Chapter 39
Downstairs, in the ballroom, where there was a decently stocked bar, Joe Folly sipped a brandy. He was watched over by the hawkish threesome who followed Hank Hampton everywhere he went. The big fella with the Mercedes baseball cap watched him from under the shade of the hat.
Joe didn’t like his eyes.
They were the stuff of nightmares.
What he was doing was commonly known as playing with fire.
He hadn’t seen Hank Hampton, or Tilda Dent since he’d arrived.
He was here to see Sandy and nobody else.
She’d seen to it that he was allowed into the devil’s lair.
He was taking a huge risk in trusting her.
That in itself put him in grave danger. This manor was essentially US territory, despite being in the middle of the English countryside.
That didn’t matter. He could easily disappear when they were done with him.
He knew what they were capable of. He’d had colleagues in the business of journalism – whistleblowers in science, medical doctors, nurses, research assistants and politicians – end up seriously harmed, terrified or dead when they’d pushed too many buttons.
‘Suicides’ from two bullets to the back of the head. Falls from height…
Anything could be buried. Information, secrets, lies, bodies…
Which was why he couldn’t grasp why Jamie’s death had been so public. But with these people, there was always a plan.
Two friends. A lover. Gone. Because they got in the way.
He must make himself indispensable, and he thought he knew how to pull it off. Without him, they’d never get what they wanted.
Access to Angie’s hiding place.
The gloves were off. He had nothing left to lose. These people had taken everything from him, but he had one more card to play.
Like his hero, Milton William Cooper (no relation to Sandy), he knew he must watch his back.
He was safest close to the nest, which he was now.
Even the heavies in dark clobber hadn’t worked out who he was, but they were just mindless thugs, not paid to think.
It reminded him of a story Angie had told him.
Jamie had told her when she was walking through London alone at night to walk with purpose, do something familiar, stride confidently or talk to an imaginary caller on her phone.
People are less likely to suspect somebody who belongs.
Hunters seek the vulnerable.
Bodyguards weren’t employed to figure out the danger, just eliminate it.
Sandy’s trials had just been the beginning.
He’d dug, like his podcast handle suggested, until he’d struck gold.
He’d proven beyond doubt that Sandy was employed to test Neurohydroxy-14 and what it did to lab animals.
By following the data, he’d proved she was paid to smudge the outcomes by Hampton-Dent.
He’d thought he was going crazy on some days, as he spent months in dark rooms, rented in anonymity, for short-term leases until it was time to move on again.
But the problem hadn’t been finding the evidence, it was finding people to listen. In the end, they didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t.
They were too scared.
Too rich already. Too far into the Great Lie.
His name was in tatters. He was dismissed as a quack.
Once an investigative journalist or podcaster found the truth, even if they had compelling evidence that damned a whole sector of corruption, it was up to the mainstream media to get the word out.
And they were owned by the same people who controlled the funds behind the politicians.
It was one oversized club for gods who toyed with people’s lives.
Real lives. Real people who paid taxes and struggled to make a living, never knowing they were trapped in the same kind of slavery they thought civilisation had eradicated.
Milton Cooper knew it and had paid the ultimate price.
If Joe thought about it too much, it depressed the hell out of him, and he was tempted to sink several shots of brandy, not just the one to warm his senses and give him the courage he needed to move forward in the direction he’d chosen to.
It blotted out the memory of Jamie’s face. And the memories of Angelina and her paintings.
He heard a sound behind him and turned to see Sandy standing at the wide-open entrance to the ballroom bar. She walked towards him and placed an empty glass on the bar.
‘Let’s walk,’ she said.
It was an order. One he’d grown used to.
He knew he was in trouble, but he needed time to explain that he’d done everything they asked. He’d slipped into the conference unnoticed and had coached Jamie and recorded his testimony loyally. And sent it to Angie for insurance.
Nobody else knew Jamie was a whistleblower. Just the three of them. And that was his last card to play. He’d hidden the USB in a place so safe it would never be found without him.
They walked across the vast lawn and Sandy stared into the distance. They stopped next to a huge rhododendron bush. She poked her nose in to smell and she was virtually covered by it.
She took a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one, offering him one.
He took it. They smoked together. Clandestine opposites of the same partnership.
Bonded by the death of a man who was about to do the right thing.
Not the thing that made him more money than his wildest dreams. Not the thing that would bring him fortune and financial freedom for the rest of his life.
Not the thing that was easiest. But the thing that would ensure the end of his life as he knew it.
‘He was ready to tell me the truth,’ he said.
‘I know, and it had implications for the rest of us,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘You made the right decision, Joe.’ She sucked hard on her cigarette.
‘Just answer me yes or no,’ he said. ‘The trials were halted because the rats killed each other in rage.’
‘Yes.’
‘Neurohydroxy-14 was never declared.’
‘Yes.’
‘Hank Hampton bought the patent for it to use in military contracts.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bioweapons are being developed offshore in Nigeria in labs funded by the Whalley foundation.’
‘Yes.’
‘The Whalley foundation is a not-for-profit NGO subsidised by the EU and registered in the USA.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You have been busy,’ Joe said.
She turned and stared at him.
‘You know who these people are. Now you know what they do. Now you know what to do with the information you have. And then you’ll be richer than you’ve ever dreamt of, which, I guess, you already are. Selling your soul is the easiest thing in the world once you accept it doesn’t hurt,’ she said.
She had no idea how right she was.
She winked at him and he likened it to how he imagined a cup of cold sick.
She stared at him and blew her last breath of dirty fumes, as if symbolising the toxic nature of what was at stake.
‘You can’t go against these people and win,’ she said. It was a last warning as if she hadn’t made it clear enough. ‘Jamie tried, and look what happened to him. Don’t be a martyr, Joe. You’ve done your job. Now let us do ours. It’s time to let it go.’
She waited.
‘I’m sorry about Angelina,’ she said. Her voice softened and Joe saw a flicker of a different side to her.
‘Jamie knew he would be obliterated by dirty money. He always knew it would be made to look like something else,’ she said.
She reached out and patted his arm. ‘People who get mixed up in this do so knowing they are risking everything, including Angelina.’
Joe gazed across the gardens.
‘There’s one more thing we need you to do,’ she told him.
He stared at her.
‘Then you can fuck off and live however you want to at our expense.’ She grinned. ‘If there’s anyone who is going to find Angelina’s paintings, it’s that female detective who has taken on Jamie’s case.’
Joe stared at her.
‘I can sense it from her. She’s not going to let this go. They investigate murders sensibly here, don’t they? Our English police like to tick boxes and tie off the fraying edges. It’s cute but a pain in my ass. Angelina knew what she was doing, Joe. You couldn’t get it out of her. I will.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘I know she’s dead. But she was clever. That’s one thing you didn’t predict. She didn’t even tell you what she did with the information Jamie stole.’
She patted his arm again and threw her cigarette away. He didn’t feel her petting. He was numb.
‘You tried,’ she said. ‘We’ll find what we’re looking for and this will all be over for you.’
She walked away and Joe felt his stomach hit his toes.