Authors: James Herbert
‘And the American pilot.’
‘You really think there’s a connection?’
‘Both incidents involved LSD, and both involved unlikely victims. It’s a coincidence that makes you wonder, isn’t it? Of course, yours isn’t the only lead we’re
following – you can imagine the furore that’s been caused. A pilot overdosing while in control of a jet plane doesn’t go down too well with the powers-that-be. The Wing Commander
at Bentwaters has a lot of explaining to do.’
‘I’m not surprised. How can a junky be allowed to fly a plane? I take it the A-10 was armed?’
‘They’re not saying.’
‘No, I don’t suppose they are.’
‘As for the pilot, he obviously had no record of drugs. They’re going over his background now with a fine tooth-comb.’
‘It’s a little late for that.’
‘They may turn up something useful.’
‘I still don’t see how he even got on board the aircraft if he was that hyped-up.’
‘That’s just the point: he wasn’t. He acted normally. If he’d taken it by mouth in liquid or powder form it could have taken almost an hour to take effect. Injected
straight into the bloodstream, a lot less. And with the massive dose he took, the reaction would have been immediate.’
‘So he injected himself when he was up there.’
‘That’s it.’
‘Christ, it’s lucky he chose to dive into the sea.’
‘That’s the general agreement. Anyway, officially, we’re not part of the military’s investigation. It was only because of my department’s probing into the soft
drugs problem on the base that we got involved at all; I think the Ministry of Defence would have liked to have kept the whole matter under their own supervision. Really, we’re only running
around the edges of it and trying not to step on any toes.’
‘I see.’ He watched her thoughtfully as she drank her coffee.
‘You were going to tell me what you had in mind for today,’ she prompted.
‘I thought I might casually bump into Trewick again. He could be worth getting to know.’
‘Good, I’ll come with you.’
‘Well, I have to go into the marshes first just to make my cover look good. I want to take a walk along the riverbank anyway and look at some of the properties there. It’s just an
idea but if drugs are coming up the river – though God knows how – then they have to be unloaded somewhere. It might be worthwhile checking for likely places.’
‘The river stretches for miles, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but it narrows down the further inland it gets. I think we can concentrate on the wider stretch for now, see what we find. I spent the first couple of weeks here trudging up and
down the coastline looking for suitable isolated spots and my conclusion is that if trafficking is going on, the goods have to be landed upriver – the coast is too exposed.’
‘Okay, let’s make a start.’ She gathered up the plates and mugs and dumped them into the sink.
‘I, um, want to make a call first,’ Kelso said.
She turned and smiled at him. ‘They won’t do it, you know.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’
‘They won’t get me off your back. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.’
We’ll see, he thought. ‘I have to verify what you’ve told me.’
‘H’mn,’ she said.
‘I won’t be long.’ He checked the weather outside and grabbed a light, waist-length jacket.
‘Hey,’ she called after him.
He turned at the door.
‘You going to shave today?’
He rubbed his chin and felt the rough bristles. ‘It’s not Sunday already, is it?’
He closed the caravan door behind him and began to whistle as he headed towards the site entrance.
He heard the girl curse and turned to see her sliding down the grass embankment. Kelso stood and watched as she came to rest below him. She looked up and frowned at his smug grin.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t go down the other side,’ he called out. ‘You’d have been in the river.’
‘Why the hell did they make a foothpath ten feet above ground level?’ She pulled herself upwards, the wellingtons she had bought in town on his advice sinking deeper into the marshy
soil.
‘This embankment acts as a flood wall. The river’s only about six feet below on the other side and when it swells, the embankment stops it spilling over.’
‘It can’t always have been successful judging by these marshes – there can’t be a firm piece of soil for half-a-mile or so.’
‘There is. You just chose a particularly bad stretch to fall into.’
‘Uh-huh, that sounds like me.’ Ellie managed to pull herself from the mud and climb a few feet up the slope. Unfortunately, one of her boots had stayed behind, buried up to the ankle
in oozing soil.
‘Those canals crisscross the marshes and drain off most of the water,’ Kelso told her, squinting his eyes to study the town in the distance.
‘That’s nice,’ she said, concentrating more on the attempt to retrieve her boot than his remarks. Ellie finally wrenched the wellington free and pulled it over her foot. She
began to crawl back up the slope.
Kelso reached down and she took his hand, covering the last few steps in a rush with his help. He steadied her at the top to prevent her slipping down the other side into the river, his hands
clenched tightly around her upper arms.
For a moment, he seemed uncertain of himself and his hands dropped away.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
He turned from her and pointed ahead to where the river snaked back on itself, almost in a U-turn. ‘I want to get round there, see what’s beyond. According to the map, that’s
where the houses begin – or I should say, estates. They back onto the river.’
‘They’re marked on a map?’
He dug a hand into the bag he carried over his shoulder and produced a folded white sheet of paper. ‘Drawn by a local artist,’ he explained, as he opened it up. ‘Much more
useful than the ordinary printed maps. It has more details – footpaths, boundaries, old disused railways, even television masts. Look, it gives the names of private estates along the
river.’
‘What’s this further up, where a main road crosses the river?’
‘It’s a maltings.’
‘A what?’
‘An animal feedstuff mill. They convert grain, barley, turnips and suchlike into food for livestock.’
They studied the intricately detailed map in silence for a few moments, a light breeze ruffling one corner of the map. Kelso was right, the girl thought. The waterway provided an ideal road
inland from the sea. Secluded, not too much traffic but enough not to draw attention to individual boats. The only drawback was that the entrance to the channel would be closely watched, the coming
and going of boats noted and those whose movements were suspicious would undoubtedly be searched from time to time. She knew a vigilant watch was always kept for illegal immigrants and
unquarantined pets along the coastline and, now that the authorities in Spain and Portugal had clamped down so heavily on drugs smuggling, making Britain a little
too
popular as a
clearing-house, the scrutiny of vessels had become even keener.
‘Do you mind if we sit for a while?’ she said.
‘Of course not. I should have told you the going would get rough.’ He tucked the map away and sat down on the footpath, legs dangling down the slope facing the river. She sat next to
him and watched the languid flow, enjoying the sun on her face, its warmth tempered by the mild April breeze. Two white swans drifted by.
‘What did your boss have to say when you phoned?’ she suddenly asked.
Kelso shrugged. ‘He told me to stop belly-aching and get on with the job.’
Ellie laughed.
‘He said you were good. Professional.’
‘I am.’ A small motor launch on the far side of the river moved smoothly upstream, the noise from its engine somehow muted across the wide stretch of water.
‘He said your people wanted to flood the area with investigators.’
‘Over-reaction, that’s all. In the end they saw it would have done more harm than good. It would have queered your pitch.’
‘So they sent you instead.’
‘I’m all your department would allow.’
They were silent for a while, she recovering from the rough hike he had brought her on, he lost in his own brooding thoughts. Finally, Kelso said: ‘What made you come into this game,
Ellie?’
‘Customs and Excise?’
‘Drugs investigation.’
‘I don’t like what they do to people.’
‘Even marijuana?’
She studied his face, then looked back across the water. ‘There’s a lot of rubbish talked about just how harmless it is.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Even in the police we’re a little cynical about the laws against it. They’re pretty harsh, considering.’
‘Considering the effects are no worse than having a few drinks?’
‘Some say the effects are a lot better. Kids have seen what booze can do to their elders, and they don’t like it. Make peace, not trouble. At least marijuana calms people, makes them
friendly. You know, there’s supposed to be over two hundred million people using it today, religious and medical groups included. They can’t all be wrong.’
‘And how many will eventually be turned on to hard stuff? One in every hundred? One in every thousand? Even one in every million would be too much!’
‘Hey, come on.’
‘I mean it. It’s this bland acceptance of so-called soft drugs that gets me. More deaths and damage are caused by barbiturates and amphetamines than heroin and other
narcotics.’
‘Yeah, I’ve done my training, too.’
‘Then you should know how kids get hooked. They see their parents taking pills – headache pills, sleeping pills, slimming pills – and they experiment themselves. Ever heard of
a "Drug Salad"?’
He shook his head, surprised at her anger.
‘Kids steal whatever pills they find lying around in the home and mix them together with whatever their friends have found. The idea then is to dip in and swallow whatever comes out. Can
you imagine what a combination of certain tablets can do? In the States, mothers pack vitamin pills into their children’s lunchpacks; some even dust their sandwiches with penicillin powder to
keep the germs away. The next step for kids is grass, or maybe speed – whatever fancy name they give to dope to make it sound more friendly, more acceptable to themselves. When the kicks no
longer come so easily with what they’re used to – with what their own metabolism has learned to resist – they go for something harder. Cocaine, opium, heroin. Or synthetic
substitutes like Physeptone. Or maybe they’ll go for LSD and THC. It depends what they can afford. And remember, heroin is cheaper on the streets nowadays than cannabis. If they haven’t
got the money, they find ways.’
‘But that’s like saying you should never taken an aspirin for a headache, because eventually one won’t be enough. You’ll need two. Then maybe three.’
‘We’re talking about kids, where moderation isn’t an easy word. I agree that if everyone was sane and sensible marijuana would be no problem. But not enough people – not
enough adults, let alone youngsters – are that rational. It’s also now believed that cannabis may linger in the body in a harmful way for weeks after it’s inhaled.’
‘But doesn’t banning the drug make it all the more desirable?’
She groaned. ‘Not that old "prohibition" chestnut.’
‘It’s true, though.’
‘Sure it’s true. But it’s the only control we have, inadequate though it may be. Look, if the Law turned around and said it was okay to rape, do you think the novelty would
suddenly wear off? Christ, Kelso, you’re in the Force, you know just how thin that barrier between civilization and naked animal behaviour is.’
‘We were only talking about smoking grass.’
‘But a line has to be drawn somewhere, for all our sakes.’
‘It’s where you draw the line.’
‘You can’t let grey areas blur its edge, you know that.’
He held up his hands. ‘Okay, I give in – with reservations. I only want to nick whatever villains the Law tells me to, anyway.’
Her body seemed to relax. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lecture you. It’s just that I’ve seen what drugs can do.’
Kelso’s voice was soft. ‘So have I, Ellie.’
‘But to someone you’ve known, someone close to you?’
‘No, I couldn’t say that.’
‘I shared a room with a girl at university. We were good friends. She was quite brilliant, one of those infuriating people who never seemed to find it necessary to cram knowledge into her
head. Once she was told something, or read something, it was there, locked inside her brain ready to be used the instant she needed it. She was a little younger than me – a child prodigy,
really. Her father was a grocer in Sutton and he was so proud of his girl. I stayed at her home one weekend; he couldn’t stop talking about his Ginny and how proud he was of her achievements.
Every time she went out of the room, he’d grin from ear to ear and tell me how marvellous she was. And she was, too; it was no idle boast.
‘It was the end of term, we’d finished our exams, I was worried, she was buoyant. We went to one of those end-of-term parties – I had to persuade her to go because she thought
all those yahoo students were a bit wet. They were smoking pot, someone had some coke, "borrowed" from his rich parents, others had pills. Plenty of drink, too. One idiot arrived with pills and
wouldn’t tell anyone what they were. Most of them there knew, but me and Ginny, we were a little naïve about such things. He persuaded Ginny to try one. I told her not to, but I suppose
she felt she had to accept the dare. It turned out to be LSD. One lousy little tablet killed her. Just one.’
She wasn’t looking at Kelso, but staring back down the river, the way they had come.
‘The effects of that tablet scared her so much she went into extreme hysteria. She died of asphyxia.’
There wasn’t much that Kelso could say. He wondered if Ellie was weeping, but when she turned to face him there was only anger in her eyes. ‘You’ve obviously had to study
reports on drug abuse. You must know the damage they’ve caused, particularly to young lives. So how can you be complacent?’
‘I’m not, Ellie. I’d just rather see real villains in the dock than some silly sod who hasn’t the sense to confine his pot smoking to his or her own home. The joke is
that a lot of those students and undergraduates who are smoking now are eventually going to be lawyers, barristers, and a few of them judges; that’s when the law will be changed.’