Birdkill Read online

  ‘It could have been anything.’

  He stared at her. A car headlight flashed across him and lit the darting, intelligent green eyes and drawn features. ‘Yeah, like you kill someone and the cops come round and you just assume it’s about your neighbour’s noisy dog? Like that?’

  Mariam sighed. ‘Come on. Let’s get you away safe.’

  She turned away from the bridge and he walked with her, carrying a sports rucksack on his back. ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘To the Hilton.’

  For the first time, Mariam heard Buddy laugh. It was a wet little sound, a wheezy chuckle that reminded her of Dick Dastardly’s dog, Mutt. No, not Mutt. She fought to remember the name of the cartoon character, distracting herself with it as she glanced around for anybody she could possibly interpret as suspicious or overly interested in them. Anyone looking at them would probably wonder at the odd couple. Mariam knew she was an attractive young woman; God knows she’d been told often enough. And Buddy was hardly the catch of a lifetime.

  Mutley! she triumphed as she opened the car door for him. He sounded like Mutley.

  FIVE

  A meeting of staff

  Robyn woke up with a start, a moan on her lips. She flung out her left hand and it slapped painfully on the cold wooden bedroom floor. She slept naked and she was naked now, the vestiges of another dream leaving her with a sense of horror and desperation. Her right hand was busy and, realising, she stilled and closed her legs. She curled up on her side and gazed at the floorboards shining into perspective, little motes of dust on the varnished surface, a spring of hair.

  The waves rose up. Pressing her legs tightly together, she was suffused in warmth, gasping in the moment. Her heart hammered in her chest and she started to cry, helpless tears to fill the Void as she lay, hunched and foetal.

  A seeming lifetime later, she picked herself off the floor. She was washing her hands when the phone rang. She dried and went through to pick up the handset. It was Heather.

  ‘Good morning, how are you?’

  Robyn brushed her hair behind her ear. ‘Fine, thanks, Heather. How about you?’

  ‘Glorious, dear heart. Listen, would you be up for a meeting with our head of staff, Simon Archer? Perhaps at ten?’

  She glanced at her little bedside clock. ‘No problem.’ It was eight. ‘Will I come down to reception?’

  ‘I’ll see you there.’

  The dream eluded her, the enduring sense of dread and the force unleashed by her involuntary act on the floor disturbed her deeply. Robyn tossed the handset onto her unmade bed and went to shower her shame away.

  The doorbell of her hotel room rang and Mariam checked in the spy glass before opening it to Alan Kingsthorpe. ‘Good morning, intrepid sleuth and super-hack.’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t even start.’ She closed the door behind him. ‘I’ve had the night from hell.’

  ‘Our guest all settled, is he? I take it you selected this establishment to subtly punish Adel’s wallet?’

  ‘Our guest is a pain in the ass and yes, I did, actually. It’s quite nice. It’s a two bed suite, so I didn’t have to take the sofa.’

  Kingsthorpe glanced around the glittering silvered surfaces and grey furnishings in the opulent room. ‘Quite. Where is he?’

  ‘Showering. Which must be the first time in a year. Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘No. I came straight here as soon as I got the message. Sorry I missed it last night, it was on silent.’

  Mariam lifted the telephone handset from the sideboard. ‘Hi, could I get three continental breakfasts? With coffee? Thanks.’ She grinned at Kingsthorpe. ‘Breakfast at the Hilton. Woohoo.’

  ‘So what’s the problem with Buddy?’

  ‘You’ll find out. He’s not happy. And nothing’s going to make him happy.’

  ‘He’s free and alive, isn’t that a bonus?’

  ‘Not for Buddy. How’s Adel?’

  ‘Your employer has struck a deal with the Guardian and the Telegraph. We will share product and pool stories, subject only to your little trove being as dynamite as you assured him last night. We’ll need to dickey up some samples for him as soon as. He’s with Iain Carmichael now assessing our legal position.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘If we knew that, dear girl, we wouldn’t be pressing silver into Iain’s rapacious palm, now would we?’

  The bedroom door opened and Buddy stumbled out barefoot, towelling his lank hair. He wore a water-splashed Mickey Mouse t-shirt and tatty jeans. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Food’s on the way.’

  He paused, blinking at Kingsthorpe. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Alan, meet Buddy. Buddy, this is Alan Kingsthorpe. He’s 3shoof’s editorial director.’

  Buddy shook hands, his head to one side sizing Kingsthorpe up, his face wary. He reminded Mariam of a wild animal, always jumpy and watchful.

  Kingsthorpe sat at the table. ‘I’d like to ask you some questions, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  Buddy threw his towel on the sofa and shrugged. ‘Sure.’ He pulled up a chair, staring suspiciously at Kingsthorpe’s mobile on the table. ‘You’re recording.’

  ‘Of course. First question, can you please confirm your full name and age?’

  ‘I’m Buddy Kovak, 23, from Baltimore. I’m currently serving in a US army signals intelligence unit.’

  ‘May I ask which unit?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you the provider of the information shared with our reporter Mariam Shadid?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Could you confirm that information consists of twenty-four folders detailing US military procurement, ELINT, experimental weapons and CIA-driven regime change programmes in the Middle East.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Can I ask where you came by this information?’

  ‘Some of it sort of came across my desk. Some was drill-down into stuff that seemed wacky or different in the material I was handling. It’s mostly hacked out of networks I got access to, maybe at a different clearance level.’

  ‘So some of this material you were not cleared to handle?’

  Buddy barked a laugh. ‘I wasn’t cleared to handle none of that shit.’

  The doorbell rang and Mariam leapt to the spyhole, pulling open the door to let the waitress push a trolley into the room. She signed off the bill and saw the waitress out of the room.

  ‘Breakfast.’

  Kingsthorpe switched off the recorder app on his mobile. Mariam handed out cups and plates, covered baskets of pastries. Buddy acted as if he hadn’t eaten in a week, eating with a focused intensity that had Mariam asking, ‘You starving or something?’

  ‘Something you learn in the army. You eat what you can when you can.’

  Which, she managed not to say out loud, judging from his skinny frame, wasn’t very often, then.

  Heather came out from behind the reception desk and hugged Robyn. She was wearing a blue cardigan, a lime blouse and a long burgundy skirt. ‘You look a million dollars. The country air’s put a glow in your cheeks.’

  ‘That’s probably just the cold.’ Robyn laughed.

  ‘Simon’s ready to meet you. I’ll take you up. You up for drinks tomorrow night? We usually meet at the Sloop around the seven o’clock mark. The staff, I mean.’

  ‘Sure. But isn’t Thursday a school night?’

  Heather was taken aback for a second, then laughed. ‘Oh, I’m sure Simon will tell you all about that. We usually grab a bite down there, the food’s good and they change the chalks every week.’

  ‘Chalks?’

  ‘Yes, the board thingy they put the guest beers and daily menus on.’ Heather gave her an odd look. ‘Come on, I’ll take you up to Simon.’

  Robyn followed her up the carpeted staircase, noting her brown brogues. Heather was really writing her own fashion rulebook. She knocked on the wood-panelled door, opened it and stood aside for Robyn to brush past into Archer’s study.


  He was standing at the bookshelf covering the back wall of the study. He slipped a volume back and paced over to her, his hand out. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning.’ She had the feeling he’d been posing for effect. In his late thirties, Archer’s frame was slight, tortoiseshell spectacles on a freckled snub nose, a square jaw. He dressed older than his age. They had last met at her interview in London, in the grandeur of a meeting room in the Berkeley. ‘Have a seat. Can we offer you a coffee or something?’

  ‘Coffee would be smashing, actually.’

  ‘How do you take it?’

  ‘White, no sugar.’

  He wandered over to behind a filing cabinet and she saw him clicking on a kettle perched on a side table. Her heart sank. Instant coffee was one of the reasons people killed themselves. The kettle had clearly been boiled shortly before because it clicked off quite quickly. She listened to the gush of the hot water and assorted clinking before he emerged, a сafetière and two cups in hand. He put her cup alongside her on desk, taking his own and the сafetière behind the desk with him. He pressed the plunger with concentration, his tongue sticking out between his lips. He looked up and laughed at her examination of him. ‘If you press too hard it explodes. You have to let the coffee rest a while to get the best out of it. I hope you weren’t expecting instant.’

  ‘No, no, this is totally what the doctor ordered.’

  He poured her coffee, then his. He raised his cup in a toast. ‘To new beginnings, then, Robyn.’

  ‘New beginnings,’ she smiled.

  ‘We’ll save the real toasts for tomorrow night. Heather told you about staff drinks?’

  ‘Yes, sounds great. I met David Thorpe briefly yesterday, but other than him and Heather, I don’t know anyone else.’

  ‘Well, there’s only really Emily Gray and the music teacher, Lorraine, you haven’t met.’

  She tried her luck at testing Hamilton’s assertion there was absolutely no fraternisation between the research and teaching staffs. ‘Oh. Do the research staff not join us?’

  Archer looked as if she had just enquired after the health of a dead relative. ‘We don’t really, well, talk to each other. It’s not encouraged, you see. They do their jobs, we do ours and the general consensus is we’re both better off not influencing the other.’

  ‘I see.’ Robyn made sure it was clear she didn’t. ‘It seems odd to meet for drinks on a Thursday. Most schools I’ve been to; they wait until the end of the week.’

  ‘Oh. Right. I would have thought Lawrence would have explained that to you as well. We have a four-day week here. You get to spend Friday planning your lessons. We often have an informal staff meeting in the afternoon to share any issues or ensure we’re co-ordinating properly. That’s on top of the Monday co-ordination meeting, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He glanced up at her to see if she was laughing at him and smiled thinly. ‘It works well; you’re not going to be teaching a primary or even secondary curriculum. Most of the kids are at university level, some are capable of taking a decent Master’s. But their emotional development is very mixed indeed. You’ll be dealing with kids who have an adult’s learning with a child’s experience. Believe me, you’ll need the planning time.’

  She took that in. It seemed pretty incredible, given some of the kids she’d seen were no older than six or eight. She didn’t want to press the point and seem as if she were questioning his professionalism at this early stage. Robyn was settling nicely and this wasn’t a time to go upsetting apple carts. ‘So what do the kids do on Friday?’

  ‘Lawrence and the research team spend the evening with them Thursday. They often work on Friday, too, depending on the programme element they’re focusing on.’

  ‘And what programme elements are they focusing on?’

  ‘I think Lawrence explained that, didn’t he?’

  ‘Well, he explained he was working on a programme that aimed to unearth the potential of intellectually gifted kids.’

  ‘Intellectually gifted doesn’t do them justice. Most of them are true savants and none of them is an idiot. Lawrence is attempting to understand that potential properly, to try and augment it, harness it. He’s making extraordinary progress, too.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Ah, that you’ll have to ask him. Now, shall we take a look at your planning goals?’

  ‘Sure. I’ve had a quick think about how to approach this.’

  Archer sat back, his boyish features open and engaged. ‘Super. Let’s hear it.’

  They sat for three hours and four сafetières of coffee, talking over her English lessons. Her head was buzzing as much with caffeine as the result of their discussion. A highly informal approach, very interactive. Start with assessments, look at some appropriate texts and introduce critical analysis and perhaps form some views of narrative and dialectic. Week two, they could start to build on that.

  She liked Archer, but found him evasive every time they started to steer towards the Institute’s research work or the kids’ relationships with the research staff. It reminded her of the strangers’ warren in Watership Down. Don’t talk about the snares, you sleek rabbits.

  Finally, they both sat back, snapping shut notebook lids. ‘Done. You can work on the granularity of it all tomorrow so you’re well prepared for Monday. I think you’re going to have a blast.’

  ‘It’s a little daunting. And they’re clearly going to start by making points and trying to trip me up.’

  ‘And you’re not going to get drawn into that. You’ll be fine. If you have any questions, just call me. Heather should have given you an extension list, if not ask her when you go down through reception. In the meantime, I look forward to having a drink tomorrow night.’

  Later, back in her apartment, she sipped the last of her merlot and resolved to go into town and stock up on supplies Friday. She replayed her memories of Simon Archer and was a little perplexed to realise he’d managed to get under her skin. Damn that boyish charm and that little streak of raffishness in him.

  Lawrence Hamilton hated the trips to London, his usual room at the Berkeley and his club notwithstanding. The train always lulled him and put him into a sitting sleep from which he would invariably wake in an uncomfortable position with his muscles moaning. This time he’d drooled onto his lapel and woken to find the woman sitting opposite smiling at him pityingly with what she clearly thought was kindness and looked more like dyspepsia. He thought better of wishing her to go to hell just in time to stop himself vocalising the sentiment, but his face had clearly betrayed him and she glanced away to study the countryside. Rather pointedly, if anything.

  The taxi from the station to the Institute was cold, the cabbie indifferent.

  Simon Archer was standing in reception talking to Heather when Hamilton came in out of the darkness and drizzle. ‘What are you two jabbering about? No work to do?’

  Archer turned at the sound of his voice. ‘I see you had a pleasant stay in London, Lawrence.’

  ‘I did not.’

  Archer followed Hamilton into his study, closing the door behind him. Hamilton hurled his beige Crombie at the armchair and dropped his attaché case. ‘Sherry?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Hamilton poured pale sherry into the small glasses, handing one to Archer, who didn’t much care for sherry but was too polite to say so. ‘So how did it go? With Raynesford?’

  ‘A rubber stamp. The man is simply gross. We’re going to get our funding, but the Shaw girl is a huge problem to them.’

  ‘Why? She’s fine, settling in nicely. She’ll be a good teacher.’

  ‘If she remembers…’

  ‘She doesn’t. She’s starting afresh and we’re going to help and support her.’

  Hamilton raised his sherry glass, index finger accusing. ‘Keep your eye on her. The slightest sign she’s experiencing any awakening, any return to her trauma, you let me know.’

  ‘Fine.’ Archer drained his drink and wi
ggled the glass at Hamilton. ‘Thanks. I’ll be getting off.’

  Archer heaved at the door. He turned. Hamilton was peering into his empty glass, his shoulders slumped. The whisper sounded like ‘Murderous bastards’ but Archer didn’t quite catch it.

  Archer propped himself against the doorframe. ‘I’m sorry?’

  Hamilton looked lost for a second. He snapped a tight smile. ‘Nothing. Nothing.’

  Robyn slept like an angel, waking with a smile to the wash of sunlight escaping around the edges of the heavy curtains. Her pillow clutched to her cheek smelled of her, of sleep and linen. She stretched luxuriantly, revelling in a clean morning and a day to herself, to organise her work and ensure everything was in line for Sunday.

  She lay looking at the ceiling, wondered if she might perhaps go up to London. Would Mariam be free for dinner, maybe? She felt free and giddily optimistic. There was no vestige of dread in her mind, no dream memory eluding her.

  A shower. Coffee. The world was her oyster.

  Lawrence Hamilton took his coffee black and with brown sugar. It was his habit to drink it from a Swedish rustic patterned cup his wife had gifted him during their last Baltic cruise. He had lit the fire in his study which Mrs Moyes the housekeeper kindly had made for him and now it burned merrily. He paused in his note-taking, pen to lip, listening to the fire’s crackle and the rich assonance of time passing from the carriage clock. The day was clear, a cobalt sky above the trees, white rime on branches.

  The phone’s high pitched chirping made him jump. He would dearly have liked phones still to ring rather than sound like tiny cars skidding. He lifted the handset as if it were something distasteful.

  ‘Larry. It’s Bill.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘We have a problem. It seems as if Parker’s people have a whistleblower. They’re dealing with it, but we should batten down the hatches and be on our guard. It would be best if someone filtered any calls and you’ll need to tighten security.’