*
There are one hundred and five locks on the Kennet and Avon canal between the River Thames and Bristol. Twenty-nine of them can be seen in one glorious eyeful at the amazing flight, rising up Caen Hill, at Devizes, in Wiltshire. I was waiting for Sindra Gains at the top of this watery staircase, repeatedly asking myself if I was a complete lunatic. If my corpse is found sluicing down the canal locks in the morning, I will have nobody to blame but my stupid, idiotic, irresponsible self.
Bang on time, Sindra’s Lexus, top down, hummed into the cinder car park and slewed into a parking bay, scaring off the hedge sparrows and wrens that had been quietly foraging in the hawthorns. She looked like a cross between Cruelle Deville, and Long John Silver, but with more legs. Her coffee-crème jacket even had a spotted fur collar, though not of Dalmatian puppy fur.
‘I love this place,’ she cried, throwing out her arms ecstatically. ‘It’s so-ooo amazing.’ Her eye patch today was silver and amber with a fish, a leaping dolphin, carved into it. The motif was repeated on a large buckle on her tan suede handbag. Where does this woman shop?
‘It was finished by 1810,’ she told me. ‘People had such courage and confidence back then, don’t you think? John Rennie built it, you know. He was a genius, a beautiful, Scottish genius.’
I wasn’t expecting a history lesson, and certainly not one delivered so effusively. It seemed ironic, considering her withering dismissal of wretched Imelda’s enthusiasm for coprolites, that here she was raving about some dead Scotch bloke who built canals. How anorack-ish is that?
‘Right, we must go. Do you drive?’ She inhaled the soft air and inflated her sculptured chest. They, could not possibly be real, I told myself, obliquely eyeing her breasts as she opened the passenger door for me. She smiled, as if reading my thoughts. I’m sure that if she had been less deficient in the eye department, she would have winked at me.
‘I’ve started lessons,’ I lied, adding quickly. ‘I’ve only had one, but not on the road.’
‘My God, it took me three to find the make up mirror.’
I think that was a joke, but whatever, I found myself unexpectedly warming to her. The mental image I had of my bloated corpse floating in the canal began to fade.
‘Have you discussed this trip with anyone?’
‘Of course not,’ I lied.
‘Not even Chloe?’
How the devil does she know about Chloe? It’s really scary that she knows stuff about me. ‘I told you I didn’t. You said I shouldn’t.’ Boy, I'm good at lying. I could lie for Britain.
‘Excellent. I’m sorry, but I have to be sure.’
The car bounced down Caen Hill to join the main road. Soon we were in the quiet lanes of the Avon valley, darting between sunlit fields of wheat, flax, and rapeseed, heading towards the limestone hills and rocky pastures east of the City of Bath. Sindra handled the car like an enthusiast, whizzing along the twisting lanes with all the skill and daring of a rally driver. My only concern was that somebody with an equally high opinion of their driving skills might be whizzing the other way. I wanted to close my eyes, but I needed to see where we were headed.
As we flashed between hedgerows, I glimpsed the main London to Cardiff railway line, and recognised the eastern approach to Brunel’s Box Tunnel. According to my covert timing of the journey, we had been going for six minutes. We turned left suddenly and began a long climb between mature trees. Just before the brow of the hill Sindra braked sharply and swung off the road. We stopped in front of a disused double gate in a tall chain link fence. She pulled on the hand brake, but left the engine running.
Surely we hadn’t arrived? The place was a mess. The fence was overgrown with ivy and old man’s beard, and topped with rusting barbed wire. A faded Ministry of Defence notice, warned, Trespassers will be liable to prosecution under the official secrets act.
‘I’m sorry but you’ll have wear this.’ She offered me a Paisley, silk scarf. I guessed it was not a fashion tip.
‘A blindfold?’
‘Yes, I told you we don’t want any…’
‘You never mentioned blindfolds. This is England. We’re a free country.’
‘Very well, but if you won’t wear it, we’ll have to cancel.’
I didn’t know what to say. I was trapped. I wanted the meeting, but not the blindfold. She was staring at me, pulling a face, you know, all hissy and impatient. I had no choice and she knew it. If I wanted the meeting to go ahead, I had to wear the blindfold. I snatched it from her and tied it around my head to cover my eyes. I felt her tweaking it and pulling it into position.
‘Good girl. You won’t regret it. I’ll remove it when we’re at the gates.’
She dropped the car into gear and accelerated hard. My stomach fluttered as we crested the brow and dipped into a steep, winding decent. After about a minute we stopped briefly then set off again. I heard traffic whizzing by and guessed we must be on a main road, probably the old London to Bath A4 highway. Abruptly, we turned right into what felt like an enclosed narrow lane. Dropping a gear, Sindra pressed along and I became even more conscious of her speed. My fingers were bundled into fists and beneath the blindfold my eyes were squeezed tightly shut. We passed a large vehicle of some sort coming the other way, both vehicles had to slow right down to inch by each other. I felt the heat and throb of its engine as it laboured by. Sindra accelerated, winding her car around steep bends. I know it always seems faster when you are in a car with the top down, but she really was belting along. The rich harmonies of the car’s bubbly exhaust bounced echoing chords off the differing surfaces of the lane’s sides: stonewalls, hedgerow, farm gates, and tunnels of over hanging trees. Mercifully, after a few moments she slowed down and coasted to a standstill.
‘OK, take it off. We’re here.’
I whipped off the blindfold and saw that we were entering between a regal pair of 19th century iron gates swung between massive ornamental stone pillars, each topped with a carved stone heraldic beast. The gates hummed softly and closed behind us as we entered a pristine barbican of chain link and barbed wire, overhung by floodlights and CCTV cameras. A candy striped barrier pole stretched across the road before us. Beneath it, a double row of vicious looking stingers poked their deadly teeth from metal slots in the tarmac drive. Two uniformed guards, armed with Heckler and Koch SA80 assault rifles, stepped from a glass booth and marched smartly to our car. Sindra handed over some sort of ID card. The guard at my side glared at me as though he wanted to rip off my skull and spit down my neck.
‘Mobile phone?’ he said, as though saying, I want to burst your eyeballs with my thumbs. OK, so I may be exaggerating a bit, but I swear, he was no charm school graduate. I handed him my phone, thinking how these days, other people seem to have it more than I did.
‘Any firearms: cameras, recording devices, explosives or flammable materials, cigarette lighters, matches?’ He rattled off the list as if he had already recited it a million times that morning. I shook my head.
‘Wait here.’
A soft whirring sound behind us signalled that the heavy iron gates were swinging open again. A large, dark green truck drove in and pulled up behind us. The guards paid it little attention. Inside the glass booth one of them concentrated on swiping Sindra’s pass through a card reader. I leaned my head so I that could see the truck in the driving mirror, and wondered about the practicalities of such large vehicles using the narrow lanes we had just travelled. Perhaps there was an easier route for such large vehicles, although I knew we had probably passed one on the way here. Maybe Sindra had deliberately chosen a winding route to prevent me working out where I was.
The barrier lifted. The stinger’s teeth retracted into their steel gums. Sindra gunned the Lexus and I saw we were heading towards a palatial Georgian mansion, standing in sweeping parkland. Before it, a green Bentley Arnage was the only vehicle on an apron of raked gravel. A broad avenue of cropped grass between ranks of horse chestnut and copper beach, stretched into the distanc
e. It led the eye down to a thick shrubbery, about half a mile away. Beyond it I could just make out what appeared to be a disused military airfield.
As I climbed out of the car the truck that had followed us in drove into a small factory building beyond the house. The building seemed small for such a large truck, and I wondered how vehicles could load or offload in such a small space.
Sindra seemed agitated, as if she did not want me looking around. ‘Come quickly, it’s time. We can’t keep Sir Mackenzie Carmichael waiting.’ Her tone was both insistent and reverential. As if we were meeting the Dali Lama's mum.
She trotted over the gravel to a semicircular flight of stone steps up to a monumental portico. A pair of polished mahogany doors swung open to greet her. I hurried to catch her up. In the distance another truck was heading towards the same garage building. Two big trucks will never fit into that, I told myself.
‘Meez Genz, eez nice to see you again. Pliz come in.’ It was a guy in a turban, and a maroon silk, high collared suit. I couldn’t place his accent, it certainly didn’t go with the turban. It sounded Russian, but he looked sort of Turkish. He had a smile you could grease a cake tin with and I saw instantly that he hated me. ‘I’ll tell Sir Mackenzie, you and – Meez Morreez, are here.’
As I reached the top step I saw that I was the target of three CCTV cameras. My mother would have kittens. They kept me in their glassy stare as I entered the house, where others took over. The butler escorted us to a side room, excused himself and vanished through a panelled door. Sindra showed me to a chair, put a finger to her lips to signal that I should remain silent, and then also vanished, but through a different door.
They had left me in a bright room with a large casement window. It overlooked that wonderful tree lined avenue. A few leather upholstered library chairs and tables were arranged in discreet groups, as though each was having its own tête-à-tête. A battery of display cases contained photographs; African artefacts, samples of high tech equipment, and rustic hand tools. Books lined the walls. A CCTV camera lens followed me as I moved along the display viewing the photographs and artefacts. I pretended not to care about it.
Many of the photographs were of the Mackenzie Carmichael Foundation's charitable projects; shots of African politicians cutting tapes across wells and water taps, and smiling black children sitting in rows in bright new schools. In every shot there were two or three white faces, wearing T-shirts bearing the MCF logo. The backgrounds of some shots showed vehicles sporting the same emblem.
I felt a sudden chill as I recognised one of the white faces pictured. It was the smiley young vicar-man I had seen watching me in Devizes’ park. He looked younger, more like a student, but it was definitely the same man.
The butler knocked and entered the room. ‘Sir Mackenzie Carmichael will see you now, Meez Morreez. This way plizz.’
I followed him across the stately entrance hall into a light filled room. He ushered me in and left, closing the door behind him. I was alone, surrounded by ornately carved wood panelling and built in bookcases. But it was something quite unexpected that had immediately trapped my attention, an array of six plasma screens, fixed in two rows to a high-tech stainless steel gantry. Three of the screens displayed multiple views of the grounds, entrance hall, and public corridors throughout the house. The others were live, but blank - switched off in my honour I assumed.
In front of a sash window an antique desk faced the television screens. On its gold tooled leather surface were two laptop computers and a small electrical control panel with a series of switches and LEDs. The only chair in the room, a Georgian balloon backed library chair, had been placed in front of the desk.
A door, disguised with false book spines and book shelves, silently opened. I heard a soft, whining sound, like an electric motor. After a moment's delay a powered wheelchair entered the room. I could not see the occupant’s face. It was a bulky, masculine figure, wearing dark glasses underneath a cowl of white, medical gauze that covered his head and most of his face. I caught the sharp odour of antiseptic as he steered the wheelchair into position behind the desk, placing himself in deep silhouette against the bright window.
‘Please sit, Miss Morris.’ The voice was soft and sibilant. ‘I am Mackenzie Carmichael. Forgive me, I can’t shake hands with you. I have arthritis. It affects my skin and my joints. Welcome to my home. I am delighted you accepted my invitation, even despite my – somewhat special requirements.’
He sounded pleasant, certainly much less threatening than the image I had built in my head. I sat and immediately felt the warmth of a spot light on my scalp and shoulders. ‘I am very pleased to be here. Thank you for inviting me.’
‘The secrecy may seem excessive, but I assure you it is entirely necessary. Our research, Miss Morris, is at the absolute cutting edge. You would not believe some of our projects. They are immensely exciting.’
‘It’s all done here?’ I asked. I had seen no evidence of laboratories, and I was angling for the ten pence tour.
‘No, this is purely an administrative headquarters. It is ironic, is it not, that quantum engineering research, being concerned with the smallest things in the universe, requires enormous power and accommodations, much more than we have here. We have facilities around the world. Satellite communication and these video screens keep me in touch. I can't travel, you see.’
‘It’s just that I saw some large trucks coming and going.’
‘Oh yes. That’s something quite different, builders, alterations, that kind of thing.’ His chair wheeled to the window and I wondered how he had controlled it. I saw no joystick or levers.
‘No, our work is all elsewhere. This place is my little retreat.’ He coughed and shook stiffly in his chair before going on. ‘Our aim is to bring prosperity to the third world through technology. We help governments with funding for infrastructure, water, schools, and offer grants to promising students wishing to study science and technology.’ He turned his chair back to the desk and reached out a white gloved hand to press a button on his desk control panel. Behind me all the video screens fizzed briefly and went blank. I turned to face them as one screen lit up. Bland music and a voice-over burst from an unseen speaker. It was a film about MCF’s student grant aid programme.
‘I have over two thousand, African students at universities in the UK, USA and China. Last year, eight hundred and thirty-four graduates took their knowledge back to their homelands. They will be the leaders of tomorrow: technologists, scientists, engineers. They will bring the twenty-first century to their homelands, but in ways that will ensure benefits for everyone, not just fat profits for the few.’
I sensed pride in his tone, then he stopped and watched the rest of the film in silence, its images reflected on the black lenses of his spectacles.
His chair moved swinging him round to face me. ‘You know, Africa is the richest continent on the planet. It has oil, of course, and untold mineral wealth, but its climate in many regions is perfect for farming. It has almost nineteen thousand miles of coastline. Seas of immense richness wash its shores. The trouble is, it is divided into fifty-three countries, most of which are in constant turmoil. Potentially, Africa could lead the world in almost every field. It lacks only good government. The west fears Africa, Miss Morris. Did you know that? The Chinese, India, Russia, they all fear her too. They know she is a sleeping lion. One day, she will awake. Be sure you are in the right place, Miss Morris.’
‘I think that’s wonderful,’ I told him. And I did too. ‘But I’m a bit surprised that you also fund things like archaeological digs.’
‘Ah ha, Stonehenge. No, we don’t normally. That was just a one off, a personal weakness I’m afraid. You see, I like history and antiques as you can probably tell from this place. I regret that I allowed myself to get involved at Stonehenge on a purely personal whim. You could say my latent schoolboy enthusiasms got the better of me. We should never have been there, of course. That’s why I pulled out.
‘So, it w
as nothing to do with Jack Shire’s disappearance?’
‘No, but I must say, that was a most unfortunate business. Most distressing for the mother and everyone concerned. I was greatly saddened to hear about it.’ He steered his chair round the corner of the desk towards me and stopped it close to my chair. ‘Also, I am still unhappy, forgive me, perhaps I am speaking out of turn now, but I am most unhappy that the police seem to be taking the young man’s disappearance so lightly.‘
I was delighted to hear him say that. ‘I agree,’ I told him. ‘They seem to have written him off. Even the television news has too. Did you notice how they gave more air-time to you pulling out of financing the dig than they did to Jack’s disappearance? I think it’s terrible.’
‘Yes it is. It’s a disgrace. Well then, you should be pleased to hear that I’m taking it up with the chief constable. Surely with today’s high-tech systems and equipment you would think they could find a missing boy?’
This was music to my ears. MCF had tremendous clout. If they couldn’t stir things up, nobody could. I was beginning to feel my blindfolded trip was most worthwhile.
‘Do you have any photographs of Jack? I believe you took a shot or two when he was working at Stonehenge, err - in the trench.’
I didn’t expect that. I got a bit flustered. ‘Err – no, not anymore. I had some but the police at Amesbury wiped them.’
‘You didn’t send any to your friend Chloe?’
There they go again with the Chloe thing. They always seem to know things I don’t expect them to know. Things I haven’t told them, so how? ‘I haven’t got any photographs and I haven’t been in touch with Chloe for ages.’ I said it like my teeth were super-glued together.
‘Very well, I hope you will ask for my help when you decide about university. I have seen your excellent website about Avebury and Stonehenge. Will you read Computer Sciences?’
‘I haven’t decided. My dad wants me to do English and Business Studies.’
‘Hum, a pity. Speaking personally, I hope you will choose a Bsc, in engineering, maths, or computer sciences. If so, please get in touch.’ His chair backed away, swivelled round and headed for the wall of bookshelves as if it would crash into it. Suddenly the secret door flew open and he zizzed through it and vanished.
And that was it - he’d gone!
‘Huh, and cheerio to you too,’ I mumbled, feeling miffed.
The butler appeared and smiled his greasy smile. ‘This way plizz.’
He led me towards the front door, pausing briefly to pick up a small pink bubble-wrap bag from a side table. ‘Theez is yours I believe.’
It was my mobile phone, in a bag marked ANTI-STATIC.
‘I trust eez all in order, Meez Morreez.’
‘Thanks. Why did they take it at the gate, yet allow into the house?’
‘Sir Mackenzie Carmichael eez hating mobile phones. Some peoples eez forget to turn off. So now at gate collected, bagged, goodbye.’ The double doors closed in my face. I paused on the top step wondering about Sir Mackenzie Carmichael. What had that strange interview been about. Apart from asking me about photographs of Jack he'd hardly asked me anything. I thought, from what Sindra had said, that he was interested in me. Well, he certainly had a funny way of showing it.
Sindra was waiting for me in her car, looking extremely bored. ‘Get in quickly. I have to be somewhere soon. I don’t want to be late.’
We shot past the parked Bentley and headed for the gate. Another unmarked truck held us up as it cleared security. I watched it roar away in a cloud of diesel smoke and tried to see what its load might be. There were no clues, but I was struck by how its dark green paintwork was so pristine and shiny, quite unlike the bodywork of trucks that usually haul builders’ materials. Sir Mackenzie Carmichael's builders must be unusually clean operators.
‘What’s in the truck?’ I asked Sindra.
‘How should I know? I’m not a builder.’
‘What’s being built?’
‘There is always something - it’s an old house. It looks Georgian, but it’s much older. It’s a very special house.’
‘Yeah, the elastic walls are a hoot,’ I mumbled under my breath, eyeing the small garage building that seemed to have swallowed up three large trucks while I had been there.
………..