by Clare Carson
She nodded. She and Luke had sympathized with them too, the mountain tribesmen fighting the Soviet regime. David and Goliath. That was why he’d bought her a pakol from Kensington Market – a show of solidarity. But she wasn’t sure how much beyond wearing a hat she would be prepared to go. Not least because Tom’s article had also said the Mujahedeen were a bunch of women-hating fundamentalists. She put her head in her hands. Something was niggling her, but she didn’t want to think about it. Sonny touched her arm. She jumped.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Not really, no. I was just thinking about this conversation I had with Dave the night before... I asked him about stealing radioactive waste, spent fuel rods, from a power station to make a bomb and he said that was far-fetched.’ She heard Dave’s voice in her head. Ludicrous even by your standards.
‘But he said something else.’
‘What?’
‘He said it would be much easier to pick up radioactive material from a source like a hospital or a research lab. Release it into the air. Water. Contamination.’
Sonny didn’t say anything.
‘They’re stealing caesium from the research lab at Dungeness. They must be.’
‘Maybe.’
She knotted her brow. ‘Why would this Stavros swipe caesium from a lab in England to take to Afghanistan? Couldn’t he find a closer supply?’
‘It’s an easy source, I suppose,’ Sonny said. ‘And indirect. The old CIA rule – never leave a trace of American involvement. Especially if you’re not official – because then you’ve got a million more reasons to make sure whatever you do is untraceable.’
Her limbs trembled; she couldn’t stop her mind churning. The patterns formed in ways she didn’t like. Dave’s edginess. His evasiveness. The late-night phone call. The gun. Your guy down on the coast, that was what Regan said. Listen, there’s something else... Dave. She nagged at the fragments while she watched Sonny from the corner of her eye. Dave. What the fuck had he been up to? Could he possibly have been helping some mad American smuggle caesium 137 out of the Dungeness research lab, around the coast, across the Channel, through Europe to Afghanistan? At first glance, the idea seemed preposterous. She tried to see Dave in a different light. You could never be sure what other people were doing, what was going on inside their head. Everybody had secrets. Although, she liked to think that because of her dad’s work, she was more alert to the signs than most. But Dave? Crawford had his suspicions about Dave and Crawford knew what he was doing, according to Harry. No smoke without fire. Spyder needed something to feed off; he didn’t have the imagination to make it all up himself. Perhaps Crawford was half right. Dave was involved in something nefarious, but it wasn’t an armed hijack of a nuclear waste container.
‘This might sound mad, but I’m beginning to wonder whether Dave was involved in some way. Do you think he could have been Stavros’s guy on the coast, the one Regan mentioned?’
Sonny tapped his fingers on the table. ‘I don’t see it. Nee.’
His reactions annoyed her. He sounded so certain, as if he knew exactly what was going on, had some vital piece of information she didn’t have.
‘OK. I’m going to sleep on it,’ she said. ‘Think about what we do next.’
‘Next? Isn’t this enough?’ He gestured at the Dictaphone. ‘This Stavros is a lunatic. Doesn’t that make you want to back off? Run in the opposite direction? Why can’t you let your friend Harry sort out your file and leave it at that?’
‘I can’t be bothered to go through this again. I’ve got to find Luke. I don’t have any choice.’
‘There’s always a choice. That’s what you told me. I’m with your friend Frannie. It’s stupid running after blokes who have disappeared.’ He pushed the chair back. ‘I’m going to bed. Goeie nag.’
He left the kitchen, the moth still thrashing against the lightbulb.
‘Gooey bloody nag to you too.’
She needed a cup of tea, filled the kettle, turned the tap harder than she intended, water gushed violently, flushed a silverfish from its cranny. It slithered across the Formica. Silverfish, Dave had told her one evening when she had suggested that bleach might be the answer, perform an elaborate courtship ritual. The male and female stand head to head, antennae touching, then they break apart and reunite in a strangely moving dance before the male runs away and the female has to chase him so they can mate. Dave had almost succeeded in making her like silverfish. He didn’t love nature in a sentimental or spiritual way, he was fascinated by the science, the principles and forces that made the earth spin, and that was his salvation from the repeat patterns of his family, the suicide of his mother. He studied the periodic table in order to conquer it. He was an empiricist, a modern Charles Darwin, not interested in politics and the battles of competing ideologies. Or so she had thought. Perhaps she had missed something. She squashed the silverfish with the back of the coffee spoon, pressed hard to make sure it was dead. It occurred to her then that it could be personal. His mother was raped by the Red Army, she killed herself because she couldn’t live with the pain. His life was blighted by her death, his family destroyed. He had no reason to care about the Soviet soldiers. Perhaps he saw himself as saving the Afghan women from the same fate his mother had suffered. She could see it was reason enough – the deep, deep burning pain and resentment. He probably rationalized it, told himself the contamination would be contained. She had always thought he was blasé about the effects of radiation anyway. Jesus. Dave. And she hadn’t spotted it.
But then, if he was working with the American, why had he ended up dead? Suicide? She didn’t think so. Not Dave. The note – 55 pluto – what did it tell her? Pluto. The god of the underworld. The bleak descent. He was falling, wanted out, had tried to tell her when they were walking along the beach but she hadn’t understood. And what about 55? She had a momentary image of Dave sitting on his bed, dunking a Hobnob in his Aston Villa mug, the periodic table blu-tacked on the wall above his head. She concentrated, conjured up the chart in her mind, the numbers, the symbols. Of course.
Element number 55 was caesium. Obvious. The note was Dave’s confession. 55 pluto told her exactly what he had been doing, his involvement. Maybe he’d started off by providing advice to Stavros, nothing more, and then he’d found himself dragged further in, pushed to provide access to the research lab, his arm twisted, bullied. Tripping over the abyss. He wanted to extract himself, but by the time he tried to tell her, left the note, it was too late. She had missed all the signals. Regan hadn’t. What had Stavros said when Regan mentioned the guy on the coast? Made it safe. She pictured Regan walking away from Bane House the night before Dave died. Regan was there, watching, sensing he was cracking up, wobbling, about to spill the beans. And so he had been killed.
FOURTEEN
IT WASN’T THE drumming rain that was depriving her of sleep. The taped conversation between the American and Regan was playing in her head. Something needled her, a disconnect between tape and events, Sonny’s reactions, his evasions. She couldn’t put her finger on the problem. Fast forward. Pause. Rewind, back to the beginning of the conversation. The very beginning. ‘Skuse me, mate, you got the time?’ Then Sonny’s voice. ‘One fifteen.’ ‘Cheers.’ Stop. Rewind. Play again. ‘One fifteen.’ She sat up. One fifteen was the time Sonny had started recording the conversation at Heaven. How long had he been standing there eavesdropping? It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. Which meant he finished taping about one thirty-five, give or take a few minutes. The walk back from Charing Cross took forty minutes max. He should have returned by two fifteen, say two thirty at the outside. Yet he didn’t knock on the front door until gone four a.m.
She twisted the questions, doubts around in her stomach, knotted her gut, tighter and tighter. She reached into the drawer of the bedside cabinet, touched the cold metal of the Firebird, gripped it, stalked down the hall, entered Dave’s bedroom. Sonny’s body half covered by the duvet, half uncovered; a slight shift in his b
reathing. Bushcraft – never taken by surprise.
‘Sam.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you want something?’
Both hands on the Firebird, she pointed at his head, clicked the safety catch with her thumb.
‘Tell me what it is that you’re not telling me,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll shoot.’
He smiled, condescension at the corners of his mouth. ‘You’ve got to sound as if you mean it.’
‘I do. Fucking tell me.’
He reached over, as if he was about to take the weapon from her hand.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’
He assessed her face.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘Tell you what?’
‘What you did between one thirty and four last night.’
He stretched his eyes, wide and brown – innocent.
‘It’s on the tape,’ she said. ‘The time that you started recording the conversation.’
He blinked.
‘Tell me.’
‘Look, it’s no big deal.’
‘So tell me then.’
‘OK. OK. I followed Regan out the club. That’s all. She took a taxi and I took another and I followed her back to her place. Or at least, I assume it’s her place. Maybe it belongs to a friend or whatever, I don’t know. I didn’t hang around to find out.’
Her arms were trembling; she couldn’t hold the gun steady. ‘Why did you lie to me?’
‘Sam, sometimes it’s easier not to know. The truth can be a burden. I’m trying to protect you.’
She thought then about Spyder, Sonny’s insistence he hadn’t shot him, wondered whether he had lied about that so she wouldn’t be complicit in the killing.
‘I’m not a child. I can deal with it. You should have told me about Regan.’
‘I was afraid you would do something stupid, like go and spy on her.’
She flicked the safety catch on, let her arm relax. He locked his hands behind his head, sunk back into the pillow.
‘Where is this place she went to anyway?’
‘It’s near the river, past Waterloo Bridge. It looked like some kind of warehouse conversion. If it’s hers, she’s obviously not short of money.’
‘So?’
‘So, as I said last night, your friend Frannie is right. Regan is involved in drug dealing. Money out, smack back.’
‘And this Stavros – you think he’s involved in the drug smuggling as well?’
‘No. I think he’s plugged into her network to get the caesium delivered – makes life easier for him. It’s the same route, the Silk Road, to Afghanistan and back. Just add the caesium to the outward-bound packages.’
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Oh what?’
‘Reminds me of something Harry said about organized crime and terrorism, the overlaps.’
Sonny shrugged. ‘Well, the links are obvious, ja nee?’
‘I suppose so. It’s what Crawford’s lot deal with – the Sewer Squad.’
She returned to her room, replaced the Firebird in her bedside cabinet, hand on drawer, lost in thought, trying to understand the patterns. The phone rang. She ran downstairs, grabbed it.
‘Hello.’
Liz. She almost replaced the receiver. Thought better of it. How to explain her mother’s knack for always phoning at precisely the wrong moment? Psychic. Occult tendencies ran in the family, the witchcraft gene, this dark power to needle. Perhaps she had inherited it from her mother after all, not Jim.
‘Mum, if you’re going to ask about the postcard, then yes, it has arrived and yes, I have tried the recipe.’
‘Was it helpful?’
‘What, the recipe?’
‘Yes.’
Helpful? How could a recipe be helpful?
‘Yes, the recipe was helpful. Thanks. How is Milton?’
‘Heavy going.’
She could have told Liz that.
‘Actually, Roger and I decided we would forget the research and enjoy ourselves.’
Sam didn’t want to know. ‘When are you coming back?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘See you then. Bye.’
Sam was replacing the receiver as her mother said, ‘Take care.’
Too late to reply. Line dead already. She tried to swallow, there was a lump in her throat. She missed Liz. Shame about Roger. She’d just have to learn how to put up with him. The wanker.
Sonny was sitting at the kitchen table. He ferreted for his fag packet, produced his Zippo, flipped the lid, flicked the wheel, puffed. She watched him, stretching back on the chair so casually, doing his smoke ring thing, like a magician’s trick or a skylark’s song – a distraction. Look at the ring, not his face.
‘We can walk along the river to Waterloo,’ she said. ‘Check out the place you saw this woman Regan go to last night. See what we can find out.’
‘What’s the point?’
‘You know the point. The point is it could help me find Luke. What if Luke discovered something about this caesium stealing from his contact, the power station worker he met at Dungeness? What if the contact gave him Regan’s name? What if he bumped into her, caught her in the act? That’s probably the reason he’s gone into hiding.’
‘I thought you’d decided that Stavros and Regan are stealing caesium from the research lab, not the power station. So what would a power station worker have to do with all that?’
He was irritating her again with his sceptical tone. He was right, though, the power station worker was a link that didn’t quite join. She sighed, stuck her hands in her trouser pockets, dug out the piece of paper with the number of the contact she had found in Luke’s bedroom. P. Grogan. What was it about the name? She ogled the scrap until her vision blurred, and she called up all the places she might have seen it before, had an idea, hurtled upstairs to Dave’s room, flung open the cupboard door, pulled out his box of journal articles, dug down, yanked out the one she was looking for – an article Dave had written and had published in a refereed journal. He had been pleased with this one; she remembered him telling her how many hours of hard labour at the lab it had taken to produce the results. She went straight to the list of acknowledgements.
‘I would like to thank all the staff at the Dungeness experimental research station, including Patrick Grogan...’
That was where she had heard the name before. She ran back down the stairs to the kitchen.
‘The man Luke met the Saturday he disappeared. Grogan.’
‘What about him?’
‘He didn’t work at the power station. He worked at the research lab with Dave. I met him there once when Dave showed me around. He’s called Patrick. It’s beginning to make sense now.’
*
The sky was overcast – rain pending, but at least not precipitating. The low tide was on the turn, sludge water wheedling. She wanted to walk in silence. Sonny was edging to talk.
‘How long have you been seeing this guy Luke anyway?’ he asked.
‘About five months.’
‘Five months? Is that all?’
‘Longest I’ve ever managed.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘I bet you’re a dumper. I bet you’re always doing a runner. Leaving men standing.’
‘No. Well. Maybe.’ The truth was she hadn’t cared about boyfriends one way or the other before she met Luke, couldn’t be bothered with the game playing of relationships. Had a tendency to tell men to get lost if she felt they were intruding too much on her life, the things she enjoyed doing – hanging out with her friends, reading, archaeology, mooching around.
‘But Luke is different. You fell for him straight away. Love at first sight. Ja nee?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
She wasn’t sure why she was denying it. Habit. She didn’t like talking about her feelings, thought it was almost a weakness to acknowledge emotions. She must have inherited that attitude from Jim; maintain the cover, don’t give
away anything that matters.
‘What’s so great about Luke then?’
She conjured up an image of Luke in her head, his skin close to hers, his mouth on her neck, his weight on her. The aching absence.
‘We share interests,’ she said. ‘History. Nature. Bird watching.’
Sonny chortled. ‘Come on. You’re this worked up for somebody you like watching birds with?’
‘He makes me laugh. He’s fun. And we share the same political views.’
‘That’s romantic.’
‘It’s important to me.’
‘What are the political views you share then?’
‘Leftie. Don’t think much of political parties.’ She nodded her head in the direction of Westminster. ‘You know. Whoever you vote for, it’s always the government that gets in. And in Britain, the government is usually composed of a bunch of public school boys. Thatcher and her bully boys. They’re probably in there scheming away at this very minute, identifying some more heads to kick in now they’ve trampled all over the miners. So yeah – Westminster? Forget it. We are more interested in direct action. Protesting, campaigning. Anti-Thatcher. Against nuclear power and nuclear weapons. For nuclear disarmament. Luke’s more militant than me, though.’
‘In what way?’
She thought of Luke’s reaction to Alastair. He definitely had a thing about hippies.
‘Well, this protest we are organizing.’ Are. She realized as soon as she said it that the protest was unlikely ever to happen. ‘This protest we were organizing. I enjoyed meeting people, hanging out in the pub, having a laugh. For me it’s half the point. But Luke, he’s more focused on getting things done.’ Her hand went to the badges on her coat lapel: the feminist fist, Che Guevara, smiling sun nuclear power no thanks. She had bought the smiling sun when she was with Luke and they stopped to talk to a woman selling badges to raise money for the Friends of the Earth. Luke had rejected the smiling sun, said it was too wet, bought a badge with a radiation warning symbol – the three rays – and a red line through it. Nuclear-free zone. More his style.
Sonny said, ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, the things that draw people together and the things that keep them apart.’