well done.’
‘Bitch!’ said Gareth under his breath, swiveling his head round to stare at her. She stared back, unconcerned. He could not believe he fell for her lies.
‘And Muller?’ asked Lambert-Chide of no one in particular.
It was Tremain that replied. ‘Taken care of,’ he said.
‘You can’t trust anyone these days,’ Lambert-Chide noted, swigging the glass empty and holding it out for one of the guards to take away. ‘I never really trusted Muller,’ he admitted. ‘Fortunately we were informed of his intended duplicity by Caroline here. We must thank Muller, though, for getting you away from Camael alive, Gareth.’
‘This is kidnapping,’ said Gareth. ‘You can’t hope to get away with it. What’s more I’m no use to any of you. This is madness!’
The old man leant forward, both hands resting on the head of his cane. He gave a dry chuckle. ‘Get away with it? Look around you — I already have! Nobody will miss you. Nobody’s looking for you, not even the police. And believe what I say when I tell you that your value to me is immeasurable. Immense. You, Mr. Davies, are the future. My future, their future, everyone’s future,’ he gestured with his thin arm around the room. ‘And as a consequence one of the most valuable assets I shall ever possess. I say one, as there is one other.’
Lambert-Chide checked himself and ran a thoughtful tongue over his non-existent lips. Gareth noticed how the man’s head fell foul of a slight tremor, as if it were too heavy for his slender neck to support. He waved abruptly for the guards to leave the room, then to Caroline to do the same. Tremain remained where he was. The room fell silent till the door closed behind the last security guard to leave.
‘When I get my chance, I’m going to wring that scrawny chicken neck of yours!’ said Gareth. ‘This is all fucking madness! You have me mixed up with someone else!’
Lambert-Chide smiled thinly, giving his hollow-cheeked face even more of a skull-like appearance. ‘Bring her in for me,’ he ordered Tremain, his semblance of a smile melting like ice in hot water.
‘Are you certain?’ Tremain asked.
Lambert-Chide’s eyes narrowed. ‘As I say, Randall.’
Tremain passed Gareth a fleeting, mysterious glance, handed Lambert-Chide the book, which he rested on his lap, then went out of the room leaving the two men alone. But Gareth knew that was a fallacy; they weren’t truly alone. The men outside could respond to alarm in a second or two. He searched the room, wondering how he could escape. But what was he escaping from?
‘It’s useless to think about it,’ Lambert-Chide said, as if he’d read his thoughts. But Gareth figured his face must be a dead giveaway. ‘Let me fill you in on a few things,’ he said. ‘I suppose you have that right at least.’
‘You’ve trampled over most others,’ Gareth observed.
‘You can’t but notice we live in hard economic times,’ said Lambert-Chide. ‘It is true that my own company has been hard-hit. We are not alone amongst others in the pharmaceutical industry to find that we have a raft of patents on various drugs and treatment that will soon expire, open to the free market, our monopoly on them at an end. The problem is we have very few new patents coming through to replace them. Why? Simple: a lack of investment in research and development of new products. It can take anything up to ten years to bring a new drug to market, and we live in times when we have not been able to invest either the time or the money, unable to shoulder those kinds of investments or timescales. We have been sucking the pot dry and soon it will be a time of reckoning for us. For the entire industry.’
‘My heart bleeds,’ said Gareth.
Lambert-Chide regarded him as if he were an ignorant, errant child. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand the harsh economic realities, so let me approach this in a different way. Take a look at me. What do you see?’
‘I’m not playing any pathetic little game to satisfy you.’
‘I’ll tell you what you see. You see a man of ninety-odd years. Frail, eaten by age, fast approaching the end of his days, a fraction of the man that once was, soon to become nothing more than a shadow. Our lives are all shadows, aren’t they, Gareth. We are here but a brief time and we pass all too quickly, staring out as nothing, ending up as nothing. Shadows. Life is God’s rigid impermanence.’
‘You’ve spouted all this before,’ said Gareth. ‘I’m getting bored of it. Damn you! You can’t keep me here against my will!’
‘I can do as I please.’
‘You think that having money gives you the right,’ Gareth fired angrily, ‘to simply do as you please?’
Lambert-Chide’s eyebrow lifted a fraction, and he pretended to give the comment serious thought. ‘I’m not the one in your position, and you’re not the one in mine. Work it out for yourself. As I was saying before your rude interruption, I may be old but I am not ready to die. Not yet. I have too much to do, too much life to live.’
‘Tough. We all have to die sometime. Get used to the idea.’
‘Ah, but that’s where you are wrong, Gareth. Death is not an inevitability. Did you know there are organisms that can potentially live forever? There are certain types of jellyfish, for instance, and many bacteria, that simply do not grow old and die.’
‘Lucky jellyfish.’
‘The fact is no one knows why we humans grow old; why we slip into decay, cease to function. Scientists have been divided on the subject for decades. Some say it’s evolutionary, a method by which the species keeps replenishing itself. Then there’s the telomare theory which posits that with each successive reproduction the cells in the body get weaker, and so they eventually fail. Or it’s DNA damage through chemical, radiation or viral infection that causes ageing; or the auto-immune theory that blames antibodies for attacking tissue. Those and a hundred other similar theories. But in truth no one has yet been able to discover what the trigger is that starts the onset of ageing.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Gareth, shaking his head. ‘You’re giving me a Christmas lecture!’
‘I think you deserve the courtesy of an explanation at the very least,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t wish to know…’
Gareth thought the man had the look of a cat playing with a mouse. He sighed despondently. ‘Explain,’ he said. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘Think on this, Gareth. What if we could find the ageing trigger, find some way of blocking it? What if we didn’t have to grow old and die? Can you imagine how many billions that would be worth to any company that could develop that? It would be the dominant player in the market for a century to come.’
‘Whatever,’ said Gareth, half-listening. He thought about rushing the old man, making for the door beyond him through which Tremain had disappeared. He’d no idea where it led.
Lambert-Chide, in any case, had all but turned off from what Gareth said, had stepped inside his own world. His attention was distant. ‘I would not have to die,’ he said. ‘I would not have to yield to a twisted natural law that allows a jellyfish to live almost indefinitely, whilst I, being all that I am, having all that I have to offer the world, has to succumb to a miserable, ignoble inevitability.’ Lambert-Chide rested heavily on his cane, his breath rattling in his throat. ‘Such a prize would be worth taking any risk, don’t you think? The means totally justifying the end.’
‘You’ve said it yourself; the means to turn off the trigger doesn’t exist, so it’s a moot point. You’ve had your time, more than most, and you’ve been a wealthy man too. Difficult for me to feel anything but pity for you and your delusions. And no, the means do not justify the end. Holding me here against my will for God knows what reason; people having died already whilst you and Doradus — whoever he is — play your weird games between you thinking that you’re both outside the law. You’ll pay for it, sooner or later.’
The old man clapped mockingly. The soft skin made little noise. ‘Bravo, Gareth! That’s the spirit! A rousing speech is just what’s needed. Very Henry the Fifth!’ He lifted the book, but turned his head at the sound of the door being opened behind him.
Tremain entered, holding onto a woman by the arm. She had her head down, long hair unkempt, and she appeared to be drunk, for she found it difficult to place one foot in front of the other, staggering uncertainly. Tremain’s grip was firm; he was all but preventing her from falling over.
At first Gareth didn’t recognize her. She was dressed plainly in a sweatshirt and jeans, her feet, he noticed completely bare. There were a few spots of what appeared to be blood on the front of her sweatshirt. She groggily lifted her head, her eyes rolling, blinking at the light as if it were far too bright. She looked across at Gareth but there was no sign of recognition, only a bleary, vacant stare.
‘Erica!’ Gareth exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He saw Tremain’s hand move instinctively towards the inside
