‘So you’ll stay…?’ he said.
She looked at him, and then nestled her head against his shoulder, close, needful, complete.
‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘Finders, keepers.’
She paused, and he felt her fingers sliding the cuff of his shirt over his watch, a piece of private semaphore.
‘I think we should celebrate,’ she said. ‘I’m sure an hour or two won’t hurt.’
Inside the casino, the air was thick with cigar smoke. Mick and Albie sat perched on chrome stools by the bar, while the wealthier of the city’s late night drinkers jostled around them. Mick was nursing a Pina Colada. Cartwright was already half an hour late, but he’d barely touched the drink. He’d spent most of the evening refining his idea, making preliminary enquiries amongst the fishermen at the dock, getting a handle on the kind of money they talked, sorting out deals on bulk food, studying maps of Southern Ireland, and the more he got to grips with the enterprise, the more attractive it became. At lunchtime, he’d viewed it as a reprieve from the bailiffs. Half a day later, it was a meal ticket for life.
Now, he nudged Albie and nodded across at the gaming tables, surrounded by Chinese waiters, newly arrived from the city’s restaurants. They were betting with their usual fervour, heads bent over the green baize, chips piled up at elbows, faces impassive, eyes everywhere, hands moving fast, blurring the cards.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The world’s about to disappear up its arse, and these characters are still at it. Look at them. Could be any old night. What do they know that we don’t?’
Albie examined his finger-nails. Most of the white paint had come off now, but there were still traces.
‘Dunno,’ he said.
Mick shook his head.
‘Maybe it’s because they’re Chinkie,’ he said, ‘bound to be some of them left at the end. Bound to be. Then all they have to do is breed. Got it made, haven’t they?’
A figure appeared at his elbow. Small. Neat. Suit and glasses. Cartwright. Mick grinned at him, the favourite uncle.
‘Harry,’ he said, ‘my shout.’
He leaned across the bar and lobbed an ice cube at one of the barmaids. They were both dressed in low-cut black silk outfits. One of them came across. Cartwright ordered a Perrier, ignoring Mick’s offer of something stronger. Albie looked hard at the little accountant.
‘What happened?’ he said, ‘with your mate?’
Mick turned back from the bar with the drink, all smiles and banter, hastily interposing himself between Cartwright and Albie. Albie ignored him, refusing to be distracted, not taking his eyes off Cartwright. He looked like a boxer going through the preliminaries of a championship fight, ignoring the referee’s recital of the rules, oblivious of the crowd. He didn’t like Cartwright, didn’t trust him, and no longer saw the point of disguising it.
‘This mate of yours,’ he said again, ‘what did he say?’
Cartwright looked at him with obvious distaste.
‘There won’t be a problem,’ he said simply.
‘How much did you bung him?’
‘How much did I what?’
‘Bung him.’ Albie rubbed two fingers together, about a millimetre from Cartwright’s nose. ‘Dosh, mate. Ackers. What did it take?’
Cartwright shook his head, a foreign language, and turned to Mick. He had the expression of a man in the wrong company, and the wrong place, far too late at night. Mick put his arm round his shoulders, friend for life.
‘It’s all right, Harry,’ he said, ‘Alb’s got this little thing about corruption. All these books he reads. That and low company. Eh, Alb?’
He grinned across at Albie, trying to soften his hostility, trying to turn it into a joke. Albie had never liked Cartwright, he knew. But business, as he kept telling him, was business. Albie, his point made, returned to a study of his finger-nails. Cartwright freed himself from Mick’s arm and accepted the glass of Perrier.
‘You were right about the city,’ he said quietly. ‘They’re cutting it off.’
Mick grinned, the man in the know.
‘What did I tell you?’
Cartwright ignored him.
‘We need two boats,’ he said.
Mick frowned. ‘Two?’
‘Yes. One big. Say a hundred people. One small. No more than half a dozen. I’ll take care of the small boat. You get the big one.’ He looked out across the casino, the pale eyes taking in the crowd at the gaming tables, the heavies at the door, and the drunkards in between. He had contempt for these people, all of them, and it showed. He turned to Mick again. ‘Phone me tomorrow morning,’ he said, ‘at the office.’ He reached carefully through the jostle of drinkers at the bar, and left his glass on the counter. Then he produced a handkerchief, and blew his nose. Mick realized he was about to go. He frowned for a moment, wondering quickly what else he needed to agree, the terms of the deal, the small print, but by the time he’d got it in a coherent order, the way Cartwright liked it, the little man had nodded goodbye, and turned away, and was already heading for the door. Mick gazed after him, and raised his glass.
‘Cheers, Harry,’ he called. ‘Here’s to the end of the world.’
Joanna had been off the phone for nearly twenty minutes by the time she heard the crunch of wheels in the gravel drive, and the low murmur of conversation as Goodman arranged for Evans to return in the morning. She’d taken a long time to make the call, circling the kitchen, utterly preoccupied, quite unable to concentrate, to sort out sensibly the priorities in her own mind.
More and more clearly, she realized that she’d found the key to Martin’s strange behaviour, to his detachment and incessant evasions, and yet she refused to believe that it could be that simple, that obvious. The man she knew so well simply wasn’t the kind of man to cheat so totally on his wife, to hazard his kids, to shatter his family, to throw the whole precious thing away with such reckless abandon. Somehow, somewhere, there had to be an explanation.
Confronting him was the obvious solution, but she knew him well enough to shudder at the consequences. Faced with evidence as conclusive as the postcard, she suspected he’d simply turn on his heel, and disappear. The scene would leave him nowhere else to go, but back into the night, away from her, away from the kids, back to whoever it was who had written the wretched postcard in the first place. That was something she’d known at once, up there in the bedroom, and she didn’t want it to happen. And so there had to be another way.
In the end, two gins later, utterly sober, she’d phoned Charles Jenner. What she needed, she realized, was information: a name, an address, some notion of what she had to cope with, what she had to beat, and Charles was the one person she could think of whom she could trust utterly. She’d known him for years. He’d sorted out her mother’s chaotic estate, and done it with such tact, and such kindness, that she’d been close to him ever since. On the two occasions they’d moved house, he’d handled all the conveyancing. When a drunken youth had driven his Ford Escort into her ancient Metro outside the Oxfam shop, landing her with a £500 repair bill, it was Charles who’d established the liability. Socially, as it happened, they’d never got round to mixing, and Martin had only met him for long enough to sign the necessary forms on the house purchases. But that, in a sense, was ideal because it insulated their relationship from any conflict of interests. Charles Jenner was the only person, here and now, who could help her. It was as simple, and as complex, as that.
She’d found his home number in the book. He lived in a small village inland. She’d phoned him from the kitchen. A woman, perhaps his wife, had answered. Joanna could hear kids’ voices in the background. She’d asked for Charles. He’d come at once. She’d told him who it was, and he’d laughed, and said she was lucky to find him in, he was just off for a while. She’d apologized at this point, realizing how late it was, half-past nine in the evening, but she did need his help, his advice. He’d asked why, and she’d explained, just enough detail to convince him she
was serious. She wanted to hire someone to find out a few things, make a few enquiries, get her some information. Did he know anyone suitable?
There’d been a moment’s silence, before he came back on the phone. He asked her whether he could help more directly. She understood at once what he meant, the offer of a personal chat, no fee, just sympathy and advice, but she said no as gracefully as she could. What she wanted most was a recommendation, a name and a phone number. Someone who knew their way round the city. Someone who’d do what she asked, return with the facts she needed, and maintain a discreet silence. There was another pause at the end of the phone, and more kids’ voices. Then Jenner returned. He’d have to make a call, he said, then he’d phone her back. She thanked him and hung up. She was at the end of her third gin when her husband arrived.
She was back on the sofa by the time he let himself in through the front door, and folded his coat over the banister, and walked into the room. He was smiling. She blinked. It wasn’t, somehow, what she’d been expecting.
‘Darling,’ he said. ‘I’m late.’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
She couldn’t think of anything else to say. He crossed the room towards her, and bent over the back of the sofa, and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He smelled faintly of soap. Something nasty. Camay.
‘Drink?’
He turned back from the cabinet, decanter of gin already poised over the glass. She shook her head.
‘No thanks,’ she said, ‘I’ve had one already.’
‘Have another.’
He poured her a small measure of gin, and topped it up with plenty of tonic, the way she always liked it. Then he poured another for himself, the measures reversed. He crossed the room with both glasses, and gave her one.
‘Here’s to fame,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Death to the media.’
She blinked again. She’d completely forgotten his television appearance. The promise of the champagne on ice. Already, all that felt like weeks ago, part of some previous life.
‘You were very convincing,’ she said. ‘Was it all true?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not really.’
‘Oh.’ She looked blank for a moment. ‘You were lying?’
‘Yes,’ he shrugged, sipping the gin, ‘I suppose I was. White lies, though. Not the serious sort.’
‘Oh,’ she said again, running a finger round the rim of her glass. She wondered how recently he’d made love to her. Probably tonight. Probably an hour ago. Bloody fool. Bloody, bloody fool. She got up quickly, walking away from him, towards the drinks cabinet, anywhere to mask the tears she knew must come. She sliced a lemon in two, and wiped her eyes. She could feel him watching her, more cautious now, suddenly aware that something profound had happened between them.
‘You’re crying,’ he said quietly.
‘I know.’
‘Why?’
She glanced round. He was still sitting there. He’d made no attempt to move.
‘I’m frightened,’ she said truthfully. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’
He sipped his drink and looked away.
‘We’re going to close the city,’ he said. ‘We’re going to go underground.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. The next day. The day after that.’ He shrugged, ‘There’s a bunker. A command set-up. I’m in charge. That’s why the man came this morning. Oliver …’ He gestured vaguely at the chair where Davidson had been sitting, coaxing a little sense from last week’s crossword. ‘It …’ He paused a moment. ‘I’m afraid it’s a twenty-four hour job. You and the kids.’ He hesitated, not looking at her. ‘You’ll be safer away.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Wales. Your mother’s. Seriously …’
‘No,’ she said again, shaking her head, meaning it. He looked at her, properly, for the first time. The puffiness round the eyes. The tell-tale glint of tears. He got up and walked towards her, very slowly, in obvious reluctance.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s going to be hard. But you really must go. I’m afraid I’m going to insist.’
She looked at him, an inch or two away. She wanted to reach out to him, a child, to caress him, to smooth it all away, to make it all better, to cure him of this hideous affliction. But at the same time, she could feel him wanting to be apart from her, to take a step back, to preserve his distance, his freedom, his precious bloody options. She shook her head slowly.
‘No,’ she said for the third time, ‘we’re staying. All of us.’
There was a long silence. Miles away, down in the city, the sound of a police siren. He looked at her, toying with his glass, hesitant, and she sensed he wanted to say something. Then the phone began to ring, trilling in the kitchen. She remembered Jenner, the promised call, and she stepped back at once, mumbling an apology, and ran through to the kitchen. She picked up the phone.
‘Charles,’ she said at once, ‘I’m in a terrible rush. Do you have a name?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘do you have a pen?’
She nodded, reaching for a biro from the jam jar on the shelf. She could hear her husband’s footsteps padding lightly down the hall, and she saw his shadow fall on the kitchen tiles as he stopped to listen at the door. She made a note of the name and the telephone number, muttered her thanks and hung up. Goodman stepped into the kitchen. The glass in his hand was empty. There was a silence. She looked down at the phone, and at the name on the back of the bill.
‘Man called Gillespie,’ she said blankly. ‘Domestic repairs.’
Five
The first symptoms of radiation sickness began to appear amongst the crew of the George F. Kennan in the early hours of the next day. Given the severity of the initial fire – the searing heat, the narrow companionways thick with dense choking smoke – the medical Corpsman knew that they’d been fortunate to have taken such light casualties. There were burns, certainly, and some internal damage to the soft, delicate pulmonary tissues of the fire crews that had fought the blaze. But nobody had died, and there were no injuries amongst the handful of casualties still confined to the submarine’s sick bay that he regarded as life-threatening. In this sense, at least, they’d been remarkably lucky.
But the radiation was another matter. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, the Geiger read-outs had been, if anything, on the low side. While the engineering officers isolated the reactor, and shut down all but the most essential systems, the medical Corpsman had organized monitoring teams to tour the boat, taking readings in the hundreds of compartments that honeycombed the hull.
For the first six hours the read-outs had been innocuous, no more than one would expect in a normal operational environment. But over the next six hours, the data began to suggest that the damage to the reactor was in fact more serious than the engineers had at first believed.
The whole-body radiation figures climbed higher and higher, and – one full day after the accident – the hull had become uncomfortably hot. If the radiation got any worse, the Corpsman told the Captain, they could expect physiological symptoms to appear amongst the crew. The Captain had accepted the news without comment. With his ultra short-wave communications out, and his back-up systems wrecked by the fire, there was little possibility of consulting the guys on the beach. For the time being, until the communications specialists patched something together, they’d simply have to cope with the situation as best they could, aware all the time of the gigantic prize the submarine and its crew represented to the surrounding Russians. War, he suspected, was only days away. Somehow, they had to hang on until help arrived.
Now, in the submarine’s tiny medical suite, the Corpsman ran cursory checks on the two men who had reported sick. They were both complaining of diarrhoea and vomiting, and one of them had the beginnings of significant hair loss. Without even tabulating their temperatures, and blood pressures, and other vital signs, the Corpsman knew only too well that these symptoms registered the onset of radiation sickness. Soon, they could exp
ect small haemorrhages in the skin and bleeding from the gums. After that, there would be weight loss and high fever. Within a month or so, they’d probably be dead.
He looked the older of the two men in the eye. He hadn’t been feeling well himself. What he was offering was a group diagnosis, applicable to every man on the boat.
‘You’ve taken a little heat,’ he said easily. ‘We ought to keep an eye on that.’
Davidson gave the order to seal off the city at midnight, sitting on his bed in the new Novotel. At the other end of the line, in the cavernous TA Centre which Brigadier Lipscombe had adopted as temporary headquarters, he could hear the sound of men running, the revving of distant engines. Lipscombe, he knew, would be on another line by now, passing the word, commissioning the dozens of other calls that would have to go out, actioning the master plan they’d spent the last eighteen months trying to refine. The troop supplements he’d bargained so hard for, those extra four hundred or so men, would, he knew, be vital, the real teeth behind the thin blue line of local police officers that Nigel Quinn would doubtless insist on retaining up front. A face-to-face with Quinn was next on his list. He anticipated the man would be difficult. But first he had one more call to make. He glanced at his watch. Seven minutes past twelve. His new Controller should be home by now, tucked up in bed with that poor bloody wife of his. A voice returned, abruptly, in his ear.
‘Under way,’ it said simply.
Annie McPhee picked up the howl of the APCs from a mile and a half away, and she recognized the sound at once. She was up in the north of the city, sitting in a darkened car, talking to a local radio reporter she’d phoned an hour earlier. The reporter, a recommended contact from the Wessex newsroom, was briefing her on the local power structures: who mattered, who had real clout, where the principal bodies were buried. When she’d called, the man had been in bed. She’d mentioned Duggie Bullock’s name, and the man had said no problem, he’d get dressed and be with her in ten minutes. His reaction had surprised her. She’d expected an earful of abuse. Now, listening to him in the car, she realized why. Like her, he sensed that the game was nearly up.
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