‘Somewhere away from here, with no CCTV,’ replied Jones.
‘Why?’
‘I told you, we have to talk.’
‘Yes? So what is wrong with the telephone, may I ask? Followed by a normal house call perhaps?’
‘I just said. You may be under surveillance. Your phone could be bugged.’
‘Sandy, for Chrissake. What on earth makes you think anyone is likely to be following me?’
‘Look, I don’t think there’s much doubt that the RECAP lab was blown up, deliberately—’
‘You don’t think?’ Ed interrupted. ‘Since when were you any sort of forensics expert? You’ve been interviewed by the police, for a very good reason, and released, like any other suspects there may have been. You’ve seen the news reports, haven’t you? They say it’s a gas explosion.’
Jones spotted an unlit lay-by ahead and pulled in. She stopped the car and turned to face Ed.
‘No they don’t,’ she replied. ‘The New York Post said the explosion was caused by a gas leak, and the authorities have yet to confirm or deny it. But I don’t believe the blast was caused by gas, and, you know what, I don’t think you do, either. I think you’ve got the same gut instinct about this thing that I have.’
‘Do you really have any idea what I think about anything?’
‘I used to have.’
‘That was a very long time ago.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
Jones paused. She had to pick her words carefully. She mustn’t tell Ed that Connie was still alive. The pair of them and Marion had agreed that would be far too risky.
‘Look, I actually talked enough to Connie on the phone, when she called me a few days before the explosion, to realize how worried she was,’ Jones improvised. ‘She said that she thought the lab, and she and Paul in particular, were being targeted in some way.’
She told Ed then about the Internal Revenue checks, the speeding tickets, the threats to the financial future of RECAP, and all the other things Connie had related to her. Including the sudden and intrusive attentions of the state Health and Safety department.
While she was speaking she became aware of Ed’s attitude changing, just a little.
‘You didn’t know about any of that?’ she ventured.
‘No, I didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me the other night?’
‘You didn’t give me much chance,’ said Jones. She actually hadn’t known it all then, of course.
Ed didn’t respond.
‘What are you thinking?’ Jones ventured.
‘Look Sandy, it’s been no secret for years that half the academic establishment, what am I saying, more like ninety-nine per cent of the academic establishment, would like to have seen RECAP closed down,’ Ed said eventually. ‘That doesn’t mean that anyone was going to actually blow the place up, for God’s sake.’
‘No. But, and this is what I wanted to see you about, is it possible after all these years, all these series of experiments, that the RECAP team was on the brink of discovering something the establishment couldn’t cope with. Wanted to destroy?’
‘For God’s sake, Sandy. Conspiracy theories are one thing but—’
‘People have died, Ed,’ she interrupted. ‘Including those you and I loved...’
She was taking poetic licence there, knowing as she did that Connie was still alive. Ed was quickly on to her anyway.
‘People you and I loved? You’ve got a damned cheek, Sandy. You’ve barely been near any of us for more than two decades.’
‘I didn’t think you wanted me near,’ she said, keeping her voice calm. Ed’s comment was fair enough, after all.
‘Maybe not,’ he replied. ‘But they did. Paul and Connie. Particularly Connie.’
‘Yes, well perhaps what I’m trying to do here is honour a debt of love. I’m trying to repay something.’
He sighed. Short, sharp, impatient.
‘What do you want from me, Sandy?’
‘I want to find out if you know anything which could throw light on all of this...’
‘Don’t you think I would have told you straight away.’
Jones repeated Connie’s words.
‘You may have a piece of the jigsaw in your possession, and because it’s just one piece of many, not even realize it.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Look Ed, you and Paul were close, weren’t you?’
He turned away.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Connie told me in our phone conversation that Paul had indicated that he’d made progress, real progress’ — she paused for dramatic effect — ‘that he may have brought all those years of work to a final conclusion.’
‘So?’ muttered Ed.
Jones did a double take.
‘You knew that?’ she queried.
‘Yes. That’s what he thought, anyway. He told me that much. He wasn’t sure though, he was still working on his theory, finalizing it, and that is why he didn’t want to go public, or even to tell me or Connie exactly what his findings were.’
So Connie had been right. Ed at least knew something — and quite probably more than anyone except Connie.
‘Did you believe him?’
He turned back to face her, but she couldn’t see his features, just the dark shape of him.
‘Did I believe Paul? Do you remember who you are talking about, Sandy? Of course I believed Paul. He was at the top of his field. Had been for decades. He didn’t make mistakes. Not in his work. And he didn’t make statements he couldn’t back up.’
Jones nodded. That was true enough. And it was pretty much the way the entire academic world, and anyone else who had knowledge of Paul Ruders, would regard the man.
‘But you’d no idea exactly what he’d discovered?’ she persisted.
‘He believed he may have found out why all the sometimes quite inexplicable data we had correlated over the years had occurred. Why REGs behaved the way they did, why the behaviour of machines, according to the results of detailed scientific experimentation, really could be affected and sometimes controlled by the power of the human mind.’
For a few seconds Ed sounded just like Connie: evangelical.
‘The secret of consciousness?’ Jones prompted.
‘Maybe. All those years of the GCP, had surely proved beyond any reasonable doubt, to anyone with a mind that wasn’t totally closed, that global consciousness does exist. And yes, Paul finally believed that he had discovered what it really is. How it works. I don’t know how you put that exactly, but...’
His voice tailed off.
‘But, if he’d succeeded, dammit, if he’d halfways succeeded, then in the early part of this millennium we would have the most important scientific discovery since the beginning of the last, since Einstein’s theory of relativity, and since the development of quantum physics,’ said Jones, paraphrasing the way Connie had explained it to her. ‘Maybe greater. I think greater, don’t you?’
‘Maybe.’
Jones was aware that Ed was sitting very still.
‘And now we’ll never know,’ he said quietly. ‘Paul is dead. He won’t be able to tell us. He won’t be able to offer the world what could have been its greatest ever gift. And Connie, oh Connie...’
Ed seemed unable to finish what he was trying to say. Jones thought she could just see his shoulders begin to heave. She reached out a hand and touched his cheek.
‘Don’t be upset, dear Ed,’ she murmured.
Ed knocked her hand away at once.
‘Don’t be upset? You stupid woman. Don’t you realize my whole world has just exploded — literally? I’ve lost the only people left who really cared for me. Apart from my brother, I suppose...’
‘I’m sorry...’
‘You’re always sorry.’
‘I know.’
Ed was audibly sobbing now.