The Pattern Maker

by Nicholas Lim

  Encouraged, Sky continued. “Within this sacred landscape we have designed our life and homes to reflect our beliefs.” He made a curious cupping gesture with his hands. “Above, as below. You can see the Tower of Hours,” he pointed to a distant white spire standing alone, “And all four Path Houses from here: of Love, Healing, Justice, Force. Yes force, we are not sentimentalists. We take the world as we find it.”

  Skyler pointed up near the head of the Valley, to where a distant domed roof twinkled in the sun.

  “The House of Health and Knowledge will probably interest you most. It’s Osei’s great work. He has gathered chemists, agriculturalists, bio-engineers… I see you are surprised.” He shook his head. “You know Mum, you couldn’t ever quite marry up your own faith and science, could you? Not really. Well we have. Don’t get me wrong: we are not materialists in any way. We simply use technology where we find it useful; where it has spiritual value.”

  The Path House of Health.

  “Your face! You look so serious! What are you thinking?”

  Garrett hesitated. “Skyler, can I talk to you about something?”

  “Of course. Anything. But first,” Skyler frowned up at the sun. His hand went to the leather cord around his neck. “I’d like to speak to you about my father–”

  He stopped. Garrett hitched her left arm higher up where it rested on her thigh; the cut ached. She realized she was frightened.

  “Yes?”

  “My father–” he stopped again, like a musician making another false start at a memorized piece. Garrett waited. “His death. It was very hard at first – I think I blamed you.” He looked up to meet Garrett’s eyes. “I don't now. I know it wasn't your fault. It was his kismet – his fate, which we have to accept.”

  “Thank you. Perhaps I should–”

  “No. No. No shoulds.” He smiled and shook his head at her. His words lay like a gift between them. They ate in silence together for a while.

  “You looked surprised.” Skyler smiled at her. “I know it’s been a difficult time for you. For me too. For us both. I have taken time to come to terms with things. This place has taught me ways to do that, especially through our meditation practice. I expect you understand that. Christian prayer is a type of meditation.” He stopped, waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t reply he continued. “I have found the discipline very helpful.”

  “In what way?”

  “A good question.” Skyler sat up straight and his words became practiced again. “Meditation helps cultivate awareness and acceptance. It is useful for seeing clearly then untangling habits of mind. True acceptance is a sort of spell – hard and holy – real magic, not the childish stuff of wizards, but of human transformation.”

  Garrett considered the proof in his words. I know it wasn't your fault.

  Skyler dipped his pocket-knife into the honey. She could taste it still on her tongue. He offered her some. She shook her head and thought suddenly about Cherry. Had she woken yet? She’d been so tired, she might sleep for hours. As if he had heard her thought, Skyler nodded towards the distant figure of a man coming towards them on the road.

  “Don’t worry, Rayan’s on his way.”

  A strange ululating cry echoed out over the valley from the distant white tower. Garrett made out a repeated phrase, Gurusri-kalki Arshu. When the call ended a gong sounded five times. Skyler pulled his feet into the full lotus.

  “I must perform the Dues of the Hour. Please, join me in meditation if you wish.”

  He closed his eyes. Garrett waited. He remained still, eyes closed. She felt embarrassed.

  “If your old prayers are no longer available to you that’s fine. Just focus on your breath.”

  Garrett had a momentary sense that he was still looking at her, through his closed eyes. She smiled and waited but he remained silent. Beneath them, the horse threw up its head with a snort. The dusty sunshine buzzed with insects.

  She studied his face. She noticed wrinkles around his mouth; in the sun-browned skin of his face his eyes were a faded blue; the hair at his temples was lighter than she remembered and streaked with grey. Her beautiful boy was not becoming a man anymore. He was aging. When had that happened? How hadn’t she noticed? Had it been sometime in these lost years?

  She wanted to reach out and tuck a curl behind his ear, stroke the hair down over his forehead and rub his nose the way that had always made him shake his head. Perhaps she shouldn’t think of him that way any more.

  “And every time your attention wanders–” Garrett flinched. She felt guilty of prying. “– into the past, to memories, or the future, worrying – escort it back to your breath. Accept and return. That is the required discipline.”

  The words rose and fell in a rhythm strangely hypnotic, like the swing of a pendulum. She wondered where he had learned that way of speaking. Was it from this man Arshu?

  She gazed out over the meadow. As she watched, a single blue butterfly flew up out of the flowers, circled their heads then fluttered down into the grass. In the distance, she could see Rayan making his way towards them. He followed a hedgerow that ran the length of the valley bottom, right past the rock where she sat. The darker foliage was strung through with angelica in long lacy lines.

  Garrett felt a certain peace. An hour ago she had been frightened at what she would find, nervous at meeting Jason. Her eyes returned to his face. How confident he was to sit there meditating, comfortable without the need for talking. And to think how the silences of the last few years had been so full of reproach. Was it alright now, just like that? He said he had forgiven her and accepted what had happened. I know it wasn't your fault. That’s what he had said. That took understanding and courage. She studied his calm face and felt proud. What had happened to change him? Was it this place? She hadn’t lied when she had said it was beautiful. It was. She looked at the peaceful valley, at the orchards and distant buildings and the bright stream coiling through the fields. Two years this place had taken him from her.

  He had found a home, but what sort of home? She thought of their old family house outside Brighton, and the shut door to David’s study. There were square shadows on the walls; the last time Jason had been home he had taken down all the pictures showing his father. What was it he had said then? All attachment is suffering. She studied his motionless, weather-browned face. What a terrible, cowardly thought by which to live.

  She could see Rayan more clearly now. Black-faced sheep galloped away at his approach.

  Chapter 31

  Would you believe it? The woman was asleep. Now that was cool.

  Kirtananda stepped around the car, his Glock semi-automatic drawn, held at his hip. He stopped by the windscreen and read the sticker above the tax disc. A hospital staff parking permit made out to Dr C Garrett. It was her car alright. He peered through the glass. But this woman in the passenger seat was someone else.

  The impatience of adrenaline and amphetamines jerked his arm up. Who cares? She had come with her. They must have talked. No loose ends.

  A half-eaten apple sat browning on the dashboard shelf next to a packet of B&H gold and two mini pork pies in a cellophane wrapper. An empty crisp packet lay in the woman’s lap. Kirtananda glanced up and down the beach. There was no-one in sight. As he screwed a silencer onto the muzzle of his gun, he watched the woman through the side window. Her body was still. Too still. He smashed the window glass. Still the woman did not move. He pushed her forehead with the silencer; her head flopped over to the side at an unnatural angle.

  She was already dead. He stared at blood staining a corner of her mouth.

  It has begun.

  He thought again of the people driving down the motorway, of the old lady having trouble with her car gears outside the hospital. A healed world coming. This scene he was looking at would be repeated continually, everywhere.

  He leaned in through the shattered glass and pocketed the cigarettes. He hesitated then picked up the pork pies between three fingers, like a wai
ter forking empty glasses.

  He moved quickly back up into the trees. The shore path was still clear but he stayed under cover. Should he return to his cabin for the dogs? Or more firepower? Maybe get the guys. Long experience kept his excitement on a tight leash. When he removed the silencer the metal barrel was cold. Stay on it. She was close now.

  He made his way along the shore towards the headland and the Valley. On the way, he tried one of the pork pies. They were bloody brilliant.

  Chapter 32

  A red double-decker to Peckham Rye roared down Whitehall, covering White in diesel exhaust. The COBRA meeting was due to start in ten minutes. They were walking; access to Downing Street was one of the Metropole’s advantages.

  “Well let me know as soon as you can.” Hanratty broke the connection on his headset. “Damn!”

  White waited for the young man to collect himself. A second 138 roared past, closely chased by third, both empty. They passed Horse Guards Parade. Kerbs and grounds were clear of cars. They had been for the last twenty years. White could remember the incident that had resulted in the new parking restrictions – the IRA's mortar attack on Downing Street in ‘91, carried out from a van parked in the adjacent Avenue – he had felt the blast’s shockwave in his office. Could they be dealing with a terrorist incident now?

  “Sir, the hospital reports are still being collated. CDSC have reported in but the communication’s now carrying a military classification.”

  “I know,” White said. “I sent the order out! James, I need that national survey!”

  “I was told it's not being released to us.” Hanratty said, his voice defensive and a little breathless as he hurried to keep up with White's long strides. In the distance Big Ben chimed the half-hour, poking up out of the surrounding smog like a wizard's tower, sunlight striking glints off the gilt. “They're sending it up the channels.”

  He was going into a cabinet-level briefing without up-to-the-minute reports. Great. White felt his stomach muscles tighten.

  “Go through the D.G.’s office!” White controlled his voice. It wasn’t Hanratty’s fault.

  They showed their passes at the black steel gates closing off Downing Street. White studied the twelve foot high metal barrier, terrorism on his mind again. It had been erected in 1989 by Margaret Thatcher. Before then, anyone had been able to wander into the street unchallenged. The Cold War, The IRA, Islamic terrorists: what was that old slogan? Things can only get better. A facile thought. And untrue.

  A police officer nodded them through. White led Hanratty down a tall, residential street. To the left the white rusticated buildings of the Foreign Office rose up like a chalk cliff, dominating the facing row of seventeenth century ministerial homes. They passed the black door of Number Ten. Two uniformed policemen stood outside. White glanced at his aide.

  “Nervous?”

  “A little, sir,” Hanratty admitted.

  “Don't be. You won’t be attending the meeting itself. Your role is communications. I need to know breaking news. You’ve also got to get those collated reports.”

  White saw Hanratty consult his phone. He wondered if he had been wise to bring the young man. He was looking overstrung. But he needed Hanratty. There was no-one else until his recalled staff arrived. White didn't know what he would be doing an hour from now but if he was still in a job he might require his own people.

  They left the street by a guarded door and entered a small, air-conditioned lobby. White led Hanratty down a spiral staircase, two flights, then along a narrow corridor to another door manned by a plainclothes officer. The building had a confused feel to it, part heritage, part office. White thought of the steel-and-copper-lined basement walls beyond the door.

  “Commander Charles White. And James Hanratty.”

  They waited while the policeman looked up their names on a sheet of paper. White approved. At the highest levels, a person, questions, eye contact: they beat biometrics every time.

  “Still hot out there, sir?”

  “Beach weather.” White replied. “I should be lying beside a pool.”

  The officer grinned, reading down his sheet. “I'll be in Fuengirola next week.”

  “Good for you,” White said.

  The policeman put away his register and held open the door. “Very good sir.”

  They walked through into an underground hall subdivided into four rooms by glass walls. Three were crammed with computer equipment – terminals, server stacks, router junctions – and small desks where technicians sat, mostly wearing headphones. The facing room, the largest, held a sizeable oval desk and a bank of conference monitors. Two men and a woman sat waiting.

  White recognised Roger Thorpe, Metropolitan Deputy Police Commissioner. Thorpe was also liaison to JTAC. White knew the other man too. Colonel Buzz Allcock was Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, also invited because of the possible terrorist link. Allcock's square shoulders and chiselled face reminded White of the stone memorials along Whitehall.

  The woman was his service chief, Dame Frances Burnett, Director General of MI5. When she saw White she rose from the table and came out to meet them.

  “Quite a nest you've stirred up for us today, Charlie.”

  “Frances,” White smiled and shook hands. Burnett’s lacquered silver hair was matched to her steel-bright eyes, sharp and no-nonsense. Her nod had been required to convene COBRA so fast. He was grateful she was there. Staring at her he remembered a line from his schooldays from a facetious history master. “All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.”

  “We'll have a full house for you.”

  White heard the unspoken question: Again Charles? Again?

  White turned to Hanratty but was beaten to an introduction.

  “James Hanratty isn't it?”

  White watched Hanratty stammer agreement about his own name. White very much doubted Dame Burnett had known about Hanratty's existence before today. MI5 numbered over three-and-a-half thousand employees at the last count, nearly half recruited in the last three years. But Burnett was always well briefed.

  “Do you have the survey data?”

  “Not yet.”

  White could sense Burnett’s impatience. He turned to Hanratty, “Chase it again. And check the presentation set up would you?”

  Hanratty went to speak to a technician. As they entered the conference room, Burnett added over her shoulder, “By the way, I invited the CDSC manager. They need someone here and he seemed logical.”

  On cue, a disembodied voice filled the room, “Simon Kirkpatrick,” half-human, “…has entered the conference,” half-machine. One of the monitors came to life with a click and flicker of light. White watched, curious to see how the man matched his mental image. He was dressed in a beige suit and kipper tie patterned with a round motif that could have been golf balls. He smoothed six strands of hair over his otherwise bald head and adjusted his tie.

  “Hi, er, hi! Hello! Can you see me?”

  The men seated at the table looked up. Allcock said, sotto voce, “I'm afraid so.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Burnett called out in a musical voice, hard consonants sounding her vowels like separate bells. “Please wait until we're quorate.”

  White watched Kirkpatrick's head wobble. The encrypted video link stuttered, turning Kirkpatrick’s tie into a brief snow of coloured pixels.

  The technician re-entered the room with a remote. “I've loaded your slide deck. These buttons take you forward and back.” White nodded. He looked around and wondered what he had started, if he was looking at the very public end of his career.

  The technician disappeared in a mouse-like flurry of small steps. Another monitor flickered into life. “Peter Hammond… has entered the conference.” White instantly recognised the new face. White-haired, long-nosed and patrician, Sir Peter Hammond was the government’s Chief Medical Officer, the most senior health official in the UK government: the Nation's Doctor. He had been sent copies of the lab reports.

  “How lo
ng’s this going to take then?” A tall man, slim with energy, strode into the room carrying a sheaf of files against a creased pink shirt. He gave off an impression of permanent hurry. White recognized Andy Connell, Downing Street's chief spin doctor. With his free hand, the Director of Communications and Strategy for the Prime Minister thumbed a key on an electronic organiser then said, “Oh hello Buzz! They drag you in on this too?”

  Connell made his way around the table. White had the image of a bulldog fighting on little sleep. The man’s long, jowled face was belligerent and darkened by overwork. Passing Burnett he paused fractionally then moved on, hand extended towards the Colonel. White, an amateur of French chivalric history, recognised the Cut Sublime, Allcock's granite face standing in for mountain scenery inspected to avoid acknowledgement of Burnett’s existence.

  White was not surprised. The mutual antipathy between Burnett and Connell was public knowledge. On Burnett’s appointment – around Christmas two years ago – tabloid headlines had focused on her being female. The coverage had been incessant and increasingly prurient. But only for a week. Burnett was not the sort of woman who took long to master her advantages. Rumour had it that she had made a present of a file to Connell, tied with a ribbon and labelled “Something for the festive season”. The stories had dried up as quickly as they had appeared.

  Connell dropped heavily into a chair at one end of the table. He took out his organizer and began thumbing in a message. “Right let's make this quick shall we? It’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House,” Connell inspected his wrist and gave a short bark, “In ten minutes. What are we talking about here?”

  Chapter 33

  “Rayan, this is Christine.”

  A young man stood at the edge of the rug where they sat. He wore a purple bandana around his temples and a Tshirt with the Asari logo. He looked from Garrett to Skyler and back then grinned. “Same mouth and nose.”