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Chapter 24

John Sampson was standing on the site of the CRU, where Kate and Paul had stood just twenty-four hours earlier, when his mobile rang. It was the phone that was only ever called by one person: Gaunt. He hesitated before answering it. He had been enjoying the sweet memories from his last night at this place.

‘Yes?’

‘About time. I thought you were never going to answer.’

Sampson waited for Gaunt to continue.

‘Any luck tracking our quarry?’

Sampson knew that Gaunt, who spent most of his life these days in his laboratory, enjoyed the espionage, the spy thriller stuff that added a dash of colour to his days. He pretended not to, but Sampson could hear the excitement in his voice. He told Gaunt what he’d found so far.

‘In other words, she’s got away.’

Again, Sampson stayed silent, clenching his jaw muscles and taking slow, calming breaths.

Eventually, Gaunt said, ‘You’d better get back here to the base. How long will it take you?’

‘Not long.’ Sampson hung up and took a last look around the housing estate. She had been here. The use of the word ‘quarry’ had been appropriate. He was the hound and Kate the fox; he swore he could almost smell her on the air.

Security at the base was strict, aimed at keeping out not just the wrong people but the organisms they carried; the bacteria, viruses and parasites that inhabited the human body. Inside the doorway, Sampson, who had been through this procedure many times, stripped, showered and washed his skin and hair – what there was of it – with an anti-bacterial solution. Next, a doctor wearing a mask checked him over, examining him and asking him questions to make sure he hadn’t noticed any signs of infection recently. Had he suffered from any cold or flu-like symptoms? How about headaches, stomach pains, bowel or bladder problems, fatigue, nausea, dizziness? What about sexual partners? Had he had unprotected sex? Had he visited any of the following countries? He answered a terse no to everything; they knew he hadn’t been abroad since his last visit. After the examination he put on clean underwear, a t-shirt and trousers, then slipped on a pair of soft shoes. Finally, he was allowed into the interior of the building.

Gaunt met him in the corridor. They walked past the rooms where Sampson had recently seen the Vietnamese woman and the Serbian prostitute. They weren’t there anymore. The rooms were empty, scrubbed clean; all trace of their previous occupants had been eradicated.

They reached Dr Gaunt’s office. He gestured for Sampson to sit down, and took a seat at the opposite side of his desk.

‘I saw you looking into the empty rooms. You took a fancy to our little Serbian, didn’t you?’ He smiled, displaying yellow teeth. ‘Nothing left of her now, I’m afraid to say. Incinerated.’

Gaunt opened a drawer and took out a gold chain with a heart-shaped locket on the end. He held it up, and it glinted as it rotated back and forth.

‘Oh, except this. This is all that’s left of her.’

Sampson recognised the locket that the Serbian prostitute had been wearing.

‘Rather nice, I thought,’ said the doctor. ‘I removed the photo of the child that was in it.’ He dropped it back into the drawer. ‘It’s mine now.’

Sampson concealed his contempt for Gaunt’s need to keep souvenirs of the people he’d killed. ‘Why did you ask me to come here?’

The smile vanished from Gaunt’s face. ‘I wanted to let you know that we’re very close.’

‘Close?’

‘To finishing what we started a long time ago. Thanks to your trip to Oxford we’ve had a bit of a breakthrough in the lab and the final part of the puzzle has been solved.’ His smile reappeared, wider and dirtier than before. ‘This is very good news.’

Sampson groped for something to say, ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. There are just a few final tests to conduct, and some other preparations, making sure everyone’s in the right place and so on. But I would expect matters to be concluded during the next few days.’ He leaned forward across the desk. ‘Which means it’s critically important that nobody and nothing gets in the way.’

‘You mean Kate?’

Gaunt raised an eyebrow. ‘On first-name terms, are we?’

Sampson’s face remained impassive. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to call her Carling or Maddox.’

‘Well, she’s Maddox now. Although we should never have given her the chance to reach her next birthday, let alone get married and change her name. Fucking Bainbridge and his sentimentality, letting her go like that. She’s a loose end.’

Sampson had an image of himself tying the loose end up. Handcuffing her, perhaps.

Gaunt went on: ‘It’s probably a coincidence that she’s come back to England now of all times, but the fact that she’s here makes me nervous. We don’t know how much of her memory has come back over the years because of the way the whole thing was rushed. Bainbridge always assured me it would be okay, but I’m not so sure. Our friend at Harvard has never reported any sign that her memory has returned but we can’t afford to take any chances. If she starts to remember too much and goes to the police . . .’ He trailed off. ‘That’s why you have to find her – to make sure that those memories don’t come back.’

Sampson nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Perhaps I’m being paranoid.’

‘I don’t think so. I saw her on CCTV at the hotel where she was staying in London. The man she is with must be Wilson’s brother.’

The doctor didn’t react for a moment, then blinked and said, ‘What?’

‘The man Kate is with looked just like Stephen Wilson.’

Gaunt looked even more concerned. He pulled his computer keyboard towards him and started tapping away, concentrating on the screen.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Bringing up Wilson’s file.’

Stephen Wilson’s details, put together from his original personnel file and stored now in a password-protected computer system, appeared on the screen and the doctor started reading through it. A few moments later Gaunt swore to himself.

‘What is it?’

‘I’d forgotten Paul Wilson. What the hell is Kate Maddox doing with Wilson’s twin brother? She is up to something.’

He stood up and paced around the office. ‘She must have remembered something and come here to contact Wilson’s brother. She’s undoubtedly told him everything.’ He looked even paler than usual. ‘We have to find them immediately.’

Sampson opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the phone on the desk rang. The doctor snatched it up. ‘Yes?’

Sampson watched as Gaunt’s eyes widened with surprise, and then a smile appeared at the edges of his mouth. ‘I’ll get someone onto it straight away.’

Sampson waited.

‘Well, speak of the devil and he, or she, shall appear. It seems we’ve found them.’

A few moments later, Sampson was on his way out, Gaunt’s final words ringing in his ears. Get up there now. And tie up these loose ends before she turns into a loose cannon.