Wesley was being sick now, a thin stream of vomit, yellowish, almost viscous. It smelled odd, no food of any kind and I knew then that I’d been right. God knows how many tablets he’d swallowed, but with luck – if I could empty his stomach – he’d survive. The huge head came up, gasping for air, the veins knotting in his neck, and I waited a second or two before walking him back to the bath. I began to refill the bath, and forced his head down, his mouth underwater.
‘Drink,’ I told him. ‘Drink the stuff. As much as you can.’
He nodded, his head still down there, swallowing mouthful after mouthful, a primitive kind of stomach pump, and then I brought him up again, in time for the stuff to spill back out, thinner this time, his whole body wracked by spasms.
‘Jesus,’ he kept saying, ‘Jesus Christ!’
Finally, minutes later, I knew there was nothing else I could do. He’d stopped being sick, except for a dribble of green bile, and if he died now it would be from exposure. He was icy cold, his body wrapped in a thin bath towel, the first thing I’d managed to lay my hands on. I helped him back to bed, drying him with fresh towels, rubbing the warmth back into his thin body, dressing him in a sweatshirt and a tracksuit from my own case. The electrical smell was much stronger now and I could hear a fizzing noise, somewhere in the flat below. I mentioned it to Wesley, tucking him in.
‘Mosquitoes,’ he mumbled vaguely, staring at the wall.
I went downstairs again. The entrance to the ground-floor flat was at the front. I rang the bell. Then again. There was no reply. Alarmed now, I went back round the side, trying each window as I passed. They were all shut. Finally, knowing there was no alternative, I chose the smallest piece of glass I could find and smashed it with a half-brick from the garden. Standing on the windowsill, knocking the glass inside, reaching through, I felt my way to the catch on the big window, slipping it up. I knew now that, at the very least, I’d found the source of the smell. It came from this very room. I could swear it.
I opened the window and stepped inside, through the heavy curtains. The floor was awash, the carpet soggy underfoot. I felt my way towards the door, meaning to find a light switch, then I had second thoughts, nervous about the electrics. Instead, I returned to the window and pulled back the curtains. Daylight flooded into the room and I looked round. The room had once been a small lounge of some kind or perhaps a study. Now, though, there were racks of recording equipment lining the far wall, professional stuff, Revox quarter-inch two-reel machines, monitoring scanners, the lot. I stared at it all, the carefully taped cables looping up into the ceiling, spike microphones driven into the plasterboard, more cables running towards the door. Ignoring the smell now and the fizz of a short circuit, I followed the cable paths into other rooms. Everywhere I went in the flat the ceilings were wired for more microphones, and I began to count them all, recognizing the handiwork, the careful grid of listening electronic ears, every inch of Wesley’s flat wired for sound.
I splashed back to the room I’d broken into. This, it seemed, was the heart of the operation. There was a table in the middle with a pile of ring binders. Opening the top one, I saw the master schedule, a list of audio cassettes carefully logged alongside a time and a date. I looked up. On a shelf beside the rack of recording machines was a matching line of audio cassettes. Each one had been indexed, the letters and numbers corresponding with the written log. On the floor, beneath the shelf, was a cardboard box. I opened it. Inside, miraculously dry, were dozens more cassettes. I took out a handful, examining them. These, it seemed, had been edited. One of them, to my amusement, was labelled ‘S. MORETON, TRANSATLANTIC CALLS. OCTOBER ’91’.
I stood in the room a moment longer, debating what to do. The set-up was all too familiar, a Section A job, one of the operations run from a suite of offices off Wilton Street, and I remembered the scene on one of my first visits, all those weeks ago, the estate agent and the new tenant on the lawn, taking down the ‘For Sale’ sign. They’d moved in then. They’d been running the operation ever since I’d arrived. Checking again, I even recognized the handwriting in the ring binders. I’d seen output like this in Registry, photocopies that came through to us for filing. Given a couple of phone calls, I could even come up with a name, Sweeney or Campbell or Blundy, any one of the familiar cyphers who spent their working lives supplying us with other people’s conversations.
I went back to the hall. The electrics in the flat were old, and the fuse box over the front door was smouldering. I got a chair and stood on it, and took a risk with the switch that controlled the main supply. I turned it off, glad to avoid a shock, knowing now that the place – at the very least – wouldn’t burn down.
Back in the control room, I began to sort carefully through the box, taking everything I could find, every recorded cassette. In the kitchen, beneath a pile of tinned food, I found some carrier bags. I put the cassettes in the bags. There were two bags, at least a dozen cassettes in each. The control room emptied, I picked up the log books and returned to the hall. Stollmann, I thought grimly, might have been a little more explicit. He’d obviously discovered the operation. That’s what he’d tried to tell me. This was the grubby little secret he’d so very nearly shared. But why hadn’t he gone the whole way? Why had it taken a suicide bid to lead me to the truth?
I shook my head, angry again, opening the front door, stepping outside. Sooner or later, our neighbours would return. What they’d find – sodden carpets, stained ceiling, broken window, missing tapes – would tell its own story. Even MI5 couldn’t fail to join this particular set of dots.
I found Wesley where I’d left him, in bed. I thought at first he was asleep, but I was wrong. Her was awake and remarkably coherent.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Fucking silly thing to do.’ I put the carrier bags on the floor.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Thank God you cocked it up.’ I cupped his face for a moment with my hands. He was still freezing.
‘Listen,’ I began, ‘this story of yours.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I was just wondering …’
‘What?’
‘Whether you wouldn’t mind if I took over for a bit?’
‘Took over?’ He peered up at me. ‘I’m not with you.’
I hesitated, knowing all too well the implications of the step I was taking. I’d never believed Stollmann’s line on Wesley’s little thesis, that the whole thing was pure fantasy, and now I knew I’d been right. The operation my ex-employers were running downstairs – the equipment, the manpower, the overtime – was a serious investment. Someone, somewhere, had a great deal to hide. Wesley was still looking at me.
‘There might be a problem,’ he began, ‘with my memory.’
I smiled at him, picking up the plastic bags, opening them, showing him the cassettes inside.
‘These might help,’ I said, ‘if we get stuck.’
25
Money, if you have it, is a wonderful thing.
By nightfall that same day, I’d swopped Stollmann’s expenses cheque and a modest dollop or two of my Irish compensation for a brand new life. The key to this adventure was a 1987 Volkswagen camper van. I knew exactly what I wanted and the third call I made on Wesley’s phone secured me the deal. The Volkswagen would cost me £8300. It was properly fitted out – cupboards, beds, water tank, a small stove – and carried a full service history. The mileage was low and the salesman would be delighted to take my little Peugeot in part-exchange. By five-thirty, I was back outside Wesley’s flat, nudging the VW gently against the kerb, knowing we still had time to make a semi-organized exit. Of our neighbours downstairs, there was still no sign.
I kept luggage to the minimum. While Wesley watched from a cocoon of blankets in the armchair, I packed what was left of his life into three cardboard boxes. Clothes went in one. Drugs, food, washing gear and (at Wesley’s insistence) six bottles of Guinness went in another. The third I filled with cassettes and the log from downstairs, plus a selection of the
files Wesley had already got together on the table. The latter, I noticed, included a couple of videotapes. Curious, I paused, kneeling on the floor.
‘Why these?’ I said.
Wesley frowned. I’d already explained about downstairs. He’d been confused at first, then shocked, then angry. But the anger had gone now, and he was visibly nervous. What mattered, I realized, was his peace of mind. A month in hospital had left him with a dread of getting sick again. He wanted things to be calm and stable. He wanted to be taken care of.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
We locked the door behind us and I helped him to the camper. I’d made up a bed for him in the back, a nest of blankets and a big white duvet, but he shook his head, saying he preferred to be up front, with me. We drove west, away from Guildford, along the ridge of the Hog’s Back, the lights of Woking twinkling in the distance. By ten past eight, Puccini on the cassette player, we were burbling down the A303, deep into Wiltshire. An hour and a half later, more or less the time I’d told them to expect us, we pulled up outside the Riviera Hotel.
The Riviera is in Exmouth. It stands on a hill called the Beacon, overlooking the sea, with fabulous views down the Devon coast towards Torbay. I used to attend the odd function there when I lived with my parents in Budleigh Salterton, and I’d always liked the place. Far more important, just down the road lived the couple for whom I’d worked years back, the summer I’d returned from Zaire. To the best of my knowledge, they were still there, still running the nursing home. They had medical skills, patience, masses of room and a sense of humour. Soon, I was quite certain, I would need all four. Hence the trip west.
We booked into the hotel. They’d given us a room on the first floor, facing due south. Tomorrow, we’d wake up to the views I’d been promising Wesley on the journey down, but for the time being I pulled the curtains, turned the radiators up and searched the wardrobe for extra blankets. Wesley watched me, slumped in the single armchair. He’d said virtually nothing for the last hour or so and now he looked close to collapse. His face was grey, his eyes listless. When I asked him about food, he shook his head. He was still looking at the bed. It was a double.
‘The only one they had left,’ I said.
‘So where do you sleep?’
‘In there. With you.’
‘Yeah?’
‘’Fraid so.’ I paused. ‘Can you bear that?’
He gazed at me a moment, then shrugged. He looked utterly defeated, neither grateful nor upset, simply a pawn in someone else’s game.
‘Sure,’ he mumbled, ‘anything you say.’
The night was easy for both of us. Wesley barely moved and I nearly got up at one point to check that he hadn’t been at the tablets again. He hadn’t, thank God, and when the maid woke us both up with a morning tray of tea, he looked infinitely better. He lay in bed, gazing out at the view. His memory of yesterday’s events seemed less than perfect.
‘Where?’ he said again.
‘Exmouth.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Devon.’
‘Ah.’ He nodded, none the wiser. ‘Nice.’
We had breakfast in the room. Wesley ate a boiled egg and two slices of toast, his first food for twenty-four hours. I cut the toast into strips for him, dipping them in the egg.
‘Soldiers,’ I told him. ‘Get you in the mood.’
After breakfast, I tried another briefing. Staying in Guildford, I told him, had been out of the question. Once our neighbours had returned, it would be only a matter of time before someone or other came knocking. It might be the police. It might be Special Branch. It might even be my ex-chums from MI5, enraged enough to break cover. Either way, the outcome would doubtless be the same: questions, and more questions, and very probably a formal arrest. Hospital, I told Wesley, might have been awful, but just imagine a week or so in some Godforsaken police cell. He’d watched me carefully from the bed, toying with the last of his toast.
‘You’re serious?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘They’d bang us up?’
‘Yes.’
Chastened, Wesley agreed that we’d needed a new base. The hotel, he said, seemed fine and he was visibly impressed with the views. I smiled, happy for the time being to let him think our stay was semi-permanent. I’d already phoned the nursing home up the road, recognizing the voice at the other end, my ex-employer, Eileen. We were meeting for coffee at eleven. She’d sounded intrigued. I looked at Wesley.
‘The cassettes?’ I said. ‘You remember I found the cassettes?’
‘The ones downstairs?’ He frowned. ‘The ones those bastards taped?’
I nodded. Soon, I said, we’d have to go through them, one by one, hours of listening, pages of careful notes. Unless, that is, he wanted to spare us both the time.
‘How?’
‘By giving me the gist of it. The bare bones.’ I smiled. ‘By telling me how far you’d got.’
Wesley was staring at me. He’d evidently forgotten our conversation of yesterday, me taking over, and there was enough of the journalist left in him to regard any sharing of information with the deepest suspicion. I warmed to the reaction. It was the most positive thing he’d done since I’d got back from the States. He shifted uncomfortably in the bed. I took the tray off his knees. He’d developed a rash I hadn’t seen before, across his shoulders and up his neck. I sat on the bed. Wesley was still looking dubious.
‘I think it’s important we pursue this thing,’ I said, ‘and just now that means me, not you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re ill.’ I paused. ‘And I’m not.’
‘But why pursue it? Why bother?’
‘Because…’
I frowned. It was a good question, one I’d asked myself on a number of occasions over the last month or so. Until very recently, the answer had been simple. It was my job. I’d been paid to do it. But now that excuse had gone. On the contrary, I had every reason to turn my back on the whole thing, to forget Wesley’s little theory, to accept the war at face value, a walkover for Western planners, a triumph for high technology. So why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I cash in the rest of my compensation, treat myself to a year or two in the West Indies and simply forget it? I was still looking at Wesley. Back on form for an hour or two, it was his turn to smile.
‘Because it’s fucking evil,’ he said, ‘that’s why.’
I met Eileen for coffee an hour later, leaving Wesley amongst a litter of press cuttings. In the six years since I’d seen her last, she’d aged. A little weight had settled on her thin, spare frame and she’d taken to wearing glasses. They were very old-fashioned, black, hornrimmed NHS frames and they made her face even more severe than it already was. In the three months I’d worked at Beacon Hill House, I’d got to know her well. She swept through life at a thousand miles an hour and took few prisoners, but behind the blazing eyes and the abrasive manner she was kind, fearless and completely her own person. Her husband’s name was Pete. He was quiet, amusing and utterly dependable. He’d trained as a ship’s engineer, and when times were hard, he evidently still disappeared to sea, returning after a month or two with a bagful of money and a nice tan. Just now, he was back from the Far East, tending the engines on some rustbucket or other.
We were having coffee in a corner of the lounge. Residents sat around in various stages of decay. Some of the older ones looked alarmingly like Wesley. Eileen was staring at me.
‘AIDS?’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And you want to put him here? With us?’
‘Yes.’ I smiled at her. ‘Just for a while. I may have to do some travelling.’
Eileen and Pete exchanged glances. To my knowledge, AIDS had never been a big problem in East Devon, certainly not amongst the kind of clientele attracted to Beacon Hill House. I hesitated a moment. Pete was smiling now, amused at the prospect, staring out of the window, his hands clasped b
ehind his head, while Eileen was frowning at an elderly woman in the corner who was trying to unpick her skirt.
I leaned forward across the table, touching Eileen lightly on the knee. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘maybe it’s not such a great idea.’
‘What?’ Eileen’s eyes were still on the woman in the corner. Most of her skirt was round her ankles.
‘Wesley,’ I said, ‘coming here. You know…’ I shrugged. ‘AIDS and everything.’
Eileen glanced round at last. She looked, if anything, surprised. ‘Do you have a book on it?’ she said, ever practical. ‘Anything we might read?’
Back at the hotel, I found Wesley still in bed, the covers drawn up around his shoulders. One of the videotapes lay on the bedside table. Most of the cuttings had fallen on to the floor, except for half a page of newsprint in his left hand.
‘We need a video machine,’ he said at once.
‘Why?’
He looked at me a moment and then nodded at the tape. ‘I should have shown you earlier,’ he said gruffly. ‘My fault.’
I went downstairs again and enquired about a video machine. The young assistant manager looked dubious. He said it might be possible, but only after he’d spoken to the boss. The boss was in Exeter for the day. He’d be back tonight. He’d have an answer by seven. I smiled and thanked him. In the town, in a corner on the main street, I found a TV and radio shop. The man sold me a brand-new machine. I took it back to the hotel in a taxi and got the assistant manager to unpack it and tune it in. Still flustered, he spent half an hour trying to get the thing to work. When he’d gone, I loaded Wesley’s videotape. Wesley had loved the scene with the young assistant manager, following his every movement, enjoying his embarrassment.
‘What do they think we’re up to?’ he said.
I was on my hands and knees on the carpet, peering at the controls on the video machine, trying to find the play button.
‘Simple,’ I muttered. ‘I’m Mata Hari and you’re dying of AIDS.’ I glanced over my shoulder, grinning. ‘Joke?’
Thunder in the Blood Page 33
