The Secret

When Langley came to he was no longer blindfolded and he could move freely. The problem was, he couldn’t see properly. There were bright lights everywhere but he couldn’t focus on anything. He was in a world of rainbow-coloured blurs. There was noise — lots of it: traffic noise and people laughing. He searched for his phone in his pocket but found he had no pockets. These weren’t his clothes. He was wearing some strange kind of outfit or costume.

The people in Leicester Square could see it was a clown costume and it was being worn by a man who was staggering around with a message taped to his back. It said, I’M LOOKING FOR THE CAUSE OF ME.

People were laughing, assuming that it must be part of some stag-night prank... although the age of the clown and his apparent distress perhaps suggested not... but, of course, it was better not to get involved. That was the British way. They body-swerved past the clown on their way to their night out.

Langley was totally disorientated. The swirling bright lights and the feeling of nausea prevented him from making any meaningful contact with the vague figures that flitted in and out of his distorted vision. He reached out and touched someone who smacked his hand away.

‘What’s your game then?’

Langley recoiled from the angry voice and changed direction, only to feel himself stumble as he unwittingly stepped off the pavement... unfortunately, into the path of a bus. The sound of the horn, the screech of brakes, the thud of the impact as the front of the bus hit Langley and the cries of bus passengers thrown from their seats all blended into some hellish cacophony before fading to nothing as stunned onlookers froze and looked down at the broken body of a very dead clown.

Fourteen

Steven arrived at City College just before ten and, as before, was asked to wait until someone from the North group came down to escort him to the lab. It was the Irish PhD student he’d met last time, Liam Kelly.

‘I’m afraid Tom’s not in yet,’ said Liam. ‘Most unlike him, but he shouldn’t be long. Must have been held up in traffic.’

Steven was shown into North’s office and invited to sit. Liam handed him the current copy of Nature. ‘Maybe you’d like to have a look while you wait?’

Steven thanked him and started to flick through the magazine. Ten minutes later as he was reading about the continuing search for the Higgs boson particle, he heard a female voice out in the lab say, ‘Liam, Tom’s car’s in the car park. ’

Steven looked up to see Liam Kelly join the girl he remembered as Jenny Davis, the student who was working on herpes simplex. They were both looking out the window.

‘Stupid — it’s just dawned on me. It’s been there for a while. He must be in the building somewhere.’

‘It’s not like him to forget he had a meeting,’ said Kelly. ‘I’ll get them to page him.’

Another five minutes went by with still no sign of North. Liam apologised profusely to Steven and said he would go look for his supervisor. In the meantime, Steven chatted to Jenny about her work but stopped in mid-sentence when, over her shoulder, he saw Liam Kelly down in the car park cross over to North’s car and look in the window. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up when he saw Liam recoil at something he’d discovered. The boy turned away from the car and threw up on the ground before supporting himself on a neighbouring car with both hands.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Steven blurted out to Jenny who had her back to the window. He rushed out of the lab and ran down the stairs rather than wait for a lift. Ignoring Liam’s predicament, he ran straight to North’s car and looked in the driver’s window to see North slumped over the wheel. It was clear he had been shot through the back of the head.

There was no possibility of his still being alive so Steven did not disturb the body. North was facing away from him with his right cheek on the steering wheel so he walked round to the other side of the car and saw the dead face of Tom North with the bullet’s exit wound in the middle of his forehead. Something else caught his attention and caused him to shudder. Half the index finger on North’s left hand had been cut off: it was lying on the floor of the car. He’d been tortured before he’d been shot. Steven called the police and remained by the car until they arrived, making sure that no one interfered with the scene of the crime.

Liam had now been joined by the others from the lab, Dan Hausman, Jenny and two of the technicians, as well as people from elsewhere in the building. Steven ushered the curious away from the car, leaving it to Liam to tell them what had happened. The police arrived within minutes, led by an inspector from the Metropolitan Police who barked instructions to his officers.

After the initial hustle and bustle and taping-off of the crime scene, Steven was surprised to see them suddenly resort to doing virtually nothing. He showed the inspector his ID and asked what the problem was.

‘I’ve been instructed to wait.’

‘For what?’