The Salt Marsh (28 page)

‘Afghanistan.' She mulled it over; an American discussing the Mujahedeen in a gay nightclub to the accompaniment of Sylvester, half a cup of water, a dose to make them glow. It sounded nutty, unbelievable, and yet the elements were familiar. She churned the pieces round in her mind, tried to work out where they overlapped with things she knew already, words, places, people she recognized.

Sonny said, ‘What do you...'

She didn't wait to hear the end of his question; something had fallen into place. She scraped her chair back, ran out the kitchen, upstairs, rummaged in the drawer of her bedside table, grabbed Tom's piece about Afghanistan, ran into Dave's bedroom, flung open the cupboard door, grabbed the top article from his pile of photocopied journal papers, flew back down the stairs to the kitchen. She placed the papers triumphantly on the table. She pointed at the journal article. ‘Look, this article is about the distribution of caesium 137 between abiotic and biotic components of aquatic ecosystems.'

Sonny's face was blank.

‘What about it?'

‘What did the American say? “Something to make them glow. Half a cup of water and they'll be radiating.” This article is about the effects of caesium 137 when it is dispersed through water.'

Sonny was still looking perplexed.

She said, ‘He's talking about contaminating the water supply with a radioactive substance. Caesium 137, possibly.'

Sonny screwed his eyes.

‘Would that be fatal? Drinking water contaminated with caesium 137?'

She spluttered, ‘Well, if anybody ingested a glassful of water contaminated with caesium 137 it would do more than make them glow; it would frazzle them from the inside out. The question is how quickly and how many people, and I suppose that's about the amount and concentration of the dose. Maybe there's an antidote, I'm not sure. Presumably you'd have to get to it quite quickly to stop the damage.'

‘But if the Mujahedeen contaminated the local water supply, wouldn't they frazzle their own insides too?'

‘Not necessarily.' She jabbed Tom's article on Afghanistan. ‘Tom, this hack mate of mine who has been hanging out with the Mujahedeen, he says the Soviet military is stretched by the logistics. Afghanistan is impenetrable. Mountainous. Arid. The Russian military bases near the frontline are vulnerable because they need to maintain access to basic supplies. The frontline bases don't have piped water.'

‘I suppose they wouldn't.'

‘According to Tom, the Mujahedeen can't outgun the Soviets because they don't have the fire power, so they are looking for ways to disrupt the army's supplies. And Stavros has dreamed up a way of doing it, a “one-time KO to the commies”, by supplying the Afghan rebels with caesium 137 to dump in the Soviets' water storage tanks.'

‘Neat.'

She screeched, ‘Neat? It's nuts.'

‘Well, you've got to admire his inventiveness. It wouldn't take much of a dose to completely terrorize everybody. It sounds like something the KGB might dream up. Maybe that's what he meant when he said give them a taste of their own medicine. Perhaps he got the idea from a Soviet informer.'

‘But do you think Stavros is working for the CIA? Everybody knows they are helping the Mujahedeen, supplying them with weapons. Well, that's what Tom says anyway.'

‘I'm sure he has worked for the CIA. The question is whether or not they've cut the rope. Maybe he's gone rogue, decided to take the battle into his own hands because he doesn't think his side is doing enough. You heard all that complaining about the backroom boys.' He reached for his fags. ‘So I told you it was deep shit. See what we've dug up? A psychotic CIA agent and a fucking commie frying radiation plot. Your friend Frannie was so right. We should steer clear.'

‘Frannie was wrong about the drugs though. There's obviously no drugs involved in this.'

‘You don't think so? I think drug smuggling is Regan's day job.'

He sounded so certain; she wondered whether it was a guess or something more.

Sonny continued, ‘But you know, when you hear this Stavros talking about those rebels in Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen, it's hard not to have some sympathy. They've been invaded by the commies. They are fighting back with nothing but some donkeys and faith in their god. It's a holy war against godless, ruthless bastards. I can buy into that.'

She nodded. She and Luke had sympathized with them too, the mountain tribesmen fighting the Soviet regime. David and Goliath. That was why he'd bought her a pakol from Kensington Market – a show of solidarity. But she wasn't sure how much beyond wearing a hat she would be prepared to go. Not least because Tom's article had also said the Mujahedeen were a bunch of women-hating fundamentalists. She put her head in her hands. Something was niggling her, but she didn't want to think about it. Sonny touched her arm. She jumped.

‘Are you OK?'

‘Not really, no. I was just thinking about this conversation I had with Dave the night before... I asked him about stealing radioactive waste, spent fuel rods, from a power station to make a bomb and he said that was far-fetched.' She heard Dave's voice in her head.
Ludicrous even by your standards.

‘But he said something else.'

‘What?'

‘He said it would be much easier to pick up radioactive material from a source like a hospital or a research lab. Release it into the air. Water. Contamination.'

Sonny didn't say anything.

‘They're stealing caesium from the research lab at Dungeness. They must be.'

‘Maybe.'

She knotted her brow. ‘Why would this Stavros swipe caesium from a lab in England to take to Afghanistan? Couldn't he find a closer supply?'

‘It's an easy source, I suppose,' Sonny said. ‘And indirect. The old CIA rule – never leave a trace of American involvement. Especially if you're not official – because then you've got a million more reasons to make sure whatever you do is untraceable.'

Her limbs trembled; she couldn't stop her mind churning. The patterns formed in ways she didn't like. Dave's edginess. His evasiveness. The late-night phone call. The gun. Your guy down on the coast, that was what Regan said.
Listen, there's something else... Dave.
She nagged at the fragments while she watched Sonny from the corner of her eye. Dave. What the fuck had he been up to? Could he possibly have been helping some mad American smuggle caesium 137 out of the Dungeness research lab, around the coast, across the Channel, through Europe to Afghanistan? At first glance, the idea seemed preposterous. She tried to see Dave in a different light. You could never be sure what other people were doing, what was going on inside their head. Everybody had secrets. Although, she liked to think that because of her dad's work, she was more alert to the signs than most. But Dave? Crawford had his suspicions about Dave and Crawford knew what he was doing, according to Harry. No smoke without fire. Spyder needed something to feed off; he didn't have the imagination to make it all up himself. Perhaps Crawford was half right. Dave was involved in something nefarious, but it wasn't an armed hijack of a nuclear waste container.

‘This might sound mad, but I'm beginning to wonder whether Dave was involved in some way. Do you think he could have been Stavros's guy on the coast, the one Regan mentioned?'

Sonny tapped his fingers on the table. ‘I don't see it. Nee.'

His reactions annoyed her. He sounded so certain, as if he knew exactly what was going on, had some vital piece of information she didn't have.

‘OK. I'm going to sleep on it,' she said. ‘Think about what we do next.'

‘Next? Isn't this enough?' He gestured at the Dictaphone. ‘This Stavros is a lunatic. Doesn't that make you want to back off? Run in the opposite direction? Why can't you let your friend Harry sort out your file and leave it at that?'

‘I can't be bothered to go through this again. I've got to find Luke. I don't have any choice.'

‘There's always a choice. That's what you told me. I'm with your friend Frannie. It's stupid running after blokes who have disappeared.' He pushed the chair back. ‘I'm going to bed. Goeie nag.'

He left the kitchen, the moth still thrashing against the lightbulb.

‘Gooey bloody nag to you too.'

She needed a cup of tea, filled the kettle, turned the tap harder than she intended, water gushed violently, flushed a silverfish from its cranny. It slithered across the Formica. Silverfish, Dave had told her one evening when she had suggested that bleach might be the answer, perform an elaborate courtship ritual. The male and female stand head to head, antennae touching, then they break apart and reunite in a strangely moving dance before the male runs away and the female has to chase him so they can mate. Dave had almost succeeded in making her like silverfish. He didn't love nature in a sentimental or spiritual way, he was fascinated by the science, the principles and forces that made the earth spin, and that was his salvation from the repeat patterns of his family, the suicide of his mother. He studied the periodic table in order to conquer it. He was an empiricist, a modern Charles Darwin, not interested in politics and the battles of competing ideologies. Or so she had thought. Perhaps she had missed something. She squashed the silverfish with the back of the coffee spoon, pressed hard to make sure it was dead. It occurred to her then that it could be personal. His mother was raped by the Red Army, she killed herself because she couldn't live with the pain. His life was blighted by her death, his family destroyed. He had no reason to care about the Soviet soldiers. Perhaps he saw himself as saving the Afghan women from the same fate his mother had suffered. She could see it was reason enough – the deep, deep burning pain and resentment. He probably rationalized it, told himself the contamination would be contained. She had always thought he was blasé about the effects of radiation anyway. Jesus. Dave. And she hadn't spotted it.

But then, if he was working with the American, why had he ended up dead? Suicide? She didn't think so. Not Dave. The note – 55 pluto – what did it tell her? Pluto. The god of the underworld. The bleak descent. He was falling, wanted out, had tried to tell her when they were walking along the beach but she hadn't understood. And what about 55? She had a momentary image of Dave sitting on his bed, dunking a Hobnob in his Aston Villa mug, the periodic table blu-tacked on the wall above his head. She concentrated, conjured up the chart in her mind, the numbers, the symbols. Of course.

Element number 55 was caesium. Obvious. The note was Dave's confession. 55 pluto told her exactly what he had been doing, his involvement. Maybe he'd started off by providing advice to Stavros, nothing more, and then he'd found himself dragged further in, pushed to provide access to the research lab, his arm twisted, bullied. Tripping over the abyss. He wanted to extract himself, but by the time he tried to tell her, left the note, it was too late. She had missed all the signals. Regan hadn't. What had Stavros said when Regan mentioned the guy on the coast?
Made it safe.
She pictured Regan walking away from Bane House the night before Dave died. Regan was there, watching, sensing he was cracking up, wobbling, about to spill the beans. And so he had been killed.

FOURTEEN

I
T WASN'T THE
drumming rain that was depriving her of sleep. The taped conversation between the American and Regan was playing in her head. Something needled her, a disconnect between tape and events, Sonny's reactions, his evasions. She couldn't put her finger on the problem. Fast forward. Pause. Rewind, back to the beginning of the conversation. The very beginning. ‘Skuse me, mate, you got the time?' Then Sonny's voice. ‘One fifteen.' ‘Cheers.' Stop. Rewind. Play again. ‘One fifteen.' She sat up. One fifteen was the time Sonny had started recording the conversation at Heaven. How long had he been standing there eavesdropping? It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes. Which meant he finished taping about one thirty-five, give or take a few minutes. The walk back from Charing Cross took forty minutes max. He should have returned by two fifteen, say two thirty at the outside. Yet he didn't knock on the front door until gone four a.m.

She twisted the questions, doubts around in her stomach, knotted her gut, tighter and tighter. She reached into the drawer of the bedside cabinet, touched the cold metal of the Firebird, gripped it, stalked down the hall, entered Dave's bedroom. Sonny's body half covered by the duvet, half uncovered; a slight shift in his breathing. Bushcraft – never taken by surprise.

‘Sam.'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you want something?'

Both hands on the Firebird, she pointed at his head, clicked the safety catch with her thumb.

‘Tell me what it is that you're not telling me,' she said. ‘Or I'll shoot.'

He smiled, condescension at the corners of his mouth. ‘You've got to sound as if you mean it.'

‘I do. Fucking tell me.'

He reached over, as if he was about to take the weapon from her hand.

‘Don't,' she said. ‘Don't move.'

He assessed her face.

‘Tell me,' she said.

‘Tell you what?'

‘What you did between one thirty and four last night.'

He stretched his eyes, wide and brown – innocent.

‘It's on the tape,' she said. ‘The time that you started recording the conversation.'

He blinked.

‘Tell me.'

‘Look, it's no big deal.'

‘So tell me then.'

‘OK. OK. I followed Regan out the club. That's all. She took a taxi and I took another and I followed her back to her place. Or at least, I assume it's her place. Maybe it belongs to a friend or whatever, I don't know. I didn't hang around to find out.'

Her arms were trembling; she couldn't hold the gun steady. ‘Why did you lie to me?'