Ascension

by Oliver Harris

  Petra didn’t come home. It would have got dark around seven p.m., according to Kane’s research. There was no mobile reception on the island. At ten o’clock her mother got a lift up to Two Boats and began asking around. It wasn’t so unusual for Petra to stay out. No one knew anything. Jackie Wade returned to Georgetown and informed the police, who had closed the station for the night but were easily found in the Exiles Bar nearby. Whether for this reason or others, the police didn’t launch into a full search right away.

  The island had a rudimentary courthouse and a police station staffed by a former metropolitan police sergeant on a two-year posting. He was in charge of one full-time constable and two volunteer special constables. The senior officer, Sergeant John Morrogh, made calls to several individuals in places where Petra might be—including the two bases—and asked them to keep an eye out. It seemed Morrogh was initially reluctant to take it seriously. Petra was known to stay at various friends’ houses, hence her father himself hadn’t been concerned. The thinking, it seemed, was How far can she go?

  That question remained unanswered.

  The following day, Fire and Sea Rescue Services searched, as did staff from the bases. Drones were sent up, RAF-trained sniffer dogs set loose, finally a helicopter with heat-seeking equipment. The search went on for five days before being slowly wound down without any sign of her. No sign of her bike, either. The investigation remained open.

  Rory Bannatyne had been found dead at six a.m. the day after Petra was first reported missing. For reasons that were unclear, it took some time to name him as a suspect. In the end it was a suggestion by officers on the US base that prompted a closer look. The police had searched his accommodation and dug speculatively around it in case any bodies turned up, but, finding nothing to directly connect the two events, their investigation hit a dead-end. From what Kane could tell, it looked like they gave up. It seemed odd.

  Taylor had acquired transcripts of all interviews the police had conducted, which amounted to over fifty individuals, none of whom had very much to say. Few people seemed to know Petra well, not even her parents. Did she have a boyfriend? They didn’t know. Had they had an argument with her? No, just the usual disagreements. She was approaching the end of her time at the island’s school, which meant the end of the time she was permitted on the island. The parents said she was worried about the idea of leaving, but no one asked directly if she was happy. And no one asked if she knew Rory Bannatyne.

  Taylor had run the names of all men on the island against the sexual offenders register and international databases of pedophiles, but none came up. Kane had checked through general records of crime on Ascension, just in case anything stood out. There were drunk-driving offenses, a fight on the UK base, the theft of some potatoes, but nothing more. The island’s policing and justice system was a colonial hand-me-down: British, faded by time and the sun and limited, enclosed means. For most of its occupied life, Ascension had been technically classed as a ship. This had been the only way the Royal Navy could think of to ensure discipline, and meant the captain’s orders were law. While the situation was more civilian now, it retained eccentricities, with ad hoc plans to improvise court trials in emergencies. Kane had a sense that these remained untested.

  One anecdote from a history of the island lodged inside his mind like a tune he couldn’t shake. A cook in the Royal Marines, stationed on Ascension for two years, had eventually had a fit and was placed in the island’s hospital but ran out onto the sharp rocks barefoot, cutting his legs and feet to ribbons. Found covered in blood in what the records described as a state of acute mania, he had to be forced into the police station for his own safety. Kane felt a thread among the accounts of island life: of breaking points, men and women who stopped resisting the surroundings, and the environment had torn them to shreds.

  When you get there, take a breath, he told himself. Don’t rush. Fight the instinct to dive in and start investigating. Settle, blend, penetrate. Six months was a long time on an island of eight hundred people—there would be those who’d liked Rory and those who didn’t. People who wanted something from him, people he wanted something out of. People who might have known his state of mind. Something made Kane feel he could find out what happened that night, if only because he was starting in that unique position of a spy: an outsider with privileged insight.

  The loudspeaker woke him from that fantasy.

  Would passengers for Flight 301 to Saint Helena make their way to the boarding gate, where boarding has commenced . . .

  He got to his feet and lifted his luggage, which seemed inadequate. There was something about the journey, with its syncopated hopping to ever more remote and uninhabitable pieces of land, that felt at once disorientating and like you were being fired with great precision toward a target.

  The passengers on the Saint Helena flight were mostly Saints, their deep skin tones betraying ancestry suffused with intersecting bloodlines: European administrators, Chinese workers, slaves from Madagascar. Kane got his first hearing of the accent, which was a historical repository in itself, sliding between Cockney, Australian, and Irish by way of West Africa.

  One of the Saint Helenians took the seat beside Kane when they boarded. He was an elegant-looking man with touches of gray in his hair, a gold tooth, and a gold watch. As they took off, he kept wistful eyes on the view.

  “Heading to or from home?” Kane said. The man turned.

  “That’s a good question, my friend.”

  He had been visiting his girlfriend in Cape Town, he said. She worked at a hotel, and they were debating where things were going. He had three kids on Saint Helena, one in the States.

  “I’ve heard a lot about the island, the warmth of the people,” Kane said.

  “Oh, we’re warm.” He laughed. “You’re from the UK?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good old UK. I wouldn’t be here without you. My grandfather was a descendant of one of the Boer prisoners of war. You guys took them to the island,” he said. “That was 1901. And British people never seem to know anything about it. Know about the Boer War?”

  “Not as much as I should.”

  “The British took over twenty thousand prisoners, and then didn’t know what to do with them. The prisoner of war camps in South Africa were bursting. So they decided to ship prisoners to Bermuda, India, Sri Lanka, Saint Helena. You name it. The locals treated us well. Better than the British. So one way or another we ended up sticking around. Where are you staying on Saint Helena?” he asked.

  “I’m not. I have to get the flight to Ascension.”

  The man stared at him.

  “What do you want to go there for?”

  “Research. I work on British colonial history.”

  “Stay on Saint Helena. We’re colonial. We’ve got people and restaurants, too. Might be a speck in the Atlantic, but at least we’re more than just a volcano.”

  Something evidently troubled him about the prospect of Kane flying onward.

  “Have you been to Ascension?” Kane asked.

  “Not me. A lot of us go over to work. Saints go over there, think it’s a privilege, an honor to be selected, and you never see them again.”

  “Literally?”

  “Almost. There used to be a boat service, RMS Saint Helena. Now it’s monthly flights, and they only run those because they have to. It’s in the contracts. That’s a strange island.”

  Kane took the comment as an invitation.

  “I heard a girl went missing recently.”

  The man assessed him again before nodding slowly.

  “I know the family. They’re back on Saint Helena now, hearts broken.”

  “They went back?”

  “What could they do? Searched for ten days, eleven days. They’ve got no other friends or family there—all their family’s on Saint Helena. The island’s been searched top to bottom.”

  “What do they think happened?”

  “They have no idea. The girl loved t
o swim. There’s sharks. No one knows.”

  He turned away, toward the window, and Kane wondered if he’d stepped past an invisible boundary, or if there was something he wasn’t saying. A few minutes later the man pulled his hat down in front of his eyes and fell asleep.

  When Saint Helena appeared beneath them it looked attractive, its capital nestled between two steep hills, like a river of homes running to the sea. Population 4,500, which was five times larger than Ascension. Kane felt sorry to be moving on. He tried to see the house where Napoleon was held, but they dropped too fast.

  The airport was miniature, the size of a bus station, but clean and modern and even fitted with air-conditioning, and while the view from its windows didn’t extend past the expanse of beige rock in which it sat, those departing for the greener interior seemed lighthearted about it. Kane watched passengers disperse to cars and buses, and then the handful connecting to Ascension were revealed. Seven British military with canvas kit bags, two US Air Force personnel: a man and a woman. There was a group of Saints, one of whom had a huge sack of provisions: fruit and vegetables mostly, wholesale boxes of chocolate bars and crisps. Finally a British couple bringing a boxed air-con unit.

  No tourists. No other first-timers, you could tell. The atmosphere was altogether different now. Those remaining were people making the journey for reasons other than sheer desire, mentally readying themselves.

  They boarded at two thirty p.m. Kane saw mailbags and boxes of frozen food being wheeled aboard, and finally a mint-condition Hyundai motorbike. The crew of their small seventy-six-seat plane seemed unfazed by the varied cargo. The flight was rocky. Kane had hoped to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. His thoughts raced, working through his prep­aration: spreadsheets of locations and individuals, all about to become real. Two hours into the flight they began to drop toward the ocean. Kane looked to see their target but there was nothing beneath them apart from thin white strands of foam. They sank through the air until, at the final minute, a scrap of cloud appeared ahead and then a reddish-brown rock beneath it: Ascension.

  Kane couldn’t see how there would be room to land. As they drew closer the surface resolved itself into individual volcanic cones, then the prickles of antennae came into view. Still no sign of life, just aerial arrays and satellite dishes, and finally a runway cutting through the rock.

  They touched down in a cloud of red dust, then taxied back to a small hangar at the edge of an empty airfield. The runway petered out. His fellow passengers roused themselves. Again, there was a sense of a deep breath being taken, of stiffening the sinews, steadying the mind.

  Kane filed out through a few meters of blinding sun, past a sign that welcomed them to Ascension Island Base. The terminal was a boxlike structure with a handful of seats inside. An official sat sweating at a desk with a line of yellow tape on the floor to signify the border. A few meters beyond him was a small cluster of islanders waiting to greet friends and relatives, fanning themselves, all deeply tanned: men in cargo shorts, one woman in a dress and sun hat, one teenage boy cradling a Doberman. Kane looked out for a hotel rep but couldn’t see one.

  The immigration official wore a hi-vis vest over khaki fatigues. He checked Kane’s passport and permit.

  “Mr. Pearce. Professor Pearce?”

  “Dr. Pearce.” Kane saw he had the details of Pearce’s visa application already beside him. The man flicked through the passport, looking at the other stamps that the ops team had included, checked the photo again, and looked up at Kane’s face.

  “Here for research?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long are you planning to stay?”

  “Four weeks. Until the next flight back.”

  “What are you going to research in four weeks?”

  “As much as possible. I’ve been very interested in the history of this island for a long time. I wanted to see it for myself, how people live here.”

  The man raised an eyebrow.

  “No doubt you’ll find out.”

  He brought the stamp down hard, leaving the image of a seabird, its outlines smudged by sweat.

  Kane removed his suitcase from the pile. He dragged it outside, shielding his eyes against the low sun. No sign of his hotel transfer. A donkey wandered onto the runway, standing on the barren tarmac like a protest. Peaks rose up on the north side of the airfield in varying shades of red and brown and gray. A man in an old windproof red jacket with the Royal Mail logo on the back untied the mailbag and the islanders diverted their attention from the human arrivals to the post as various letters and parcels were distributed. A Mercedes minibus loaded up with the Americans and drove off in the direction of the US base. Kane helped lift the motorbike onto the back of a transit van. He watched the plane refuel, ready to leave again.

  Six became six thirty p.m. The sun melted on the horizon. A hard silence descended. No buzz of nature or rustle of trees. Kane waited for the night hum of insects, but nothing came. His phone had no signal. There was one pay phone at the back of the terminal. As he was hunting for a number to call, the sun disappeared with a last, malevolent throb of red, like a jailer walking away with the key. Kane thought of the vast expanse of ocean around him and felt a rush of claustrophobia.

  The immigration officer began to lock up. The postal worker moved cardboard boxes into the back of a Chevy pickup. He moved rapidly, although his limbs were thin, and there was something malnourished about him.

  “Is there any kind of taxi service here?” Kane asked.

  “Not here, no,” the man said.

  Kane used the public phone, tried a number for the hotel, but no one answered. They were closing the airport now. The postman watched Kane hang up.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I need to get to Georgetown. Any chance of a lift?”

  “I can drive you. Give me a minute.”

  The man spoke to the official, exchanged some pleasantry, and led Kane to the pickup.

  “Just got here?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “You can forget that,” he said, nodding to the phone in Kane’s hand. “You’ll get used to it. First time on the island?”

  “Yes.”

  The man nodded.

  “Climb in.”

  It was pitch black once they were out of the airport. Beyond the bubble of their headlights, the world ended. A car passed in the opposite direction. The postman raised his hand and the other driver did the same, then they were gone.

  “Brought any books over?” the man said.

  “Quite a few.”

  “I’ve read every book on this island, I reckon.”

  “I’ll see if I can sort you out. I guess things become precious on an island.”

  “On this island, most things do.”

  Kane thought of the air-con unit and the motorbike. A land to which every possession had to be hauled. Historical accounts of the island were full of ships bringing cattle and birds and trees, and the anguish at finding that most of them had died on the way.

  “Do you live in Georgetown?” Kane said.

  “No, but I can drop you there.”

  “Been on the island a while?”

  “A few years now. Lost count. But that makes me an old-timer. Not many stick it out.”

  “Must be peaceful though.”

  “Peaceful, all right.”

  They passed wind turbines turning in the moonlight, then circular arrays of antennae looking like no installations Kane had ever seen before. The road was bumpy now. They bounced north past the US base. The GCHQ radome came into view, like a giant golf ball perched on top of a flattened volcanic cone. Kane wondered what work it was doing now, whether someone in the Cheltenham offices in which he’d sat just five days ago was monitoring its actions.

  “Can you hear that?” the driver said. He slowed the truck. Kane listened for some hum or tick from the technology but heard only a soft rustling sound. It became louder as they continued: not technology, but nature cawing.
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  “Full moon, you see. They’ve come.” The man stopped the truck, rolled his window down. Kane did the same. “Sooty terns. You can’t see them very well, but there’s thousands there.”

  What Kane saw was a vast plain of rippling black. He could only tell it was birds by their cries.

  “Wideawakes, that’s what people call them. Because they never shut up.” The postman stared out, breathing slowly. “Yeah, they’re there.”

  The signals interception facility was apparently unremarkable.

  “What’s the thing that looks like a golf ball?” Kane asked.

  “Radar.”

  “Must be strange living here with all that going on on your doorstep.”

  “You don’t notice it after a while.”

  A few minutes later they arrived at a scattering of pale bungalows. A sign said WELCOME TO GEORGETOWN—PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY. Only two structures achieved any visible height, the spire of a church and the clocktower of the old barracks. Waves crashed beyond them.

  “This is Georgetown.” He stopped the truck. “You’ll be all right?”

  “Better be. Can I give you some money for the petrol?”

  “That’s okay. Was hardly out of my way.”

  Kane thanked him and got out. The man wheeled around and drove back in the direction of the airport. Kane watched the taillights fade, then contemplated his new home. All the buildings looked anonymous and identical. The sea glistened darkly beyond them, waves booming as they hit the shore. But his attention was stolen by the night sky. Stars covered it like a rash, larger and brighter than any stars he’d seen before. They stretched from horizon to horizon, unfamiliar constellations: the Southern Cross, the Great Bear turned upside down. And the spotlight moon. The rest of humanity was a thousand miles away. The moon was only twice as far.

  No bright hotel sign called to him. No street signs. Georgetown was deserted. Only the occasional sound of a television disturbed the stillness. The air was briny and the heat had settled in for the night. The ground was black grit, like poorly laid tarmac. Everything had a disjointed air, with big gaps between properties and no clear suggestion of where the road ended and plots of land began. According to Kane’s notes, Georgetown housed three hundred people, but that seemed unlikely right now. He had the sensation of being watched, but couldn’t see another soul.