2009 - Ordinary Thunderstorms

by William Boyd

  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.

  7

  AS 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—

  “RITA! For god’s sake, I need you!”

  She carried on watering her plants.

  8

  “£100,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST OF Adam Kindred.” Adam regarded the full-page advertisement in the newspaper with frank astonishment and an obscure, though fleeting, sense of pride. Never had he seen his name written so large—and to be worth a £100,000 reward. Who would have thought it? There was his picture, also, and details of his height, weight and race. Adam Kindred, 31, white male, English, dark hair. His raincoat and briefcase were also specified as if he never wore or carried anything else. Then the reality of the situation struck him and he felt shame creep over him, imagining his family seeing this, imagining people who had known him, speculating. Adam Kindred, a murderer?…

  He was sitting in his small clearing at the sharp end of the Chelsea Bridge triangle. The grass was well flattened now and the three thick bushes that protected him from the gaze of passers-by were like the familiar walls of his secret room. It was five days since his grotesque, brief encounter with Dr Philip Wang in Anne Boleyn House—five days that had allowed his beard to grow, dense and dark and, he hoped, all-disguising. He had never grown a beard before but was grateful for the speed with which his facial hair sprouted, however much it itched. The key thing was he looked nothing like the man in the newspaper’s favourite photograph.

  The itch around his jaw, throat and lips was just one amongst the many itches that dominated his waking life. He hadn’t stepped under a shower or into a bath since he had prepared himself for his interview at Imperial College. And here was another admixture of pride and regret: to learn from the newspapers that it had been decided to offer him the job of senior research fellow was gratifying (he was the perfect, well-qualified candidate) but then only to have th
e offer withdrawn hours later—once he was a publicised murder-suspect—was a blow, however predictable. He had kept his phone switched off but wondered if anyone had called: Imperial College, offering the job, then withdrawing it? The police—urging him to give himself up? He was unwilling to use his phone in the triangle—uncertain whether it might give his position away and keen to conserve whatever juice was left in the battery—he was down to one bar. It had all gone quiet for the last forty-eight hours, however. But he found he didn’t care as much as he thought he would about the job, such were the incremental complexities and disasters of his strange new life underground. He would rather have a thirty-minute soak in a hot bath, currently, than be a senior research fellow at Imperial College—it was some measure of the waking nightmare his life had become.

  He washed as well and as much as he could in public lavatories—he could just about manage hands, face and neck—but his hair was now heavy and dull with grease (in his other life he had washed his hair every day—what a preposterous luxury that seemed) and his clothes were taking on that encrusted, creased look of the homeless, adhering loosely to the body-shape like a fabric integument, another skin. He slept and lived in the same shirt, underpants and trousers and he knew he was beginning to smell as he steadily acquired that unmistakable look—of poverty, of self-neglect.

  As he roved around his triangle at night—easily avoiding the occasional drug-takers and the lovers who took advantage of its dark undergrowth for some moments of privacy—he had become aware that, at low tide, a long, thin sand and shingle beach appeared below the sheer embankment wall. Three looped rows of chains had been attached, one above the other, to this wall, as a safety aid, he supposed, something to grab on to if you found yourself in the river being washed up- or downstream, depending on the powerful tides. These chains also allowed him to descend easily to his beach, a thing he had done twice now, and the first time he had done so, at about two in the morning, he had felt an overpowering temptation to strip off, immerse himself in the river and wash himself clean. But the tide was still ebbing and he could sense its tremendous flow and strength: he didn’t yet know the river well enough, he realised. Perhaps the only minutes he could safely wade in would be when the tide was turning and the rush of water slowed or slackened for a few moments. As he clambered back up to the triangle, hauling himself up the chains, he was pleased to think that he would have a beach now, twice every twenty-four hours—the river was becoming a feature of his tiny triangular world.