The Watchers (10 page)

‘Have you even told him about this facility, about Room 800 and its secrets?’

The admiral’s face remained fixed.

‘Does
anyone
know? The home secretary, the prime minister?’

‘Only those with a need to know. As you, Robert, now most certainly do.’

He handed me the thick file of official reports, his eyes fastened on mine.

‘Robert, I need you in the Havens. Help us solve this. Find out what your grandfather knows. Find out how he can predict the next wave of activity. And stop him from panicking people, stop him drawing Soviet attention. We don’t have much time. I fear that the attack on Parliament was only the beginning!’

The penny dropped. My stomach did too. ‘You’re suggesting the Americans attacked Parliament to hush up what’s going on in the Havens?’

‘The National Security Agency,’ he said, nodding, and I immediately remembered Corso’s cryptic warnings. ‘They’re running some sort of secret experiment they will do anything to protect. And I’m offering you a unique opportunity.’

Return to the Havens? I remembered Ravenstone Farm, the squeak of its floorboards, the sea winds that rattled the windows behind their bars. I remembered my grandfather’s menace, his iron-grey hair catching the light as he crossed himself and pointed skywards. I remembered him forcing me to pray beneath St John the Baptist’s enigmatic smile.

I remembered all this and shook my head. ‘I won’t do it. I can’t ever go back.’

The admiral gave me a hard look. ‘You must, Robert. For all our sakes.’

– 12 –

My childhood was calling me.

As I watched the gentle rise and fall of Selina’s chest beneath the crisp hospital sheets all I could think was,
I can’t go back to the Havens. I won’t.
Yet part of me wanted to go, was desperate to please the admiral. To help.

Also I was curious.

In two days’ time my grandfather, the man who had so alienated me with frightful tales of fires in the sky, would interview those schoolchildren, would confirm their fanciful stories, maybe even add to them. Would they believe him? I had to do something.

But I can’t go back to the Havens . . .

The window was half open. Although the fresh air was soothing, I couldn’t stop myself getting up, crossing the room and fastening it shut. Checking twice. Three times.

I told myself not to panic. Without a clear mind I would have nothing left. But as I looked again into Selina’s pale expressionless face, I felt the hollow fear in my heart open and threaten to swallow me whole.

I can’t go back!

I focused on the beeping machines, the shallow rhythm of Selina’s breath. Slowly reason returned. If I never followed up on the events explained to me by the admiral, everything I had worked for all these years would be for nothing.

I had a responsibility. I didn’t know whether the admiral was telling me the truth, if the US facility adjacent to RAF Brawdy was caught up somehow in the mysterious events that were unravelling in the Havens. But it was true – I remembered now – that Bestford had been involved in authorizing the US to build a facility in the area in the first place. ‘It would enhance the economy, contribute to important research,’ he had told the newspapers. And he had been invited to attend every major meeting on the deal at the Ministry of Defence. Had Bestford been hiding from me what he knew about the true nature of the facility? If the US military was behind the incident at Broad Haven School, it was possible that Bestford, a man I trusted, had campaigned with, had kept me in the dark all along.

So the admiral’s task, as strange as it was, also offered me the unexpected opportunity to finish what I had started with the parliamentary inquiry – without Bestford. A chance to hold the Americans to account for their illegal activities, to complete my mother’s work, to get justice for the injuries she had sustained three months before she and Dad were taken from me. I must go, I knew it now.

I patted Selina’s hand softly, got up and turned towards the door. To my surprise, it was opening.

‘Robert?’

Bestford. And I could tell from his glazed eyes that he had been drinking.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said bitterly, and as he turned away put one hand on his shoulder, halting him. ‘You know something is going on in the Havens, don’t you?’

He regarded me warily, shoulders slumped, and shook his head. His eyes had become windows to a dark place.

‘It was you who asked Selina to investigate. That’s why you wanted to delay the inquiry, why you tore up the document on Project Caesar after the explosion.’

‘I was protecting us! I thought Selina might be able to find out more, that we could hush it all up before it got too public—‘

Did I want to shake him, punch him? Of course I did. But I just pushed him away. ‘The question is, what else were you protecting? What else aren’t you telling me?’

He held up his palms in a defensive gesture, before turning to click the door closed behind him. ‘Just keep your voice down.’

‘I’ll keep my voice down when you tell me what I want to know!’ I looked down at Selina in the bed. ‘Why the hell did you put her on something so dangerous?’

‘Until the proprietor of the Haven Hotel saw something I thought nothing of the reports. But that same morning we were informed that strange lights had been seen in the bay, near Stack Rocks Island. The call came from Secretariat Air Staff 2A within the Ministry of Defence. They were extremely concerned. When the articles about the UFOs appeared, I began to have my suspicions and asked Selina to make subtle inquiries.’

He raised his eyebrows in wary expectation of my response. We both knew it was beyond procedure for a member of the committee to instigate such an investigation outside an official inquiry.

‘Come on, Robert, get real. Bright lights that fall out of the sky, chase cars? I knew that it was a secret military facility, but it sounded as though they might be testing something down there, something we don’t know about. We needed to take it seriously. Listen. If the Americans
are
up to something down there, and anyone finds out, it’ll be me who gets the blame. Me!’

‘Because you green-lit the US facility.’

He dropped his head and turned to look at Selina stretched out on her hospital bed. His hands were trembling in the way they always did when he had been drinking, so much so that I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before he ended up in a place like this.

‘That’s why you tried to throw me off the scent. You don’t want to be held accountable. Paul, wake up! We can’t give up now! If I can prove these sightings are down to the US military, some illegal black-budget project, it might be all we need to reignite the committee inquiry.’

‘Robert, I’ve decided. These aren’t questions we have any business asking now.’

‘With respect,’ I snarled, ‘you are the chair of the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee. These are precisely the sort of questions you should be asking!’

‘Robert, really, what’s your problem? What have you got to complain about? We’re winning the Cold War, aren’t we? We’re richer than the Russians, more comfortable, better houses! What does it matter if the Americans are storing weapons – planes – near Broad Haven? It’s not for us to ask.’

‘It matters because the world could end at any day!’ I shouted. ‘One pushed button away from Armageddon, you said so yourself! I’m half-minded to go to the press—’

‘If you do this,’ he cut in, ‘it’s not just the base you’re threatening. It’s everything: people’s lives, a community. Expose anything and you’re only exposing us. Robert, that base is there
because
of us.’

Suddenly, I was struck by an alarming thought. ‘Oh God, Paul. Tell me they aren’t keeping nuclear weapons at Brawdy. Not on our own patch? Tell me that, please.’

For a long moment Selina’s heart monitor was the only sound in the room. Then I found my voice. ‘How long? How long have they been there?’

‘Almost two years,’ he said quietly.

‘American?’

He nodded.

‘And
you
consented to this?’

‘I was briefed. That was all.’

‘You never mentioned nuclear weapons! Christ’s sake! You thought no one would find out?’

‘The Prime Minister had made up his mind.’

‘He must have offered you one hell of a bargain.’

‘That’s politics, Robert. One day you’ll realise that these weapons might actually have a useful purpose in keeping us safe!’

I turned away in disgust.

A part of me wanted to find the nearest telephone and call
The Times
and spill the story. Bestford deserved it.

Instead I thought about the frightened children at Broad Haven Primary, Araceli Romero alone with her daughter in the hotel on the cliff. I didn’t yet know why, but I was particularly worried about those two, about what might happen to them if I didn’t find out what was really going on.

I remembered Selina’s drawing Corso had given me, the picture of the hulking figure with no face. The silver humanoid. I fished it from my pocket and unfolded it. I had to finish what Selina had started, but there would be no cover-up this time.

‘I’m going to Broad Haven, to learn the truth about what’s happening,’ I told him.

‘The Americans will not tolerate an investigation,’ Bestford replied, his tone urgent.

He swayed on the spot, and I felt a flood of revulsion. I knew I had to ignore it and pretend I was addressing the old Bestford, the sober Bestford who had rescued me from a life heading nowhere in west Wales. I faced him with an intent stare.

‘Paul, I have been at your side in this inquiry for six months, as I have been since the day I left university and came to work for you. Pounding pavements for miles to plead with people for their support, shoving hundreds of leaflets through people’s doors . . . And all for
you
, Paul! When journalists call, it’s me who covers for you – pretends I have no idea what they mean when they ask about your prolonged absences, your endless private appointments and periods of sickness. I chair your meetings when you’re ill, I write your speeches, I celebrate when you win, and I’m here to clean up the mess when you don’t. And when you make your speeches on the floor of the House,
I’m
the one in the backroom, hidden in the shadows, as the rest of the House looks at you.’

I stepped forward. He took a cautious step away from me.

‘And now for the first time I have a chance to make a real difference, to find out what I came here for. And I won’t allow you to take that away from me.
Do
you understand?’

‘You don’t know what it’s been like,’ he managed to reply, ashen-faced, before collapsing into the chair beside Selina’s bed, head cupped in his trembling hands. ‘I can’t take it any more. I need a break. I need you to abandon this, to hold the fort here. After all we’ve been through, Robert, say you’ll do that for me.’

The inspiring man I had followed all these years was a trembling husk before me. I saw now that my suspicions were correct: politics didn’t just take your life, it sapped the soul, made good men great only to reduce them to a shadow of their former selves.
That could be me
, I thought, watching Bestford’s shaking hands.

‘You’re failing me if you don’t stay,’ Bestford muttered feebly.

‘And I’ll be failing myself if I do,’ I said. ‘Consider this my resignation.’

From
The Mind Possessed: A Personal Investigation into the Broad Haven Triangle

by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980) p.9

Genuine mysteries are rare, but there are occasions when some instances are so bizarre, so shocking, that no amount of time will diminish their impact. Conspiracy theorists thrive on such events. They keep us guessing and grieving, even more so when the people affected come from the most ordinary of places.

The Havens. A quaint community on the west coast of Pembrokeshire in the south-west corner of St Brides Bay. The Pembrokeshire coastal path passes right through the heart of the village, which in the summer months is a draw for holidaymakers but come winter is damp and freezing and windswept by the gales that rush in from the Atlantic. At this time of year the residents live a quiet life, suffering few intrusions from the outside world.

And after the tragic events of that winter, even fewer now.

The primary school at the end of Marine Lane is long gone, demolished. But its secrets linger. The public house – the Ram – has closed. Only the church remains, but its doors are boarded up, and of its enigmatic Catholic priest, Father O’Riorden, there is no sign.

The faces you meet regard you with suspicion, eyes empty. Because for all the scientific facts about the tragedy, there remain many questions some would prefer weren’t asked at all.

Bruce Lawson, who ran the Nest Bistro, a popular fish restaurant, hasn’t been back to the village since the events of February 1977. His establishment was demolished just a few weeks after the tragedy. ‘You stop talking about it after a while,’ he admits. ‘People think you’re crazy when you talk about weird things in the sky.’