Alchemist by James Peter

Author:James, Peter [James, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror, Thriller
ISBN: 9780752817293
Amazon: B00GVFXYMY
Goodreads: 703356
Publisher: Orion
Published: 1996-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

61

Wednesday 23 November, 1994

Bill Gunn was seated in one of the ornate black chairs in front of Dr Vincent Crowe’s desk. He crossed his legs the better to examine the round black mark, courtesy of Nikky, on the bridge of his Hush Puppy. It was the size of a bullet hole.

It had been a token of her appreciation for his arriving three hours later than promised last evening; one sharp stamp of her stiletto heel and she had walked out into the night; and stayed out.

His foot was hurting like hell, and the expression on the Chief Executive’s face did not bode well as he glared at him beyond the jewelled eyes of the papier-mâché frog. Their meeting had been interrupted by three incoming calls in succession and they had not yet got further than the preliminaries.

‘How could you be so clumsy, Major Gunn? Surely you have people capable of breaking and entering an unalarmed, isolated house without any trace?’

‘Yes, sir, of course. They were taken by surprise – she normally arrives home between seven forty-five and half past eight. This time for some reason she got back at half six; they’d had to wait for the daily help to go and for the cover of darkness, so there they were.’

‘Cover of darkness?’ Crowe said snidely. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t bother signalling their presence with a military band and floodlights.’

‘It was very unfortunate, sir. Her early return wrong-footed them.’

‘Oh, it wrong-footed them, did it? You’re aware of the damage that could be done if she finds out the source of the break-in?’

Gunn nodded.

‘And perhaps you would be good enough to illuminate for me, Major Gunn, why you felt the need to break into Miss Bannerman’s home at all? Surely you could have obtained what you needed here, with far less effort and risk?’

‘I’ve been uncomfortable about the conversation she had with Seals – which we only managed to record part of,’ Gunn said. ‘We also know she had a meeting with this Zandra Wollerton journalist on the Thames Valley Gazette, and I felt it was important to find out if she had any documents tucked away. She’s got nothing in the office, so her home was the next logical place.’

‘Hear this, Major. Dr Bannerman is crucial to our genetics research programme, and his daughter is invaluable to him. She literally holds his life together, she’s the one person he listens to. Without her influence, we would never have persuaded him to join us.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘If he gets upset and walks – there’s no one else in the world with the precise knowledge in the gene therapy areas that we need for Medici. If we lose him we lose as much as a decade on the project.’ Crowe raised his eyebrows. ‘You do appreciate that, don’t you?’

‘Dr Crowe, I can’t do my job if I’m hamstrung by an inadequate budget. If I could afford more surveillance crews and equipment I’d have been able to monitor Miss Bannerman properly and would have known that she was changing her routine.

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