by J. S. Monroe
67
‘I found it in the office,’ Jar says, turning the photograph over in his hands. They are back in the Land Rover, driving through Herefordshire. ‘It’s a photo of Rosa with Sejal, the woman she writes about in the diary.’
Max glances at the photo. ‘It still doesn’t prove a connection, though, does it? With this place?’ Max nods as they pass the entrance to an army barracks on their left. Jar looks in at the gate, the guard on duty. The military life has always been a mystery to him, its uniformity.
‘It proves that Rosa stayed at the retreat, which happens to be just up the road from the SAS headquarters. And it proves that she wrote the diary herself.’
‘Does it?’
‘She wrote about staying at a retreat in Herefordshire. Exhibit one: a photo of her staying at said retreat.’ He looks at the photo in his hand. ‘You can even see the front of the house in the background.’
Jar had been happy until he got in the car, pleased that Rosa had actually visited the retreat she’d written about. But Max’s mood is troubling.
‘I saw Rosa again,’ Jar says. ‘Just now, at the house.’
Max turns to him and then looks ahead. ‘In the bedroom?’
‘It was a post-bereavement hallucination. I experienced a memory trace – a contrail in the sky. At least, that’s what my therapist calls them.’
‘I lost my mother when I was fourteen,’ Max says, after a pause. ‘I was boarding at the time and back at school within the week. The waters closed over as if nothing had happened.’
‘Did you see her at all? After she died?’
‘Couldn’t even remember her face for the first few weeks. My own dear beloved mother! I was terrified, thought I’d never be able to picture her again.’
‘But you did?’
‘I had the most extraordinary dreams. Just the good times, night after night, after I’d cried myself to sleep in my pillow in the dormitory. Us on holiday, her always smiling, laughing, hugging me. It was a gift from her, lasted for a month. After that, I felt I could get on with my life, move forward without her. Was Rosa happy when you saw her today?’
‘She was.’
They drive on in silence, out of Herefordshire.
‘We haven’t got enough to publish something, have we?’ Jar asks. He pulls out the tent peg, smiling at the bent evidence. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Jaysus, it’s not much, Jar knows that. Not much at all. Max doesn’t even glance at it.
‘We need that photo – the selfie you took together on the cliff edge.’
‘I’m seeing Carl when we get back,’ Jar says. ‘He hadn’t received it when I rang him.’
Max’s mobile rings in a holder, below the radio. It’s connected to a Bluetooth microphone somewhere above him.
‘Speak to me, Sally,’ he says.
‘The MD wants to talk to you. Urgently.’
‘I can’t right now. Tell him I’ll ring back later.’
‘It sounded urgent.’
‘I’m sure it is. He shouldn’t have blown his bonus on crack cocaine and £1,000-an-hour hookers.’ He hangs up.
‘Was that wise?’
‘He can wait. This can’t. I’ve not felt this alive for years.’
The phone rings again.
‘Yes, Sally.’
‘He’s cancelled the contract. Going elsewhere. Said you were meant to be available twenty-four hours a day.’
‘Thanks, Sally,’ he says, smiling at Jar as he ends the call. ‘I never landed a big story when I was a journalist. This one was the closest I ever came. I was devastated when it wasn’t published in a newspaper and I jacked it all in. It was Orwell who said, “Journalism is printing what someone else doesn’t want printed. Everything else is public relations.” This is journalism, Jar, what we’re doing right here. It matters.’
Jar sits in silence for a while, grinning to himself as he listens to Max’s wheezy breaths, then he glances at a Vauxhall Astra in the wing mirror.
‘That car’s been following us ever since we left Herefordshire,’ he says.
Max looks in the rearview mirror. ‘Are you sure?’
‘For sure, for sure.’
A moment later, Max turns hard left, the Land Rover’s tyres screeching as they veer off the main road and down a small track, only just making the turn.
‘Hold on,’ he says, as Jar clings to the door. ‘This might get bumpy.’
68
Cromer, 2012
A thinks all the cameras are for security. They are – or, at least, they were. I knew I would be a target for animal rights activists from the moment I joined the lab in Huntingdon, and it was the same when I moved to a different firm in Norwich. The police have advised me that the risks will remain for some time after my departure.
It’s now two months since I left that world. By chance, one of the antis who was interested in me has just been locked up, but two of them were let off with suspended sentences. I made an issue of this to A, who is easily frightened and thinks we’re being watched, when the technician came to instal new cameras last week. He replaced all the external units, as well as the internal units. A hated the ones inside the house, said they ruined the decor, so I promised her more discreet cameras, without going into detail. She was out at the time.
I’m sitting in my shed now, in front of a bank of small TV screens, waiting for Rosa to go to bed. I left her talking to A in the kitchen. She seems more depressed than ever. A has told her to run a deep bath and has given her some sort of oil or essence to put in it, to help her relax. Five milligrammes of lorazepam would have been more helpful.
Rosa’s diary has turned out to be fresh, raw. I’ve read most of it and I’m on the right lines with this, my own semifictionalised effort. There’s too much sentimental stuff about Jar, and it’s overly chatty – ‘first person on steroids’ seems more apt than ever – but there’s a story in there somewhere, something I can steal for the novel. I’m just not sure what it is yet.
I’m particularly intrigued by her college dean, Dr Lance, who moonlights for the intelligence services. I’ve heard a lot about how Oxbridge colleges tip off MI5 and MI6 about suitable candidates. It will be interesting to see if Rosa ever gets a tap on the shoulder. (Sadly, no one ever bothered to approach me.) Would she write about it in her diary? Having a father who worked for the Foreign Office must increase her chances of being recruited, even if he wasn’t involved with intelligence matters – officially.
This is the first time I’ve checked on the cameras in the guest room, and I keep telling myself that I am doing this purely for security reasons. They are only activated by movement and I didn’t want to ask A to test them, in case it alarmed her unduly.
I’ve emailed my tutor about adopting a diary format for the novel, something I’ve been practising here in my journal, and he says it will only work if my use of the present tense is as ‘vivid’ as possible. Which is where I’m hoping the cognitive enhancers will come in handy. I’m going to practise commentating on the camera test, using dictation software that turns my voice into typed words. Throw in 500 mg of the nootropic I was working on before I left the lab, add two hits of LSD, and we’re in business.
I’ve decided that I’m not going to share this journal with anyone, not even my tutor. It’s just for practice after all, the amuse-bouche. Since I started writing, it’s become more confessional than I planned – far too honest – which presents a few problems, however much I dress it up as fiction. To be on the safe side, I’m going to have to encrypt it at some stage, as we had to do with a lot of our more sensitive documents in the lab.
Rosa’s just entered the room.
She walks into the bedroom and drops on to her bed. She is looking tired, defeated. She checks her phone for messages and then reaches across for her laptop, which is on the bedside table. She opens it up and starts to write. I can’t see what, but I want to think it’s her diary. I like the symmetry, the connectedness: I’m ‘writing’ my journal at
the same time as she’s writing hers. I’d like it even more if she took some clothes off.
Five minutes have passed and I’m typing this again, keeping one eye on the screen in front of me. If I were a more loyal husband, I’d be checking on the new camera in our bedroom. Would A understand if she saw me now?
Rosa’s stirring.
She walks through to the en suite, where one of the new cameras is rolling. She starts to run a bath. Now she’s heading back to the bedroom, removing her T-shirt as she goes, shaking down her hair. Not exactly ‘event’ underwear: practical, white. The jeans are coming off too, her (no-frills) knickers slightly pulled down at the back. Here we go: bra and knickers tossed to the floor like so much flotsam and jetsam.
Back into the bathroom, leaning in to stir the water, adding the oil. Now she’s in the bedroom again, walking around on her phone, which must have been ringing (no audio on these cameras – yet).
I should stop now, turn off the monitors, stop violating Rosa’s privacy, but I can’t bring myself to reach for the switch.
Call me an old hippy for using LSD, but I’ve always admired its dopaminergic properties, something not often found in serotonergic psychedelics. And its ability to treat depression and anxiety is astonishing. It will never become accepted as a medical treatment, though. Ever since the sixties, Big Pharma has been wary of developing ‘countercultural’ psychedelic therapies. LSD would prove hard to patent, too. The trouble with peyote, the effects of which are similar to LSD, is the variation in potency. You need to extract the mescaline from the dried cactus buttons first, which is easy enough but takes time, along with some sodium hydroxide, benzene and a pressure cooker (just don’t use aluminium). Give me a tab of acid any day. And when acid is mixed with a nootropic, the trip is significantly enhanced in a way that works well for me: a more intense peak (and a more sudden comedown, regrettably). The visual experience is more mathematical, too: clear-headed, ordered and connected. None of the swirling, surreal dreaminess you get with LSD on its own.
I’ve been using the nootropic when I work on the novel – we were close to going to market with it before I left and I know it will change the face of nootropics when it’s finally released. The clarity and enhanced cognitive abilities are one thing (it worked particularly well on Alzheimer’s patients in trials), but it’s the positive interaction with a whole host of recreational drugs that will make it a market leader.
Rosa steps into the bath, stirring the water as she sits down. She lies back, staring at the ceiling, directly up at me, one leg idly cocked. Has she seen the camera? I look away, unable to maintain eye contact. No. We’re safe. Her eyes are now closed. It’s going to be a good evening.
69
Sometimes, when a butterfly’s wings are folded, it’s hard to tell if it is resting or dead.
14 x 9 = 126
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba
‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.’
My nails are long again. He has not made a mistake.
70
Carl is waiting for Jar at the rear of the office, near the post room and loading bay. There’s a large generator, painted battleship-grey and, beyond it, a dilapidated smoking shelter. Two buckled bikes are wedged into an old cycle rack beside a wheelie bin. Jar likes it around here: no corporate façade. He’s pleased to be with Carl, too, even though his pal is mad at him.
The boss finally snapped when the police raided the office and removed Jar’s computer. After that, he told everyone that Jar no longer worked for the company and should not be allowed back in the building under any circumstances.
‘I’ve got no mates left at all now,’ Carl says. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘There’s always the IT department.’
‘You are kidding?’
‘You’re a geek at heart, Carl. Admit it.’
Jar had wanted to meet further away from the office, but Carl had insisted. Things were busier than usual, he said, and his workload had doubled with Jar gone. No one to share Google Doodle duties, or X Factor stories, a particular bane of both their lives. Carl’s text had woken Jar – he and Max had got back late from Herefordshire the night before. Carl said it was urgent and he wouldn’t speak on the phone.
‘How’s it going anyway?’ Jar asks, looking around him at the security guard in his leaking Portakabin. This is where Jar used to enter the building when he was running later than usual. If you took the ramp beside the loading bay, you could arrive unnoticed, beyond the main reception, in the canteen, via a door behind the toaster machine.
‘Since you ask, we’re 40 per cent down on page views this month,’ Carl says.
‘Nothing a Jennifer Lawrence picture gallery can’t sort,’ Jar says. He misses the office camaraderie but not the work.
Carl lights a cigarette and offers one to Jar, who declines.
Ever since Jar told him that he’d seen Rosa on the cliffs in Cornwall, Carl has been short with him, no doubt frustrated that he’s still hallucinating and is not getting proper help. But his manner is different today, more sympathetic, like old times.
‘It arrived overnight. Woke up this morning and there it was, on my phone. I wanted to tell you in person.’
‘The photo?’ Jar asks.
‘No, a text from Santa saying he’s for real. Of course it was the bloody photo – of you and Rosa in Cornwall.’ Carl gets out his phone, pulls up the image and hands it to Jar. ‘I’m so sorry, bro. You know… That I didn’t believe you.’
Jar’s hand is shaking as he takes the phone from his friend, suddenly aware of the crackle of a nearby bike courier’s radio. He has to shield the phone, but then he sees the image clearly: him and Rosa, squinting up at the camera, fear in his eyes, emptiness in hers, moments before the man arrived and she was taken away from him.
He lets out a long, slow breath. No one can doubt him now. ‘And you can tell when it was taken?’ he asks, his voice quiet but firm.
‘Time, date, location. You had it all switched on in your preferences.’
‘Thank Mary for that.’
‘What does this mean, Jar?’
‘Mean? It means that Rosa’s alive. That she didn’t take her own life five years ago.’
Carl shakes his head, taking a drag of his cigarette. ‘I can’t believe it, bro. Of course, I do believe it, I believe you, now I’ve seen the photo, it’s just that—’
‘I know.’ Jar glances at his friend, who is beginning to well up. ‘Why did the photo take so long to arrive?’ he asks, steering the conversation towards less emotional territory. Carl knows where he is with technology.
‘Ask your provider. Multimedia messages can take a few hours, sometimes days. In this case, three days. She doesn’t look so well, bro.’
‘She wasn’t. She isn’t.’
‘And they got her just after this was taken?’
‘A second later I was lying on the grass, hit on the head, and she was gone.’
‘What do we do now? With the photo?’
‘Can you send it to me? I’ll get it to Max. He’s writing the whole thing up.’
‘Max?’
‘The corporate PR fella who wrote the article about Rosa.’
Jar realises the awkwardness too late. He should be asking his old friend to help.
‘You mean the fantasist,’ Carl says.
‘He’s not so shabby now.’
‘He’s a PR for bankers, Jar. It doesn’t get dodgier than that. Unless he’s an estate agent on the side.’
‘Or a traffic warden.’
Carl takes another drag of his cigarette and looks around him. ‘Or a barber.’
‘Barber?’ Jar glances at Carl’s long, dreadlocked hair.
‘Spawn of the devil.’
Jar will send the photo to Miles Cato too, but he decides against telling that to Carl, who distrusts policemen even more than hairdressers. A second later, a text with the photo attached lands on Jar’s phone.
Jar opens i
t up and looks at it for a moment before putting his phone away.
‘Thanks,’ he says, fighting the urge to ask Carl for a cigarette. ‘There’s one more thing. I need you to show me how to get on to the dark web.’
71
Cromer, 2012
Round and around she swims, looking for a way out. Rosa’s been in the water for more than four hours now, and her head is beginning to sink below the surface, her legs are tiring. I could watch her all night if she had the strength, but she is exhausted. Even the panic in her eyes is turning to resignation as the water rises over her head.
For twenty years, the Porsolt forced swim test was an integral part of my working life at the lab. Also known as the behavioural despair test, it’s one of the standard ways to measure the efficacy of antidepressants. Roger Porsolt, a psychopharmacologist from Auckland, came up with the simple idea in the late 1970s. Place a mouse in a one-litre beaker of water (filled up to the 800-millilitre mark) and observe how it deals with unavoidable and inescapable stress: the threat of drowning (mice hate water). To begin with, the mouse swims around, even tries to climb the sides of the beaker, but after a while it becomes immobile, doing just enough – an occasional twitch of a paw – to keep its head above water.
Porsolt discovered that if mice are given antidepressants, they put up more resistance, swim for longer, try harder. He also hypothesised that mice’s immobility in the water correlates with depressive disorders, despair and a state of hopelessness in humans. Which is why the test is so ideal – low cost, fast, reliable – for the primary screening of antidepressants (along with the muricidal test, in which rats that are given antidepressants seem to suppress their natural urge to kill mice placed in their cages).
The cylindrical beaker is on my desk now, as I write into the early hours. After Rosa finally went to sleep in the guest room, I slipped her namesake into the water and have been watching her swim around ever since.