Newton’s Fire Read online

  Noises above. He looked up to see the bruiser peering cautiously over the edge. He wrested a roof tile free and hurled it down at Luke’s face, but it veered at the last moment, bounced off his back before smashing on the flagstones. The bruiser stooped for another tile. Luke looked down. He was way too high to drop uninjured to the patio, but a few feet to his right the patio gave way to a grassy bank. He tried to edge along the wall to it, but clumps of ivy kept ripping away in his hands so that he had to scrabble desperately for grip with the sides of his shoes. Another tile smashed into the wall above his head, showering him with red dust and fragments. He kept edging sideways until finally he was above the bank. He kicked away from the wall, spinning in mid-air, bending his legs to brace himself as he hit the bank then tumbled down onto the lawn.

  The impact punched all the air from his lungs, left him wheezing and dazed. He staggered to his feet, wobbled over to the sanctuary of the surrounding woods, sucking in air as he went, bewildered by how suddenly his world had been flipped on its head. The front door banged and footsteps raced across gravel. He could hear the bruiser yelling directions from the roof, like the helicopter pilot in a police chase. Luke fled deeper into the trees, hurdled a fallen timber. Earth clumped on his soles and he almost fell over a tripwire of ground ivy. Crows screeched from trees as he passed, giving his position away. The woods thinned. He burst out into open wasteland, knee deep with ferns, nettles and reedy grass, flecked with bluebells, dandelions and thistles. An abandoned compound of some kind lay ahead. Military, to judge from the rusting MOD ‘Keep Out’ signs, the fence topped with triple strands of barbed wire. Rabbits had burrowed fat holes beneath it, like intrepid POWs, but none were big enough for him.

  There were vast fields of root crops to his left, far too exposed for him to risk crossing, so he turned right instead, ran alongside the fence. Someone had thrown a tattered green tarpaulin over the barbed wire — kids wanting to play inside the compound, no doubt. He tried to haul himself up and over, but the mesh was too old and too loose, so that it bellied out towards him and bit into his fingers. Then he heard voices shockingly close behind and he glimpsed colour and movement in the trees. No time to climb. No time to flee. As his two pursuers burst out into the clearing behind him, Luke threw himself down amid the ferns and nettles, and prayed that he hadn’t been seen.

  FOUR

  I

  Rachel Parkes rested the tea tray on an upraised knee as she turned the doorknob of Professor Armstrong’s office, pushed it open and then hurried through, setting the tray down gratefully on the edge of his oak desk so that she could finally scratch the tip of her nose, which had been itching dreadfully all the way up the stairs.

  ‘Not there,’ sighed the professor, taking off his reading glasses as he looked up from his paperwork. ‘The coffee table.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I mean, you do realize why they call it a coffee table? It’s not just a whim, you know.’

  ‘I had an itch,’ she told him. ‘On my nose.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ he said. ‘Do you have any other bodily sensations you wish to tell me about?’

  ‘Not currently, Professor,’ she said, transferring the tray as requested. ‘But I can keep you informed.’

  He shook his head at her as he came over to the table, poured himself a cup. ‘You call this tea?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what it claimed on the box.’

  ‘I’ll be glad when Karen gets back.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  His eyes narrowed; his lips pinched tight. ‘How’s the budget report?’ he asked. ‘I trust you’ll have it ready for me this evening, as you promised.’

  ‘I never promised it this evening,’ she said. ‘I promised it first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘If there’s no difference, you won’t mind waiting.’

  ‘I’d like to look it over at home tonight.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t. I have my appointment.’

  ‘Your appointment? Today may be a Sunday, Miss Parkes, but it’s still a workday.’

  ‘You knew about this. I cleared it last week.’

  ‘Remind me.’

  Behind her back, Rachel clenched a fist. He knew exactly where she was going, and why. He just wanted to make her say it for some perverse reason of his own, perhaps so that he could deliver another lecture on the folly of Afghanistan, graveyard of empires. Damned if she’d let him use her brother that way. Damned if she would. ‘It’s private,’ she said. ‘And the budget report will be on your desk first thing tomorrow, as I promised.’

  ‘I plan to be in very early.’

  ‘It will be waiting for you.’ She nodded a little too curtly, tried to soften it with an afterthought of a smile. But he wasn’t even looking at her any more. He simply waved her away with a patronising little flick of his right hand, then stirred a pinch of sugar into his tea.

  II

  Max Walters — the man who’d called himself Steven — burst from the trees expecting to see Luke; but there was no sign of him, just an overgrown glade bordered by fields and a derelict MOD compound. He swore beneath his breath. The fierceness of the chase had kept him from thinking about the old woman, but now his mind went back to her. He felt no remorse. She’d brought her fate on herself by sending that email. However, he did regret the shit-storm it was likely to kick off.

  He tried to game it out. Luke would call the police, that was for sure, and the police would visit the house to check his story out. The smashed window, the broken roof tiles and guttering would all corroborate his account. And they hadn’t thought to wear gloves, so they’d have left their fingerprints everywhere. His own were on the police database for various youthful follies, and both Kieran and Pete had records too. This was a total fucking disaster. Then he remembered that Luke had form of his own. It was one of the reasons he’d hired him in the first place, for just such an eventuality as this. He had no idea of Walters’ real name, and his only point of contact with him was via an anonymous email address that would be easy enough to scrub. He began to glimpse a way out of this.

  ‘Any sign?’ he called out to Kieran, who was wading through the ferns and nettles, looking for Luke.

  Kieran shook his head. ‘He has to be in here somewhere. If he’d gone for the fields, we’d have spotted him for sure.’

  ‘But what if he has got away? What if he’s calling the police right now?’

  ‘How? His mobile was in his jacket pocket back in the attic.’

  ‘What if he meets someone? What if he finds a house or a payphone?’

  Kieran nodded gloomily. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  They turned, began jogging their way back.

  ‘The email the old bat sent,’ asked Walters. ‘Any way to tell if this Rachel Parkes woman has seen it yet?’

  ‘Not unless she replies. She hadn’t when I looked.’

  ‘But she’s likely to, right? An email like that, a sweet old biddy asking her for help.’

  ‘I’d have thought so.’

  ‘Then let’s assume she hasn’t got it yet. So if we can delete it somehow, she’ll never even know it was sent, right?’

  ‘Easier said than done. We can’t do it remotely, not unless she’s been incredibly sloppy with her passwords. 123456. RachelP. Shit like that. I can run through the most-likelies, but we’d have to get extremely lucky. And her service provider will lock us out if we get it wrong too often. Then she’ll know for sure that something stinks.’

  ‘So give me a better idea.’

  ‘We send her another email from the old bat. Have her say that her account’s been hacked and that her last email was a virus, please delete it without opening. Or we could even attach a Trojan to it ourselves.’

  ‘And what happens if Parkes finds out that the old girl was already dead when that email was sent?’

  ‘There’s no way of doing this clean and fast,’ said Kieran. ‘This is lesser-
of-evils’ territory we’re in.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Walters made to punch a tree, but that wouldn’t help. ‘What if she lives locally? What if we could get inside her house?’

  ‘Then it would be a piece of piss,’ nodded Kieran. ‘Everyone keeps themselves permanently logged in these days. Nine times out of ten, you just turn on the first device you find and you’re in. Even if not, I can easily hack in or rig something up. Something untraceable.’

  ‘You’ve got your kit with you?’

  ‘In the car. Never leave home without it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Walters. ‘Then let’s get busy. We’ve got work to do.’

  FIVE

  I

  A wasp had taken an uncomfortable interest in Luke’s hair, buzzing around his collar and ears. And something large and ticklish was making its way up inside his trouser leg. But he lay absolutely still until his heartbeat had moderated a little, until he’d heard nothing but birdsong for at least five minutes. He got carefully to his knees, peered through the grasses and the ferns. No sign of them. He rose to a stoop then ran away from the house, chased by little flurries of panic.

  Now what?

  He needed to call the police, of course, but how? His mobile was back in the attic and he couldn’t see any houses, not so much as a farm building. These were the Fens, after all, about the least-densely populated part of England. He checked his pockets, found some pound coins and other loose change; hardly enough to fund a new life in South America, but better than nothing. He headed onwards, listening intently. Engines kept screeching in the far distance, motorcycles at full throttle. He’d seen signs earlier for some biker festival; presumably they were gathering for it. He reached a farm track, followed it between fields of rape and wild poppies. An automated irrigation system began to spray, painting rainbows in the sky. A farmhouse ahead, a sagging roof and lichen shadows on its cream walls. He rang its doorbell, banged and shouted. No one answered. He considered, briefly, smashing a window. But it was too late to help Penelope, and his record would make life tough enough with the police without adding a burglary charge, so he turned and hurried on.

  A flight of fighter jets queued to land at a nearby air-force base, noses up like snotty guests. Mildenhall, most likely. There had to be houses that way. He reached more woods, ground crackling with dried branches and twigs, emerged onto a winding country lane. It looked faintly familiar. He’d got a little lost earlier, trying to find Penelope’s house. If this was the road he thought it was, there should be a T-junction ahead, with a road that led down to a hamlet with a pub.

  There was no traffic at all. All those people moaning about overpopulation should move here. He’d been jogging five minutes before he heard a car coming up fast behind. He stepped off the lane to wave it down when, looking back through a hedgerow on a bend, he glimpsed its black bodywork and tinted windows. He threw himself down and the SUV sped on by. He tried to catch its licence plate, but it was going too fast. It slowed for the T-junction, indicated right, and vanished from sight.

  There were sirens in the distance as he hurried down the hill. He ignored them. The hamlet’s pub was old, low and thatched, with a beer garden to one side and a car park on the other. He caught sight of his reflection in the front windows and was shocked by what a mess he looked. He decided to go around back in hope of a rear door and a payphone.

  A handwritten sign offered a warm welcome to anyone attending BikerFest. That invitation had been gladly accepted, if the fifteen or so motorcycles parked outside the low, modern extension were anything to go by. Luke slipped inside. It proved to be a games annexe, large and gloomy except for two spotlit pool tables and a dartboard, plus a bank of fruit machines and arcade games. Middle-aged bikers with grey-streaked hair, black leather jackets and spotted bandannas drank pints of soupy ale. The payphone was next to a large varnished pine table, where two bikers were keeping an eye on a great mound of wallets and keys. One of them grinned at him as he passed, daring him to try his luck. Luke turned his back on him to dial the emergency services. A bored-sounding woman answered. ‘Name?’

  ‘Hayward. Luke Hayward.’

  ‘Address?’ she asked.

  ‘Martyn’s Hall,’ he said. ‘Near Mildenhall.’

  ‘Is this about the fire?’

  ‘Fire?’ he frowned. ‘No. This is …’ Then he remembered the sirens and stopped dead. Steven and his friends must have set fire to the house, destroying any and all evidence that they’d ever been there. And his own car was sitting outside the front door! Shit! If they been smart enough to disable it before they’d left, the police would inevitably conclude that he’d killed Penelope himself, then had set fire to her house intending to cover his tracks only to find himself trapped there by a car that wouldn’t start. They’d run his licence, get his name, learn of his convictions for assault and making threats against the authorities. And what would his defence be? An absurd story about a mysterious Newton collector, an anonymous lawyer and a generic email address. They’d laugh themselves sick.

  ‘Sir? Are you still there, sir?’

  He muttered a curse, slammed down the phone. This was a nightmare. He needed to think. If the police got hold of him now, they wouldn’t bother looking for other explanations, they’d arrest him and charge him and lock him away, giving those three men all the time in the world to cover their tracks. He was screwed. He was completely screwed.

  It was only then that he remembered the email Penelope Martyn had sent her niece. Not much, but something; a piece of evidence that would corroborate his account. And it had freaked those men out, that was for sure. But maybe it had freaked them out badly enough to do something about it. Cambridge was just forty minutes drive away, after all.

  The phone took cards, not coins. He had just enough change to buy one from a dispenser. He called Directory Enquiries, had them put him through to Caius College. ‘Rachel Parkes, please,’ he said.

  ‘She’s not here,’ said a man. ‘May I take a message?’

  ‘I need to speak to her now. Do you have a mobile number for her?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly give out that kind of information.’

  ‘Then can you at least get a message to her?’

  Hesitancy in his voice. Anxiety that this might actually be serious. ‘I’m afraid Ms Parkes is out of Cambridge this afternoon, and she doesn’t have a mobile. I could ask her to contact you if she calls in.’

  Luke hesitated. He could hardly wait here all day on the off chance. ‘I’ll try again later,’ he said. He put the phone down, stood there in thought. What he really needed was someone to look for Rachel on his behalf, someone who knew Cambridge and who trusted him enough to do it without asking awkward questions.

  Pelham, then.

  He called Directory Enquiries again, asked for his friend’s home number. It just rang and rang. Probably out with one of his women, though maybe he’d be at his lab, even on a Sunday afternoon. For all his protestations, the man was a workaholic. And why not? His company paid him a fortune to do the kinds of R amp;D he’d gladly done for free at his old college. But, for the life of him, Luke couldn’t remember what his company was called. They’d moved into purpose-built laboratories at a Cambridge science park a couple of years back. Luke had taken Maria to the opening. But what the hell were they-

  The pub doors suddenly slammed open. He span around to see policemen flooding in from the main bar and the car park, truncheons in their hands.

  ‘Raid!’ yelled one of the bikers. ‘It’s the pigs!’

  II

  ‘Twenty million,’ said Grant, when finally he rang back. ‘That’s the highest I can go.’

  ‘One hundred,’ replied Croke. ‘That’s the lowest I can go.’

  ‘Seriously, my friend. You don’t know the people I work with. They think you’re trying to take advantage of them. They hate people taking advantage. There’s no chance whatsoever that they’d go for forty, let alone a hundred.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said
Croke. He looked out his window at the French Riviera thirty thousand feet beneath, the distinctive shapes of its marinas, the white specks of the cocaine super-yachts. It wasn’t just how much they cost in themselves; it was their berthing fees and running costs. It was the salaries for their crews.

  ‘So we’re agreed, then? Twenty million.’

  ‘I’m not risking my life for twenty mill.’

  A beat of silence. Two beats. ‘Thirty, then. I can probably go as high as thirty.’

  ‘Ninety,’ said Croke. ‘For what your friends will be getting, ninety’s a steal.’

  ‘You know nothing about my friends.’

  ‘I know they’ll be getting a steal at ninety.’

  ‘Fine,’ sighed Grant. ‘Call it fifty. But success-only, understood? No crying about near misses.’

  They settled on seventy. Less than Croke had hoped; more than he’d expected. Now for the next stage. He called Avram in Jerusalem. ‘I need you to speak to Thaddeus for me,’ he told him.