‘You know what, I’m not sure how much I care about RECAP any more. Connie is the greatest loss, the most awful loss to me. I loved her best. You see. From the beginning... After you...’
Jones hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected Ed to break down. She certainly hadn’t expected him to mention his feelings for her. She didn’t know quite what to do. His sobbing seemed out of control. Maybe he’d been holding it all in until now. Cautiously she reached out to him again. This time he did not pull away from her, instead moving closer and continuing to sob into her shoulder. It was heartbreaking. She couldn’t let it go on. She had to tell him. She just had to.
‘Ed listen, Connie’s alive,’ she blurted out. ‘She escaped.’
He stopped sobbing at once and immediately pulled away from her.
‘She’s a-alive?’ he stumbled. ‘Oh my God, she’s alive!’
She told him all of it then, everything that she had promised Connie and Marion she wouldn’t tell him or anyone else. And as she spoke she told herself that if she couldn’t trust Ed MacEntee, she couldn’t trust anyone.
When she had finished Ed had just one question.
‘When can I see her, when can I see Connie?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t supposed to tell you she’d survived. For your sake as well as hers. I’ll have to pick my moment to confess—’
‘You really think she’s still in danger, don’t you?’ Ed interrupted suddenly.
‘Yes. We all do. And we think if we had possession of Paul’s thesis we could put a stop to it all. Actually, Connie and I both hoped that he may even have given you a copy of his work, hard copy, USB memory stick, whatever...’
‘Why would he? He had all the normal backup. He would have kept copies himself, on different devices. He wasn’t expecting to be blown up, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Jones paused. ‘Paul was a meticulous man. In his work, that is. Though you wouldn’t think it from the way he looked — nor the behaviour he allowed from his dogs.’
She smiled. She thought Ed might be smiling too, but she couldn’t see.
‘Thing is,’ Jones continued, ‘Connie saw the police take Paul’s home computer away. So they, the FBI, the CIA, people in government, any of those could well have a copy now of all his work.’
‘I doubt they’d understand it.’
‘Maybe not. But maybe they don’t need to understand. They just don’t want anybody else to. After all, to understand the meaning of consciousness, for people to be able to communicate in that way, would upset the status quo more than anything else discovered in the name of progress that you could possibly imagine.’
‘Isn’t that a bit fanciful, Sandy?’
‘Is it? Well, the whole concept of RECAP is fanciful, isn’t it. But do you really think it is likely to have been a coincidence that the RECAP lab exploded and Paul was killed just as he was on the brink of going public with a literally earth-shattering discovery?’
‘I don’t know.’
Jones took from her bag a piece of paper, on which she had written the number of her new burner phone, and handed it to Ed.
‘Look, call me tomorrow, on this phone, it’s safe,’ she said. ‘Or any time if you can think of anything that might help. We need to protect Connie as well as Paul’s thesis.’
‘OK,’ said Ed. ‘I certainly can’t think of anything right now. Oh, except... I do have a pal in the police. I could sound him out, if you like. He might at least tell me if the cops really believe the gas explosion theory.’
‘Well, that would be something.’
‘I’ll call you then.’
‘Good, but please don’t use your cell or your home line. Call from a pay phone, and not one too near your apartment, either. Or get yourself a pay-as-you-go. Promise?’
‘Are you sure all this subterfuge is really necessary, Sandy?’
‘I’m sure we shouldn’t take unnecessary risks.’
‘OK. OK. I promise,’ Ed replied.
Jones dropped him off where she had picked him up. Ed walked slowly home around the corner, allowing Jasper some more time for a sniff around and a wee or two.
The man sitting in a black sedan with tinted windows, parked across the street from Ed’s apartment building, watched their arrival. He’d seen them leave about thirty-five minutes previously, on what he knew to be their regular nightly walk. They had been a little longer than usual, but it was a beautiful night.
As Sandy Jones had hoped, the man had taken no notice of her in her commonplace saloon car.
Indeed, as soon as Ed and Jasper had disappeared around the corner he’d taken off down the road in the opposite direction heading for a nearby Mexican takeaway. He didn’t even see Jones pull out. This was not the first time he’d kept watch on Ed MacEntee, mainly to monitor any visitors he might have. And the man was already in the habit of fetching himself some supper during the habitual dog walk. After all, Ed couldn’t receive any visitors if he were out with the dog, could he, the man reasoned. He was perhaps not the cleverest or most diligent of surveillance personnel.
He kept an eye on Ed and Jasper until they’d entered the building, but was actually concentrating rather more on the beef and bean burrito with chilli sauce he had acquired.
Then his cell phone rang. He answered at once.
‘Of course, Mr Johnson,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it straight away.’
He took a final enormous bite of his spicy Mexican sandwich before reaching into the back of the car for an anorak which he pulled on over the black suit, white shirt and black tie he always wore. Glancing longingly at the juicy burrito, now abandoned on the passenger seat, he climbed out of the car, tugging up the hood of his anorak as he crossed the road.
Chilli and garlic sauce dribbled from the corners of his mouth down over his chin. He wiped the stuff away with the back of one hand, as he opened the white painted gate to the apartment block and made his way up the path to the front door.
Twelve
It was well after midnight when Jones arrived back at Dom’s loft. She used the remote control Marion and Connie had given her to operate the doors of the garage. As she switched off the car engine the small door at the back opened and there stood Connie.
‘I thought you’d be in bed by now,’ said Jones.
‘You have to be joking,’ said Connie, as she led the way upstairs.
Marion was sitting on one of the big leather sofas. She gestured for Jones to sit next to her, and poured her a glass of wine from the bottle on the low table in front of them.
‘Right, Sandy, tell us all,’ commanded Connie, as she sat on the other sofa.
‘I’m afraid there’s not a great deal to tell,’ Jones began, nonetheless proceeding to give a fairly full account of her meeting with Ed, without dwelling too much on how upset the man had been. Neither did she mention her indiscretion regarding Connie, which she was already beginning to regret.
‘So unfortunately it seems Ed has little to offer, apart from the vague promise of approaching his police department chum,’ she concluded. ‘Paul had indeed told him about his final thesis, and the remarkable conclusions he had drawn, but Ed certainly doesn’t have a copy of any of Paul’s work. I suppose it was always a long shot...’
Connie and Marion were clearly disappointed — as indeed Jones had been.
There seemed to be little more to say or do that night. The three women finished the open bottle of wine and then retired to bed. The sofa had already been made up for Jones, and her shoulder bag, collected from Soho House by Marion, as promised, stood on the floor alongside. Jones still felt jet lagged and tired, unusually so for her. She supposed stress probably had a lot to do with that. She climbed gratefully beneath the covers, and in spite of her abiding anxiety, fell asleep almost at once.