CHAPTER 16... is live
The story continues
All previous chapters - CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2 - CHAPTER 3 - CHAPTER 4 - CHAPTER 5 - CHAPTER 6 - Chapter 7 - CHAPTER 8 - CHAPTER 9 - CHAPTER 10 - CHAPTER 11 - CHAPTER 12 - CHAPTER 13 - CHAPTER 14 - CHAPTER 15
Previously on “The bomb in the shed…”; Jacob holds the launch event for the Sensidium trials, but disaster strikes when the building catches fire and everyone has to evacuate, with Jacob having to go back into the burning lab to rescue Arthur.
And here we go with CHAPTER 16…
Chapter 16
There were two large vans blocking the driveway so the taxi had to drop Camilla off on the road outside her house. They were both dark grey, no signs on the side. Not work vans. They were spotless and looked expensive, Mercedes Benz logos.
What were they doing here?
Camilla wasn’t expecting a big welcome, she hadn’t told anyone she was coming back. How could she explain why she was coming home early on a phone call? Her plan was to go to the house and settle in quietly. It was still her home after all, even if she had moved out for a while. Arthur would probably be in the shed so it would give her time to decompress. Then she would talk to him and find out what was going on. Was he really in danger? Were they all? And what exactly had he been building in the shed all these years?
But now there were strange vans in her driveway. And, it turned out, a complete stranger stood at the front door. He was tall, dressed in black and looked like a bouncer minding the entrance to a club. When he saw Camilla he spoke into his lapel.
As she approached he smiled and said, “Mrs Price?”
He said this before she’d managed to ask him who he was and what he was doing blocking her front door.
“Yes I am, who are you?” she replied.
This had to be something to do with Arthur. What else could it be?
Another person appeared from inside the house, dressed similarly to the first.
He said, “Mrs Price, my name is Gibson. I work for your husband’s company.”
Well that was ridiculous. Arthur was retired. What was going on? She certainly wasn’t going to listen to these strange men to find out.
“Where is my husband?”
It was her ‘losing her patience’ voice. Normally reserved for Arthur when he was being Arthur.
“He’s in hospital,” replied Gibson. “He’s ok, but there was a situation at work last night and Arthur was caught up in it.”
A situation? Hospital? Was she too late after all? She didn’t feel at all reassured that Arthur was ok. What did this person know?
“We can take you there now if you like?” said Gibson.
Camilla looked at the vans and then back at the two men.
“I’m not getting in there with the two of you.”
If Gibson was offended by this he didn’t show it. In fact he looked far too comfortable standing in her own doorway telling her what was what with her husband.
He said, “Would you like me to call you a cab?”
Camilla reached for her phone. “No thank you. I’ll get my own. And you can get out of my house.”
---
“Mr Price, you have a guest.” The nurse was gone before Arthur could ask him who it was.
When Arthur had woken up he’d felt a bit groggy. But after a while he started to feel better than he had done for days, despite his ordeal. He’d slept for hours and was on a drip that fed his body all the nutrients it had been lacking for so long. Not that he felt entirely better, just a bit more like his old self. He’d had tests every hour, regular medication and had just finished a rather nice lunch. He was clearly in some kind of private hospital, there were far too many nurses and doctors around for it to be the NHS.
The visitor turned out to be Jacob. Arthur didn’t particularly feel like seeing anyone, but perhaps Jacob could shed some light on what had happened last night. Arthur was a bit fuzzy about the whole episode. He’d missed the launch event and somehow got caught in some kind of fire. He didn’t know how he ended up there or how he’d got out. None of the hospital staff seemed to be able to answer his questions.
“Hello, Arthur,” said Jacob.
He was carrying a newspaper and some chocolates which he placed on the bed next to Arthur.
“Thank you, Jacob,” said Arthur. “Are you ok?”
There were scratches and a couple of bad bruises on Jacob’s face. One cut looked to have been stitched. He was well dressed of course, some kind of sports leisure wear. Apart from the injuries he looked like a top seed tennis player on his day off.
“I’m fine Arthur, thanks.”
He paused as if waiting for Arthur to add something else. But Arthur couldn’t think what to say, so he said nothing. It was all a bit awkward. Jacob sat on a chair next to Arthur’s bed.
He said, “The fire at the lab destroyed everything.”
“Oh dear.” There didn’t seem to be much more Arthur could add.
Jacob was looking at him strangely. Like he was still expecting him to say something more. He couldn’t think what.
“The fire was started deliberately, Arthur. Someone wanted to destroy our research and do it in the most public way possible.”
“Who would do something like that?”
“It wasn’t just the fire,” said Jacob. “They got into our systems and deleted files, including the backups. We’ve lost everything.”
Who would do something like that?
“How long would it take us to get it all back?”
By Arthur’s reckoning it would take time but they could do it. Everything they’d worked on was in their heads. They just needed to recreate it.
“Months,” said Jacob. “But it’s not that simple. It would mean raising more investment, and that’s not going to happen. The story is public. The company’s reputation is destroyed.”
“But what about the science?” replied Arthur. “The fire doesn’t change that.”
“The fire changes everything. It’s on the news. High quality footage thanks to the documentary TV crew. No one will touch us now. We’re a publicity disaster. The green energy company that blew up their lab and almost killed all their guests. It’s finished. That’s just the way the world works.”
There was nothing logical about how the world worked. But that was nothing new for Arthur. He felt that almost every day of his life. People seemed to exist on emotion alone. They didn’t think things through.
Jacob said, “Arthur, you were in the lab. Have you any idea who wiped the records and started the fire.”
It was true, he was there. But he didn’t see anyone.
“No.”
“You don’t have any idea at all who might have done it?”
Arthur felt like had to suggest someone.
“Could it have been Fitzpatrick?”
Elizabeth had always been hugely suspicious of her boss. Then he turns up at Sensidium and there was a fire. Perhaps not a coincidence.
“He was at the bar all night,” replied Jacob. “And he had Gibson and his security guys on him the whole time.”
If that was true then who else could it be?
Jacob said, “Arthur, we had cameras in the lab. The recordings were wiped along with the backups. But a copy is kept at our security firm. Totally separate from our systems.”
Arthur propped himself up on his elbows and shifted his weight so he was sitting up more. “Well there you go. Take a look at the video, that could tell us who do it.”
“We already did.”
Jacob got an iPad out of his bag, pressed play and handed it to Arthur.
It was high definition colour video of the lab. The time stamp showed it to be the previous evening. It showed Arthur coming into the lab on his own. He sat at a terminal and started working. Jacob leaned over and pressed fast forward. Arthur could clearly see himself pulling up and deleting hundreds of files. Then he stood, set the fire, lit it and watched it burn. At high speed it looked like some kind of grotesque comedy show with no laugh track.
“That’s not possible,” he mumbled, almost to himself.
“You don’t remember?” asked Jacob.
Arthur shook his head. He couldn’t speak anymore. He was confused and felt sick to his stomach. He had no memory of this, but he couldn’t deny what he saw on the recording. Jacob didn’t look surprised by his response. Just sad.
He said, “I need to show you something else. This is very difficult. But when you see it you’ll understand why I had to show you.”
Jacob took the iPad and switched to a new file, pressed play and handed it back. It was footage of Arthur again. This time in his home. Which meant there had been someone in his house after all. Planting hidden cameras. He’d convinced himself it was paranoia. He should be angry with Jacob, but he had no energy for it anymore. All he felt was dread about what he might see. The time stamp suggested it was the middle of the night, a few days previously. The image wasn’t as clear as the one in the lab, but then again it was dark. The image showed Arthur getting out of bed. The view flicked from one camera to the next to follow him as he made his way downstairs into the kitchen and then outside.
He was going to the shed.
He didn’t remember any of this either.
“We didn’t have any footage inside the shed,” said Jacob. “You have some pretty heavy duty security systems the team didn’t want to touch. But we get a good view from the camera outside the kitchen.”
It gave a clear shot of Arthur going to the shed and raising the double doors. Then going inside, raising Bella. If you looked closely you could see Arthur was talking to himself again, before the door of the garage rolled shut. The image switched to him leaving again at six in the morning.
“This isn’t just one night, Arthur,” said Jacob. “You’ve been going to the shed every night for days. At the same time as going into work at Sensidium during the day. You’ve been working close to twenty four hours a day, no wonder you’re not well.”
Arthur barely heard Jacob. He just stared at the screen.
“You don’t remember this either, do you?” asked Jacob.
Arthur shook his head.
Was this what Elizabeth meant when she’d said I’ve found a way? Did she have some kind of control over him? He’d been working when he thought he was sleeping, driving his body and his mind to the very edge. And he had no memory of it at all. What about the fire in the lab? Was that Elizabeth too? How could she do that to him. She cared about him, didn’t she?
“You told me before that you hear Elizabeth’s voice,” said Jacob. “When you have ideas. Do you see her? Do you have conversations? It looks as if you were talking to someone in the shed. Were you talking to Elizabeth?”
It was strange to think of it, but Arthur had never closely questioned why he could see and hear Elizabeth after she’d died. He didn’t want to break the spell and have her disappear. The fact she was there in front of him was all he needed to know. He couldn’t lose her again.
But now the why and how of it mattered. Because of the secret nights working in the shed. Because of the fire in the lab. It mattered very much. Was it all him? His own twisted psyche that had conjured up Elizabeth and driven him beyond all reason to finish Bella and destroy Sensidium? If so what did that say about the kind of person he was? If it was some spiritual remnant of Elizabeth what did that say about her, and everything he believed about her?
“What’s happening to me?”
It came out of Arthur like the plaintive cry of a child. It was all he could manage to say. Everything else swirling around his head felt too big to put into words.
“You’re not well,” said Jacob. “You haven’t been for a long time.”
He was right of course. Arthur had always known something wasn’t quite right. But he’d had his work. He’d had Bella. That was enough to keep him going.
Nothing felt right anymore though.
He said, “What happens now?”
He’d burnt down the lab, destroyed the research, ruined the company and put people’s lives at risk. Would they fire him? Sue him? Hand him over to the police and prosecute him? All of those things?
“It’s a complicated situation,” said Jacob. “A lot of people have invested a lot of money and they could lose it all. We have an obligation to the shareholders.”
“What are you saying?”
“Arthur, the research is gone, but there’s still Bella, and all your data in the shed. It belongs to Seed Capital One now.”
“Bella is ours. You promised you would never take her,”
Arthur realised he’d said ours again, not mine. Was Elizabeth was still there with him in his head? Even after everything that had happened.
Jacob sighed. “This is hard for me too, Arthur. But after last night you’re in breach of contract. Bella and all of your research now legally belongs to Seed One Capital. Kinga is going to take her whatever you say, whatever I say. To repurpose her as a pure fusion clean energy prototype and launch under a new company name.”
How could Jacob do it? Betray him like this.
But was it really Jacob’s fault?
That’s what people like Kinga and Seed Capital One did, find ways to exploit what wasn’t theirs. Arthur had just given them an easy way to do it. He could scream and shout about it, but what was the point? It wouldn’t change anything. Elizabeth had betrayed him and now he’d lost Bella.
He said, “How did Kinga find out? You said you wouldn’t tell her about Bella.”
Jacob shrugged, “Winterbourne’s been digging around. I guess he found out somehow and told her.”
Arthur lay back onto his bed. He just wanted to rest of the world to go away. It was their problem now, not his.
But Jacob wasn’t leaving him alone.
He said, “We need your help with Bella, Arthur, if we’re going to salvage something out of this. You’d keep your job, and have shares in the new company, just like before. But we need you to run the research.”
Arthur couldn’t help but laugh at this. It was a pitiful little laugh that collapsed into a short coughing fit. Why on earth would they want him after everything he’d done? They’d be covering up his crimes and putting someone who was clearly psychologically unstable in charge of a research project. Why would they do that, it wasn’t logical?
Money of course.
A lot of people have invested a lot of money.
“I can’t do it anymore, Jacob,” said Arthur. “I need to stop. And you should stop too. You and Kinga. Bella was only ever supposed to be for me and Elizabeth. She’s too dangerous to be out there in the world.”
Was he getting through to Jacob? He looked conflicted for a moment.
But then it passed.
Jacob picked up the jug of water and topped up Arthur’s cup. “Take your time, Arthur, think about it. There’s no rush.” He got up to leave but paused at the door. “By the way, your family are coming in to see you this afternoon.”
It would be good to see Alex and David. Family was probably what he needed more than anything.
Arthur said, “What have you told them?”
“Everything.”
About Bella and Elizabeth, the job he’d hidden and the fire at the lab? That would make things difficult for Arthur of course. But it was probably for the best. It was about time everything was out in the open at last.
“You should know, Camilla will be here too,” added Jacob. “She flew in from the US this morning.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Camilla here?
That would make things even more difficult.
That’s it for Chapter 16, I hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to more. Chapter 17 will be out the same time next week, Friday at 4:00pm UK time.
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I’ve really started buying into the characters and what’s going to happen to them
Not left any comments for ages Jon but I am really enjoying this! No idea where it’s going to go…