Chapter 57: Picking Up For Steve

Tricia hadn't looked too pleased that I was going to dash back to the Prep Centre but what did she expect? It was one of the longest drives of my life. I had the mobile on all the way but no one called. I was driving as fast as I could without wanting to attract attention from the law — this was no time to be having to explain why I was speeding.

I dashed into the Centre and made for the Doc's office. Her stressed and haggard look didn't give me any encouragement.

"How is she?" I asked. "Rachel, how is she?"

"I don't know. Maybe OK, maybe not. She had another attack."

"What do you mean, another attack? The first one wasn't real! Remember? It was a set up."

"Sure, I remember. Well this wasn't a set up, this was for real."

"Are you sure?"

"Mmm," she nodded. "Look, it's probably just as well we faked the first one. The same guard was on duty. He called me straight away. 'She's had another one, ' he said, 'one of those anorexic shocks. Just like last time.' I was puzzled. I ran down there anyway, half expecting it to be some piece of faking; though how that could be after all the programme work she'd done I didn't know. He was right it was real. Luckily I had my needles and the adrenaline. She was lying on the floor just like before. There was a plate on the floor where she'd dropped it. Walnut cake. Sukie was sitting on the bed sobbing, saying she'd just made it as a treat, she thought she'd love it. That she'd never guessed."

"But you got the adrenaline in her? So she's OK?"

"Maybe?"

"Why only maybe?"

"I don't know if I was quick enough. It's not an infallible cure. We have to replace the fluids, deal with the shock She's still unconscious. There could be brain damage, I don't know if I got the oxygen into her quickly enough. Especially after all we've been putting her through. I don't know what state she was in, how resilient she was."

"Can I see her?"

The Doc shook her head. "Not for a while," she said, "I'd really like her not to be disturbed. And I want to get her to recover from this attack as well as she did from the last one. Only this time it's going to be more difficult."

"How's Sukie?"

"I'm not sure. She was very upset. I've not seen her since we brought Rachel up here."

If I couldn't be with Rachel then Sukie was the one that needed me most. Actually even if I could have been with Rachel I was probably more use to Sukie. I went down to the apartment to find her.

She was still sitting where the Doc had said she'd left her, staring blankly ahead. I sat down beside her. "It's all right, Sukie," I said as comfortingly as I could, "I'm sure she'll be all right. The Doc got to her in good time."

She seemed not to notice what I was saying. "I made it for her. She'd finished the script. For the video. It was a treat. She was so happy, with her programme, so happy with her writing. She just grabbed her throat and fell. Down there." She pointed to the floor. "She never said she couldn't eat it. I didn't know."

"Of course not Sukie. She probably didn't know herself. It can happen without warning. With things you've eaten before. She'll be OK." I reached out towards her and took her in my arms. She didn't cry, she just sat there hanging on to me as though her life depended on it.

I sat with her all night until finally, about dawn, she fell asleep. I laid her back on the couch and covered her with a blanket before leaving to find out what the Doc had to say. Her advice was to wait. Rachel had had a quiet night. That was probably as good as it got at that stage. The Doc still wasn't letting me see her. I went and found some coffee. I felt like shit.

The Doc found me later that morning asleep in one of the chairs in the canteen, a half empty cup of coffee on the table beside me. Things were looking better she said. I looked at my watch, I'd missed out on the briefing session for the lift that was going on right then. It didn't seem to matter.

It felt like it had been a long time since I'd kicked off the project for Steve Glennis but finally we were making some progress. Research had done their work profiling the possible candidates. As I'd thought, their favourite was Lady Angela Marchmont too. Now the snatch team was out on the job.

I made my way over to the briefing room to wait for some news.

I looked up at the wall. The pictures, plans and diagrams that had been used to brief the snatch team were still there, pinned to the large cork panel that stretched along one side of the room. The architectural model of Marchmont Hall, constructed from the helpfully detailed plan found in the hall's guide book, "Marchmont Hall — A Regency Masterpiece" — stood on the table in the centre.

In the middle of the cork panel was a large grainy photograph of the target, the twenty seven year old heiress to the Marchmont titles and estate. Around it were other photographs, some clipped from a recent article in "Hello!" magazine. "Wild Child or Lady of the Manor?" said the headline, "Lady Marchmont talks to us in her delightful home." The pictures, part fashion plates, part picture post cards showed an elegantly dressed Lady Angela, draped across the furniture in the great gallery of the Hall, surrounded by its famous paintings. One, in contrast, showed the other side of Lady Angela, clad in tight leathers she sat astride the powerful motorbike that she was famed for riding at high speed through the lanes between Marchmont Hall and her flat in London.

The Marchmont collection of paintings was providing the cover for the snatch team. They would be arriving at the Hall at this very moment - a group of fine art assessors from the National Gallery, anxious to see whether the contents of the Marchmont galleries would qualify for a National Heritage Grant. As assessors of course they would be taking the greatest of care not to contaminate the pictures in any way while they examined them closely. As a result, Harry had said, this was a job where you can turn up legitimately wearing latex gloves. Training the team had been a time consuming exercise, not many of Harry's squad had much of an idea about art, much less the finer points of Flemish seventeenth century genre painting. However after some intensive cramming at least they could tell the difference between a Rubens and a Picasso.

They'd worked out a cover story for her disappearance. Even the British police tend to sit up and take notice when one of the aristocracy goes missing. There would be a ransom demand; lots of threats from the kidnappers and plaintiff appeals from her ladyship. Whether or not the ransom got paid was pretty irrelevant but when she wasn't released it would look like a kidnap that had gone wrong.