Itch

by Simon Mayo

  ‘We’re looking for the spoil heaps,’ said Jack. ‘Are they near here?’

  ‘No idea. What’s a spoil heap?’ She was speaking through the half-closed door, clearly thinking that if she opened it any further she might have to serve them.

  ‘It’s the stuff the mines throw out,’ said Itch. ‘They take the copper, tin or whatever and sell that, but the raw materials—’

  ‘Itch,’ Jack interrupted, ‘she doesn’t want a geography lesson.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. ‘Er, it’s the piles of earth and—’

  The woman raised her hand to stop him. ‘The old mine works are in a field about half a mile that way.’ She pointed south out of the village in the direction they had come from. ‘Not a lot happens there. Just piles of waste. What d’you want to go there for? They’re not safe, you know.’

  But Chloe was pulling her brother away. ‘Come on, Itch, let’s go. Don’t start explaining everything.’

  They thanked the woman, whom they could hear shutting the bolts on her shop door as they turned and headed off down the road.

  Itch was leading the way, still holding the stone-in-the-tube-in-the-bag, and Jack, bringing up the rear, now carried her cousin’s rucksack over one shoulder. As the road curved round to the left, they walked single-file, with Chloe in the middle. The road straightened out and, as the land rose steeply, the old mine workings came into view. A couple of crumbling and grassed-over towers poked up above the top of the hill.

  ‘That’ll be it!’ said Itch.

  They found a path and set off up the hill. It took them ten minutes to reach the top. The view from there took in the decrepit old mine workings and, beyond them, the sparsely grassed slopes of the spoil heaps. The mine at St Haven had been very profitable in the nineteenth century, but nothing had been dug from the ground here for more than a hundred years. The cousins took in the ruins of many mine shafts and engine houses. In most cases just one wall or a corner survived, with brick somehow still perched precariously on brick. The grassed-over chimneys they had seen from the road looked stronger and taller, rising twelve metres from the sandy ground. And there were more of them. They counted eight scattered irregularly over the workings, which covered several acres of scrappy, stony fields.

  They walked slowly down the hill towards the old mine. A low single-wire fence had been run around its circumference. At irregular intervals there were signs attached:

  DANGER!

  UNSAFE MINE WORKINGS

  KEEP OUT!

  ‘Anyone want to go back?’ asked Itch. Jack and Chloe shook their heads. ‘We’ll tread carefully – come on.’ And they ducked under the wire.

  ‘Cake lives here?’ asked Jack, looking from ruin to crumbled ruin. ‘No wonder he doesn’t look so great.’

  They continued into what, a hundred and fifty years ago, would have been the heart of a bustling, noisy, smelly heavy industrial works employing hundreds of men, women and children. The shafts had been sunk wherever copper had been found, and were now tightly fenced off. Concrete pillars and chicken wire were hung with a warning triangle that had a picture of a man falling headfirst down a hole.

  ‘Doesn’t Mr Watkins have a story about dogs falling down these old shafts?’ said Itch. ‘Pets disappearing – that kind of thing.’

  ‘Yes, he does. Of course he does,’ said Jack. ‘A goat too, apparently.’

  ‘That’s nasty,’ said Chloe, and they kept well clear of the nearest shaft.

  In between the old, crumbling buildings, large spoil heaps of waste material had been thrown up. These were now grassy, sandy piles of stone and rubble as high as the chimneys themselves. On the spoil heap closest to them they could see the rotting wood of a trestle from an old tramway sticking out of the soil.

  ‘I feel like we’re the first ones to find this,’ said Itch. ‘It’s as though the mine stopped working, everyone left, and no one has touched it since.’

  ‘Like a ghost town,’ added Chloe.

  They walked around the spoil heaps rather than over them, as they looked unstable. Last year’s earthquake had sent mini-avalanches down the sides of many of them, big rocky, sandy chunks of soil lying where they fell. The three of them rounded what looked to be the largest heap and stopped. There were more ruined outbuildings, a stone bridge which arched over a long-disappeared stream – and the unlikely sight of a caravan, settled under the part-ruin of an engine pump house. How it had got there they could not imagine, but if Cake still lived at the St Haven spoil heap, this must be the place.

  They set off again at a faster pace now, Itch calling out, ‘Hey, Cake! You at home? It’s Itch!’ They picked their way through the piles of old stone and slate, and he tried again. ‘Cake! It’s Itch – I’ve got something for you!’

  As they got closer, they could see that the caravan was filthy, the windows covered with bird droppings and grime which had run off the roof. Brown curtains were pulled and hung on drooping string. Small rocks and pieces of slate littered the roof. The cousins slowed their pace again.

  ‘Who could live in that?’ asked Chloe.

  There had been no answering call to Itch’s shouts, and they approached the caravan in silence. They walked round what would once have been the tow bar and Jack gasped, putting both hands to her mouth. The caravan door was open, and the steps and surrounding ground were covered in blood and vomit; a huge swarm of flies and mosquitoes buzzed around. The smell was terrible, and Itch, Jack and Chloe stood staring at the open door.

  It was Jack who moved first, edging slowly towards the gloom of the caravan interior. Chloe warned her to be careful as she stood by the door and peered inside. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, and only a few more for her to see everything she needed to. She made out a bed, a stove, a sink and a table by the window at the end. All were filthy, and there were more signs that the caravan’s inhabitant had been very ill. The table was covered in stones, rocks and packages wrapped in silver foil. A few sealable plastic bags lay on the sofa, some containing small amounts of what looked like soil. Flies were everywhere.

  ‘It’s Cake’s place, I’m sure of it,’ said Jack, retreating quickly. ‘It’s full of all that stuff he sells to you, Itch. But he’s not here.’ As she headed back towards the others she noticed they were both staring beyond her. Following their gaze, she turned round and saw what it was that had taken their attention.

  About two hundred metres away, at the foot of another spoil heap, they could see somebody lying on the ground.

  ‘No, he’s over there,’ said Itch, and they all started to run.

  Two hundred metres is not far, but they were running without wanting to get there. They set off at a sprint, but as the horror of what they were running towards became clear, they slowed with every step.

  Cake was lying face down in the rubble. He was stretched out, with his head tucked at an unnatural angle under his right arm – it was almost a sleeping position but for the way his head had twisted. His clothes were soiled; blood seemed to cover most of him. Here too a cloud of flies swarmed.

  They had run silently but now Jack cried out, ‘Cake! Cake! Oh, no! Cake, you poor …’ She tailed off and looked away.

  None of them had seen a dead person before, but they had no doubt that they were looking at one. They had reached the foot of the heap – Cake was ten metres away. They went no nearer – there was no point.

  Chloe was sick where she stood, then sat down and started sobbing – deep rasping sobs, and Itch ran to her. He found that he was shaking, but he knelt down and hugged his sister. He found an old tissue and gave it to her.

  ‘Itch, it’s terrible! The poor guy! What has happened, Itch? We need to call for an ambulance … What do we do? He is dead, isn’t he?’ She blew her nose.

  Jack sat down beside her, head between her knees. ‘We should call for help, Itch,’ she said.

  Itch stood up and looked at Cake’s body. Judging from the footprints and marks on the spoil heap, Cake had been
at the top and had fallen; his neck was clearly broken. Jack and Chloe had barely known him, but they were the ones crying. Itch simply felt stunned.

  He was about to take off his jacket to lay over Cake’s head when he noticed a bright blue bundle, half buried in the rubble further up the slope.

  Itch made his way past Cake’s body and clambered onto the heap. The sandy surface gave way under his feet and he needed to put his hands out to support himself as he climbed. The blue fabric was wrapped around something that looked like a bag of potatoes, tightly bound with black cable. It had clearly been buried and then partially uncovered.

  ‘Guys …’ called Itch. He went closer and realized that the blue of the fabric wrapping was familiar.

  Jack and Chloe were climbing up the slope behind him.

  ‘What is it?’ asked his sister.

  ‘Another mystery,’ Itch replied.

  ‘Oh, great …’ said Jack, bending down to examine the bundle. ‘Is that paper underneath?’

  The other two came closer and realized that Jack was right – there was a piece of paper jutting out from underneath the package. She tried to pull it free, but it was tightly bound by one twist of the black cable and started to tear. She carefully worked it free – a sheet from an A4 notebook, folded into four – then flattened it out and started to read the dense scrawled handwriting.

  ‘It’s for you,’ she said, handing it to Itch. ‘And there’s a lot of it.’

  Itch took the piece of paper and read fast. When he had finished he sat down. ‘You’re never going to believe this,’ he said, and passed the note back to Jack, who read out loud:

  ‘Master Lofte, I hope it is you that finds this, but I’m sorry too for putting you in danger. Don’t unwrap the parcel. It contains seven more pieces of uranium – if that’s what it really is – like the one you already have. They are wrapped in a lead apron I stole from the hospital – but too late for me. The rocks are killing me, but I didn’t realize it would be so bad – or so quick – till it was too late. Me of all people. I don’t know how much protection the apron gives but it’s a start. I don’t know what this U is mixed with, but I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve tried to find my mate who got the rocks for me but he’s disappeared. I wish—’

  Jack broke off; the handwriting was almost illegible.

  ‘I wish I had never seen them and never got you one too. You need to get rid of them. I’m sorry, Itch, I really am. These rocks are dangerous. Don’t trust anyone. Try not to be scared. I’m sorry. God help me.’

  Jack folded the note and handed it back to Itch. ‘So now what do we do now?’

  16

  ‘LET US ASSUME he isn’t an idiot,’ said the Dutchman, Jan Van Den Hauwe. ‘He wasn’t an idiot when he was here – he can’t have become an idiot just because he’s in England.’

  ‘Why can’t he?’ said Christophe Revere. ‘He’s desperate. Desperate to get back here. Desperate people do idiotic things. When I rang him to tell him his precious lead box was empty he erupted with fury before begging like a dog. He’s out of control.’

  On the screen that dominated one end of the boardroom were the figures that Flowerdew had emailed them after concluding his tests on the rock. They were being analysed once more by the chief metallurgist, Dr Joe Parris. He was tall, stooped and thin – his suit flapped as he walked. His thick white hair could have given him a genial grandfatherly look were it not for the austere wire-framed glasses halfway down his nose. He was well past retirement age but retained for his skills as the best analyst money could buy. And bought he most certainly was.

  Van Den Hauwe continued, ‘Either he has made all this up’ – he waved at the figures on the screen – ‘in which case he’s insane; or we have here the evidence of the most remarkable substance we have ever analysed. Dr Parris?’

  The metallurgist was pointing at the screen, following one particular line of data with his index finger, then rifling through the reams of paper in front of him.

  ‘Essentially, yes.’ His accent was pure Harvard, his manner brusque. ‘If this data is not faked – and I would need to be persuaded of that – this substance is revolutionary. It is brand new, gentlemen. Brand shiny and new. There are 118 elements, as you know. Well, this appears to be the 126th, exactly as your man in England claims.’

  ‘He’s not our man,’ said Van Den Hauwe.

  Parris continued, ‘Even though it has never been seen before, we know precisely the readings we would be getting from such an element. The figures are on the screen. I can get technical if you wish, and tell you about the magic number of protons and neutrons it has – its doubly magic nucleus – but you may not thank me for it …’ He waited for a reaction but both men indicated that he should carry on. ‘I must say it’s most likely a fake—’

  ‘Never mind that, Joe,’ said Revere. ‘Assume the figures you have are correct.’

  ‘In that case, based on this data, you have the scientific discovery of the century. Any century. And its power will be something to behold.’

  There was silence in the room. Coffee and pastries had been brought in an hour ago, but nothing had been touched. Each man was alternately pacing and gazing at the information from Flowerdew’s lab.

  Van Den Hauwe spoke next. ‘Would you guess, please, at its nuclear abilities?’

  Parris took off his glasses. ‘Unprecedented. Immeasurable. Extraordinary.’

  The Dutchman considered this. ‘Our business is oil, always has been. We’ve spent many years trashing nuclear power and highlighting its dangers. But if we get this rock, and the seam it comes from, we will be going nuclear, will we not?’

  Parris rubbed his eyes. ‘Two things: first, there is no seam; this will have come many, many hundreds of thousands of years ago, from an exploding star, a supernova. There may be other rocks, however; my guess is that would be likely. And secondly, yes, whether you like it or not, element 126 will be a strong neutron emitter – very useful as a start-up source for a nuclear reactor. The security implications are profound, of course.’

  Revere looked up from his graphs and equations. Joe Parris walked the length of the table towards the co-chairs of Greencorps. He sat down next to Revere and leaned forward. He paused, collecting his thoughts, then spoke more quietly, as though he thought someone else might be listening.

  ‘Even with a small number of these rocks there is enough power for any country, any organization, any terrorist group to go nuclear. Hell, we could go nuclear. Greencorps could become a nuclear player. This is a game changer, gentlemen.’ He leaned back in his chair, looking from Revere to Van Den Hauwe.

  ‘And would kill oil the world over.’ Revere stared at the figures on the screen as though he might have missed something. ‘Oil stocks would crash through the floor. As soon as word gets out of a new super-nuclear energy – nuclear two point zero, if you like – our whole industry could collapse. Who wants to dig a smelly, dirty well if a small piece of rock can do the job? We have to control this.’

  ‘One more thing, if I may …?’ said Parris.

  Revere nodded. ‘Go ahead, Joe.’

  ‘It’s not just nuclear start-up. Pocket nukes – very small nuclear weapons – would become a reality. They are things of urban legend at the moment. But with this? If you could get a critical mass together, they would appear very quickly. These rocks are a nuclear start-up kit in a bag.’

  ‘You say there may be more, Joe, but we only know of this one,’ said Van Den Hauwe, pointing at the data.

  ‘It seems unlikely to me that there would be only one,’ said Parris. ‘This started its journey with the enormous explosion you get at the death of a star – a supernova followed by a massive neutron explosion. It’s hard to believe that it arrived on its own. Somewhere there will be others. When word gets out about what we are looking at here, there’ll be a frantic search for more.’

  ‘In which case,’ said the Dutchman, ‘we could be on the verge of a new Gold Rush.’

  ‘With
terrifying consequences if the wrong people get there first,’ said Revere.

  Van Den Hauwe smiled. ‘You forget. We are the wrong people, Christophe.’

  As soon as Dr Parris had gathered up his papers and left there was an urgent knock at the door. The Greencorps bosses looked up and saw the silhouette of Roshanna Wing waiting.

  ‘Yes, Roshanna!’ called Revere.

  She came in carrying her laptop open on her palm. ‘You need to see this,’ she said, and swivelled it round on the table in front of them. It showed a page from the Western Daily News. Roshanna stood back as they both read the account of Flowerdew’s assault on Itchingham Lofte and members of staff at the academy. They studied the photo of their former employee with the broken bottle in his hand.

  Revere zoomed in on his face: strained, manic and wild-eyed. ‘Well. There we are. He’s lost it, Jan. There must be no link to us. Where is he now, Roshanna?’

  ‘He’s disappeared, sir,’ she said. ‘Apparently he took off after this attack and hasn’t been seen since. I’ve called his house and mobile, but there’s no reply from either.’

  Christophe Revere spoke to Roshanna but was looking at his partner. ‘We don’t want anything more to do with Flowerdew, but we do want his rock. Go to Cornwall, Roshanna. Take help. Get the rock and make it safe for us.’

  Van Den Hauwe nodded. ‘Are you OK with that, Roshanna?’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll take Berghahn and Collins – we’ll leave in the morning.’

  ‘No, I rather think you need to leave straight away – we’ve wasted enough time on this already.’ The Frenchman dismissed her, and after she had left said to his partner, ‘And when we have it? What then?’

  ‘We make sure the really wrong people get a sniff, that’s what. These are high stakes, Christophe, the highest there are. We play this right, we allow a rock or two to find their way to a terrorist cell somewhere, and the nuclear boys will be sunk without trace. For good. But if we play this wrong …’ He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The two Greencorps bosses looked at each other.