heading up the A10, the old London Road. Her satnav had protested when she made the turn, but she’d decided to take the scenic route because she had two ulterior motives. First, she wanted to treat herself to lunch in a country pub somewhere, and there were no such facilities on the M11. And, second, she wanted to be able to stop somewhere and ring her ex-husband, Chris Bronson, to explain why she’d be out of town for the rest of the week. She’d called his mobile from her flat in Ealing before she left, but it had gone straight to voicemail. Knowing Chris as well as she did, she knew she’d be able to reach him at lunchtime.
Nearing the village of Wendens Ambo, she spotted an old pub and parked her Mini in one of the few remaining spaces in the front car park.
She ordered a Caesar salad and a bottle of Perrier, and carried the drink over to a seat right beside a window that overlooked the main road outside. While she waited for her food to be served, she pulled out her mobile. This time, Bronson answered almost immediately.
‘Hi, Angela. Where are you?’
‘How do you know I’m not in my office, slaving away over a broken pot?’ she said, a little annoyed with herself for feeling pleased to hear his voice.
‘I’m a detective, remember. Actually, I called your office. So where are you?’
‘Suffolk, I think.’ She looked up and nodded her thanks as the barman placed an enormous bowl of salad on the table in front of her.
‘Suffolk?’ Bronson was clearly surprised.
‘Yes. I’ve just stopped for lunch in a pub near a village called Wendens Ambo, and I’m heading for a country house somewhere near Stoke by Clare. Wonderful names, don’t you think?’
‘A country house party, is it?’
‘Sadly not. Actually, I’ve been sent up here to work. An elderly minor aristocrat named Oliver Wendell-Carfax was murdered in his home near here about two weeks ago—’
‘I know about that,’ Bronson interrupted, sounding concerned. ‘I saw one of the reports. Somebody strung him up from the staircase and then beat him, but the autopsy showed that he actually died of a heart attack. I think the local police have drawn a blank on the case so far – no obvious suspects and no apparent motive, though somebody had searched the house. It’s a nasty business. But what’s it got to do with you?’
‘Well, the museum has now become involved – not because of who Wendell-Carfax was, or how he died, but because of what he did. He was pretty much the last of a long line of avid collectors of antiques and ancient relics. Apparently his country house is full of the things. He was also, according to Roger Halliwell, a typical grumpy old bastard. Over the last ten years or so he managed to alienate just about every member of his family, and almost everybody else who knew him. When he died, the firms of solicitors he’d used opened up his last will and testament and had a bit of a shock.’
‘ “Firms of solicitors”?’ Bronson asked. ‘In the plural?’
Angela sighed. ‘Yes. Over the last year Wendell-Carfax visited four different solicitors in Suffolk and deposited his last will and testament with each of them.’
‘Different wills, I suppose?’
‘All completely different, and each cutting out one or more different family members. The trouble was, each time he made a new will, he never bothered telling the new solicitor acting for him about the earlier ones, although he made sure he told the beneficiaries of the new will.’
‘But not the people he’d just disinherited?’
‘Of course not. That wouldn’t have been any fun, would it? So as soon as he was found dead, various family members crawled out of the woodwork, each of them expecting to inherit about two hundred acres of prime Suffolk real estate and a country house stuffed full of antiques.’
‘So who is the beneficiary?’ Bronson asked, sounding puzzled.
‘For the house and land, I’ve no idea – but in his final will, or at least the last one that’s turned up so far, the old man gave everything inside the house – the entire contents, that is – to the British Museum.’
‘So you’re up there to assess the bequest?’
‘Yep.’ Angela drove her fork into the salad and took a mouthful. ‘The Suffolk Police have finally allowed museum staff to go into the house. Until now, it’s been out of bounds as a crime scene.’
‘So you’ll be away all week, then?’ Bronson asked.
‘Hopefully no longer than that. Until I get there, I really don’t know how much there is to do.’ Angela paused and crossed her fingers surreptitiously under the table. She hoped her next question didn’t make her sound too desperate. ‘We’re staying in a local pub, if you fancy popping up one evening?’
5
As befitted the founder and major shareholder of NotJustGenetics Inc., JJ Donovan’s office was on the top floor of the building. It occupied most of the top floor, in fact. Two of the walls were almost entirely glass, offering spectacular views of Monterey and the ocean beyond, but these days Donovan rarely bothered looking out in that direction. He’d even had his desk moved closer to one of the inner walls and positioned a couple of couches and several armchairs by the picture windows in its place.
His desk was a wide expanse of bird’s-eye maple supported by a stainless-steel frame and legs, his chair a futuristic combination of chrome, steel and leather. Opposite the desk, about half of one wall was entirely given over to video displays. Eight digital plasma screens displayed a selection of domestic and international news feeds. In the centre of the desk, a smaller digital screen displayed exactly the same feeds, but was touch-sensitive, so Donovan could simply press the tip of his finger on any of the video pictures to select the sound for that particular channel.
Also on the desk were three telephones and two computer screens, one displaying the logo and the status of the NoJoGen network, and which showed the progress of any of the development programmes being run by the company’s scientists. The other was just a regular PC hitched to a broadband router, which allowed him to surf the web or do anything else he wanted. This machine was an obvious area of vulnerability, so it was separated from the company network, which was shielded behind a physical firewall, and the most powerful software firewall, antivirus and anti-intrusion programs money could buy. Jesse McLeod had stated that even he couldn’t hack his way inside the system and if
The only incongruous note in Donovan’s hi-tech office was a large display cabinet positioned beside the door, containing a collection of old books. Really old books. Or, to be absolutely accurate, old copies of really old books. And in a locked safe set into the same wall, a safe that incorporated sophisticated thermostatic controls and devices to regulate the humidity, lay his most prized possession. It was little more than a scrap of papyrus that he’d privately named the Hyrcania Codex, based upon the single name he’d found in the text.
In complete contrast to the work his company did, which was arguably beyond the cutting edge of the science of genetics, Donovan had long had a fascination with ancient manuscripts and codices. As his business had blossomed, he’d had the finance to indulge his passion, and he’d bought relics at auction and from specialist dealers. He’d even learned a little Hebrew and Aramaic along the way, though he usually employed specialists to produce translations of the works he had purchased.
Over two years earlier, a single phrase he’d read in the translation of one part of the Hyrcania Codex had electrified him, and it was this discovery that had driven the non-medical searches that he’d tasked Jesse McLeod with.
That morning, Donovan arrived early at the building and followed his usual routine. He slid his Porsche 911 into his named slot in the underground car park and took the stairs to his office. He never used the lift because he got little enough exercise during the day, and he had never seen the point of sweating away pointlessly on some machine in a gym. Climbing six flights of stairs non-stop every day would, he hoped, give him a short but regular
