The Lifers' Club

by Francis Pryor

  * * *

  Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny. Even though it clouded over around midday, and there were odd showers in the afternoon, the barometer in Grahame’s hall showed pressure rising. With luck, Alan thought, the unsettled weather will soon give way to something a bit better. Alan was hoping to get out of the house, go for a good long walk and clear his head. But Grahame was having none of it. Since Alan’s late night confession on his arrival, the brothers had barely seen each other. Grahame has been up very early to tend to the farm and Alan had been working late at PFC. Now with a full day ahead of them, there was no escape. Grahame brewed a strong pot of coffee and placed it on the table between them.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Tell me about this Kevin bloke.’

  Alan hesitated, reluctant. He’d already put Harriet in an impossible situation. He didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.

  ‘Honestly, Grahame, it’s not your problem.’

  ‘You’re my little brother. Of course it’s my bloody problem.’

  Alan smiled. He couldn’t remember Grahame calling him that for years – not since their dad died.

  ‘OK. I’ll be straight with you.’

  He found he was relieved to be talking freely, at last.

  ‘I can’t prove anything about the Land Rover, but I don’t like Kevin and his two mates – and I know for a fact he had plenty of opportunities to rig something up on the Land Rover, during the day. The police showed that the fuel supply had been tampered with, too.’

  ‘Really, and who d’you think did that?’

  ‘Ultimately, we can only guess, but I do know that Kevin was in the Royal Engineers, and although I think he’s nasty – a real PK – he’s also not stupid. And if he was a Sapper, he must have been trained in demolition, booby traps, that sort of thing. He’s also trained to take orders. So if the Kabuls had indeed instructed him to eliminate me, that’s what he’d do.’

  ‘So are you also saying that Steve’s death was another botched attempt to kill you?’

  ‘I can’t be certain, of course, but there’s a lot about that “accident” that worries me.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, Steve’s an experienced banksman. He knows,’ he corrected himself, ‘he knew how to do the job safely. He was wearing Hi-vis and a hard hat.’

  ‘But they’re not much use when the ground beneath your feet gives way, are they?’

  ‘Of course not, but I’m also pretty certain he’d have been standing outside the back acter’s slewing arc. His shovel was lying well back from the hole. It’s basic stuff. You never stand so close that you’d be caught in a collapse.’

  ‘What was Steve like to work with? Did he take idiotic risks like you?’

  Alan smiled ruefully, his brother had a point. Then he pressed on.

  ‘That’s what worries me. He was red hot on health and safety. It’s so unlike Steve to be caught like that. Now I admit they were operating well outside the area we had geophys’d…’

  ‘Why was that? Why hadn’t you geophys’d it?’

  ‘Simply because of the Victorian disturbance. All that brick rubble would completely defeat a magnetometer, although with hindsight GPR would…’

  ‘GPR?’

  ‘Ground-penetrating radar. That would certainly have detected the water-filled cistern. It was what they were originally designed to do, in Japan, back in the 1970s. They were used to detect empty voids beneath roads in a sandy district. Saved many lives, apparently.’

  Then Alan remembered it was Paul who had vetoed the need to use GPR, as they’d have to hire in the equipment. He said the expense was over the top; that magnetometry and resistivity would be more than enough. Maybe he’d suggested as much to the County?

  ‘But surely,’ Grahame asked, ‘you don’t think that somehow they deliberately set out to find a buried cistern and then smash it, do you? And besides, you said the driver couldn’t speak a word of English.’

  Alan wasn’t quite sure why the driver’s language was relevant. But he did have a point.

  ‘I agree. I think the digger and its driver might be incidental. They’re part of it, but not instrumental, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘So what – who – is, as you put it, “instrumental”?’

  ‘The police think Paul was the intended victim. But he can’t be linked in any way with Impingham or the Land Rover, although he can be linked to those anomalous bone samples. I think that’s where the pattern – the links – really begin…’

  ‘So not with the Land Rover?’

  ‘Not at this stage. I think that could turn out to be part of something very different. No, in this instance, I’d rather concentrate closer to home.’

  ‘That’s good, if it means you’re thinking about your own skin for a change.’

  Alan ignored this.

  ‘Look, I’m not interested in the threat, or threats to me at this stage. In a sense they’re irrelevant. It’s what lies behind all this that needs to be sorted out. Otherwise we’re just treating symptoms.’

  ‘But if those symptoms are life-threatening and involve collapsing cisterns and exploding Land Rovers, we can’t just sit here and do nothing.’

  ‘I’m not doing nothing …’

  ‘So what are you doing?’

  He had to get him to understand.

  ‘Look,’ he paused briefly, before continuing. ‘We’ve got to think about the links between the Kabuls and Priory Farm.’

  He walked across to the table, picked up an orange and started peeling it, while assembling his thoughts.

  ‘I’m convinced Paul is the way into this problem. He must be the original link with the Kabuls. We know for a fact that their relationship goes right back to Flax Hole, in 2002, right?’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean they were up to no good back then, does it?’

  ‘The fact is,’ he continued, standing with his back to the unlit fireplace, ‘Paul was never told that Steve had replaced me. And don’t you think it was a bit odd, the way the digger was delayed till the weekend, when there was nobody around?’

  ‘But was that necessarily Paul? It could equally well have been the Kabuls, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Possibly. We’ll probably never know for sure.’ He paused. ‘No, it’s that link with the Kabuls again…’

  He tailed off, then resumed.

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything to Richard Lane, as it would only add fuel to the police drugs theories, which I still think are bonkers, but Paul does seem to have had a very close relationship with the Kabuls. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they hadn’t provided – by loan or by grant – some of the capital required to build the new facilities PFC need for the big York job.’

  ‘Do the Kabuls have interests in a bank or mortgage broker?’

  ‘No, not that I know of… But they do have access to loads of money. The new archaeology building may in theory be temporary, but it must be worth hundreds of thousands. Apart from the basic frame, it’s purpose-built. And I’ve no idea how Paul found the capital.’

  ‘So you think Paul and the Kabuls have come to a big financial deal, do you? That the dodgy accounting is just the tip of the iceberg?’

  ‘It’s the most likely scenario so far…’ He paused. ‘And it might also explain that strange business of the threat.’

  ‘Yes, but what’s behind it?’ Grahame asked.

  Alan looked puzzled. He didn’t get what he was driving at.

  ‘Behind what?’

  ‘Behind the deal. If it is a deal: what’s the collateral? You don’t invest large sums of money on a whim, do you?’

  ‘You certainly don’t. To be honest I don’t know what it’s about, except I’d be most surprised if Paul would ever get involved with drugs.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He’s far too intelli
gent. He’d know one day he’d be found out. Too many well-funded law enforcement agencies – police, customs, Special Branch, even MI5 – are sniffing around the narcotics world. Opium poppies provide most of the cash that funds the Taliban. No, whatever he’s up to is more subtle than that. And it’s also on a smaller, national, not an international, scale.’

  ‘But he’s definitely up to something, isn’t he? Whether acting under the Kabuls’ orders or not.’

  ‘Definitely. Not least because Paul himself surveyed the area he wanted me to geophys.’

  ‘Maybe he was just trying to help.’

  ‘Paul doesn’t really do help – not without his own agenda. He could just as well have asked us to do it when we got back from Impingham in the afternoon. Even without Steve’s GPS kit, we’d have finished it in a fraction of the time.’

  ‘And why is that so important?’

  ‘Don’t you see, if we had surveyed it, I’d have spotted the manhole covers over the cistern and would have included them in the geophys area, just to be safe.’

  Grahame nodded and gestured to Alan to continue.

  ‘It seems to me he didn’t want us to recce the bits outside that one little area, he’d so carefully and vividly defined.’

  Alan had suddenly realised the word ‘vividly’ was crucial to this. He remembered thinking, as they arrived to do the actual survey, that it was all a bit over the top, with lots of red spray and bright red pegs. You’d have to be blind to miss it. He remembered saying to Steve that it was almost as if Paul thought they were stupid. And how right he was…

  ‘So you’re saying he planned the whole thing?’

  ‘I think so. He knows how an archaeologist’s mind works. Mine especially, we’ve worked together enough. I always focus in on something, as soon as it’s given a clear edge. Like those graves within the pipe trench at Guthlic’s. I honestly couldn’t tell you much about the rest of the graveyard, not without chasing up maps and plans.’

  They both thought about the implications of this. Alan was the first to speak.

  ‘As I said, the man’s not stupid. He knew how to manage my response. And I think he achieved almost everything he wanted…’

  ‘“Almost” everything?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alan continued, ‘except, of course, there was one huge problem.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘He got the wrong man.’

  ‘Right,’ said Grahame. He got up and rummaged through the kitchen table drawer, until he found a scrap of paper and a pencil. Next he walked over to the shelves where he kept his books on Fenland wartime defences. He paused for a moment, then pulled out a large volume with a picture of a Lancaster in front of a hangar on the cover. Then he sat back down next to Alan.

  ‘I reckon you’re all right for a few days. They’ll know that the police are keeping an eye on them. Gives us time to make a plan.’

  ‘Really, Grahame, you don’t have to…’

  Grahame gestured at Alan to shut up. He did so.

  ‘Do you remember that awful accident granddad used to tell us about?’

  Alan frowned. Of course he did. His grandfather was a doctor in Bourne. He was an integral part of the community – and the incident had shaken him to the core. He’d received a call from the local brewery. One of the workers, whose job was to skim the dead yeast off the surface of the fermentation vessels, had reached in too far. Carbon dioxide is a by-product of fermentation. It’s heavier than air, and it lay in an invisible cloud directly above the liquid. The man had inadvertently breathed some of this in, as he leaned forward with the rake. Normally it wouldn’t have been fatal, CO2 being suffocating rather than toxic, but he was also at full stretch and out of breath. So he pitched in, face-down, and drowned. There was nothing their grandfather could have done to prevent it, but he was plagued by a feeling of guilt for the rest of his life.

  ‘Of course, but I don’t see what that’s got to do…’

  ‘You will,’ Grahame replied. He opened the large book and thumbed through a series of ground plans and elevations. ‘Aah,’ he muttered to himself, ‘Type B1 prefabricated. This is it…’

  Alan looked on while his brother picked up his pencil and began to work.

  The pictures were clear, detailed and precise. Alan had always wished he could draw as well as his brother, who had a real flair.

  ‘A back up plan, right?’ said Grahame.

  Alan looked at it for a long time. Then slowly, he nodded in agreement.

  * * *

  Dawn on Sunday was superb, and even better, the forecast confidently predicted the next five days would remain fine.

  Shortly after breakfast, Alan set out for St Guthlic’s and the ceremonial opening of the new toilets. The tape was to be cut by the Rural Dean. Three weeks previously, the vicar, in his covering note that accompanied their invitation, had said how much he hoped they could attend this special ‘Christening’. It was the last thing he wanted to do but then, on the other hand, Harriet might just be there…

  He parked in a field gateway, as the narrow lane to the church was full of cars and four-wheel drives. The small church car park was overflowing, too. As he approached, he could see members of the congregation filing out through the porch. Harriet was amongst them. She gave him a small nod, and then purposefully started engaging in animated conversation with the elderly lady standing beside her. Alan got the message, and he could hardly blame her. The vicar and Rural Dean were standing side-by-side, in full cassock and surplice, each shaking the hand of every member of the congregation. After the unveiling of a small plaque, Alistair invited everyone back to Scoby Hall for ‘a bite of lunch and a glass of wine’.

  Towards the end of lunch, when Alistair felt he could now escape from his duties as hereditary Squire of Scoby, he approached Alan for a quiet word. Meanwhile Harriet and Alistair’s wife Claire had gone out into the garden together.

  Alan and Alistair withdrew to the library, which, despite its name, was lined more with hunting prints than shelves of books; but it was a quiet and pleasant room, with a high ceiling and comfortable leather-covered armchairs. And it must be bitterly cold in winter, Alan thought. They sat down and Alistair produced a manila folder from a locked drawer, in one of three large desks, at the centre of the room.

  ‘Well, Alan, I have to say you were dead right. I went to various City archives along with my young cousin Davey.’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned him the last time I was here.’

  ‘That’s right. The eldest of the two lads. I say “lads”. But Davey’s now nineteen and about to go up to Oxford. He’s very bright and keen on history. Incidentally, I mentioned your name and he’d heard of your work in the Fens.’

  ‘I’m honoured.’

  ‘Yes, but that shows he’s a thorough-going sort of chap. Doesn’t skate over the surface. Anyhow, we started researching AAC’s activities in the City and soon found some strange goings-on.’

  ‘Like what?’ Alan was intrigued.

  ‘Like investing heavily in high-risk commodities, such as rubber and sugar in places like South America, where the political situation was far from stable. But he seemed to have got away with it. So far so good, we thought. Then the record went quiet for about five years and we couldn’t work out what he’d been up to. The next time he surfaces, he seems to have involved himself in South African affairs.’

  ‘Hardly a stable part of the world at the time, either?’

  ‘No.’ Alistair continued: ‘But again he seems to have been remarkably astute. He was well in with the Boers, after their initial victory over the British in 1880 to 1881, and established good contacts in the young independent republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The next big thing to happen was the discovery of the immense Witwatersrand gold field in 1886. He seems to have done quite well out of the mines, but not content with that, he used his new ca
pital and his existing contacts to sell arms to the Boers, in 1899.’

  ‘Wasn’t that the start of the Boer War that made it into history?’

  ‘Yes. Before that it was more undercover.’

  ‘And we went on the offensive, to get the mines and the Transvaal safely back in the Empire?’

  ‘Yes, and of course we were successful.’ Alistair resumed his story: ‘But so far as I could make out, he seems to have made even more money selling guns, than he did from gold. Anyhow, he used these largely ill-gotten gains to buy the Scoby estate. So although he always told people that he made his money from the City and from banking, in reality he traded arms to a state that was fighting the British army. I don’t think you can sink much lower than that…’ His voice tailed off.

  For a traditional Englishman, this was the sin against the Holy Ghost. They sat for a moment in silence. Through the library’s French windows he could see Harriet and Claire turning back towards the house.

  ‘Does Claire know about AAC’s various exploits?’ Alan asked quickly.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Do you plan to tell her?’

  ‘Funny you asked that. I certainly wouldn’t have done, if all we knew about was his incest with poor Tiny. But now he seems a more – how can I put it? – a more… a more… well-rounded villain, it’s somehow a bit different. You were quite right, you know: yes, I now realise he was an out-and-out shit, with eyes only for himself and the main chance, but somehow he’s also become more comprehensible.’

  ‘Why’s that, do you think?’ Alan asked. ‘Because he was also a crooked arms dealer?’

  ‘I know. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? But yes. As you said the last time we met, somehow he’s become more human.’

  To an outsider that might have sounded strange, but Alan knew what he was saying.

  ‘So to answer your question, Alan: yes, I’ve decided I will tell her. But not just yet, if you don’t mind.’

  Alan could see Harriet lean towards Claire and gesture towards the library windows. Claire nodded, squeezed her arm and led her out of his sight.