“Mrs Petersen, I am warning you, when I speak to your husband and representatives of his company, I will make it clear to them the allegations you have made against them. I may well also infer that you have evidence to prove this. You might well be in some considerable danger if these deaths were murders. Whether you take back the accusations or not.”
Eva sat back in her seat and crossed her arms, indicating that, for her, the interview was over.
“Mrs Petersen, I will need you to leave your passport with us. Do not make any attempt to leave the country. I will also require you to leave me an address and telephone number where I can reach you at any time. This is not the end of it. I will be in touch again soon. DC Keller will take care of the details.”Günther stood and left the room, leaving the two women behind him.
Outside, he blew out a frustrated breath.
That could have gone better, he thought. She is not telling us the truth. I am sure of that!
27
Hofmann awoke back in his bed in the basement of the Gallery Street club. Dr Ecker was flipping the sheets of a chart in his hands, pacing the small room and muttering to himself. There was a drip back in Hofmann’s left arm, and he was feeling decidedly unwell. He had a temperature, his head was throbbing, and his whole body felt as if it had been in a car crash.
“Doctor,” he croaked out.
“Herr Hofmann, how are you feeling?”
The Doctor seemed genuinely concerned, which worried Hofmann.
“What happened?”
“You had an episode. We have dealt with it. You are on an increased dose of the virus treatment, so you might not feel too good for a few days.”
“I don’t understand, Doctor. What is wrong with me?”
“It’s not an exact science, Herr Hofmann. The human mind is extremely complex, and it is very difficult to track all of Jarvis’s dormant memories. They seem to be stored in unusual places in his brain. I must be careful not to do more damage than good.”
“At this moment, I would take a chance. I need to get this thing under control; there is too much work to be done, Doctor.”
“I want to give you a computer tomography tomorrow. After that, I should be able to get a better picture how we are progressing. We will talk again tomorrow morning, Herr Hofmann. The best thing for you at the moment is sleep. Let the treatment do its work. You need your rest!”
As the doctor left the room, Hofmann let himself sink back into the bed. The smell of freshly washed linen filled his nostrils and, for some reason, gave him some small comfort. There was little he could do to change his predicament, so closing his eyes, he decided to try to wait it out.
Waking, Hofmann rolled over in the bed, reaching for his wrist watch. It was 2:00 am, and he had a raging thirst.
“Guard!”
There was no answer.
“Guard. Guard!”
Still nothing. Pulling himself upright, he had to steady himself as a wave of dizziness came and went. Pulling the sheets back and gingerly swinging his legs out of the bed, he made to stand up. For a second, he was upright, then, hit by the dizziness again, he felt himself falling. Trying not to rip the drip from his arm, he swung himself round anti-clockwise, but this just intensified the feeling, and he fell backwards, impacting the hard concrete floor with the back of his head. The clatter of the drip stand and bag landing next to him was lost in the howl that left his mouth as he collided with the cold floor.
Whether he had been unconscious for a second or an hour, he could not tell. The pain in his head blinded him, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if he might be able to shut the pain out. On the contrary, it became even worse, causing his body to convulse and retch sour bile onto the floor. Only the sound of a familiar voice brought him back to half-consciousness.
“No more than you deserve, you bastard.”
Whipping his head around, Hofmann was unable to tell from which direction the voice had come. He saw no one.
“I won’t let you do this. I will fight you!”
Now standing, Hofmann staggered to the light switch, convinced the man must be standing in the shadows. The fluorescent tubes on the ceiling blinked into life, illuminating every corner of the sparse eight-by-ten-metre grey room. The unmade bed stood on one side of the room, empty. Next to it, a small bedside table held a glass of water and Hofmann’s watch. Lying on the floor, the drip slowly deposited its contents onto the polished concrete floor, a puddle progressively pushing its boundaries in all directions. Opposite the bed was the door and another table, a heap of folders that Hofmann had been examining earlier piled awkwardly on its corner, next to assorted boxes of pills. Above the table was a large mirror, which stretched to a small basin in the corner of the room. It gave the room the impression that it was larger than it actually was and served as a shaving mirror for Hofmann, who was unable to get used to the modern electric razors, preferring a wet shave. Looking briefly at the confused and disorientated face of Jarvis, he turned back to face the bed.
“Where are you?” He screamed it out loud, his eyes wild with fear and confusion.
Callous laughter filled the room.
“You fucking moron. Where do you think I am?”
Swinging round, he was convinced his tormentor was behind him. He looked back into the laughing face of Michael Jarvis, staring back at him out of the mirror.
“This is not happening. I will not allow it.” He watched the words form and leave his mouth. But he heard Jarvis’s voice. The image in the mirror changed rapidly, from a laughing man to one filled with angst. There was no conviction in his voice, and he had to look on as the mirror image changed again, and Jarvis manifested himself.
“You fucking arsehole. Didn’t you have your fill of misery and pain the first time around?” Michael spoke as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “You and your friends are finished, I will see to that!”
Hofmann was reeling; he had no idea how to deal with this.
I can hardly strike out without hurting myself. The man is angry and aggressive. I must try to calm him down, before I send him back where he belongs, Hofmann thought, in an attempt to steady himself. I must alert Ecker of the situation.
“Michael, it’s not what you think. This is an incredible opportunity, for us both!” His voice was pleading, and he knew before the sentence was finished that it was wasted breath. Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You are in a very privileged position. You can play a part in the salvation of humanity!”
“Salvation? You are a destroyer, Hofmann, not a saviour.”
“Wake up, Michael. Look at the world that you live in. You think you are in control of your life, that you can make choices. You are wrong. Every moment of your life is decided by others, for their convenience. You, and millions like you, prostitute yourselves every day, for the sake of a few baubles and possessions. We are here to save you from them, to give the power back to people like you.”
“You can’t possibly believe that propaganda nonsense will work with me, Hofmann. For God’s sake, I know what you are thinking, what you are planning. You want to murder and kill. Save the people—what people are you going to save?”
“People like you and I, Michael. People who deserve a chance in life, who were born for better things, but are downtrodden by the evil entities and sub-human creatures wandering this world. This is our destiny. That is why we were put on this Earth. To clean house!”
“Another Holocaust. More exterminations?”
“Michael, you must understand. The Aryan race gives us a perfect basis, on which we are duty-bound to build. The world cannot support all the parasites who live on it, sucking the life blood out of the planet and the good people on this Earth. Big business and politicians are carving up the world’s wealth, and you are letting them. It has been the same for generations. Mankind has got to stop being kind and start defending itself!”