Alchemist by Peter James Page A

and a hose reel on the wall, felt a cold draught blow on his face. A moment late the obstetrician with bloody gloved hands was standing in front of him, addressing him in a lowered voice.
    â€˜I’m afraid the baby is terribly deformed. The little chap doesn’t have a face at all. It’s a version of a rare malformation caused either by an extra chromosome or possibly the deletion of a small chromosome segment. We don’t have sufficient knowledge of DNA to understand the exact cause yet.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It’s called Cyclopism, or Cyclops Syndrome.’
    â€˜Just a cowl. Isn’t it just a cowl? Can’t you remove it?’
    The obstetrician shook his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid it’s not a cowl. I wish it was. Cyclopism happens very occasionally and we can’t pick it up from the scans. He’s alive now but once we sever the umbilical cord he’ll be unable to sustain himself. Ithink it would be kinder to let him die rather than put him on to life support.’
    Alan Johnson shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘Can’t you do anything? Plastic surgery – can’t you –’ He was rambling, he knew, clutching at straws.
    â€˜It would be best not to do anything,’ the obstetrician said quietly but firmly.
    Alan sank his face into his hands. He tried to imagine what Sarah would have wanted if she were still – still – he pictured the baby turn in the gloved hand, saw the vernix, the blood, the thick hairs on its back. A tremor shook him, then another. He looked at the surgeon helplessly pleading, beginning to weep, silently at first, then with deep gulping sobs.

10
    London
.
Tuesday 25 October
,
1994
    At eight in the morning beneath a flinty sky Conor Molloy, harassed after getting lost and taking longer than anticipated, turned his small new BMW across the traffic flow along the Euston Road. He joined one of the lines of cars crawling through the metal security gates alongside the Bendix Building, and showed his ID card to the guard who nodded him through into the car park. In spite of the early hour, it was almost full.
    He climbed out of the car, casting a cursory eye over the immaculate grey paintwork. It would be several days before he needed to worry about getting it washed, he thought, mindful of the penalty that Charley Rowley had warned him about.
    Rules and regulations. This place had more rules than an institution, and it seemed like every few minutes he discovered another one. He had spent most of his first day at work, yesterday, encountering and learning them whilst getting to know the geography of the building under Charley Rowley’s guidance. He had not appreciated when Rowley had met himat the airport that he was the Sectional Manager of Genetics, rather than just a mere colleague. But after only one day with him, Rowley felt even more like a colleague than a boss, and Conor fully intended to cultivate their budding friendship.
    He had learnt that Bendix Schere was organized into five directorates: Production, Marketing, Research and Development (R & D), Finance and Secretariat (F & S), and Security – with a maze of sub-divisions within each. Leisure facilities consisted of a luxurious staff canteen, and a very impressively equipped health hydro in the basement, complete with personal training programmes, squash and tennis courts, and an Olympic-size pool.
    Rowley had taken him to almost every floor, except for the top three which were off-limits: the forty-ninth was the Directors’ enclave, and the two below, which Rowley called the Pentagon, housed the global command centre of security for the entire Bendix Schere Foundation.
    Conor had been introduced to a number of heads of department, and he had privately assessed each one as to whether he thought they were loyal company people, or potential rebels like Charley Rowley. To his disappointment almost all of them struck him as zealously