Receptionists were Level 1. Trainee and junior press officers were Level 2. Cleaning staff were Level 3.

Jake closed down his computer, picked up his briefcase, then waved goodbye to Paul as he headed for the door. Paul was still on the phone and gave him a wave and a thumbs-up back.

Jake knew it would be the wisest thing to just leave the building and go home. Watch a DVD or two. Eat pizza. Take a walk. Do a gallery. But instead he went down to the basement level of the building, to the archives. He showed his pass to the security guard on duty, and then went to the central desk marked ‘Information’. Two librarians were there. One was busy at her computer terminal, too busy to take notice of Jake. The other, a middle-aged man, smiled at him.

‘Yes?’ he asked. ‘Can I help you?’

Jake proffered his pass to the man.

‘Jake Wells, press office,’ he said. ‘I’m looking to see if you’ve got anything on Sigma.’

‘Sigma?’

Jake spelt it for him, and the man typed it in. There was a pause, then the man gave a rueful smile.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Wells, the Sigma files are for Level Four and above only, and as you know, your pass is only Level Two. I’m sure if you talk to your department head, he or she will be able to access whatever information you want.’

Jake was hitting a brick wall. He forced a smile.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I’ll do that.’

He half turned to go, and then turned back to the librarian again.

‘Oh, one more thing,’ he said. ‘A different question this time. I had a call from a local paper, the
Bedfordshire Times
. A reporter called Penny Johnson. Do you have a file on her?’

‘I’ll check.’

Once again the librarian typed a few words in, and this time he nodded.

‘Yes, there is a file,’ he said. He pressed a key on his keyboard, and a small piece of paper rolled off the printer on the desk. The librarian tore it off and handed it to Jake.

‘Take that to the search desk and they’ll hand you the file. But remember, you are not allowed to remove it.’

‘I understand.’ Jake nodded. ‘Thank you.’

He went to the search desk at the other side of the archive library and handed in the slip of paper. The search desk librarian disappeared, then reappeared a few moments later with a slim file marked ‘P. Johnson’. Once again, Jake was instructed that he couldn’t remove the file from the archive library, and he nodded and took it to one of the tables.

There was a lot of information about Penelope Barbara Johnson. Her age, her address, her parents, her schools (even including her pre-school), where she’d studied journalism on a media studies course. Jake made a note of her phone numbers, both at home and at the office of the
Bedfordshire Times
. There was no note of her mobile phone number. The very last page was the most recent: the incident the previous day at the building site. The details were those written by Jake, detailing the protest at the site, and the transformation of the building worker into a hideous form, with additional material from Algernon Ainsworth about the mass hallucination caused by the leak of toxic gas.

So Algy has put the official spin on it, mused Jake. He turned over the page and saw on the back that someone had written in pencil,
Sigma – poss Malichea?

What did ‘Malichea’ mean?

Jake returned the file to the search desk, thanked the assistant, then went back to the information desk and the librarian.

‘Sorry to keep troubling you,’ he said with a smile, ‘but there is one last thing I need to check on. Have you got anything on Malichea?’

‘How do you spell that?’ asked the librarian.

Jake spelt it out and the librarian typed it in, and then gave Jake an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, that information is also restricted to Level Four and above. You’ll need to talk to your department head.’

‘I will.’ Jake smiled. ‘Thanks anyway.’

‘Jake!’

A familiar voice behind him made him turn. It was Gareth.

‘Jake, still here? I thought you’d be at home by now.’

Jake gave an apologetic smile.

‘There were just a couple of things I wanted to check . . .’

Gareth chuckled.

‘Be careful, Jake, or you’ll be turning into a workaholic. Believe me, it’s not a good thing to be. You never see your kids, your wife thinks you’re having an affair because you’re never at home . . .’

‘I’m not married,’ said Jake.

‘And being a workaholic means you’re never likely to be,’ said Gareth.

He gave Jake a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder, the second that day. It struck Jake that Gareth had never done such a thing to him before, touching him like this. Was it some kind of secret Freemason sign, perhaps? Or maybe Gareth was gay and this was his way of hitting on Jake?

‘Go on,’ said Gareth. ‘Go home, Jake. Get some rest and recover. You’ve had an ordeal. Come back Thursday, see the medico and get yourself cleared as fit, and then you can throw yourself back among the files. We need you, Jake, but we need you fit. No work for the next twenty-four hours. And that’s an order.’

Chapter 4

Jake stood on the platform at Victoria underground waiting for the train. The platform was packed with people. Where do they all come from, he thought. At rush hour, he could understand, but this was supposed to be the quiet part of the day. He heard the approaching sound of the train. Automatically, he edged forward, eager to be one of the first on the train and so get a seat. He hated standing, his nose pushed into someone’s else’s smelly armpits, but it nearly always happened.

The train was nearly out of the tunnel when Jake felt a push in the small of his back. Someone trying to shove in! Jake pressed back, but then was shocked to feel the pressure on his back was firmer, harder, moving him firmly towards the very edge of the platform, shoving hard. If he hadn’t already been resisting he’d have been pushed forward on to the lines, right in front of the train.

Jake turned, trying to see who was behind him, and as he did so the person gave one last hard push and he felt himself stumbling and falling, into the path of the oncoming train!

‘Look out!’

A man grabbed him and pulled him back, just as the train surged past him. Jake even felt the moving train hit him on the arm. Then he was stumbling back, the man who’d saved him holding his arm.

‘You all right, mate?’ asked the man, concerned.

Jake studied him. The expression of concern on his face looked genuine.

‘Yes.’ Jake nodded, still shocked.

The man released his hold on Jake’s arm.

‘You ought to be more careful, mate,’ said the man. ‘Losing your balance like that. If I hadn’t caught you, you’d have been under that train.’

Jake was about to say, ‘I didn’t lose my balance. Someone pushed me.’ But then he thought how stupid it would sound. Instead, he nodded and thanked the man, and got into the carriage. He found a seat and collapsed into it, still feeling shocked.

Someone had pushed him! Not just once, like an accident, but firmly. A hard push.

Or maybe Gareth was right. Maybe there really had been something toxic in the air at the dig, something that was making him feel paranoid. Why would anyone want to shove him under a train?

All the way to his home station at Finsbury Park Jake thought about what had happened. Had he really been pushed? Even if he had, maybe it hadn’t been aimed at him particularly. Maybe it had just been some lunatic who felt like pushing someone under a train for no reason. There were plenty of lunatics at loose in London, some dangerous, some who just sat in parks and talked to themselves.