Chapter Twenty-Three
At the words ‘radioactive substance’, Edward, Kim and Stevie all took a long step backwards. The professor cackled, the sound undeniably clear even over the hissing of the air supply.
Stunned, Edward called out, ‘Is this a leak? A radioactive leak? Do you want me to call the police?’
The word ‘police’ made Florence Veitch almost scream with laughter. ‘Someone needs to call the police, yes, but on them! Enough clowns for twice a circus!’
Kim murmured to Edward, ‘Just tell her why you’re here.’
‘I have a show tonight. I was looking for information about the … problem at the pizza place. As you’ll know, a child died. Something was spilled or thrown in there. I don’t know. The police can’t say or won’t—’
‘They don’t know!’ It was a smoker’s rasp, coming from inside the hood like air from broken fireplace bellows.
Unusually polite, Stevie said: ‘He just wanted your insight into whatever it might have been, ma’am. Just your expertise. Didn’t want to get in the way of your work.’
‘Don’t “ma’am” me. “Professor” was earned.
’ She tried to move the glass visor, then said: ‘No. Shouldn’t do that.
’ Kim glanced at Edward. Every time the professor moved on the garage roof, the corrugated metal squealed below her.
Either the metal would give way and she would crash through the roof, or she would suddenly float like a helium balloon into the sky.
Edward must have thought the same at that moment, because he said, ‘I’m worried you might do yourself an injury up there. You don’t need to worry about us invading. I just wanted to ask—’
The professor shifted position, tipping slightly as the metal bowed beneath her feet.
‘I’m not worried about you invading. If I look like an astronaut then I’m sorry. I need to protect the three of you and the one of me. They have completely stitched me up, giving me a substance that is …’
She paused. As if she knew how heavily the next word would land, how the sound of it would be heard around the country.
In the silence, Edward spoke. ‘Professor, I’m here for the radio station.’
‘I’m here for the radiation,’ she snapped back.
Flinching, Edward continued, ‘I’m here because we’ve spoken before and I know your expertise.
I know you’re trusted by the police. I don’t want to betray your trust myself.
If you want to say anything publicly for my radio show, please say it and I’ll report it.
If you want to say things off the record, tell me, and we’ll keep the conversation on that basis. ’
The professor stood there, on the roof, moving her weight from one foot to another, each shift in her bulk making a sound like an unoiled door opening.
‘I can’t be recorded.’
‘Sure. Understood,’ said Kim, thinking she was now talking like a reporter herself.
‘But I’ll speak publicly because you should know what’s happened here. I want to show you, to actually show you the scene in my garden, but I can’t bring you any closer because of the—’
After a moment, Edward prompted: ‘The?’
‘For all I know I’ve had a dose myself. The radiation.’
They stood there in silence. Kim, Edward and Stevie gazed up at the doctor, who stared back through the glass visor as the suit inflated with a constant hiss. ‘They landed me with this,’ she said finally, ‘and someone needs to tell the story.’
‘I feel dizzy,’ said Kim, ‘and I’m not even standing on a tin roof.’
Edward had worked it out. ‘You’ve been given the substance from the pizza parlour to test. We were only coming to ask some general—’
‘Yes! Yes!’ she exploded. ‘With no warning about the danger at all! And the clown who runs Devon Police, that Thorne fool, passed this stuff to me using a pair of chopsticks. No care, no consideration. Wait there. No, I mean – go back to the front door. Give me a minute.’
It was more than five minutes before she reappeared.
The door was unlatched and cracked open half an inch.
The professor shouted from inside: ‘Do not step forward yet.’ When the door opened, she turned out to be pulling it from inside with a long length of nylon cord.
‘When you walk forwards, stay away from me. Walk on the right and go up the stairs. Come to the upper-floor landing which is a safe distance. There should be an open window which looks onto the garden. Stand there and wait for me to appear. I’ve caged the dogs. ’
As they entered the house, Veitch faded away.
The three visitors did as they were told.
From the upstairs open window, Edward saw the garden.
To the right was a padlocked cage with two enormous dogs pressed so close to each other that they looked like a single beast with two heads.
They growled a continuous rumble of complaint, as if they were not supposed to be locked away simultaneously.
Edward was realizing he had blundered into something incredible here – his ‘expert’ was actually the person with whom the police had entrusted the motorbike rider’s material for analysis, but whatever it was had taken Veitch by surprise and now the professor wanted to complain.
Should he warn the scientist – attack the police now, you’ll never work for them again?
Before he could answer the question in his own mind, the professor appeared below them. The dogs went so crazy in the cage that the entire structure jumped up and down on the lawn.
‘I can’t release you with this here, my darlings,’ said the professor. ‘Stay while we sort it and then, I promise, meat and drink all night.’ She turned to see Edward, Kim and Stevie in the window. ‘Dobermen. I don’t think one should say “Dobermans”.’
‘Mad as a box of frogs,’ whispered Kim.
The air seemed to be going out of her suit, because it now hung off her like a popped balloon, showing her slim frame.
‘Let’s listen. Can you record?’
‘Okay.’ She pulled out her phone.
‘Wait,’ said Edward. ‘I think she said not to. Make a note, though.’
‘Look behind me!’ the professor called. The garden was sizeable, with rockeries on either side of an overgrown lawn. In the middle of the lawn, about twenty feet from the dogs, was a concrete paving slab with a large bust on it. The bust looked like a Roman emperor but could have been anyone.
‘This is on the record!’ the professor shouted from below them. ‘Because I have standards and the police should not, repeat not treat a specialist like this.’
She might have been in a lecture theatre.
She turned her body left. ‘Behind me, at least a stone’s throw, thank God, there in the middle of my lawn, you see a paving slab which nearly cricked my back when I carried it over.
Above the paving slab is a bust of Edward Elgar.
Under the paving slab is a layer of tin foil and every single baking tray I could lay my hands on.
Under them is a hole, dug to five inches with garden tools I’ve not used in years. ’
She paused for a moment, perhaps considering the wisdom of what she was about to do.
It was strange, to have this whole encounter without properly seeing her face. She conveyed her agitation by hopping from one foot to the other. Edward whispered to the other two, ‘Boy, she is so angry.’
‘You came to me for a chat, I gather,’ the professor continued at last. ‘Well, I would like to talk about the simply horrendous way I have been treated. Below that slab and all the other protective materials are two ampoules handed to me by the police. Passed directly to me using a pair of chopsticks by a woman I know to be the acting chief constable.’
Stevie called, ‘Did you say chopsticks? I’m making a note if that’s okay.’
The professor let out an outraged snort.
‘I arrive at Police HQ, I’m brought into Acting Chief Constable Thorne’s office.
She’s got two small ampoules on her desk.
Imagine vitamin gels or similar. Very small.
Thorne says, “I’m going to be careful not to touch these,” and she lifts them using a pair of chopsticks that came with some sort of takeaway lunchbox.
’ The professor seemed to be gasping the words as she relived the moment.
‘The inspector was with her, what was his name, Jordan something.’
Edward said nothing, wanting to keep his only police contact out of the story if he could.
Stevie put in: ‘Jordan Callintree.’
Edward let his breath go. He had been dreading hearing Jordan Callintree’s name, which would present him with the ultimate conflict of interest.
‘Yes, well. He played no part, just stood there looking like a dried leaf. At the time we didn’t know the child had died.
But I am a cautious woman, young lady, and I insisted she put it into my hard-shell Kevlar sheath, a safety sleeve I made for exactly the eventuality where I’m handed something I don’t bloody well want to touch! ’
The professor was speaking so loudly that Edward wondered if she wanted the world to hear.
‘They passed me these two ampoules and asked me to go away and examine them. They told me the government forensic service is backed up and loses things – well, of course it is and of course it does. I would describe her mood as very slightly angry. She didn’t say it, but I had the impression she wanted to use her regular forensic muppets.
It was Callintree who had told me to come to the station. ’
Edward winced. This was getting worse for Jordan.
‘They gave me no warning whatsoever about the possible contents. On arriving home, I sought to examine one under a microscope. I punctured the skin. It did not respond to any conventional chemical testing until I brought out this—’
She started struggling to free an object from the deep pocket of her lab coat.
‘This is a very old Geiger counter. It measures radiation and I can tell you it went totally batshit-haywire when I tried it on a whim. Those chumps had presented me, with no warning whatsoever, with a radioactive substance. My counter is simply not sophisticated enough to measure the half-life or contamination, but it gave me enough to know there are major safety issues for anyone near these things. I immediately donned this inflata-suit and then buried them. You’re safe there. Is my suit not inflating?’
‘Not now,’ said Stevie.
‘Jesus Christ alive, I must move.’ The professor stared at them, locked in position, as if expecting a question at least.
‘Have you told them?’ Edward asked. ‘The police will want to know what you’ve found.’
‘Oh, they’ll find out all right. No one answered the phone, so I’ve sent ACC Thorne-In-My-Side a bloody email.
Let’s see if she can break away from her busy schedule and open it.
She couldn’t find the time to keep me or her colleagues safe from a dose of the green glow, so I don’t know if she’ll manage that, but who knows? ’
Another pause.
‘Let yourselves out. Put it on the radio, I don’t care. I’m that pissed off.’
Now Edward wished he had not stopped Stevie recording it.