Yes, with all my strength, she thought.
‘Yes, but that’s not up to me,’ she said out loud.
Roscoe smiled. ‘You’re not a good liar, Maureen. The light of hate is in your eyes. I recognize it, because I know all about hate, and I gave you those eyes.’
For some moments after finding Maureen at his mercy for a reason he could not grasp, William Roscoe had felt stunned, unsure what to do next.
‘Are you all right?’ he had asked as she got up off the floor, with even now, despite the situation, a doctor’s professional concern in his voice.
Maureen had replied with a terse nod of the head, unable to speak.
Pointing with the barrel of his gun to the curtain behind her, Roscoe said, ‘Through there.’
Moving the curtain aside, Maureen discovered that beyond it lay a narrow corridor which led to the rear of the house. With the barrel of the gun thrust into her back, she moved slowly forward. In the dim light, she could just see the outline of a glass door leading to a porch at the other end. However, before they got there, Roscoe ordered her to stop in front of another door, a heavily armoured one, in the wall on the left.
The surgeon went up to a device attached to the wall next to the door, and placed his open palm on it. The door opened inwards, and a light inside came on automatically, revealing a steep staircase leading downwards.
‘Go down.’
Maureen had preceded him down two flights of steps and finally they had come out into a huge room completely tiled in white, which took up the entire basement area of the house. Standing on the small railed gallery just inside the door, she was impressed. Illumined by overhead lights, there in front of her was a real research laboratory, filled to bursting with machines and instruments whose purpose she did not know but which gave the impression of being very expensive and state of the art. Against the wall to the right was a long workbench on which stood a number of computers and a huge electronic microscope linked to monitors by fibre-optic cables. In the middle of the room, like an island, was another workbench, this one occupied by a whole series of machines equipped with articulated arms for working in a sterile environment. Half the wall to the left was taken up by a large window, beyond which could be glimpsed a refrigeration chamber lit with bluish fluorescent light.
‘My private lab,’ Roscoe declared, as they descended the steps. ‘Nice, don’t you think? It’s in places like this that we try to revolutionize science. Though I admit it’s sometimes all smoke and mirrors.’
He had pointed to the window, beyond which even the fluorescent light seemed frozen.
‘What you see there is nothing but a sophisticated refrigerator, fed with liquid nitrogen, where I keep embryos, frozen at about minus two hundred degrees Celsius. At that temperature, a rose would break like glass and a human being breathing in a mouthful of air would die before he could breathe out.’
Beside the refrigeration chamber, Maureen had noticed a row of pressurized cylinders surmounted by pressure gauges. From them, thick, dark pipes led through the wall into the chamber, presumably helping to maintain a constant temperature. As he spoke, Roscoe had forced her to walk across the lab and sit down on a swivel chair in front of a computer. He then disappeared from her field of vision, before asking her to put her arms behind the back of the chair, where he bound her wrists with adhesive tape.
Roscoe’s expression now was one of commiseration at the pettiness of the world. ‘All us scientists make the same mistake. We pursue knowledge, hoping that one day, it will make us like God. How foolish.’
Roscoe looked her in the eyes, and for the first time Maureen saw the gleam of madness in them.
‘Every new acquisition of knowledge merely confronts us with a new ignorance. It’s a vicious circle. The only thing that can make us really superior to God is justice.’
‘Unfortunately, men’s justice is all we have,’ she said quietly.
‘No, the only thing we have is the law. And applying the law doesn’t always bring justice.’
He was leaning nonchalantly on the tiled workbench behind him, holding the gun in his right hand and looking at it as if it were a strange ornament rather than a weapon.
It was then that Maureen had at last asked him the reason for these absurd deaths, and the answer had emerged – precise and to the point.
Revenge.
And now the time had come for them both to lay their cards on the table and get the answers they were seeking.
Maureen only wanted to know why and Roscoe only wanted to know how.
He was the first to speak – distractedly, almost indifferently. ‘Who knows you’re here?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because of the way I discovered it was you who killed Gerald Marsalis.’
‘What do you mean?’
Maureen was counting on the fact that, sooner or later, Jordan would hear her message and come running. Roscoe was a killer but he was still a doctor and above all a scientist. There was only one way to gain time: to arouse his curiosity by telling him about the strange experiences she had had since he had operated on her.
‘It may seem incredible to you, but I saw you kill him.’
Roscoe looked at her for a long moment as if she had suddenly gone mad, then burst out laughing. ‘You saw . . .? Please, don’t make me laugh.’
‘I told you you wouldn’t believe me. Do you remember when I phoned you to ask if you knew the identity of the donor?’
‘Yes, I remember very well.’
‘I think the corneas you used on me were taken from Gerald Marsalis.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The fact that since I opened my eyes I’ve been tormented – and that’s the correct word – by images of his past life.’
‘Are you pulling my leg? Do you think you’re in an episode of The X Files?’
‘Unfortunately not. If I were, I could just switch off the TV to make all this go away. But it’s not that simple.’
‘Well, let me tell you: as a scientist I’m obliged to believe only what I touch with my own hands and see with my own eyes.’
‘This time you’ll have to believe what I saw with someone else’s eyes. I’m here and that seems sufficient proof. Just now, when I fell down in front of you, I had one of those episodes – and I saw you again. The front door was ajar. You were wearing a tracksuit with a hood and, when Gerald opened the door, you emerged from the shadow of the landing with a gun in your hand. And he was painted all in red.’
Roscoe was speechless for a few seconds. Then: ‘That’s incredible . . .’
‘Incredible’s the right word, William. That’s the reason why I didn’t tell anyone that I’m here. How do you think any normal, everyday cop would have taken it, if I’d told him I’d seen a murder though the eyes of the victim?’
Maureen hoped her argument was sufficiently convincing. Unfortunately, she was forced to provide an abridged version of events and not mention any other image that had come to her, especially those concerning Thelma Ross. Doing so would have meant revealing that other people knew about her visions and might be aware that she was here. Best case scenario, Roscoe might leave her tied to the chair and escape.
Worst case scenario . . .
As a scientist, he was now completely engrossed in what he had just heard: it was clearly a new and fascinating area to explore.
‘There must be an inherent message in the cells, a kind of imprinting, a neuronal link that’s somehow preserved by the individual. This is fantastic! We can explore it together, we can—’
‘Together?’ Maureen cut in.
‘Of course. With research like this, I have to have you at my disposal for the tests I’ll need to do.’
‘What makes you think I’ll cooperate with you?’
Roscoe suddenly seemed to remember who they were and why they were in this position: a police officer tied to a chair and a killer holding a gun aimed at her head.
Nevertheless, as in their previous encounters, he managed to put a tinge of irony in his words.
‘Because I’m the only person who knows the whereabouts of the stem cells needed to continue your therapy. Report me to the police and I’ll never tell you where they are. You’ll be back in the state in which I first met you. The moment Julius Wong is set free, you’ll lose your sight.’
CHAPTER 49
Jordan drove his Ducati under the trees and the yellow lamps of Henry Street until he reached the building he was looking for.
He had switched on his phone immediately after leaving the Stuart Building and heard Maureen’s message. Although she could know nothing of the progress he had made, the brief recording told him that she had reached the same conclusions as he had – and that she was paying Roscoe a visit.
The message had dispelled any lingering doubts on Jordan’s part, but a chill went through him when he learned that Maureen was planning to go alone to the man’s house. He cursed himself for having switched off his phone. He should have known he was Maureen’s one point of reference, the only person in whom she could confide her visions.
Being unable to locate him, she had decided to go it alone.
In a way, Jordan could understand her, but that didn’t make him any the less anxious. He had jumped on his bike and roared off to the address Maureen had left him in her message at the highest speed the Ducati and the rules of the road allowed him.
Once there, he stopped the bike, got off and walked to the opposite side of the street to examine the massive two-storey building on the corner of Pierrepont. That stretch of Henry Street was completely in darkness and, in the shadows cast by the distant lights of the cross street, Jordan found the house disturbing, almost malign.
From outside, it seemed deserted.
The windows were dark rectangles in the walls and, apart from the orange glare through the glass of the front door, there was no other light that might suggest someone was inside.
He left the front of the house and went to take a look in back. There was a high wall there, built of the same red bricks as the house itself. From the trees of various kinds peering out over the top, Jordan assumed that the area between the wall and the house was occupied by a garden. After a quick estimate of the height, he realized he could not reach the top of the wall even if he used the bike to climb on.
At the end of that brick wall, adjacent to Roscoe’s property was a three-storey building currently being renovated. Jordan looked up at the scaffolding. He made up his mind. Without too much difficulty he slipped in through a hole in the fence. The work was clearly at an early stage, and nobody was making too much effort yet to prevent possible intrusions. The ground floor of the building was almost completely devoid of walls.
There was a smell of bricks and lime in the air. Jordan located the stairs – rough concrete steps without a handrail – and climbed one floor. As he reached the landing, he tripped over a black plastic container, almost invisible in the semidarkness, which someone had left on the ground. It was filled with tools, and it overturned with a metallic noise that echoed in the silence.
He held his breath for a moment, afraid that he might have attracted someone’s attention, his tibia bone smarting where it had hit the container.
No sign of life.
Jordan relaxed. From the landing he looked out at the garden of the next house, insofar as the wall and the branches of the trees allowed him to do so. Then he looked around the landing where he stood. To his left was a stack of long wooden planks, which would probably be used to extend the scaffolding to the upper floors.
He went and lifted one and, holding on to the tubular rail of the platform to balance the weight, slid it out until it reached the edge of the wall. He made sure it was well supported, then chose another and slid this one too in such a way as to lay it over the first one, hoping that it was the right length for what he was planning to do.
Among the tools he had accidentally scattered on the floor, he found what he was looking for: a crowbar, which he slipped into the belt of his pants.
He then went back to that improvised bridge suspended precariously over the darkness between the scaffolding and the wall of Roscoe’s house. Stretching out a foot, he placed it on the plank, supporting himself on the pipe. Then he let go and took his first step across.
Jordan had never suffered from vertigo and hoped he wasn’t going to start now.
Keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead, moving one foot in front of the other like a tightrope-walker, with sand and sacks of cement as a safety net, he got to the other end of the bridge, where he let out a long sigh of relief. Sitting down astride the wall, he slid one of the planks back down until it touched the ground. The effort of doing this without making a noise and at the same time ensuring that it did not slip, made the blood throb violently in his temples, and he had to stop for a second to catch his breath and get over a touch of dizziness.
When he had recovered, he checked that the plank was solidly supported by the wall on which he was sitting. Jordan’s intention was to use it as a slide, moving down it until he touched the ground.
Unfortunately, when he tried to put his plan into action, things went wrong. As soon as he got on the plank, the end pointing to the ground slid forward abruptly. Jordan instinctively grabbed the edge of the wall, but his left hand lost its grip on the mossy bricks and he ended up hanging by one hand. At the same time, his body twisted and he distinctly heard the crack of the shoulder-joint being knocked out of place. The violent spasm made him lose his grip. His fall was cushioned by a cheesewood bush, but at the same time he rolled forward, and again his dislocated shoulder was hit by a series of stabbing pains. Jordan found himself lying on his side on the ground, panting for breath. He waited until the pain reached an acceptable level, then tried to sit up.
The tops of the trees and the perimeter wall blocked the light from the streetlamps, and he had to accustom his eyes to the semi-darkness. When he had a better sense of his surroundings, he stood up and walked to the trunk of a tree. It was a maple, with rough bark. Leaning against it for support, he gave a sharp tug to his arm to get his shoulder back in place. The pain nearly made him faint. With his good hand, he felt around the shoulder. It was likely that the ligaments had been weakened the night he had been attacked by Lord. It still hurt a lot and the shoulder hadn’t set well, almost completely impairing the mobility of his arm.
Jordan forced himself not to think about it. Maureen might well be in danger and there was no time to lose. He turned his attention back to his surroundings.
Moving cautiously over the soft ground, he came to a large glass-enclosed porch, forming a kind of inner garden. In the dim light, Jordan saw the outlines of plants and what he thought were rattan armchairs. The porch was connected to the inside of the house via a French door. Beyond it, Jordan saw a long corridor, lit by a rectangle of light.
Jordan took out the crowbar and, with some difficulty, thanks to his unusable right arm, he forced open the porch door. There was a sharp click, not too loud, and he slipped inside.
Creeping across the porch, narrowly avoiding a low table, he came to the French door. Before using the crowbar again, he tried turning the handle – and much to his surprise the door opened.
He started along the corridor and soon came to the source of the light he had seen from outside – a door open on a narrow staircase, leading down. Noticing that the door was armoured and that there was a fingerprint-reader next to it, Jordan told himself that whatever was down there must be something really important.
As he descended the first step, he heard a cracking noise beneath his shoe. He lifted his foot, and saw beneath it a pair of dark glasses on the rough surface of the step. He bent down to pick them up, causing another spasm in his shoulder, and recognized them immediately, despite the broken lenses.
They belonged to Maureen.
In the silence, he thought he heard voices coming from below.
He
descended cautiously, keeping slightly to the side and supporting his right arm with the good one to avoid painful knocks. He came to a first landing, where there was a right turn leading to another flight of steps. The voices were louder now, although he still could not make out any words.
Never before had Jordan so regretted the lack of a gun.
He started down the second flight. With every step he took, the volume of the voices increased, and by the time he reached the bottom, he could hear that there were two of them.
One was Maureen’s, the other he had only heard once but recognized anyway.
The voices were coming through a wide-open door, accessed by a narrow gallery which Jordan reached by turning left and descending two or three more steps.
From where he was standing, he could see apparatus and instruments that suggested the basement was some kind of laboratory. He leaned against the wall and peered through the door. He didn’t like what he saw. He didn’t like it at all.
On the opposite side of the huge room, beyond a workbench that occupied much of the central space, was Maureen, sitting on a chair with her arms tied behind her back, her face turned towards the door where Jordan was now hiding.
With his back to him stood the figure of a man Jordan had seen not long before in a video recording, cautiously crossing the lobby of the Stuart Building after killing Chandelle Stuart.
There was just one difference. Now he was present in flesh and blood, and was holding a big gun aimed at Maureen’s head.
CHAPTER 50
Maureen had just received that hissed threat from William Roscoe when over his shoulder she saw Jordan appear beyond the door up on the gallery. She immediately looked down. When she looked up again, she forced herself to look straight into her jailer’s eyes, to avoid betraying Jordan’s presence.
But she had to find some way to show Jordan that she knew he was there to help her. She therefore said something that Roscoe could take as a response to what he had just said, but pitching her voice in such a way that Jordan could hear her.