The Adjacent Part 20

Another piece of blown debris slammed heavily on the roof and they both reacted as if something had physically burst into the room. Moments later a large branch skidded down past the window, half fell against the nearest metal strap and crashed into the yard outside. Tarent knew he was talking too much, as if some barrier inside had loosened. He concentrated on finis.h.i.+ng the soup, which was cool now. Lou sat beside him, saying little. He kept thinking about Melanie, already a victim of this final war.

Later that day, as the winds at last started to abate, he began to feel as if he was regaining control of himself. Lou had returned to her own room. He looked at more of his pictures from Anatolia, but they depressed him. He could not carry on with that for long. He went online, searching for news channels or sites, but the government controls on the internet were as strict as those he had encountered abroad. All sites, channels and platforms were now graded according to security levels the security clearance Tarent had been given for his journey abroad did not apply to the internet, and he had lost internet status when he went abroad. Almost nothing was accessible to him now. He went to find Lou, knowing he was becoming dependent on her, which was wrong, but needing to talk, which was essential. He felt guilty about that, but there was little he could do about it. She was all he had. His mind was starting to feel cluttered again.

As soon as she let him into her room he was overtaken by an irresistible desire to sleep. She let him lie down on her bed.

He woke up many hours later. There was the sound of wind, but it was quieter now. Lights were on in Lou's room and there was a smell of cooking. The door to the bathroom was open, but the light was off in there. The windows to the outside were blackened by night. Lou was on the far side of the room, seated with her legs drawn up in one of the chairs. She had a book on her lap, but her head was bent forward in sleep. Disoriented by this strange awakening, it took him a few minutes to leave the bed. He woke Lou gently, led her to the bed, made sure she was lying down.

He stayed with her for a while but soon returned to his own room. They were living in different time zones. He was wide awake. He showered, shaved and put on clean clothes, then tidied up the mess he had helped create in the room while he was ill.

The worst of his fears had receded again he felt that he could remember them objectively but whenever he isolated one of the matters that had tormented him, brought it forward so that he could think about it properly, he found it unintelligible.

Later in the day Lou returned to him. He was pleased to see her. They embraced when she came to his door. She brought some food and a small bottle of red wine. She said that the vending machine had been replenished somehow, so there was more choice available at present.

'Lou, you told me you lived in Notting Hill,' he said. 'You said your whole life was there.'

'I lived in Notting Hill for many years. The last school I worked for was there. But then came the attack on May 10. My life there is over now.'

'Did you have friends in Notting Hill?'

'Some. The only one who really mattered was my partner. He was in our apartment on that day.'

'So have you been able to find out what happened to him?'

She opened her hands wide, despairingly. 'No one knows that. Everything in the area was totally obliterated. At first I couldn't see how he could have escaped, but no bodies were found after the blast. In some ways it might have been better if there had been, better to know the worst. I was already here at Warne's Farm when it happened and at first it was impossible trying to find out the truth. In one sense that's even harder now, because so many of the TV channels have closed, but people pa.s.s through here all the time, so I've been able to find out more from them.'

'You've been in this place since May?'

'I arrived at the end of April. I was about to take up an appointment at a government school in Lincoln when the attack came. Everything went into paralysis straight away, so I hung on, thinking that's what I should do, what anyone in the same position would do. I kept trying to contact Dumaka that's my partner's name. I clung to the hope he might have been away from the apartment at the time, but I realize now it was almost certain he wasn't. He didn't have many friends in Britain, but the ones I could contact knew as little as I did. I soon realized he must have been caught up in it.'

'Can you tell me about him? About Dumaka?'

'He's a refugee from Nigeria he's what some of the staff at the Home Office call an illegal. They wouldn't grant him permission to stay, and he absconded. At first I was frightened to ask about him, after May 10, because I knew that if he was still alive and they traced him they would deport him. You know what the rules are like now. He's been in Britain for nearly fifteen years but that wouldn't change anything. He came here with his brother but his brother has a visa, so he isn't at risk I met Dumaka when he came to the school to talk about his work. He makes jewellery, beautiful, delicate pieces, and at the time he had exhibited some work in London. For the sake of staying out of sight he always had to work under his brother's name, but the brother didn't like that and neither did Dumaka. They hardly speak to each other now. The longer Dumaka stayed here the safer he felt, but I knew it wasn't the case. Anyway, we moved in with each other after we met. We were happy together for a year or two, but then things started going wrong. I don't mean between us. The collapse of the euro-pound meant no one was buying jewellery any more and then I lost my job at the school. You know the population of London has been declining for years? They closed several of our cla.s.srooms because of the fall in student numbers and I was one of the teachers they made redundant. That's why I started working for the government. It meant leaving Dumaka, but the idea was that it would be only temporary, a few weeks at most. As soon as I was settled in a secure position he was intending to follow me.'

She had turned her face away from him as she spoke. Her hands were clasped together again Tarent could see the tension in her arm muscles. A tear had appeared on the curve of her chin. She brushed her hand over it. Tarent felt sad, and a realization of his selfishness swept over him. He had been so wrapped up in his own troubles that he had never wondered about this woman's life, what it was like, or what it had been like.

She took off her half-moon spectacles and wiped them with a tissue.

'You said you went through Notting Hill,' she said.

'Well, I told you I couldn't see-'

'Tell me again. It's the most important thing in my life.'

'There's hardly anything. I was in a car and there were OOR officials with me. I think part of what they were doing was making sure that either I didn't see much, or didn't ask too many questions. They blacked the windows so we couldn't see out, but at one point they were worried about a storm coming in. They made the windows transparent again so they could look at the clouds building up, and I could see outside. It was just a few seconds.'

'Where were you? What did you see?'

'I only know it was somewhere in west London because they were talking about that. But my wife had just been killed, I had been travelling for days, I hadn't had much sleep and I was disoriented. I had no idea where I really was.'

'But you saw something.'

'No I saw almost literally nothing. It was all black outside.'

'Was it night-time?'

'No, it was coming up to the evening. There was still daylight.'

'So what did you see that was black?'

'Just, everything. I didn't know what I was seeing, so I had no reference points. You can imagine I was in a car with the windows darkened, then they were lightened and everything I saw was black. Almost immediately the officials darkened the gla.s.s again.'

'Did you see if it had made a triangle, as they say?'

'I don't know. I couldn't see. I'm really sorry. I'd tell you more if I knew more.'

'I've heard it was an adjacency weapon. That was what killed your wife too, wasn't it?'

'Yes,' said Tarent. 'Melanie too.'

3.

They went together to the vending machine, but before they used it Lou pointed out that the canteen further down the same corridor had re-opened. There were a surprising number of people there surprising to Tarent because he had begun to a.s.sume that they were more or less alone at Warne's Farm. He realized there must be a quota of workers still in residence. Heavy rain was falling outside but the wind was no longer a destructive force. Lou acknowledged a few of the people as they pa.s.sed, but she made no effort to introduce Tarent to any of them. He noticed the Frenchman he had met when he first arrived: Bertrand Lepuits. He seemed not to recognize Tarent, and glanced away as soon as their eyes met.

The canteen kitchen had prepared some basic hot food: a choice between a meat stew or vegetarian pasta Tarent took the stew, Lou the pasta. There was no charge, but they were asked to pay for drinks. Tarent had no cash so Lou paid for them both.

When they went back to the residential block afterwards, the familiar feeling of isolation returned: the other people they had seen were presumably housed in the same sort of self-contained quarters, or worked in the other buildings. In the long, silent corridors of the residential block there was no sense of other people being around.

They spoke in the corridor briefly, but then Lou returned to her own room. Tarent went to his. She said she would look in later.

For a while he stared out at the debris that had gathered in the quadrangle, but even as he stood there at his window workmen in tractors began to clear the ground. The largest branches were moved away in one direction, everything else was lugged towards some sort of collection point beyond the buildings.

His view across the inner quadrangle was angled differently from the one at the window next to the vending machine, from which he had observed the helicopters landing. When was that? Two nights ago, or three? He had genuinely lost all sense of time. From his room the helicopter pad was partly hidden beyond one of the other buildings he could see a pylon which carried floodlights for night landings, and a small section of the raised concrete platform that was the pad itself, but most of it was out of sight. If there was a chopper on the pad at that moment he would not have been able to tell.

He had, though, a clear view of the building across the quad from the helipad, the one to which he had seen the people wheeled on trolleys. This was a modern construction, inst.i.tutional in appearance, single-storey, brutally made of concrete, an immense semi-cylindrical building, apparently designed to withstand the storm winds. It was not fenced off or placed behind barriers, but armed guards were pacing slowly to and fro in front of the only entrance that could be seen from where Tarent was standing.

As far as he knew there had been no flights in or out of the Warne complex since the storm broke, so presumably those people were still inside the building. It looked like it could be a clinic, or perhaps a small emergency hospital, but there was nothing outside to indicate its purpose. Tarent realized it was pointless to speculate about it. All he knew was that he had seen people taken inside on stretcher trolleys.

He was returning to his normal frame of mind there was nothing by which to measure the improvement, beyond an inner conviction that it was happening. His mind felt clear. He moved back from the window, sat in the one large chair with which the room was furnished and for the first time in many hours thought about the woman he knew only as Flo.

She must have been one of the people he had seen removed from the helicopter to the clinic across the quadrangle. Hurt, injured but how badly? He had seen that the people on the stretchers were quickly hooked up to oxygen supplies, which of course suggested that they were still alive. But he had witnessed the destructive attack on the Mebsher. He a.s.sumed from what he saw that everyone on board must have perished instantly. It was the same a.s.sumption he had made about Melanie.

4.

Tarent heard a noise at his door expecting Lou, he made no move to open it as they had adjusted the palm-reader settings on their doors to recognize them both. When the knocking was repeated he went across and with a welcoming smile he released the lock.

There was a man standing there. In his surprise Tarent took a moment or two to recognize him. It was Bertrand Lepuits.

'Mr Tarent,' he said. 'We have you registered in another room, but that is occupied by someone else. She directed me here. May I enter?'

'I suppose so.'

He held the door wider. The other man glanced along the corridor in both directions, then stepped through the door. He waited until Tarent had closed it before he spoke again.

He said, 'Mr Tarent, I need to be sure it is you.'

'But you have come here. You know who I am, and you found me.'

'Please identify yourself. I am here on official business.'

Reluctantly, Tarent complied, pressing his ID card against the reader. A photograph appeared, the one taken by the OOR recording device before he left the country.

'Good, thank you. A mere formality, I a.s.sure you. Mr Tarent, I have come to ask you if you would perform a favour for us.'

'If you will perform one for me.'

'What would that be?'

'I'd like to know how I can get out of this place. You told me yourself I should not be here.'

'Yes, indeed. We are expecting transport later today, or early tomorrow. I could make it possible for you to be on that.'

'Good! And my friend the woman whose room you went to. Louise Paladin.'

'You wish her to leave too?'

'Yes. She is desperate to get home.'

'I'll see what I can make possible.'

'No. If you want something from me, that's what I want in return. No vague promises. Is that clear and understood, Monsieur Lepuits?'

'I don't think you are in a position to demand anything at all. You should not be at Warne's Farm. This is a security-restricted site.'

'You said you wanted a favour from me. I'll be pleased to be out of here.'

'Very well,' said Lepuits. 'You and the woman may leave at the next opportunity.'

'Thank you. Would that be by helicopter?'

'Ah, no it would be a personnel carrier. Helicopters are not used to transport members of staff.'

'A Mebsher, you mean? Would it take us to London?'

'London is not possible at the moment.'

'That's where we need to go.'

'From here we can only take you to the DSG in Hull.'

'But I live in London. Louise Paladin also.'

'Mr Tarent please! I have said you may leave here at the first possible opportunity, but first I need your help. I understand you are acquainted with Tebyeb Mallinan.'

Tarent shook his head. The man's slight French accent made the words sound to him like a blur. 'Would you say the name again, please?'

'I apologize. It is Tebyeb, or Doctor, Mallinan.' He spoke more slowly. 'It was Tebyeb Mallinan who sent a message saying that you had changed your plans, and that we should not be expecting you here.'

Tarent said, 'Is Doctor Mallinan a senior official in the Ministry of Defence?'

'I believe she is. So you would know her?'

'Yes but if it's who I think it is, that's the first time I've heard her surname, not to mention the fact that she is a doctor.'

'Let me tell you what we require of you, Mr Tarent. There has been an unfortunate accident in which several people were killed. We believe that Doctor Mallinan is among them, but before we can release her body we have to obtain a preliminary identification. She will be properly identified later, probably by a member of her family, but for our internal purposes the Department needs to be certain that she is who we think she is. We are seeking an opinion about her ident.i.ty. Un avis. Once we have that, we will be able to release her remains.'

'So she was killed?'

'Yes. I'm sorry to tell you she was.'

'This was when the Mebsher was attacked?'

'I don't know the details. She and the others were brought in here by an army helicopter.'

'I saw it arrive. But I also saw the staff treating the victims as if they were injured, still alive.'

'No I a.s.sure you, the people who were brought in were dead on arrival.'

'All right.'

'Good.' Lepuits had moved back towards the door and now pulled it open. 'There is some urgency to this.' He indicated with his hand. 'Je vous prie, monsieur.'

Tarent followed the man along the corridor and down the stairs. They walked quickly past Lou's room, where the door was closed. Tarent was trying to adjust to the knowledge, the now certain knowledge, that Flo had been killed in the attack on the Mebsher. Because of the lack of certainty, he had been unconsciously clinging to the shred of hope that she and the others had somehow survived. But, well, now that hope seemed to be gone.

They left the residential block and walked out into the open air. There was still a stiff wind, but nothing like the gale that had caused all the damage. All the larger pieces of wreckage had been cleared. In one corner of the quadrangle the tractors were still working, pus.h.i.+ng everything away to an area beyond the buildings on that side.

When they reached the entrance to the building with the curved concrete facade, Lepuits showed an ident.i.ty card to the two guards, then activated the door with another card, this one with an electronic stripe. He let Tarent walk past him and enter first. When the door closed against the outside, all was silent. No sound of the wind could be heard. The m.u.f.fled acoustics of the place created a sense that all sounds had been muted. Lepuits switched on the overhead lights.