The Adjacent (38 page)

He scrolled quickly through the shots he had taken: the quad as he first walked across it, the low shadows on the ground, the early sunlight, mist dispersing from above the roofs, then the sequence of trial-and-error pictures of the clinic building while he tried to establish how close to it he could go. After that: the residential block, the canteen, two other large buildings whose function he did not know, then finally the tower.

But the shots of the tower were not there. The sequence ended.

Tarent quickly checked the camera settings he had been using, then logged back on to the lab. He re-ordered the same shots, but when they arrived on the camera a second time the pictures he had taken of the tower were still not there.

‘I took about a dozen shots of it,’ he said to Lou.

‘Which building do you mean?’

‘The old tower, down on the south side. Close to the gate.’

She shook her head. ‘I still don’t know what you mean.’

Tarent felt frustrated with the camera – it was the first time it had ever let him down. So long as he kept the battery charged, or carried spares, the little Canon was a reliable workhorse. There were so few moving parts in modern cameras there was almost nothing that could go wrong, once the instrument had been passed by the manufacturers’ quality control. The only possible cause of the problem might be that he had inadvertently pressed a key that suppressed picture-taking. He had been using the camera for months, though, and handling it was second nature to him. He could think of nothing he might have done to the controls that would have that effect.

Lou sat tolerantly beside him while he fiddled with the camera settings, trying to find the lost pictures.

She said, ‘Could the tower have been part of the prison?’

‘It didn’t look like that. Would a prison have a tower, like something on a church? Anyway, I didn’t know this was a prison.’

‘It was for a while. An open prison. I researched its background once. Time hangs heavy when you’re stuck here for months, so I started looking things up.’

Still examining and checking his camera, curious about how those shots had been lost, Tarent said, ‘Tell me.’

‘Well, it was farmland for years, probably centuries.’

‘Is that where the name comes from?’

‘No, that came later. The first real change came during the Second World War, when they built a bomber base here. It was called RAF Tealby, or maybe RAF Tealby Moor, I’m not sure which. Two operational squadrons were based here for most of the war. It remained as an airfield for a few years afterwards and still belonged to the Air Ministry, but no one flew from it. After about 1949 it was allowed to revert to farmland – the runways were broken up and removed, and within a few years there was no trace of them. At that time the farmer kept several of the old RAF buildings, including the control tower, one of the hangars and a water tower. They were used for storage, keeping animals, and so on, but they soon became dilapidated. I found photos of them on the internet, taken shortly before they were demolished.

‘That was when it was renamed Warne’s Farm. Probably the farmer’s own name, but anyway it seems to have stuck. It was a mixed farm for many years, but in 2018 the area was bought back by the government and some of the buildings that are here now were put up. They used it then as a training camp for army recruits. By 2025 it had been converted again. That’s when it became a prison. It wasn’t a secure unit, but housed non-violent or long-term prisoners. There were more new buildings added and some of the older ones were modified. In 2036 the prison was closed and the Ministry of Defence moved in. They’re still running it. It’s partly an admin area for the north of England, but there are also closed buildings about a mile away, where some sort of experimental or development work goes on. I’ve never been down there. I think the building we’re in now was one they put up for the army training camp, but the interior has been completely remodelled.’

Tarent returned the Canon to its protective case, without having worked out what had gone wrong with it.

‘You can’t see the tower from this room,’ he said. ‘I’ll point it out when we’re outside.’

‘Could it be the water tower? From when it was a bomber airfield?’

‘Is that still here? You said it was demolished ages ago.’

‘That was what the website said. I thought the RAF buildings would all be gone by now.’

‘I’ll show you later.’ Tarent stood up and paced around the room.
It was after 10:30 and no word had come through from Lepuits’ office, or from the man himself, and in the quadrangle there was no sign of a Mebsher. He wondered if he should try to contact Lepuits, confirm the arrangement. He stood at the window, hands resting on the sill, staring down at the huge area of concrete.

‘I think I’ll take a walk,’ he said. ‘Will you come too?’

‘No – I’ll wait here. You’re so tense it’s making me nervous.’

‘Sorry. It’s just that I want to be out of here. I’ll take my stuff down now. I’ll come back for you when the personnel carrier arrives, or you could just meet me in the quad if you hear it. Mebsher engines make a lot of noise.’

He left the room, went out into the quad and dumped his case at the side. With his cameras slung over his shoulder, Tarent looked for the path he had used when he arrived at the Warne complex. He had to pass back through the residential building, then walk along a corridor through the next building. This led to the gravelled walkway that went up towards the main fence. The gate he had used was locked with a security device, but his ID card opened it for him. He went through.

The last time he was here was in the immediate aftermath of what he had witnessed when the Mebsher was attacked. His intention, when he left Lou’s room, had been to walk back up to the ridge and take another look at the site of the attack. What he saw that day already felt like an unreliable memory: it was sudden, inexplicable, horrific, and although he thought at the time he was keeping a cool head he knew now that the incident had helped tip him over into a state of delirium. It was tempting to go back for a second look at the scene of the disaster, but now there was a real prospect of actually doing so he suffered a strong but indefinite feeling of fear.

He paused just beyond the gate, which had swung closed behind him. He was surrounded by trees, many of which had been toppled by the gales, their root balls exposed. Most of the other trees had their branches broken off, leaves missing, splits in the trunks. Having experienced the violence of the last storm he was surprised how many trees had in fact survived, damaged as they were. At least they were to be spared the next storm: he had heard the radio news earlier in the morning. During the night TS Graham Greene had veered off unpredictably to the south-east, crossed the Bay of Biscay and almost immediately lost most of its strength as it swept on to the French mainland. No more temperate storms were thought to be imminent, at least in the British Isles, although there
were advance warnings of heavy snow, with some drifting. It was still late September, but the winter, with its unpredictable and often dangerous moods, was almost upon them.

HE HEARD THEN THE DEEP THROBBING SOUND OF AN ENGINE,
one that clattered noisily and was overlaid by the high-pitched whine of turbines. Tarent turned back immediately and presented his ID card to the scanner. After a long pause, which Tarent found worrying, thinking he might have shut himself out, the electrically powered gate swung open again and he slipped back into the compound. He looked across to the south, through the few trees that still stood there, past the first of the Warne buildings, and was rewarded with a glimpse of the huge dark shape of the Mebsher, heading slowly towards the main gate. Relieved to see it, Tarent hurried along the passages through the buildings and emerged into the quadrangle.

The Mebsher had already passed through the secure barrier and was coming to a halt. The driver, hidden behind the darkened, strengthened windshield, manoeuvred the vehicle close to the clinic building. The engine noise wound down, the turbines becoming silent, while the diesel power plants idled. The black exhaust smoke was swept back by the wind and across to where Tarent was standing. The familiar smell of the fuel, which he had breathed for so many hours on the long journey north from London, brought back the buried memories of confinement inside the Mebsher, the boredom of sitting still for so long, the lurching discomfort, and the mild distraction of speculating about the woman in the seat in front of him.

Several uniformed security men emerged from the guard post by the entrance to the clinic, and stood in a loose line. One of them, an officer, stepped forward and ascended towards the high cockpit area, using the crude steps welded to the side. A metal vane beside the windshield opened up, and a conversation took place. Soon, papers were passed out for examination.

While the check was going on, Tarent remembered Lou. He turned away, intending to walk back to her room to tell her the personnel carrier had arrived, but as he did so he saw her emerging from the building. She was tugging her large suitcase by the handle. She walked over and stood beside him.

On the Mebsher the guard handed the papers back through the vane to the driver, and the panel closed. The officer jumped down from the vehicle and with the other security guards walked quickly into the clinic building. The Mebsher’s engine began to develop power, and in a moment Tarent watched the huge transporter manoeuvre to and fro, as the driver reversed it towards the clinic.

‘Are you ready to leave?’ Tarent asked Lou.

‘Can’t wait. How about you?’

‘Yes.’

The crew hatch at the front of the vehicle opened, and one of the men who was inside clambered through the opening and levered himself up and out, pressing down on the rim. He climbed easily on to the housing at the front of the vehicle.

He was a tall young man with a narrow, athletic build. He was wearing camo fatigues, the sort favoured by the British Army on home duties: dark mottled green with specks of brown, black and a lighter green. A standard-issue lightweight automatic rifle was slung handily across his shoulder. Under his cap the young soldier’s head was shaved, but he wore a long beard, wispy and dark. He was wearing shades. With his hands on his hips he turned to take in the view in all directions.

Tarent had his camera ready and took several quick photographs of the soldier, admiring the measured, self-confident way he carried himself.

Four of the security guards now emerged from the clinic, a casket resting on their shoulders. They marched slowly in step, heads bowed, and carried the coffin across to the cargo hold of the Mebsher. The hatch opened on its hydraulic rods – slowly, and with great care, the men slid the coffin into the hold. A second one was already being brought out of the building by another group of the security men.

The young soldier standing on the front of the vehicle monitored the process, and at one point leaned in and spoke to the other crewman, still out of sight inside the cockpit.

One by one the caskets were brought out of the clinic and placed on board. Soon all had been loaded, although the sixth had to be eased in carefully, as most of the space inside the hold was already taken. While this happened the soldier jumped down to the ground and helped the security men shift and relocate the coffins that were already there.

‘I suppose this is why they said there would be restrictions on
what we could bring with us,’ Lou said, watching this slow and careful procedure. ‘There’s hardly any space left.’

‘Put your case into the hold when you can,’ Tarent said to her. ‘I’ll keep mine with me. I know how the passenger compartment is laid out and I’ll be able to squeeze my bag in there somewhere at the back.’

He had been watching the loading of the caskets, which was done with outward respect and no false sense of ceremony, and as each of them was brought out he felt a sense of pain and distress growing in him. Inside one of those coffins, he knew, was Flo’s body.

It was an uncomfortable thought, knowing that they would be travelling with the coffins beneath their feet.

Lou trundled her wheeled suitcase to the entrance of the hold and the young soldier, seeing her trying to push it inside, stepped forward to help. There was hardly any space left, which meant the case had to be placed on top of one of the coffins. The soldier took the case from Lou, managed it in one swift and muscular lift. He leapt down to the ground, and signalled to the other crewman to close the door.

The soldier straightened, glanced around, and for the first time looked directly at Tarent. The two men stared at each other.

It was Hamid, the young Scot who had been one of the drivers of the Mebsher that brought him here.

Instinctively, Tarent raised a hand in greeting, but in the same moment the soldier turned away. He returned to the front of the vehicle and climbed up to the position he had taken before, on the housing.

Tarent’s hand fell to his side. He stepped forward, amazed to see the young man again.

‘Hamid?’ he called.

There was a security guard standing close to the vehicle. ‘Keep back, please. This is a military vehicle.’

‘I’m travelling on this vehicle!’ Tarent shouted, annoyed by the intrusion, and swept his diplomatic passport from his back pocket and flashed the distinctive white cover in the man’s direction.

‘Sorry, sir, but I have instructions that no one must approach this vehicle.’

‘I’m being picked up here. You can check with Mr Lepuits.’

‘It was Mr Lepuits who gave me the instructions.’

Tarent gestured impatiently. ‘Yes, but I have permission to travel on this vehicle. Ms Paladin too.’

Lou was again standing by his side.

‘Wait there.’ The security guard spoke into a handset, then waited for a reply.

‘Hamid!’ Tarent raised his voice.

The young soldier heard him then and turned in Tarent’s direction. Again, their gaze met but he showed no sign of recognition. Tarent was certain it was the same man. He moved away from Lou and approached the Mebsher. This time the security guard made no move to impede him.