Birdkill Read online

  ‘What about the dreams? You said they’d not been as bad.’

  ‘Patchy. I’m sort of used to the feeling of waking up with the remnants of something in my memory, but I haven’t had anything like that one when I called you. Mind, I had a funny one last night, can’t remember a thing but it woke me early this morning and I saw kids on the move from the research wing to their dorms.’

  Robyn sipped her wine, better this time, no memory of iron blood and the Ksara, of course it was Ksara, was warm and woody.

  ‘At five in the morning. They looked exhausted.’

  ‘You think they’d been up all night?’

  ‘Yes. But what they were doing, I’ve got no idea. I thought of sneaking out, but there are cameras all over the place. I got a sort of warning for having you over. It’s all a bit confusing. But I’ve got a class starting next week, so I’ll find out more I reckon.’

  Mariam refilled Robyn’s glass. ‘Mysterious, alright. I better order. Hang on.’ She shuffled in the kitchen drawer and pulled out a menu. ‘Here we go. What do you fancy?’

  ‘I’m easy.’ Robyn pored over the pen-marked menu. ‘Chicken and cashew. Sweet and sour pork. Beef in oyster. Shit, let’s go crazy. The Szechuan prawns.’

  ‘Stir fried rice. Prawn crackers. Spare ribs.’ Mariam splashed wine into her own glass with a swagger. ‘Drums of heaven!’

  Robyn giggled. ‘Crispy chili beef. Oh, God, we’ll be bouncing off the walls, MSG overload.’

  Super-hero Mariam lunged for the phone. ‘Let’s do this.’

  They used kitchen trays to bring the warm plastic punnets of food into the living room, loading up from them onto the plates they’d heated in the oven, then holding them on cushions as they sat on the sofa and watched shit TV. They ate the lot, slowing until they just picked and plucked the last remains of primary-coloured gloopy sauces and bits of meat from the containers. Robyn moaned, holding her tummy. ‘Christ, I’ve become morbidly obese.’

  Mariam leaned down to dump her rainbow-smeared plate onto the floor, her glass of wine balanced in her left hand. They were on the second bottle. Grains of rice stuck to the plate. Four antagonistically inclined people on the box were eating dinner and arguing about which was the biggest dick. Robyn reckoned it was the guy in the bow tie, Mariam thought it was the lesbian Turkish personal trainer.

  In the end, they agreed that it really didn’t matter a flying fuck anyway.

  Back in the kitchen, dumping empty food containers into a black plastic bag and opening a third bottle of wine, they were both too tired and giggly. Robyn washed the wine around in her mouth, feeling guilty at the sheer amount of rubbish they’d just eaten.

  ‘I need a glass of water.’

  Mariam waved a finger in her face. ‘Don’t drink water. Fish fuck in it.’

  Robyn paused by the tap, watching the water sluice onto the aluminium and curl around the drain on its way to the sea to evaporate and form clouds. The perennial cycle, the dance of atoms as they coalesced and broke apart. It was hypnotic. She wanted to reach out and break the pattern with her finger but fear stopped her, fear of disrupting something so ordered.

  ‘Robyn?’

  She jumped, startled out of her reverie. Mariam’s face was concerned. Robyn smiled, pushed her glass under the tap and turned it off. ‘Just got lost for a second.’

  ‘Don’t. You might not come back one day.’

  ‘You know the dreams? What if they’re memory trying to come through? What if something so appalling happened that my mind has shut it down? All anyone will tell me is I was airlifted out of Lebanon after an explosion.’

  Mariam took her hand and led her through to the living room. She sat, Mariam opposite her on the sofa, her frank face worried and her regard directly on Robyn. ‘I have friends. Family. I can ask around in Zahlé. I told you that. I thought the dreams weren’t so frequent these days?’

  ‘They’re not. But when they come they’re more, oh I don’t know, vicious. Real. Not that I remember anything of them, just that the sort of aftershock is becoming so debilitating now. I’m scared there’s something hidden deep inside me and one day it’ll break through.’

  ‘Do you want me to? Ask?’

  Robyn cupped her glass in her hands. She glanced up at Mariam. ‘I’m not sure what I’d have done without you. You know that?’

  ‘Stop it, you’re killing me.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  Robyn sipped her wine. ‘No. No I don’t. Not for now at least.’

  She hated herself for that, because of course she did. Fear made her lie and that, surely, was as neat a display of what cowardice was. Tears welled up and Robyn fought to keep her face from crumpling, her throat aching. Mariam’s arms were around her. ‘It’s okay, babe. It’s okay.’

  Turning off the main road into the Hamilton Institute’s gateway, Robyn was surprised to find a security guard in a black uniform barring her way. He wore a gilet and carried a clipboard. He peered at her number plate and made a note before walking around to her window. She opened it.

  ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’

  ‘I’m a member of staff here.’ She tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  ‘Can I see some ID perhaps? Sorry for the inconvenience, but we’re having to be extra careful.’

  She rooted in her handbag. ‘Why?’

  ‘Sorry ma’am?’

  ‘Why are we having to be extra careful? Is there some problem?’ She handed over her driving licence.

  ‘You’ll have to ask Mr Hamilton,’ He riffled through the sheets of paper on his clipboard. ‘Ms Shaw. Actually, I have a note here says he’d like to see you as soon as you return. You’ll know your way to his office.’ He handed back her card.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Good day, ma’am.’

  Robyn parked up and strode across to reception without bothering to take her backpack from the car. The drive had taken it out of her this time and she felt queasy. She had woken just before ten with the hangover from hell and staggered across the hallway to bang on Mariam’s door, only to be rewarded with a croaked ‘Fuck off.’ They’d managed a bacon butty and a mug of coffee by the TV and hadn’t budged until Robyn had peeled herself off the sofa to start the drive back.

  ‘Stay tonight. We can do dinner down at the Sampson.’

  The Sampson was a gastro-pub around the corner from Frank’s place run by a ferocious Pole and his Estonian boyfriend.

  ‘I’d love to, but I’d best get back. I still haven’t really got my head around how I’m going to teach a room full of super-smart kids next week. And if I don’t go now, I’ll stay on that damn sofa all day.’

  She knocked on Hamilton’s study door. ‘Come.’

  He was standing by the window and must have watched her walk across the car park. ‘Ms Shaw, by the grace of God. Do take a seat. Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘London.’ She stayed on her feet. Something in his tone irked her. ‘What’s with the security?’

  ‘We have had to add a layer of security, just a precaution.’

  ‘Yes, but why?’

  Hamilton was clearly unused to being questioned and his eyebrow twitched. ‘Because I considered it desirable. And I would also consider it desirable for you to please inform Heather or Simon Archer should you decide to take off on overnight jaunts.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but what? I’ll go where I damn well please.’

  Hamilton paled, his raised finger trembling. ‘Not while you are employed by this institution and are living under our roof. You have a responsibility for the safety and security of the children under our care and I, for one, don’t want to have to waste valuable time looking for missing members of staff if we should have any untoward incident take place here. Do you understand me?’

  Robyn’s hands were clenched tight and she wanted to strike out at the officious old bastard. It was too much. She was tired and strung out and had opened he
r mouth to tell him to stuff his job when Simon Archer burst in.

  ‘I thought I heard shouting. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Ms Shaw seems to think letting us know when she’s going to be off-campus is too much of a burden for her freedom of movement.’

  Archer turned to her. ‘Sorry, Robyn. It’s just so we have a headcount. Even the research staff just let us know if they’re going to be out. Heather should have explained.’

  She closed her mouth. Archer’s kind reasonableness made her feel churlish. She turned on her heel and fled. He caught up with her in the car park. ‘Robyn!’

  She whirled around. He touched her arm and she wanted to hit his hand away. ‘Robyn, is everything okay?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. I don’t appreciate being hauled into the headmaster’s office for going to see a friend.’

  ‘I explained that. It’s just a normal precaution because we’re running a boarding school. Nobody’s asking where you’re going or what you’re doing, just that you let us know you’re going to be out overnight. If there’s a fire or something we need to be sure everyone’s accounted for. It’s not unreasonable, is it?’

  She breathed deeply. ‘No, no it’s not. I guess it was just his tone. Look, I’m sorry. I just need to get some rest.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure. Thanks, Simon.’

  ‘He’s a good guy, Robyn. He’s doing some ground breaking work here. He can be a little crusty, but he means well.’

  She pulled her backpack out of the car feeling like a complete shit. When she got to her apartment, she dumped it on the cushioned seat by the fire and walked around, slowly taking in the subtle changes to the place she’d left. The moved clock, the slightly different spacing of the hangers in her cupboard. Finally, she stood in the living room and tried not to cry, to somehow process it all. She didn’t know who to turn to.

  There was no doubt. Her apartment had been searched while she was away in London.

  The waves pounded the long white strand, sending up a haze towards the heavy sky with its threat of storms to come. Robyn walked along the firm surface, the bite of briny air stinging her face, her hair caught by the breeze flying inland from the grey swell. She had slept badly and woken late, studied awhile and then grabbed her coat and struck out to walk the fear and suspicion out of her system.

  There was a headland on the other side of the inlet ahead of her, the downs rising aside it to tumble into the woodland that cosseted the Hamilton Institute. She wished she had a dog to throw sticks for.

  The tower drew her. It was round, maybe three or four stories high, its whiteness dazzling as the cloud parted and a beam of sunshine fell on it, lighting up the sward around. The waves battered the chalk cliffs below, throwing up great flumes of spray. She decided to walk out to it, but the beach only lasted as far as the stream at the head of the inlet. Beyond it was just cliff-face, a vertical ribbon rising quickly out of the wooded slope to loom above the turbulent waters. The path by the stream turned away from the cliffs towards the woodland, she could see no bridge or other crossing of the stream and it was too deep for her wellies.

  She turned back reluctantly and made her way back along the beach, turning now and then to glance back at the tower.

  SEVEN

  When Secrets Have Names

  Standing in his office, his back to a Clockwork Orange film poster, Alan Kingsthorpe made the introductions. ‘Mariam Shadid is the journalist with 3shoof heading up our team on this. Mariam, this is Brian Kelly from the Guardian and Matt Duprez from the Telegraph. We’ve arranged a work room for this project on the second floor and we’ve installed a highly secure server you’ll all be linked to in order to share files and information. There’s no Wi-Fi or mobile data access, the room’s covered by a damper. There’s one machine in there hooked up to a wired Internet connection but it’s not linked to the server. The files have been decompressed and now the only copy of them resides on that machine. Clearly we would ask no copies of data be circulated outside our three organisations for now. We think that is as about as secure as we can get, if that suits everyone?’

  Brian Kelly nodded, Duprez stuck his thumbs up. Kingsthorpe beamed. ‘Let’s get to it, then!’

  Mariam led the way downstairs and into the ‘safe room’. Kelly was nervous, a small balding man with great, baggy beagle eyes and pudgy hands that were constantly mobile. He had a beard, a strange patchy effort that looked like someone had sprayed glue on his chin and shoved his head into a bucket of hair clippings.

  Duprez was American, hard-bitten and handsome. Mariam had noticed he deferred constantly to Kelly, which surprised her. Duprez fit her idea of a serious international journalist more than the slightly camp, fastidious Kelly. She showed them the two desks and Duprez waited for Kelly to make his choice. ‘There’s tea and coffee making stuff over on the back wall there.’

  ‘That’s a start,’ Duprez dumped his laptop bag on his chair. ‘Coffee, Brian?’

  ‘Two sugars, black.’

  ‘Mariam?’

  ‘I’m good, had one already.’

  Duprez busied himself at the table with its kettle and little stack of supplies. Kelly sat down and pulled his computer open. ‘Shit. No Wi-Fi. Where’s the Internet machine?’

  Mariam pointed out a black Lenovo machine, a yellow cable sneaking from a port on its rear. ‘There it be.’

  ‘Shadid, isn’t it? You’re not British, are you?’

  ‘Damn, you’re sharp. No, I’m Lebanese.’

  ‘You speak English very well, darling.’ Kelly, looked around him, grimacing. ‘You chaps planning on being hit by the CIA or something?’ His tone made it clear he thought their precautions over the top.

  Mariam smiled. ‘Take a look at what’s on there and then you tell me.’

  ‘Fair enough, Mariam,’ Kelly’s eyes twinkled and she found herself both liking him and hating him and perhaps finding him just a little bit scary. There was something about him that made her feel he knew more about her than she’d care to make public.

  Duprez returned with two steaming mugs and they settled down to look through the files on the machine. Mariam wiggled herself into a comfortable position and proceeded to do the same. The first thing she did was search the archive for ‘Hamilton’. It was too early to put in a call to Zahlé, but she could make a start here. She’d already looked the name up in the 3shoof main database, but nothing had come up except a load of dirty washing about Tories and cash for questions.

  Now she did get a rash of positive results, all from folder fifteen. She opened the folder and started to read. Engrossed, she didn’t hear her name mentioned and was jarred into the here and now by a well-aimed ball of paper which hit her on the head. She tore her regard away from the screen, brows knitted in frustration to find Kelly and Duprez both staring at her.

  ‘Have you gone fucking deaf, love?’ Kelly was incredulous.

  ‘Don’t call me fucking love for a start. What is it?’

  ‘We reckon the best way to approach this lot is to split it up between us, one two three, like that. Would you agree?’

  ‘Sure. As long as I get fifteen.’

  Duprez cocked his head. ‘Why fifteen?’

  ‘It’s an abandoned battlefield drugs program. And a friend of mine works for the man behind it.’

  ‘Juicy,’ Kelly smiled and it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Fair enough. Let us know if you need any help with it.’

  Mariam smiled back at him. ‘Of course,’ which was, she reflected, sort of Arabic for ‘no way in hell and fuck your mother.’

  Three hours later, Mariam strode upstairs, taking the steps two at a time on her way up to see Alan Kingsthorpe. She knocked on his office door and barged straight in.

  ‘What you want, squirt?’

  ‘I’ve hit gold big time. The archive. Folder fifteen is about an abandoned battlefield drugs programme called Odin. It’s massive and I know who the man who was behind the programme is. A f
riend of mine works for him right now.’

  Kingsthorpe tapped his pen against his chin. ‘Is that so? What’s a battlefield drug when it’s at home?’

  ‘The idea is augmentation. Make soldiers stronger, fiercer, fight longer. Be less concerned about danger. All that. LSD and MDMA were both the result of this kind of research. Military loves supermen.’

  He was laughing, paddling the air to slow her. ‘Hang fire a second, Jesus. LSD I get, what the hell is MDMA?’

  ‘Ecstasy. It was investigated as a drug for enhancing military performance because of the energy it released.’

  ‘Nice. I can see that. Soldiers full of energy running at the enemy for a hug.’

  She sniggered. ‘Fine, but Odin was supposed to be the ultimate drug. A single dose would turn men into ruthless, lean, mean fighting machines. The programme was abandoned suddenly and I can’t find a reason why. It looks like there was a massive cover-up but every trail I can find is dead.’

  ‘Who’s this chap you say is behind it?’

  ‘His name’s Lawrence Hamilton and he’s running a boarding school cum research institute for gifted children. My friend’s just taken up a job as a teacher there.’

  ‘Research into what?’

  Mariam delivered her payoff line appropriately smugly. ‘Augmentation. Making the gifted more gifted, like he tried to make the deadly deadlier. I want to follow this one up, Alan. This is the biggie.’

  ‘Okay, fair do’s. It sounds interesting and you’ve certainly got an ‘in’ there. How are Kelly and Duprez doing?’

  ‘They’re pretty staggered by the whole thing. They keep whistling and huddling together like naughty schoolboys. I think they’re plotting to scoop us.’