Now the legendary Yankee Stadium was about as quiet as it was possible for anywhere in New York to be. There was virtually no noise at all. And certainly no happy anticipation. Just a certain sense of foreboding, as far as Jones was concerned.
She would never forget going there with Ed to see a game between the Yankees and the Red Sox — her very first experience of baseball — and Ed would have known that. They had just watched a video of the movie Field of Dreams featuring Kevin Costner as an Iowa farmer who built a baseball diamond in his cornfield. In Costner’s dreams games were played by the ghosts of baseballing legends. Jones had, somewhat to her embarrassment, enjoyed this ultimate feel-good movie rather more than she’d expected, but had shocked Ed, a native New Yorker whose love of the Yankees had been instilled in him by his grandfather at an early age, with her total lack of knowledge about baseball. And by admitting that she had never watched a game. Not even on TV.
He had insisted on taking her to see his team at their famous stadium. And as they’d stood in line to enter, with the thunder of the crowd and the band and the cheerleaders inside already roaring in their ears, she had looked up at the towering 50,000-seater ballpark looming above them, its lights blazing, and remarked, ‘Some cornfield!’
From then on the two of them had always referred to the Yankee stadium as The Cornfield.
On this night, however, the mighty baseball palace was shrouded in darkness, and its sheer size seemed threatening to Jones. But then almost everything, right then, seemed threatening to Jones.
She made her way towards the main entrance, keeping close to the walls, and finally came to a halt in a particularly shadowy spot, avoiding the occasional security lights. She wanted to see him before he saw her, to make sure that he was alone and hadn’t been followed. Or indeed, that he hadn’t brought anyone with him. She knew she must keep alert. For her own preservation. And Connie’s. In any case, she wasn’t sure right then that she trusted anyone in the world.
The minutes ticked slowly by. Ten o clock came and went. She stood, pressed against the stadium’s stone facade, making the most of its protection, watching and waiting. She tried to convince herself that she was calm and in control, but in reality her nerves were standing on end.
A sound to her left caused her to almost jump out of her skin. It was a loud high-pitched howling noise, not unlike the scream of a distressed baby. She turned quickly on her heel, twisting her damaged leg in her haste, but was unable at first to see anything. Then two creatures appeared, as if from nowhere, silhouetted against the street lights, the angle of their shadows making them seem twice the size they really were. Jones breathed a big deep sigh of relief. A pair of alley cats, their backs arched, teeth bared, tails wagging furiously, were facing up to each other in a combat every bit as fierce as any which had ever taken place within the historic ballpark.
Jones relaxed, just a little. She checked the time. Ten twenty-five. Perhaps Ed wasn’t coming. Perhaps something had happened to him. Perhaps he had just changed his mind. The possibilities were endless. Perhaps the Dominator was right. Perhaps Ed was, at that very moment, in the process of arranging some sort of a trap.
She wondered how long she should wait. Indeed how long she could wait without being overwhelmed by weariness and dropping to the ground. She was bone tired again. It had been a long day. Her injured leg was hurting quite badly. Her face hurt too. And her brain was in turmoil.
Minutes later a vehicle finally pulled off the main drag and onto the paved forecourt in front of the stadium, its headlights illuminating almost the entire area. She pushed herself flat against the wall. Was it Ed? And was he alone?
The vehicle drew to a halt straight in front of the main entrance, its headlamps still full on. Jones strained her eyes but was staring directly into the lights and could make out next to nothing. Then suddenly the lights went out. Almost simultaneously she heard the sound of a car door opening and shutting.
Her eyes began to focus again. The vehicle was a small dark saloon car of some kind. There was a figure walking from it towards the gates of the baseball park. She narrowed her eyes, staring into the gloom. It was Ed all right, he’d walked straight into a shaft of light. And he seemed to be alone.
She decided to wait a while to make sure. The traffic on the road beyond continued as normal. No other vehicle had chosen to follow Ed’s onto the stadium forecourt.
Jones took a cautious step forwards, into a better lit area.
Ed appeared to hear her move, and turned quickly.
‘It’s all right, it’s me,’ Jones called softly, remembering her own nerves earlier when she’d heard the cats fighting. She limped her way closer to him.
‘My God, you really are hurt now,’ said Ed. ‘Your face. Your legs...’
‘What is it, Ed?’ Jones asked at once, ignoring his concern. ‘Why did you want to see me?’
‘Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?’
‘What?’
‘RECAP was the target,’ Ed continued. ‘It had to have been...’
‘Well yes...’
‘And now whoever planted the bomb is after Connie. I heard about Marion...’
‘How? When?’ Jones spoke sharply. Even if Marion’s identity had by now been made public, it certainly hadn’t been earlier that day when Ed had texted her.
‘It’s the talk of Princeton. The police came to see Thomas Jessop, to tell him about his mother. He’d only just got out of hospital himself...’
‘Right. But how did you make the connection? I mean, did you know about... about...?’
‘About Marion and Connie? Yes, I knew. Paul knew too. Although not in the very beginning. You’ve worked in the RECAP lab. Hard place to keep a secret for long. But it certainly wasn’t common knowledge. Paul and I respected their privacy. We never talked about it. But we knew. So, it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. I heard on the news that there was another woman involved, and I guessed it was you. I also guessed that Marion had probably been attacked by mistake. Am I right?’
‘Yes. Almost certainly.’
‘There are things I have to tell you, Sandy.’
‘Let’s move away from the light.’
She led him into a darker part of the forecourt, and glanced nervously around for the umpteenth time. She presumed Ed had chosen this meeting place because he could give it to her in code, confident that she would know exactly where she meant, and others wouldn’t. But Jones wasn’t sure it was necessarily a safe place to meet.
‘Are you sure you weren’t followed?’ she asked, yet again feeling like a second-rate secret agent in a very second-rate spy film.
Ed nodded and smiled slightly.
‘I borrowed my neighbour’s car, and he agreed to look after Jasper too. I told him my vehicle was off the road. I’m now as paranoid as you. What happened to Marion changed everything. We have an underground garage. My car is still at home, and I didn’t leave on foot. If anyone was watching my place they would think I was still inside. Nobody followed me, Sandy.’
‘You sent me a text.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I had to get in touch with you. Had to see you. I copied your trick though. I bought a pre-paid phone.’
‘Perhaps too late. We think the one I was using was blown. Don’t know how else they traced us so fast.’
‘That might be my fault,’ Ed admitted. ‘I called you this morning from my home phone. I half forgot that you’d told me not to. Half didn’t see the need to do anything other. I believed, then, what the authorities said. That the explosion was directed at the animal research people. It made sense. And I certainly didn’t believe that my phone was bugged...’