Cold, Cold Heart

by Christine Poulson

  “Kevin?” She couldn’t think whom he meant.

  “The guy who was injured and flown back to the UK. He’s come round and there’s every chance that he’ll make a good recovery.”

  “That’s great,” Katie said. But why was Graeme looking so worried?

  “His memory’s coming back. And here’s the thing. He’s remembered the accident, only he’s not sure it was an accident. He says he heard someone behind him. He was turning to see who it was and then there was a blow and that’s the last he knew.”

  “He thinks someone hit him on the head deliberately?”

  “Yep – though I don’t think he’s a hundred per cent sure. So what I want to ask you is – how much do you think his memory can be relied on? I mean, the guy does have a head injury…”

  Katie considered this. “Well, often people don’t have any memories of the time immediately before an accident, that’s more usual, but I believe confabulation can occur afterwards. Head injuries are tricky things.”

  “Confabulation?”

  “It’s a memory disorder,” Katie explained, “where people have false or distorted memories and experience them as if they are true. But what do his doctors think?”

  “They’re inclined to believe him – something to do with the nature of the injury. More consistent with a blow on the head than with a fall. But it’s not conclusive. Oh, hell.” He threw up his hands. “I don’t want it to be true. I’m just grasping at straws. Like I said, can you keep it to yourself? Best not to let everyone on base know about it.”

  She wondered why he had told her, but before she could formulate a question, he said, “I’m telling you because you are the one person on base that I can be absolutely sure didn’t do this. It happened after the summer workers left and before you arrived. So you’re in the clear.”

  She felt a chill. “So you think…”

  He gave a bark of unhappy laughter. “What is it that they say in those corny old movies? ‘It could be any one of us.’ Even me, Katie!”

  “I don’t think you’d be telling me about it, if it was you.”

  “Well, no, fair enough.”

  “Why would anyone have wanted to hurt him? Had he fallen out with anyone?”

  “Not as far as I know. He hadn’t been here long enough for that. It was his first season on the ice. But, look, I’ve decided not to make it common knowledge. It’s tough enough as it is. It’s hardly going to improve matters, to have everyone looking at everyone else, wondering if they’re liable to be struck over the head any minute. I thought long and hard about telling you, but two heads are better than one and on balance I felt it was better for at least one other person on base to know. And perhaps you have a right to know.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “There’s nothing much we can do. I doubt if there can be any evidence left out there – the snow’s drifted over the place where it happened. Any footprints will be long gone.”

  “What about the – well, the weapon, whatever he was hit over the head with? If he was hit over the head.”

  “I don’t think we can go round the base confiscating all the blunt objects, do you? No, we’ll keep it under wraps for now. HQ have agreed to that, though there’ll have to be some kind of investigation when the winter’s over, if only for Health and Safety purposes.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ELY

  Daniel had wondered if Lyle would be wearing Western riding gear, chaps maybe and a cowboy hat. But it must be a case of “when in Rome” because Lyle was sporting a tweed jacket, jodhpurs, and a hard hat. He was cantering around the exercise yard, on a brown horse – chestnut did they call it? It looked enormous to Daniel, who was waiting at the rail. Lyle’s secretary had told him that Lyle was at a local riding school, getting in an hour’s exercise with his mobile phone switched off. It was only a ten-minute drive from the office, so Daniel had gone straight over.

  Now Lyle had spotted him. He slowed the horse down to a trot and came over. The horse stuck its head over the rail and snorted and rolled its eyes. It towered over Daniel, who stepped back hastily.

  “Oh, don’t mind Samson,” Lyle said. “He’s an old softie. He’s just hoping that you’ve got a treat for him.”

  Samson shook his head and nickered. Daniel eyed him warily.

  Lyle swung his leg over the horse’s back and lowered himself to the ground. Samson turned his head and gently butted him.

  “Alright, alright.” Lyle took a carrot from his pocket.

  Samson’s enormous teeth made short work of it. Lyle beckoned to a young woman, who came over and led the horse away.

  Lyle said, “I rang Michael yesterday evening. The poor guy’s devastated – as you might imagine. He didn’t know anything about this Kieran fellow – and Flora had never mentioned having trouble at the lab. He didn’t think there was anything in it.”

  “I’ve had better luck. I put an assistant onto it and she’s come up with a name. Kieran Langstaffe.”

  Lyle considered it. “Kieran Langstaffe. No, don’t know the guy.”

  “It’s true that he was working on something related to what Flora and Sara were doing, but only tangentially and nothing was published. He hasn’t worked since. He had a catastrophic breakdown and spent a couple of years on a locked ward. He’s apparently better now. I think I’d better speak to him.”

  “Surely you don’t think there’s anything in it? That Flora and Sara pinched his research?”

  “No, of course not. I don’t see how that could have happened. But it’s best to cover all the bases.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Don’t want this coming back to bite us at some later date. Is the guy still in hospital?”

  “Nope. They moved him out of the secure unit and now he’s out and living with his parents in south-west London.”

  Lyle took off his hard hat. He rubbed his hair where it was plastered to his forehead.

  “Wait a minute. Did he get out before or after Flora disappeared?”

  “I thought of that. He’s only been out a fortnight. He was still in a secure unit when Flora went missing.”

  * * *

  The streets of between-the-wars houses seemed to stretch on forever through the outskirts of south-west London, but eventually Daniel found the house and pulled up outside. It was just like all the other houses around it, with Crittall windows and a front garden where paving stones alternated with overgrown rose bushes to create a chequered effect.

  Daniel had spoken to Kieran’s mother that morning and she had told him that Kieran was having a good day. “But I don’t know how long it’ll last,” she’d said. “I should come soon if you want to talk to him.” They had agreed that he should go down that afternoon.

  Daniel rang the doorbell and heard it echo through the house. No one came, but then through the wavy glass of the front door he saw movement. The woman who answered the door was short and dumpy with curly grey hair, in her sixties, Daniel judged. There were deep lines on her forehead.

  “You must be Mr Marchmont?” she said. The slight lilt hinted at Irish origins. “Come in. We’ll just go through to the kitchen first.”

  As he followed her through the hall he was aware of distant music, something familiar that tugged at a memory just out of reach.

  In the kitchen Mrs Langstaffe turned to face him. “It’s just – I’d better tell you what to expect. But – you’ll have some tea, won’t you? We’ll take it in and have it with Kieran. It’s his teatime and it’s important to stick to a routine. I’m afraid I do have to be there, otherwise he might get upset. Though he might get upset anyway. But I’m hoping it’ll do him good to talk about his work. That is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

  He explained about the patent and she busied herself as she listened, filling the kettle, setting out a tray with china cups and a plate of biscuits. When he mentioned Kieran showing up at the lab, she paused. “Yes, I remember that. He’s much better now, but he’s not exactly normal. He has so
me obsessions and he’s a bit unpredictable. No, don’t worry,” she said, answering the alarm on his face, “he’s not violent, but he might take against you and refuse to speak or he might like you and be happy to chat. There’s no way of knowing and even if he does want to talk he might not want to answer your questions – or even be able to. I’ll have to draw things to a close if he starts to get upset.”

  The kettle switched itself off.

  “I understand,” Daniel said, wondering if he did. “I’ll be guided by you. Just let me know if you think it’s getting too much.”

  She made the tea. Everything was assembled now on the tray.

  Daniel said, “Let me carry that.”

  “No, no, thank you, that might disturb him. I’ll lead the way, and you can open the door.” She hesitated. “Kieran’s a very clever man, you won’t forget that, will you?”

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  He sensed that there was something she was holding back, and wondered again what he was going to find. As he followed her to a room at the back of the house the music increased in volume. He recognized it now: country and western – it was Hank Williams singing, “Cold, Cold Heart”. An ex-girlfriend from years and years ago had played in a country and western band and had been keen on that song.

  He pushed open the door for Mrs Langstaffe to go in first and followed her in.

  It was a big room that looked out onto a dank sunless little garden surrounded by tall hedges. He glimpsed that through a kind of tunnel: each side of the room had a series of tables lining the wall and the tables were crowded with complex, colourful structures. They looked like something out of the lair of the mad scientist in a fifties B-movie. Or would have done if they had not been made out of Lego. There had to be tens of thousands of pieces there. He gazed at them in fascination. It was hard to say what they represented – a futuristic city maybe, all walkways and stairs and tunnels? He thought of those drawings by Escher where the perspective leads around to where you came in: they were something like that.

  By the window a man sat at a desk strewn with A4 paper and coloured pencils. He turned to look as they came in.

  “We’ve got a visitor, Kieran,” Mrs Langstaffe said brightly. She put the tray down on his desk. “Mr Marchmont has come all the way from Cambridge to see you.”

  “Oh, call me Daniel, please.”

  “And you can call me Deirdre.”

  Kieran had a round, puffy face – maybe the result of his medication? – and guileless blue eyes. He stared at Daniel, as unselfconscious as a child. He did in fact look extraordinarily young for someone who had to be at least thirty. Perhaps that was the drugs, too.

  “Have you come from the government?” he asked.

  “No,” Daniel and Deirdre said in unison.

  Kieran looked downcast. “I would have thought they’d send someone,” he said. “In the circumstances. With its being so important.”

  “Perhaps they will,” Deirdre said. Her voice was soothing. “Let’s have a nice cup of tea, shall we?”

  He nodded. “Are there chocolate Hobnobs?”

  “Of course.” She began pouring out cups of tea.

  In the background Hank Williams had moved on to “Your Cheating Heart”.

  “Would you like to see my diagrams?” Kieran asked. He didn’t seem to be interested in who Daniel really was and why he was there. “Are you sure you’re not from the government?” he added hopefully.

  “’Fraid not,” Daniel said, wishing he’d dressed more casually. Perhaps it was the suit that was misleading him.

  “Oh well. Here are my diagrams.” He gestured to the sheets of paper that littered the table. They were covered with interconnected shapes and what were definitely chemical symbols. There was something organic in the way they flowed across the page. Some of the shapes looked like planets, some like cross-sections of plants, some like sexual organs. They were beautifully coloured in.

  “Of course it’s three-dimensional really. That’s why I have to make models.”

  He waved a hand at the Lego constructions.

  “Is this something to do with your cancer research?”

  Kieran considered. “Not really. Well, in a way it is, because it’s about everything, so naturally it’s about that, too. But I don’t want to talk about that now.” He sipped his tea. “I did think the government would send someone. Are you sure that you’re not…”

  “Sorry. But this is all very impressive,” Daniel got up to look at the models. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” That was true enough.

  Kieran started to explain. At first it seemed to make sense, drawing on the laws of physics, but as the explanation grew convoluted, Kieran started to use terms that Daniel didn’t understand and he lost the thread of the argument. He tried again more than once to ask Kieran about the cancer research, but the first time Kieran ignored him. The second time his eyelids began to flicker and he started to look around in an uneasy way. Deirdre, who had faded into the background, stepped forward then and caught Daniel’s eye. She asked him if he’d like to see the garden. He took the hint and they went out through the French windows.

  When they reached the end of the small garden and were out of earshot, she said, “I’m sorry. It looks like you’ve had a wasted journey.”

  “I don’t quite understand. What is it that he’s doing?”

  “He thinks he’s found the secret of life, the secret of the universe. That’s what the model and the diagrams are about. On a good day – like today – he thinks he’s going to win a Nobel Prize and be more famous than Einstein.”

  They looked back at the room where Kieran was tinkering with some pieces of Lego. The plaintive strains of Hank singing “I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry” floated out into the garden.

  “And you know, sometimes I almost believe it myself!” Deirdre added.

  “What’s a bad day like?” Daniel asked.

  “He’s paranoid. Thinks that people are out to steal his work. He can flip quite easily and I saw that he was beginning to get upset when you asked him about the cancer research.”

  “It must be very hard. Are you on your own looking after him?”

  “There’s my husband, too, but he’s out at work during the day. I’m a teaching assistant, but I’m not doing that now. Someone needs to be here with Kieran.”

  Daniel wondered how it had happened, how a bright postdoc had ended up like this. “When did it…? How long…?”

  “He’s always been sensitive and highly strung,” she said. “But so clever with it. The first person in our family to go to university and he got a PhD! When he started to get ill, it began with little things. He thought that things were missing from the lab, that people were taking things, and then that they were moving things around deliberately to confuse him. There was a conspiracy against him, that was what he said. At first I believed him, and then I started to realize…”

  “I’m very sorry,” Daniel said.

  “They’ve been very good at the university. His head of department still rings up to ask how he is. But he doesn’t get many visitors now. People don’t know what to say to him. We’d better go in. He gets very absorbed in what he’s doing, but he might start wondering what we’re talking about. That’s one of the problems with being paranoid. People really do talk about you behind your back!”

  They went back inside. Kieran looked up and smiled.

  “Here. I’ve made this for you.” There was a little figure made of Lego on the desk.

  Daniel was aware of an anxious sideways glance from Deirdre. She visibly relaxed when he said, “Thank you, Kieran” and slipped the Lego man – woman? hard to tell – into his pocket.

  “It’s time for me to go now,” Daniel said.

  Kieran nodded, but his attention was back on his diagram. He chose a violet crayon and began to colour in what looked like a leaf.

  Hank Williams must be on a loop. They were back to “Cold, Cold Heart”. Daniel and Deirdre went out into the ha
ll, followed by its plangent strains.

  “Might it be worth my coming back and trying again?” he asked.

  “Well, it might be. He did like you. That’s why he wanted to give you a present.”

  Daniel gave her his card so that she could contact him if she thought Kieran might be willing to talk about the cancer research.

  “Does he do that all day?” Daniel asked. “Drawing, I mean, and the Lego?”

  “Pretty much. I do usually manage to get him out of the house most days for a walk. We go to the park and feed the ducks. And sometime he’ll watch TV in the evening – he likes the nature programmes.”

  “And the music? Is it always…”

  “Yes, always country and western and most of the time it’s Hank Williams.”

  “Doesn’t it drive you –” Just in time he stopped himself from completing the sentence.

  She did it for him. “Bonkers? Well, yes.” The smile she gave was a blend of weariness, wry humour, and resignation. “On a good day I can get him to switch to Patsy Cline – or even Willie Nelson.”

  There was something heroic about this dumpy middle-aged woman. Daniel liked her very much.

  He said, “It must be hard work.”

  “It is. But he’s my son and I love him.”

  * * *

  The rush hour was beginning and it was a slow drive home. Daniel couldn’t get “Cold, Cold Heart” out of his head. It seemed so dreadfully apposite, so mournful and despairing, with its reference to doubtful minds and being shackled to a memory. In a way it described Kieran and he knew that he would always associate it with that room and the poor young man and his ruined mind. “Mad” wasn’t a word used much these days, but it somehow seemed the right one. What a tragic waste: all that intellect and energy directed into something so futile. Was there a chance of Kieran recovering sufficiently to go back to scientific work? It didn’t seem likely, but even if he did, the scientific world is highly competitive and moves on very quickly. It was probably already too late for Kieran to get back on board.

  Crawling along the M11 he thought of what Deirdre had said. “He’s my son and I love him.” Is there any greater love than that of a parent for a child? No wonder the idea of the father and the mother was so important to Christian faith. His thoughts turned to Chloe whom he loved more than anything in the world. One thing about having a sick child: it sorts out your priorities. He and Rachel knew now what really mattered. They didn’t care about her being academic or anything like that. All they wanted was that she should be a happy person, a decent person – and healthy. He thought again about how they could make that happen. He was right about surrogacy being much more common these days. A browse on the internet had confirmed that. There were sites advertising surrogates in the Ukraine. He didn’t like the sound of that and he knew Rachel wouldn’t either. It smacked of exploitation, of poor women renting out their uteruses. But there were also UK sites which specialized in introducing prospective parents to women who were prepared to act as surrogates for largely altruistic motives. His thoughts wandered to a possible future. He saw Rachel’s face as she received a newborn baby into her arms… then later a laughing toddler with arms outstretched… and Chloe, cured, radiant with health…