‘What was your mother’s name?’
‘Elise de Jong.’
As she said the words, the chairman’s eyes narrowed and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. When he spoke again, the impatient tone was gone.
‘Well, Mrs Koekemoer was right. That name I do remember.’
‘Would you have time to …?’
‘Tomorrow morning. I’ll be here from nine to ten. Look out for me in reception.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Jade called out to his retreating back.
40
As she left the hospital a while later, Jade heard the clicking of heels and the well-dressed medical rep hurried back down the corridor. She looked tired now. Her mascara was smudged below her eyes, as if she’d been rubbing them, and she was carrying a large and heavy-looking bundle of equipment in her arms.
‘Can I help you with that?’ Jade asked.
The rep stopped and frowned at her, just as the doctor had done. Looked at her bare feet and her untidy hair.
Then she glanced down at the stuff she was carrying and Jade saw her thinking, as clearly as if she’d said it aloud: This is only a bunch of posters and banners. There’s nothing valuable here, so why not?
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ the rep said aloud. ‘I’ll go back for the rest of the stuff, then. My car’s parked just outside the main entrance. It’s a silver Renault.’
Jade took the armful of equipment from the lady and headed out to the car park, where she found the car. The boot was unlocked, although the doors to the car itself were not, and Jade stacked the equipment carefully inside. From the amount of signage, it was clear that this drug company knew how to fight a propaganda war.
The rep had soon returned carrying a large cardboard box in her arms. She pressed the remote control to unlock the doors and stowed it carefully on the back seat of the car.
‘Is that everything?’ Jade asked.
‘Yes, it is.’ She looked at Jade, and once again a small frown creased her forehead as if she was wondering who she was and why she had offered to help.
‘May I ask a favour in return?’
‘What?’ the woman responded, in a tone that suggested she would rather have said no.
‘Could I borrow your cellphone for five minutes? I need to make an important call. It’s local. I won’t phone overseas or anything.’
‘Well, I … yes, I suppose you can.’ The rep dug in her handbag and produced a BlackBerry. She handed it over reluctantly.
Jade walked a few steps away before dialling.
After the number had rung ten times she thought that no one was going to answer. It was, after all, very late in the evening to be phoning. She decided to give it another five chances. Craig picked up on the third.
‘Jade? I thought it might be you, but I didn’t recognise the number.’
‘I’m borrowing a phone.’
‘Can I call you back, then?’
‘Yes, please.’
She cut off the call, waited for the phone to ring, and answered immediately.
‘Listen, I need your opinion.’
‘My opinion? On what?’ Now he sounded as if he was smiling, although Jade knew that his good humour would soon disappear when he heard what she had to say.
‘Tell me more about used engine oil, Craig. Please tell me exactly what it does to the environment.’
‘Do you want the short answer or the long answer?’
Jade glanced over at the medical rep who was now walking back towards the hospital entrance. Perhaps she was giving Jade some privacy. Or maybe she’d remembered there were more banners piled up in the function room.
‘The long one,’ she said.
‘Well, the difference between new and used engine oil is that, during its use, the oil picks up a lot of heavy metals. Arsenic, barium, cadmium, lead and aluminium, among others. They are toxic and are also known carcinogens, as well as being teratogenic, which means they cause a higher risk of birth defects if people—and animals—are exposed to them. But that’s not the biggest problem.’
‘What is?’
‘The biggest problem is the number of PAHS, sorry, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that this oil contains. These hydrocarbons do occur naturally in oil deposits, but they’re also formed during combustion in motor engines, so their concentration in used oil is extremely high. Do you want me to explain what they are?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Well, they are chemical compounds that basically consist of a number of rings fused together. They’re known as aromatics, because their atoms emit a powerful aroma—it’s what gives used oil that sharp, almost choking smell. They can be incredibly toxic—far more so than the heavy metals themselves, and they are a lethal organic pollutant.’
Craig took a deep breath before continuing.
‘Benzene is the simplest of the aromatic hydrocarbons, and probably the only one most people have heard of, but you won’t find it in used engine oil. You’ll find the more complex ones there. The more dangerous ones, known as priority pollutants. Naphthalene, pyrene, fluoranthene, phenanthrene, benzanthracene, benzoperylene. And others, too. There are probably more than twenty different PAHS in that oil, including the alkylated phenanthrenes and naphthalenes.’
Jade felt her heart sinking so heavily it was just about down on the tarmac next to her bare feet.
‘What do they all do?’ she asked.
‘Long term, a number of them are known human carcinogens. They’re also teratogenic, as well as mutagenic, which means they are capable of changing your DNA. Most commonly, this will increase the incidence of various cancers over time.’
‘What about the short-term effects?’ she asked.
‘Exposure to the fumes can cause nose, throat and skin infections, as well as lung irritation. The eyes can be affected as well.’
Jade could understand that.
‘Exposure to the oil itself would cause skin irritation,’ Craig continued. ‘Allergic contact dermatitis. Itching, sores, swelling, redness. The hydrocarbons can be absorbed through the skin. They are stored in the body’s fat cells. People who come into contact with used engine oil have an exceptionally high risk of bladder cancer, because the hydrocarbons are detoxified by the liver, but retoxify in the kidneys as the body tries to excrete them. But we’re back to the long-term effects now, because the latent period for disease after exposure can be as long as twenty or twenty-five years.’
‘That’s the risks for humans?’ Jade said.
‘For humans, yes.’
‘What about animals? Smaller organisms?’
‘The smaller the organism, the more serious the effects will be. Just one litre of used engine oil is capable of contaminating a million litres of water. And it ends up in the water. It always does, even if it’s spilled on land. Whether it’s washed away by rain over time, or seeps down through the soil to the water table, it will cause severe pollution. It will kill off fish, plankton, frogs, anything it comes into contact with. The ones that survive exposure to the oil itself will die later, as a result of disease. A high concentration of used engine oil dumped into a water system could cause an environmental catastrophe.’
Craig cleared his throat softly.
‘Why are you asking, Jade?’
‘I need you to sketch out a hypothetical scenario for me.’ ‘Go ahead.’
‘I don’t know if you remember a news report a while ago, about one of Pakistan’s old tankers that was headed for recycling with a load of used oil, and ended up sinking just off the coast of Sri Lanka.’
‘Yes, I remember that well. What about it?’
‘What would happen if another of those tankers ended up sinking just off the coastline here, and discharging its load of used engine oil into the St Lucia estuary? And what if it happened later tonight, at the peak of the spring tide?’
Silence at the other end. Then, ‘Tonight?’ Craig repeated.
‘Yes.’
The medical rep walked out of the hospital again and headed purposef
ully towards her car. Jade circled round to stand behind the Renault.
‘The oil would flood the estuary. I don’t think you could avoid that happening. The problem is that the estuary is a sheltered environ. Now, if you’re going to have an oil spill, the two main issues are the time it will take the oil to disperse and the initial biological impacts of the spill.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Ideally, you’d pray that it spilled on an exposed, rocky headland, where it would disperse in about six months. Next best would be a coarse-grained, sandy beach, which would be free of oil in about a year. Incidentally, that was what the beach in Sri Lanka was like. But an estuary is extremely vulnerable, because it can retain oil for more than ten years. And, of course, the numbers of species that will be affected by the spill will be extremely high.’
Ten years? Jade swallowed hard.
The sales rep moved closer, eyeing the BlackBerry in a way that told Jade her five minutes were already more than up.
‘Carry on,’ she said, edging away from the blonde woman. With any luck, she’d be able to keep the car between them for long enough to hear everything Craig had to say.
‘The oil would probably reach Lake St Lucia itself, and it would basically annihilate every small organism in its path. We’re talking instant and total destruction of everything from plankton to bivalves to the smaller crustaceans and urchins. It would wipe them out. It’s difficult to think of a bigger ecological disaster, because more than a hundred species of fish use the estuary as a nursery.’
‘What else?’
‘The other creatures that would be worst affected would be sea birds, larger fish and crustaceans, and those that survived the oil would no longer have a food supply.’
‘If you don’t mind …’ The sales rep’s voice was sharp. She headed around the back of the car towards Jade.
‘Just one more minute, please,’ Jade whispered to her, pressing a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece.
‘The estuary and the surrounding beach would be a mess, of course. A blackened, stinking, desolate mess. The coral reefs and sponges would be totally contaminated. Boating and all other water activities would be banned until the oil had dispersed. Economically, the tourism industry would collapse. Fishing would no longer be possible. It would be …’
Craig paused for a moment. Then he spoke again with a new sharpness in his voice. ‘Jade, please tell me this is a hypothetical question. That there’s not a tanker drifting towards the shoreline right now. My God, if there was, if that happened—it would destroy everything we’ve been working so hard to achieve.’
‘It’s not at sea yet, but it will be soon,’ Jade said. ‘It will be heading out from Richards Bay harbour in a couple more hours.’
‘From the harbour? But why?’
‘Because the CEO of Richards Mining, a man called Patrick Zulu, is behind all of this. I think he’s been planning it for months, probably ever since he got hold of the report on the other tanker. He’s going to engineer an environmental catastrophe that will make it impossible for the government to rule in favour of the environmentalists, and will allow strip mining of the dunes within the nature reserve. Craig, I don’t know what you’ll be able to do in that time, but you need to do something. Call Pillay. Get him to get hold of the Green Scorpions. They’ll have to try and stop that tanker before it gets out into open water. And I have some other instructions for Pillay as well. These are very urgent. Please tell him it’s a life or death situation.’
‘I will.’ Craig’s voice sounded firm.
Jade told him, as fast and clearly as possible, what she needed Pillay to do.
‘And you need to organise a clean-up crew to get to the harbour as fast as possible.’
‘I know. I’ll get onto it immediately.’
‘Good.’
‘But, Jade, what about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
Jade ended the call and, thanking the medical rep profusely, handed the woman her phone. She was barefoot, wearing borrowed clothing. She had no ID on her and no money, and was armed only with a Christmas-cracker penknife. There was no way she’d get through the harbour gate again, and nothing she could do to stop the tanker from setting sail. But there was somewhere else she needed to go, because if Pillay didn’t make it there in time, people were going to die.
41
It was a ten-minute jog from the hospital entrance to the dilapidated block of flats where Jade had first seen Bradley. She ran the last section, praying that she wouldn’t land squarely on a piece of glass with her bare feet. She ran past a pub on the corner—or perhaps it was more of a shebeen. At any rate, it was the only sign of activity in the area. A few old cars were parked outside and through the open door she saw the drinkers—all black men—sitting at the bar.
Jade guessed that in this poorer part of town, black and white would still be strictly segregated. This wasn’t the well-off middle class with their starched shirts and leather briefcases, the ones that were shown drinking and laughing in the Castle Lager advertisements, all races together in brotherly unity. This was the ragged edge of society and, even though circumstances might force them to live side by side, they remained deeply distrustful of those who were different, the old scars of apartheid still as raw and ugly as they had always been.
Up ahead was the block of flats—number seventeen, where the Zulu mother had been caring for the noisy children. And flat number eighteen. Its windows were unlit.
The street outside the apartment was also quiet. No sign of any police cars, marked or unmarked. But Jade couldn’t let herself think about what would happen if Pillay had misunderstood what she wanted him to do. Or underestimated its urgency.
In the darkness, she had to cast around for a while before she found the narrow but well-used pathway she had been down the last time she was there.
Stumbling over roots and branches in what was now almost total darkness, she stopped halfway and listened for any sounds, but there was nothing to be heard.
And then she reached the embankment above the railway track.
Jade half climbed and half slid down the steep slope. Then she sprinted down the centre of the track, her feet barely making a noise on the railway sleepers, to the building she’d seen before. At the time, she had assumed it was occupied by squatters. With a chill, she now realised the truth of what she’d seen, but hadn’t understood.
She recalled the old train stood in the dilapidated station, seemingly neglected and forgotten, and those shiny well-used tracks that ran in the direction of the harbour. It was the same train that she’d seen chugging up the hill away from the harbour, as Bradley had taken them out to sea on the speedboat.
Most tellingly of all, she remembered the smell. That choking, filthy stink of used oil. At the time she’d thought it was coming from old machinery, but now she realised it wasn’t.
And she remembered the coughing sound she’d heard. A miserable, rough, painful cough, coming from damaged lungs.
Lungs that had, perhaps, been damaged by ongoing exposure to the fumes of used engine oil.
The oil tanker she’d seen was in no way seaworthy. So, if it was going to go out to sea carrying a load of toxic oil, it would have to be refitted first. Welded, patched, its hull repaired in order for the cargo to be loaded. That would have required materials—and also a labour force.
Now that she was closer to the station, the air smelt harsh, bitter, chemical-laced. She breathed in as slowly as possible, because the poisonous fumes were catching in her throat and burning her nose, and it was taking all the effort she possessed not to cough them straight back out again.
She moved closer to the large square entrance. This time, the huge gates were wide open. The interior of the building was dimly lit. She moved off the tracks and approached the entrance cautiously, crouching down before she peered round the edge of the doorway, hoping nobody would be watching the entrance.
The three-wagon train was inside, and the flo
or of the gloomy-looking station was covered with what looked like thousands of cylindrical objects, each about a metre in length and half as wide. They weren’t stacked neatly, but were scattered in higgledy-piggledy groups. Some lay on their sides, others were stacked on their tops in tall piles that reached almost to the ceiling.
Their shape looked familiar, although it took her a moment to realise what they were.
Oil drums.
There was a mass of drums here. The small space was filled with them. The oil smell was so sharp it seemed to cut through the air.
But if these drums represented the Karachi’s entire load, it was good news. A full tanker could carry the contents of hundreds of thousands of drums. So perhaps this meant the ship was not sailing with a full load. Perhaps this was all the oil they’d been able to get hold of. In which case, if it sank, the extent of the environmental damage would surely be far less.
Jade couldn’t see anybody in the disused station. She waited, listening.
Then, as quietly as she could, she walked across the floor, weaving her way around the piles of empty drums, grimacing as her bare feet encountered viscous and stinking puddles of oil. There must be a way through, an entrance that would lead her to the place where she had heard the man coughing.
A man who was not a vagrant; not a drunk.
A man who was one of those in their twenties and thirties that Pillay had told her had disappeared.
Fixing up a toxic tanker would require a labour force. And what better way to go about getting one than by kidnapping and imprisoning people who would be disposed of once the job was over?
At the far end of the building, she saw a door.
This was it. This was the place she’d heard the coughing.
The door was narrow, made of steel, and it was bolted shut from the outside. Its two giant metal bolts made the ones the handyman had welded to the doors of the chalets at the resort look like toys.
‘Hey!’ she shouted. She rapped on the door, leaned close and listened. ‘Anyone in there? I’ve come to let you out.’
Nothing but silence.
And then she heard a cough.
The Fallen Page 21