Birdkill Page 16

  Mariam watched the performance silently. Cups were brought out of the camper along with a milk carton and a Kilner jar half full of sugar, a spoon sticking out of the white crystals. They sat in silence watching the fire catch, Warren clearly happy enough to wait it out. Mariam remembered some phrase Robyn had about watched kettles boiling and sat back trying not to let the silence shriek at her too much.

  After several lifetimes, the kettle whistled and Mariam gave a silent thanks up to God.

  ‘Sugar?’

  Mildly revolted by the idea of Meacher’s tea, Mariam went all in. ‘Two please.’

  The spoon dipped and rose into the lumpy sugar and the carton poured long life milk into the blue enamel mug. Meacher handed it over to her, hot with its strong, milky tea and she sipped, hoping London’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases would be open when they got her there.

  Meacher made another rollup and sat hunched towards the crackling fire, his eyes narrowed against the smoke.

  ‘That was some hot shit, you know? Odin. Two tabs and suddenly family men were become monsters. I’m talking real monster, not just berserk. It made angel dust look safe, that stuff. You totally lost yourself when you were all cranked up with that juice in your veins, your sense of a line or limit. People did some terrible things.’

  ‘Was that it? Just a drug?’

  Meacher studied Mariam for a second. ‘More than just a drug. The drug. You ever taken H?’ She shook her head. ‘Like that and coke and PCP and acid all rolled up together with a nice e rush and the urge to fucking kill everything near you because you are so superior and so fucking angry that you just want to burst with the fucking fury and anything in your way is fucking toast. Automatic. Reflex. You’re God. Beyond God. You’re the fucking devil.’

  The muscles on his scrawny neck were knotted and the veins stood out. For a moment, Mariam could see how Meacher could be a very nasty piece of work. She noticed Clive Warren’s alert posture.

  The tension abated. Meacher drew on his rollup. ‘There was a whole lot of stuff they did. Big physical training, a whole load of injections. Electro-shock. We all felt like lab rats.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ Warren sat back in his chair.

  ‘Two things. First one is you want more of it. It’s fucking addictive like crack. The downer is a real bummer. And then there’s the memory. Of what you’ve done. Of how it felt. That sits real hard when you’re curled up and crying with the hurt of it. A lot of good men killed themselves. And then one bunch of Yank marines went too far. They were on the Syrian border, chasing a beardy bunch of sand-niggers. They chased ‘em into a Lebanese town where they holed up in a school. The boys were out of their heads on Odin.’ Meacher flicked the wet end of his rollup into the flames and pulled the green and gold tin from his pocket.

  Mariam whispered. ‘What happened? In the school?’

  ‘They killed the gooks. And then the kids. They cut the kids’ heads off, all of them. And then they took it in turns to rape the teacher. They left her for dead, but she wasn’t. The whole Odin trial in Lebanon was shut down and it was covered up. You wouldn’t be able to lose something like that anywhere else in the world, but Lebanon? You can cover anything up there. Especially on the border, because it’s such a fucking mess.’

  Mariam watched him light the rollup. ‘How do you know? About the school?’

  ‘I was there, love. I was on the clean-up crew.’

  They were leaving, just on the edge of the clearing, when Meacher called them back. Mariam’s clothes smelled of woodsmoke.

  ‘Here.’ He held out a gun to Warren. ‘You might find you need this, Colonel.’

  ‘Thanks Popsy,’ Warren smiled. He turned and lifted his jacket to show the pistol snug in the small of his back, held by a black holster. ‘But I’m good.’

  Meacher grinned. ‘Take good care of the lady, Colonel.’

  “I will.’

  Mariam wrenched at her seatbelt. She sniffed fastidiously at her sleeve. ‘Yuk.’

  Warren laughed. ‘I’ve never seen someone look more like a mug of tea’s going to bite her in my life.’

  ‘He’s a real prince charming, isn’t he?’

  ‘Popsy? He’s sound enough, under the drugs and booze. He’s one of the lucky ones. Something like half of the marines subjected to the Odin regimen have committed suicide since the operation in Lebanon was rounded up.’

  ‘I know who the teacher was now. The one the marines raped. She’s working at the Hamilton Institute. She has no memory of it. She’s my best friend.’

  ‘Keep your friends close.’

  She glanced at Warren, trying to read those composed, steady features. ‘What, and your victims closer?’

  TWELVE

  I Remember Dear Lebanon

  Robyn woke in calm, lying in her bed warm and serene. No dreams, then. And she had put yesterday’s blackout behind her. She wasn’t missing anything, except a memory and she had realised one more missed memory wasn’t going to kill her. Perhaps she needed to see a neurologist, though. What if this was a condition? Progressive? Like dementia?

  The thought nagged at her through the evening before as she’d eaten alone, taking great pains to prepare herself a meal that would occupy her thoughts and take her away from brooding about the white tower and the lost journey back.

  A chicken breast wrapped in speck ham, laid on a bed of celery and onion with fresh oregano and thyme, nestled in a chafing dish and capped in foil. Pasta, pesto. Her last bottle of red. She made her fire and sat by it, gazing into the flames and letting her mind wander. It took her back to her youth, to seeing dragons and princesses in the dancing orange sprites.

  She took herself to bed feeling at least stable.

  Now, the next morning, luxuriating in the warmth and her own bed-smell, she idled before rolling out and showering, dressing and skittering downstairs to brew a coffee and find something for breakfast. The stale croissant, microwaved, was barely edible. She slathered it with butter and marmalade and promised herself a trip down to the shops later, after school.

  She had a new purpose. She couldn’t quite remember when the idea had come to her, perhaps staring into the fairy grotto last night and seeing a dragon rearing up behind a barrier of fallen wood with flames licking up its gnarled length.

  Robyn left her apartment, took the stairs two a time and flashed her card key at the sensor by the door. She strode along the edge of the car park, taking a line between the school building and the reception block. The wall barring the research area was red brick, the only break in the barrier was the driveway with its security hut. The guard was already out of the hut, smiling at her. She’d seen him before, walking in the grounds.

  ‘Good morning, miss.’

  ‘Morning.’ She went to move past him but he blocked her.

  ‘You can’t go through, miss. You know that.’

  ‘I have one of my students’ theses to give her.’ Robyn had her alibi in her hand, tucked in its blue plastic binder. ‘Jenny Wilson. It’s important she gets it before class today.’

  ‘I can make sure she gets it, miss.’

  ‘But what’s the problem in giving it to her? It’s not a prison camp, is it? Through there? I mean, you could come with me.’

  He shook his head, pleasantly, regretfully, amused. ‘Sorry miss. Would you like me to have it taken to her?’

  ‘No. No, I’ll give it to myself. When she’s freed, albeit temporarily.’

  ‘Fair enough, miss.’

  She turned on her heel and marched away from him, regretting her sharpness. He was only following his orders, after all. Mind, that’s what the guards at Buchenwald had said, wasn’t it?

  It wasn’t twenty minutes later Simon Archer found her in her Portakabin classroom, knocking on the door he’d already opened. ‘Morning.’

  Presumably the guard had reported her attempt. What had the name on the badge been? Pershore? Perbore? She wished she’d thought to actually give the frustrating functionary that much o
f her attention. She glanced warily at Archer, but he was gazing around at the classroom walls with their decorations of sepia prints of Durrell, Waugh, Joyce and their ilk.

  ‘Nice. I hadn’t noticed these before.’

  ‘How can I help, Simon?’ She smiled to take the sting out of that one, regretting the increasing lack of balance she felt she could bring to her dealings with the people around her in this perplexing place. She braced for the rebuke, the kindly chafing about coming to him before bothering security.

  ‘It’s about Emily Gray. She’s resigned. Probably for the best. It means we’ve got a classroom free in the main building. You can move out of here.’

  ‘I’ve got quite used to it, funnily enough. Teaching in a Portakabin does have a certain charm.’

  He laughed. ‘I admire your positivity, and perhaps it does. But it’s not a great classroom and Lawrence and I have been acutely aware of that. Now you can have a proper room. If that suits, of course.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’d be glad of it. When can I move in?’

  ‘Over the weekend, if you haven’t got other plans. There’s not really that much to do, so you could probably be wrapped up tomorrow if you wanted. Heather and I would be more than happy to help.’

  ‘No, you’re alright. Apart from a few books and these pictures, there’s nothing much to move. I assume there are chairs and stuff in the other classroom.’

  ‘There are. Come along, if you’ve got five minutes I can show you around.’

  She glanced at her watch. Class started in fifteen. ‘Fine. Let’s do it. Lead on McDuff.’

  Class over, new classroom duly pug-marked and claimed, Robyn was on her way back to her apartment when she spotted Emily Gray’s bulk. She veered to meet the woman’s course, Emily throwing out her hands to steady the tottering files that threatened to spill out of the fat arms in their grey blouse and macramé throw.

  ‘Hello, there. Simon Archer says you’ve resigned.’

  ‘Nice to hear the smooth little shit’s told the truth for once.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m clearly not at my best right now. As you can see, I’m shipping out.’

  ‘Why resign?’

  ‘I didn’t really. You could say I was resigned. I asked one too many question, dear.’

  ‘Wow.’ Robyn glanced at her watch. ‘It’s past one. Fancy a drink at the Sloop on your way out?’

  Gray paused, suspicion clouding her face. She finally nodded. ‘Fine. Give me ten and I’ll be there.’

  Robyn danced upstairs to grab her car keys.

  The Sloop Inn was quiet, the contrast with the autumn sunshine outside making it seem subdued. Emily Gray drank red wine as usual. Robyn had a diet coke, ice and slice please. She brought the drinks back from the bar and slipped her purse back in her bag. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’ve got a place in London, funnily enough it’s not let out right now. The tenant left last month, so I’ll just bolt there for a while and start buying the TES again. I can do supply until next September, or maybe something will come up starting spring term. And the bastards at least paid me off with six months’ salary, so I’m hardly hurting.’ Emily’s heavy-lidded eyes wrinkled as she smiled, although there was no warmth in her expression.

  ‘That was decent of them, I suppose. Although I don’t understand why they’d let you go. Mind you, I often feel I don’t understand very much about the whole setup here, to be honest.’

  ‘That’s because you’re not being told the facts, dear. And they got rid of me because I found out what they’re up to.’ Her bejewelled hand jingled as she shook a finger at Robyn who was starting, if truth be told, to get a little impatient with Emily’s air of aggrieved mystery. She decided to sit it out and let Emily answer the unasked question. She sipped at her coke.

  Emily swirled the last mouthful of wine in her glass. ‘Those children are all mutants. They’re not natural. They’ve been manufactured.’ She drained the glass and glared triumphantly at Robyn. ‘And not one of their mothers survived childbirth. They’re all adopted.’

  She basked in Robyn’s evident bewilderment for a second before squeezing her bulk around the table and launching herself at the bar. Robyn knew for a fact Martin Oakley had a mother. That fact tended to give the lie to everything else Emily had to say. She was clearly bitter and resentful and wished the Institute no good. Robyn could see why Hamilton would want rid of the woman.

  Emily returned, her glass refreshed and no drink for Robyn. ‘That’s a pretty wild charge, Emily.’

  ‘You don’t believe me? Look them up. They were all born in London to single mothers in a private maternity clinic, the Mayview. It’s run by a Dr William Foster and the clinic’s partners are Foster and a certain Dr Lawrence Hamilton. I started looking into it after I found out not one of the kids I talked to could name their mums or dads. They were all blanks, tabula rasa. They hate talking about their past, for all that ferocious intelligence. They become uncomfortable if you start asking about siblings, early childhood.’ Emily gulped at her wine. ‘I looked into a couple of the mums, went up to London at weekends and put on my sleuth outfit. I looked at registers of births and deaths. One of the kids’ mums came up in both. I looked up others, sure enough the mums had all died within a month of their children’s births. Every one of them.’

  Robyn tried to keep her voice gentle. ‘Why didn’t you take it to the authorities?’ but Emily was talking to her glass.

  ‘They none of them could have afforded a private clinic like the Mayview. They were flotsam. Prostitutes, asylum seekers, abuse victims. All lonely girls who society would forget easily.’ She looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘And on every birth certificate I found, you know what they had for the father?’

  Robyn shook her head. Emily finished her wine. ‘Father unknown. Every one of the six I tracked down. And I’ll bet you the rest would have come up the same.’

  ‘Why only six?’

  ‘Because they caught me, dear. They found me asking questions. And so here I am.’

  ‘Did you keep a record? Files?’

  Emily stared at her. ‘They erased my computer. They cleaned everything. Every single online account I had was closed and wiped. The lot. I became a non-person overnight. You asked me why I hadn’t gone to the authorities. You know why?’ Emily chuckled and wiped at her leaky eyes. ‘Because they are the authorities, dear.’

  Robyn automatically reached to pull back the table as Emily heaved herself noisily to her feet, the wooden beads woven into the macramé shawl clicking and her bangles and charm bracelet rattling. Her bosom heaved with the effort. Emily stood, out of breath, uncertainty on her face. Robyn realised the woman was actually scared. ‘Thanks for the drink, dear. I’d best off and start me a new life. I’d get out of that place, if I were you.’ She leaned down to Robyn. Her pale-eyed, bloodshot stare was intense in a face aged by worry and drink. ‘Get out while you can.’

  Robyn watched Emily roll out of the pub and wondered how on earth she was going to go back to the Hamilton Institute and behave as if nothing had happened. She finished her drink and grabbed her handbag. She wondered whether she should call Mariam and share what Emily Gray had told her but decided to wait until her afternoon class, the week’s last, was over.

  She had some questions to ask the children before she was going to buy into Emily’s story totally. For some reason, slipping into the TT’s black leather seat, she found herself unwilling to even consider asking them. On the short drive back to the Institute, waving at the guard on the gate, she felt nothing but sympathy for these children who were missing a past. She was missing a chunk of hers, too, after all.

  Any hesitation Robyn might have felt about probing into her children’s past was dispelled when her mobile rang just before class started. She usually turned it off. It was Mariam. ‘Hiya. Listen, I need to talk to you it’s urgent. Can I come down?’

  ‘Of course you can. I need to talk to you, too. I found o
ut some worrying things. I’ll have to ask if you can stay over.’

  ‘No, it’s okay, I can’t stay. I’m getting a lift down. You can meet Clive.’

  ‘Who’s Clive?’

  ‘Not like that. He’s in security. Laters.’

  She had just slipped the mobile into her bag when the kids started to arrive. They had been preparing to discuss semiotics in today’s session. Robyn had sent them off after yesterday’s class with a link to The Name of the Rose so they could watch it in what they called the ‘rumble room’, where they had a widescreen TV and home theatre setup.

  The class settled, Martin as usual coming in last and throwing her a disdainful glance. ‘So. Did you watch it?’ She could see from the eager looks they had, although Martin’s pout hadn’t changed. ‘Martin? You didn’t?’

  ‘I did. It was pants.’

  ‘It wasn’t Miss. It was awesome.’ Jenny Wilson, as always, keenest and most receptive, if perhaps a little needy.

  ‘I want to look at some of the themes in there, which you could perhaps dig deeper into by reading the book, because of course all films transcribe books rather than being faithful to the text, but in this case the text contains so many tricks, twists and pieces of legerdemain precisely because Eco is writing as a semiotician. The themes that fascinate him in the book are quite clear and explored at some length without losing the speed and thrust of the narrative, which is a remarkable achievement.’

  Simon Dillon’s hand up. ‘Simon.’

  ‘Semiotics is the science of signs and signals, right? It seems to wash up against Dawkin’s mimetics in some way.’

  Robyn grinned and clapped her hands. ‘Precisely, it does. Early theorists took it as a distinguishing human characteristic from animals, the ability to label our world and build complex layers of learning through building our understanding of the meaning of labels. If we understand a thing, concept or situation we can label it, perhaps with more labels as we distinguish its differing characteristics. For instance, ice, water and vapour describe the states of H20.’