Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Good life?’

  ‘The best.’

  ‘But you came back?’

  ‘Had to. My dad was ill and my wife’s folks weren’t too clever, either,’ he said. ‘It’s not a bad place, Pompey. I’ve seen plenty worse.’

  Zhu didn’t respond. Tully was a partner in Quex Corporate, an investigation agency in the city. The agency specialized in commercial work, and Tully exactly met Zhu’s careful stipulations. He’d wanted someone local, someone discreet, someone who’d know exactly how to access certain information. So far he’d limited the brief to business enquiries but the service he’d received from Tully had already impressed him. Responses to specific questions had seldom taken longer than a day, and as the pile of telexed reports thickened, Zhu had become more and more curious about the kind of man he’d find behind the painstaking analyses and the colourless prose. The Englishmen he dealt with in Singapore were a different breed – arrogant, young, shallow – and meeting Tully in the flesh had been a relief. There were some things in this man that money couldn’t buy. And he sensed that loyalty was one of them.

  Hua, the driver, had reappeared with the Thermos. Zhu told him to refill Tully’s cup.

  ‘Tell me about the hotel again,’ he said. ‘Can we see it from here?’ Tully peered into the distance, shaking his head. ‘It’s down in Southsea,’ he said. ‘Big place on the seafront. They’ll have seen my letter by now. I don’t anticipate a problem, Mr Zhu. The evidence is pretty watertight.’

  ‘And the lawyer? The one you recommended?’

  ‘You’re booked in this afternoon. Five o’clock.’

  ‘But is he good? This Mr Barnaby?’

  Tully glanced across at him, weighing the question carefully. ‘Sure,’ he said finally. ‘He’s the best.’

  Chapter Three

  Charlie Epple slipped into the waiting chair at the long glass table, still holding the flowers he’d bought half an hour ago from a florist behind the station. After the meeting he’d be taking a cab to the hospital. The flowers, he thought, might just cheer Jessie up.

  Faces around the table studied the flowers. The meeting had been called for eleven. It was already ten past.

  ‘Welcome …’ A figure at the head of the table stood up, extending a hand. Introductions followed, names and titles, smiles and handshakes. The city’s Strategy Unit occupied a corner of the third floor in the Civic Centre, a smoked-glass seventies building straddling two sides of the Guildhall Square, and numbered half a dozen key officers. With one exception, they were all around the table.

  A secretary came in with a tray of coffee and relieved Charlie of the flowers. She admired them at arm’s length and reminded him to collect them before he left. Charlie watched her retreat to the big open-plan office outside. An hour’s walk along the seafront had dispelled the worst of the hangover but he’d remembered, far too late, that he’d left his file in Barnaby’s spare bedroom.

  ‘Love the concept,’ he murmured to no one in particular. ‘Bloody exciting.’

  The man at the head of the table was on his feet again. His name was Alan Carthew and he and Charlie had already established the beginnings of a rapport on the telephone. Carthew had been routed to Charlie’s agency via a business associate in the city. Charlie’s agency – Braddick, Percy – had handled a key account for a big computer company, and the results had evidently been sensational. Thus the invitation for Charlie to attend an exploratory meeting to discuss ways of working a little of the agency’s London magic on the city itself.

  Carthew, as far as Charlie could determine, was a new recruit to the city’s administration, a small, intense man with a floral waistcoat and a distinctly pugnacious manner. He’d arrived from another local authority in the north with a brief to build bridges to the private sector. What the city needed was investment, a massive infusion of money and jobs, and it was Carthew’s job somehow to make that happen. On the phone he’d been candid about the difficulties he faced and his question to Charlie had been brutally direct: given the black arts of marketing and promotion, how would he go about selling Portsmouth? Charlie, whose feelings for the city were fogged by memories of cheerful excess, had sensibly refused to supply a straight answer. Pompey was a product, like everything else. Step one would be a list of the things that made it special.

  Carthew was warming to his theme and Charlie found himself wondering just how many times the people round the table had heard this pitch. In his experience, sessions like these quickly became exercises in corporate reassurance, gift-wrapping the product in a thin tissue of superlatives.

  ‘We’ve a story to tell here,’ Carthew was saying, ‘and, believe me, it’s pretty damn wonderful. Take communications. London in seventy minutes. Two major airports, same journey time. Rail links in every direction. Brand new motorway up to the Midlands. And that’s before we’ve even mentioned the ferryport.’

  Charlie smiled. Trying to visualize Portsmouth as the centre of anything was a contradiction in terms. The city of his birth had always been the end of the line, the last name on the destination board at Waterloo, a blur of rabbit hutches and lean-tos and sagging lines of washing as the train clattered through mile after mile of Victorian back-to-backs. In this sense, Pompey had always seemed an orphan on the south coast, friendless, ugly, a wedge of east London torn from its mother city and left to fend for itself.

  Charlie toyed fondly with the image, wondering if it had any place in Alan Carthew’s hi-tech fantasy. He was talking about the skills base now, the local army of highly qualified labour that evidently gladdened the hearts of incoming personnel directors. These men, Carthew growled, were often ex-Navy. They were computer literate. They’d had hands-on experience of the latest command and control systems. And, best of all, they understood a thing or two about the meaning of the word discipline. Portsmouth had already established a bridgehead into the defence sector. What other city could offer so perfect an employee profile?

  Carthew was clearly expecting a comment, and Charlie glanced up at him, masking another smile.

  ‘My dad ran a newsagent’s in Fratton,’ he said. ‘All this is pretty new to me.’

  ‘But you get the point? The drift? History has made this place what it is. Economically, it’s given us immense advantages. Talk about the peace dividend and you’re talking about the people round this table. It’s our job to cash that dividend in, to turn it into jobs, opportunities, pathways into the next millennium. That’s the mission statement, Mr Epple. That’s the message we’d want you to spread.’

  Charlie made a note on the pad at his elbow. Then he looked up again. ‘What about the heritage stuff? All those ships in the dockyard? Victory? Mary Rose? Warrior? Shouldn’t all that figure as well?’

  ‘Of course.’ Carthew tugged at his waistcoat. ‘Absolutely. You know the numbers we’re getting through the city now? Tourists? Four million. Four million. And that was last year. This year it’ll be way up.’ He gestured out of the window at the flags bedecking the colonnaded Victorian façade across the Guildhall Square. ‘Take D-Day, what’s been going on over the weekend. This is world-class stuff. We’re talking millions of viewers, countless column inches. After yesterday there won’t be anyone in the UK who won’t be able to put their finger on Portsmouth. We’re on the map, well and truly. And that’s without the Tour de France. You follow cycling at all? Know about all this?’

  He pointed out a line of posters on the wall behind him, dramatic shots of the peleton at full throttle, and Charlie nodded. He and Barnaby had been discussing the Tour de France only yesterday, chuckling at how unlikely the whole thing seemed. An entire stage of the world’s premier cycling event. Starting and ending on the bloody Common.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he conceded. ‘Fucking ace.’

  Carthew blinked at Charlie’s comment, then recovered himself. ‘You’ll be there?’

  ‘No question.’

  Carthew beamed. One of the big team sponsors had extended an invitation for his kids to meet one
or two of their stars. Maybe Charlie’s would like to come too. Charlie looked regretful, apologizing for his lack of children, then grinned at Carthew, trying to soften the ripple of laughter around the table. He’d no desire to make an enemy of this little man but he was still having a problem bridging the gap between the Pompey of his childhood and the glitzy, dynamic fairy-tale he might soon have to sell.

  ‘Advertising works on exclusivity,’ he said carefully. ‘So tell me again … What’s so special about this place?’

  ‘France,’ Carthew said promptly. ‘The continent. Europe. That’s the dimension that really matters. Three hundred and forty-two million punters on our doorstep. Biggest free-trade area in the world. Believe me, we look south from this city not north. It’s Le Havre, Caen, Bilbao. Not bloody Guildford. You know how successful we’ve been with the ferryport? Three million throughput a year. Second busiest in the UK Major earner for the city. And still growth to come.’ He nodded. ‘Flagship Portsmouth. Gateway city. City for the millennium. Yessir …’

  Charlie was scribbling another note to himself. Maybe Carthew had a point. Maybe the continental dimension was the key. He glanced up. Carthew was back on the peace dividend, using a flip-chart on an easel, pointing out areas of the city soon to be released from Ministry of Defence ownership. There were hundreds of acres involved. For commerce and manufacturing it was a unique opportunity.

  He reached for a pile of brochures on a low table beside his chair, tossing a couple across to Charlie. One was a pitch for a redevelopment on reclaimed land at North Harbour. The other, thicker and glossier, promoted the attractions of a marina complex. Charlie flicked through the pages of carefully framed photos. Expensive yachts nuzzled wooden pontoons. Handsome couples sipped aperitifs at open-air restaurants. Businessmen conferred on mobile phones against a background of eternal summer.

  Charlie gestured loosely at the brochure. ‘Where’s this?’

  ‘Port Solent.’ Carthew’s finger found a corner of the harbour on the flip-chart. ‘It’s very eighties, of course, but it shows you what can be done. Decent design. High build quality. Bit of imagination. Bit of style. Take a look at Port Solent and you’ll see the shape of things to come. Believe me, there’s nothing that investment and a bit of effort can’t achieve. Absolutely nothing.’

  Charlie peered at the map. Port Solent lay at the north of the harbour, at the foot of Portsdown Hill. Across the motorway was one of the roughest council estates in western Europe, a snarl on the face of a very different Pompey. Charlie thought of pushing the contrast, seeing what creative sparks might fly, then decided against it. Elements of this challenge were beginning to interest him.

  ‘You’re selling the past,’ he said, ‘and you’re selling the future. You’re selling quality of life and quality of expectation. I get a feeling of growth, of opportunity. Am I right so far?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Carthew was beaming again. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘But that puts you in the same frame as every other UK city. So I go back to my question. What makes Pompey Pompey?’

  Carthew frowned, reaching for his coffee, giving the question some thought. Across the table, silhouetted against the window, someone stirred. He was an older man, taller than Carthew, his long body folded comfortably into the chrome-framed chair. He was wearing a well-cut suit, and when he turned his head to gesture at the Guildhall Square outside, the sunlight gleamed on his thick pebble glasses.

  ‘Pompey gets shafted,’ he said quietly, ‘again and again.’

  At last, Charlie heard the authentic voice of the city he counted his own. Paranoia went with the turf. Always had. Always would.

  ‘How?’ he said, leaning forward.

  The man across the table offered Charlie a wry shrug. He had an air of infinite weariness, touched by a conspiratorial good humour. ‘I’m a lawyer,’ he said, offering the word as a kind of explanation, ‘and lawyers know far too much about the small print.’

  Charlie stole a glance at Carthew. Carthew was back in his chair, his lips pursed, his fingers drumming impatiently on the file that lay before him. Any minute now, Charlie thought, he’ll be up on his feet again. More flip-charts. More statistics. More wish-fulfilment.

  He returned to the man across the table. According to the notes he’d made earlier, his name was Dekker. ‘Tell me,’ Charlie murmured, ‘about the small print.’

  It was half past eleven before Barnaby, free of client meetings, got back to the hospital. He parked the Mercedes opposite the Accident and Emergency Unit. Inside it looked different. There were new faces behind the reception desk and the rows of seats in the waiting area were largely occupied by young mothers doing their best to quieten bored kids.

  Barnaby went to the desk and gave his name to a middle-aged woman trying to juggle two telephones. He watched her scribbling his name on the back of a newly opened envelope. Finally, both phone conversations came to an end.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Barnaby explained about Jess. His daughter had been brought in yesterday afternoon. He imagined she must have been transferred to one of the hospital’s wards. He wanted to see her. He needed the name of the ward. The woman was already flicking through the register and Barnaby followed her finger as it raced up and down the page, astonished at the sheer number of people who’d passed through the unit since he’d left.

  The woman looked up. ‘Jessie Barnaby?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She went this morning.’

  ‘Went?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman pointed at the right-hand column and Barnaby glimpsed a name and a scribbled signature. ‘Seven forty-five. She discharged herself.’

  ‘She can do that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She just walked out?’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  One of the kids in the seats behind Barnaby was howling, and the woman behind the desk offered the mother a wan smile. Barnaby bent forward, getting a better look at the register. He might have been at the post office, he thought, trying to trace a missing parcel.

  ‘I need to talk to a doctor,’ he said urgently, ‘someone who knows what’s going on.’

  The woman’s hand reached for the phone again. She pressed a series of numbers and told Barnaby to take a seat. Someone would be along soon.

  ‘But when?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t got all day.’ Barnaby tapped his watch.

  The woman was talking on the phone now, looking at Barnaby and shaking her head. A small haphazard queue had formed at the counter, headed by a man in his fifties. His shirt was torn and crusted with blood and vomit. He was swaying on his feet and when the woman asked his name he spent several seconds trying to remember it. Barnaby shuddered, thinking of Jessie’s flat again, the stinking basement, the shabby street outside. That’s where derelicts like this lived. These were the kind of people she’d chosen as neighbours.

  At length, a young doctor appeared. He had a muttered exchange with the woman behind the desk before walking across towards Barnaby, extending a hand and apologizing at once for being new. He’d been on the unit barely a week. One or two things were still a bit unfamiliar.

  ‘It’s my daughter,’ Barnaby was saying, ‘Jessie. It seems she’s gone.’

  ‘That’s right. She went this morning.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘So I understand.’

  Barnaby gazed at him. Another blank. Another tract of no man’s land where people disappeared without trace.

  The doctor was fumbling irritably with his stethoscope. The hollows of his face were shadowed with exhaustion. ‘You shouldn’t worry too much, Mr Barnaby. I’ve read your daughter’s notes. We gave her Narcane. It all seems pretty straightforward.’

  ‘What’s Narcane?’

  ‘It’s an antidote. We use it for morphine overdoses. It’s pretty effective.’ He paused. ‘She’ll be in no medical danger, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  �
�No danger? But we’re talking about heroin. Heroin’s a Class A drug. It’s illegal. I’m a lawyer. I know about these things. Doesn’t anyone talk to the police? Doesn’t anyone …’ he could no longer resist the thought ‘… take responsibility?’

  A bleeper in the pocket of the doctor’s white coat began to trill. He muttered an apology, stepping across to the reception desk and lifting a phone. Seconds later, he was back beside Barnaby, gently shepherding him towards the door.

  ‘Responsibility’s an interesting concept,’ he said. ‘Good luck with your daughter.’

  Kate Frankham was holding the Audi on the clutch, waiting for the traffic lights, when her mobile rang. She reached down for it, pumping the accelerator as the queue of cars began to move. Barely a year had gone by since she’d qualified as a stress counsellor but she’d quickly acquired an ever-lengthening list of clients. Her next consultation was in the diary for noon. She was already fifteen minutes late.

  ‘Hallo?’ She wedged the mobile against her ear. The woman at the other end was evidently having trouble getting through. Kate checked the mirror, pulling the Audi into the fast lane and overtaking a big lorry. Abruptly, reception improved.

  ‘My name’s Donna,’ the woman was saying, ‘I’m a reporter. I work for the Sentinel. Can you hear me?’

  Kate frowned. The Sentinel was Portsmouth’s daily. It offered excellent political coverage and she knew lots of journalists on the paper. None of them were called Donna. She tried to put the smile back in her voice, pushing the Audi past sixty.

  ‘If it’s about the museums story,’ she said, ‘we’re discussing it in committee. Starts at four o’clock. You’re welcome to drop by or we could talk afterwards. Up to you.’

  ‘It’s not about the museums story. It’s about Billy Goodman.’

  Kate began to slow for a roundabout. ‘Who?’

  ‘Billy Goodman. Do you know him?’

  Kate spotted a gap between the oncoming cars on the roundabout. The driver of the second car hooted furiously, standing on his brakes.