I felt so sick I couldn’t speak, then, ‘No one will believe that,’ I managed.
He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
He picked up the brown bottle and unscrewed the cap. Poured some of the contents onto the lint gauze.
Chloroform.
I had to keep him talking…
I said desperately, ‘But what will you do?’
He shook his head. ‘Not your concern.’
‘At least tell me how you got hold of the virus…’
‘Not your concern. Night night, Herry.’
I struggled briefly as he clamped the pad over my face.
I stopped struggling and lay still. At first, I tried not to breath. Had to eventually, of course, and when I did, I found I could accept things quite calmly…
Rebecca was in the police flat when her mobile went. She glanced at the screen – Herry – and clicked the button…
‘Hello…?’
There was a loud bang, then a voice she recognised, distant but clear …
‘
You
just
had
to
be
so
fucking
clever
,
didn’t
you
?’
Tim Butterfield – was he talking to her?
She was about to say something, then stopped…
Had he used Herry’s phone to call her? Unlikely …
There were scufflings, grunts, and then a slap and a cry, followed by a dull thud.
Scratching and scrabbling followed by silence. She listened intently for a moment, but there was nothing more. Still listening, she dug into her handbag, found her personal mobile, called Brigg and quickly told him what had happened… ‘Can we trace it? Especially bearing in mind what we heard earlier.’
‘What’s the number?’
She gave it to him and he told her to hold on. She sat down, holding both phones to her ears…
They’d tried using HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System shortly after the disappearance of the diamonds, but without any useful result. They’d then widened the parameters, eventually to an almost ridiculous extent, and it had thrown up several names, including Tim’s. They’d been wondering whether perhaps it might be worth looking at, then this…
Brigg came back after a few minutes. ‘It’s the hospital, that’s the nearest they can get –’
‘Hold on, sir…’ Something on the other phone… she listened intently…
A squeaking noise she thought sounded familiar… There were a couple of knocks, then it stopped. More knocking and scraping, a few grunts, then the word: ‘
Fuck
!’ Tim again…
Then there was a scrabbling as the phone on the other end was picked up – ‘Hello… Hello?’
She held her breath and hoped Brigg wouldn’t say anything… then there was a very loud bang, then silence. When she was sure there was nothing more, she went back to Brigg and told him what she’d heard...
‘I might be wrong, but it sounded to me like a trolley or gurney with a squeaky wheel, then something was loaded onto it, then the phone was picked up, as though he’d just seen it.’
Brigg said, ‘It sounds like Herry was trying to phone you and he stopped him… was it Herry being loaded?’
‘Yes, I’d say so – so where’s he taking him?’
‘Well, it won’t be for his health… where were they, d’you think?’
‘Probably in his lab.’
‘D’you know how to find it?’
‘Yes, but there’s a keypad and I don’t know the number.’
‘Who would?’
‘His deputy, any of the staff… and there must be someone on duty who knows…’
‘What’s the deputy’s number?’
She gave him Caroline’s number.
‘Leave it with me and meet me at the main entrance as soon as you can –’
‘Sir, try and get the make and number of Tim’s car – if it’s still there, we’ll know he’s still on the site.’
‘Good idea – I’ll get the number of Herry’s as well, in case he took that.’ He rang off.
Rebecca pulled on her boots and coat and ran down to her car. It was nearly dark. She pushed her luck and made it to the hospital in just over ten minutes. Brigg was waiting for her.
‘I’ve got Josh and Dan looking for the cars,’ he told her as they started running down the corridor.
People stared as they swerved round them. They reached the lift shaft.
‘The stairs’ll be quicker…’ she gasped…
But
only
if
I
can
keep
this
up
, she thought as Brigg took them two at a time…
‘This way…’ She pulled open a door at the top…
They were both panting by the time they reached the lab… Brigg fed the code in and opened the door, then she led the way through reception to Herry’s office… the door was open… they scanned the empty room…
‘Sir –’ she bent and picked up the phone from the floor. It was broken as though it had been thrown down and stamped on.
‘So where would he have taken him?’ Brigg said between breaths… he pulled out his own phone, stabbed a couple of digits…
‘Dan – any luck?’
‘We’ve found Butterfield’s car in the staff car park, but not Herry Smith’s.’
‘Keep looking.’ He switched off. ‘Where would Herry have parked?’
She closed her eyes and thought… ‘If he’d come in late… maybe round the back, opposite the boiler plant…’
‘D’you know the way?’
She led him through the labs to the fire escape, hit the bar and pushed the door open. They clattered down the iron steps. It was dark, but there was several cars parked beneath them…
‘That one, sir –’ she pointed…
‘OK, so they’re still here… Where, Bex… On a gurney, and bearing in mind that he’ll have a body to dispose of…?’
She shook her head in frustration… then looked up, across at the boiler plant… next to which was the incinerator plant, and along from that –
‘There! The mortuary, sir…’
‘Can we get in?’
‘There’ll be another keypad…’
He whipped out his phone and called Caroline again – ‘Dr Chambers – d’you know the code to the mortuary keypad? Yes… all right.’ He turned to Rebecca – ‘She says it’ll be quicker if she gets it and phones me… Let’s get over there…’
They walked quickly over. Caroline was as good as her word, his phone rang when they were nearly there –
‘Yes? Thank you, Doctor…’ He had a pen in his hand and quickly scribbled it on his palm.
They reached the door, he shone his pencil torch on the pad, pushed the digits, turned the handle… and the door swung gently open…
Through a dimly lit lobby to a dark corridor, but they could see a glow of light at the end… they moved as quickly as they could without making a noise towards it… the stench of formalin caught her throat…
They turned a corner… on the right a little way down were a pair of double doors, light showing through the cracks, noises echoing faintly from inside… they crept down, listened, then Brigg very carefully eased one of the doors open…
Tim had manoeuvred Herry’s body from the gurney onto one of the slabs and was now looking down at him as though wondering where to start…
Brigg slipped his hand into his pocket and brought out his gun – and at that moment, his phone went off –
Tim’s eyes snapped up – he saw them, grabbed a knife and raised it above Herry – and Brigg shot him twice in the head.
For the third, and I hope final time, I woke up in hospital with a headache. The nurse summoned Roland. Redd came over again the next day.
Once I’d recovered enough to take things in, Rebecca filled in all the gaps for me.
I remembered clearly the moment when Tim had handed me the inventory that couldn’t possibly have been George’s original (the sheets would have been tatty and yellowing) and realised that Tim could have been the one who’d poisoned all those people… I remembered finding his eyes on my face when I’d looked at him and given myself away… He hadn’t been fooled for a moment by what I’d said about Rachel making a mistake.
I remembered going into my office and keying the two digits of Rebecca’s speed-dial before he’d burst in. And the worst moment of all when he had me on the gurney in the mortuary telling me how he was going to flush me down the sink – which he could have done very easily. Curiously, I’d felt a sense of peace rather than panic when the chloroform started working…
I was shocked when Rebecca told me that Brigg had been suspended for killing Tim.
‘It’s routine,’ she said. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind that Tim was about to kill you, and that’s what I shall tell the inquiry.’
‘Will they listen?’
She nodded. ‘Oh yes, but we have to be
seen
to be doing the right thing.’
I said, ‘Why did he want to kill me at that stage, what good would it have done him?’
‘None,’ she said. ‘For what it’s worth, I think he had a death wish by then – he had nothing to live for and wanted to take you with him.’
‘But why
me
?’
After a moment, she said, ‘I always had the feeling he didn’t really like you, and I think at that moment, when we interrupted him, he couldn’t bear the idea of letting you live.’
‘I think you’re right,’ I said, remembering the things he’d said to me. ‘So Brigg’s been suspended for saving my life?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
I found out later that it had been at least as much her as me: her quick action in calling Brigg and her realisation that Tim must have taken me to the mortuary. So I owe her my life twice over.
I asked her if he’d have got away with it, especially if he’d put the jar of cyanide in my house as he’d said he was going to.
‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘Only if he’d skipped out of the country and then somehow completely vanished – which isn’t as easy as people think. And no, we wouldn’t have been fooled by the cyanide,’ she added.
*
The life and times of Tim Butterfield were put together over the next few weeks.
His father had been an experimental worker, that is, a low-grade technician, at Porton Down. He’d started there in 1959 and moved to the department where they were still working on smallpox in 1960.
How, or why he’d got hold of a freeze-dried ampoule of the virus was never learned, but it wouldn’t have been all that difficult to smuggle one out. Security hadn’t been the same then.
Apparently, he’d always been something of a trouble maker, a real shit stirrer according to one of his colleagues, and when the Public Health Department had taken over from the MOD in the seventies, the opportunity was taken to get rid of him. Reading between the lines, he’d been well and truly shafted, even if he had been a difficult person.
He hadn’t been able to find any other employment in the area and his marriage had broken down. He’d moved to Birmingham and worked in the car factories in the time of ‘Red Robbo’, which may well have suited him. He’d re-married and Tim had been born in 1979.
All in all, it wasn’t really surprising that he’d carried a mega chip, and passed this on to his son.
People who remembered Tim said he’d always been withdrawn and introverted, from primary school onwards. But he’d also been clever and hardworking, which had got him into Bristol Cabot University. He’d got a first in Microbiology, which enabled him to go on to a PhD. His thesis had been on poxviruses…
Then his parents died in a car accident. They’d given him a lot of financial help through his time at university, which meant, since they lived in a council house, that they’d left only debts.
He’d worked in a couple of low paid hospital jobs and then, in 2005, been accepted for VSO in Africa. This had been at the same time and place as Malcolm North and Craig Holland, and a witness was found who remembered that they’d been friends, especially Tim and Malcolm.
Unlike the other two, however, Tim had had a mental breakdown after a few months and was sent home. After recuperating, he’d persuaded my predecessor to take him on as a virologist, and later, as Safety Officer for the area.
And then Malcolm and Craig had come home and they’d got together again.
Rebecca told me how, although Craig had been committed to BTA, he’d also had a sense of humour bordering on the anarchic – especially after losing his wife.
‘The idea of twisting the government’s tail to get more money for Africa would have appealed to him,’ she said. She looked away for a moment, then, ‘He’d probably thought as far ahead as infecting one individual and then naming them so that they could be treated straight away, but not beyond that.’
She told me about his ebullience on the last night of his life. ‘I think that was because he thought that he and the others had persuaded Tim to give it up…’ Apparently, there had been a naive side to him that would have accepted the champagne celebration at face value.
‘We think that Tim took the bottle over to the sideboard, poured one for himself and then slipped the cyanide into what was left.’
‘And then handed them out and proposed a toast,’ I said.
She nodded wanly. ‘And then wiped off his prints and replaced them with Craig’s and the others’.’
We were silent for a few moments. What made Tim’s calculation so cold was the realisation that he must have infected the County Stores on the afternoon
before
he’d poisoned Craig and the others. They’d been toasting the fact that they hadn’t needed to infect anyone with smallpox after he’d already done it.
*
We’d also discovered how he’d deliberately made things as bad as he could between myself and Roland, lying about or exaggerated the things Roland was supposed to have done or said about me – to create a smokescreen, which it had done very successfully.
Also why he’d hired the two thugs to beat me up – to stop me going up to Bath with him.
Bath Laboratory had just taken on a new Deputy Director called Jenny Hurst, who knew that Tim had done VSO. She’d been doing it herself at the same time, and he’d obviously thought the risk of her mentioning it in my hearing was too great.
‘And the same two thugs came in very useful for picking up the ransom,’ Rebecca said. ‘Or so he thought…’
They’d discovered that the other thug, the one who’d shot Jase, had almost certainly been one Kelvin Frye, who’d been known to associate with Jase and had disappeared at the time of the handover.
‘We think that Tim had told them to kill you when you made the handover –’
‘Why?’ I interrupted…
‘Because of the risk you’d talk to Jenny Hurst at some stage. Because of the risk you’d somehow work it out later, which of course, you did… Anyway, Frye decided to kill Jase instead and keep the diamonds for himself.’
‘Did he deliberately save my life?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘Maybe it was fortuitous, or maybe it was to spite Tim, because he knew Tim wanted you dead. One thing I can say is that it wasn’t out of love for you…’
‘I didn’t think it was.’ I went on bleakly, ‘No wonder Tim became so morose afterwards – me still alive and the diamonds gone. All that trouble for nothing.’
They’d thought that Tim had intended to use the money first to buy himself a new identity, and then to set up some kind of clinic or similar in Africa. As it was, he’d sold his house and was planning to disappear abroad. It had been just his bad luck that Rachel had spotted the Potassium Cyanide before he’d used it, and then spoken when she had.
‘Which is why he wanted to get away so badly,’ Rebecca said. ‘He knew that something could give him away at any moment.’
He’d somehow managed to erase his records on Workers Abroad, but must have known that someone might have remembered at any moment…
‘I wonder what he’d have done if he’d got away,’ I said.
‘I don’t suppose we’ll never know that.’
‘D’you think he was mad?’ I asked her.
She shrugged again. ‘Depends on your definition of mad.’ She went on, ‘For what it’s worth, I think he was using the Africa thing to punish someone,
anyone
, in revenge for his father.’
‘In other words, he was mad.’
‘And spiteful,’ she said bitterly. ‘Making me think I had AIDS…’ Tim had falsified the result on Craig’s blood.
*
I’d been seeing a lot of Rebecca one way and another. I wasn’t going to ‘get over’ Sarah for a very long time, if ever… but I’d found as the months went by that I liked Rebecca’s company, and she seemed to like mine.
Something else I’d been thinking about a lot was what Tim had said to me just before he’d chloroformed me. Mad or not, there was more than a germ of truth in it… I
was
complacent, self-centred and self-pitying, despite being better off in most ways than most of the rest of the world.
‘But by that measurement, so am I, so are we
all
in this country,’ Rebecca said when I told her about it.
‘Yes, we are, most of us,’ I agreed.
‘If you feel that badly, why not make a regular donation to Oxfam?’
‘I already do,’ I said – Tim had been right about that.
‘You could always give more,’ she said. ‘Ten percent, say – that would make a painful dent in your income, if it’s pain you want.
Or –
’ she grinned mischievously – ‘You could always do VSO yourself. I daresay someone with your experience could make themselves quite useful…’
‘I have thought about that,’ I said, quite seriously, ‘But Grace comes first.’
She nodded gently.