A Cursed Place

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A Cursed Place Page 9

by Peter Hanington


  It was a whistle-stop tour, taking in all of Fred’s subject areas, but at speed. His summary of what was going on in each computer-stuffed classroom or white-tiled lab was cryptic bordering on the unfathomable. The maths team was ‘focussing on predictive modelling, algorithms and super algorithms.’ His English students were on ‘speech patterns, rhythm and such.’ Biology was ‘all about pig brains right now.’ Chemistry ‘dopamine, real and synthetic.’ Physics ‘bending different stuff.’ Fred stopped outside the social studies classroom. ‘This is interesting. You see how I’ve got some of the math guys in there with them?’ Jags gave a non-committal nod of the head. One geek looked much like another as far as he was concerned.

  ‘So what’re they doing?’

  Fred glanced at Jags.

  ‘It’s complex. It’s about what you can do once you’ve got the predictive stuff right – tuning, herding, stuff like that.’

  ‘Tuning and herding what?’ But Fred had moved on; either he didn’t think Jags was smart enough to understand or he didn’t care to say. They moved past the health and wellness class without stopping. ‘They’re researching the original old chestnut – how not to die. People are always keen to spend their money on that ticklish little problem …’ Jags had heard Elizabeth tease Fred about his tendency to start talking like a phoney English aristocrat when he was showing off. ‘… we need to take the lift …’ The basement was where they were headed. ‘This is Department 8.’ The steel-sided goods elevator opened out onto another classroom, but there were no computers in sight. Behind these glass windows were seven individuals in white open-neck shirts and black slacks, each sitting behind a desk, taking what appeared to be some sort of multiple-choice test.

  ‘These guys don’t look like your usual common or garden geek. Who’re they?’

  ‘I thought you might recognise them Jags …’ Fred smiled. ‘They’re like you, or what you used to be.’ Sure enough, the four men and three women in the room had a former military or maybe intelligence agency look about them. Not just American either, but a mix of nationalities: north European, Chinese or Chinese-American, Middle Eastern.

  ‘If you’re looking to replace me, Fred, then please – be my guest.’ Fred shook his head.

  ‘I don’t want to replace you …’ He paused. ‘Even if I did, Lizzie wouldn’t let me, you know that. In fact, I need a few more like you. They do look like you, don’t they?’ Jags ignored him.

  ‘What do you need them to do?’

  ‘New stuff – new for us, anyway. Public Square is going to start offering a little … I guess you could call it aftercare.’ This made no sense. There was no money in aftercare, nothing sufficiently difficult or interesting to appeal to Fred either.

  ‘I thought you said we don’t do aftercare? It’s just aggro.’

  ‘It can be, but I’ve realised that it depends on the kind of aftercare you’re offering. It depends on what you’re attempting to fix.’

  Jags examined Fred’s face; he was being deliberately, annoyingly cryptic.

  ‘Fix? So it’s repairs you’re talking about? What’s broken?’

  ‘A lot of things, in a lot of different places. Lots of stuff that a company like us can help with.’

  Jags looked again at the new recruits; they had finished the test and several were staring back in his direction now too.

  ‘So what’s the idea? You want me to talk to these new recruits of yours, is that it?’

  ‘No, I told you. I just wanted you to take a little look at them, tell me what you think.’

  ‘They look like ex-military, they look … committed.’ Fred smiled.

  ‘They do, don’t they?’

  ‘Are they the first lot of whatever the fuck they are?’ Fred shook his head.

  ‘Second wave. Two point zero. The first little crew has been up and running for a while, but I underestimated demand. Hence – these fellows.’

  13 Heads & Tails

  THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON

  The rain-rinsed pavement outside the National Portrait Gallery shone like rose gold in the autumn sun. Rebecca stood on the opposite side of the road for a while and watched the people and their reflections rush by; it was good to be reminded how much she loved living in London. Inside the beautiful old building, up on the third floor, a hassled-looking teacher in a creased suit was trying to shepherd a large group of kids out of the Tudor gallery.

  ‘Twentieth-Century photography, then home. Come on guys, we can do this.’ He had a soft Yorkshire accent. Leeds, Rebecca guessed. She stood aside to let them pass and gave the man an encouraging smile. He paused.

  ‘Somebody shoot me. You’re a teacher as well are you?’ Rebecca confirmed that she was,

  ‘Where are your kids?’

  ‘I gave them the slip on the Piccadilly Line.’

  ‘Smart.’ He looked back at the group of thirty or more twelve-year-olds, which was subdividing in an alarming manner. ‘Onwards and upwards.’ He walked off in a sideward direction and set about trying to sheepdog a loose knot of children back towards the Twentieth Century.

  Rebecca wasn’t sure if she was pleased or mildly pissed off at being so easily picked out as a fellow teacher. It happened a lot these days. No teacher wore a uniform, they weren’t always trailing around after school parties, but it seemed the longer she did the job, the easier it was both to identify other teachers and be identified. Maybe it was just one of those professions? Army types always seemed to be able to spot each other. Farmers and doctors as well, she’d heard. She remembered asking Patrick if he thought he could pick a fellow journalist out in a crowd. She couldn’t remember the answer he’d given.

  Rebecca strolled around the rooms in no particular order, stopping when she felt like it, taking her time. She walked past long lines of heavily framed forgotten men, punctuated by the occasional long-locked Pre-Raphaelite. The men were almost all beetle-browed, austere or just plain tortured-looking. The women, serene and other-worldly. Eventually she ended up in front of her favourite picture, on display inside a special cabinet: Jane Austen, in pencil and watercolour, by her sister Cassandra. If you waved your hand or moved your head in front of the display cabinet then the light inside switched on and off.

  ‘It’s Jane at the disco.’

  Rebecca grinned. This was how Patrick had described the picture when Rebecca first took him to see it. The gallery had been the first stop during what proved to be a definitive early date. The strobing effect had kept the pair amused for some time. Rebecca wondered whether Jane might have preferred Voguing to the endless quadrilles, but then again maybe her bonnet would’ve got in the way. Eventually the moustachioed gallery guard, who was sitting on a folding chair just next to Lord Byron, cleared his throat. When this didn’t work he stood up and wandered over.

  ‘I think you’ve had your fun. Go on, shove off.’ They shoved off happily, grateful to have been gifted the first of their many shared jokes and stupid catchphrases. ‘Go on, shove off’ soon became the only way they could say goodbye to each other. Increasingly annoying for all their friends, but endlessly funny as far as they were concerned. It felt like a long time ago now. Rebecca circled the cabinet then moved on.

  Back at the start of their relationship, and for a long time afterwards, everything seemed in sync. Their personalities were similarly sunny, but not identical. They liked the same stuff or embraced each other’s particular passions with ease: Monday night curry, Sunday morning netball, Quentin Tarantino, Janet Evanovich, and all the other things that constitute the raw material of a relationship. Most importantly, the plans they had for how life might work out seemed to match up too. Highbury was beyond their means, so before long they would move, closer to Rebecca’s school and far enough away from anywhere fashionable so that they might be able to buy a place instead of renting. If that was still the plan then they needed to do it soon. The rising tide of gentrification was already lapping at the lower end of Peckham High Street. Patrick had been away so much,
he’d missed most of it, but Rebecca gave him regular updates. A fancy coffee bar-cum-bookshop had opened, a dog-friendly gastropub. If they waited too much longer then there’d be a Planet Organic or a hot yoga studio and then it would be too bloody late. They’d have to go further south or a lot further east.

  Halfway into the revolving doors at the gallery exit, Rebecca decided she’d go back and buy Patrick a postcard of Jane at the disco. She ignored the exit and kept walking, completing a full circle and stepping out back inside the high-ceilinged lobby. She stopped. Standing there in front of her, wearing a countenance that hovered somewhere between surprise and anger, was the lost parent she’d met outside the school that morning. Rebecca hadn’t seen the woman in the hall during her new parents presentation, but here she was now. She’d swapped her grey suit for a blue jumper and jeans and the red hair had been tucked up inside a black beret, but it was the same person. Rebecca gave a quizzical smile.

  ‘Goodness, how about this? Small world …’

  ‘Yeah. How are you?’

  ‘Er … how did you enjoy the open day?’

  ‘Oh, it was good, really good. Impressive school you’ve got there. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you again. I guess it must’ve been someone else’s classroom they showed me.’

  Rebecca gave a non-committal nod.

  ‘I guess so. I’m glad you liked the school though …’ She paused. ‘Do you think it might suit your … your …’

  ‘Son, my son. Yes I think it might, I got a really good feeling about the place.’

  ‘That’s good. Where does he go now … your son?’

  The woman’s hand went to her head and she pushed a strand of loose hair back beneath the beret.

  ‘Oh he’s at a place not far from there. A nursery just down the road in fact …’ She hesitated, looking slightly flustered.

  ‘Little Angels?’

  ‘That’s it. Little Angels, that’s the one.’

  They exchanged a few more pleasantries. Rebecca wished her and her son well and said a brief goodbye before entering the gallery shop.

  The red-headed woman turned right outside the Portrait Gallery and walked briskly down towards Trafalgar Square. Outside the South African High Commission, she looked back across her shoulder before heading east down the Strand. In the courtyard of Somerset House she sat down on an empty bench and got her phone out. She went to her search engine and typed in Little Angels. Then … Little Angel. Then … The Little Angels. There was no such nursery anywhere near Rebecca’s school. Not in Peckham, nor anywhere else in the borough of Southwark. Not the neighbouring boroughs either.

  ‘Shit.’

  She waited for a handful of Japanese tourists to complete a circuit of the courtyard, then dialled a phone number she knew by heart. An answering machine clicked in, but there were no words, just a tone. When it finished, she typed in a code. A man’s voice answered.

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘I’ll file you the photos and my report in a couple of hours. If you decide you want to keep a tail on, then you’re going to have to sub someone else in.’ There was a mirthless laugh from the other end of the line.

  ‘Right, so I’m guessing the pretty primary school teacher isn’t as dumb as you thought she was?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  14 Pelmanism

  PADDINGTON RAILWAY STATION, LONDON

  The range of flowers on offer at the M&S on Paddington station was uninspiring. Carver loitered a while in front of the black buckets of cellophane-wrapped red or yellow roses, the chrysanthemums and lilies before deciding not to buy anything. They reminded him too much of the sad-looking flowers that his father used to bring home for his mother. Petrol station offerings she called them. Or doghouse daffodils – because that was what William’s father would be attempting to avoid by showing up with a bunch of flowers that had either blossomed long ago or never would.

  On the train from London to Reading, Carver rehearsed his apology. He would tell McCluskey that he’d been an idiot. It was best to put it as strongly as that. He doubted she’d want to hear an explanation for his behaviour the last time they’d met, but if she did then he would tell her why he was so reluctant to talk about or to Patrick. He would tell her about his version of a Hippocratic oath, his attempt to avoid harming anyone else that he cared about.

  He arrived well ahead of the usual commuter rush home and the taxi rank at Reading station was overflowing. A long line of bored-looking drivers flicking through newspapers or watching Lord knows what on their telephones. Usually Carver took the pink-painted, single-decker bus out to Caversham, but he decided to spoil himself with a cab this afternoon. He’d been on his feet teaching for most of the day and the bunion on his right foot was throbbing. The driver was mercifully monosyllabic and speedy too; in no time they were out of town and flying past fields and allotments and, just beyond that, the grand iron gates to BBC Caversham itself. There was a chance that McCluskey was still there, and if so William would have to find somewhere to wait, but he had a feeling that Jemima’s current obsession was more likely to be a freelance operation and, therefore, one that she worked on at home. The Italian baroque-inspired stately home went by in a flash and before Carver knew it they were turning off the main road and into the small estate where McCluskey’s red-brick two-up, two-down was to be found.

  ‘Nothing wrong with your local knowledge is there? I thought this place was a bit tucked away.’ The cabby made eye contact in the rear-view.

  ‘Not just your London blokes got knowledge mate …’ He smiled

  ‘Right.’ Carver saw lights on in McCluskey’s living room and up on the floor above and so, having paid the fare and tipped him a quid, he let the cabby go.

  Jemima’s house was situated right by a golf course and closest of all to the eighteenth green. She’d had many run-ins with the club management as a result and when they refused to pay for a broken bathroom window, she stopped returning the dozens of golf balls that ended up in her front and back gardens. Closing the gate on the low flint wall, Carver saw a ball bobbing about in the goldfish pond and retrieved it. He glanced up. The ball must have just cleared the top of the house then bounced down off the roof. The Caversham Golf Club was lucky that no visible damage had been done to McCluskey’s collection of short-wave radio aerials that were sprinkled around the chimney stack and eaves. If it had, she’d probably have set fire to their club house.

  He rang the doorbell and heard movement inside, a door closing. Through the small stained-glass window he saw the door closest to the front door open. McCluskey appeared, looking a little flustered.

  ‘Carver. What you doin’ here?’ Her Glasgow accent sounded particularly thick.

  ‘I’ve come to apologise, you know? To say sorry for …’

  ‘For being such a cunt when I saw you in London?’

  ‘Er, yes. I guess.’

  ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ She held her hand out for the golf ball, which Carver handed over. ‘Nike One Tour. Lovely, those are worth a coupla quid.’ There was still no obvious sign that McCluskey intended to let Carver in through the door.

  ‘So anyway, I wanted to say sorry, try and put us back on terms …’

  ‘Right, and you thought just turning up unannounced would do it, did ye?’

  ‘Well.’ Carver shuffled his feet. ‘I nearly bought you flowers.’ McCluskey laughed.

  ‘You nearly did? Right. Carver – you’re unique. Well, I suppose it’s the thought that counts.’ She pulled the door wider and stepped aside. ‘You better come on in, now you’ve come all this way.’

  She walked him past the closed door to the living room and on into the kitchen. ‘If you decide to go the whole hog next time and actually buy the flowers then I like freesias. And lilies. I like a geranium too, but in the garden not in the house – they smell a bit like shite.’

  ‘Right.’ Carver made a mental note. There was a faint smell of tobacco in the room. ‘Have you started smoking, M
cCluskey?’

  ‘Wha? No. That’ll be all the bonfires down at the allotments you’re smelling.’ A tortoiseshell cat entered and began to stalk the kitchen.

  ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘Nah. Mine died years back, but I’ve still got the cat flap and this young lady likes to pay me a visit every now and then.’ The tortoiseshell cat was circling Carver’s chair. ‘Don’t let her up on you, she’s a chest sitter.’ It was too late. The cat was on Carver’s lap in one bound and already high-stepping her way up the north face of Carver’s belly in the direction of his chest, where she planted herself. William stretched his neck and leaned back as far as he could in the chair.

  ‘Can you get her off?’

  ‘Too late. She’ll scratch you to ribbons if I try an’ move her now. Just keep still, she’ll tire of you soon enough.’ The cat appeared to be snuggling in. ‘She likes you right enough. Likes your smell.’ The feeling was not mutual. The cat smelt like offal and piss, but Carver kept this thought to himself and concentrated on breathing through his mouth and not his nose. ‘So, you’ve come to apologise, I get that. What else?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have come if there wasn’t at least a wee chance of you being willing to help me out. I asked you to call Patrick, you don’t really want to. What d’ye need to hear for that situation to change?’ Carver lifted his head; he was starting to feel a little wheezy.

  ‘Why don’t you show me what you’re working on and then I’ll see if I can help.’

  ‘Excellent, let me take you up to command and control. Cat. Off.’ The animal leapt down as requested and Carver glared at McCluskey.

  The command and control centre was McCluskey’s spare bedroom but with the bed, wardrobe and any other home comforts shoved against the windowed wall to make room for … well, Carver wasn’t quite sure what it was he was looking at. The whole of the back wall and most of the floor had been given over to some sort of investigation; Carver picked his way past the box files and headed for the wall, which had been divided into sections. Each section included newspaper headlines and stories cut out with serrated dressmaking scissors. These headlines had been harvested from many different news sources and came in a variety of languages – McCluskey spoke at least seven. Most of the headlines were in English, but Russian, Arabic, German and Greek were also well represented. As well as these, there were paragraphs clipped from recent reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch people in Egypt, Bahrain, UAE, Turkey, Russia and China. As well as all the printed material, there were scraps of conversation that McCluskey had heard and transcribed in her spidery handwriting. Certain words were highlighted and appeared in several different areas across the wall. Carver picked one.

 

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