Chapter 95
After Avery and Jack left I fell in and out of sleep, losing track of time. Past events, nightmarish visions of the future and sparks of hope all mingled in an incoherent sequel, fragmented by the greyish-white view of the hospital’s room, by the regular blipping of the machine to which I was hooked, by the clear fluid dripping into my veins.
I was dreaming I had been locked down in a basement. There were people outside I could see from a window, I could hear the voices of the kids playing and I could see their mothers pushing them on small bikes, encouraging them to pedal. “Help!”, I screamed at the top of my lungs but they couldn’t hear. Then I tried propping the window open, but I couldn’t get it to slide, something was causing it to be stuck, but it was impossible for me to see what it was. While I was sweating and cursing in my struggle, feeling the tide of panic rise within me, one of the mothers outside saw me. I waved at her with frenzy, and for a moment it seemed to me that she was heading towards me. I’ll be fine, I thought, and a wave of relief refreshed me for the briefest moment, before I realized she had changed her mind, and had decided to turn away as if she had never detected my presence. I started scratching the glass, fast, faster and then so fast my nails begun to bleed. I knew this wasn’t going anywhere but I kept at it, crazed by the fear, and with the smell of blood invading my nostrils as if I was drowning in it. Then there was a shuffling sound coming from the door.
“Go away!”, I shouted
“Iris…”, I heard
“No, no, go away!”, I shouted again, sure that whoever kept me locked there had come to give me the final blow
“Be quiet Iris, I am not here to hurt you…”, the voice said
“No!”, I yelled again, or maybe I wasn’t yelling but in my half-conscious state I believed I was
Then I felt someone touch my face and I woke up fully. Through the dim light of the room I saw Sandeep’s face. I could have screamed again, but all I did was stare at him, numbed, my eyes wide open.
“Things are not like you think they are and I am not here to hurt you”, he told me again
“We are in this same hospital? Where is the security?”, I asked after the first stupor, strangely curious rather than scared at this point.
I figured he wasn’t there to hurt me, but then why was he there?
“The security guy left. Strange…I don’t know for how long he’ll be away, there isn’t much time”
“Time for what?”, I asked
“For telling you the real story”
I wondered if I was still dreaming. My head felt heavy and I was nauseous. But I wanted to know, regardless, in dream or reality it didn’t matter. Anyways if there was any difference between the two it had become very hard for me to define it.
“Tell me”, I said
“When you brought the samples I started running the tests you asked me, to find out what you needed to know”, Sandeep begun
“Yes”
“And Wilhelm was doing much the same”, he continued
“Then what were you doing with two armed people the day you got shot?”, I asked
“Wait and listen. There is a person working at the Cross-Cancer institute, he has been testing chemicals on patients, without making them aware of the possible side-effects. I suspect he has killed people that way, as a matter of fact I am reasonably sure about it”
“Who is this man?”
“Jonathan Woods. I was collaborating with this man before I found out what he was doing”
“Why did you never report him?”
“It’s not that easy. He menaced to hurt my family if I said anything, you know? And by the way, there was a policemen investigating about this, he came to talk to me and then he was gone”
“John?”
“Maybe, I cannot recall his name now”
“Bald, green eyes and a bit stocky?”
“Yes”
“He was investigating about the death of a young girl…”
“Yes, but the whole story was buried in silence. Woods has lots of protection from big shots, corporations, he is pretty much untouchable”
“So he can just keep killing people unpunished?”
“Let me continue, they might find me here anytime. Woods found out about your polymer, don’t ask me how, he went through that data we collected and he figured it altered the behaviour of cells. When I figured what was happening I deleted all the data, but it was too late. I explained the situation to Wilhelm, and I told him we should get rid of all the polymer we were storing”
“But you took some away and brought it out in the fields and buried it…”
“No, Woods did that. He wanted to know how to synthesize the polymer, but it was hard for him to reverse engineer it, he needed time. He stole some of the sample you brought us and hid it where you found me with the police”
“How did you know where he kept it?”
“Ronny found out”
“Did you hire him?”
“No, not exactly…his daughter was a victim of Woods practices. Ronny is a private investigator, and he knows where to look to get his answers. He dug out the people who had collaborated with Woods, and to make a long story short he found me and we teamed up”
“To kill me?”
“No, to make sure you kept what you synthesized as secret as possible to prevent further damage”
“What about the cleaning lady? She tried to kill me, and that’s a fact”
“She tried to kill you before Ronny and I made contact with her”
“When did you make contact with her?”
“After you got back from Italy”
“What about when she faked being dead?”
“She had followed you to kill you, but then you saw her. She wanted you to lower your guard and pretended she was dead. Then Ronny got a hold of her and we convinced her that to reach her objective it was more effective to stay on our side than try to kill you”
“But why was she trying to kill me to begin with?”
“Because you were involved – unknowingly – in killing her sister”
“Her sister? What? What do you mean I killed her sister?”, I asked, my voice pitching involuntarily
“Your polymer. Woods used it on her sister, perhaps he though it could cure what she was affected by...but she was quite healthy, her pathology was a very small one, certainly curable with conventional methods, and after his trials she…”, Sandeep started, but his sentence ended in midair as a policeman propped the door open, holding a gun
“Stop!”, he shouted pointing it as Sandeep
“He is not trying to harm me”, I said, almost in a whisper
“Hands up!”, the guard shouted, ignoring me
Sandeep obeyed. The guard approached him and pounded him against the wall. Sandeep fell almost immediately.
“Don’t hurt him, he was not trying to attack me!”, I said, and this time my voice was loud and firm
But the policemen pushed Sandeep’s face on the floor, keeping his gun at him, and handcuffed him. Sandeep’s eyes were closed, and he was silent. I wondered if he had passed out as he lay on the floor, and I felt deep compassion for this man.
And what had I done?
“Because you were involved – unknowingly – in killing her sister”
Who had I killed, who had I killed, who had I killed, who had I killed…