The Truth About Celia Frost Page 19

  “You need to get rid of Janice Frost,” she said in a businesslike tone.

  Frankie found himself grappling for words.

  “Do you understand, Mr. Byrne? You have to get rid of her and you have to do it tonight.”

  “I can’t do that!” Frankie retorted, finding his voice.

  “You have no choice unless you want to be locked up for a very long time.”

  “What are you talking about?” he snapped.

  “Illegal bugging, hacking into confidential files and now kidnapping a girl – and God knows what the police will unearth once they start investigating you and your practices.”

  “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t go to the police, you’d be exposing yourself.”

  “You’re right. I won’t go to the police, but Janice Frost will, unless you stop her. Think about it: once Celia has been missing for a day or two the woman will have nothing to lose by going to the police and telling them everything in the hope of finding her.”

  “But that’s your problem. Janice Frost knows nothing about me or my involvement.”

  “I’ll make sure that my problem becomes your problem. She’s the only person who could lead the police to me and I swear that if she does, I’ll lead them straight to you.”

  “But the girl knows everything too.”

  “Forget about the girl. That’s all under control. Now, are you going to do the job?”

  “I can’t kill someone.”

  “Really, Mr. Byrne?” she said. “Just think about all those people you’ve tracked down and dragged back into the hands of loan sharks and gangsters. Do you lose any sleep about what happened to them? Isn’t this just a more honest approach, instead of always being the middleman?”

  Frankie couldn’t respond.

  “It’ll be easy to make it look like an accident, even suicide. After all, hasn’t her daughter just run away, not able to stand her crazy mother any more? No one will be suspicious, or even care. The police won’t waste their time on the death of another tragic nobody from some dead-end estate.”

  “There must be another way,” Frankie said, his sweaty palms sliding on the steering wheel.

  “No. This is the only way. Dead people can’t talk and once it’s done we’ll both be safe. No one will be able to touch us. You can go home, forget all this ever happened and let my generous fee ease your conscience. Mr. Byrne, if you don’t do it, you have everything to lose and nothing to gain. You know I’m right, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” It was the hardest word Frankie had ever had to say.

  Janice stumbled around the flat, desperately searching for where the ringing was coming from. She flung the sofa cushions on the floor, fell to her knees and crawled on all fours to the coffee table, knocking her drink over in the process. She had to answer it before it rang off. It must be Celia. Who else would be ringing her at two thirty in the morning?

  Now it was coming from above her. She lurched to the window sill and picked it up. “Celia!” she rasped down the phone.

  “No, Janice, it’s me, Paul.”

  Her eyes narrowed in concentration. “Paul,” she eventually responded.

  “Listen, Janice, I hope that I haven’t woken you. I’m sorry for calling you at this ridiculous hour but I just couldn’t stop myself.”

  Janice plonked herself down on the sofa, one hand holding her head upright to keep the room still. “Oh,” was all she could muster, reasoning that the less she spoke, the more sober she would sound.

  “Please don’t think that I’m a weirdo or anything, but I just had this terrible feeling that you were in some sort of trouble tonight. I couldn’t shake it off. I just had to phone to make sure that you were all right. I know that I must sound like such a nutter but—”

  “No...no,” Janice interrupted, overwhelmed by the connection this man must have with her.

  “I am in trouble,” she blurted out, sobs gathering in her throat. “Celia’s gone! I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you called the police?” he asked, holding his breath for the answer.

  “No. I was going to wait until the morning, see if she turned up.”

  “Yeah, that sounds sensible. You shouldn’t bother them just yet. Listen, what about if I come over right now and help you sort this out?” Frankie said heroically.

  “Would you?” She sounded like a little lost girl. “I’d really appreciate that.”

  “Of course, Janice.” He spoke tenderly. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Janice was regretting having tried to drink herself calm. While she dragged herself to the kitchen to make a strong coffee and splash cold water over her face, Frankie pulled over at a twenty-four-hour convenience store and bought a large bottle of gin and a small bottle of tonic water, before continuing his journey.

  The gentle tap on the door came just after three a.m. Frankie’s mouth smiled but his eyes remained cold as he presented her with the bottles.

  “I’ve bought a little pick-you-up,” he said, the irony lost on Janice, who took them with a lopsided smile. Her futile attempts to sober up had made little impression on her brain. However, she did notice that he was wearing leather gloves.

  “Cold?” she enquired, baffled.

  “Oh, these?” he said casually. “Burned my hands on a job today. Doctor said I need to keep them covered up to help them heal.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” she pouted, gently patting his gloved hands. “Come on in. Excuse the mess. I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a state.”

  Frankie went in and took charge, sitting her on the sofa while he poured her a very stiff drink.

  “You not having one?” she asked.

  “Driving, aren’t I?” he said, sitting so close to her that their jean-clad knees touched. “Come on, get that down you. It’ll make you feel better,” he said, as if it were medicine. She drank it down as he smiled approvingly. “Now Janice, tell me what’s happened.”

  Janice fumbled for words; the nearness of his body was distracting her. She could feel herself gravitating towards him. “Celia ran off tonight, she’s not come back, she’s not let me know if she’s okay.”

  “Well, it won’t be the first time a teenager has got into a strop and run off for a few hours,” he said reassuringly.

  “But this isn’t just some teenage tantrum. If you knew, you’d understand why I’m so worried.” As she spoke, the panic resurfaced. She leaned away from him, guilty for letting her attention wander. “God knows what she’s thinking, what she might do.”

  “Come on. Calm yourself down,” he said pouring her another drink.

  “No, I shouldn’t. I’ve got to keep my wits about me,” she said, springing up too quickly. Her legs buckled, as if on an ice rink. Frankie helped her up. Janice bowed her head in shame. “What must you think of me?” she slurred. “A pathetic, drunken woman.”

  “I don’t think that at all, Janice. You’re just a good mother who’s worried about her child.”

  Janice smiled meekly. “And you’re a wonderful man,” she said, prodding his chest with a finger. “You come here, in the middle of the night, to help me, to listen to me. All my life I’ve never had anyone I could talk to, no one to rely on...but then, you came along.”

  Frankie couldn’t meet her doe-eyed gaze, her pupils dilated by alcohol and the chemicals of attraction. He had to get this over with before he lost his nerve. “You need some fresh air.” His voice as unsteady as she was. He took her gently by the arm and guided her onto the balcony. He surveyed the hundreds of other balconies clinging to the surrounding tower blocks. All were empty and shrouded in darkness. Everyone tucked up in bed, oblivious to the evil act about to be perpetrated in their midst.

  The woman was in the middle of preparing the glass slides when her mobile rang. She broke off from the delicate task in order to take the call that she’d been anxiously waiting for.

  “It’s done. Janice Frost is dead,” the voice said.

  “Were there any complications?”
the woman asked.

  “No. You were right. It was easy. It looks like an accident. No one will suspect.”

  “Good, good,” she said with relief.

  “How’s the girl?” he asked.

  “Forget about her. You’ve done your job and you’ll get your money, but I’m warning you, for your own protection as well as mine, you must destroy every bit of information that relates to this case. You are never to contact me again. This mobile will be destroyed. This case never happened.”

  “Hang on a second—” he said, but she hung up. She had work to do and nothing more to say to him.

  The drone of the generator registered in Celia’s ears even before her eyes opened. She was greeted by the sight of the woman stood behind a table, staring intently down the lens of a bulky microscope, which had a monitor attached to it. Celia fought to sharpen her dulled senses. She noted the door in the wall behind the table. If she ran now, she could get out before the woman even had a chance to react. Bracing herself, Celia attempted to spring up from the seat. For a horrifying second she thought she must be paralysed, her body unable to obey her brain, but looking down, she saw that she was in a wheelchair, her four limbs strapped to its frame with thick tape. The tracksuit top had been removed and a small, blood-stained plaster sat in the crook of her left arm.

  Celia couldn’t quell her mounting panic. The noise of her ragged breathing alerted the woman, who raised her head. The concentration on the woman’s face was instantly replaced by an expression usually reserved for a loved one.

  “Celia!” she said, walking towards her. “How lovely to see you’re awake.”

  Celia shattered the air with cries. “Help,” she bellowed, rocking the squeaking wheelchair as she fought to break her hands and legs free. “Someone help me, please. Help! Help!”

  The woman crouched next to the wheelchair, patting Celia’s restrained hand as if calming an infant throwing a tantrum. “Shush now, Celia,” she purred. “No one can hear you. You could scream all night and no one would come.”

  Celia had seen how isolated the building was. She knew from her captor’s calmness that she was telling the truth.

  The woman smiled apologetically at the terrified girl. “I hope that you’re not uncomfortable. I know it seems uncivilized, restraining you like this, but it will allow us to talk without any silly distractions.”

  Celia craned her neck, trying to take in her surroundings. She could taste the dust in the air, see that the neglected room must have been stripped a long time ago, leaving only work surfaces and chipped sinks clinging to the windowless walls. Above her, dotted among the harsh ceiling lights, were skylights that framed the starry night, allowing a snapshot of beauty into the bleak interior.

  The woman watched for any flicker of recognition in Celia as she absorbed the room. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes.” Celia looked her straight in the eyes. “You’re the woman who experimented on me, who gave me this virus. You were going to kill me.”

  The woman appeared momentarily shaken. Words evaded her for a second, before she regained her composure.

  “I’m Professor Hudson,” she retorted proudly, meeting Celia’s saucer eyes. “I’m the woman who’s devoted her whole life to trying to develop a cure for cancer, trying to prevent millions of people from dying.”

  “And what about me? What about this virus you gave me? You’ve got to get rid of it.”

  The woman started laughing. A sound of genuine joy filled the room. “I would never get rid of your virus, Celia.”

  Celia was appalled. “What’s so funny?”

  “My beautiful girl, I’ve been busy while you slept, examining blood samples I took from you. And do you know what I saw?” Hudson’s eyes danced.

  “What?”

  “I saw this!” Hudson rushed back to the table like an excited child. She turned the monitor towards Celia, revealing a screen filled with iridescent spheres covered with spikes, wobbling in perpetual motion. “Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” Hudson whispered reverently, transfixed by the image.

  “What is it?” Celia asked, bemused.

  “It’s my Saviour Virus. It’s in you, in your blood,” she replied.

  “What are you talking about? I thought the virus you put in me kills.”

  “That virus has behaved differently in you. It’s evolved into everything I’ve ever worked towards,” she gushed.

  “But how’s that possible?” Celia struggled to comprehend.

  “We scientists like to think we can find an explanation for everything, but so much is still a mystery about how viruses behave and mutate in their hosts. That’s what makes them so incredible to work with. But you always responded better than all the other babies. I knew I was close with you.” Her voice suddenly hardened. “I told him I needed to study you, see if the virus developed, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “But you’ve already got the Saviour Virus. I saw you on the news, talking about it.”

  Hudson shook her head bitterly. “That’s not my Saviour Virus. Even as I was giving that interview, I knew things had started to go wrong in the trials, but I didn’t want to admit it. I was desperately hoping I could fix things, but I haven’t succeeded – the cancers are growing back in the trial patients. So you see, Celia, the only true Saviour Virus is in you.”

  Celia grappled with the enormity of what she was hearing.

  “Have you any idea how wonderful this feels?” Hudson said giddily. “The first couple of years after you were taken were torturous for me. The stress of thinking that you were out there, carrying a fatal virus for which I had no cure. Every day I dreaded the news of an outbreak.”

  “Am I meant to feel sorry for you?” Celia spat.

  “No, Celia, I don’t expect your sympathy. But I took a terrifying risk. I couldn’t let my backers know you’d been abducted from the clinic. They would never have let me try again. I told them that I’d destroyed you as they’d instructed and, eventually, they gave me a second chance. My backers are business people, interested in the billions a cure could make them, not in the lives it could save, so when they realized that no other scientist was any closer to finding a cure, it confirmed to them what I’d always known; human experimentation was the only logical way forward. They gave me better facilities, more funding, and I was able to continue my research.”

  “So you kept experimenting on babies?” Celia said, sickened.

  “It was the only way,” Hudson retorted defiantly. “And my gamble paid off. When you were taken from the clinic, your body was riddled with cancers I’d introduced into you. No amount of conventional treatment could have prolonged your life for more than a couple of years so, after this time, logic dictated that you must be dead and the population safe from the virus. But I just couldn’t let you go. I kept thinking how responsive you’d been to my experiments. I knew that the virus was behaving differently in you from the outset. I became fixated with the idea that you were still alive. I started following up leads which I thought might be you, but they all came to nothing. And, after all these years, I was on the verge of giving up my search, accepting it as a vain dream. But when my computer flagged up the A & E report from the hospital in Wales, I just couldn’t resist, even though I expected it to be another wild goose chase. Celia, you can’t imagine my joy when I got a positive ID from your hair follicles. I believed that the only explanation for your survival was that my virus had worked in you, and I was right!” she proclaimed triumphantly, her face aglow.

  “But why have you brought me here? You’re meant to take me back where I belong. That man who kidnapped me, he said you would.”

  Professor Hudson threw her arms out. “And I have. This is where you belong, here, with me. This was your room. You shared it with the other babies. For a long time I hardly ever left this place. I worked day and night, but then I was forced to shut it down. This clinic hasn’t been in use for thirteen years, but it’s stood up to the elements well. The
generator is still working; we have our own water supply from the moor; the structure seems sound.” She spoke like an excited estate agent. “It shouldn’t take long to set up my lab again, get all the necessary equipment installed. We won’t be disturbed out here, Celia.”

  “I don’t belong here!” Celia bawled. “I belong with my parents!”

  “But, Celia,” the scientist replied, “you have no real parents.”

  “Of course I have parents,” Celia spluttered. “Everyone has parents.”

  “But your biological parents don’t even know of your existence. You were just an unwanted embryo that they’d created. Their other embryos were selected to be implanted in your mother’s womb. They were the ones that became the longed-for children. You were simply surplus to requirements. Like thousands of other frozen embryos in clinics all over the country, you were just waiting to be destroyed. It’s only because of me that you were given life at all.”

  Celia shook her head, confused, distressed. “I don’t understand.”

  “For my research purposes, I took dozens of unwanted embryos which were then implanted in surrogate mothers. Those women gave birth believing that they were providing babies for childless couples, but in fact I used those babies for a far greater purpose. Without them, the Saviour Virus would never have been developed.”

  Professor Hudson was in her stride now, captivated by her own words. “It was astounding being able to study how the virus behaved in them. And with each death, I was able to perform meticulous post-mortems, working out how to refine it before trying again on another subject. Eventually, as I kept modifying the virus, it became more effective, the babies were surviving the cancers for longer. Some lasted weeks, others months, but you, Celia, you did more than survive.”

  “So you bred us to experiment on. You riddled us with cancer.” Celia’s face was twisted with fury. “You watched and made notes as all those babies suffered and died for your research... You’re a monster!” she roared.

  The professor snapped back indignantly, “Think of all the millions of people that I could save. Can’t you understand that the lives of those unwanted babies are a small price to pay?”