A Gathering of Twine Read online

And with that he buried himself up to the hilt with the first stroke, feeling her body arc underneath him.

  *

  The Tube had not been too busy, but any later and John would have struggled for a seat. He was glad to sit down. The quickie had turned into a longie, and he was a little sore.

  He had tried Rich twice on the way from the flat to the station but had only got voicemail. He had been at college with Richard Davis and they had kept in touch over the years, eventually becoming uneasy friends. John had bumped into him last night at Milton Road.

  Rich was with ITN now, and there was always jibing between the two of them about their respective employers. John won on standards, and then Rich would text him his latest bank balance.

  John checked his phone as he came out of White City. A text message came through.

  Got your v.mail. Call me back.VVR

  Very Very Rich

  John hit the redial.

  “Johnny! You old whoremonger!” Rich was unreasonably cheery for a Monday morning. That meant he either had something you needed, or he wanted something from you.

  John’s second espresso had yet to kick in, and he did not much feel like engaging in their usual games, which would inevitably end with “And how much do you earn my PLJ?”

  Poor Little Johnny.

  John hated being called Johnny. It made him feel simultaneously like he was back at primary school, and that all his girls thought of him as a walking wallet. Which they probably did. But he wanted to believe otherwise. He needed to believe otherwise. They enjoyed it as much as he did.

  Didn’t they?

  And he definitely hated PLJ. “Rich you cokehead! You’re up early.”

  “It’s a busy old world son. You know me. I’m like a shark. Always moving.”

  John winced. That old adage was not even true. “Listen. I need to beg a favour.”

  “Oh really. Need another alibi?”

  This was starting to wind John up. But he kept his temper in check. “No. Umm... have you reviewed your footage from last night?”

  There was silence at the other end of the phone. John started to walk on to the footbridge that would take him over the road.

  “Rich?”

  “Yeah. Err... not exactly.”

  “There has been a balls up with our camera. Scrambled everything we shot. Can we license yours?” John knew that this was going to cost him.

  There was another pause. This was not like Richard. Not like him at all. Why wasn’t he lauding it?

  “Rich? You there?”

  “Yeah. Um... ours is scrambled too.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yeah. What did you get?”

  “Dunno. Haven’t seen it yet. Murph said he was on it most of last night. But he says we got nothing.”

  A third pause. Eventually Rich came back. “Do you know Kristi?”

  “Who?”

  “New girl. Does the Sky stuff for Channel Five.”

  Sky News had been providing the Channel Five content since two-thousand five, taking over from ITN. Most of the staff were still raw and did not talk about it other than to complain about how unfair it all was.

  “No.”

  “Well... she and I...”

  John knew what that meant. “Yes?”

  “Well she was down there as well last night... her footage has gone too.”

  John had reached the other side of the bridge and the entrance to Television Centre was within sight.

  “Three cameras...?”

  “And the Police’s. They’ve already tried to requisition our footage. I imagine the Fire and Ambulance will be the same.”

  “Have they got any explanation?”

  “If they have, they’re not saying. But I’ve got a man in Whitehall. He says it sounds like residual electromagnetic radiation.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The most obvious answer is that it’s the left-over of either an EMP or a dirty bomb.”

  “A bomb?”

  “Sure.”

  “In a very white, very middle class, London suburb? You’re having a laugh.”

  “Why not? Some fundamentalist wanting payback for Saddam. You know, send a message before the big day. And what have we got here? A nice empty block of flats that the council never check. They get their mixes wrong and bang.”

  “You’ve been watching too much Bauer.”

  “Why not?” Rich asked again.

  “Because if it was a dirty bomb, then where are all the bods in radiation suits... hang on, Murph’s waiting out front for me. I’ll call you back.”

  *

  “There are guys in radiation suits all over the shop!” Murph gabbled excitedly. “Will wants us back over there now. The van is being loaded. Let’s go!”

  “Whoa. Hold on Tonto. Bods in suits?”

  “Yeah. Will just got the shout from Reuters. He wants us to get the jump on ITN and Sky.”

  John decided to stay quiet about his conversation with Rich. “But we were wandering all around the scene last night. Have we been exposed?”

  Murph stopped and thought, then shrugged. “S’pose so.”

  “This is nuts,” John muttered. He dialled Will on his mobile.

  “Are you on the road yet?” William Pitman demanded. The man was not so much a pit bull, more of a military experiment into testosterone overloaded gene splicing that had gone wrong.

  “No. What if you’re sending us into a radioactive hot spot?”

  “Then your balls will drop off and your wife will thank me.”

  “To hell with you.”

  “I love you too. Now get going.”

  “No.”

  “What?” Will barked. He was not used to hearing that word.

  “I’m very attached to my balls, and I’m not going to...”

  “For God’s sake, you whine like a girl. Look, Brunel University is up the road from the scene. I know their VC. I’ll get him to send over some of his radiation protection chaps. They’ll put those cards on you. If they turn red or blue or whatever, then I’ll pull you out. Deal?”

  John did not like it. He did not like it at all. But Will was using his reasonable voice, even though he was being anything but, and that made John doubly annoyed. “Mmm...”

  “Good boy. Call me when you get there.”

  *

  The traffic was its usual murderous Monday morning rush-hour self and it was after nine-thirty by the time they got to the scene. The dual carriageway had been at a standstill at the Hanger Lane gyratory. Why Highways did not do something about it was beyond him. John mused for a few moments on a feature on the capital’s roads. Gridlock. Unfit for modern purpose. He gave up on it. Dull.

  The December chill had bitten deep, and he had the thermostat in the van dialled all the way up, and now the hot air was drying out his contact lenses. John’s mood was darkening.

  The site had been completely sealed and armed policemen stood every fifty yards along a taped line, which was much expanded on last night’s operation. John got out of the van and noted that Sky was already there. Kristi whatshername was talking to some local residents who just couldn’t believe it – you never think it’s going to happen here.

  John felt himself groan inwardly. She was…what? Twenty-five at the most. Why didn’t she just pop that last button and get those puppies out? Oh, and there she goes with the sympathetic nod.

  John nodded at one of the officers. “Got press liaison?”

  The officer jerked his head right. “Portacabin at the end.”

  Milton Road had been completely sealed off, and at its head sat three large portacabins. Police vehicles clustered around them like hungry children seeking sweets at a party.

  Murphy began unpacking the van.

  “I’ll pop in and see what they’ve got,” said John.

  Murphy just nodded, absorbed in his equipment check. John stepped through the open portacabin door. There seemed to be three rooms. Each one its own separate hive of activity.
<
br />   “Err... press?” he said. There were a lot of guns on show, and guns made John nervous.

  An officer approached him, and he flashed his press card.

  “Through here.”

  The officer took him into a side room. “Were you here last night? Reporting?”

  “Yes...”

  The officer cut him off. “What is the condition of your footage?”

  “Gone. Just static.”

  “All of it?”

  John nodded.

  The officer handed John a sheet of paper. “This is our official statement. Current evidence suggests a gas explosion last night at the Woods Flats. They were empty, pending demolition, and we cannot say at the moment if the explosion was accidental or deliberate. We are pursuing all lines of enquiry. There has been some electromagnetic.... phenomena. We do not know if this is linked to the explosion but, as a precaution, we have evacuated these streets, and are conducting a thorough investigation.”

  The officer handed John a second sheet. It was a map of the area, with a red circle extending some two hundred yards from the now demolished flats.

  “Milton Road is completely closed, as is Milton Court, Almond Avenue, Needle Close, Pepys Close, and The Woods. Ivy House Road and The Avenue are each closed from about half-way up. Swakeleys Road is open as is Long Lane and the Park.”

  “How many people have you had to move?”

  “Just over five hundred. That includes those who had their homes destroyed last night.”

  John was making notes.

  “It’s all in the brief,” said the officer evenly.

  “Sorry. Force of habit. This electromagnetic phenomenon... is this linked to the lights in the sky that some witnesses have said they saw last night.”

  The officer looked at him hard for a moment. “Are you taking the mickey?”

  John looked up from his notebook. “No,” he said innocently.

  “Then take your head out of your arse and have a look about you once in a while.” The officer turned on his heel and exited, leaving John feeling bewildered.

  He made his way back out to join Murphy and was surprised to find him deep in conversation with a young man.

  “Hello?” John said. The two turned, and John saw that Murphy was fitting something around his camera.

  “Hello,” said the young man. “Lionel Orton, from Brunel. Your boss called my boss... and here I am.” The two shook hands.

  John looked Lionel up and down. He could not have been older than twenty-two or twenty-three.

  “Lionel?”

  “Yes. I know. A bit of bug-bear. Family name.”

  “So what have you got for us, Lionel?”

  Lionel clipped a plastic tag on to John. “Film badge.”

  John looked at him blankly.

  “Radiation detection. They’re thermoluminescent. See this readout here?” He pointed to the small LED screen. “That number hits a hundred and you’re done cooking. Time to get out the oven.” The young man looked unreasonably pleased with himself.

  John looked down at the small plastic frame. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What have we got going on with the camera?”

  “Lead-lined housing. Should try and prevent whatever it is that is stopping you recording. Or playing back. Whatever.”

  “It weighs a ton,” said Murphy, trying to hoist the camera onto his shoulder.

  “Uh huh,” said John, and then back to Lionel, “So what can you tell us?”

  “Not much. We have supported the police as best we can, but they have got their own division for this.”

  “Right. So what do you know?”

  “At the moment, nothing.... oh except that there is no radiation. Well, nothing above background.”

  “No radiation? Then why am I wearing this?” John thumbed the plastic tag.

  “Your boss told my boss that it would make you feel better...” Lionel replied, then seeing the look on John’s face he went quickly on, “but they did think that there might have been something this morning. Hence the suits.”

  “Are they still here?” Some footage of the full radiation suits would have been great. Give his report a Hollywood feel.

  “No. They went a few hours ago.”

  “What did they find?”

  “Nothing. Well, nothing detectable.”

  John’s frustration was rising, and his nostrils flared. This was feeling like a wasted trip.

  “Has anyone else been in touch with you? Army maybe?”

  “No, just the Civil Service.”

  “What did they want?”

  “A couple of bodies to help carry equipment, set stuff up and make records...”

  “Of what?”

  Lionel looked at him as if he was joking, then clearly seeing that he was not, “You know...” he pointed skywards.

  John and Murphy turned, and gazed at the grey sky. It was heavy with a brooding winter and looked like a sheet of recently hewn granite. For a moment they saw nothing. And then there it was. It started slowly, like a twinkling. It grew rapidly, pulsating from pure white to a deep purple before fading out and then back in again.

  It was not spherical, but more oblong with jagged edges, and there seemed to be electrical discharges within it. They looked as if they were beating rhythmically.

  The thing was about twenty or thirty foot across, and completely silent. John guessed it was no more than five hundred feet up and probably directly above the blast site. The three of them stood there, just watching the light display high above them. And then it faded completely, and the sky returned to its impassive grey. Snow was coming, and it was going to be a cold winter.

  “Well that was very Close Encounters,” said an awestruck Murphy.

  John was equally shocked. “What was that?”

  Lionel shook his head. “We have no idea.”

  “It wasn’t here last night. We would have noticed that!”

  “It was spotted about one in the morning, but it had probably been building before that. Whatever it is, the activity peaked at about four or five. Then it was coming every couple of minutes. And it was bigger. Now it is about every half hour, and the duration of the activity is much less. It was about fifteen minutes, and now it is maybe two or three. It’s a lot smaller too. It looks like it is cycling down.”

  “Cycling down? To what?”

  Lionel shook his head again. “We don’t know. Other than its physical presence, we cannot measure it. No heat, no sound, no emissions. It looks like a mini version of a Borealis, but...”

  “Starfish Prime!” Murphy exclaimed.

  John and Lionel turned to look at the cameraman as if he had two heads.

  “You know?”

  The two men clearly did not. “Wasn’t he the leader of the Autobots?” John asked eventually.

  “That was Optimus,” Lionel said on reflex.

  John had the measure of him and smiled to himself.

  “No, Starfish Prime was this thing the Americans were doing in the sixties,” Murphy continued. “Super high altitude nuclear tests. Like on the boundary of space. They did a bunch. And then the Soviets did a few too. They created these weird glows in the sky, like the Northern Lights... you said the Borealis right?”

  Lionel nodded

  “But they also created these artificial radiation belts in low orbit. Knocked out a whole load of satellites. Supposedly these belts have been slowly falling back to earth ever since.”

  John and Lionel were silent.

  “How do you know all of this?” John asked.

  “My dad was in the RAF.”

  This sounded familiar to John. He was sure Murphy had told him about his dad. Some sort of honour like an OBE or MBE or something. Apparently, he had been a big noise in the air force. He wished he had paid more attention now.

  “He was always complaining about the belts,” Murphy persisted. “He said that if they even came near an aircraft... well it would just lose power. No w
arning or anything. Just fall out the sky. There was a bad one in Turkey in sixty-three. Killed a lot of civilians on the ground. That was a Dakota I think. There was a Lockheed in May of the same year. That was followed by a couple of B-forty-sevens. I remember my dad talking about an awful one in sixty-seven. That was a Neptune.

  “The last one I remember hearing about was in ninety-three. Hawkeye came down in the Ionian. The Soviets claimed a Sukhoi in ninety-nine, but no-one is really sure about that one. All the pilots described it as if a net had come down over the frame, and just sucked all the power out.”

  John was transfixed. He turned to Lionel. “Could this be true? A man-made radiation belt drifting back to earth?”

  Lionel thought for a moment. “Don’t know. Could be. It would certainly account for the physical manifestations. But after all this time? I know the mid-air tests Murphy is talking about, but they were low yield. I mean really low. Like a kilo-tonne. I could cook up something bigger in my bath today. And given where the science was in those days, I’d be surprised if those radiation belts stayed up there for five years. Ten at the most.”

  “What about if more went up than the Americans claimed?” asked Murphy.

  “True,” said John. “It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve told stories. Maybe something exotic they were testing?”

  Lionel shrugged. “It’s possible. I mean, anything is possible. But if it was a radiation belt, then I would have expected to see drift. It wouldn’t stay in one place. And there would be something to measure. Decaying particles. Heat. Maybe even some radio signals. Nuclear radiation gives off a very distinct radio signal. This isn’t giving us anything apart from light.”

  “Could one of these belts have caused the explosion?”

  “I’m not saying an absolute no, but I doubt it. That thing is too high up.”

  “What about if there was a second belt?” said Murphy. “What if there were two belts, one sort of on top of the other.” He put his camera down and held his palms out, one over the other with a gap between.

  “Like I said, anything is possible, but then surely everyone would have seen the first belt like they are seeing this one.”

  John had to agree with him there.

  “What about if it was small? Really small? Like not even a meter across?” Murphy asked. John could see he was like a dog with a bone. No doubt he wanted to go back to his Old Man and finally have a story to swap.