2009 - Ordinary Thunderstorms (6 page)

Ingram remembered him now, another new appointee to the board, simultaneous with the arrival of Keegan and de Freitas. Ingram cleared his throat, loudly.

“Good news, excellent news,” he said, aware of how bland he sounded. “At least Philip’s work will survive.”

Keegan had the grace to hold his hand up this time.

“Burton, do go ahead.”

“Thank you,” Keegan said, smiling politely, “I’d like the board to know that we’re flying Professor Costas Zaphonopolous in to take over the day-to-day supervision of the final stage of the trials before we submit our NDA to the PDA. Our New Drug Application,” he added politely for the benefit of any uncomprehending nonexecutive directors, “to the Food and Drug Administration.” He turned to Ingram. “Costas is Emeritus Professor of Immunology at Baker-Field.”

Reverential mutters of approval from the other professors round the table. Ingram felt a twinge of unease—who was this man they were flying in, and at what cost? Why hadn’t he been consulted? He saw Ivo cleaning his fingernails with the sharp tip of the pencil that had been placed on the blotter in front of him.

“So much the better,” Ingram said, feeling that he had to reassert his authority—he still hadn’t had the chance to reveal his
piece de resistance
.

“Right, now—” he began and then stopped. De Freitas had raised his hand. “Paul?”

“I should say, for the record, that there is some data missing from Philip’s files.”

Ingram kept his face blank, authoritatively blank. “Data missing?”

“We think,” de Freitas flourished his copy of the Kindred profile, “that Kindred may have it.”

The professors gasped. Ingram felt that sick premonition again. Something bad was going to happen, he couldn’t see it yet, but this awful death was just the beginning.

“What kind of data?” Ingram asked, in a quiet voice.

Keegan pitched in now. “Data that is incomprehensible to anyone not wholly cognisant of the Zembla-4 programme. We think Kindred has it—but he doesn’t know what he has.”

Ingram’s instincts were hard at work—he felt high anxiety now: Keegan and de Freitas’s insouciance didn’t fool him at all—this was very serious. He was suddenly glad he’d had an apple juice and not a brandy.

“How do you know this data is missing, Burton?” he asked, carefully.

Keegan smiled his insincere smile. “When we went through the material recovered from the London flat we became aware of inconsistencies. Stuff we expected to see wasn’t there.”

Ingram eased himself back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I thought the London flat was a crime scene.”

“Correct. But the police were most accommodating. We informed them of the importance of the Zembla-4 programme. They gave us complete access.”

“I don’t get it,” Ingram said. “Do the police know data is missing? Doesn’t that provide motive?”

“They will know, in the fullness of time.” Keegan paused as de Freitas whispered something in his ear. Keegan fixed Ingram with his dark, intense eyes, and then they traversed the table. “For the sake of the Zembla-4 programme it’s best that this knowledge is kept within this room.”

“Absolutely,” Ingram said. “Absolute discretion.” There were mutters of agreement from around the table. Then he said ‘Good’ three times, cleared his throat, asked Mrs Prendergast for another cup of coffee and announced that he had decided that Calenture-Deutz should offer a reward of £100,000 to anyone who assisted the police in the capture and arrest of Adam Kindred. He put it to the board for a vote of approval, confident that it would be unanimous.

“I couldn’t disagree more fervently,” Ivo, Lord Redcastle said loudly, casting his pencil down on his blotter where it bounced, impressively, twice and then skittered off the blotter to the floor with a thin wooden clatter, less impressively.

“Ivo, please,” Ingram said, managing a patronising smile but feeling all the same a surge of heartburn warm his oesophagus.

“Just let the police do their job, Ingram,” Ivo said, pleadingly. “This only muddies the water. We offer this kind of sum and every money-grubbing loser will be deluging the police with spurious information. It’s a terrible error.”

Ingram kept his smile in place, reflecting that it was rather rich for one money-grubbing loser to so denigrate his tribe.

“Your objection is noted, Ivo,” Ingram said. “Will you note it, Pippa?” Pippa Deere was keeping the minutes. “Lord Redcastle disagrees with the Chairman’s proposal…Good, duly noted. Shall we vote on it? All those in favour of the reward…”

Eleven hands went up, including Keegan’s and de Freitas’s, Ingram noted.

“Against?”

Ivo raised his hand slowly, a look of disgust on his face.

“Carried.” Ingram basked in his insignificant triumph for a few seconds, knowing full well that this small revolution on Ivo’s part was a misguided act of revenge for the hair-dyeing accusation—clearly it still rankled. Ingram wound up the meeting and everyone dispersed.

“Nothing personal,” Ivo said, as they left the room. “I just think that rewards are iniquitous, corrupting. Why not hire a bounty hunter?”

Ingram paused and tried to look Ivo in the eye but he was too tall.

“One of your close colleagues has been horrifically murdered. You’ve just voted against the one thing we as a company, as his friends, can do to help bring his murderer to justice. Shame on you, Ivo.” He turned and walked into his dining set ready for his brandy. “Have a nice day,” he said as he closed the door.

A
S SERGEANT DUKE HOMED in for a farewell kiss, Rita took last-second avoiding action and ensured his lips did not meet hers—he would be allowed to kiss her cheek like everyone else at the station.

“Going to miss you, Nashe,” he said. “Where we going to get our glamour, now?”

She knew he fancied her—Duke being a married man with three children—and he was very aware that she and Gary had split up: his commiserations had been both heartfelt and eager. She would have to watch him later, at the farewell party. Sergeant Duke, off duty, drink taken…She felt her heart heavy, all of a sudden: she didn’t like goodbyes.

Duke was still talking. “But you’ll be back for the inquest, of course. And the trial.”

“What’s that, Sarge?”

“The Wang murder. The limelight has sought you out, Rita. Chelsea, brutal death, eminent foreign doctor. The beautiful WPC Nashe gives her evidence at the Old Bailey. Press’ll go ape.”

“Yeah. Well, let’s catch Kindred first,” she said, dryly. “Or there won’t be a trial at all. See you at The Duchess.”

“I’ll be there, Rita,” he said, his voice heavy with lustful implications. “Wouldn’t miss it, love, not for the world.”

Shit, she thought as she picked up her bag and left the station, regretting the party idea already. Vikram was waiting at the main door, affecting coincidence badly.

“Going to miss you, Nashy.”

“Don’t call me Nashy, Vik.”

He gave her a peck on the cheek. “Sorry. Anyway, thanks for everything. Couldn’t have done it without you.” Vikram had just been confirmed as a full-time police constable, his days as a special—a hobby-bobby—over.

“See you at The Duchess, eight o’clock.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Rita stepped out of Chelsea Police Station for the last time and decided to take a taxi home to Nine Elms. This move was a triumph, even though of small order—maybe not in the ‘dream-come-true’ category but it was going to be a key change in her life, and one for the better, she hoped—so a small indulgence was called for and justified.

The taxi dropped her at the boatyard and she walked down the metal gangway towards TS
Bellerophon
with a light heart. The tide was rising and the sun was shining through the lime trees above her on the river bank, turning their leaves almost unbearably green and fresh—and she suddenly had the feeling that this change in her life was going to be a successful one. To her vague surprise she acknowledged what she was experiencing: she was happy.

Then she saw her father on the foredeck leaning on his arm-crutches. She climbed up the steps to join him.

“Hi, Dad.”

“I hate you coming home in uniform, you know that.”

“Too bad.”

“It freaks me out.”

“What a shame.” She stopped and put her bag down. “What’s wrong with you, then?”

“I had a fall, done my back in, again. Couldn’t find my crutches so I had to call Ernesto.”

“You should have texted me. I know where everything is—no need to involve him.”

As they went below she noticed that her father managed to cope with the steep stairs with little fuss or effort. He eased down into his chair in front of the television, saying how knackered he was, thought a lumbar disc must be protruding, then flipped his pony-tail over his shoulder and rummaged in the little chest of drawers beside the chair—where he kept his things.

“You can’t smoke skunk, Dad,” Rita warned him, going along the companionway to her room. “I’ll arrest you.”

“Pig!” he shouted after her as she closed her door.

She changed out of her uniform and into jeans and a T–shirt. When she emerged she was pleased to see that her father wasn’t smoking a spliff, though he did have an extra-strength Speyhawk lager in his hand.

“Medicinal,” he said.

“Enjoy.”

“So what’s happening to you?” he asked. “Becoming a detective?”

“You know.”

“It means nothing to me.”

“I told you: I’m transferring—to the MSU.”

“MSU, USM, MUS, USA, FAQ, AOL—”

“Marine Support Unit. We’re having a farewell party at The Duchess. Why don’t you come along?”

“To a pub full of policemen? You must be joking.”

“Suit yourself. Can’t say you weren’t asked.”

She started to climb the stairs to the upper deck.

“I don’t want to know about your police life,” he said. “It depresses me. What does the Marine Support Unit do?”

“We go up and down the river,” she said. “I’ll toot when we pass by.” She smiled at his discomfort. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Daddy-O.”

She went up on deck. The
Bellerophon
was an ex-Royal Navy, World War II mine-sweeper, ‘Bangor’ class. It had been refurbished in the 19605 and stripped of all its bellicose appurtenances—guns, depth charges, mine sweeps—to reveal a plain and sturdy ship and one that made a roomy, narrow home permanently, immutably moored on the Battersea shore of the Thames, by Nine Elms Pier.

Rita had created a sizeable container garden on the foredeck—where the main Bofors gun-mounting had been—and she fitted the coiled hose to the standpipe and watered her plants carefully—the palms, hydrangeas, tuberoses, plumbago, oleander. Beneath her feet she sensed the
Bellerophon
shift on its mooring as the tide rose, lifting the keel off the mud. She felt herself calming after the emotions generated by her departure and the endless farewells and looked around her, enjoying the silvery gleam of light coming off the river in this late afternoon. Downstream she could see the green glass blocks of the MI6 building and the gull-wing roofs of St George’s Wharf. Over her left shoulder were the four chimneys of Battersea Power Station—one of the chimneys thick with scaffolding—and, turning her gaze upstream, she could see a train crossing Grosvenor Railway Bridge and beyond that the twin peaks of Chelsea Bridge’s suspension cables.

Seeing Chelsea Bridge made her think of Battersea Park, and Gary and that day she had spotted him there. An old lady had been knocked flying by a cyclist in the park, some lad illegally cycling along the Embankment front. The old lady’s dog had been injured in the collision and the police had been called. Once Rita had overseen both victims’ departure in an ambulance and the cyclist charged, she went in search of an ice cream. It was a hot early May day and the sun shone with a fresh strength, clear and vigorous. She cut across the car park, heading for the tennis courts where she knew there was an ice-cream van parked in the afternoons and as she emerged from the trees she had seen Gary—her Gary, Gary Boland, Detective-Constable Gary Boland—lying on the grass with another girl.

They were lying head to toe, the girl—blonde, short-haired—leaning back against Gary’s raised knees. Rita stepped behind the trunk of a plane and watched them talking. She didn’t know the girl, didn’t recognise her, but everything about their familiarity with each other told the story and nature of their relationship thus far, and its clear intimacy. Not even the most plausible and inventively persuasive Gary would have been able to convince her of its innocence. But what upset her most was the way Gary had his hand resting on her knee. She could see his thumb gently, reflexively beating out a rhythm against the girl’s kneebone—the rhythm of some song in his head. This was something Gary did, on table tops, against the sides of coffee mugs, the arms of chairs, as if he were some frustrated drummer from a rock band—a sign of his nervous energy, she supposed, pent up. This is what Gary used to do to her when they lay in bed in the mornings, he would gently tap a rhythm with his thumb on her bare knee, on her shoulder. She had filed it unconsciously in her mind under his name—this was what Gary did with her—its banal intimacy was one of those factors that made their relationship uniquely individual. She looked at the girl and imagined her filing it away in her mind also: Gary Boland, always beating out a rhythm, any knee would do. And now that it had lost its exclusivity for Rita she saw it suddenly as an irritating habit and her heart went cold and passionless. She watched him stop his drumming, change position and kiss the girl full on the lips.

She had confronted him that evening and broken off their relationship five minutes later—maturely, resignedly, sadly—she thought. They would see each other all the time, police business made their paths cross inevitably, so there was no point in becoming hysterical and accusatory about it. Maybe that was giving her the extra pleasure she was experiencing about her move to MSU: she wouldn’t see Gary any more and she would stop continually thinking about that afternoon in Battersea Park, as indeed she was now…Angry, she forced herself to change the direction of her thoughts and she tried to imagine herself, in a day or so, powering up river in a Targa launch of the MSU looking over at the TS
Bellerophon
at its moorings as she cruised by. How strange that would be—but she liked the idea of policing London’s river, rather than London’s streets, and indeed the idea seemed to her to be somehow miraculous, given that she had lived on this boat on this river almost her entire life. She heard her father calling for her and ignored him—not wanting to spoil her mood: she felt suddenly blessed—no one could be this lucky. Then she thought of the party at The Duchess—just a few hundred yards away. Would Gary come? She’d asked him—they were grown-ups—no hard feelings and all that. What would she wear? Something to make him realise what he’d—