by Iain Banks
The Caley still has a library, where the cuttings are kept. When you start getting into a story the first step is usually getting the cuts up, and this is where they come from. I suppose in a few years absolutely everything will be stored in databases and you'll be able to do this sort of thing from anywhere in the world by modem, but for now there's a real place you have to come to if you want to look up the more obscure reference books, the paper's pre-computer files and back issues of the Caledonian itself (though even these are held on microfiche rather than actual newsprint). The Caley's library is housed in a single cavernous room deep inside the building, two floors below the reception area; it has no windows, you can't hear any traffic or trains and it's actually pretty restful unless the presses are running. I exchange a few words with Joanie, our head librarian, then settle in and start exploring.
Apart from confirming that Ares is the god of massacre, which may or may not have any relevance to anything, I can't find much. There's no reference to anybody or anything called Jemmel. I find myself leafing through the stuff I've already discovered about Wood, Bennet, Harrison, Aramphahal and Isaacs.
Wood and Isaacs worked for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, Bennet for the Nuclear Inspectorate, Aramphahal was a cryptography expert at GCHQ and Harrison was a DTI guy with rumoured links to MI6. Aramphahal went down to the railway track that ran at the bottom of his garden near Gloucester, tied a rope round his neck, secured the other end to a tree on one side of the track and himself to a trunk on the opposite side, and waited for an express. Wood lived in Egremont, a small village in Cumbria; he took a bath with an electric drill. Not the battery-powered type. Bennet was found drowned in a farm cesspit near Oxford. Isaacs tied an ancient and very heavy typewriter to his feet and threw himself into Derwent Water, and Harrison sat in a hotel room in Windermere and swallowed the two liquids which react together to make cavity-wall insulation foam: choked to death. They all seemed to know each other and they all had very hazy work records with long gaps in them when nobody seemed to know where they'd been, and none of them had any close colleagues — or at least none who'd admit to being close to them.
It all looked suspicious as hell and I know people on a couple of the London broadsheets who were trying to find out if this was more than a series of coincidences, but nobody ever got anywhere. There was a question asked in Parliament and a police investigation was launched but it promptly submerged and didn't discover anything either, or if it did it was kept very quiet.
According to Mr Archer the five dead men all had one thing in common: an injection mark on the arm and/or a contusion on the back of their skull where they'd been hit. The implication was that none of them had been conscious when they'd supposedly killed themselves. Mr Archer claimed to have seen copies of the original forensic records that proved this, but I — like other hacks — had checked with the relevant local cops and coroners and discovered nothing untoward, though admittedly the old guy in Cumbria who'd done the PMs on Isaacs, Wood and Harrison had died of a coronary shortly after the police investigation began, which was either a coincidence or not but unprovable either way, especially as he'd been cremated, like the other five had.
I'm shaking my head at all this conspiracy-theory stuff and just starting to wonder whether the sensation at the back of my eyes is the start of a headache or not when the library extension rings. Joanie calls me over; it's for me.
"Cameron?" It's Frank.
"Yes," I say through my teeth. This had better not be another spell-checkism.
"Your Mr Archer's on the phone. Shall I put him through?"
Ah-ha. "Oh, why not?"
There are a few clicks (while I think, Shit, I can't record this call either) and then the Stephen Hawking voice: "Mr Colley?"
"Speaking. Mr Archer?"
"I have more."
"What?"
"Jemmel's real name still eludes me. But I know the name of the agent, the sales representative for the end-user."
"Uh-huh?"
"His name is Smout." He spells it for me.
"Okay," I say, thinking the name sounds familiar. "And —?"
"He's the one they don't talk about, in Baghdad. But —»
But, the line goes dead. There are a couple of clicks, a sequence of faraway noises like touch-tones and a faint, barely audible echo: "… they don't talk about, in Baghdad. But —»
I put the phone down, feeling just a little dizzy; still somewhat tipsily drunk from lunch, cock-sore from two heavily frustrated wanks, and mind reeling with the implications of what Mr Archer's just told me, not to mention the heavy hint that — even if I wasn't able to — somebody somewhere was recording it all.
The thing is, I know who Smout is: I did an article on him. The forgotten hostage, the man who — like Mr Archer says — they don't talk about.
Daniel Smout is — or was — a medium-ranking arms dealer who's been in prison in Baghdad for the last five years, charged at first with spying and then convicted of drug smuggling; he was sentenced to death but that was commuted to life imprisonment. HMG has always shown a marked reluctance to have anything to do with him and the last time any diplomatic representative saw him was three years ago. But there's been a persistent rumour that he was an agent for the West, working on something so sensitive that nobody involved wanted the press or anybody else to know anything about it, and the reason he's been banged up is to stop him talking, after whatever deal he was working on finally fell through.
So we're talking about a project with the code-name of the god of massacre, involving Iraq, a very secret deal and five dead men including at least three who had access to nuclear intelligence and two to physical nuclear product — plutonium — in the place where they've managed to lose more weapon-grade material than your average nuke-ambitious third-world dictator has ever had wet dreams of acquiring. British Nuclear Fuels Limited, General Communications Headquarters, the Nuclear Inspectorate, the Department of Trade and Industry, and an agent — a sales rep for the end-user, Mr Archer called him — in Baghdad.
Dear holy shit.
I hit the news room to show my face and just as I get to my desk my phone goes and I jump and grab it and it's Mr Archer again. I get the Pearlcorder working this time.
"Mr Colley, I cannot talk now but if I can call you at home on Friday night I hope to give you something more then."
"What?" I say, putting a hand through my hair. At home? This is a departure. "All right; my number —»
"I have your home number. Goodbye."
"… Goodbye," I say to the silent receiver.
"Everything all right?" Frank asks, eyebrows arched in concern.
"Fine," I say, grinning wildly and probably unconvincingly. "Just fine."
Retreat to toilets again claiming dodgy ingredient in lunch-time chowder and snort some speed, then take a walk out to Salisbury Crags and sit on rock looking out over the city, smoking a spliff and thinking, Oh, Mr Archer, whatever are we involved in?
CHAPTER 4: INJECTION
"7970."
"Uh… hi?"
"Andy, is that you?"
"Uh, yeah. Who is this?" The voice is slow, sleepy-sounding.
"What do you mean, "Who is this?" You rang me. It's Cameron. The man who left a message on your answering-machine all of ten minutes ago."
"Cameron…"
"Andy! For Christ's sake. It's me: Cameron, childhood buddy; your best fucking friend. Remember me? Wake up!" I can't believe Andy sounds so sleepy. Okay, it is midnight but Andy never used to hit the hay much before two at the earliest.
"… Oh, yeah, Cameron. I thought I recognised that number. How you doing?"
"I'm all right. Yourself?"
"Oh, you know; yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. I'm fine."
"You sound stoned."
"Well, you know."
"Look, if it's too late, I'll call some other time —»
"No, no, that's all right."
I'm sitting in the box room of the flat, TV on, sound off, the machi
ne on and the Despot status-screen showing. It's a Friday night and I should be out enjoying myself but I'm waiting for Mr Archer to call and besides I'm frightened if I do anything too enjoyable I'll want a fag, so that's another reason for staying in and watching TV and playing games but just then I started to think about Ares and those five dead guys and the lad in the clink in Baghdad and suddenly I thought, Cameron, you are definitely dealing with something from the desk of Pearl Frotwithe here, and got scared and wanted to hear another human voice so I rang Andy because I owe him a call and I've hardly spoken to him since he was here for a weekend during the summer but got his answer-machine, there in the dark hotel only a couple of hundred kilometres away though he still sounds faint and distant. I think I can hear his voice echoing in the spaces of that quiet, cold place.
"So, been doing anything exciting?" I ask him.
"Nothing much. Bit of fishing. Been up on the hill. You know. You?"
"Oh, the usual. Fucking about. Covering the story. Hey — I've given up fags."
"Again?"
"No, finally."
"Right. You still fucking that married piece?"
"'Fraid so," I say (and am glad that he can't see the grimace I make when I say this). This is awkward because Andy knows Yvonne and William from our Stirling days; he used to be really friendly with William and, though they seem to have gone their separate ways since, I don't want Andy to know about me and Yvonne. I always worry he'll guess it's her.
"Yeah… What was her name again?"
"I don't think I ever told you," I tell him, laughing and sitting back in the chair.
"Frightened I'll tell somebody?" he says, sounding amused.
"Yeah. I live in perpetual fear our enormous circle of mutual friends will find out."
"Huh. But you should find yourself your own lady."
"Yeah," I say, imitating a stoned-out drawl. "Gotta find ma own chick, like, ma-an."
"Well, you never did take my advice."
"Keep trying. One day."
"You ever go the other way these days?"
"Eh?"
"You know, with guys."
"What? Good grief, no. I mean…" I look at the receiver in my hand. "No," I say.
"Hey, I just wondered."
"Why, do you?" I ask, and then regret the tone because it sounds like I'm at least disapproving if not actually homophobic.
"Na," Andy says. "Na, I don't… I kind of… you know, I lost interest in all that stuff." He chuckles, and I imagine again that I can hear the noise echoing in the dark hotel. "It's just, you know; old habits die hard."
"But they do die," I tell him. "Don't they?"
"I guess so. Usually."
"Shit," I say, leaning forwards and starting Despot running on the screen because I need to be doing something and normally at this point I'd be reaching for the cigarettes. "I was thinking about coming up there sometime soon and dropping in on you. You're not going weird on me, are you, Gould?"
"Cabin fever, man. Highland angst." He laughs again. "No, you come on up. Let me know, like, first, but yeah; be great to see you. Look forward to it. Been too long."
"Well, soon then." I use the mouse to check the game's geo-update. "You done anything with that fucking mansion?"
"Eh? Oh; the place."
"Yeah, the place."
"No, nothing. Nothing's changed."
"Get any of the leaks fixed?"
"No… Oh."
"What?"
"Tell a lie."
"You have fixed the leaks."
"No, I forgot; things have changed."
"What?"
"Well, a couple of the ceilings fell down."
"Ah-ha."
"Well, it's wet up here."
"Nobody hurt, though."
"Hurt? How could anybody be hurt? There's only me here."
"Of course. So there's plenty of room if I want to come and stay but I should bring a golf umbrella or a waterproof sleeping bag or a tent or something, right?"
"No, there are dry rooms here, too. Come on."
"Okay. I don't know when I'll be coming up, but, well, before the end of the year."
"Why not come up, like, next week or something?"
"Ah," I say, thinking. Hell, I could. It all depends what's happening with the various stories I'm involved with, but theoretically I could. I need time off; I need a change of scene. "Okay; why not? Just for a couple of days, probably, but yeah; pencil me in."
"Great. When you going to arrive?"
"Um, say Thursday or Friday. I'll confirm."
"Okay."
We talk a bit more, reliving old times, before I sign off.
I put the phone down and sit there with Despot running but I'm not really paying attention, I'm thinking about my old friend, the ice-child, our wunderkind, archetypal "eighties player and then victim. I was always jealous of him, always somehow yearning for what he had even when I knew I didn't really want it.
And Andy always seemed to be elsewhere, and more involved. Two years before I went to Stirling he'd started at St Andrew's on an Army-sponsored course and by the time the Falklands War began he was a lieutenant in the Angus Rifles. He yomped from San Carlos to Tumbledown, was wounded in a botched attack on an Argentinian position and awarded a DSO. He sent the decoration back when the officer who'd been in charge of the attack was kicked upstairs instead of being court-martialled. Andy left the Army the following year, joined a big London advertising company, did well there (he dreamt up IBM's "Insist On Perfection — We Do" campaign and Guinness's "Pint Taken?" slogan) and then suddenly left to start The Gadget Shop in Covent Garden. Neither Andy nor his partner — another ex-ad-agency man — had any retail experience whatsoever, but they had lots of ideas and a degree of luck, plus they used their contacts in the media (me, for one) to produce a huge free advertising campaign in the shape of articles about themselves and the business. The shop and its mail-order catalogue were an immediate success. In less than five years Andy and his partner opened another twenty branches, made a modest fortune, and then sold out for an immodest one to a big retail chain a couple of months before the stock-market crash of "87.
Andy took six months off, went on a world trip — travelling first class — toured America on a Harley, and cruised round the Caribbean in a yacht. He was on a trans-Saharan trip when his sister Clare died. After the funeral he mooched around the family estate at Strathspeld for a few months, then spent some time in London doing nothing much except seeing old friends and clubbing. After that he seemed to lose it, somehow. He became quiet, then reclusive, and bought a big, old decaying hotel in the western Highlands and retired to live there alone, practically broke apparently and still not really doing anything apart from drinking too much, getting wrecked most nights, going a bit hippy — I mean, like, man — fishing from his dinghy, walking in the hills, and just lying in bed sleeping while the hotel — in a quiet, dark village that was busy once, before they built a new road and the ferry service stopped — crumbles quietly around him.
"Cameron! Kirkton of Bourtie."
"What's that, Frank?"
"It's a wee village near Inverurie."
"Where?"
"Never mind. Guess what —?"
"Give in."
""Kickoff of Blurted"! Ha ha ha!"
"Stop, I can't breathe."
I've taken the weekend off and spent it detoxing myself, laying off the powder and drinking nothing more deleterious to the system than strong tea. This regime has had the added advantage of helping to keep my tobacco cravings in check. I've played Despot a lot, ramping my era-level into something resembling the beginnings of an industrial revolution before my nobles revolted, the barbarians from the south and west struck together, and there was a major earthquake which resulted in a plague. By the time I've finished dealing with that lot I'd dropped back to an era-level comparable to Rome after the schism with the Eastern Empire and there was even a danger that the southern barbarians weren't so barbaric after all; maybe t
hey were more civilised than my lot. This could be shaping up to a strategic defeat. My Empire licked its wounds and I took great delight in ordering the ceremonial execution of several generals. Meanwhile my cough's getting worse and I think I'm coming down with a cold and Mr bloody Archer never did call but on the other hand the credit-card company wrote to me being nice for a change and hiked my limit so I've got a bit more money to play with.
"Think that nice Mr Major's going to get away with the Maastricht vote?" Frank asks, his big ruddy face appearing round the side of my screen like the moon from behind a hill.
"Easily," I tell him. "His backbenchers are a bunch of spineless brown-noses and, even if there was any danger, those asshole Lib-Dems'll save the Tories" skins as usual."
"Care to make a small wager?" Frank twinkles.
"On the result?"
"On the size of Uncle John's majority."
"Twenty says the margin's into double figures."
Frank thinks about this. He nods. "You're on."
I've been back on naval stuff again today, interviewing people at Rosyth dockyard, which may or may not be closed soon, putting another six thousand on the local dole queue. A lot depends on whether they get the contract to service the Trident subs or not.
I'm a few hundred words into the story when the phone goes.
"Hello. Cameron Colley."
"Cameron, oh Cameron, oh thank goodness you're there. I was sure I'd got the time difference wrong again; convinced. I really was. Cameron, it's ridiculous; I mean it really is. I'm just at my wits" end, I really am. I just can't talk to him. He's impossible. I don't know why I married him, I really don't. He's mad. I mean literally mad. I wouldn't mind so much but I think he's driving me mad, too. I wish you'd talk to him; I wish you'd say something, I really do. I mean I'm sure he won't listen to you either but, but, but… well, at least he might listen to you."
"Hello, Mum," I say wearily, and reach for my jacket pocket where the cigarette packet ought to be.
"Cameron, what am I to do? Just tell me that. Just tell me what on earth anybody's supposed to do with such an impossible man. I swear he's getting worse, he really is. I wish it was just my imagination but it isn't, I swear it isn't. He's getting worse, he really is. It's not me. It's him; I mean, my friends agree. He'll be the —»