Awful doesn’t come close to describing what happened. In 1982, six drug users in the San Francisco Bay area consumed an impure form of synthetic heroin that turned them into living statues, rendering their bodies rigid and twisted. The neurotoxic contaminant, later identified as MPTP, had targeted dopamine-producing neurons in a part of the brain, the substantia nigra, that coordinates movement. The results were devastating, much like the debilitating last phase of Parkinson’s. Although the addicts’ bodies were catatonic, their minds were normal, alert and fully aware of the world around them.
‘Dr Varma had highlighted the line about the local neurologist who found the addicts in various jails and psychiatric wards,’ Silas says. ‘Apparently he reversed their condition with a drug called levodopa.’
‘And kickstarted research into Parkinson’s in the process,’ Strover says, finishing the article. She looks up, waiting for an explanation, a connection with what they’re investigating.
‘We can’t assume there’s a link,’ Silas says, ‘but Dr Varma had also highlighted the line about the addicts’ minds remaining normal. And there was another article open on his laptop.’ Strover looks up. Silas knows she’s wondering if he left any fingerprints on Dr Varma’s screen, but she’s too polite to ask. He didn’t. ‘It was about locked-in syndrome,’ he continues. ‘Those patients who appear to be in a persistent vegetative state but are in fact fully conscious. They’re also frozen, in a sense, unable to move their bodies – except for one part. Their eyes.’
Strover glances down again at the frozen addicts story on her iPad.
‘As I say, there might not be a connection.’ He pauses. For once in his life he’s not sure if he wants to join the dots, but he knows he must, however shocking the final picture might prove to be. ‘If Dr Varma’s notes are anything to go by, Kate’s P3 results were extraordinary, suggesting an almost complete recovery. Apparently, this P3 wave is an involuntary response in the brain when you recognise someone – and it’s much more pronounced in a super recogniser. Kate was shown hundreds of images in rapid succession – at least ten a second – and her brain made a spot. “Jeff.” She’s clearly got her old recognition skills back. Her eyes are working again.’
He can see Strover’s still not sure where he’s heading with this, how it relates to the bigger picture: Rob being framed by Gilmour. She looks tired. They both are.
‘What’s Rob’s latest project?’ he asks, keen for Strover to see the pattern emerge for herself, know what it feels like.
‘Facial-recognition software,’ she says.
‘What else is he into?’
‘Medtech, fitness gadgets, drone deliveries, charity art shows.’
‘And?’
Strover’s done a lot of digging into Rob’s business empire. She closes a window on her iPad and opens another file. ‘Direct neural interface technology,’ she reads. ‘Man and machine.’
She looks up at him, eyes widening, the horror dawning on her face.
‘In this case a P3 spike in the human brain, and recognition software,’ Silas says. ‘And if that brain belongs to a super recogniser, so much the better. The more the merrier, wherever you can find them, but only the best. Nottingham, Dublin, Hamburg, Paris, Swindon…’
99
Jake
‘I’ll call you again when I get near the coast,’ Jake says, checking the rearview mirror of the rental car he’s just picked up at Brest Bretagne airport.
‘Be careful,’ Bex says, still tearful. He’s rung her several times since breaking the news to her about Dr Varma, first from his Eurostar train and then while he was waiting for his flight from Paris to Brest. She’s taken Dr Varma’s death badly and is worried what that means for Kate. For him too.
‘DI Hart’s alerted Europol about Gilmour Martin,’ Jake says.
‘And no one knows where Rob is?’ Bex asks.
‘I’m hoping I’ll find one of them at the house,’ he says. ‘And Kate.’
‘Jake, I really think you should leave this to the French police.’
He wonders whether he should too. Dr Varma’s death has escalated things, made the authorities sit up, but he still wants to be here in France, wants to do something. Kate called him last night clearly in distress and he failed to stop her being taken away from the flat this morning.
‘Gilmour must have friends in high places,’ he says. ‘How else did he get Kate into France?’ He’s still haunted by Dr Varma’s words. You have no idea who you’re dealing with here.
Twenty minutes later, as he’s queuing through roadworks in Saint-Renan, Jake idly glances across at a Carrefour supermarket. Beside it is a petrol station. The traffic lights in front of him turn green and he’s about to pull away when someone catches his eye on the station forecourt. It looks like Rob, standing beside a car as he refuels. There’s someone in the passenger seat too: a woman.
He turns around at the next junction and pulls off at the petrol station, drawing up behind the car. Rob, if it’s him, has gone inside to pay, leaving the woman on her own. Scanning the tills, Jake gets out, careful to keep his face turned away, and walks up to the car. The passenger window is down and the woman is wearing sunglasses, staring impassively ahead. Jake’s mouth goes dry. Could it be her?
‘Kate,’ he whispers, checking the tills again. Rob is out of sight, must be buying something.
The woman turns, but not with the speed of someone responding to their own name. Is it Kate? She’s tired and sallow. Possibly drugged.
Jake hangs his head. It looks like her.
‘Jesus, Kate, what’s going on?’ He puts a hand through the open window, touching her shoulder. ‘Are you alright?’
The woman recoils from his touch as if he’s a pariah.
‘Please, you mustn’t talk to me,’ she says. ‘Move away from the car, I beg you.’
Jake stares at her in disbelief. She looks like Kate, but she doesn’t sound like her. There’s a trace of another accent in her voice, but he can’t place it. Scandinavian?
‘Oh God, where is she?’ he asks, looking up at the tills. The man has just paid and is turning to leave the shop. He’s no longer sure it’s Rob. ‘What’s he done with Kate?’
‘You must go – please.’ The woman has tears in her eyes now, and she’s nervously fingering a rubber necklace.
‘Just tell me where she is and I’ll go.’ Jake takes a step back. Has the man seen him? He’s striding across the forecourt with what looks like a key fob in his outstretched hand.
Jake turns his back and bends down to fiddle with his rear tyre, out of sight, pretending to unscrew the valve cap.
‘She’s at the house,’ the woman says.
A moment later, Jake hears the car drive off. He stands up, barely able to breathe, and pulls out his phone.
‘I thought it was her, Bex,’ he says as an angry pump attendant comes towards him. ‘But it wasn’t.’
‘Que faites-vous?’ the attendant demands, gesticulating wildly for him either to buy fuel or to bugger off.