She dragged Lambert-Chide backwards, towards the door through which Tremain had first brought her.
‘You can’t get out,’ said Tremain. ‘Let him go.’
‘Throw me the gun,’ she said.
‘Take a leap…’ returned Tremain.
She crushed Lambert-Chide’s neck tighter and he croaked in pain. ‘Throw me the gun, you merciless bastard!’
Tremain saw the fear in Lambert-Chide’s eyes, sighed resignedly and held the gun between index finger and thumb, holding it out at arm’s length, then bending and sliding it across the floor. Erica had to release Lambert-Chide long enough to bend and retrieve the weapon at her feet, but as she did so the door behind her flew open and two men threw themselves into the room, barging into Erica’s unprotected back. She fell to the floor. One of the men brought his gun crashing down on her head, once, twice, a third time. He fell on top of her, flattening her to the ground, blood seeping through her tousled hair. The other man went to Lambert-Chide’s aid, supporting him. Lambert-Chide pushed him away, clutching his sore throat. He sent a foot into the woman’s unprotected side and she gave a pitiful yelp of pain.
Tremain retrieved his gun, aiming it at the woman. His breathing was laboured and his eyes betrayed his desire to send a bullet into her back. ‘Now do you believe me? There’s a reason she was kept sedated!’
‘You gullible fools…’ Erica said faintly, her breath pumped from her by the weight of the man.
Lambert-Chide signalled for him to get off her. ‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Tremain. ‘She’s lying. She’s the one.’
‘So you’d like to believe,’ Erica said, rising to her knees. She ran a hand over her head; her fingers came away smeared in scarlet and she glowered hard at Tremain.
‘Shut your mouth, you lying bitch!’ he said.
‘Let her have her say,’ said Lambert-Chide, being helped to one of the chairs. He massaged his neck.
‘Surely you don’t believe her?’ he said.
‘Quiet, Randall,’ he said. ‘Go ahead. Let’s hear it.’
Erica sat up. She glanced briefly at Gareth, who appeared totally dumbstruck. ‘Muller and I were in on this together,’ she said. He’d been tasked with finding this Evelyn Carter woman. OK, so he wasn’t entirely sure why, but that didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he found her and deliver her to you. He wasn’t stupid; he knew she was immensely valuable to you. Knew how much manpower and money you were willing to put into this. The reward for delivering her to you was enough to suggest she was special, very special. After all, it would make him a very rich man.’
Lambert-Chide saw Tremain was about to interject and he held up his hand for him to remain silent. ‘You recruited Muller personally, didn’t you, Randall?’
‘He passed through all the checks.’
‘But it took another, Caroline Cody, to spot what his game was, to double-cross us.’
‘What are you saying?’
He ignored his head of security and addressed the woman. ‘So, tell me who you’d like us to think you are.’
‘Muller figured he’d help things along. He’d guarantee that he’d be the one to find this Evelyn Carter for you. Except that it wouldn’t be the real one, it would be her double. I was working for a small-time modelling agency when he approached me with an offer. He wanted you to think he was hot on the trail of Evelyn, and I helped create that illusion. You were never going to get her, of course; once we had the money we’d divide the proceeds and disappear, a whole lot richer. But he got greedy. He decided that he’d double his chances, by leading you on to believe that Gareth here was her son. Everything, me falling in front of his car, the brooch — an expensive replica; we had all the details from your website — all an elaborate setup. I didn’t mean to end up in hospital; I slipped. But it inadvertently helped convince you that I was Evelyn. We even convinced Doradus, whoever he is.’ She looked over to Gareth, whose face displayed a rising anger. ‘My guess is if Gareth is here then Muller is either dead or has taken the money and run. Either way it’s time to come clean. Game over. I’m pissed off with having those fucking needles stuck in me.’
There was a strained silence that hung in the air for a minute as Lambert-Chide digested her words and marshalled his thoughts. ‘What is it you hope to gain by all this? Even if what you say is true, you can see your position is hopeless. I can’t let you live.’
She shrugged. ‘First of all, this man is no more than an unwilling and unwitting pawn in all this. He isn’t, and never was, that special person you thought he was. Second, my position isn’t as hopeless as you’d like to believe. At the start of all this I took out a little insurance. I paid a visitor to a solicitor and left him a letter in a sealed envelope. If I don’t return to claim it then he’s instructed to open it and act upon the contents. It’s all there, trust me. You and your company won’t come out of this in a good light. Muller knew enough about your secret project for it to damn you if it ever got out. Oh, and don’t feel left out, Tremain, you get a hefty mention too.’
Gareth was reeling with this latest revelation. The knowledge that he’d been nothing more than a helpless tool in someone’s lust for money made his insides boil with rage. He looked over to Lambert-Chide, whose face gave nothing away. He was nodding slowly, his eyes staring at the woman but his mind obviously working over other things.
‘All I ask is you let me go and pay to keep me quiet,’ she resumed. ‘Whatever you do with Gareth is up to you. I don’t care.’
At last Lambert-Chide rose from the chair. He picked up the photograph album. ‘I admire your audacity and creativity.’ The image of Evelyn Carter was smiling up at him. ‘But of course we can prove it in very little time. A simple DNA test from you both will settle things once and for all. Either way, you are mine to do with as I please, in spite of your pathetic insurance policy. Solicitors are notoriously materialistic. A suitable payment will buy silence. And if not, well there are many different ways to get people to stay silent.’
‘You can’t believe her, surely? It’s all a pack of lies!’ complained Tremain.
‘There is the small possibility she might be telling the truth. Time will tell. Take them both away. Put them in the same detention room. I think they need more time to get to know one another.’
Tremain disagreed. ‘I don’t think — ’ he began.
‘What have I told you about thinking, Randall?’ he burst angrily. ‘I’ve had enough of these games. Take them away, and you’d better pray that she is telling lies, Randall.’
Lambert-Chide was clearly incensed by all this, thought Gareth. Irate at the fact that he may have been so easily duped. Or perhaps that his plan, his precious project, was in danger of collapsing like a pack of medical cards. Things weren’t looking good, he thought, whichever way you viewed it. If anything, the woman’s revelations had made things a whole lot worse.
With an acquiescent grunt, Tremain hauled the woman to her feet and brandished the gun at Gareth. He glanced over to Lambert-Chide, but the man had his back to them all. ‘If they cause the slightest trouble, Randall,’ he said, his voice a little cracked and husky, ‘kill Davies and take the kneecaps off the woman. Don’t kill her just yet. There’s plenty of time for that.’
Lambert-Chide waited till they’d all left the room and then lifted the photograph album, peering at the images for a good two minutes, his chest beginning to heave, the breath rattling in his throat. Then he threw the album across the room, his cry shrill and banshee-like.
The room was small, no more than six feet square, with no windows, its walls painted an insipid cream colour. A single bulb inset into the high ceiling bathed the interior in a dull, half-hearted glow. The floor beneath them was made of shining black ceramic tiles. Gareth beat at the locked door with his fist. There was no handle on the inside of the brushed-steel door.
‘That won’t do you the slightest bit of good,’ she said. She was sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the wall and her gaze resting somewhere at a point just in front of her feet. Her hand still had blood between the fingers, her hair matted and bloody.
Gareth groaned in frustration and anger and turned sharply away from the door. What she said made sense, but it galled him all the same to be reminded that he was in a desperate situation that he could fathom no way out of. And what’s more he was stuck with the woman who’d admitted she’d dragged him kicking and screaming, literally, into this damned mess.
‘I don’t care to hear your opinions,’ he snapped. ‘Christ, to think you almost had me fooled back there as well! What on earth was I thinking?’ He found himself becoming infuriated by the nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. ‘I’m in God knows what kind of shit because of yours and Muller’s greed — you think that makes me feel good about things? I’ve been subjected to hell since you came into my life, and I can’t for the life of me see any way this is going to end well.’ He slammed his back against the wall and folded his arms. ‘The lowest thing you did was that you made out you were my sister. You know how that cuts me up? If Tremain doesn’t kill you then I’m tempted to do the bloody job myself!’
She put a hand to her forehead. Held it there a while, shielding her eyes, and then ran her fingers back through her hair. She flinched when she touched the wound. He noticed how absolutely beaten she looked, as if she’d given up caring about anything. ‘What can I say? I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry? You’re fucking sorry?’ He let out a humourless laugh. ‘That’s alright then, isn’t it? That’s guaranteed to make everything better.’ He went over to her and she eyed him cautiously. ‘Why has he put us in the same room together? Is he hoping I’ll rip your throat out or something? I tell you, he’s not far wrong on that account.’
She nodded towards the ceiling, to the far corner. He hadn’t seen the tiny plastic box. ‘They’re watching us, listening to everything we say. I don’t know, maybe to see if I’m lying. To see how we behave with each other.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘It isn’t enough that we’re dumped here like animals.’ He joined her, sitting on the floor. ‘So what do I call you — Evelyn, Erica, Beth — what suits you?’
‘I prefer Erica,’ she said tiredly.
‘Is that your real name?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Suit yourself,’ He closed his eyes. ‘So does she really exist, this Evelyn Carter, or is it all a figment of the old man’s atrophied brain?’
She studied his face closely whilst he had his eyes closed. ‘Would be amazing if it was true, but no, it’s more the latter. Lambert-Chide is living in a dream world of his own making. But there again he has enough money to chase any dream, no matter how ridiculous. Do you miss not knowing your mother?’ she asked.
He breathed heavily down his nose. ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘I guess we all need to know where we came from, who we are. I’ve spent so long hating her for what she did to me that I realise I’ve been consumed by it. It has coloured my life in a way that hasn’t been healthy. I wanted to ditch all that bitterness, and I thought I’d discovered a sister whom I could relate to, to help me get over it. But it turns out I’ve been living in a dream world of my very own making. It was all just too good to be true. She didn’t exist. Turns out she was a con artist all along. Story of my fucking life.’
‘Maybe she had good reason to abandon you,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was for the best.’
‘What do you care?’ he said angrily. ‘Keep your nose out of my business. It’s nothing to do with you. I don’t need to hear your little philosophy on life. For all I know you’re in the pay of Lambert-Chide, this is still all part of the game. I can’t trust anyone. And I ain’t about to start trusting you. So cut the fucking nice lady crap. Another word from you and I really will tear your throat out.’
It should have made him feel better, to get something off his chest. But instead it made him feel worse. He saw her fingering the top of her head. She looked totally beat up, a husk of a person with the insides all scraped out. He bent to her.
‘Here, let me take a look at that,’ he said.
‘It’s nothing. I’ve had worse,’ she said.
He felt so damned cheated. He thought he had a sister. Like coming up on the lottery only to lose your winning ticket. He desperately wanted to hate her also, but his capacity for hate was being spread a little too thin these days.
‘Whatever,’ he said, resting back against the wall and closing his eyes again.