The Invisible Assassin(6)

As Jake left the room, he was sure of one thing: he wasn’t going to be taking the pills. What he’d seen hadn’t been a hallucination.





Chapter 3




Ten minutes later, Jake was back in Gareth’s office, showing him the sick note and the prescription. This time Gareth didn’t smile. Instead he sighed heavily and sympathetically.

‘My poor Jake,’ he said. ‘It looks like you’ve become a victim of this tragedy.’ Then the sigh switched back to a reassuring smile again as he added, ‘But only temporarily, if the medico’s right. And there’s no reason to think he isn’t. After all, this is the Department of Science, and if we can’t have the best that modern medicine has to offer in this country, then who can?’

Taking Jake’s arm and steering him towards the outer office and Janet, Gareth continued, ‘Twenty-four hours, then I’m sure everything’ll be fine. And don’t worry about work. I’ve detailed Paul Evans to take care of your stuff until you get back. The main thing is: rest and recovery.’ Gareth opened his door and patted Jake on the back in a blokey sort of way. ‘You’re a good man, Jake, with a future here. You’ve already shown that with the way you handled this situation. We need you, and we need you in good form. Look after yourself.’

Jake trudged down the marble stairs with their brass handrails, crossing the boundary to stairs with metal handrails, and back to the big open-plan office. Paul was sitting at his desk, on the phone, which he hung up as Jake returned.

‘I’ve got the news,’ he said. ‘Janet phoned me. You’ve got tomorrow off and I’ve got your workload.’ He grinned. ‘Lucky beggar. Maybe I ought to pretend to be seeing things and get a day off.’

Jake shrugged and forced a grin. ‘It worked for me,’ he said.

He saw that Paul had already added Jake’s most recent files to his own pile of work in his pending file. On the top was a fresh folder marked ‘Bedfordshire Incident’.

‘Things have moved fast,’ said Jake, pointing to the file.

Paul nodded.

‘Remember the first rule: being in the press office means being one step ahead,’ he said. ‘The modern media work by split seconds, not hours. Something happens in the UK, within seconds the rest of the world knows about it.’

Jake flicked opened the file. Inside was his own report on the incident, along with a list of names and addresses: the people who’d been there: building contractors, protestors, Penny Johnson, the paramedics who’d attended, even the SAS men who’d arrived, although they were only identified as ‘Soldier A’ and ‘Soldier B’, and so on. Halfway down the second page, where there was the description of the man ‘apparently becoming infected’ (the phrase was in inverted commas and the letters ‘H or H’ next to it), someone had written the word ‘SIGMA’ in capitals.

‘What’s this mean?’ asked Jake. ‘Sigma?’

Paul looked.

‘Ah yes, I’ve seen that before,’ he said. ‘Gareth’s writing. I think it’s a kind of shorthand for H or H.’

‘Hardly shorthand,’ said Jake. ‘It would take longer to write.’

Paul shrugged. ‘You know these Oxford types. They like to use phrases that sound classical. Have you noticed the amount of Latin they use when they talk to one another. A bit pretentious, if you ask me.’

Paul was a Cambridge man.

‘Possibly.’ Jake nodded.

‘So,’ Paul grinned, ‘that’s you off. What will you do?’

‘Rest and recover,’ said Jake. ‘Those are my orders from upstairs, and I mean to obey them to the letter.’ He headed to his own desk. ‘I just need to sort out a couple of things, and then I’m off.’

‘No need,’ said Paul. ‘Janet was most insistent that you just pack up and go now. Gareth’s orders. She said he’s worried about you.’

‘That’s very flattering,’ said Jake. Then Paul’s phone rang.

‘Evans, press office,’ he said briskly, and whatever the query was immediately grabbed his full attention, so Jake was able to get back to his desk without further arguments.

Beneath his apparent happiness at getting two days off on full pay, Jake was puzzled. It was all too easy. Was it really concern about his health? And he had seen what he’d seen at that building site, he was sure of it. But had that really been a hallucination, as Gareth and the doctor suggested? And was this feeling that something wasn’t right an extension of that, a linked form of paranoia?

Jake sat down at his computer. He was about to switch it off, when something made him go to the department’s internal search engine and type in ‘Sigma’. Immediately, the message came up: ‘Restricted to Level 4 or above.’ Jake’s security clearance was Level 2. Receptionists were Level 1. Trainee and junior press officers were Level 2. Cleaning staff were Level 3.