She closed her eyes. It could be worse; at least she wasn’t letting anyone down. There was no one waiting for her out there, no one depending on her. Karel was just a man for hire. Gregor? She thought she loved him once. She even married him. But she couldn’t give him what he wanted.
When had her husband started sleeping with other women? Was it to punish her for her refusal to contemplate motherhood? Was it calculated carelessness to leave evidence of his affairs? But his secretary? How predictable. How pathetic. Pick someone you have power over. He lacked even the imagination to find a worthy rival. How lazy not to even leave work to fuck. Was Gregor any better than slimeball Frank? She hoped the Russians were teaching him a lesson up there.
Men weren’t all bad. It was her taste in men that was the problem. Beautiful, fit, sensitive, introverted young men made her go weak at the knees. Alpha male arrogance and bombast was an instant turn-off, maybe because she preferred to hunt than to be hunted, to retain control.
It wasn’t just about sex. She needed intimacy and human contact, warmth and scent, new cadence and fresh tastes. She wanted to hold and be held, give pleasure as well as take it, talk deep into the night and deeper into the soul. Jaq was a loner, but she was rarely lonely.
So why did she pursue relationships that couldn’t last? Did she unconsciously seek out built-in obsolescence? Was she attracted by the fatal flaws? Did she need a get-out-of-jail-free card with every commitment, a Bickford Fuse to ensure the relationship remained time-limited, never constraining?
Was that why she refused Johan all those years ago? Because he was perfect? The problem was hers; she never felt worthy of his love, and bad things always happened to the people she cared about. Johan was too good for her, generous and uncomplicated. He deserved someone good, someone like Emma.
Would her life have been different if her baby had lived? She never told anyone who the father was. Not her mother, not the school, not the priest, not the nuns. Even when they threatened her. She’d have told Aunt Lettie, but she was the one person who never asked. What if the baby had looked like Mr Peres? The same twinkling eyes as her chemistry teacher. Would they have guessed then? The nuns didn’t let her see her son. Was he deformed? The nuns prayed for his soul and assured her it was for the best. Did the sins of the mother twist and warp the baby? What of the sins of the grandmother? Angie disowned her own child and then . . . no, best not get angry.
Aunt Lettie whisked Jaq away, brought her to England, found a school that taught girls about contraception and self-confidence, allowed her to start over again in a place where no one judged her, where no one knew about her past, her mistakes. Where she became only the sum of her present actions. From the moment she left the convent, each new day was a gift.
What had Elena said about Sergei? That he wasn’t brave, he just had no fear. Perhaps she and Sergei weren’t so different. She wasn’t naturally brilliant, but she’d worked night and day to fill the emptiness. She wasn’t particularly sporty, but she always kept active. She wasn’t particularly adventurous; she just viewed risk differently from most people because she had less to lose.
If there was a heaven, Aunt Lettie would be waiting for her there with a gin and tonic, tickets to a film and a booking at a good restaurant.
Euphoria washed over her. The memories she had locked down, locked in, were clamouring for release. It was time to face up to the past and set them free. If there was a heaven, she could finally meet her own son. She was ready at last.
But first she needed to take a little rest.
Jaq lay down and closed her eyes.
Saturday 4 June, Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine
The rattling and whooshing meant something, but Jaq couldn’t remember what. An alarm? Was she late for work? She squeezed her eyes shut at the sudden flashes of light all around her. Where was she? A disco? Back at the karaoke bar in Kranjskabel? Was she drunk? That wasn’t like her; she could handle alcohol. Something fluttered past, caressing her cheek. The smell of grass replaced the foetid air around her. She sat up and inhaled great gulps of cool air as a wind whistled into the stagnant tunnel. A tunnel? Why was she lying on the floor of a tunnel? In the dark? She opened her eyes. No, it wasn’t dark any more. A ribbon of fluorescent tubes was winking and blinking and flashing into life. Her pulse was slowing, she was breathing more evenly now. As the oxygen levels returned to normal, her brain began to function. Danger. Move!
She crawled towards the fresh air, her limbs heavy and slow. Was the ventilation fan on a timer? Was it connected to the opening of a door? She remembered now. A trapdoor. Danger. Stop!
She stood up at the intersection of the six tunnels. The Russians had murdered Petr. Oh, Petr. She was a witness. If they found her here, she’d be shot too. Danger. Hide!
How long did the trapdoor stay open? Several minutes. If she hid in one of the side tunnels, then whoever was coming in would walk straight past her, and she could double back and escape the way they came in.
Which trapdoor would they leave by? She had a one in five chance of getting it wrong. Pretty good odds compared to some recent scenarios. She looked around. The lights were bright now. She would be seen. There was really only one choice, the tunnel with the bend; she could hide just around the corner until they passed by. Which one was it? Think.
Her pulse quickened at the sound of footsteps. More than one person. The bright light blinded her, and she splayed her fingers, scrabbling at the tunnel wall, searching for the scratch marks.
The sound of women’s voices, and laughter. Were they coming into the complex, or leaving? They were getting closer.
Her hands found the marks – four scratches. No! Which way, clockwise or anticlockwise? She went left, five scratches. Merda! The other way. Two scratches, this one.
She raced down the tunnel and reached the bend as the shadows crossed the intersection. A radio crackled.
‘Vidkreetye looyuk shist.’
Shist. That was a number. Odine, dva, tree, cheteerye, piyat, shist. Six, shist meant six. Trapdoor six. So that is how they got the doors open from inside, by radio.
‘Parole?’
She could hear the women repeating the word parole. Parole, as in release from prison? Parole as in word. Password. There was a short conversation. Everyone talking at once.
‘Zagrovyl.’
Of course. She allowed herself a grim smile. She could hear a motor whirring. The familiar creaking and squealing of neglected machines. Did these shady operatives not appreciate the importance of regular oiling and greasing? They weren’t too hot on tunnel ventilation either. Perhaps they needed a decent engineer. She peered round the bend; there was no one in the intersection. She moved stealthily towards the crossing. Which way had they come? The breeze carried a scent of apple. She lurched towards it, away from the retreating footsteps.
As she neared the ladder, she realised something was wrong. There was no light above it. Her heart beat faster and she began to run. Had it closed already? No, surely not, she’d have heard it. What time was it? It must be dark outside. A gasp of relief. The trapdoor was definitely open. The wind was whistling through it. Oh God, whistling. Whistling because the space was getting smaller, the same volume of air passing through a narrowing cross-sectional area at a higher velocity. She could feel the cool air, smell the grass, see the stars through the opening. Quick. The opening was closing. The trapdoor descending. At the base of the ladder she threw her backpack ahead and climbed, pushing the Tardis bag up to jam it into the closing hatch. Clang! Too late.
Jaq thumped the ladder with her fist, furious. Just a few seconds earlier and she’d have made it through. She refused to die in this tunnel. Her only chance was to run back to trapdoor six and follow the women going in the opposite direction. Maybe she could slip out behind them; maybe she would have to surrender to them. One thing was certain: she would not survive a night in this tunnel.
She yanked her bag free, tearing the backpack straps where it had been pinched bet
ween the trapdoor and frame, and sprinted back down the tunnel. In the harsh fluorescent light, the last pair of shoes disappeared up the ladder.
No time to be clever, no time to hesitate and miss the opportunity. She threw herself at the ladder and climbed, ignoring the cuts in her hand, the ache in her shoulders. Her head emerged, but she didn’t have time to take in her surroundings. The motor was whirring, the hatch pivoting. With a superhuman effort she hauled herself up the last rung and threw herself through the gap. Not a moment too soon. The trapdoor sprang shut with a resounding clang.
She lay face down in the dirt and waited. Expecting the muzzle of a gun in her back. The shout as someone raised the alarm. She took slow, deep breaths, glad of the fresh air. She counted to sixty and when nothing happened, she rolled over.
And gasped.
Saturday 4 June, Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine
Jaq looked up in amazement. The outside of the complex was 1970s Soviet brutalism gone to seed – maximum space for minimum concrete, lowest common denominator. Inside was a modern fairy tale of flawless engineering.
The trapdoor opened between two large tanks. The group of women who had climbed out of the tunnel ahead of her were already on the other side of one – they would not see her even if they glanced back. The sky was dark and there was no moon, just the tiny pinpricks of stars overhead. Floodlights illuminated several large metal cylinders, but the trapdoor lay in shadow. She rolled over towards the tank bund, a low concrete wall that divided one tank from another, counting sixteen stainless steel tanks, plus a further four wrapped in corrugated aluminium cladding. Each tank stood about six metres tall and two and a half metres wide. She did a quick sum in her head. Thirty tonnes of storage each if filled with water. Judging by the foam nozzles and toxic sensors, they did not contain water.
She squinted back towards the trapdoor. Hard to see where it was now. A helicopter stood between the tanks and the concrete buildings facing the perimeter. Now, inside the complex, she could see the buildings were follies, left to appear deserted and crumbling to the outside, forming a protective wall around this high-tech facility.
Metal tubes ran along a pipe bridge from the tank farm towards the wall and then into the ground. There must be a pipe tunnel as well as a people tunnel. Of course! The abandoned petrol station on the road from Belarus. The incongruity of the shiny new pipes and snap-shut couplings explained. It must be a pumping station. Tankers drew up and discharged to the complex two kilometres away. The rest came in by helicopter.
She edged round one of the tanks to gain a better view of the heart of the complex. Wow. This was what she’d glimpsed when she first rolled over. Lit from inside, it sparkled, a riot of colour. Her eyes were drawn to a huge glass assembly spanning the whole five-storey building. A refluxing waterfall of golden liquids bubbled and frothed. From the neck of a giant round-bottomed flask, a tall vertical glass column led into a fat horizontal condenser wound with helical coils, a bright blue coolant filling the pig’s tail. All the equipment was made of glass, but on a scale she had never encountered before. She half expected to see a giant stroll into his laboratory. It was bang up to date, and no expense had been spared. But what was it for?
She started with the tanks. They were labelled with international hazard symbols: a skull and crossbones, a dead fish, a flame. Not drinking water, then. Somewhere there must be a chemical name. She kept to the shadows and moved round each one, sniffing the air, trying to identify the faint smells. Nose-clearing, astringent. Ammonia? Sweet, sickly, organic. Chloroform? Could be useful. That fishy smell. Definitely an amine of some kind.
Three possible uses. Pharmaceuticals. Pesticides. Or chemical weapons. Given the security and the location, her money was on the latter.
Voices. She flattened herself against a tank, keeping to the shadows which lengthened with the flare of a match as a man lit a cigarette. He threw the match onto the ground where it continued to burn. She edged away from the tank. Someone needed to have a chat to this organisation about process safety.
As the man strode across the courtyard talking into a phone, illuminated by a security lamp, she recognised him. Tall, red hair, short beard. Redbeard – one of the Russians who had tried to abduct her in Kranjskabel.
‘Frank won’t cooperate,’ Redbeard said in answer to some question. ‘Right now, he’s considering his options in the basement, cooling off.’ He laughed. ‘We stuck him in the freezer.’
Frank would be glad of a pearl-buttoned waistcoat tonight.
Redbeard came towards her. She held her breath. Surely he wouldn’t venture too close to a tank of flammable solvent with a lighted cigarette?
‘Yes, boss, he’ll talk all right.’ Redbeard stopped and puffed. ‘We’ll dispose of what’s left.’ He laughed and spat.
Frank was going to be tortured and killed. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Unless she broke him out. Would he do the same for her? No chance. So what? She wasn’t planning on adopting Frank Good’s ethical code any time soon.
Redbeard cut the call and returned to the glass-fronted building. Jaq pressed back into the shadows.
‘Odna!’ he shouted into a panel next to a steel door.
The intercom crackled into life.
‘Parole?’
‘Zagrovyl.’
The door opened.
That same password again. Odna? Another number. Odna was the feminine version of one. So not the man. Door, dvyer, was it feminine? Must be.
She was debating her next move when a shaft of light streamed out from an old building to the left of the production palace. A man, bareheaded and dressed only in a loose blue boiler suit emerged backwards, pulling a large plastic box on wheels. Just a normal worker. Mario’s henchmen were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, not workwear. Someone needed to have a chat to the thugs about occupational hygiene as well as process safety. Wisps of steam curled around Box Man, and she caught the scent of soap. She waited until he crossed the courtyard before creeping to the door he’d left open. Jaq peered inside; rails and rails of boiler suits hanging eerily lifeless. Behind them, industrial washing machines hummed; coloured garments and yellow foam tumbled behind circular glass doors. She slipped through the door.
Inside the laundry she kept to the walls until she’d checked it was empty. A serious operation, too big for one man, it would take a team of workers to clean and press all the dirty workwear piled up in great heaps. Break time? Night shift – minimum manning? One thing was certain, Box Man would be coming back; he’d jammed a wooden wedge under the door to keep it open. She peered round the door; the courtyard was empty. She kicked out the wedge, let the door close and lock.
Jaq turned and examined the laundry. The colours of the workwear gave some clue to the organisation. Most of the garments were a dark grey colour – presumably for the operators. She’d seen the laundryman in a blue boiler suit; a few were on the next row, for cleaners and labourers. Half a row of green ones – in the unwashed pile these were the dirtiest, the imprint of a greasy chain, two small burn marks – for the fitters and sparkies. And finally, on individual hangers, a better-quality fabric in red – obviously for the managers. She hesitated; she needed to be as inconspicuous as possible. Obvious choice was the grey, but would there be female operators in this factory? She rifled through the rail. All shapes and sizes in everything except the red. This was Eastern Europe; women did just as much heavy manual work as men, but by the looks of it rarely made the top jobs. Plus ça change. She selected a grey boiler suit and held it against her body for size. Should she put it on over her jeans? She checked her dosimeter. High. Her filthy clothes were contaminated, it was a warm evening and she needed to be able to move quickly. She removed her passport and stripped to her underwear, pulling on the scratchy polycotton workwear. She stuffed her clothes, water bottle and portable Geiger counter into her Tardis bag and hid it under the pile of washing furthest from the machines.
A noise at the door told her Box Man had returned. He ratt
led the door and cursed. His footsteps retreated. How long before he found a key? She couldn’t take any chances. Was there another way out? No sign of another door, but at the far end of the laundry there was an L-shaped leg ending in a counter with a small shuttered window. A hatch connecting the laundry to another building? She slid the bolts and pulled the steel shutter up a few inches. The room beyond was in darkness, but the synthetic apple smell told her there were showers.
Jaq had experience in the design of industrial laundries. Bitter experience. The introduction of a modern laundry and amenity block at Seal Sands, the enforcement of industrial hygiene rules, was a contributing factor to the deaths.
If this was like Seal Sands, or any other factory she had worked in, then the laundry would link to changing rooms, which in turn would connect directly to the production building. The workers, like the ones she’d followed in the tunnel, would arrive in their own clothes, put them in lockers and dress in clean workwear from the laundry before going to work. Which way to go – back the way she came or deeper into the complex?
Click. The noise of a key in the door. Box Man was back.
The hatch was her only way out. She sat on the counter and swung her legs through the opening, lifting the shutter just enough to squeeze through. On the other side, she closed the shutter as quietly as she could and remained crouched on the floor, breath coming fast, heart thumping, waiting to see if the laundryman would raise the alarm.
The Chemical Detective Page 28