The Malice Box Read online

  The company PR man then called, his day clearly ruined, to demand they kill the story. He was given a polite negative. He insisted. Eventually his call came up the chain to Robert.

  ‘But it’s wrong,’ he sweated down the phone. ‘Very embarrassing.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t say those things?’

  ‘Your story doesn’t reflect what he meant to say. He misspoke.’

  ‘What he meant to say?’ Christ. Of all the interviews to go wrong.

  ‘I know. Robert, he made a mistake. Just said something wrong. You know he never talks to the press. He’s not used to it. The mines aren’t closing, nor are the R & D labs.’

  ‘Then he should fix it. Don’t ask us to. Your CEO doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Come on. We have the interview on tape. We quoted him directly, and in context. He wasn’t drunk, the ground rules were clear, he was speaking on the record. What am I missing here?’

  Horace would never forgive him. That said, he found it impossible to believe that Lawrence had ever been confused about anything in his life.

  ‘He’s been under a lot of stress recently. You know how tightly wound he is. Health problems. Between you and me, his marriage has fallen apart. He… got confused.’

  Robert had no time for this. Poor man, if true, but… He sighed down the phone, censored his more lurid thoughts, tried to help. First the professional part.

  ‘If this is true, you need to think about putting out a statement saying he made a mistake. In fact, I’ll put you on to a reporter and you can say that right now, and we’ll write about it right now. The market’s open and you can’t be with holding that information.’

  The PR growled at the other end of the phone. Robert went on: ‘I’m sorry for his pain, but if your CEO is out spouting nonsense in interviews, that’s a fact Hencott needs to put in the public domain. But don’t go accusing us of misreporting him.’

  ‘I know, but –’

  ‘I’ll put you over to the reporter.’

  They did a new story with Hencott’s flak saying the CEO had misspoken. The gold price reacted again, dipping slightly; the reporter pulled it all together in a considered piece about what it all meant for Hencott; all sides got to comment.

  Robert had tried to call Horace as soon as he could to try to explain what had happened. He hadn’t been there, and his answering machine had been turned off, as usual.

  ‘Oh, God. Oh…’ His mind reeled as he tried to absorb the awful news.

  ‘He’s dead, in case I wasn’t clear. He’d been up all night drinking in a hotel room off Times Square. Left a note that makes the company’s lawyers very keen to sue us. Named you. Says he tried to speak to you last night to plead his case.’

  The phone calls. Dear God. And poor Horace.

  John ground on. Despite his sombre tone, he seemed pleased by the turn events had taken.

  ‘Senior minds wonder whether you messed up, my friend.’

  Robert’s thoughts were playing catch-up. Would Lawrence have got his home number from Horace?

  ‘Are you there, Robert?’

  ‘He did call. He called me a fool and said it was time I died, if that’s what you call pleading his case. While trashing his room, from what I could tell. I told him to go to hell. I thought he was some nutcase. This is bullshit. It’s worse than bullshit.’

  ‘No need to get overly emotional. We’ll get the lawyers on it, of course. No one’s saying you caused this.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘There is perhaps a question of judgement, but… Do you remember saying anything else to him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Robert, between us, there are a few people who are going to use this as a weapon against you. I’m in your corner, but watch out. Times are harsh.’

  ‘You want my badge and my gun?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘The man was drunk, for Christ’s sake.’

  Robert gave a preliminary statement to the GBN lawyers. He was jumpy throughout. What a ghastly mess indeed. He recognized that he was mildly in shock, tried to snap himself out of it. He attempted to call Horace again, got no answer. Katherine the same. He didn’t know what to tell her and left no message. He got his friend Scott from the legal department involved, to watch his back and keep an eye on the others.

  Then at noon John called him again.

  ‘Take a break. Go home,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re on paid leave for the rest of the week. It’s been a terrible shock for everyone, but the company feels you, more than anyone else, should take a little rest.’

  ‘I don’t need a rest,’ Robert spat down the phone. ‘This is outrageous.’

  ‘You may not need a rest, but the company needs you to need a rest. There will be a probe.’

  He made it sound more like a gleeful colonoscopy than an impartial investigation.

  ‘I am not leaving, John.’

  ‘Yes, you are, Robert.’

  And suddenly there were Gerry and Dave from the security department, standing outside Robert’s office, looking embarrassed but monolithic.

  ‘Do not do this.’

  ‘Goodbye, Robert. Until Monday.’

  He was speechless. John was giving him a perp walk. As the former NYPD boys with gammy knees escorted him out of the newsroom, some of his own people looked at him as though he had suddenly become a pariah.

  He walked, in a daze, through the yellow chrome light of the lobby of 570 Lex and out into the street. The rain had stopped.

  He made a right, down past the great hulk of the Waldorf-Astoria, right again on 49th Street towards Park Avenue, past the unmarked bronze elevator doors that led to the hotel’s private railway siding beneath, one of the secrets of the city he’d always wanted to explore. He turned right again to head north on Park, lost in his anger and confusion, to the steps of St Bartholomew’s Church.

  There was something exotic and inappropriate about St Bart’s that had always drawn Robert to it. Its great Byzantine profile squatted amid the stone and glass and steel blocks of Park Avenue like a grumpy turtle.

  He walked into the narthex and paused by the bookshop under the gilded mosaics and Guastavino domes to let his eyes readjust. Eachdome illustrated a scene from Genesis, set in a field of gold. He breathed deeply.

  This was bullshit; there was no way Hencott could make anything stick against him. GBN would fight the case on principle. Scott would cover his back. Robert stepped outside and called him. He left a message saying he’d been sent home and asked Scott to keep him posted. They had internal procedures for suchthings.

  To be fair, he wasn’t really in a state of mind to work, though there was no excuse for frogmarching him out that way. When it was over, he’d make sure John regretted coming after him. This wasn’t how GBN worked.

  He went back inside, entered the darkened nave and walked along towards the altar until the sharp blues and reds of the rose window came into view to the right. He sat at a pew. He was not a churchgoer, but there were times, especially since they’d lost Moss, when all he craved was to sit silently by himself, and be still.

  Suppose they sued him personally too? It would be a low trick. He’d been haemorrhaging money as it was, with the pregnancy and the bigger house.

  Robert leaned forward and rested his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. The fear was returning. All his life he’d worked for stability and safety, for predictability. There was a dark world, a world of fear and death and hatred, and he’d pushed it as far away as possible from him and his loved ones. But now… He was so tired. He felt darkness rising around him. Seductive. Irresistible. He slept for a moment.

  A deep bass note sounded on the church organ, pervading the world between dream and waking. Not musical, not a melody, just the note, sustained. He lost himself in it entirely, not knowing where he was. When it stopped he came to in an altered silence, almost in a different world. Other notes sang out, higher, without structure. Then aga
in the bass, so low as to be almost beyond his hearing, though he could feel it in the very vibration of his bones.

  In the dream of the lightning bolt was a word too, a stream of words run together like a chant that he could never remember when he woke… Just its rhythm stayed in his mind… something like: Mary, Fat Mary, Fat Mary, Fat Mary…

  His cell phone vibrated in his breast pocket. He’d missed a call while dozing, and there was a message.

  Horace’s tremulous voice, the dear man: ‘Robert, Horace Hencott here. I just wanted you to know that we’ve had some very sad news about Lawrence, the worst, I’m afraid. I suppose you might already know, being in the news business. I’ve had some unpleasant dealings with the company people already, so I just wanted you to know that I don’t want you to feel responsible in any way for what’s happened. Please don’t. Perhaps you could call me?’

  Robert stared into the rose window.

  Suddenly it was unbearable to be sitting still. He went outside and called Horace from the street.

  His friend sounded terribly shaken. He spoke quietly, accepting Robert’s condolences.

  Then Horace asked a question that left Robert floored. ‘Robert, I believe you know a gentleman named Adam Hale?’

  How had Horace even heard of him? Robert gathered his thoughts. ‘Er, yes, how –’

  ‘How muchdo you know about Adam?’

  ‘Quite a lot, and not very much. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because he went to see Lawrence at his office a few hours before he killed himself.’

  Robert’s mind whirled. ‘What on earth?’

  ‘Robert, I need to see you. Where are you?’

  ‘Just outside St Bart’s, on Park.’

  ‘Go back inside. Wait for me. Please. It’s very important.’

  On the way back in, Robert asked about the organ. It was receiving its weekly tuning, he learned. He sat and listened, his mind racing. It seemed only minutes before Horace slid into the pew next to him.

  ‘Thank you for waiting. We don’t have much time. Please tell me all you know about Adam Hale.’

  He seemed agitated, not in bereavement now but in worry. In anger.

  Robert gathered his thoughts, then spoke in a subdued tone, though he could see no one else in the church. ‘He was a friend at university. Sort of a mentor to me. Viewed me as a kind of social project, perhaps – a bumpkin from the Fens he wanted to help along. He was kind to me. A practical joker, enjoys setting up riddles and games for his acquaintances. He’s involved me in a few over the years. They can be fun, though sometimes they can be a bit dark. Uncomfortable, for some people, but you usually end up happy you took part. He’s a charming man, mischievous. A little troubled, in recent years. Not malicious.’

  ‘Do you know of anything unusual about him? That may have happened to him?’

  ‘A lot. Things tend to happen around Adam. And he’s had some difficulties. Some tragedies. I should add that he and Katherine were married for a couple of years in the 1990s. Didn’t work out.’

  ‘Your Katherine?’

  ‘The same.’

  Robert heard Horace’s voice quaver very slightly. ‘What else?’

  ‘Horace, I’m so sorry about Lawrence…’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Go on, please.’

  ‘Well, he went off after university to be a foreign correspondent, fell in love with an astonishingly smart and beautiful woman, naturally.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It dawned on him that Horace was trying to gauge what Robert didn’t know about Adam.

  He continued: ‘Name of Isabela. Had a passionate affair in Central America during the civil wars there in Nicaragua and Santo Tomás. But she died. There were unusual circumstances. With Adam there usually are. Around that time I helped him out, got him a staff job with GBN for a while, which he hated, but he needed the cash. There was family money, but he and his father had some terrible feud that went on for years.’

  ‘Thank you. What about these games you mentioned?’

  ‘He’d send sets of postcards torn into two halves to people he wanted to see get together, send us off on mysterious jaunts, sometimes matchmaking, sometimes throwing people into situations he knew they’d hate, setting up whodunnit train rides or risqué nightlife outings.’

  ‘Have you seen him recently?’

  ‘Not for a few years. That is, until…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Until yesterday. I didn’t see him, but I got a package from him in the mail. Rather mysterious. An ornate little puzzle box and a request for help. No details. And an address in the West Village.’

  ‘Have you been to the address?’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘If I might make a suggestion, Robert, I think you really must go. But first there are a few things you need to know. Adam is in great danger. We all are. Tell me about the night of the fire.’

  Robert’s stomach twisted. ‘The what?’

  ‘The night you saved Adam’s life in Cambridge. And Katherine’s.’

  Robert stared at Horace, speechless. He had buried the memory so deeply away he had almost made it someone else’s story, an event in someone else’s life.

  ‘How did you even know about that?’

  Horace hesitated, trying to gauge just how far he could push. He had to strike a most careful balance. Reveal too little, and Robert might not be convinced of the danger they all faced. Reveal too much, and he could be lost to them for ever, even driven to insanity. He had watched over them all for decades, from near and far, in Britain and America. Taught and mentored Adam in the Path, even after he broke away and tried to follow his own star. Advised Katherine from a distance as her powers waxed and waned over the years. Robert was the only one who did not know, because until now there had been no need to call upon him.

  ‘I apologize for any deception, Robert. I have been taking a quiet interest in your well-being for many years, since I met Adam in England. Tell me about that evening. It will help you understand.’

  Fear again twisted in Robert’s gut. This was insane. Horace had been tricking him? What had Adam told the old man? He couldn’t talk about that night. He had never been able to.

  Horace’s eyes were pools of kindness, but of an intensity Robert would never have suspected. He felt the old man looking all the way through him. He felt naked.

  ‘Horace, there is a rational explanation for that night.’

  ‘But you don’t believe it.’

  ‘I believe in reason. I don’t believe in haunted houses, poltergeists, dowsing, the pricking of my thumbs or monsters under the bed.’

  ‘Goodness, neither do I.’

  ‘I believe in what I can verify for myself. What I have before my eyes. What I can see and touch. That night was just silly undergrad games. We were almost children, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘You would agree that some invisible things are real? Gravity, perhaps? Most of the electromagnetic spectrum? Love? Fear?’

  ‘Kat and I never speak of that night.’

  ‘There was no need to. But now, Robert, it is time to wake up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must awaken. Katherine and Adam need you.’

  Robert found himself breathing deeply, his head buzzing, heart hammering. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘We are all in your hands. We and many, many others. You are the only one who can help us.’

  Deep down, stirring in his heart, Robert felt something mixed in with his fear: the knowledge that he had been waiting his entire life to hear the words Horace was speaking.

  But this was insane. ‘What do you mean, Horace?’

  ‘Robert, something has happened. Something dreadful. I recognize it will be a surprise for you to hear such information coming from me, but please trust me.’

  ‘No –’

  ‘Please listen. You need to know this. Adam has put his life – more, his soul – at risk to prevent an act of great obscenity from taking place in this city. An event of gre
at destructive power.’

  ‘An attack? Is he working with the police? Do the FBI know about it? The CIA?’

  ‘The regular authorities don’t know about it. They can’t. Their very knowing about it might cause it to happen.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Robert, the world is far richer, far deeper, far more wondrous, and far more dangerous, than –’

  ‘Than is dreamt of in my philosophy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Robert stared off into the distance, trying to calm his mind. Images and sensations of 9/11 played through his mind. The reverberating hatred of the attacks. Disbelief turning to fear and horror. Courage and anger and dreadful loss. Could it be true? That it was happening again? How? He rubbed his face with his hands. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘Many inexplicable things happened on August 14, 2003. The Blackout was more than you might imagine.’

  ‘It was caused by power lines brushing against tree branches. Poor maintenance, then system errors. I read the report.’

  ‘It was a psychic event. An entanglement event. Like the night of the fire. Lives were joined.’

  ‘Crap. Who the hell are you, Horace? And what is this about an attack? Who will carry it out? Osama’s boys?’

  Horace stared deeply into his eyes. ‘Adam will. He is being eaten away from the inside by… we could say, by a kind of devil. He is resisting. He is a brave soul. But he will lose, and he will activate the weapon. Unless you stop him. Unless you save him.’

  A wave of anger hit Robert, surprising him with its intensity. Adam, always thinking he was exempt from the rules. Adam, always thinking he could go where angels feared to tread.

  ‘How did this happen? Did he push his luck once too often?’

  ‘No… and yes. There was a previous attempt to carry out this attack. On August 14, 2003. Adam stopped it, almost single-handedly. That is what caused the Blackout. A misfire of the Device. Now he is paying the price. He became infected, as it were. Jammed open to things he cannot control.’

  ‘How long can he hold on?’

  ‘I give him a week, at most. Probably less.’

  ‘How many people are at risk?’