4

The lamps in the small basement laboratory would take a full five minutes to rise from complete darkness to light. This was intended to mimic sunrise at the equator. Dr Lars Holst’s intrusion at four a.m. had brought dawn two hours early, thus disturbing the natural rhythm of the room’s inhabitants. Roused from the deepest cycle of sleep the five rhesus macaque monkeys, three male, two female, blinked awake, tired and confused. There was none of the usual immediate clamour to be fed as they yawned and stretched and rose stiffly to their feet.

Holst deliberately kept his back to them as he hurriedly set up his equipment. In the still murky light the mind was prone to perceive their miniature features as unnervingly human. He retrieved the steel ball from a cupboard, set it on an insulated frame in the corner of an empty cage on the central workbench and connected it to the power supply. Next, he fetched a container of chopped fruit from the refrigerator and emptied it into the hopper of the remotely controlled feeder positioned to the side of the ball. The smell of their favourite treat raised the macaques from their torpor. Miniature hands reached out through the bars of the other cage accompanied by a chorus of hungry and demanding grunts and squeals.

‘OK, OK. Hold on a moment,’ Holst said, with the same tone of affectionate impatience he used with his own young children back in London.

They refused to quieten.

Doing his best to ignore them, Holst fetched a camera and mini tripod from the zip pocket of his case and experimented with several angles before finding the one that gave the most comprehensive view of the cage. Now came the difficult part. Which of the macaques would perform best? He didn’t have time to repeat the experiment more than once or twice. He had arranged to meet with Drecker at five a.m. and his flight out of Copenhagen Airport was at six forty-five. He would have commenced the procedure earlier, except that never having tested it on an animal that was less than fully rested, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that a tired brain might carry a slight but nevertheless unacceptable risk of failure.

Willie, Merle, Dolly, June and Johnny. Holst had ill-advisedly named the macaques after his favourite country music singers, and over the course of three years had naturally attributed characteristics of his sentimental heroes to each of them. Willie was the quiet one, Merle was given to dark moods, Dolly was the extrovert, and June and Johnny were in love. If only he had stuck to M1, F1, M2, et cetera, it would have made this moment so much easier.

He fetched another container of fruit and pushed it through the one-way steel flap into their cage. He watched them jostle as they selected their favourite morsels. Dolly, as always, grabbed a piece of apple in each hand. Merle and Willie disappeared to opposite corners of the cage to eat their slices of banana, leaving June and Johnny crouched side by side sucking on quartered oranges. To any observer other than Holst or the two lab technicians who assisted in his work, the macaques would have appeared entirely normal. Indeed, there was nothing in their behaviour – aside, perhaps, from their elevated capacity for concentration – that would have given any hint as to the nature of the therapy they had undergone.

Holst’s first instinct was to select Willie or Merle. Being a rigorous scientist, he then questioned his motives and found them wanting. His choice, he suspected, was being influenced by the relative levels of affection he felt for each creature rather than by their ability to prove his concept. It would make little difference to Drecker and her associates which he chose, but he realized now that he needed concrete assurance of his technique as much, if not more, than they did. He needed to know that his years of work had not been in vain. In the early stages it had been Johnny who had been most difficult to train. Just like human beings, monkeys exhibited different traits. Some were wary, some adventurous, some compliant, others stubborn. Johnny had been the most innately cautious and obstinate and seemingly the most conscious of his own safety. On reflection, this made him the obvious choice. If it worked with Johnny, it would surely work with all of them.

‘Sorry, June,’ Holst heard himself saying as he pulled on a pair of thick leather gauntlets.

He opened the door of the cage and fished Johnny out, pinning his arms to his sides.

Johnny hissed and scrabbled at the air with his feet, objecting to being separated from his breakfast.

‘There’s plenty more in here, my boy. More than you can eat.’ Holst nudged the main cage closed with his elbow and transferred the complaining monkey to the far smaller cage on the bench.

Johnny made a circuit of the floor as if searching for an escape route, then, resigned to his confinement, stood dejectedly, looking across at his companions, who ignored him, focused solely on their food.

Holst removed the gauntlets and set the camera to record. He was ready.

From a drawer beneath the bench he brought out a small remote-control unit and selected level one of twelve. He pressed the activate button and a short electronic bleep alerted Johnny to the start of the experiment. His head jerked round to face the steel ball, his eyes suddenly wide and alert. After no more than a second he took two steps across the cage and gingerly reached out with an extended finger to touch its reflective surface. His arm jerked sharply backwards with the force of the electric shock it administered. He squawked and ran a circuit of the cage, but within moments had taken up position again in front of the ball.

‘Don’t you want your banana?’ Holst said, half expecting the monkey to understand.

Seemingly in response to Holst’s prompt, Johnny noticed the slice of fruit sitting at the bottom of the chute and reached for it. He ate it distractedly, his gaze never leaving the ball.

Holst selected level three. The bleep sounded a second time. Johnny flicked out a hand. This time the increased voltage caused his whole body to spasm. Johnny jumped up and down and screeched, then grabbed the bars and shook them violently.

‘Johnny? Johnny, fruit?’

The segment of orange that had appeared at the foot of the chute remained untouched. This meant that the dopamine coursing through the monkey’s brain was already outweighing any pleasure he might have derived from eating it.

Holst selected level six.

The bleep brought Johnny straight back to the ball, which he slapped almost casually with his palm. The force of the shock threw him off his feet. He lay on his side, twitching and shaking as if suffering a seizure, but after several seconds was upright again. He stood quivering in the centre of the cage, fixated on the metal sphere.

Holst had never taken Johnny beyond level eight. There was a balance to be struck. If he progressed by gradual increments there was a danger that his subject’s dopamine receptors would become flooded and that he would descend into a temporary catatonic state, which was not the conclusion he was aiming for. He plumped for level ten.

The monkey approached the ball and reached out a trembling hand. The violent impact hurled him to the far side of the cage. Johnny lay in the corner trembling and jerking. Holst thought for a moment that he had misjudged and would have to start again with another subject, but after a short while Johnny’s nervous system began to recover. Now the macaque’s usually expressive face was set in a dull stare. The eyes were empty. The brain too flooded with pleasure to comprehend or receive any stimulus other than the one it craved.

Johnny hauled himself to his feet at the sound of the bleep and staggered drunkenly towards the sphere. Holst had selected level twelve. He glanced away as his subject received a shock of 2,000 milliamperes, double that which he had just received.

The bitter smell of singed fur reached Holst’s nostrils. He looked back and saw the monkey lying motionless, the right arm scorched as far as the shoulder. There were burns, too, on both feet where they had been in contact with the metal floor.

Holst switched off the power supply to the equipment, reached a stethoscope from a drawer and for the benefit of the camera confirmed the time of death as 4.18 a.m.

As he had hoped, the experiment had been an unqualified success. His fleeting sadness at Johnny’s passing was quickly superseded by his excitement at the implications of the result. He was going to be a wealthy man. Buoyed by this thought, he took the dead monkey from the cage and carried it across the lab to the incinerator with no trace of remorse. What was life, after all, if not a commodity like any other that could be bought, sold, squandered, relished or, in this case, invested for the good of others?

Willie, Merle, Dolly and June continued to munch their fruit in silence.

Dawn was breaking. Holst hurried from the university building trundling his carry-on suitcase and climbed into the waiting taxi. He instructed the driver to take him to Kongens Nytorv, the large square a short walk from the rendezvous point he had arranged with Drecker. During the ten-minute journey through deserted streets Holst felt as if he were floating between two realities. One was that in which he had lived for the last five years: dividing his working week between London and Copenhagen while frantically trying to keep up with the demands of two faculties, the complexities of overseeing students in two cities and the needs of his young and all too often neglected family; the other was the exhilarating life to come. He taunted himself with the thought that if some disaster were to befall him in the next few minutes it would all be for nothing. The entirety of his work and any prospect of his wife and children profiting from it would die with him. All of his data and the details of his methodology were stored in a series of secure cloud accounts to which only he knew the complex passwords of which there existed no written records. Keeping all of this to himself presented a huge danger, but at the frontiers of science, until the grand moment of unveiling, secrecy was critical. It was simply the risk he had to take.

Throughout his career Holst had sustained himself with the fantasy of one day announcing a world-changing discovery that would bring the acclamation of his peers. His introduction to Drecker, nearly two years ago to the day, had changed everything. The prospect of prizes and professorships had paled in comparison with the promise of money. It was a calculation most scientists never had the privilege to make, hence their hollow claims to be unconcerned with material wealth. Holst knew that there wasn’t a single man or woman among his colleagues who didn’t resent receiving only a paltry salary while relative dunces prospered. Dunces like an old school friend, Bo, who had once joked to him that the millions he had made in finance were nothing to do with brilliance but merely an accident of environment. If he had worked on a market stall, he liked to joke, he would have come home with pockets stuffed full with carrots and potatoes, but he worked in a bank so got to gorge himself with cash. Bo’s smug laughter had filled Holst with bitterness, jealousy and self-loathing.

Then Drecker had found him. The moment Holst had smelled money, real money, he had known that no amount of academic prestige could compete. Prestige didn’t buy luxurious homes or portfolios of investments, or afford the time in which to exercise and keep his middle-aged body from bloating and sagging. Prestige didn’t even allow for the purchase of a decent watch or a tailored suit from one of the smart boutiques that lined the street along which the taxi was now passing. He had always felt there was something seriously wrong with a world in which a man of his intelligence was forced to live like a pauper. Now was his moment to remedy the injustice.

Holst emerged from the taxi into a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea. He paid the driver in cash and completed the final few hundred yards to his destination on foot. Drecker had requested they meet outside the Skuespilhuset, a muted, modern, distinctively Danish structure that stood at the corner of the Nyhavn dock and the broad expanse of the harbour. The approach to the theatre, once a bustling quay crammed with fishing boats and cargo vessels, was now a cobbled promenade with uninterrupted views across the still water to the lights of Christianshavn on the far side. As he strolled, Holst recalled with a smile of amusement how overwhelmed he had been by the vastness of this city on his first visit from his small home town in Jutland. Twenty-five years later he no longer regarded it as a metropolis but as an agreeable, comfortably provincial town far removed from the centre of things. A place of which he remained fond, but which, without doubt, he had long outgrown.

Drecker was already waiting at the entrance to the sloping boardwalk leading to the theatre’s waterfront terrace. She was dressed, as always, in a dark, close-fitting suit and was carrying a slim attaché case.

‘Good morning, Dr Holst.’ She smiled pleasantly as he approached.

‘Good morning. I’m sorry we had to meet at such an inconvenient hour.’

‘No problem. How did it go?’ As usual, she seemed eager to dispense with small talk.

‘Entirely as anticipated. A complete success.’ He reached into the pocket of his crumpled summer-weight jacket and brought out a memory card in a transparent bag. ‘I filmed the procedure less than an hour ago.’ He handed it to her. ‘As soon as the fifteen million dollars appears in my Cayman account I’ll email all the passcodes to the technical papers. As I hope I’ve made plain from the outset, I remain willing to help or advise in any way.’ He was aware of a new note of confidence in his voice. He felt like a rich man should. ‘I plan to stay in my current posts until the end of the year, but after that I’ll be happy to place myself at your exclusive disposal – to head up a team or whatever you wish. Subject to terms, of course.’

As he spoke, Holst became aware of a large black car approaching along the road that ran along the side of the promenade. At first he paid it scant attention, assuming it would turn left into Kvæsthusgade, but it passed the junction and continued towards them, slowing to little more than walking pace.

‘We assumed as much,’ Drecker replied. ‘So my colleagues and I have discussed the matter and decided to make you a very attractive proposition based on some of our previous discussions.’

‘You have? You want to create a dedicated facility?’ Holst’s excitement was tempered by the steady approach of the car. He now assumed it was Drecker’s transport, but why wasn’t it waiting when he arrived? Behind the bluish glare of the halogen headlights he made out the silhouettes of a driver and passenger.

‘We would like to talk with you somewhere more comfortable. Now would be a good time.’

‘I’m afraid I have to leave for the airport.’

The car came to a stop a short distance away. The passenger, a tall man with an olive complexion, climbed out and stood in readiness to receive them.

‘Please, Dr Holst. It’s most important.’ She gestured towards the vehicle.

‘I can’t. It’s too late for me to change my arrangements – I’ve classes to teach in London today.’

‘Do we have an agreement or not, Doctor?’ she said sharply, dropping all pretence at cordiality.

‘We have a contract of sale for my intellectual property –’ he pleaded, his voice losing all its authority.

‘But your work alone is not sufficient for our purposes, Dr Holst. It’s only part of the equation, which is why we need to talk about what happens next.’

‘I beg your pardon? I’m sorry, Ms Drecker, but if you’re trying to renegotiate terms I’m afraid it’s out of the question.’

Drecker reached into her jacket and brought out a pistol, sleek and black, which she levelled at his chest. Holst tasted bile in his throat. The strength bled from his limbs. His legs quivered and threatened to collapse beneath him.

Now he understood the reason she had chosen this isolated spot for their meeting.

‘You can’t kill me. You’ll have nothing if you do,’ he protested feebly.

‘Please, Dr Holst. Do as I ask and get in the car. I don’t want to have to hurt you.’