The Bell Ringers (19 page)

‘As a matter of fact yes, Darsh.'

‘But you abandoned him. Why was that?'

‘Maybe it looks like that but—'

‘It does,' he said unsparingly. ‘I loved him but I did not abandon him, Kate.'

‘
You
were in love with Eyam?'

He looked away.

‘I mean he wasn't gay, was he?'

‘What a profoundly stupid question.'

‘Darsh, he left me pretty much everything in his will. We were the best of friends, even if we did fall out from time to time.'

He peered up at the top of the window. ‘No, he wasn't gay, as you well know. But I am and I loved him.'

‘Look,' she said after a while. ‘I'd like you to have anything you like from the house: books, pictures – anything. He'd have wanted it. And to be honest I have no idea what to do with it all.'

‘He left it all to you for a reason.' His eyes returned from the window to settle on her. ‘He wants you to fight his fight. That's why he left it to
you. Not because he loved you but because among his friends you are the most resilient. A “demure, bloody-minded, headbanging bitch” was his expression. Did you know that's what he thought of you?'

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘So who's the villain – John Temple?'

‘This isn't a fairy story with one villain and one hero; it's about a political condition; it's about Eden White and his companies . . .'

‘I met Eden White after the funeral. He's like some kind of manifestation – ectoplasm.'

Darsh ignored her and continued. ‘It's about Temple and that creep Glenny and the Home Office, the state within a state; it's about apathy and fear; it's about the collapse of . . . look this is England . . . I don't have to explain the deep cultural complacency of the English.'

‘Yeah, yeah. That's the kind of theoretical shit you read in newspaper columns, Darsh. Someone hounded Eyam from office and then persecuted him and planted child porn on his computer. That's illegal and wrong. Someone killed Eyam's lawyer with a rifle outside his cottage last night probably because he'd seen documents. The documents were intended for me.'

He shook his head with genuine sadness. ‘We're getting to see that bastard side of life, you and I.'

‘Yes, and the point is that David was murdered – by whom we don't know – and now Hugh Russell. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that they are all connected. Have you ever heard of a monitoring system called ASCAMS? Do you know what that is?'

He shook his head but she knew he was holding something back.

‘After the funeral Eden White gave a dinner in honour of David, a lot of government and corporate people. What was that about? Why was White there?'

He snorted an odd laugh. ‘To make sure David was gone?'

‘Is there any evidence to say that this all involves Eden White? His companies sell systems to governments around the world. We know this has got something to do with a monitoring system called ASCAMS. Was ASCAMS one of the systems supplied to the government by White?'

‘These are things for you to find out,' said Darsh. He removed a boiled sweet from his pocket and unwrapped it.

‘So, Eyam goes into exile in High Castle. What happened then?'

Darsh held the sweet between forefinger and thumb, examined it like a jewel and popped it into his mouth where it moved from one cheek to the other several times before he answered. ‘I went down there to see him last summer. He seemed content – fulfilled even – and happy with this place you have inherited. He was contained, pregnant with some big idea. But then something went wrong. In a letter he told me he was under extreme pressure. I assume that by late October he had made his plans. He spent two weeks caring for his father before he died in late November. It was around then he discovered they'd tampered with his computer. He told me at his father's funeral – he asked me to go for moral support – and that he thought he would be arrested very soon. It was the last time I saw him. On December 8th he left for France.'

‘For France!'

‘Well, he couldn't buy a ticket here or leave this country without being picked up. I believe he crossed to France hidden on a private sailing yacht, with a friend. Then he flew to Martinique. I know because he sent me a postcard.'

‘What was he doing there?'

‘Kate, his father's business fortune was based in the Caribbean.'

She slapped her forehead. ‘Of course, he went because of the money. That's why there was no mention of him in his father's will. He and his father must have arranged things so Eyam had funds waiting for him in the Caribbean.' She paused. ‘Do you know someone named Peter Kilmartin, a friend of Eyam's? Attached to St Antony's College. Foreign Office before. He said he'd met you.'

‘I saw him once with David. He wrote a paper on Assyrian mathematics and astronomy. I looked over the mathematics in the paper.' He shook his head with dismay, either at the crudeness of Assyrian mathematics or of Kilmartin's, she wasn't sure which.

‘He comes recommended. Do you agree?'

‘What I saw was a big, vigorous Englishman with higher than average intelligence, some culture and the unconscious brutality of the breed. I can't tell you
whom
to trust. Eyam has set you up to complete the job for him and you have to make these decisions for yourself. But of course you still have a choice. You don't have to do what David wanted. You
can forget the whole thing and go on with your life.' He eyed her without moving. ‘But if you do fight this thing I will help you, because I owe you. Darsh does not forget.'

He told her how to contact him through the Mathematics Institute, instructing her to use the name Koh when leaving messages. Then his attention moved to a butterfly struggling in a cobweb at the top of the window. Like a cat he sprang suddenly from his stool to stand on the table beside her and trapped the butterfly with one ungloved hand. With the other hand he peeled filaments of old spider web from the wings.

‘Come on,' he said. ‘Open the window. Quickly!'

She wrenched down the handle and banged on the old frame with the heel of her hand.

‘A red admiral,' he said, having released it. ‘They emerge from hibernation at this time of the year and are joined by butterflies that migrate from France. People assume they are dead, but with the first warmth of spring they wake.' He gazed down at her with an inquiring look.

‘Thanks, I'm glad to know that, Darsh,' she said, closing the window.

He stepped nimbly onto the stool and jumped to the floor in one movement. ‘So, we will be in touch.' And then he did something rather odd. He kissed her and held her hand for a moment. ‘If you fight this thing there is much that will surprise and shock you, Kate Lockhart. Are you prepared for that? Are you prepared for the fight of your life?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I don't know if I can do anything.'

‘Well, I expect the answer will come to you soon enough. Let me know when it does. Let me know what you are going to do.'

‘Is there something you're not telling me?'

‘Just say the word. That's all you have to do.' He got up, arranged his scarf and slipped through the door.

She waited for five minutes after he left, then returned to the ruminative quiet of the Front Quad and went to the porter's lodge where she found Cecil with his head in a big notebook. ‘They were here,' he said before allowing his gaze to surface over his reading glasses. ‘The people looking for you: they didn't say as much but then they didn't have to because I can tell, see. There were three of them – two
women and a man came in separately and looked around the public areas. One of the women said she thought her friend was in the college and she described what you were wearing – most insistent she was. I said I hadn't seen you.

‘And this arrived for you,' he said reaching below a shelf, ‘just a few minutes ago by taxi from St Antony's.' He handed her a small parcel. Inside was a cell phone with a note from Kilmartin, which instructed her to use the phone only to call the number already in its memory. He also had a clean phone, with no record of purchase or ownership. Conversation should be kept to a minimum without names, and the phone should not be used in a car or at a place that could be readily associated with her.

Philip Cannon's gaze followed the government's chief scientific adviser's hand as it left the keyboard in front of him and drifted to one of four big screens on the wall of the new underground facility of Britain's Security Council.

‘These satellite images were taken this morning, so they are the very latest information we have,' said Professor Adam Hopcraft, a tall, spare man in his sixties. ‘The two left-hand screens show reservoirs in mid-Wales; and here we have photographs from Cumbria. In each you will see that the open water is stained with a reddish pink dye that spreads outwards in these frozen wisps. And this,' he said moving to another screen, ‘is a time-lapse study of the North Bowland reservoir in Lancashire, which with others supplies Manchester with drinking water. The stain spreads over three days to colour about one third of the water, which shows these blooms of algae that we are seeing have a great deal of energy.'

He tapped some more on his laptop. Cannon looked round the room. Since moving from BBC News to take the job of director of communications at Downing Street, he occasionally marvelled at the government's ability to focus talent and brains on a problem. David Eyam had personified the system and, although Cannon always found him a mite arrogant, it was he who had showed him that at the very top of government you sometimes saw brilliant individuals working together and producing absolutely the right policy.

A permanent staff of fifty now worked for the council, which was intended to complement rather than replace the ad hoc COBRA committee. The new council was chaired by a retired admiral named
Cavendish Piper, who certainly looked the part with his close-cropped steel-grey hair and weathered features, but who was in Cannon's estimation among the dimmest government servants he had ever met.

Cannon wondered now if there were rather too many people in the room. Over and above the twelve members of the council present, there were three ministers and twenty or so co-opted specialists, counter-terrorist experts from the police and MI5, scientists from the government service and from the Ministry of Defence, public health officials, local government chief executives, epidemiologists and a group of marine biologists, environmentalists, microbiologists, phycologists – experts in algae – who had been brought in from the universities. It looked like overkill by the prime minister, but he trusted Temple's instincts: toxic red algae was about to knock everything else out of the news and become a popular obsession that might dominate the first half of a four-week general election campaign that he was certain Temple was planning. The prime minister had to get this one right.

‘These harmful algal blooms – HABS,' continued Hopcraft, ‘are not limited to marine environments. They are also found in fresh water lakes in Australia and New Zealand. The cyanobacterial blooms are by definition blue-green. This toxic red algae – TRA – is interesting because red blooms are mostly confined to oceans, not fresh water, so that may be some clue as to what we are dealing with. The important point is that the cell walls of this TRA contain a substance that causes gastro-intestinal, eye, skin and respiratory irritation. Consumed in large quantities, the algae will damage the liver and neurological systems of humans as well as animals.'

‘How is it spreading?' snapped Temple, who was chairing the meeting while Admiral Piper sat doing his best to look decisive at the other end of the table. ‘Should we investigate possible sabotage? Have we any idea where it comes from?'

Cannon recognised not panic in his master, but a raw political energy.

‘We don't know how it's spreading, prime minister,' replied Hopcraft with a note that signalled he wasn't prepared to be bullied. ‘The likely candidates are birds and humans – people travelling from reservoir to reservoir for recreational purposes perhaps: fishing, sailing,
birdwatching. It could be anything. As yet we have nothing definite on this. However, we have established that the algae's genetic code most closely resembles types found in New Zealand's South Island. It seems to be intolerant of water with a high pH value. That much we do know.'

‘But how did this get into our water supply? It doesn't just appear out of the blue.' Temple turned to Christine Shoemaker of MI5. ‘Is there a possibility this has been deliberately introduced as an act of sabotage?'

‘If I may, prime minister,' said Hopcraft, trying to head her off, ‘I think that conjecture would be premature at this stage. These things do spread around the world and such organisms are capable of relatively swift adaptation in new conditions. It may have been here for some time; we have no way of telling. And we should remember that the new filtration systems with ultrafine membranes do stop this particular algae.'

Temple batted the last sentence away with his hand. ‘Christine, are you aware of any groups that have the necessary capability or that are planning this sort of biological attack?'

‘It's a possibility, but we have no specific intelligence that says the people we're watching have contemplated this kind of action, though of course it would appeal in as much as drinking water is a very basic resource. The idea of introducing naturally occurring toxins into the supply and causing widespread panic would be an attractive option to some of the groups.'

‘Precisely,' said Temple. ‘It must be understood that I'm taking this very seriously indeed.' He looked around the room. ‘I want twice daily reports on all aspects of the situation – scientific, crisis management and security. The public is rightly very concerned about these occurrences and it is our duty to answer those concerns with explanation, reassurance and action. Philip will work on the media strategy this afternoon. We should aim for a full briefing of the press and broadcast media at five p.m. Adam, I'd like you there, but at this stage I do not wish for any speculation as to the source of this problem.'