In the organisational structure of Gen8tyx, Mike Gilbert had reported to Martin Nicolson. Mike was one of several team members that had been lured to work at Gen8tyx by the honour of working for Professor Martin Nicolson, considered by many to be one of the most outstanding geneticists in the country. Mike was the youngest of the core team. Only twenty eight when they had found him dead on the beach, a hose pipe stuck into the exhaust of his car.
The house was full of photographs of an incredibly active man. Pictures of himself and his friends climbing in Yosemite, skiing in France, and scuba diving in Australia were spread all over the walls, intermingled with portraits of two people very much in love, and enjoying together everything that life could give them.
Mike was single, but it was well known that at the end of the year, he was going to do the honourable thing and marry his long term girlfriend, Isabella. They were expecting their first child, a girl, in January.
Mike had been over the moon when he had found out that Isabella was pregnant. In preparation for the big event, they had moved to a bigger house, and spent the past few months decorating the nursery and shopping together for everything that would make their little girl's life complete. Little teddy bears, dolls and coloured rattles littered the nursery, and it seemed like every shelf in the lounge was covered by books on childbirth, "The First Three Years" as well as "How to get your daughter into Yale!"
As Isabella proudly showed him the house that they had been planning to share together, Kerrin couldn't help but get the impression that Mike was a man who was planning to live as long as possible.
His fiancée was beautiful. Her dark hair, brown eyes and Hispanic tanned skin blended with a sexy curvaceous figure to produce a woman that any man would dream of being with. Even with her child so obviously showing she oozed sex appeal and vitality.
Mike had been a man that had had everything. The sort of man that a lot of men would like to be.
"It makes no sense to me," the woman said, leading him through to the lounge. "Did you know he had just had his first book accepted by a publisher? They reckoned he'd get it published in January, about the same time the baby is due…"
"Mike was a writer?"
"Yes…well, he wanted to be…was going to be…"
"Wow…" Kerrin didn't want to admit that he had been trying for years to get a book published, but the fact that Mike was a writer increased his respect for the young man even more.
"What was the book about?"
"It's fantastic! A fictional thriller about Genetics. They always say that you should write about what you know. Well, Mike knew a lot about genetics."
"I'd love to read it…do you have a spare copy?"
"Sorry, it's all on his computer. And I don't know the password to get into his files. It's funny, he changed the password only a few days before he died and didn't tell me the new one."
"I'm pretty good with computers, would you like me to try and hack into it?" Kerrin volunteered. Hacking was one of his specialties. He had been a master at it when he was a kid, then when he joined the police, it had proved to be one of life's true skills.
"I wish you could, but the police came and took the computer away. They said they needed to make sure there was nothing on there that might give them some information on why he killed himself."
"When was this?"
"Just a few days ago. The policeman left me his card. Maybe you can call him if you like. Now the case is closed I'd like to know when I'm going to get the computer back. There doesn't seem to be any good reason why they should keep it any longer, does there?"
She left the room, coming back with a piece of paper with a police Captain's name and telephone number on it. Kerrin would call him later.
"So, Miss Sanchez, if you don't mind, and I know it might be difficult,…but can you tell me in your own words how Mike died?"
"Isabella, call me Isabella please. Would you like a drink? I wish I could have one, but I have to stick to the soft stuff!" She said, patting her belly, as she got up and crossed to the bar in the corner of the room.
"Whisky neat, please." Kerrin replied.
She poured the drinks, handing him his glass.
"They found him in his car, a rubber tube stuck on the back of the exhaust. They said he died quickly. One of the officers tried his best to convince me that he didn't suffer. He insisted it's one of the best ways to go…as the car fills up with the carbon monoxide you get happier and happier, then just fall asleep and die…" She hesitated a second. "When I saw him in the hospital, about half an hour after they'd found him, he looked so happy, so peaceful…It's funny how some things stick in your mind, but I'll never forget how red his lips were!…"
She started to cry quietly. Kerrin gave her a few moments before carrying on.
"Did he leave a note of any kind?"
"Yes…the policeman said he'd found a letter on the passenger seat. In a brown envelope."
"Handwritten?"
"No, typed…that's a funny question…what difference does it make?"
"Was it signed? Did you get a chance to see it?"
"No…wow, I never thought about that before. Maybe he never wrote the letter, maybe somebody else did? Is that what you mean?" A sparkle appeared in Isabella's eyes as she realised where he was going with the question.
"Did you get a chance to see it?" Kerrin repeated the question.
"No…actually I didn't…"
"Do you know what it said?"
"…Oh, apparently it was quite short…'A typical suicide note' was what the policeman had said. But he told me one line from it…it said, 'Tell my Isabella I love her, and that I'm sorry I won't see our daughter.' That struck me as a little bit funny…"
"Why? What was funny about that?"
"…I've not told this to anyone else because some people, my mother mainly, thinks that naming your child before it's born is really bad luck. Thing is, Mike and I had already chosen a name for our baby…Sonia. Whenever we talked about her we called her Sonia. We always mentioned her by name. It just strikes me as weird that in his last words to me he called her 'our daughter' and not Sonia!"
"The more I look at all of this, there are a lot of things that are weird, Isabella," he said, turning over the tape in the little recording machine that he had placed on the table.
"Do you mind if I ask you a few personal questions?"
"No. Go ahead. But I might not answer them all." She smiled, her eyes twinkling, and for a second the haunted look that she had been carrying around with her seemed to lift. She was truly a very attractive woman.
"What about your finances? Any problem there?"
"No…Gen8tyx were very good that way. We got a big package when he left. A lot more than we expected. Two years salary actually!"
"Enemies…any that you knew of?"
"No. None that I'm aware off. He seemed to get on with pretty much everyone."
"And at work? Were there any big arguments, falling out with anyone?"
"Again, apart from the Director David Sonderheim, he got on great with everyone. We used to meet up with the other couples from the lab at weekends, do barbecues together, that sort of thing…actually we were all pretty close."
"What about Sonderheim then? What was the problem?"
"Just that Mike blamed him for destroying the dream. He really enjoyed his job, then Sonderheim ruined it all, and insisted on moving the company to California. Everyone resented that. Hardly anyone wanted to go. "
"Sonderheim seems to be a pretty unpopular guy. Did you like him?"
"Yes. Very charming. But it was only in the last couple of months that people started having a problem with him…it wasn't just Mike…The others fell out with him too."
"Why?"
"Mike said that 'he'd changed', had somehow lost sight of the dream they'd all shared. That he'd become distant from the rest of the group, and wasn't as friendly as before…was constantly shouting at people and pointing out their mistakes…pushing them too
hard."
"What was the dream that you keep mentioning?" Kerrin wondered.
"I wish I knew. He often talked about the work they were doing, but in terms which never really gave away any details. All I know was that they were working on something big. Building up to some wonderful achievement. Something imminent. They had possibly even already succeeded. One night, about four months ago, Mike came home from work early. He had bought flowers, and two bottles of champagne …He was in such a good mood. All he said was that things at the lab were fantastic, better than they had ever been, and that one day soon I'd be very, very proud of him. I'd not seen him so happy in ages, even when I told him about the baby. Something special must have happened that day!"
But what? If only Kerrin knew.
He left Isabella shortly afterwards, politely declining an invitation to the funeral which was going to take place the next week. As he drove back to his hotel in town, he played the tape back to himself, listening for a second time to her answers.
Kerrin was confused. There just didn't seem to be any reason for Mike to kill himself. On the contrary, Mike had everything to live for.
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As the man said goodbye to the lady at the door, and turned to walk towards his car, the Nikon MX2, equipped with a large 400mm zoom lens, took twenty or thirty photographs in quick succession. The photographer, a man in his late twenties, wearing a smart, dark brown suit and tie, had been lucky. Sitting in a car on the opposite side of the road, the zoom lens had allowed him to get a clear view from over a hundred yards away. The photographs had caught the man's face clearly.
As soon as he got back to the office, he would run a trace on the car's registration plates. It would be easy to find out who he was, and where he came from. For now though, his orders were to stay put and find out who else was visiting the pretty Miss Sanchez.
Chapter 10
Day Nine
Sunshine Meadows
Orlando