Ordinary Thunderstorms

by William Boyd

  ‘No, Jonjo. I told you: the heat on this one is massive. They can’t understand how some poxy university bloke is still out there. Why can’t you find him?’

  ‘Because he’s clever, precisely because he’s a poxy university bloke and not some wanking loser,’ Jonjo said with controlled vehemence. Then he added: ‘Who’s “they”, by the way?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Darren said, pleadingly. ‘I never know – haven’t a fucking clue.’ Jonjo believed him, but Darren went on, ‘There’s layer upon layer upon layer above me. I don’t know who’s sending me these messages, these instructions. I get paid – I just do what I’m told.’

  ‘OK, OK. Cool.’

  Jonjo sat for a while, thinking, letting his anger build. Then he said, ‘Well, the upshot is you’ll let Kindred go. I told that Rupert-arsehole, “Bob”, that I was close. Now, I’m even closer. You take me off of this and Kindred walks free. You tell “them” that.’

  ‘There’s another plan. Hold on.’ Darren took out his mobile phone and made a quick sotto voce call.

  ‘I told him to wait outside,’ Darren said, apologetically. ‘I wanted to see you myself, first.’

  A minute later Jonjo watched as a big bloke came up the escalator to the cafeteria: dark hair shaved close and a big drooping moustache, like he was in a 1970s western.

  ‘This is Yuri,’ Darren said.

  Jonjo looked at Darren incredulously as if to say – what?

  ‘Yuri was in Spetznaz for twelve years. Chechnya, counter-terrorism—’

  ‘Fanbloodytastic,’ Jonjo said. ‘Does he speak English?’

  ‘I speaking English,’ Yuri said.

  ‘Just tell him everything what you know,’ Darren said. Jonjo could feel how uncomfortable and embarrassed he was. He looked down at his puzzle – the word AMBERGRIS formed mysteriously in front of his eyes. What the fuck was that? He looked up and told Yuri all he was prepared to let him know.

  ‘Kindred was living on the Shaftesbury Estate, Rotherhithe – Flat L, Level 3, Unit 14 – for some weeks with a prostitute who went by the name of “Mhouse”. Kindred now has long hair and a beard and he goes by the name of “John”. He isn’t there any more and the prostitute,’ he paused, ‘has run away.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Yuri said slowly. ‘I go to this Shaftesbury. I asking questions – I get answers.’

  ‘Good luck, mate,’ Jonjo said coldly, standing. ‘Nice to see you, Darren. Good luck to you too.’

  Darren looked a little hurt, unhappy with the guilt-by-association. He rose to his feet and slipped Jonjo a packed envelope.

  ‘Half your fee. There are no hard feelings—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. Move on.’

  Jonjo strolled out of the cafeteria without looking back.

  Bishop Yemi paused and looked out at his sparse congregation as if searching for some encouragement, some zeal.

  ‘Imagine – imagine you are John, the true Christ, and the Romans are closing in, with their swords and their spears. What do you do? And then your disciple, Jesus, the carpenter’s son, steps forward. Lord, he says, let me pretend to be the Christ – I do it for the cause. While they arrest and torture me you can escape to continue the struggle, to spread the word.’ Bishop Yemi paused. ‘It’s a superb plan, John says. Jesus is taken, he dies on the cross, the Romans think they have their man. Meanwhile John escapes to the sunny island of Patmos where he writes Revelation. It’s all there – read the book of John. Only the true Christ could have written this book. Only the real son of God!’

  It’s a very interesting point, Jonjo thought, sitting in the front row with a ‘John 1794’ badge on his chest. Makes a lot of sense. Brave man, that Jesus bloke, sacrificing himself like that. Jonjo thought further: it must have helped you, also, while you were hanging on that cross, with nails through your hands and feet, knowing that your leader had escaped and outwitted everyone. The words ‘escaped’ and ‘outwitted’ chimed unhappily with his own recent preoccupations. He sneaked a look at his watch – the bishop had been going for forty minutes already. He felt a little exposed sitting in the front row – the only new ‘John’ that evening. He glanced behind him at his fellow Johns, a small congregation of scumbags and halfwits, so he thought, but was encouraged to think that Kindred had been here, in this very room – that Kindred had been a John also, only 191 places ahead of him in the John-queue. He was on to him, people here must have known him, must know where he lived – where he was living. He smothered a yawn with the back of his hand. The bishop had now moved on to the evils of short-selling and of risky speculation on global stockmarkets, quoting from the Book of Revelation to support his argument and bolster his scorn. He could certainly talk, that Bishop Yemi, Jonjo conceded – but bloody hell, how much longer?

  They were served steak and kidney pudding for supper and remarkably tasty it was, Jonjo thought. Excellent grub for a hungry man. In his pocket he had Kindred’s reward poster with a heavy beard shaded on to the photograph with a felt-tip pen. He showed it to the other three junkies sharing his table but they claimed not to recognise him.

  ‘Never seen him,’ one of them said.

  ‘He’s a John like us. Friend of mine,’ Jonjo said. ‘He used to come here – I’m trying to find him.’

  ‘Never seen him,’ the junkie repeated.

  ‘Nah,’ said another.

  As the meal ended and, as people began to leave, Jonjo mingled with the departing Johns, showing the picture to as many as he could, but had no success, just shrugs of apology and shaken heads. He stepped outside the church: there had only been twenty or so in the congregation that night; if he was the 1794th John then he was canvassing only a tiny number. He strode off, unbowed – he’d just have to come back and try again.

  He sat behind the wheel of his taxi-cab and started the engine. He was still feeling anger, he realised, a sense of betrayal, shocked at the peremptory way he’d been removed from the Kindred case, a case that should belong to no one else but him. A clear vote of no confidence – he was a failure in their eyes – whoever ‘they’ were …

  And what was that mustachioed berk, Yuri, going to achieve? He might tip Bozzy off that Yuri would be prowling round The Shaft. Bozzy and his mates could lead him a merry dance while Jonjo Case, in the meantime, quietly and thoroughly followed his nose and brought them Kindred. In the same way, it struck him, that Jesus had taken the heat for John. A nice analogy, he thought: then gratitude would follow, certain reinstatement, a significant cash bonus. He smiled to himself as he pulled away from the kerb – he should just firm up, the Kindred trail was warm and getting warmer and one day one of these arsehole Johns would recognise him. It was simply a matter of time.

  44

  THE PURPLY-TAUPE, ALL-IN-ONE, ZIP-UP ‘action suits’, as they were known in St Bot’s, were a great improvement on the 198os-style commissionaire look of the epaulettes and matching ties of Bethnal & Bow, Adam considered. In his action suit Adam felt like a paramedic, someone empowered, who might have sprung from a hovering helicopter or a skidding 4×4, ready to administer first aid, give help, rescue, save a life. The fact that he was going up to the de Vere Wing to pick up a file of invoices to deliver to the medical secretaries in Accounting didn’t diminish his vague sense of himself as a significant, albeit minor, cog in the great machine – the medical Leviathan – that was St Botolph’s. All the staff secretly liked their funky jumpsuits, whatever shade they were. The design guru who had come up with the scheme clearly understood human psychology better than most psychologists. Even the cleaners took more pride in their work, thanks to their acid-green overalls, as they fought the good fight, the unending battle, against MRSA, C. difficile and other bacterial infections.

  As the lift approached the de Vere Wing’s floor, Adam told himself to concentrate. This was his sixth or seventh visit to de Vere in the two weeks he’d been at St Bot’s – Philip Wang’s domain – and he was beginning to be recognised by the staff and develop the bantering relationship with the
m of a familiar, even though there were over a hundred porters at St Bot’s – theatre, departmental and outpatient – on duty at any one time. ‘Hey, Primo,’ people were starting to say; ‘Primo’s here.’ He’d been offered a cup of tea on his last visit. The aim was to become a routine presence, part of the transient furniture, someone that no one was surprised to see.

  The transfer from Bethnal & Bow had been surprisingly easy to effect. Rizal, one of the senior porters, had a brother, Jejomar, who worked at St Bot’s. It was one of the facts of British medical life that all hospital portering services were understaffed, hence the reliance on agencies to make up the shortfall. Primo Belem had been warmly welcomed: as a trained porter with good references and a CRB clearance he had already benefited from a marginal salary rise (another £200 per annum) and hints had been dropped by management that there was a clear promotional route available to him, should he wish to pursue it. A few evening courses to follow, some basic administrative training in human resources and he could move up several levels with ease – the portering world was his oyster.

  There was an unusual and noticeable excitement on the de Vere Wing when he arrived to pick up the documents – nurses chatting loudly, laughing, showing magazines to each other. One was scissoring out a page which was then stuck on the wing’s notice board along with the ‘get well’ cards, the health and safety warning notices and the holiday snaps and postcards from grateful former patients.

  ‘Hi, Corazon,’ he said to a nurse he knew. ‘What’s going on?’

  She showed him a two-page advertorial in Nursing Monthly, headlined ‘A CURE FOR ASTHMA?’ And followed by a vague impassioned mission statement about a search for a drug to end this modern curse on the lives of so many.

  ‘We are running the clinical trials here,’ Corazon said, emotionally. ‘For three years. Finally we are there.’

  ‘What clinical trials?’

  ‘For Zembla-4.’

  She pointed out the references in the advertorial.

  ‘Here? Zembla-4? Congratulations,’ Adam said, disingenuously. ‘Amazing. My niece has terrible asthma. Sometimes she can hardly breathe.’

  ‘This drug can helping her,’ Corazon said with real sincerity. ‘I have seen it working. Incredible. Tell her to ask her doctor.’

  ‘Maybe she could even come here,’ Adam said. He knew the wing well now: twenty comfortable rooms with en suite bathrooms off a wide carpeted corridor, a bright toy-crammed playroom at one end.

  Corazon shrugged ruefully, as if to say – don’t get your hopes up. ‘Is private, you know. Expensive.’

  ‘You mean all these are rich kids in this wing?’

  ‘No, no,’ Corazon said. ‘They ordinary kids – the de Vere Trust pay for everything. But they choose. If you niece very sick maybe she can get in.’ She lowered her voice, confidentially. ‘You go to doctor, you say you niece very, very sick with asthma. You say, what about St Bot’s? He send you here, to de Vere Wing – for free.’

  ‘Free?’

  ‘Yes. The doctors they send us the sick children. It’s a wonderful thing. They getting Zembla-4. Only here.’

  ‘Yeah, amazing. Maybe I’ll try … Who runs this wing, anyway?’

  ‘We have many doctors. Dr Zeigler is the last. He’s in USA now. For FDA submission.’

  ‘Of course. So he must work for Calenture-Deutz.’

  ‘Yes. All our doctors are paid by Calenture-Deutz. We all get bonus from Calenture-Deutz. That’s why we so happy.’

  Adam left with his file of clinical records and invoices and duly delivered them to Accounting in the Main Building, third floor.

  Back off duty in the porters’ restroom Adam took out the document with Wang’s list. He had had several copies made and had replaced the precious original back in its buried safety deposit box in the triangle by Chelsea Bridge. There were five names listed under St Botolph’s: Lee Moore, Charles Vandela, Latifah Gray, Brianna Dumont-Cole and Erin Kosteckova. Five children who had been in the Felicity de Vere Wing in the three years before Philip Wang’s death.

  He went to the payphone in the corridor, slotted in his coins and dialled Administration.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, when the phone was eventually answered, ‘I wonder if you can help me. I’ve just got back from South Africa. My god-daughter is a patient in the hospital. I want to find out what ward she’s in. She’s—’ he read a name off the list – ‘Brianna Dumont-Cole.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  There was a longish pause. He was asked to repeat the name. In the background he could hear the dry bony click of a computer keyboard.

  ‘There seems to be some mistake, sir.’

  ‘No, no, I just want to pay her a surprise visit. I’ve been out of the country for months. I haven’t seen her for nearly a year … Hello?’

  ‘Brianna passed away, sir. That was four months ago. I’m terribly sorry. Her family will know all the details.’

  Adam hung up without saying anything.

  It took him two days and many pound coins to work through the names on Wang’s list, calling the four hospitals around the country: Aberdeen, Manchester, Southampton and St Botolph’s. It turned out that all the names on Philip Wang’s list were those of dead children. After he had logged the first five he changed tack – when he telephoned he now let it be known from the outset that he was aware the child was deceased. He had a variety of excuses ready in his search for information – a memorial garden was being planned, or a headstone, a charity auction, a celebration of the child’s short life at her primary school. Can you confirm the date and time of day? No problem. We want to donate money to a charity of the hospital’s choice. Thank you so much. My uncle would like to speak to the doctor in charge at the time. I’m afraid that will not be possible, sir. Whatever the excuse, the pretext, the sentimental lie he proffered, the answers he received all confirmed that the fourteen names Philip Wang had noted down on his list were those that had died in Felicity de Vere wings in four hospitals in the British Isles where expensive and thorough clinical trials were being undergone over several years to test the efficacy of a new anti-asthma drug, Zembla-4.

  Zembla-4 …

  Adam went to an internet café. He typed ‘Zembla-4’ into a search engine and all the other relevant information came up, swiftly, obligingly, on the screen. Zembla-4. Calenture-Deutz plc. The Calenture-Deutz website had not yet been updated – there was a photograph of a beaming Philip Wang, Head of Research and Development, with no news or date of his sudden demise. Adam looked at the picture feeling very strange, thinking of their last encounter. There too was an image of the Chairman and CEO of Calenture-Deutz, one Ingram Fryzer, even-featured, grey-haired, above a tendentious declaration on behalf of the board and the team detailing his company’s ambitions and overall integrity. There was a list of other board members and a series of high-minded texts – with modern graphics superimposed (test tubes, computers, clean-cut men in white coats, laughing children in meadows) and mood music over – a major-key electronic ostinato – about the high ideals espoused by Calenture-Deutz as they searched for ever more efficient pharmaceutical products.

  Adam exited the site theoretically wiser, he supposed, initially – but, really, after some reflection, none the wiser. He decided to concentrate on the five deaths at St Botolph’s. What he needed now was access to some of the hospital’s computers.

  He walked into the pub in Battersea, The White Duchess, and saw Rita sitting at the bar with a bottle of beer in her hand. He kissed her on the cheek – they could kiss each other on the cheek now, having ended their first date (after a Chinese meal) with this polite embrace. She was wearing jeans and, seemingly, three loose T-shirts one on top of the other and her hair was tied casually back in a pony-tail. Out of uniform she seemed to dress with studied unconcern – almost like one of his students on the McVay campus, Adam thought. Adam found the style alluring – he did not think anyone would guess that she was a policewoman.

  In the corner a
small band were setting up for their next session – this was the ‘LIVE MUSIC’ advertised on the pub windows.

  ‘Been to a meeting?’ she said. ‘Very smart.’ Adam was wearing his other suit. He only had two suits, he realised, he would have to vary his wardrobe now he was seeing Rita.

  ‘They want to promote me,’ he said. ‘I’m resisting.’

  What was the difference about a second date? Adam asked himself. The difference was that all bets were off, he supposed … The first date was always exploratory, cautious, uncertain – however much you might seem to be enjoying yourself that was its essential purpose: exit doors were left ajar at every turn in case some terrible miscalculation had been made. On their first date they had talked vaguely about their jobs. Adam had alluded to a period of mental instability, a sustained period of hospitalisation, in order to explain his current lowly status in the medical food-chain. ‘Finding himself,’ he said. Rita had been equally vague about her own background, skilfully avoiding certain questions – Adam had no idea where she lived, for example. But, once the second date had been mooted (by Adam) and agreed upon, all the prudence and tentativeness fell away. Now as they sat at the bar talking, listening to the jazz trio strike up, Adam could sense the change in mood, palpably. The subtext was clear to them both: full-on sexual attraction. As he ordered more drinks, swivelling to gain the attention of the barman, his knee connected with her thigh and stayed there. They clinked their bottles of beer.

  ‘Primo,’ she said. ‘I like that name. But you don’t have an Italian accent.’

  ‘Because I was born and brought up in Bristol,’ he said. ‘I can’t speak a word of Italian. OK – I can speak a word or two.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m a third-generation immigrant.’

  ‘So where are your family originally from, then?’ she asked, and Adam thought – this had better be the last question about my background, for both our sakes.

  ‘Brescia,’ he said, plucking the name from the map of Italy in his head. ‘And before you ask, I’ve never been there.’