Itch

by Simon Mayo

  ‘When will I get it back?’

  ‘Depends on the result of the tests.’

  ‘What are you testing for?’

  ‘What do you think, Lofte? Never seen so much radioactivity from a rock.’

  ‘Mr Watkins thought I should be tested. For radiation.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Flowerdew, already reaching for his textbook. ‘That is all. Sit down, boy.’

  Itch did as he was told. The rest of the lesson went by in a blur. His copy of How Gases Behave was opened at the right page but he couldn’t concentrate on it. All he could see was the Geiger-counter needle pushing off the scale; all he could hear was the wall of noise from the thousands of clicks it emitted.

  Just how much radiation had he been exposed to? Chloe had walked to school with him – had she been infected? He tried to remember how far radiation travelled and couldn’t recall the details. Had he followed up the arsenic poisoning of his class by contaminating the whole school this time?

  7

  THE COASTAL ROAD heading north from the academy reaches open country within four minutes. It is a gentle climb till you reach the top of the cliffs, then it descends steeply to the next inlet along the coast, named St Anthony’s Cove. It then widens into a dual carriageway, taking drivers on a direct route out of Cornwall.

  There are only three houses around the cove; two stand together on the left as you drive through, and the other – a renovated fisherman’s cottage – sits well back from the road on the right. It has a narrow driveway, a small, neat but nondescript lawn at the front and a steeply climbing half-acre of field at the back. A few apple trees form the boundary at the edge of the property before it becomes farmland. Although it is barely visible from the road, there is a new, substantial and glaringly modern extension behind the house.

  This was where Dr Nathaniel Flowerdew had lived since losing his job at Greencorps – a major international oil company and sponsor of the Cornwall Academy. Although it was barely a ten-minute drive from here to the academy, the cottage was remote enough to avoid tourists, and certainly anyone from school. The other two houses in the cove were both second homes and usually empty. Even when the families were there, they showed no interest in their nearest neighbour – and that suited him just fine.

  Flowerdew had built the extension almost immediately after moving into the property. He had filled it not with furniture, but with scientific equipment. It actually wasn’t really an extension at all, it was a laboratory. With the exception of one corner, which housed a rowing machine and a treadmill, it was full of centrifuges, gas jars, blowpipes, models of molecular structures, computers and assorted machines packed closely together. Many displayed digital screens that blinked with the latest lines of data they had produced.

  It was a beautiful evening, with one of the finest sunsets of the year taking place out at sea. A few cars had even pulled over to watch the last rays disappearing spectacularly into the Atlantic. However, this had gone unnoticed by Nathaniel Flowerdew. He was hunched over a beige glass machine, using two steel levers to manoeuvre Itchingham Lofte’s small rock into a metal chamber. He straightened up slowly, his hands on the small of his back, and gave a low whistle. Every other movement he made was as rapid and fluid as his protective clothing would allow. As soon as he had arrived home after school he had found his helmet, lead-lined apron and shiny-grey radiation gloves. At no time did he turn his back on the rock. This was the fourth experiment he had conducted that evening, and he had become more and more animated. After each test was completed, he moved over to a computer and fired off an email.

  The same email to the same recipients.

  Four times.

  Flowerdew noticed a tremble in his hands, which he tried to still. Despite his exhaustion, his speed around the lab was increasing. He had started talking to himself too: ‘You have got to be joking …’ he said. ‘What the …?’ and, most recently, ‘You … have … got … to … be … kidding.’

  The lead case into which the rock had been placed during his brief trip home earlier in the afternoon sat on top of one of the workbenches, its lid open. He banged it shut as he passed and headed out of the door into the field. He removed his gloves and mask, and took a handset from his pocket. Hesitating only briefly, he dialled a number from memory. There was an international-length pause before he heard the ringing tone.

  It rang just the once before a woman’s voice answered. ‘Hello, who is this?’

  ‘It’s Nathaniel Flowerdew in England.’ He stopped, suddenly uncertain what to say next. ‘It is imperative I speak to Mr Revere or Mr Van Den Hauwe. I wouldn’t ring if it wasn’t important. I have tried to email but have had no response. Please tell them it really is urgent.’

  ‘One minute.’

  At least she didn’t hang up, thought Flowerdew, sitting down on a garden chair and looking up at the stars as they started to appear. A minute passed, and with no ‘holding’ music playing he had started to wonder whether he had lost the connection. Then the phone was picked up again and his heart lurched. But it was still the same woman.

  ‘We have read your emails. Send another with all your results. Goodnight.’ And she hung up before Flowerdew had managed to say anything more.

  He jumped up, went in and grabbed a laptop from the lab, then ran outside again. (No mask, but he had spent only a very short time inside.) He sat again on one of the garden chairs, perched the laptop on his knees and turned it on. He waited impatiently for it to allow him access to his emails, his hands poised above the keys. As the page loaded, he fired off another, more detailed explanation of what he thought he had in his lab. He copied in all the results of his tests so far and attached a number of photos. The whole process took him ten minutes. He pressed ‘send’.

  He sat looking at his laptop, not sure what to do next. It was now completely dark, but the bright lights of the lab spread out into the field. He put down the laptop and reached into his trouser pocket for a coin. Absent-mindedly he worked it from his little finger to his ring and middle finger, twisting it up, over and under like a weaver at a loom. It reached his index finger and thumb, and then he reversed the process and the coin worked its way back again. With the exception of his fingers, he was quite still.

  Ten minutes later the phone rang, sounding very loud in the garden, and Flowerdew jumped up, pocketing the coin.

  ‘It’s Christophe here, Nathaniel. How are you?’ It sounded as if the French co-chair of Greencorps was just calling for a late-night chat, but Flowerdew knew that nothing was further from the truth.

  ‘Good, thank you, Christophe. Well as can be expected here, anyway.’ He stopped himself from grumbling about the academy; this was not the time and would not have been welcome either. ‘Everything in the email is true. The rock in my lab is extraordinary. I have only basic equipment, of course, but it’s pointing at 126. I know that’s ridiculous, but I’ve checked and re-checked my results. And it’s coming back 126.’

  The Frenchman cleared his throat. ‘Let us be clear what you are claiming.’ His tone was half interested, half amused. ‘When you say 126, you mean element number 126. The 126th element.’

  ‘Yes, Christophe,’ said Flowerdew breathlessly. ‘I know—’

  ‘When only 118 exist. Everything we know or can possibly think of is made from just the 118. I realize this is basic science, but maybe we all need a refresher course?’ Revere chuckled. ‘You seem to have forgotten much in Britain.’

  There was a click, and Flowerdew assumed he was now on speakerphone. Some distant French and Dutch was being spoken.

  Flowerdew decided to take the initiative. ‘I know you are laughing, and I don’t blame you. I would in your position too. But before you hang up, just look at the preliminary results I have sent you. Go get your experts, see what they say. I wouldn’t have troubled you if I wasn’t totally convinced that you must check this out.’

  He heard another voice: ‘Nathaniel, it’s Jan. You know as well as I do that it can�
�t be a new element. No one has discovered a naturally occurring element since 1937. That part of the table is complete. It’s perfect. The new ones only exist in laboratory conditions, for fractions of a second, and I believe you need a particle accelerator. Are you seriously expecting us to believe that a new one has turned up in some kid’s rock collection? And now it’s just sitting there in your house? Unless you’re rewriting the laws of science, you’ve lost your mind.’ The Dutchman was always the more aggressive of the two, but even so, Flowerdew didn’t like what he was hearing.

  ‘I know how this sounds. But I’m not drunk and I haven’t lost my mind. I’m telling you – I have a rock here which is behaving in a way I have never seen before. All the readings coming from it suggest it will fit into the Table of Elements at 126.’

  ‘What about 119 to 125? Where are they?’ asked Revere.

  ‘Good question. No idea,’ said Flowerdew. ‘Think of it this way: if I’m right, I have in this lab here the most precious rock ever.Of all time. Worth more than any diamond. If there are others like it – and of course there will be – they’ll pump out so much energy, Cornwall could declare itself independent by Christmas. New power stations from Bude to St Ives. Do you want to take the risk that I’m wrong?’

  Christophe Revere spoke first. ‘OK, we’re interested. If you are wasting our time on this, you do know we will cut you off completely, don’t you? We took a risk recommending you to the academy in the first place. We might be its chief sponsor but we had to push hard. Some of our other schools just refused. By rights, you should be in that prison with your colleague, Shivvi. If you become an em barrassment again …’

  ‘I was aware of the risks of contacting you, yes.’

  ‘Have you completed all your tests?’

  ‘No, there are two more to do – but I would be surprised if they threw up any contradictory data.’

  ‘Finish the tests. Send us all the results. Everything.’ Revere paused. ‘However, we really need to know more about where the boy got it from. It obviously won’t be the only one. You say in your email he got it from a dealer.’

  ‘I’ll question him further tomorrow, but there are limits to what you can do if you are just a teacher.’

  ‘We can make help available if necessary. Talk to the boy tomorrow and call back at this time.’

  Jan Van Den Hauwe came on the line again. ‘You have made us look stupid before. God help you if you do it again.’

  8

  AT FIVE A.M. THE next morning, a good hour earlier than usual, Nathaniel Flowerdew was on his rowing machine. He could have started at four or even three a.m. as he had barely slept. The skies were lightening and the doors and windows of the lab were open as the air was already warm. While he rowed his usual ten kilometres, he gazed out over the field that rose up to the farmer’s land beyond the trees. In the ten months he had lived there, he had only climbed it once, on his first day. A dozen sheep grazed on the grass that led up to the top of the hill, where the sun would soon emerge. Not that he would be there to see it.

  He finished the 10k in fifty minutes, his manic energy from last night returning with every pull and glide. As he pounded his way through a further five kilometres he worked out what to say to the boy. He found himself smiling. This would be a good day.

  He was the first teacher to arrive at school – something that had never happened before. He went straight to the chemistry lab, and realized from his timetable that he was supposed to be invigilating at an A-level paper in the old school hall at nine a.m. He left a note for John Watkins in the staff room saying that he wanted to see Itchingham Lofte at midday – could he come to the hall at the conclusion of that morning’s exams?

  Flowerdew spent the next three hours pacing up and down the hall in between the rows of students. They were his students – he had been teaching them for many months – but he barely noticed them now. He was imagining his return to Greencorps. The forgiven prodigal son returning. And with the geological discovery of the century. This was his way out of the wretched school; this was his moment, and no one was going to take it away from him. He had wondered if he would ever get the chance to resume his career – his real career, not this apology of a job – and it had arrived gift-wrapped.

  He knew the science was bewildering. He knew there would be sceptics. But when they saw the evidence …

  At registration Mr Watkins called Itch to the front. ‘I have a note from our head of science. Here …’ He passed it over and Itch read it.

  ‘It’ll obviously be about the rock,’ said Itch. ‘What do think he’ll want, sir?’

  ‘He’s probably arranged to get your health checked out, I imagine.’

  ‘No,’ said Itch. ‘He said I’d be fine.’

  ‘Really? Just like that?’ Watkins thought for a moment. ‘Well, I haven’t seen him today, but my next guess would be he’ll tell you what you should do with the rock. If it’s as radioactive as the Geiger counter suggested, then you’ll need to find a home for it while it’s being analysed. West Ridge would be my first call.’

  ‘I’d like your opinion too, sir, really – if you wouldn’t mind. You’re the geologist, not him.’ Itch hadn’t intended it to sound quite so blunt and he blushed a little.

  Watkins straightened. ‘Hmm. That’s what I’ve been thinking, to be honest with you. Dr Flowerdew said he had a lead container, so it made sense for him to take it as a precaution. Now that it is safely in its new home, there is no reason I can think of why the stone cannot be returned, or placed somewhere we can all study it. Come and find me when you’ve seen him.’

  ‘Time is up, pens down, stop writing.’

  The usual sighs and murmurs that greet the end of an exam broke out in the old hall. Flowerdew and Mr Hopkins, the physics teacher, collected the papers and the students left in threes and fours, comparing notes. Through the glass doors Flowerdew noticed Itch waiting outside and waved him in. All the students had now gone, and Mr Hopkins had handed a pile of papers to Flowerdew.

  ‘Thanks, er, Chris. I’ll take it from here.’

  Flowerdew waited till the physics teacher had left the hall and then smiled at Itch. This had the opposite effect to what he had intended – he had never smiled at the boy before. It was a smile without warmth, and Itch was on his guard immediately.

  ‘Well, I took your stone home and put it straight into a lead-lined box. Lead, as you probably know, is so dense it is very effective in stopping most kinds of radiation. It’s safe. Remind me where you got it again?’

  ‘As I said yesterday, sir – there’s this dealer I see every now and again – he sells the stuff. He had it. I bought it from him for ten pounds.’

  This made Flowerdew laugh. ‘Ten pounds. My, my. What is his name?’

  ‘He’s called Cake, sir.’

  ‘Cake? What kind of a name is that? Where does he live, this “Cake”?’

  ‘I honestly have no idea.’

  ‘Will you see him again soon? You see, if he has other rocks like this, he could be in danger. Scrub that – he is in danger. You saw how radioactive that one stone is.’

  ‘But I’m not in danger?’

  Flowerdew looked up. ‘No. He’ll have been exposed for longer. Relax, Lofte.’

  While Itch was not about to ‘relax’, he realized his teacher had a good point about Cake’s safety – even if he had no intention of telling him about the meeting with the dealer the next day.

  ‘I’ll try and find him, sir. But he seems to be always on the move. I’ll look out for him.’

  ‘I’d love to meet him if you think that might be possible?’ That smile again.

  ‘I’ll tell him, sir. What happens to my stone now? Mr Watkins was talking about the West Ridge School of Mining. He said they could study it there.’

  Flowerdew’s smile tightened. ‘I’m not sure that’s the wisest step going forward. Their reputation was made in the eighties, and their analytical papers are not what they were. You need the sharpest minds on this
, not some hillbilly local outfit. With respect to Mr Watkins.’

  ‘Well, I’d like Mr Watkins to take care of it, sir, if that’s OK. Now that it’s safe in your box.’

  Flowerdew stared at Itch. ‘Right. Well, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’ He straightened the exam papers in front of him.

  ‘Why not, sir? He’s the geologist!’

  ‘I am aware of that, Lofte. But I have taken the precaution of sending it away for analysis. To labs in Switzerland, where I used to work. You’ll get proper results there.’

  Itch felt the colour rise in his cheeks and his throat tighten. ‘You’ve done what? You’ve sent it to Switzerland? But it’s mine, sir. It’s my rock. You had no right!’

  ‘I was considering the safety of the school and its pupils, Lofte, that is all. These labs in Geneva will provide an unbeatable service and world-class analysis. You really will be impressed. I’m sure that after the greenhouse affair Dr Dart will agree: the safety of the pupils should always be paramount. You see that, don’t you, Lofte? You see that, I’m sure.’

  Itch couldn’t wait to get out of the hall. It had never occurred to him that Flowerdew would have got rid of it already. He knew he was a bad teacher and that staff and pupils all disliked him. He knew too that he was mean and vindictive – in an experiment about body mass he had reduced one of the larger girls to tears. But he had never thought him a thief.

  He pushed through the doors and stopped, leaning his head against the wall and breathing deeply. ‘He’s a thief. He’s actually a thief!’ He headed outside, muttering, ‘The scumbag’s a thief!’ over and over again. He went round the hall and came to a large rectangle of concrete – the only remaining sign of the greenhouse. Around the edges lay a few leaves – all that was left of the plants – and tracks left by the bulldozers that had taken the building apart. A few students had come to look, among them Lucy Cavendish, the Year Ten girl who had brought Itch and Jack water when everyone was being sick. She smiled at him.