“Just that.”
“Brodsky.”
“Otto Brodsky. Joseph’s whole training, or lack of it; his plagiarism, his buried influences.” Hamilton seemed almost weary with his duties as iconoclast. “Joseph Green is not the infallible figure he likes to present to the world. When a reputation unravels it begins with one thread. Now Michael will do more damage than Joseph has ever had to fear from my work.”
Belsey thought of those pencils again, their torn-off erasers, and supplied his own analysis: anger. Joseph Green knew he had made a mistake and couldn’t correct it. It was a stress tell, erupting from beneath that sage exterior. Belsey imagined trying to heal someone and realising you’d been played, that your hard-won reputation was out there, murderous, running underground.
Then he thought of Centre Point. Site 3. State secrets.
“What if there was something to Michael’s theories?” Belsey said. “And maybe he felt this was the only way he could communicate them?”
Hamilton arched an eyebrow. He flicked through the case notes once more as if he might have missed the convincing bit.
“So you’ve been seduced too,” the disciple said.
“Maybe.”
“Michael Easton plays figures of authority: psychoanalysts, now police. It is a way of allowing small men to feel powerful. He’s sucked you in as well. Do you see?”
Belsey sat back and wondered. Then the blonde woman appeared and looked at him.
“I think somebody’s trying to steal your car,” she said.
37
BELSEY STEPPED OUTSIDE. HE NEEDED A LOT OF things right now, a car thief wasn’t one of them. The man was getting busy with his passenger door.
“How’s it going?” Belsey asked. The man looked up. He was white, with short, dark hair and gym muscle under a black fleece jacket. He saw the case notes in Belsey’s hand.
“Give me the notes,” he said, calmly. Then he pulled a gun.
Belsey took a second to process this. He walked up to the man, holding the notes out. Then he tossed them onto the roof of the Skoda. Not a killer move, but confusing enough. The man glanced. Belsey punched him in the face. Men with guns don’t expect to be punched. Belsey grabbed the gun wrist and slammed his forehead into the bridge of the attacker’s nose. He steered him to the ground in standard arrest procedure, then kicked his head against the railings in a less orthodox move. The gun fell. It had a silencer. Belsey saw Hamilton watching from his window, then a reflection in the window. Belsey took the gun and turned. The second man looked Mediterranean, with a shaved head, wearing a grey Adidas sweater. He saw the gun, hesitated, then turned, walked back to the corner of the road and disappeared. There was the sound of a car screeching to a halt. A second later Belsey heard it start up again, tearing east towards the Finchley Road.
The first man was on his side trying to gather in the blood streaming from his face. Belsey sat him up, pulled his arms back and cuffed them to the railings. Blood ran from the man’s hairline into his eyes and from his nose down into his mouth. He was wearing a concealed holster, with a neat pocket for the silencer. The gun was a Sig-Sauer P226; pristine, not a convert, not second-hand. Belsey removed the clip and saw live rounds. He slipped the clip back in and stuck the barrel in the man’s eye.
“What’s going on?” he asked. The man shook his head. “Where’s Kirsty Craik?” The man licked blood from his lips. He breathed in shallow gasps.
Belsey searched him: no ID, no wallet, not even house keys. He took the clip back out of the Sig, placed the gun at his attacker’s feet, went to the Skoda and saw he’d succeeded in getting the door open. Belsey took the notes from the roof and chucked them in, then checked for brake fluid on the road, tools left lying about, any signs of tampering. He crawled underneath the chassis. There was a tracker on the driveshaft, size of a cigarette packet, magnetic. Belsey tore it off. He walked back to the injured man, forced the tracker into his mouth. Then he climbed into the Skoda and drove fast.
THROUGH MAIDA VALE TO the Harrow Road. He parked at the back of a derelict MOT garage now being used as a Pentecostal church. The sign was up: New Hope Ministries. Hymns escaped among stacks of tyres and a burnt-out Ford Focus.
Give me the notes. That was clear enough. Well spoken even. Belsey took them out and searched for whatever it was they wanted so badly.
Session 7
Dreams. London is often empty and he must walk for miles before finding someone to ask about this. The person he finds is a young girl. M describes her as like a sister. She tells him: they are not missing, you are missing. She points up and M sees that there is no sky. He continues to walk, trying to understand where he is. He is underground. But there are streets, streets and houses. Then there is nothing any more.
Between 6 May and 13 May Easton started having nightmares that involved loved ones trapped and dying. Their cries came from cells and holes in the ground. When Easton heard them he realised, to his horror, that he had thought they were already dead. In fact, this was the problem: he had locked them up and then forgotten to release them. His premature grief was forgetfulness of the worst sort. So he would race to let them out before it was too late. He would be trying to get back to them when he woke. These dreams troubled him to the extent that he stopped going to bed. He spent the night walking the city.
On 15 May, Session 12, the guilt-dreams ceased. His own visions went underground again. He walked past subterranean shops and schools and gardens, into a home, the occupants decomposing in front of a television. Up, past the corpses, to a bathroom where he stood before a mirror and saw that he was in uniform. This was a shock.
And then, as soon as he had woken, it felt to M like a revelation. A past life in the military would explain everything. And now he claims he can recall details of this life. He can smell the wet canvas in the bases and taste the army food. M’s theory now—he was involved in a secret mission. He was involved in army communications. What if, as a signals engineer, he devised a way of communicating that could project classified information into the future, to be picked up at a later date? These messages are the dreams. The dreams are military signals he has sent to himself. Asks whether I think this is possible.
Signals engineer. Why did that ring a bell? Belsey found the copy of Military Heritage. He turned through the pages until he saw the one it had been opened to: the adverts, the black and white photograph that took up half the page. It showed around thirty uniformed men and women, but mostly men, standing in front of a bar.
Were you here? Did you or any family members serve in the 2nd Signal Brigade, 81 Signal Squadron between 1979–1983? Please get in touch. Reunion planned South-East, weekend of 8–9 November.
If it weren’t for the uniforms they could have been any gathered pub crowd, one of the women acting as barmaid, laughing. The pub was ornate, its Victorian bar partitioned with screens of etched glass. They were gathered for the start of something: uniforms crisp, smiles fresh. It clearly belonged to the era in question: 1979–83. There was a large radio cassette player on the bar. The hairstyles were short but not shaven on the men, a little long at the back. Moustaches were popular. The women wore their hair scraped back under berets.
He looked across the faces in the advert. Then one face made him feel very cold. The man stood just to the right of centre. He had his shoulders back, a tankard held at waist height. The posture suggested he was about to laugh or say something, but that wasn’t what the face said. His expression was wary. Belsey stared at the face and tried to remember Easton in the unforgiving light of St. Matthew’s Hostel, on the Costa CCTV: the cheekbones, the half-smile.
It was him in the photograph.
Which was impossible. Belsey got out of the car. The congregation in the garage was speaking in tongues. He took a deep lungful of air and tried to remember when he last ate or slept. He retrieved a warm bottle of mineral water from the back seat and poured it over his head. He’s infected me with his madness, Belsey thought, dripping into the fa
ded oil stains. He wondered about the Site 3 pill bottles and exactly what he’d taken.
Then he looked at the picture again. It was still Michael Easton. With a group of army personnel sometime between 1979 and 1983.
Belsey took his new mobile out. The military liked to keep watch over their own. Online, he found a number for the Royal Military Police. He had a contact at the RMP—Steve Hillier. Their last meeting had involved a squaddie gone AWOL, found conversing with angels on the roof of a Vauxhall nightclub. Belsey helped talk him down and had never quite forgiven himself for it. He dialled the RMP headquarters at Southwick Park and got put through.
“Steve, can I call in that favour?”
“Of course.”
“2nd Signal Brigade, 81 Signal Squadron. Mean anything to you?”
“Not off the top of my head, Nick. Where are they based?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got an advert about a reunion in November. Class of 1983.”
“Right. Planning to go?”
“I need to know who these people are, if there’s any way of contacting them. I need to find out what they were doing at that time. 2nd Signal Brigade, 81 Signal Squadron, 1979 to 1983. I’ll send you a picture of the advert.”
“OK. I can get you a number for their base at least.”
Belsey wrote down Hillier’s mobile number and sent through a rough shot of the advert taken on the new phone. He flicked through the case notes again with the radio on; no news on Jemma. No mention of Kirsty.
Hillier called back ten minutes later on a different line.
“What is this?” he asked, quietly. Belsey could tell from his voice that something was wrong.
“You tell me.”
“Well, it’s going to be a strange kind of reunion.”
“Why’s that?”
“They’re all dead.”
Belsey took the magazine from the passenger seat.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re no longer on this earth with us. Who placed the advert?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone with a dark sense of humour,” Hillier said. “There are copies of thirty-seven death certificates here. They all died on the same day, ninth of November 1983.”
Belsey looked at the pub scene again. Then at the face that troubled him more than any other.
“What did they die of?”
“It was an air accident.”
“A crash?”
“A mid-air explosion.”
Easton stared out. Cautious. Quizzical. 9 November 1983. Belsey saw the calendar in the Control Bunker, crossed out to 11 November. Remembered Riggs observing the two-minute silence deep underground. It just ended. Suddenly. No reasons given. Exercise Able Archer.
“Nick,” Hillier said. “I don’t know what this is, but you haven’t spoken to me, OK?”
“OK.”
“The brigade is disbanded. There’s nothing else I’m going to be able to get.” He hung up.
Were you here? . . . Reunion planned.
Belsey dialled the number at the bottom of the advert. His heart was beating fast. A machine clicked in. Someone awkward with technology cleared their throat.
“Hello,” the voice said, “you’re through to Duncan Powell. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
38
BELSEY FELT HIMSELF ON THE VERGE OF SPEAKING. HE had an overwhelming urge to try, to test the possibility that Powell might hear him, the call reaching whichever subterranean exchange could make the connection. Finally he said: “Andrea, if you’re there, please pick up.”
She didn’t. It recorded his waiting. A squad car passed and slowed. He heard it stop at the end of the street.
Time to move on. He cut through to the other side of the estate, under the Westway into Paddington, fast past Paddington Green police station, along the Harrow Road. After five minutes’ twisting through the back streets of Bayswater he felt safe enough to stop again. He walked into a newsagent’s, searched for Military Heritage among the magazines. It had Collectors’ Monthly, History Now. No Military Heritage. The woman behind the counter said she’d never stocked it, didn’t think many places would. She recommended contacting the magazine directly and requesting a subscription.
Belsey called the number listed in the magazine. A man answered.
“I’d like to speak to the subscriptions department,” Belsey said.
The man laughed.
“There’s only one department here. How may I help?”
“This is Detective Constable Nick Belsey. I’m trying to track down someone who may subscribe. His name’s Michael Easton.”
Belsey waited while he checked.
“Easton. Mr. M. Easton, yes. He ordered a back issue.”
“Just the one?”
“Yes. The February issue this year.”
“What’s the address you’ve got?”
“103a, The Beaux Arts Building, Holloway.”
Belsey scribbled it down.
“One more question,” he said. “There was an advert in that February issue—a reunion for a Signals regiment. Do you remember anything about it being placed?”
“I remember the guy.”
“Did he say why he wanted it in?”
“For a reunion. Why else would it be?”
BELSEY GOT TO THE Beaux Arts Building in fifteen minutes. It was off Holloway Road, a grand Edwardian pile that had clearly served some municipal purpose before being converted into flats that sold for half a million. It was the size of a castle, with a gym lit behind basement windows and a concierge visible through the glass doors of the entrance hall.
Belsey waited for a man struggling with Waitrose bags to punch the entry code, followed him in, nodded to the concierge and found a lift. Empty off-white corridors circled the first floor. It struck him as a good place for someone returned from the dead.
Doors looked solid. 103a was identical to every other one. He stood before it wondering whether to ring. Then he saw it was open a crack. Belsey listened. He pushed the door open another inch and got a whiff of stale air. He walked inside.
Bare hallway, no bulb in the socket, no coats on the hook. He opened the door into a small living room. Thirty-two faces stared back at him. The open door made them flutter. Each occupied an A4 sheet attached to the wall by an inch of tape, floor to ceiling in six rows of five. Most belonged to men in military uniform. It was Easton’s old regiment, taken from the reunion advert itself; a gallery of the dead. There was Easton himself, close to the top. This had been his sole attempt at decoration. A mattress lay on the floor draped with a sleeping bag, books piled against the wall beside it: On Thermonuclear War, Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Strategy in the Missile Age. There were dictionaries of Russian, German, Czech and Hungarian. The carpet was cigarette-burnt. The small kitchen hadn’t been cleaned for several months. Belsey opened the fridge. It contained milk halfway to solid and a green loaf of bread.
He opened the door to the bathroom. The bath was filled with ash. Ash and scraps of paper, with burn marks up the side.
Tools filled the rest of the space: seven different screwdrivers in the sink, a length of rope and a grubby head torch on the floor. Propped against the bath was a yellow contraption that looked like a heavy-duty litter picker. It was labelled BT Handylift. Belsey experimented with it until the metal ends opened and he could see how the device might be used for lifting manhole covers.
He returned to the main room and looked at the faces. Blown up to A4 you saw the variety of expressions across the group—wry, amused, uncertain. Each hung alone. There was no letter box in the door to the flat itself. Belsey went downstairs. Beside the front entrance was a room of post boxes with some broken furniture stacked in one corner and a residents’ noticeboard beside electricity meters. It wasn’t hard to spot Easton’s post box; only one of them was overflowing. There were envelopes sticking out of the flap, several fallen to the floor beneath it. Belsey pulled one fr
ee and tore it open. The letter was on headed Ministry of Defence paper.
Dear Mr. Easton,
I am writing with regard to your recent enquiry for the following information under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
You requested information about any experimental research connected to MOD property Site 3.
Unfortunately the relevant material is covered by Section 24 of the Freedom of Information Act and remains unavailable for public consultation.
Belsey opened another. Royal Mail Head Office this time:
Dear Michael Easton,
You requested material from the General Post Office Archive concerning Site 3 . . .
Again, it provoked a polite refusal citing the same Section 24. Westminster Council had written to him too: The subject of this request was primarily the involvement of the council in preparations for nuclear war and any files concerning Site 3. Unfortunately, due to Section 24 . . .
Section 24, whatever it may be, seemed a pain in the arse and an abrupt end to a lot of otherwise courteous letters.
Belsey made a sweep of all the spilled envelopes, collected up everything he could find. He took a chair leg from the pile of broken furniture in the corner, wedged it into the slot of Easton’s post box and leaned all his weight on it. After a moment he could get a hand in.
He removed twenty-three envelopes. Six were final demands addressed to an elusive Mr. Bhatnagar. One was Easton’s bank statement from HSBC. Belsey tore it open. Current account, 1 May to 1 June. There were purchases at cafes, supermarkets, rent to a lettings agent. It all seemed corporeal enough. There was travel to Piltbury. This was good, he thought; this was a life coming into focus. There was a payment of £176 to a company called Ammo Direct. Less good. Belsey stuffed the statement into his pocket and checked the remaining envelopes. They were stamped with the crests of government departments and public bodies. Half of officialdom seemed to be in reluctant correspondence with Michael Easton: Dear Mr. Easton, I am writing in respect of your recent enquiry . . . Dear Mr. Easton, Thank you for your request . . . Dear Michael Easton, Unfortunately the department was unable to release the relevant information . . .
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