The sea surrounded them, darker now, turbid and restless.
‘Look.’ Giovanni pointed. A pod of bottlenose dolphins leapt in and out of the bow wave, their sleek grey bodies soaring and diving in perfect arcs.
Giovanni stood behind Jaq, not touching. The heat from his body warmed her back – low-frequency, long-wavelength radiation because it passed through the skin, gently melting her from the inside out. Her breath quickened, matching the rhythm of his hot breath on the back of her neck. She tipped her nose to catch the scent of him, sandalwood and leather. And musk. God, it had been a while.
Camilla stood beside them, transfixed by the dolphins. As the boat pulled away and the sea grew dark, she yawned. ‘Maybe I will rest for a while.’
Camilla stumbled as she turned. Giovanni leapt forward, offering his arm. ‘Let me check you have everything you need.’ He cast a long look back. ‘Wait for me,’ he mouthed before disappearing down into the galley.
Jaq slipped off her shoes and climbed the mast. She clipped onto the crow’s nest rail and stared out to sea. The yacht was making good progress: the Crimean cliffs a glimmer to the north; land already visible to the west. They would enter the Bosporus by nightfall, spend tomorrow crossing the Sea of Marmara, through the Dardanelles and into the Aegean Sea.
Once she handed Pauk over to the authorities, there were things to do. Visit Cecile and baby Lily. Call Karel with an apology. Treat Emma and Johan and the brood to a big celebration. Resign formally from Snow Science. And then what?
With the loose ends tied up, time for a break. Time for herself. Sail the Mediterranean. Write a textbook on the safe handling of explosives.
Giovanni emerged from the galley. He stood on the deck, legs apart, one hand raised to shield his dark eyes from the sun as he stared up at her. He had a special sort of stillness, total control of every muscle. Frozen. Waiting to see what she would do. Anticipating her next move. The waiting game. Predator and prey.
Good things come to those who wait. Even better things come when you take control. The sails luffed in the strengthening wind, trembling, whistling: the call of the hunt.
Sparks flew as Jaq slid down the mast towards Giovanni.
Game on.
Author’s Note
The Chemical Detective is a work of fiction, a story; I made things up.
There are, however, some real places and events – and some real science and engineering – blended in with the fantasy, so to clarify:
On 26 April 1986 an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to a massive release of radioactive material.1 Thirty-one people lost their lives as a direct result, and many more suffered chronic ill health and premature death in the decades afterwards. The worst-affected area of Ukraine and Belarus – the zone of alienation – will continue to be unfit for human habitation for centuries.
The Chernobyl Shelter Fund is an international project started in 1997 to contain the crumbling reactor sarcophagus so that the remaining radioactive material can be safely removed.2 In October 2017, the New Safe Confinement (NSC) was wheeled over the reactor at an estimated cost of 1.5 billion euros.
I was moved to tears by Svetlana Alexievich’s masterwork Voices from Chernobyl, collected oral testimony from survivors. For anyone interested in more technical details, Grigory Medvedev’s Chernobyl Notebook is a first-rate first-hand account. For those wishing to take a tour without leaving the sofa, Bill Murray’s excellent and concise Visiting Chernobyl gives a lucid account.
The shadowy organisation SLYV, and the secret chemical weapons complex hiding in the shadow of the real NSC, are pure fiction.
Geiger counters and other scanners are used to screen goods crossing borders and ports. Manufacture and trade in scheduled chemicals (those that can be used for both legitimate and nefarious purposes) is restricted under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Tracers are added to explosives like Semtex; some tracers have a distinctive scent.
The company Tyche, and the Tyche tracker, are fictional.
A hole in the periodic table3 was filled with discovery of the element with atomic number4 87 (between radon, 86 and radium, 88). Claimed by many (with names russium, alkalinium, viginium, moldavium, eka-caesium, actinium K), the first confirmed discovery was by Marguerite Perey in 1939, who named it after her country, France.
Francium is an extremely rare, highly radioactive metal. The most expensive naturally occurring element in the world is found in trace quantities in uranium and thorium ores where it is continually forming and decaying into astatine, radium and radon. There are 34 known isotopes,5 the most stable of which is francium 223 with a half-life6 of 22 minutes.
Quite apart from the rarity and radiotoxicity of Francium (poor Marguerite died of cancer, like so many researchers from the Marie Curie Institute) it would make no sense to use Francium as a tracer, which is why fictitious company Zagrovyl discover a fictitious isotope of Francium with fictitious properties that perfectly fit the bill for fictitious company Tyche who purchase it at ruinous expense.
ESA (European Space Agency), Earthwatch (connecting the general public with scientists to collaborate on environmental field research) and OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) are all real organisations doing important work. OPCW won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 in recognition of its efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.
In its heyday, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was the largest manufacturer in the UK. Formed in 1926, it had divisions manufacturing everything from explosives to fertiliser, pesticides to plastic, paint to precious metals, radioisotope trackers to fragrances. The main UK plants included Billingham and Wilton on Teesside. ICI sold off most of its business in the late 1990s and early 2000s in an unsuccessful attempt to improve profits by moving away from bulk chemicals. The company had all but completely disappeared by 2008, but its legacy lives on in Teesside with many of the old ICI factories still in production though operated by other multinational chemical companies.
Gaia Vince’s brilliant book Adventures in the Anthropocene, with its fascinating story of artificial glaciers in Ladakh, inspired the idea of an alpine research organisation dedicated to snow and ice.
Snow Science is a fictitious research institute. Kranjskabel is a fictitious place, roughly located near the beautiful town of Kranjska Gora in Slovenia, but looking a lot like Meribel in France.
‘Monday morning sudden death’ was a recognised phenomenon among workers in dynamite factories, caused by a physical response to withdrawal from chemicals over the weekend. Nitroglycerine and nitroglycol cause blood vessels to widen. When exposure is interrupted, the blood vessels constrict, and in extreme cases, the reduced blood flow to the heart can lead to sudden heart attack and death.
There are no recorded cases of sudden death due to improved industrial hygiene. There is no nitroglycerine factory in Seal Sands.
And, just in case it needs to be said, although I may have stolen some names, none of the characters in the book represents a real person.
_______________
1 About six tonnes (or 3.5 per cent) of the nuclear fuel was released to the environment, including radioactive krypton, xenon, iodine, caesium, strontium, tellurium, zirconium, niobium, lanthanum, cerium, neptunium and plutonium.
2 Of the original nuclear fuel (180 tonnes), about 95 per cent remains under the sarcophagus in the form of core fragments, dust and lava-like ‘corium’.
3 Periodic table: a table of the 118 chemical elements arranged in order of atomic number, usually in rows, so that elements with similar atomic structure (and hence similar chemical properties) appear in vertical columns.
4 Atomic number: number of protons in the nucleus.
5 Isotope: variants of a chemical element with the same atomic number (same number of protons in the nucleus) but with a different number of neutrons and therefore a different atomic mass.
6 Half-life: the time taken for half of the material to decay.
Acknowledgements
I started writing the Jaq Silver series of stories after a skiing accident gave me some unexpected time off work. Alas, my enthusiasm for the project vastly outstripped my skill. My best friend, Marjory Flynn, suggested I stop and learn how to write. But what do best friends know? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Edward Fenton kindly confirmed that my wild first draft was far from publication-ready.
Enter Debi Alper and Emma Darwin and the cast of the wonderful Self-Edit Your Novel course: Jo, Isabelwriter, Cathybramly, Peter, Woolybeans, Kath, Britta, Jane, Planetstalker and Jaxbees. I learned so much from all of you.
Cue tearing up of first novel and starting again.
Writing can be a lonely business; I couldn’t have continued without the support of the writing community on the Word Cloud. Too many of you to name, but a special thanks to Moira and Jane for ‘The Place to Write’, to Alan Peabody for the annual short story competitions that introduced me to a whole new discipline, to William Angelo for maintaining a great tradition, to Ian Barnard for the game of tag and to the marvellous Randoms (brilliantly curated by the talented and generous writers Matt Willis and J. A. Ironside) for keeping me sane.
Hilary Dalenian, an inspiring leadership coach, and the WIG group – Pauline, Sarah, Hannah, Mitzi and Theresa – rebuilt my confidence and introduced me to the J. K. Rowling talk on failure. An exultation of professional editors knocked me back on track at various points: amy@thewritehelper, Jackie Buxton, Kate Foster and Rebecca Carpenter. Andrew Wille gave me encouragement and a book list and Debi Alper was always there when I needed her.
To my early Beta Readers, Christine, Shell, Barny, Britta and others expunged from memory through embarrassment – my sincere apologies. I had much to learn.
To my later Beta Readers, including Karen Ginnane, Jane Shufflebotham, Martin Gilbert, Ian Andrews, Gail Jack, Rupert Baines – thanks for your insight and generosity; with special mentions to Claire Barnard for her attention to detail, R. J. Jefferson for the mercenaries, Dr Raine Wilson for the flora and fauna of polesia.
Expert chemical help came from Ken Patterson and Tony Fishwick, foreign language assistance from Carmo, Barry and Erin, yachting advice from Jo Morgan and outdoor fun with River Deep Mountain High.
All mistakes are my own.
To Christine and Charles and the Greenough family – thanks for the Lakeland writing retreat.
To my wonderful in-laws, Pam and Andrew, who welcomed me into the Erskine family – thanks for the love and books.
To my children, Andrew and Joseph – thanks for the musical education and the excuse to go kayaking, sailing, skiing and surfing.
To Juliet Mushens, my fabulous agent, for believing in this project, and to Jenny Parrott, my awesome editor, to Jenny Page, Harriet Wade, Margot Weale, Thanhmai Bui-Van, Paul Nash and all the team at Oneworld, thanks for making it happen.
And to Jonathan, for his wisdom, patience, food and love. SYN.
A Point Blank Book
First published in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and Australia
by Point Blank, an imprint of Oneworld Publications, 2019
This ebook published 2019
Copyright © Fiona Erskine 2019
The moral right of Fiona Erskine to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78607-492-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-78607-493-5 (ebook)
Typeset by Geethik Technologies
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Oneworld Publications
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The Chemical Detective Page 36