Secrets of Blue and Gold

by Lynn Watson

  ‘I know. I’m disappointed too but I don’t want to go into it, it’s such a tangled web. The last thing I must tell you is that Junoco has been under police surveillance from the start. That’s how the site got hacked. Daniela has now decided it’s too difficult to trade from here and she’s going to relocate abroad under a new brand name, close down Junoco. It’s what we were told at the beginning: be light-footed, ready to cut and run.’

  She hadn’t planned to avoid naming Vicky, but when it came to it she felt some kind of misplaced loyalty, or perhaps it was just her distress and loss of pride.

  ‘Oh God, really, this is insane! It does figure though; I can see they’re getting jumpy at the university and Fred has muttered about deferring the project. He’s rattled, that’s obvious. Maybe it’s more naivety on his part, I’d like to think.’

  ‘I hardly know him, so I can’t begin to second-guess his motives but from what you say, the university team can sense the approaching tsunami, if it hasn’t already crashed over the beach. But shush now, I can hear the others on their way down.’

  Marcus and Kwesi were stepping down the stairs with the drums, which they planned to set up in the front room. Alice followed Fran into the hall to be introduced and pick up her guitar case. She liked to sing and had promised she would play some of her own numbers at the end, as well as joining in with the others if it felt right.

  The music lasted two hours and included several of the songs Fran had on her playlist, an eclectic mix of classic rock, ’80s pop, blues and country. She knew the duo had put in many hours of practice, but she was amazed by their versatility, their ability to adapt tunes to their instruments while staying faithful to the original tracks. Within half an hour, Alice was strumming along and joining in with the smiles and nods passing between them as they experimented with small improvisations and modified the tempo, volume and emotional tone. Her singing voice was lower than Fran’s and they harmonised so naturally that at several points the men stopped playing to listen to the women’s duet. Following the main session, Alice played some of her own numbers, with Marcus and Fran joining in the singing and Kwesi tapping his foot, blissfully happy.

  ‘It is the best evening I have enjoyed in England. Thank you, my wonderful friends.’

  Fran smiled at him, marvelling at how they had all tuned in so well, and not just in terms of the music. She looked round, including everyone in her gaze.

  ‘And thank you all too, from me. You should get out there and perform together, the three of you. It’s a great sound, and you could add in the jazz that we haven’t heard tonight yet.’

  Marcus adopted a lounging position on the sofa, his long legs stretched out under the coffee table, perfectly at home. It was a good thing Alice was staying the night, as Fran couldn’t risk a recurrence of what had happened the last time he stayed late. She looked across to Kwesi, who placed Guacamole on the floor, picked up the mole’s drum seat and put it between his knees to stroke and tap it.

  ‘I wanted to ask you, Kwesi. How’s your asylum appeal going? Have you heard anything?’

  ‘No, there is no word. They don’t answer my emails and they are not helpful on the phone; they don’t answer.’

  ‘That’s just wrong. They’re leaving you in limbo when you could be working as a doctor in one of our hospitals. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘You must not be anxious for me. You and Marcus and Lily have been very kind, and I hope I can repay you one day, invite you to my home.’

  ‘Hey, man, we love you!’ Marcus interjected.

  ‘Speaking of Lily, how’s she doing, Marcus?’ asked Fran. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages, what with being on holiday and everything.’

  ‘She’s been round a few times, still wound up about the missing cats. I daren’t take the poster down and I see yours is still in the window too.’

  ‘I must get to see her soon, tomorrow.’

  She felt another pang of guilt about the way she had spoken to Lily after she came back from confronting Vicky in Andy’s kitchen; how she had brushed her off like an annoying little gnat. She hoped Lily hadn’t said anything to Marcus, hadn’t shown she was upset. Now, however, Fran needed to take advantage of her friends all being here together.

  ‘I know it’s late, but I need some advice, if you don’t mind.’

  Marcus pulled a cushion towards him, shoved it behind his back and sat up to listen. Fran gave them the summary she had mentally prepared while hoovering that afternoon. Marcus and Alice already knew certain parts of the story, but Kwesi needed to be filled in on how she had met Daniela and been persuaded to join her Junoco business. Then there was Ned, how he had been brought into it and his ambition to start a similar venture with a different client base. This was pretty much the bare bones, leaving out most of the machinations and betrayals, as well as the entire account of the schools research programme.

  ‘So this is my question: should I accept Ned’s invitation and become his business partner?’

  She didn’t mention Daniela’s parallel offer of promotion to manager at Frocks and Chocs, as it was the ethical issues, the morality she was confused about. She had wanted to include Kwesi in this as she imagined, rightly as it turned out, that as a doctor he would be sceptical. His initial contribution, however, came as a shock.

  ‘I must tell you that the sick young girl we found on the grass – that was the day I met you, Fran – she has died of a drug overdose. It wasn’t heroin. It was a cheaper drug, what they call a legal high. It is impossible to stop people selling them on the internet and on the street.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I know you were trying to help her – Charley, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It was difficult to talk to her but she wanted to stop, to change her life. She had chances but she didn’t take them, or she fell back each time. She was lost – no family, her friends were addicts. It is easy to become addicted to drugs and be destroyed by them.’

  Marcus leaned forward. ‘You’re right, but it’s different with Junoco, the curiosity chocolates we’re talking about, isn’t it? It’s true that people can often be irresponsible or desperate, but the Junoco effects are positive and it could be good for society as well. Just like penicillin or any new drug, except it hasn’t been officially approved. Look at Fran. She’s pursuing her artistic flair and her drawings are just getting better all the time. And while we’re talking business partners, I’d love to work with you too, Fran, turning your sketches into paintings, maybe try digital animation – they’d be perfect for it.’

  She blinked in surprise. Wow, that was a bolt from the blue, digital animation.

  They talked late into the night and it was well after two when the men left. By this time, Alice was curled up on one end of the sofa, fast asleep. Fran fetched a blanket and laid it over her before leaning down and kissing her on the cheek. Then she restored Guacamole to his customary place on the hearth.

  ‘Goodnight, Alice. Goodnight, Mr Mole – one day, I’ll get you truly animated.’

  ‘Goodnight, Frankie. Sweet dreams.’

  She stared at Guacamole, and then turned to Alice, who sighed but didn’t wake.

  Fran turned off the light in the hallway and stepped onto the bottom stair, then stopped and looked upwards. The moonlight was brighter than she had ever seen it from this position, shining through the back-bedroom window and illuminating the landing. She continued up and into the bedroom, noting the scent of the purple and yellow freesias she had arranged in the decorated glass vase for Alice’s overnight stay. The orb of the moon was immense and seemed very close. It was spellbinding; normally familiar and reassuring, but tonight majestic and full of mythic power.

  She cast her gaze across the night sky, her eyes adjusting to follow the pattern of the stars. Out there beyond the moon was Mars, and way beyond Mars was mighty Jupiter, with its mysterious red spot and its captured circling asteroids, among them Juno, unearthly rock and space goddess.

  Drawn by the magnetic lure of t
he giant moon, she began to discern faint outlines forming on its surface and blending into a sequence of faces, faces she recognised: first Marina as a tiny girl, the elfin child; then her dad Lawrence in old age, older than he ever was in life, the ancient sage; and finally Judi, best friend and good spirit, indistinct and transforming into a classic profile of Juno, as if stamped on a coin.

  Forced to blink twice, she brought her eyes down to her garden, which had been landscaped by the previous owner as far as the small wild patch at the end. Opening the window, she heard voices; not ordinary conversation or the drunken shouting matches or agitated night phone calls of the city street, but the sound of chanting, low and rhythmic.

  She stepped back into the dark room and tried to work out what direction the sound was coming from. It was from the left, one of the neighbouring gardens or the path that ran along the back of the terrace. Moving stealthily forward, but not to the point of making herself visible, she trained her eyes on the unlit area at the bottom of Marcus’ garden and then across the next fence to Delia and Eric’s. Through the tall hedge that ran across their garden halfway down, she could see moving pinpoints of light, and attached to the lights were the shadowy figures of several people. She pulled the bedroom chair towards her so she could stand on it to see over the hedge. The chanting figures were dressed in monk-like robes with loose hoods and they were swinging long light-wands as they followed each other round in a small circle.

  Fran sat down heavily on the bed. There had been no Junoco session tonight, and anyway this was no Junoco dream; it was too creepy. She stood up again and peeped around the curtain, knowing the figures were real but hoping they might dissolve and fade away. Did the full moon explain it, or make it into something more than what it was: an unusual but harmless ritual, or even a game? No, this was Eric and Delia; they weren’t harmless. She had no choice but to call Marcus, force him to come with her and discover what was going on.

  Within two minutes, she had clambered over the front wall close to the door and Marcus let her in. Luckily, he and Kwesi had stayed up ‘to put the world to rights’ and were still awake and alert. She briefed them quickly and, to her relief and surprise, Marcus was immediately up for it and concocting a plan.

  ‘You and I, Fran, go out the front and round your house to the side path. We creep down there and along the back path, then we crouch behind their fence and earwig on what they’re saying and doing. Kwesi, you stay inside and if we need you to do anything, we’ll call you, okay? You mustn’t come with us. It will be too risky for you, especially if we’ve got it all wrong and the operation goes pear-shaped.’

  Kwesi nodded. ‘This happens often in my country. It is religion; religious perversion, not true religion.’

  Fran shuddered. ‘Maybe – we don’t know that yet.’

  It felt quite exposed on the back path, which in parts was bathed in moonlight. The chanting had speeded up and become more impassioned. Reaching the wooden gate in the high fence at the back of Eric and Delia’s garden, Fran pointed out a small hole created by a lost knot in the wood. They looked through it in turn and exchanged grim expressions.

  ‘Did you see – it’s a cat, isn’t it? They’re passing it round the circle and lifting it above their heads,’ Marcus whispered, miming the actions as he spoke.

  ‘There are animal bodies too, two or three dead ones I think, lying on the table to the side. The lights are flickering; it’s hard to make out but I’m almost certain of it.’

  They slipped down to a sitting position with their backs to the fence. Marcus was in battle mode now, wanting to create an opportunity to charge or slip in and get the evidence, while Fran favoured calling the police straight away.

  ‘We’ll have to call them anyway. We can still stay here and grab our chance if we get one, although we’ll need to climb over as this gate is bound to be locked, unless they’ve left it open as an escape route. We’ll hear the police car when it arrives and I’ll dash round to the front before Kwesi has to answer the door.’

  ‘Just five more minutes, let’s see what happens. I think it’s ending now; they’re sloping off back to the house, listen.’

  She stood up again and looked through the peephole. He was right. The whole group was gliding away in their robes, leaving the scene of carnage.

  ‘Now, Marcus!’ She tried the gate and it swung open. The table was very close. He ran in, keeping low, and snatched one of the limp and bloodied corpses.

  As they came down the side path, she let him run ahead while she called the police. It was almost comically macabre, seeing the silhouette of his lanky figure lolloping along with the lifeless creature held out to one side by its tail.

  The police call-handler would be used to bizarre calls at this time of the night, both genuine and hoax. Thankfully she registered Fran’s voice and decided to treat it as genuine.

  ‘We’ll send a car over. Call again if anyone leaves the house. Don’t approach them, but if you can get a vehicle registration number, that will be helpful.’

  ***

  The moon was pale but still dominant in the lightening sky as Fran gazed at it from her near-horizontal position on the bed. The police had arrived in two cars, one pair of officers running round the back as the other two walked up the path to Eric and Delia’s front door. The couple had been taken off to the station along with three or four others, all back in normal clothes. Eric had looked old and dishevelled as a female officer pushed his head down sharply and eased him into the back of the car. They had also come to Fran’s door and arranged to take witness statements from her and Marcus the next afternoon.

  Eventually, she dozed off and found herself in a strange hotel lobby, where she was asking for a room number but getting no information from the blank-faced receptionists. Then she was joined by a group of friends, all fired up but none of whom she knew in real life. They ran up long flights of stairs and along the corridors, knocking on doors and being shouted at by angry guests. Finally, they burst into a room to find Andy and Vicky sitting in bed side by side against soft, silky pillows, holding fizzing flutes of champagne and not at all perturbed by the interruption and Fran’s triumphant shriek of ‘Found you!’ Her friends slunk off like the insubstantial ghosts they were, leaving her facing Vicky’s pixie smile and Andy’s innocent expression, which said, What did I tell you, Frankie? I’m easily led.

  She awoke abruptly, disturbed by the humiliating dream episode but knowing it held an important message, something she had to consider later. Now she needed to think about the night’s actual events: the sacrificial animals, and what she was going to say to Lily. The main thing was to catch Petra as she left for work. Petra had to decide how to play it with Lily; it was her responsibility.

  Fran went downstairs to find Alice, who had slept through the whole drama. She was incredulous and horrified by the tale of ritual sacrifice but allowed herself a little amusement at Fran’s pivotal role in the arrests.

  ‘What is it about you? Have you always created mayhem wherever you go?’

  ‘That’s unfair. I’m just a naive country girl who’s ridden into town.’

  ‘Yes, and on a frisky little horse!’

  ‘A runaway pony, more like.’

  The long-ago picnic scene in the field resurfaced in Fran’s memory: how she had hung back and watched, huddled in her thin towel, while Judi leapt through the thistles and spiky grass after Jambo, naked and fearless.

  When Alice left for work, Fran positioned herself at the front window and was able to run out and catch Petra as she had planned. To begin with, Petra was decidedly cool, but this changed as she heard the account of the night before, and especially when Fran ended by saying she would love Lily to come round after school. As she walked back to her door, Marcus also emerged.

  ‘Hi, Marcus, how are you this morning? How do you feel?’

  ‘How do I feel – sick and angry, but glad we went in there and did what we had to do. The grisly sight of the animals, I can’t get over it. I
hope they get banged up for a long time. The cruelty – what the hell drives them? Were they on something, do you think – spaced out?

  ‘I don’t know – it has to be some kind of cult. Perhaps we’ll never be told.’

  ‘And they found a couple of pet snakes in there too, don’t know what type; did the police tell you? They must have—’

  Fran raised her hand. ‘Stop now – I don’t want to hear it! It just doesn’t bear thinking about. But, Marcus, can I talk to you after work, about something else? It’s important.’

  ‘Now is okay, if it’s important. I’m on flexitime and I’ve got half an hour to spare.’

  He stood in the hall while she reported in summary on what Osvaldo had said about the link between Junoco and Bright Minds, her pub encounters with Ravi and her plan to contrive a meeting with the senior civil servant.

  ‘You can’t do it like that, Fran, go along with a journalist. It won’t work. She’ll never open up if you’re with him. And as you say, he might not even be a journalist. Have you any proof?’

  ‘What then? How should I do it? Who should I go with?’

  ‘Go by yourself, as yourself, the small, ordinary person who has been unwittingly drawn in and now wants to pass on a vital piece of information to the authorities.’

  ‘But Ravi is going to arrange access, set up the meeting through his contacts.’

  ‘It’s a complete no-no, I’m telling you. I work with civil service types every day, remember; I know what they’re like. If she’s pressured by a journalist, if she feels in danger of being exposed for incompetence or worse, she’ll be on the defensive and you won’t get the right response. She’ll be less guarded with you on your own – especially you, you can look like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.’

  ‘Okay, I take your point and you’re not the first or last person to say it. What do you suggest?’

  She presented the question as a form of challenge. This was Marcus’ issue too, something that mattered to him, but he was miles too timid, it wasn’t going to happen – although to be fair he hadn’t been timid last night; far from it.