Hepton stared at Paul Vincent, then at where Harry had been standing. He made his decision and bent over his friend, pushing Paul’s swollen tongue out of the way and sticking two fingers into the young man’s mouth, searching down towards the throat, checking if there was a clear flow for air. Then he pinched Paul’s nose and gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
‘Come on, Paul,’ he said. He pushed down with both hands on Vincent’s chest, once, twice, three times. Pause. Once, twice, three times again. He checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one — but then there was! Faint, but there.
‘Is he...?’
Hepton turned to the woman. ‘Go get a doctor,’ he hissed.
‘Yes, of course.’ She hurried away.
Hepton kept trying the mishmash of life-saving techniques, remembering bits of each of them from the training sessions he had attended more than a year ago. He pushed down hard again on Vincent’s chest with the heels of his hands. There was a palpable groan from the inert body. He crawled back to Vincent’s head, his mouth close to the deep-red ear.
‘Paul? Paul, it’s Martin. Come on, Paul. You’re going to be fine. Paul?’
The opaque eyes seemed to clear, the mouth trying to form words. But the voice box was shattered, the windpipe raw. Hepton brought his own ear close to Vincent’s mouth. There were white threads of saliva at the edges, hanging from swollen lips. The word was hoarse, barely recognisable as speech. But Hepton heard it, where others might have thought it mere babble.
‘Arrus... Arrus... Arrosss...’
And then the breath seemed to rattle within, the eyes became filmy, and Hepton could only crouch there, staring at his friend. The doctor was rushing along the corridor now, and would do what he could. It was already too late, Hepton knew. His own ministrations had served only to extend the waning life by a moment. But in that precious moment, Paul Vincent had given him something. A word.
Argos.
He left the body, rising slowly to his feet. Then he remembered Harry, and turned on his heel. He ran along the corridor, swung round the corner, pushed open the door to the stairs. He didn’t mind now, didn’t care if he ran straight into her and her gun. All he held in his mind was burning rage. But a glance through the window showed him that the black Sierra had gone. He leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes.
‘Paul,’ he whispered. Then he began to cry.
14
They sat him on a sagging chesterfield sofa in the musty library, declared the room off-limits to the inquisitive patients and gave him sweet tea to drink. Meanwhile, Paul Vincent’s body was being laid out on the bed in his room, his possessions gathered together, his family informed. A tragic suicide: that was what it would become. But Hepton, sipping his tea, knew this was not the truth. A policeman came to see him, a detective in plain clothes. Hepton told him about Harry.
‘Yes,’ the detective said. ‘Mrs Collins on reception said Mr Vincent had had a visitor.’
‘She killed him.’
The detective raised one eyebrow. He had already been informed that Hepton was in shock.
‘She killed him,’ Hepton repeated. ‘She had a gun. I saw her.’
‘But Mr Vincent wasn’t killed with a gun,’ the detective said slowly, as though explaining something difficult to a child. ‘He hanged himself.’
‘No, she did it. She hung him up there.’
The detective decided to ignore all this. He referred to his notebook. ‘The name we have for the visitor is a Miss Victoria Simmons.’
Hepton shook his head. ‘Her name’s Harry.’
‘Harry?’ The detective sounded doubtful.
‘Short for Harriet.’
‘And her second name?’
Hepton shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She’s something to do with the military. That’s what she told me, anyway. You can ask my boss, Mr Henry Fagin. I’ll give you his number...’
‘Yes, well, meantime just you rest, Mr Hepton. You’ve had a bit of a shock.’
‘I’m fine. But I’m telling you...’ He looked up at the policeman. A simple-looking face, disguising a simple-working mind. He shook his head. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Never mind.’
The duty doctor gave him a couple of tablets, but Hepton refused them. He didn’t need calming down, or cheering up. He didn’t require the proffered lift home. He was quite capable of driving himself.
Paul had given him a name: Argos. Perhaps the truth had been too obvious, too glaring, too outrageous. But now that he thought it over, it was quite true that the United States space shuttle Argos had been in space at the time Zephyr had malfunctioned. But Argos wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Zephyr’s orbit. It had been a thousand or more miles away, launching another satellite. With Dreyfuss on board, now its only survivor. A coincidence? Paul had given him that one word because he had suspected Argos of interfering with Zephyr in some way. One person would know for sure.
Dreyfuss.
But how the hell could Hepton get to him? There had to be some way. The Foreign Office, perhaps. Their people in the United States would have access to him, surely? That might mean a trip to London...
London.
Of course! Jilly would have been keeping in touch with him. Hepton just knew she would. Partly from friendship — mostly from friendship, even — but partly because she had a nose for a story, and Dreyfuss was news. That was that then: he’d pack a bag and head for London. But first there were more questions to be asked of him, more tea to be served up and drunk. Why garden twine? Why suicide? Why by hanging? Why in a cupboard? He kept his answers to himself. Garden twine was strong. It wasn’t suicide, but murder. Hanging to make it look like suicide. A cupboard to prevent the body being found too quickly.
Because Harry had known Hepton was on his way, and there hadn’t been much time. Not enough time for an overdose, and not enough time for an abduction. No one, of course, had seen anything. No one had heard anything No chair falling. No choking or kicking. It was a neat operation. Neat and tidy. Hepton couldn’t get Harry’s face out of his mind.
Eventually they had to let him go. He gave his address in Louth, got into his car and drove off at a steady pace, picking up speed only when he was out of the nursing home’s gates, picking up more and more speed until he caught himself doing seventy. Too fast on these roads. Braking, slowing. He didn’t want there to be any other accidents.
Parking outside the flat, though, locking the car door, he felt a fresh wave of foreboding wash over him. Harry had killed Paul to stop him saying anything about Zephyr and, more especially, about Argos. Hepton thought of Harry again: I like things neat and tidy. With Paul gone, he knew he himself had become a target. Perhaps the only target left.
He stood at the bottom of the stairwell for a long time, listening. Then he climbed quietly to the first floor. He slowly pushed open his letter box and listened for sounds in the flat. There were none. Then he unlocked the mortise and the Yale lock and opened the door. There was a piece of paper lying on the floor of the hallway. He unfolded it and read: Need to speak with you. Please come to the Coach and Four, 7.30. Nick.
Hepton looked at his watch. It was 7.25. He’d have to hurry; the Coach and Four was a good seven or eight minutes’ walk away. He’d never been to it before, there being two other pubs nearer the flat. He wondered why Nick wanted to meet him. Perhaps he had discovered something. Well, Hepton had things to tell him too, didn’t he? Things about Zephyr and Argos. Things about Paul Vincent. Things about his death.