by Simon Mayo
‘Good spot, Itch,’ he said. He was speaking softly, as though afraid of being overheard. ‘The Munich museum is way better. Of course it is. However, there’s another factor which I shouldn’t really share with you, but . . . I don’t think the normal rules apply here.’
Itch glanced at Jack; her raised eyebrows indicated that she was as surprised by this as he was. ‘You remember my old colleague, Tom Oakes? The American who helped you at ISIS? I knew him from our days at the Mountain Path mine in California . . .’
‘Sure we do,’ said Itch. ‘He showed us how to destroy the 126. He’s the one who said, “Let’s whomp this sucker,” before we pressed the button.’
‘Yeah, he showed us how to fire the death-ray thing,’ said Jack. Itch was about to correct her, but Mr Hampton did it for him.
‘I’m sure you mean “operate the neutron beam”.’ He smiled kindly and sighed. ‘Well, Tom has disappeared. He was being given a hard time by his bosses for the meltdown at the target station, and he quit.’
‘But that’s so unfair,’ said Jack. ‘Poor man, he was just trying to help us.’
‘He should be rewarded, not punished,’ agreed Itch.
Hampton paced to the front of the lab, then back again. ‘He called me, looking for work.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t have any. He said something about an offer from Madrid, but he didn’t sound himself. And he didn’t say anything to his wife.’
‘And you want to look for him,’ said Jack.
‘I should have noticed his distress’ – Hampton was almost whispering – ‘but I didn’t. So when Dr Dart approved a science trip, I thought I should see what I could do.’
‘So it’s Madrid,’ said Itch.
Mr Hampton nodded. ‘It’s Madrid.’
After school the following day, Lucy wheeled her bike up to Itch and Jack, who were waiting for Chloe in the reception hall. ‘Hey! Been thinking about that Watkins’ secret you were talking about. We should call in at the library on the way home. If the “mining deaths” search doesn’t come up online, we should try there. There’s a big local history section I used once for a tourism essay.’
‘OK,’ said Itch, ‘but I’m not a member. Never been in there.’
‘Me neither,’ said Chloe.
‘Same,’ said Jack.
‘But I have!’ said Lucy. ‘Follow me . . .’
The walk to the library saw them all in high spirits; the term had started a whole lot better than they had expected. They were laughing as they passed a rather surprised librarian and dropped their bags around the ‘Local History’ table. There were four bookshelves in two facing rows and they stood looking at the hundreds of books.
Lucy headed for the nearest shelf. ‘Old Parish Churches of Cornwall, Smuggling in Cornwall, Old Cornish Inns . . . All fascinating, I’m sure, but not helpful. Where do we start?’
‘Why don’t we ask her?’ said Itch, pointing at the librarian. ‘It’s her patch.’
‘Good idea,’ said Jack, and they all approached the woman sitting behind a vast table covered in books, leaflets and posters.
The librarian was younger than Itch expected a librarian to be, but was at least forty; her badge said MORGAN. She smiled as they approached and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. ‘Hello. How can I help?’
The three girls all looked at Itch.
‘Er, we have, erm, a school project on mining, and we were wondering if you had any books covering the period 1800 to 1877.’
‘Sure. We’ve got quite a few on mining – and Cornish mining in particular.’ She led them to a two-shelf run of books. ‘These bottom shelves go from pre-history to the present day. You should find everything you need here, but it is a popular section – some books may be out. Good luck!’
They all sat on the floor and started to pull out a variety of books.
‘Remind me what we’re looking for . . .’ said Chloe.
‘No idea,’ Itch replied, ‘but something that explains why Watkins has gone all secretive on us.’
‘Anyone heard of the Ding Dong mine at Land’s End?’ said Jack from behind the covers of a large book. ‘Apparently there’s a legend that says Jesus is supposed to have addressed the miners there.’
‘Don’t think it’ll be that, Jack,’ said Itch.
‘Cornish miners led the rebellion of 1497 against Henry the Seventh?’ offered Lucy from her book.
‘Arsenic was found with copper ore at the Callington mine, and the dust often killed the miners,’ read Chloe. She looked at her brother. ‘These guys were the original element hunters really – this is all your stuff, Itch: copper, tin, arsenic, silver.’
Itch nodded. ‘I know. And it was dangerous – there were loads of accidents. But everyone knows about that, so why should Watkins be doing more work on it?’
‘Could we see if he’s taken any books out recently?’ wondered Lucy.
Itch smiled at her. ‘Now that’s a good idea. But the librarian won’t tell us just like that, will she?’
‘Let’s see . . .’ said Lucy, and walked back to Morgan the librarian. ‘Hi again,’ she said. ‘Sorry to trouble you. Our teacher, John Watkins – you might know him, I think he comes here sometimes – has recommended a book, but none of us can remember the title. Or the author! We’re all feeling a little dumb, but we don’t want to get into trouble . . .’ Lucy smiled and pulled an ‘I’m-in-trouble’ face.
The librarian nodded. ‘Of course I know him. I’m not allowed to give you anyone’s borrowing history, of course . . . but there are a couple of books on the returns trolley that might be what you need. Mr Watkins brought them back yesterday.’ She gestured towards a chunky wooden shelf on wheels, piled high with books of all sizes.
‘Thanks,’ said Lucy. ‘We might get our project done now! Hey, over here, guys!’ She called to the others, and raced for the trolley. ‘Two books in here somewhere,’ she said when they’d gathered round. ‘Watkins dropped them off yesterday.’
Chloe found one first. ‘There!’ She pointed to a hefty hardback. ‘The Black Seam: Mining Stories. That must be one.’ She pulled it out. ‘Nearly nine hundred pages, Itch,’ she said, flicking to the end. ‘Here – you have it.’ The others scoured the trolley’s shelves, but couldn’t see any more mining books.
‘It’s getting late, you guys,’ said Lucy, ‘and I need to cycle home. Let’s get this one for now and try again tomorrow.’ She took the book to the librarian, who stamped it and smiled.
‘Looks like it’s going to be a big project!’ she said.
‘’Fraid so,’ said Lucy, and they all filed out onto the street.
‘I’ll take it,’ said Itch. ‘You can’t ride home with that in your bag. You’ll never get up the hills.’
‘OK. Thanks, Itch. See you guys tomorrow!’
They watched as Lucy cycled off into the gloom. ‘Say hi to your mum,’ called Chloe, and Lucy waved in acknowledgement.
‘You really going to read that?’ said Jack as they walked home.
‘Sure,’ said Itch. ‘Suppose I should finish The Great Gatsby for the Brigadier first . . .’
‘Which you haven’t started,’ said Chloe.
‘I’ve looked at the cover,’ protested Itch.
Itch wasn’t sure what had woken him. It had, as usual, taken him a long time to get to sleep – his brain refusing to shut down the way everyone else’s did – but his clock said 3.10 a.m.
Way too early. He listened to the sound of the house. He could hear the pipes and radiators starting to warm and the creaking sounds that had alarmed Chloe when they had first moved into the house. While they had the MI5 team next door, he had slept well, knowing that he and his sister were being watched, being protected. Now they were gone and he found himself analysing every sound for danger.
His mind raced. The 126 was gone, but Flowerdew wasn’t. He was out there somewhere, and Itch was sure he would hear from him again . . . But, Itch reasoned, the injuries he had sustained – the burns in the Fitzherbert School fire
and the blows to the head at the ISIS labs – would put him out of action for some considerable time. Whatever noises the house was making, he was sure it wasn’t related to his old science teacher.
Itch got up and stood on the landing. All the lights were off apart from a faint glow from Chloe’s nightlight. He put his head round her door – she was fast asleep, of course, her breathing deep and steady. He walked silently back to his room and put on his light. He sat on his bed and picked up his copy of The Great Gatsby; he had managed three chapters last night. In fact, now he thought of it, it was this that had finally brought on sleep. Maybe it would work again, he thought; he found his place and started to read.
But he was bored within a page and thought about sending Jack or Lucy a message on Facebook to see if they were up. He opened his laptop and checked his inbox – and to his surprise Lucy had left him a message.
Thanks for taking Mining Tales! Bring to school if you can bear it, and we’ll check it at lunch. Lx
He reached for his rucksack and pulled out the library book. I should at least have started it, he thought and, propping himself up with his pillows, began to read.
It was divided into counties, each section giving a short history of local mining, together with ancient photos and eyewitness accounts of life in and around the pit. Itch found the chapter on Cornwall and immediately recognized some of the photos. They were of the mines at South Carreg and the pit that had become South West Mines, where he and Jack had briefly worked last year. The coastal setting and the position of the winding tower were instantly recognizable, and Itch studied the old black-and-white images.
Rows of miners, their faces set, stared out at him. Some wore protective helmets; others wore caps or were bare-headed. Underground images of rock faces and primitive drilling machinery filled the next few pages, and then Itch noticed a page with a corner folded. The section told how the lift machinery, operated by a ‘man-engine’, had collapsed and thirty-two miners had lost their lives. There was an image of the mine and an account of how the disaster had unfolded. Itch was gripped by the story of an unnamed miner, aged only fifteen, who had lost his brother and uncle in the disaster. He read the next sentence and then sat up straight.
He read it again, out loud: ‘There was much grieving in the village as the boy had only recently lost his father to the vomiting disease.’ The words had been faintly underlined in pencil. In the margin – in what Itch was sure was Mr Watkins’s handwriting – were the words Cross-check with FLOW.
If Itch’s mind had been racing before, it was turbo-charged now. Sleep was forgotten as he read furiously through the entire section on Cornish mining. There were no more folded pages, but one other paragraph had been underlined. It told of a mine near Land’s End, where recent casualties had been attributed to rock falls, drill-slips . . .
‘Ouch!’ said Itch out loud. ‘. . . and the vomiting disease.’
That phrase again.
Again, Watkins – he was sure it was him – had written Cross-check with FLOW in the margin. Flowerdew? thought Itch. But that makes no sense . . . He read on until he reached the section about mining in Wales, but there was nothing of interest, nothing underlined. He flicked through every page, but found no more pencil marks.
Itch shut the book and stared at the Periodic Table on his wall. Getting out of bed, he stood in front of it. He traced his finger down the column which started with Fe, Iron, passed through Ru, Ruthenium, Os, Osmium, Hs, Hasmium, and ended where his father had handwritten 126, Lt, Lofteium.
Surely not.
No way.
It was Mr Watkins who had told him that the rocks of 126 had been traced to South West Mines at Provincetown. They had been dug up and thrown out on a spoil heap. To disguise their illegal deep mining, the company had scattered the ‘waste’ over three counties; it was thought that the 126 ended up in Devon, where it was bought by Cake, the element dealer. He had later died from radiation sickness, the rock’s fierce radioactivity then causing a violent illness that had nearly killed Itch, Jack and Chloe.
And it had been to Mr Watkins that he had asked why the rocks had come out of a mine. Itch had hoped that they were like the last of an endangered species and that, once they were disposed of, the 126 would be gone for ever. He understood its power and its potential for good but had seen first hand what it could do to people. With the 126, guns and violence were never far behind. He recalled Mr Watkins’s words then and spoke them out loud, softly: ‘Maybe they’ve been thrown away before.’
Even though it was only 5.30, Itch got dressed. He suddenly felt cold.
In a London sorting office, a brown-uniformed parcel delivery service employee was approaching the end of his shift. It had been busy – the New Year sales had meant a rush of packages needing delivery. Most seemed to be the size of books and DVDs, but there were larger parcels too. The man checked the addresses, felt their weight and enjoyed guessing the contents: clothes, tools – food maybe.
His last four packages were identical. Slightly larger than A4-sized padded envelopes. Heavy. No movement inside. Typed address labels. Reference books, he guessed. Encyclopaedias maybe, if anyone still buys them. One to Didcot, three to Cornwall. Two were for doctors, one for a man with lots of letters after his name. Professional – he nodded to himself. Exactly the type to have encyclopaedias. Classy. The addressee of the last one was a strange name he’d never seen before. He’d seen every name under the sun; characters he recognized from Star Trek, Star Wars and sometimes Twilight. He thought he’d seen everything, but he’d never seen a name like this one.
‘Itchingham Lofte . . .’ He shrugged and placed it in the pile for CORNWALL/OVERNIGHT.
‘Oh well. Enjoy!’ he said.
8
Itch woke Chloe at six a.m. It was a few seconds before she realized that he was already in his uniform.
‘Itch, what’s wrong?’ She sat up, alarmed.
‘When does the library open?’ he said.
‘You what?’
‘When does the library open?’
She flopped back onto her pillow. ‘I heard what you said – I just couldn’t believe you’d said it, that’s all. Itch, it’s six o’clock in the morning. Go away.’ She closed her eyes, but when Itch didn’t move, she opened them again. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve been reading the mining book.’
Chloe waited for him to continue, but he just sat on the edge of her bed. ‘And?’ she said at last.
‘I think I know what Watkins is being secretive about. There are two passages about miners getting a sickness – a vomiting disease – and dying. Watkins had underlined them and written Need to cross-check with FLOW. But I don’t know who or what FLOW is. Obviously it isn’t Flowerdew . . .’
‘Maybe it’s something he wrote . . .’ Chloe sat up again. ‘You mean, he thinks it’s the 126? But the book’s about stories from hundreds of years ago, isn’t it?’ Itch nodded, and she pulled her T-shirt over her knees. ‘Wow.’
When she was dressed, Chloe crept into Itch’s room. He showed her the underlined passages and the FLOW sections. ‘Maybe FLOW is the other book,’ he said. ‘The one we couldn’t find. When’s the library open?’
‘Itch, you’ve asked me that three times already and I have no idea. Look it up maybe?’ she suggested.
‘Have done. Can’t find it. We’ll just have to be there when it opens.’
‘Excuse me . . . why?’
‘Because if we get there before they put those returned books back, we might find the FLOW book.’
‘Might not be a book at all,’ said Chloe. ‘Might be a person. Even if it isn’t Flowerdew. Member of staff or someone.’
Itch shrugged. ‘Maybe. But I’d like to be at the library when it opens. I’ve messaged Jack and Lucy. Come on, let’s get some breakfast.’
They were outside the library by 8.30.
Itch read the sign on the door and kicked the wall. ‘Opens at ten?’ he said, exasperated. ‘What kind of useless
operation is this? How can it only open at ten?’
Chloe laughed. ‘Itch, until yesterday you’d never been inside. You’re not even a member . . .’
‘I joined online this morning. While you were getting dressed. Can you see the trolley?’
They both peered through the glass of the front door, their breath steaming it up. ‘I think it’s in front of the desk,’ said Chloe, wiping the condensation away with her hand. ‘All piled up . . . But you can’t wait till ten – registration is in fifteen minutes.’
There was a shout, and Jack arrived, running. She was flushed from the cold and her exertions, sweat running from under her beanie hat.
‘Hey. Just saw your message at breakfast. What’s up?’
Itch told her about his night-time reading and pointed at the returns trolley. ‘I need to be here at ten.’
‘We’re in English, Itch. Think the Brigadier will notice if you just disappear to go shopping.’
They walked back up the hill, as Lucy arrived at full speed, braking hard as she drew alongside the others. ‘Hi! Came as quickly as I could!’ She got off her bike and removed her crash helmet, trying to flatten her hair at the same time.
Itch explained again about the vomiting illness in the mine stories book, then stopped as the colour started to drain from Lucy’s rosy cheeks.
She stared at her friends. ‘You mean you think . . . those rocks had killed before . . . before Dad?’
‘I don’t know, Lucy, really. I just think it’s what Watkins is looking at—’ Itch broke off as he saw the tears in Lucy’s eyes. He hadn’t thought about her reaction. When Cake died, he had lost a friend, a mentor, but Lucy had lost her father. He was annoyed with himself. ‘Sorry . . .’
‘I never thought . . . how can that even be possible?’ she said, so quietly they nearly missed it.
Chloe and Jack linked arms with Lucy as they all walked into the CA and Itch told them about the conversation he’d had with Mr Watkins in hospital.