She looked around. She had them, and she knew it.
‘I am sure you all know about the fatal explosion at Princeton University last week,’ she went on. ‘The authorities have told us the target was the animal research department. But I have reason to believe that is not the truth, ladies and gentlemen, and that the truth is being deliberately covered up. The bomb was planted in the RECAP lab, that’s REsearch into Consciousness At Princeton, and I believe RECAP was the true target.
‘While studying for my doctorate at Princeton many years ago I became involved with the work of RECAP. My ties remain deep, and I went to America in order to personally investigate that explosion and its aftermath — an explosion I believe to have been deliberately targeted at destroying RECAP and those involved in this extraordinary ground-breaking project.’
Jones paused. She was aware of a buzz around the room. She had spent most of the previous twenty-one years keeping very quiet about her involvement with RECAP, and her one-time closeness to Paul and Connie. To publicly align herself now with the project and its people, was in some ways as disconcerting to her as facing all the dangers she had encountered in America. Fleetingly she wondered if that was why the idea had not presented itself to her before Ed suggested it.
Paul’s paper might change everything. Meanwhile Jones could imagine only too vividly the reaction she was now likely to provoke in academic circles, particularly at Oxford, the university which had just chosen her to be their next chancellor.
‘There is something else,’ she continued. ‘The psychologist Connie Pike, the RECAP lab manager allegedly killed in the blast, is in fact not dead. She survived, due to a freak chain of events, and has since also survived a second deliberate attempt on her life. This was the same incident in which another woman was grievously injured, and from which I only narrowly escaped.’
Jones paused again. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. All eyes were riveted on her.
‘Connie Pike is currently in hiding,’ Jones continued. ‘She has told me that Professor Paul Ruders, the director of RECAP, who was killed, had recently made a sensational scientific discovery. Paul believed he was finally able to explain the secret of consciousness.’
The journalists gathered in the meeting room were general news men and women, area staff mostly, but they were still quite obviously aware of the significance of what she was telling them.
‘Paul believed that he had solved the greatest single mystery of mankind’s very existence,’ Jones went on. ‘And Connie Pike and I both believe that is why he was murdered. I have decided to go public with that, and with my conviction that RECAP and all associated with it have been the target of a deadly conspiracy, almost certainly executed by establishment figures quite probably in senior American government circles. My intention in telling you this, ladies and gentlemen, is that I hope to blow that conspiracy wide open.’
For just a few seconds the deathly hush in the room remained unbroken. Then a kind of humming noise began, as the realization of the magnitude of Jones’s statement bounced from person to person, like a current of electricity whizzing along a row of pylons. The questions came thick and fast. Jones told no lies but withheld as much of the truth as suited her, giving only a very edited version of Ed’s involvement, and she allowed the assumption to be made that Paul Ruders’ work had either died with him or been stolen by those responsible for the Princeton explosion. She certainly didn’t mention the imminent arrival of Ed’s USB.
Sandy Jones knew just how to present a story in order to make it irresistible. If she could do that with the theory of relativity, for God’s sake, then selling a tale of a deadly explosion, a fugitive scientist, a killer truck, a series of life-threatening events, and the possibility of a major conspiracy at US government level, was a piece of cake.
Everybody wanted to know where they could find Connie. And Jones was glad that she was genuinely unable to tell them.
‘I’m sure Connie Pike will come forward now,’ she said. ‘The whole purpose of this news conference, of revealing all that I have today, is to make it safe for her to do so. And, indeed, also to ensure my safety, and the safety of Ed MacEntee.’
Jones could tell from the way the gathered throng all took off at a run as soon as the press call was over, that it had been a success. She’d effectively dodged questions concerning her relationship with Ed, but, in any case, for once even the tabloid press present had allowed her dramatic revelations to overshadow their abiding fascination with the love lives of the well-known.
She called Ed as soon as it was over and gave him a quick rundown, so that he would know what to expect. She then called her sons to provide them with a précised account of events, hopefully before they learned of it from the media, and to assure them that she was fine. She lied that she had exaggerated the danger a bit in order to be sure of blanket coverage, but she knew they weren’t convinced. Matt threatened a visit at the weekend to see for himself how she was, and Lee expressed outrage that she had taken off on such a crazy mission without even telling him or his twin. Jones ended up feeling rather more like the child than the parent.
The calls from the specialist science correspondents on the various papers and broadcasting news services began minutes later. Soon afterwards came calls from crime correspondents and political editors.
Two national newspaper editors of Jones’s acquaintance called her directly. She could tell they were almost as amazed by her embracing RECAP as they were by the rest of her revelations, including her allegations of an American government conspiracy concerning the Princeton explosion.
She stayed in her office until almost seven in order to watch the main national news broadcasts on the BBC and ITV. To her delight, and a tad to her surprise too, her story was the lead item on both.
She also channel-hopped on satellite and found it featured prominently on Sky News and CNN. That meant worldwide exposure. Most importantly, the allegations would soon be known all over America. The New Jersey State Police, the FBI, the whole of the American establishment including the doyens of science and academia, and every area of government, national and regional, would very soon be aware of the hornet’s nest Dr Sandy Jones had stirred up. They surely would not dare attack Connie, or her and Ed, now.
Ed’s USB had still not turned up when Jones left for home. But she was in considerably better spirits than she had been since she first heard of the Princeton explosion. However, her mood changed again, when, just as she was stepping out of the building, she received a phone call from Oxford University, postponing her dinner appointment the following week. Jones had actually half-forgotten about it, and in any case would be unlikely to attend — certainly if she had that USB in her hands by then. Nonetheless the significance of the postponement was not lost on her. She had no doubt at all that her endorsement of RECAP was the real reason. The Vice Chancellor was probably playing for time, giving himself and his cohorts opportunity to discuss and perhaps even reconsider Jones’s appointment as Chancellor. Jones didn’t think that the decision of the Convocation — the body of Oxford MAs and MScs who had cast their votes in the traditional election process — could be overturned. But she wasn’t sure. She cursed under her breath, as she hurried to her car, but still remembered to smile for the assorted press gathered in the car park.
More press were outside the gates of Northdown, as she had rather expected, some of them, no doubt, still interested primarily in the possibility of a picture of her with Ed, but most of them now with bigger fish to fry. The narrow approach lane was lined by a string of assorted vehicles. Cameras flashed.