by E. M. Brown
Digby interrupted. “Did you say ‘meet’ Ed?”
“That’s right. He thinks that Emmi had a letter from him, and then she told her brother she was going to England to meet ‘Edward’…”
“Could it have been another Edward?” Digby asked.
“That’s what I wondered, but her brother said that they’d met on Crete years ago and that this Edward was a writer.”
“Bloody hell!” Digby laughed. “But…”
“I know, if she did receive a letter from Edward, a year ago, then he’s still – well, was, a year ago – alive.”
“Bloody hell!” Digby said again. “But this is fantastic. I’m… He can’t be mistaken, or lying, can he?”
“Mistaken? Well, it would be a massive coincidence, wouldn’t it? And I saw no reason why he might have lied to me.”
“I… I’m sorry… I’m filling up. This is remarkable… The thing is, Ella, if Ed is still alive… then why hasn’t he contacted me? And where is he? And why the hell did he vanish?”
“And why, out of the blue, did he write to Emmi Takala?”
The silence stretched, and Ella said, “Digby? You still there?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just… I’m quite overcome. This is the most remarkable news. Thank you. The last few years, what with Ed’s disappearance, and then Caroline… It hasn’t been the best of times, Ella. This… well, this is a light in the darkness.”
Ella smiled. “I thought I’d better keep you up to date. Look, I must dash. I’m catching a train to Oxford in five minutes. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Bless you, Ella. Goodbye.”
She gathered her bags, left the café and made her way to the Oxford platform.
The journey took thirty minutes longer than the scheduled hour due to maintenance work outside Reading. She filled the time by listening to one of Ed Richie’s radio plays she’d downloaded from the BBC archive. The Wall was first broadcast in the summer of 2017, a scathing satire and the last play Richie would sell to the BBC. She wondered if there might be a connection.
When the play finished, she opened his journal and scanned the entries for November and December 2016, and discovered an entry about the play.
13th November, 2016: Had a long conversation with Shaw at the Beeb this morning, and I mooted the idea of a radio play about Trump. A satire – what else? He said it sounded just the thing he was looking for. Bravo for Shaw! I was expecting the thumbs down.
The Wall was inspired by Andrei Platonov’s very strange novel The Foundation Pit, set in post-revolution Russia, about a group of labourers digging a vast hole in the countryside, the foundations of a great house for the workers. The Wall will be set in a notional future fascist state in which all artists are ordered to abandon their work and build a wall to ‘protect’ their country. The bricks of the wall will be hollow and, when the artists have been worked to exhaustion, they are summarily shot and placed in these brick coffins… It sounds crude in synopsis, but the play itself will be allusive and subtle, I hope. We’ll see.
Thirteen years later, Ella thought that The Wall was still as fresh and affecting as when it was first broadcast. Bravo for Richie!
The train pulled into Oxford station and she took a taxi to Balliol.
CHARLES SLOANE MET Ella at the porter’s lodge and escorted her along oak-panelled corridors to his set, two small rooms overlooking the snow-covered quadrangle. The Professor was a tall, cadaverous man in his seventies, with a hesitant manner at once querulous and endearing. He praised Ella’s book on Corbyn once again, following up with a few comments about recent British politics. She gained the reassuring impression that they were on the same side.
His sitting-room was full of dark oak furniture, old standard lamps, and much chintz. There was no evidence of a computer, or even a television or softscreen. Ella gazed through the mullioned windows at the changeless scene of the quadrangle: she might have been transported back a few centuries.
“I took the liberty of ordering tea and scones. They’ll be here presently. I thought that, a little later, we might take sherry in the Senior Common Room. I have so few guests these days that I rather make an occasion of it when the rare beast turns up.”
Ella murmured that that sounded pleasant, and asked the Professor if he still taught.
“No longer, alas, though I supervise the occasional PhD student.”
A tap at the door signalled the arrival of afternoon tea. Sloane took control of the trolley and wheeled it in. He poured the tea and offered Ella a buttered scone.
Ella asked him about his college days.
“I was at Cambridge,” he said as he settled himself into an armchair. “And then I ‘joined the other side’ for my PhD here. I wanted to study under Robertson, a great man. When I gained my doctorate, I joined Omega-Tec, just down the road, and spent ten years there before being wooed back into the arms of academe. That was over thirty-five years ago, and for my long service I was allowed to stay on here way past retirement. You know, college life rather spoils one; I’m not at all sure I could survive out there in the real world.”
Ella smiled. “I understand you were friends with Ralph Dennison.”
The Professor juggled a crumbling scone. “Of course, that’s what you came here to discuss! Do you know, I’d quite forgotten that little point, and extemporised by boring you with my curriculum vitae. Forgive me. But yes, Ralph and I were great friends. He was brilliant, quite brilliant, while I was never in his league, which I suppose is why I found myself back here, teaching.”
“And you knew the writer Edward Richie?”
“Not well, but we got along well enough, I suppose. Ralph, however, was a great chum of his.”
“And when Ralph moved to Oxford…?”
Sloane smiled. “I followed him. As I said, I wanted to study under Robertson. Oh, they were heady times, Ms Shaw. We were at the cutting edge of our field, doing some really ground-breaking research, and we’d discuss our work long into the night, and often till dawn. I got to know Ralph even better during that time; I had him to myself, so to speak.”
Ella sipped her tea. “What was he like?”
The professor sat back in his chair and held his teacup before his chest, his gaze distant.
“He was intense, phenomenally intelligent, a little distant emotionally, perhaps. Our own relationship was firmly grounded in the intellect, of course. That said, I…” He stopped, gazing at her. “Well, speaking as people who understand each other, Ms Shaw, I will admit that I was a little in love with dear old Ralph.”
She smiled. “And Ralph?”
“Was oblivious. And anyway he was hetero – not that he was in the least successful in that department until much later.”
“What was the subject of your doctorates, Professor?”
“I was working on cosmological inconsistency, Ralph on exotic matter in the vicinity of black holes…”
“And after gaining your doctorates, you and Ralph joined Omega-Tec?”
“That is correct. Again, I rather think I rode in on Ralph’s coat-tails. Ralph bloomed like a tropical plant introduced to sunlight and, to continue the horticultural metaphor, I rather wilted under the intense heat.”
“What was the nature of your work at Omega-Tec?”
Winking at her, he tapped the side of his nose. “All rather hush-hush, Ms Shaw. We had to sign the Official Secrets Act, for Omega-Tec was backed by the government.” He shook his head. “But as there’s been so much water under the bridge since then, I’ll tell you that we were doing research into faster-than-light travel – not the mechanics, the hardware and all that, but the theory.”
“That’s… fascinating.”
He smiled. “You’re too polite, Ms Shaw. I won’t bore you with the details. But it was all rather heady stuff at the time.”
“And did it lead anywhere? Are we any nearer being able to send ships to the stars?”
The Professor gazed out at the quadrangle. Snow had started to fall agai
n, sifting from a pewter sky. He withdrew his gaze and smiled at her. “Oh, it was all very theoretical, my dear, and to be honest I don’t mind admitting that I was rather out of my depth, though Ralph was in his element.”
She sipped her tea, realising that he hadn’t actually answered her question. “And he worked with Omega-Tec for fifteen years, I understand?”
“That’s right,” the professor said. “We saw each other quite often during that time, kept each other abreast of what we were doing – not that I was setting the world alight. Towards the end, the last couple of years, we saw each other less and less – Ralph’s work load, you see, was colossal.”
“And he left Omega-Tec around 2000?”
“Around then, yes.”
“Do you know the circumstances…?”
“Again, this is between you, me and the gate-post, my dear. If you do use what I say, it must be unattributed, do you understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“One evening Ralph came here in a bit of a flap. He said his research had gone as far as it could, that he felt inhibited by certain restrictions imposed at Omega-Tec, and that anyway he’d had a better offer.”
Ella lowered her cup. “From another country?” she ventured.
“That’s what I assumed, at first, but I was wrong. Ralph had been approached by a private individual – a billionaire, no less – and offered what every research scientist in the world would have given both arms and legs for: his very own research facility, a team of hand-picked scientists, and unlimited funding. Unlimited. Ralph was beside himself.”
“And he accepted the offer.”
“Like a shot. Wouldn’t you?”
She considered the question. “I suppose it would depend on who would be making the offer. I’d refuse point blank if it were the Americans, the Russians, or the Chinese… Or the English, for that matter.” She leaned forward. “Who was behind the offer, Professor?”
He smiled. “That was my first question, too. And one that had vexed Ralph for a time. Suffice it to say that he was satisfied that the billionaire in question was independent, and not allied to any foreign government or political regime. So he left Omega-Tec and disappeared. I saw him once in the next ten years, and he wouldn’t be drawn as to the nature of his work.”
“And then, in 2010, he really did disappear?”
“According to newspaper reports, yes. He had a flat in London, which he used from time to time, and there was a news item about his not having been seen for a year or more. A question was asked in the House about the whereabouts of ‘one of our leading scientists,’ and answers were there none. Of course, the gutter press came out with the usual claptrap, that he’d gone over to the other side, to China or Russia, or that he’d been kidnapped and forced to divulge his secrets.”
“Were either credible?”
“Ralph would never have worked for the Chinese, the Russians, or the Americans. He was an honourable person. And anyway, he had everything he could have dreamed of with the philanthropist billionaire.”
“But the kidnapping hypothesis?”
“I can’t see it, myself. But I have a theory, my dear.”
Ella leaned forward. “Go on.”
“I think that his independent research hit gold, that they came across something so extraordinary that it initiated a new stage of enquiry, something that had to be kept so secret that it would be dangerous if it ever became public knowledge. I think the billionaire had everyone involved in the project ‘disappear,’ assume new identities, and continue their research in total and absolute hermetic secrecy.”
“And would you venture a guess as to the nature of this… breakthrough?”
The Professor laughed. “I wouldn’t be so foolish,” he said, “though…”
“Yes?”
“If you promise not to divulge your source, I would be able to tell you the name of the billionaire behind the project.”
Ella was a little girl again, being promised the best Christmas present ever, and she felt like saying, “Yes, please.”
“And do I have that undertaking?” the professor asked.
“Of course.”
“Very well,” he said, “his name is Duncan Mackendrick,and he has his headquarters in your neck of the woods, Ms Shaw: Edinburgh. I am given to understand that he has his base of operations at a certain Hailes Castle. And now,” he went on, “I do think a drop of sherry is in order. Should we repair to the SCR?”
She followed the Professor from his set to the Senior Common Room, considering the irony of chasing halfway across Europe and back only to find that the person who could perhaps shed most light on the whereabouts of Ralph Dennison, and perhaps Ed Richie, lived in the same city as herself. She entered the SCR behind the Professor and stopped in her tracks.
He smiled at her. “Yes, it is rather beautiful, is it not?”
She approached the painting that hung above the blazing fire; she took in the vibrant Greek landscape, the gorgeous sunset and the sparks of silver pigment glinting in the rocky headland, and finally the childish signature: EMMI.
Professor Sloane was at her elbow. “A gift from an anonymous benefactor, just last year,” he explained. “The odd thing is that while Ralph was with Omega-Tec, he often donated artworks to the college.” He gestured at the painting. “Wherever he is now, Ms Shaw, I rather think he would approve, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure he would,” she said.
From Ed Richie’s journal, 3rd March, 2023
I WAS IN Waterstone’s in Leeds the other day when I saw Jeremy Corbyn’s biography – a great brick of a book. And what a surprise when I picked it up and saw who’d written it: Ella Shaw. Surely it couldn’t be Annabelle’s sister, the same Ella Shaw who, as a twelve-year-old, had visited Annabelle and spoke hardly a word to me? But when I turned to the back-flap I saw her photo… Forty years might have passed, but I saw the girl she had been in the determined face of the ageing woman. I bought the book and I’m a hundred pages into it: authoritative, insightful, and extremely readable – the kind of literary biography that isn’t often published these days.
From Ed Richie’s journal, 1st January, 2025
WILL THERE EVER be peace in our time, or is it a precondition of our being human that we’ll forever be at war? It’s late, and I’m pissed… Just got back from the party at Diggers’. Breaking news while we were revelling… Neo-Nazi terrorists in Warsaw have slaughtered two hundred hostages – men, women and children – at a shopping centre in the city. No sooner have the religious fascists of Daesh been routed, than Nazi thugs raise their ugly heads. I despair. I need a drink… Maybe this is a suitable subject for the next novel?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
May, 1995
WHEN RICHIE CAME to his senses, he was sitting in an armchair before a cluttered desk and a primitive Amstrad computer, green text glowing on a black screen. He leaned forward, staring at the words, the screen seeming to pulse with unhealthy light. He read a few lines and realised that this was one of his early, unsuccessful radio plays – and the Amstrad the old machine he’d had for years and could never afford to replace.
A trickle of smoke over his right hand caught his eye, and he was amazed to see a cigarette smouldering between his fingers. He swore, leaned forward and buckled the cigarette in an ashtray already half full of tab ends. He’d forgotten that briefly in the mid-’nineties he’d taken up smoking.
He peered at the top right corner of the computer screen, checking for the date. But of course the Amstrad had no such niceties. This was a write-to-disc only contraption, a step up from an electric typewriter. He recalled that he’d had the machine for almost ten years, unable to afford anything more advanced, and had grown fond of the thing.
He took in the unmade double bed, the wonky IKEA wardrobe, and the bookshelf stuffed with dog-eared paperbacks, reference books and dictionaries. He hardly recognised the place; his memory of the room, of this period, was more than twenty years old, and imp
erfect. He’d completely forgotten that he’d ever had a Greenpeace poster of the Rainbow Warrior above the bricked-up fireplace, and he had no memory of the plastic globe on the mantel-shelf – maybe a joke birthday present from an old girlfriend? The notion struck a vague chord, but he was unable to bring either the occasion or the woman to mind.
So this was the room in the Brixton terraced house he’d rented between ’94 and ’98. He recalled he’d shared the place with two junior doctors, though due to the erratic pattern of their shifts he’d hardly seen them. It was a period of his life he had no desire to dwell upon, never mind relive, having spent much of the time in a futile fog of self-pity. He’d worked part-time at the local Waterstones, seen a few women he hardly recalled, and the radio plays he’d sent off to Bush House had been returned, without comment, with depressing regularity.
He looked around the room for some indication of the date. He wasn’t wearing a watch – he’d disdained such personal ornamentation in the ’nineties, he recalled – and he couldn’t find a discarded newspaper: he’d lived a frugal life, without the luxury of daily papers. He moved to the window and stared out; it was evidently spring or summer, as bright sunlight bathed the row of cars parked in the narrow street. He moved to the wardrobe and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
He was in his mid-thirties, his hair longer than it would be at forty-two. He had a beer belly and looked unfit – it was still a few years until he took up jogging, resumed five-a-side football, and started eating healthily.
He was wearing frayed, faded jeans and a dark green Fruit of the Loom T-shirt. He wondered who he was seeing now. He’d dated a succession of women while living in Brixton, with long abstinences in between affairs while he concentrated on his writing.