Simon Ian Childer

by Tendrils (epub)

  SIMON IAN CHILDER

  Tendrils

  GRAFTON BOOKS

  A Division of the Collins Publishing Group

  LONDON GLASGOW TORONTO SYDNI.Y AUCKLAND

  Grafton Books

  A Division of the Collins Publishing Group 8 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA

  Published by Grafton Books 1986

  Copyright © Simon Ian Childer 1986

  ISBN 0-586-06437-0

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow

  Set in Times

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  1

  Monday, 12.14 p.m.

  inexorably, the drill bit chewed its way through the layer of limestone four hundred and thirty feet below the ground. The bit, studded with industrial diamonds, was now only minutes away from penetrating a layer of materia! unlike anything it or any other drill had ever encountered in the earth before.

  On the surface the engineers and workmen around the drilling rig were oblivious of what lay deep beneath their feet. None of them had even the vaguest of premonitions of danger; none of them suspected that within forty-five minutes most of their number would be dead.

  Anne Thomas glanced at the countryside as she drove along the narrow road. Nothing had changed. The fields, the trees, the hedges, walls and houses were all rich and warm in the summer sun. Wild flowers decorated the verges in patterns of studied randomness that suggested they’d been arranged by the Arts Council.

  Anne's car was roughly in the middle of the ragbag convoy that was making its way through the unspoilt Hertfordshire countryside on this hot summer’s day. With the windows all open to let in the cooling breeze she could hear, over the noisy Beetles and Deux Chevaux that seemed to make up most of the convoy, the sound that proved the illusory nature of the surrounding idyllic i iral scene. It was the roar of a drilling rig.

  ‘What a racket!’ said Gavin from the back sea1 ‘Before they pollute the earth they pollute the air waves. The thin edge of the wedge.’

  Anne smiled to herself. It was Gavin’s favourite phrase. Almost everything to him was the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ - yet another example of the beginning of a bureaucratic conspiracy or the prising away of another basic right. Anne and her husband, Clive, used Gavin’s phrase as a standing joke between them and it often defused arguments between them. Well, not often because such occasions didn’t arise much these days. Her marriage seemed-to have reached a calm and happy plateau, after the rockier areas of its early years, and she prayed it would stay that way.

  She was sorry that Clive wasn’t with them on the day’s protest but though he supported their cause his job at the government’s Central Public Health Laboratory at Colindale put him in a difficult position in such a matter, especially since his relationship with his immediate superior was already strained. So she’d had to make do with the company of Gavin and his current and, unfortunately, rather insipid girlfriend Poppy.

  ‘Gavin’s right,’ said Poppy right on cue. ‘It is the thin edge of the wedge.’ She spoke as if Gavin’s standard and familiar phrase had just been handed to her on tablets of stone.

  Anne swept a tangle of blonde hair from her eyes but the wind whipped it back again. ‘It’s more than a wedge, it’s a bloody battering ram with the full weight of the government behind it.’

  Gavin leaned forward over the back of the passenger seat. ‘It doesn’t matter!’ he cried earnestly into her ear, trying to ignore her flailing hair. ‘The people can stop anything! In a democracy even this government has to listen to genuine outrage if we’re prepared to stand up and be counted. Look how many we’ve got today at such short notice!’

  She nodded. She had been impressed when the convoy had started off, not oniy at the numbers but at the social spread. There were two BMWs, a Porsche and even a Rolls among the other, cheaper, cars. When she’d seen the Porsche she’d taken back everything she’d ever thought about Porsche owners. ‘You did remember to phone the local paper?’ she asked Gavin,

  ‘Gavin wouldn’t forget that, would you Gavin?’ said Poppy protectively.

  ‘There’ll be a reporter there,’ he said, ‘even though it wouldn't surprise me if the firm doing the drilling was owned by the same consortium that owns our local rag . . .’

  ‘Look!’ shouted Poppy suddenly, making Anne jump.

  She was pointing at the top of the drilling derrick which was now visible above a row of trees. Ahead they could see the wire fence surrounding the site. Cars from the convoy had already pulled off to the side of the road and people were tumbling out of them and unfurling their protest banners.

  Anne heard a sudden thump behind her as something heavy landed on the floor of the car. ‘What was that?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Gavin.

  He sounded too casual so she turned round and looked. ‘Are those wire-cutters?’ she asked, startled. She turned back in time to narrowly avoid running into the back of the Rolls which had been reversing across her path, its driver demonstrating the total Sack of concern of the very rich. ‘Shit,’ she muttered as she swung around the Rolls and came to a halt on the grass verge.

  ‘They’re not actually wire-cutters,’ said Gavin. ‘I couldn’t get any so I borrowed my father’s secateurs . . .’

  She frowned at him as she got out of the car. ‘This is supposed to be a peaceful demonstration. You know how I feel about that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, yes . . said Gavin, trying to hide the secateurs, which were extremely rusty, behind his leg.

  ‘The gates open anyway,’ said Poppy, sounding disappointed.

  Anne looked and saw she was right. A man in overalls and a smartly dressed woman were ushering the protesters through. Well, well, thought Anne, NIREX was taking the initiative. Score one for their side. But whatever they tried to do to defuse the situation there would be the continual thunder of the drill to remind everyone of what was going on at the site.

  But just then the drill stopped.

  ‘Christ, what is it now?’ shouted Grainger as the site went quiet.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Furnoval, his assistant, looking up from the papers on his desk.

  ‘Well, go and bloody find out!' ordered Grainger. As he watched Furnoval hurry out the door of the HumpAHut Grainger reflected morosely on his fate to be continually surrounded by incompetents. And bureaucrats. They were even worse. As the site manager he was responsible for staying within the budget which meant that he had to deal every day with the officials from the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive who kept demanding more than the money they were paying his company warranted.

  Most of all he didn’t need the NIREX PR woman, Ms Maybury, who had insisted that all the hippy protesters in Hertfordshire be allowed onto the site and given a guided tour . . .

  And now, to top everything, the drill had been stopped without anyone even asking his permission. Bloody marvellous!

  He ran his fingers over his infertile scalp and, briefly, the lines of worry that rippled his forehead were pulled flat. By the time his hand had travelled back far enough to touch what remained of his hair the lines had sprung out again, red and angry. He stared impatiently out the window and saw Furnoval striding back through
the mud-clogged grass with Yates, the company’s tame geologist, in tow. Behind them the hoist and drive machinery remained silent though Grainger couid see some activity near the hoist.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded as the two men came into the hut.

  ‘It’s very interesting,’ said the young geologist, his long, boyish face flushed with excitement. ‘We were drilling through limestone and then suddenly the drill bit met hardly any resistance at all. We went down a further ten feet and it just stayed the same so I decided to stop the drilling . . .’

  ‘Oh, you did, did you?’ said Grainger ominously.

  Yates, oblivious, nodded and said eagerly. ‘I can’t imagine what it could be. None of our seismic profiles gave any indication of an abnormality like this in the area. I estimated that the limestone layer would extend a further fifty to eighty feet and then we’d encounter shale . . .’

  ‘Maybe it’s a little pocket of natural gas,’ suggested Grainger even though he knew it was extremely unlikely.

  ‘Oh no, not in this locality,’ confirmed Yates.

  ‘No chance you’ve hit that damn stream the protesters are always on about?’ he asked. Several of the older farmers maintained that there was an underground river in the area and this had been taken up by the protesters to back their argument that nuclear waste should not be buried at the site.

  i’ve told you before,’ said Yates stiffly. ‘There is no underground stream in the vicinity. I’d stake my reputation on it. The rumour started through some loony water diviner. They claim they find underground rivers ail over the place . . .’

  ‘Well, what is it then?’ demanded Grainger.

  ‘We’ll know shortly. I’ve asked George to bring up a core sample.’

  Grainger sighed and looked at his watch. They were already behind schedule today. ‘Can’t we just keep going through whatever it is and into the shale you say shouldn’t be far away?’

  Yates looked uncomfortable. ‘I wouldn’t advise it. The NIREX scientists would be furious.’

  ‘None of them have arrived yet today,’ pointed out Furnoval. ‘So what they don’t know can’t hurt them.’

  ‘The drilling patterns are recorded,’ said Yates patiently. ‘If they discover we failed to investigate a flaw in the strata then they could say we’ve failed to honour our side of the contract and just walk away from the whole thing, leaving the company stuck with having to pay for it all. Or are you suggesting we falsify the records?’ The tone of his voice made it clear that he wouldn’t be a part of any such action.

  Grainger was prepared to falsify anything if it meant finishing the job on schedule but he knew Yates would stick to his guns so he sighed and said, ‘All right. Let me know what you find. I’ll . .

  He stopped as the hut door was flung open and the NIREX PR woman was standing there, gesturing for him to go outside. ‘Come and meet these lovely people, Mr Grainger,’ she trilled. ‘I’ve just been reassuring them that there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. If this should prove a suitable site for the burial of nuclear waste we'll restore the surface area to its former beauty and no one will be able to tell that we were ever here!’

  Grainger’s eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaws. He said nothing but Yates, knowing how Grainger felt about her, quickly stepped between them and said, ‘I’ll speak to them first, Ms Maybury. Blind them with a bit of science and all that.’ He turned to Grainger. ‘If it’s all right with you.'

  Grainger grunted his assent.

  When Yates and the woman had gone he banged his fist on the desk and scores of paper clips flew to the floor. They must be mad at NIREX to hire a stupid cow like her,’ he growled.

  'Oh, 1 don’t know,’ said Furnoval. ‘I hear she goes down a treat at Women’s Institute meetings. Has the silly old bats eating out of her hand by the end of her standard talk - they’d keep radioactive waste in their fridges if she told them to . . .’

  'Well, she’s got her work cut out for her with that lot outside,' said Grainger. ‘They’re more likely to bite her hand off than eat out of it.’ He looked pleased at the thought.

  'You going to talk to them?’

  Grainger sighed again. ‘Yeah, I guess so. It’s obviously going to be one of those days. Nothing to do but grit my teeth and take it as it comes . . . and hope there are no more surprises.’

  2

  Monday, 12.35 p.m.

  What a mess, thought Anne as she looked around. The place looked like a building site with an oil rig stuck in the middle of it. Still, none of this was irreparable, she decided, yet. . .

  She was at the front of the large group that had gathered at the door of a portable hut bearing the name R. A. Grainger and the title ‘Site Manager’. The woman with the appallingly patronizing manner who had brought them from the gate was introducing a tall, gangling young man who had just emerged from the hut.

  ‘. . . our resident geologist, Mr Yates, who will be happy to reassure you on any point that may be worrying you about our work here.’

  Yates held up his hands as if to ask for silence from the crowd but as everyone was already silent the gesture was a redundant one. ‘Actually it’s Doctor Yates,’ he told them with an embarrassed grin. ‘And it’s my job to ensure that the rigorous safety standards imposed by law are met by the company. I guarantee that no nuclear waste will be deposited here unless we can be one hundred per cent certain none of it will escape.’

  ‘But why here?' asked someone in the crowd. ‘Why not somewhere else?’

  ‘Yeah, like under Westminster!’ cried someone else. Anne wasn’t sure but it sounded like Gavin.

  Yates gave a pained smile and said, ‘The reason we’ve picked this site as a good possibility for a deep level storage chamber is that the seismic profiles show that the underlying igneous rock layers are relatively close to the surface here. Igneous rock, for those who don’t know, is rock formed directly from the molten interior of the earth rock like granite or basalt - and is ideal for our purposes. With sedimentary rock layers, like clay or sandstone, there’s a possibility of some leakage but with a chamber cut into igneous rock, well below the water table, there will be absolutely no chance of any leakage . . .’

  ‘Excuse me, Doctor Yates,’ said a voice from the crowd, which this time Anne was sure belonged to Gavin, ‘but according to the National Radiological Protection Board it is simply not possible to keep nuclear wastes isolated from the environment forever. According to the Board, and I quote, “One way or another, some time or another, it will leak out.'”

  Before Yates could answer another man started to emerge from the hut. He appeared to be wider than the doorway and gave the impression that he would have dragged the hut with him if the doorway hadn’t given up the unequal struggle and let him go through.

  Yates, with a hint of relief in his voice, said, ‘Ah, this is Mister Grainger. He’s in charge of the whole operation. Perhaps you’d care to address your questions to him . . .’ ‘Can he guarantee that the stuff you're going to bury down there will never leak out?’ demanded Gavin sneeringly.

  Grainger turned and looked at him. ‘No, I can’t,’ he said with unexpected bluntness, i’m no scientist. All I know is what the scientists tell me and they say that the waste we're going to bury is going to be radioactive for thousands of years and that this method is the best way of dealing with it. Now if in a thousand years from now someone finds out it’s leaking - well, they’ll have to come up with a new idea, but in the meantime I’ve got no option but to accept what the scientists tell me and do my job accordingly.’

  ‘That’s not good enough!’ cried someone. For a change it wasn’t Gavin.

  Grainger shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it. All Doctor Yates and I can do is show you round and answer your questions but don’t ask us anything that’s settled by the government or international committees. You’ll have to take those up with your MP. Now if there are no questions immediately let’s go take a look at the drilling rig . . .’ He strode into the crowd, which parted
before him like the Red Sea before Moses. Then, after a few moments’ hesitation, the protesters obediently followed him.

  Anne, in spite of herself, was impressed with Grainger. He was clearly no expert at dealing with the public but what he’d said had been more effective than all the slick waffle from the PR woman, who was now looking quite bemused. She was about to follow the crowd when she felt a tug on her sleeve. It was Gavin, and another young man with an earring and a tight Fair Isle sweater. In this heat.

  ‘Anne, this is Paul from the local rag. He’d like to do a piece on the point of view of someone who’s writing books for a generation of kids who are going to have to grow up in a world poisoned by radioactivity.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s already written the piece. He doesn’t need me. I’m going to go over to the rig and see what they’re talking about . .

  The reporter stepped closer to her. ‘Hey, Mrs Thomas, you’re a local celebrity. It would help my article if I could quote you.’

  ‘Paul, nothing personal but before I start pontificating on anything I like to know what I’m talking about, which is why I should be over there listening to Mr Grainger instead of you. When I get some more facts we’ll talk again . . With that she smiled and headed after the others.

  When she arrived at the derrick she heard Grainger saying, ‘. . . and so a sample was drawn up to the surface using an annular bit. Unlike our ordinary bits which grind all the rock up as they drill through, the annular bit is hollow and can cut out a small cylinder of rock and keep it . .

  ‘Did you strike water?’ asked a woman protester, pointing at the slush around the well head.

  ‘Nope,’ said Grainger. ‘That’s what we call “mud”. It’s a mixture of water and different chemicals which we pump down the bore hole. It acts as a coolant, among other things . . .’He was interrupted by Furnoval rushing up to him with something held in his outstretched hand. ‘Chief, take a look at this!’

  Grainger peered suspiciously at the substance in his assistant’s hand and frowned. ‘Looks like stuffing from an old mattress. What about it?’