The Salt Marsh (35 page)

‘So some vials have gone missing?'

He nodded.

‘I've been sitting on this information for a while. Wondering what to do with it. Not sure who to tell. But of course I discussed it with Dave a while back.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Well, you know what Dave's like. He's a bit dismissive. Gave me the you're a paranoid fantasist sort of response. I'm a scientist. I don't believe in all that conspiracy theory stuff.'

‘I've had that kind of response from him before as well.'

‘Good old Dave.' He sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘So I was beginning to think I was overinterpreting, misread the figures. Or misunderstood them. And then this bloke Luke contacted me and I agreed to meet him.'

She willed herself not to react.

‘Do you know him?' Patrick asked.

She hesitated, perturbed. She could understand why Dave wouldn't have bothered to point out that Luke was her boyfriend, but she assumed Luke would have mentioned her in his conversation with Patrick; his girlfriend Sam, their joint protest project. Although, not if he was trying to protect her. She needed to protect herself too, elicit information without giving anything away.

‘I knew him vaguely,' she said.

Patrick said, ‘I met him on Saturday morning. The Saturday before Dave died.'

She nodded, reluctant to ask too many questions and sound desperate for information.

‘He told me he had asked Dave for contacts who could give him a bit of background about the nuclear industry. I used to be a technician up at Amersham, running the research reactor.'

She smiled, hoping her expression covered her edginess.

‘I liked him, this Luke, he was easy-going. Charismatic. Not in an intimidating way, more in a way that made you want to be his friend. I told him what I've just told you, I don't know why, it was good to have somebody I could talk it through with, I suppose, and, like I said, he seemed decent.'

Exactly. Luke was that kind of a person – decent. But not a pushover.

‘I told him I'd discussed it all with Dave, and we had a bit of a laugh about him and his dismissive ways.' His face fell. ‘It was only afterwards, when Luke had gone, that I started to worry about how much I'd told him.'

‘Oh.' She couldn't think how else to respond without giving away her suspicion that Dave was involved in all this somehow and Luke had been on his case.

‘I sat on it, though, told myself I was being paranoid. Then when I went to work on Monday, I had this feeling I was being followed. Nothing definite, just this sense there was a car behind me. And in the evening, the same car I had seen in the rearview mirror was parked across the road from my house. It was intimidating.'

‘What kind of car?'

‘An Audi. Black.'

She picked up a beer mat, twiddled it between her fingers, caught a glimpse of the oppressive thunderclouds through the bar-room window.

‘So when I listened to Dave's message on Tuesday morning, saying something odd had come up, it really put the wind up me.' He kneaded his fist against his palm. ‘I was sure it was something to do with the research lab. I called him back after I'd listened to the message. But he wasn't in. So I left him a message on his answering machine. I told him I'd met Luke and I'd mentioned the security guards.'

She pictured the red light flashing on Dave's empty answering machine, the shredded cassette tape she had found in Bane House.

‘And then Dave called me back later. But I wasn't there. So he left me another message. And I didn't get that one...' She could see the tears in his eyes. ‘Until after somebody had phoned the lab and told us Dave was dead.'

She wanted to cry too. She told herself to focus.

‘What did Dave's second message say?'

His eyes danced, landed on Sonny, returned to her face.

‘I don't want to hang around here. Maybe you can come over to Rye tomorrow and we can talk some more then.' She understood – he wanted to speak to her alone. Sonny was staring straight ahead, his head outlined against the window, and behind, the black dots of crows chasing a raven across the clouds. She wondered whether she should ask Sonny to go and walk around the car park.

‘Miguel,' Patrick said. ‘Lovely bloke. So was Dave.' ‘I know.'

Patrick glanced over his shoulder, rummaged in his pocket, shuffled along the pub bench until their legs were touching, pushed something under the table, into her hand, fear marking his face.

He whispered, ‘Here, have it. I want rid of it.'

She felt the hard edges in her palm.

He said, ‘I've taken a couple of weeks' sick leave from the lab, and I'm going to stay with a friend in Shropshire. Maybe I'll see if there's any work going while I'm there. It's not difficult for me to find work. I'll sell the house in Lydd. It's dead round here anyway.'

He stood before she had a chance to reply.

‘See you tomorrow then. Call me in the morning and we can talk some more.'

He zipped his windcheater. She didn't want to let him go without getting the full story, searched for a way of extracting more information about Luke, but she couldn't find the right words to reassure, make him stay.

‘Only one good bit of news,' he said. ‘I got a postcard from Miguel a few days ago, saying he's back in Colombia with his family. So at least I know he's alive.' His mouth pulled into a sad smile. ‘Bye.' He walked away.

‘Bye,' she said.

Storm light cut across the bar-room floor as he opened the door. And then he was gone. She heard the engine revving, checked through the window, watched the red hatchback leaving the car park. She glanced down at her hand. She was holding a micro-cassette – the tape from Patrick's answering machine. She slipped it into her pocket.

‘Let's go back to the Lookers' Hut,' she said.

Sonny stuck a fag in his mouth, flicked his Zippo, the flint sparked blue, puffed. ‘Crawford's a tough cop,' he said.

It sounded like the beginning of a conversation and she waited for him to elaborate. He took another drag, cracked his jaw, puffed a ring. She watched it rise and disperse. And it was only then that she realized the fruit machine was no longer jangling.

EIGHTEEN

P
AST THE RUINED
church at Hope, right along the fast road, the maize stalks closing in around them, the sky storm-bruised purple. Her eye wandered into the field, drawn into the darkness between the green, the eyes of unknown creatures staring out at her. A peripheral lightning flash, the shriek of a magpie, drew her attention back to the road.

‘Shit.'

Sonny jammed his foot, brakes squealed, narrowly avoided a crunch. Further along – a quarter of a mile or so – a mushroom smoke cloud billowed. Her gut tightened.

‘Must have been an accident.'

Sonny said, ‘Look at the map, see if we can turn around and find a different route.'

‘No. I want to see what's happened.'

The siren cut across the end of her sentence. The spinning blue light of a police car approached from behind, overtook, screeched down the wrong side of the road. Sonny reached for his fags. The maize shadows crept across the stationary traffic, the air heavy with petrol fumes. She leaned out the window. Open car doors, ratty people standing on the verge, arms folded, necks craned. A stream of cars travelling in the opposite direction passed by. Dried up. Drivers leaped back into cars, inched forwards. The police seemed to have the situation under control now, the alternating flow of traffic lanes smoother. They reached a panda car blocking their half of the road. The policeman directed them on to the other side, beckoned them forwards.

‘Fuck,' she said.

‘What?'

‘A car's overturned. On its back, wheels in the air.' Like a beetle, unable to right itself, helpless.

‘Colour?'

‘Red.'

‘Bodies?'

The ambulance had partially blocked the view, but she could see the splayed feet against the roadside. One trainer on. Adidas, yellow stripes. One trainer missing. How did he lose the trainer? It was the details that hit, made her want to cry. Had he forgotten to tie the laces? If she had spotted an undone lace as he was leaving the pub, pointed it out to him, delayed him a few minutes while he tied his shoe, could she have stopped the chain reaction, produced a different outcome? Or perhaps his fate had been decided days, months, years ago, written in the stars. She averted her eyes from the crash, concentrated on the road ahead; a single black tyre skid mark slashed across the tarmac.

‘Motorbike,' Sonny said. He put his foot on the accelerator. ‘Travelling in the opposite direction, came round the corner, swerved in front of him, forced him off the road at speed, I would guess.'

‘Shit.' It was all she could think to say. Shit. Shit. Shit.

They drove on in silence. Her limbs were shaking. Tension. Shock. Her sight was blurred, fugue state, slipping, floating free, up above, a magpie looking down on the maize, emerald green sliced by the grey road, black rectangle of Patrick's upside-down car, yellow Adidas stripes on red stretcher sticking out from under brown blanket, white oblong of ambulance leaving, blue light flashing.

‘Sam, I said let's go.'

She jolted, looked around, had one of those where am I moments, then managed to find her bearings – realized Sonny had parked the Land Rover off the road, in a small copse, a couple of fields away from the Lookers' Hut. They walked back along the lane, silent except for the warning calls of blackbirds, the rooks cawing, Sonny on alert for signs. A swan came into land on the ditch as they crossed the bridge into the meadow; a doomed DC10 with its long neck and bulky rear, flap, flap, splash as its undercarriage scraped the water, skidded to a halt. She was relieved to reach the shelter of the safehouse, she squatted, fiddled with the camping stove, saucepan, water bottle, in need of caffeine, hands trembling.

She couldn't think about Patrick's death. She had to block it out. Too late to do anything for Patrick. She had to focus on what could be done.
Stayin' alive.
Finding Luke. She said, ‘Patrick gave me the cassette from his answering machine. It's a shame we can't listen to it.'

Sonny patted his jacket pocket. ‘We can,' he said. ‘I brought the Dictaphone with me.'

He fumbled with the tape recorder, removed and handed her the tape from Heaven, the one of the American, Stavros, revealing his nutty Afghanistan plan. She dropped it in her bag. He inserted the cassette that Patrick had bequeathed her, pressed play. The tape crackled. A couple of messages from mates. Meet you in the pub at eight. Wanna play a match tonight? We're one man down. And then the first message from Dave; the conversation Sam had overheard from the bedroom in Skell.

‘Hi, Dave here. Sorry to call so late, mate. I just wanted a quick chat. Something slightly odd's come up. It's... I wanted to talk it through with you. Call us tomorrow if you are around. Cheers, mate. Ta-ra.'

She leaned over, pressed pause. It was hard to hold back the tears. She wanted to rewind the tape, loop around, make it come out differently this time, make it better. She pressed play. The tape crackled again. Second message from Dave.

‘Yeah, Patrick. Sorry I wasn't in when you called me back, mate. Just taken an early-morning stroll up to Flaxby Point. You remember Sam. Yeah, yeah, that Sam. My housemate Sam who thinks of me as her big brother.'

She pressed pause, closed her eyes, didn't want to look at Sonny. Recovered herself. Pressed play.

‘Well, anyway I was calling you because Sam found this bone and a clump of black hair out on Romney Marsh.'

Pause button. ‘Christ. I don't believe it. That was what he thought was odd – the bone and the black hair I found.' She pressed play again.

‘Yeah, it made me think about the lab security guard, the Colombian who disappeared. The thing is – I dug the old Geiger counter out and the hair registered. I don't know whether it's possible. It's probably me being paranoid, but...' His voice tailed off.

She pressed pause again. ‘Patrick said Miguel was so nervous he started having accidents in the lab. He could have contaminated himself somehow, wiped his hand on his hair.'

Sonny asked, ‘How is the caesium stored anyway? Would it have been possible for Miguel to have contaminated himself?'

She racked her brain, her conversations with Dave, his papers she had read.

‘It's stored in glass vials. Test tubes. And then those are placed inside lead casings to block the radiation. Presumably they have to handle the vials at some point. They must take precautions, but if he was anxious, maybe he got it wrong.'

Sonny nodded, pensively, absorbing the details. ‘What does the caesium look like anyway?'

‘It's liquid. I remember Dave telling me they put hydrochloric acid in it to stop the caesium particles sticking to the glass. So it has a yellow colour. Like piss.'

‘Oh really? Golden?'

‘Yes, yes, I think so.'

Caesium, contamination, Miguel, Patrick – thoughts piling in, making her hyperventilate. She took a deep breath, composed herself, lifted her head, pressed play, heard Dave's voice again.

‘Yeah, funny you should mention Luke. The thing is... this morning, when I was walking up to the Point, I saw this boat passing close to the shore. I could have sworn... anyway, let's talk about it later. I'm seeing ghosts. Ha-ha. I'd better go. Speak later. Ta-ra.'

The tape hissed. End of message. No more Dave. Sonny lit a cigarette. She hadn't realized how dark it was until his Zippo cast a light, sent shadows leaping across the brick walls. She lay back on the ground, stared through the open roof to the indigo infinity above, eyes tracing the handle of the Plough while her brain tried to process Dave's message.

‘Where did you find the bone and hair?' Sonny asked.