Newton’s Fire

II

Rachel was too groggy to do anything but stand there dumbly as the BMW rushed towards her. But the men were quicker, leaping out of its way. It swerved at the last moment, pulled up with a screech beside her. The passenger door flew open and an athletic-looking, dark-headed young man grabbed her wrist, pulled her sideways onto his lap, her legs still dangling out. Blond-hair lunged for her, but the driver stamped on the accelerator and the BMW surged away, acceleration banging the door against her shins. They reached the junction with the main road and passing traffic forced the driver to hit his brakes. The door flew open again, allowing her to bring her feet fully inside so that the passenger could close the door. She looked around. The three men were chasing hard, fury in their eyes. They were almost upon them when a barely-existent gap opened in the traffic and the driver squirted out into it, forcing oncoming cars to brake sharply, leaving them honking like indignant geese.

‘Who the hell are you people?’ asked Rachel, still in the passenger’s lap. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Those men back there,’ said the passenger. ‘Was that a policeman with them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fuck!’ he said.

The driver grimaced. ‘You reckon they got my licence?’

‘Don’t know, mate,’ said his passenger. ‘Probably. Can they trace it?’

The driver shook his head. ‘Won’t be easy. The company rented it for me.’

‘Hey!’ Rachel had to shout for attention. ‘Who are you people? What’s going on?’

The passenger grimaced, uncertain how to answer. He offered her his hand to shake, which was somewhat awkward with her still in his lap. ‘My name’s Luke Hayward,’ he said. ‘I knew your-’

‘Luke Hayward?’ she said. She pushed away from him in horror, spilling over onto the back seats. ‘You killed my aunt.’

‘No,’ he said, turning around to face her, holding his palms up to diminish any threat she might feel. ‘That’s not true. I swear it’s not true. It was those men back there. That man with the fair hair.’

‘They were police. You’re saying the police killed Aunt Penny?’

‘They weren’t police,’ he insisted. ‘They were with a policeman. It’s not the same thing.’

‘He was on duty. He said his orders came down from on high.’

‘They tasered you in the back,’ said Luke. ‘Are you really going to take the word of men who’d taser you in the back over the people who saved you from them?’

She sought for a good comeback, couldn’t find one. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she asked weakly.

‘I don’t know,’ said Luke. ‘Not everything, anyway. But those men were at your aunt’s house earlier. They found out that she’d sent you an email she wasn’t supposed to send, and that fair-haired guy lost his rag. She was trying to get away from him when she fell down the attic stairs.’

‘You were there? You saw it happen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why not report it?’

‘I tried.’

He launched into an extraordinary story about rooftop escapes, a phone call from a local pub, swarms of police. She listened in mounting horror. Fifteen minutes ago, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it. But now she did, she believed him completely. ‘This email my aunt sent,’ she said. ‘That man was talking about it too. He wanted me to forward it to him.’

He shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I’ll bet he just wanted to delete it.’

‘Why? What is it?’

‘This is going to sound crazy,’ he told her.

‘Crazier than everything else?’

‘Okay. It’s photographs of some old papers that your aunt wanted valued.’ He must have read bewilderment on her face, for he went on: ‘They’re valuable, don’t get me wrong. They were written by Sir Isaac Newton. Your aunt’s great-uncle bought them at Sotheby’s back in the 1930s. His name was Bernard Martyn. He was a physicist who worked for-’

‘Great-uncle Bernie,’ nodded Rachel. ‘Mum used to talk about him.’

‘I’m a Newton scholar,’ said Luke. ‘Those guys hired me to find his missing papers. I tracked your great-uncle’s lot to your aunt’s attic. I took pictures and emailed them off because my client had first refusal. Your aunt was happy with that. But she didn’t know what a good price would be.’

Rachel felt hollow. ‘So she emailed the pictures to me?’

Luke nodded. ‘I think she reckoned you could have them valued for her somehow. But then those guys showed up.’

‘Who are they? Who’s this client of yours?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you were working for them.’

‘They never told me their names. They never told me anything.’

‘And you didn’t think that odd?’ said Rachel. ‘You didn’t think that suspicious?’

‘These are the lost papers of Isaac bloody Newton we’re talking about, not nuclear fucking secrets. I just assumed it was some cranky old collector. How could I know this would happen?’

‘My Aunt Penny’s dead,’ said Rachel furiously. ‘She’s dead because you led those men to her.’

Luke blinked as though she’d slapped him. He was about to defend himself but then thought better of it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. If I’d had the first idea …’

The driver glanced around, spoke into the silence. ‘Listen, love, I’m sorry too, and all that, but we weren’t the ones who killed your aunt or zapped you with that taser. This email is the only evidence there is of what really happened this afternoon. If they can delete it somehow, they’ll get away with this and maybe even put my mate here in the slammer for the rest of his life for something they did. Is that what you want?’

‘Why should I trust you any more than them?’

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his mobile, tossed it to her. ‘I got your address from a woman called Sonia, forget her surname, but she teaches law at Caius. She’s mates with a friend of mine called Miriam. Call Sonia. She’ll vouch for Miriam. Then call Miriam. She’ll vouch for me.’

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Redfern. Pelham Redfern.’

A bell tinkled faintly in Rachel’s memory. ‘I know that name,’ she said. ‘You’re the bastard who went out with Vicky Andrews.’

‘Ah,’ said Pelham. He scratched his throat uncomfortably. ‘Yes. Vicky. We did see each other for a-’

‘You broke her heart.’

‘Yes, well, sadly not every romance is destined to end in confetti and-’

‘She found you in bed with her sister.’

‘Oh, for god’s sake, mate,’ said Luke. ‘You bedded her sister?’

‘More accurate to say that she bedded me,’ shrugged Pelham. ‘Some serious sibling rivalry issues there, if you ask me, with muggins here caught in the middle. And somehow I’m the bad guy?’

Luke turned helplessly back to Rachel. ‘Okay, fine,’ he said. ‘Maybe you can’t trust us. Not like that. But we’re not conmen or villains or anything like that, I swear we’re not. We’re people like you. Our friends are your friends.’

Rachel hesitated. She wanted to be angry with him, she wanted to be suspicious, but there was something about him that she instinctively trusted, and it would have been dishonest to deny it. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s say I believe you. What now?’