Birdkill (23 page)

She pushed herself to her feet. The realisation surprised her: it was this place was bringing back the dreams, the urge to lash out because her hurt was burrowing deep inside her again and slowly squeezing the life out of her, grinding down her natural optimism and selling her out to the Void.

Maybe she’d be better off away from here? The thought, so clear now, shocked her. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before?

Robyn turned back towards the Institute, glancing at the white tower that for some reason occupied her more and more. The grey cloud parted and a beam of light splashed on the headland, making the tower shine against the slate vignette of the cloud coming in from the sea. The prevailing wind brought white caps to the waves and lent a dead greyness to the swell.

Passing reception, Robyn turned at Archer’s cry ‘Robyn!’ He padded over to meet her. He was quite handsome and she liked him but he really was Hamilton’s lapdog. He wasn’t smiling.

‘Hi. We’ve been trying to call you. Lawrence and I would like a word.’

The anger flared again. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘No, it can’t. Lawrence’s study. Now.’

His tone shocked her. She was torn between telling him he couldn’t speak to her like that and fear about quite what was making him so evidently angry. What had she done? She followed him into the warm reception area and through the panelled door which always muffled, but never masked, the ‘Come’.

Hamilton was staring out of the window, his hands behind his back. He was wearing a brown and green tweed number with elbow patches, brown trousers and an open-necked cream shirt. Archer sat on one of the green leather club chairs. Robyn stood.

He turned, the beak-like nose casting a shadow across his shrunken cheek like that of a sun dial. His lips were drawn into a thin line.

‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

A range of facetious answers came to her. None of them made the grade. What had brought this on? She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you mean, I’m sorry.’

‘What I mean? Isn’t my meaning clear to you? Are you truly so blithely unaware of your actions that you feel no guilt or remorse? Or are you perhaps merely irredeemably stupid? Which is it to be Ms Shaw?’

She stepped back in the face of his advancing fury, the backs of her legs finding the edge of a chair. Recoiling from the jabbing, bony finger, she collapsed into the buttoned leather chair. Leaning over her, Hamilton shook with anger.

‘Our security team have filed a complaint that you tried to bully your way past a guard into the Research Institute. There is camera footage of you wandering the grounds at all hours in a semi-naked state. You have been attempting to access secured assets on the school network, in one case actually hacking highly confidential personal files relating to the children in our care. I am finding it hard to think of one single redeeming quality you may possess that should stop me from summarily terminating your employment here, young lady. You’re a liability of almost shocking proportions.’

He turned on his heel and strode behind his desk. ‘Let alone,’ his voice loudened ‘and this is the one that really baffles me, inviting a journalist and a disgraced ex-serviceman who runs a shady security company into my bloody school.’

Archer stood. ‘Lawrence, please. I’m sure Robyn can explain.’

Oh, right. So this was to be good cop, bad cop. The urge to lash out at them dissipated and she waited, an odd, comforting lassitude settling on her. Whatever they did or decided would hardly hurt her. If they sacked her, it would probably actually be for the best. If her decision out there on the beach was correct, she’d be better off away from this place in any case.

Hamilton sat at his desk and picked up a file. It was a little piece of theatre Robyn admired from a million miles away. Her out of body self gazed at the name on the buff folder, ‘Robyn Shaw’ and admired Lawrence Hamilton. She wondered what a phrenologist would make of the balding skull. A buzzard. He looked like a buzzard.

‘I have been in contact with Dr Hass. He admired you greatly. In fact, his glowing recommendation of you was my principal reason for admitting you to the staff at the Hamilton Institute. It was his opinion that you had fully recovered from the breakdown you experienced in Lebanon. I can only tell you of his disappointment.’

Her other self shrugged, ethereal. Paul Hass ran the trauma counselling centre which Robyn had attended in London. He was a wiry man with short-cropped black hair receding into deep widows’ peaks, a love of polo neck jumpers and fast cars. It was the latter had bonded Robyn to him so quickly. She was always seeking solidity since returning from Zahlé. And then Mariam had come along and Robyn was saved. Paul had encouraged their friendship, had even conducted joint sessions. Was Paul really disappointed in her? Robyn found herself back in the here and now, Hamilton’s bushy-eyed glare on her, Archer looking serious, his mouth pulled down in a glum pout. She moved her hand to find a patch of cool leather, the cold brass studs on the end of the chair’s arm against her fingertips.

Her lips were dry. ‘What have you told him?’

‘I consulted with him, obviously. I am concerned, Robyn, I can make no secret of that concern. We think you have perhaps been working too hard, that it was too soon to subject you to the rigors of the classroom, especially in an environment as demanding as the Hamilton Institute. You need time to consolidate your healing.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ She heard herself, the surly tone in her voice. The quiver that belied her statement, the dreams that wouldn’t go away, the visions that troubled her in her waking hours now. And yet she didn’t
feel
mad. Whatever mad felt like.

‘You have to admit, wandering around the grounds of a school in the early hours in a dressing g
own hardly seems normal.’ Archer shot at her, earning a sharp glance from Hamilton.

‘I said, I’m fine.’

Hamilton laid the file down. ‘We’re not here to make accusations or create confrontation. Paul asked me to help and I am pleased to do so in any way I can. I want you to feel you can come to me if you are finding yourself disturbed or challenged by your circumstances here.’

Now
, Robyn thought. Do it. Be grateful. She rubbed her temple. ‘I appreciate that, Dr Hamilton. I won’t pretend adapting to new circumstances here has had its challenges but I feel both I and the children have benefited enormously. Knowing I can count on your support is a relief, I must say.’

Archer was frowning but Hamilton was nodding. ‘Let’s keep an eye on things, then Robyn. Don’t keep it all bottled up, just knock on the door and we can work on some solutions and coping strategies. Paul Hass considers you something of a miracle, you know. I’d be pleased to contribute to that miracle.’

She smiled, the interview clearly at an end, and stood. ‘Thank you, Doctor. Simon.’

Walking out of Hamilton’s study, she wondered if she perhaps wouldn’t have been better off telling them both to go to hell, but Hamilton had rattled her by bringing Paul Hass into it. On the balance of it, she’d rather not end up being sectioned and there was something about Hamilton’s manner that had hinted at that course, although he had said nothing to indicate it directly.

Maybe she was going mad after all.

Mariam hadn’t known what to expect of Pamela Oakley if she were honest with herself, but her ideas had certainly been more along gritty dark streets and the click of high heels on tarmac than the angular corporate interior of the bar at the Northampton Marriott. It was early in the evening, the light outside had faded and the bottles and glasses stacked behind the bar glittered in the lighting. Mariam liked Oakley from the second she and Warren had arrived at the bar, standing in the doorway peering around the room. She was sitting on a bar stool, her crossed legs shapely. She raised a laconic finger to them. She was in her late thirties, short-haired bottle blonde and elegant in a burgundy cocktail dress and Louboutins. Her face was pretty, her nose perhaps a bit too angular for beauty but her eyes were languid and there was a sensuality to her made all the more potent by her humour, the laughter lines and mobile glance with its sardonic wit.  Warren, Mariam noticed, was like a dog in heat. Pamela’s amused glance at her shared the awareness of Warren’s helpless state and Mariam marvelled in the strength inherent in that cognisance.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see us.’

‘That’s alright, dear. It’s all water under the bridge. I must say, I don’t often look back to those days.’ There was a hint of accent in the well-modulated voice. ‘Shall we get a table?’ She slipped off the bar stool and arranged her skirt.

Warren caught the barman’s eye. ‘Hi. A pint of Stella, please. Mariam?’

‘A coke. No ice, thanks.’

‘Pamela?’

‘Same again. Vodka dry Martini. No olive. Thank you.’

They wandered over to a table, leaving Warren to bring the drinks. ‘Have you been together long?’

‘We’re not, not in that way. Clive’s in the security business.’

Pamela darted her amused glance at Mariam. ‘And you need security, do you?’

‘Well yes,’ Mariam admitted. ‘I do, rather. It’s a long story. But it’s your story we wanted to hear. Dr Hamilton.’

‘I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you, really. I was very hard up back in those days and I had an expensive habit. He paid for me to clean up and then he paid for the clinic for the baby.’

‘I couldn’t really work out why he would want to do that, if you don’t mind—’

‘No, it’s okay. You know sometimes we’d talk about it, a sort of silly girl’s dream. The benefactor who comes to you one night, the John who turns out to be a gentleman who’ll scoop you away to a life of ease in a lovely flat overlooking Hyde Park or somewhere. And that’s what he was, a perfect gentleman. At least, that’s how it seemed.’

‘How did he find you?’

Pamela hesitated, her flickering gaze checking Mariam’s features. ‘The way they all did, dear. On a street corner. He was cautious, I noticed him make two or three passes before he stopped. He was driving a black Bentley, which rather made him stand out.’ She paused to flutter her eyelashes at Warren and accept the Martini he offered her. ‘Thank you, Clive.’

Mariam cast her eyes to heaven. Warren sat, sipping at his beer.

‘Anyway, it turns out he just wanted to talk. He paid me, asked loads of questions. Two nights later he came back and took me to a flat, not quite Hyde Park but a nice little place. Did I fancy staying here? He’d pay for me full time and help me back on my feet. Clean me up. There was one condition.’ She sipped at her drink, a smile for Warren.

‘Which was?’ Mariam was all for the sisterhood, but she preferred Clive Warren man of action to the love-lorn puppy.

‘That I sleep with his friend. Unprotected. And if I got pregnant he would pay me to have the child and then pay again to give it up.’

Mariam’s mind reeled at the Faustian pact being unveiled. ‘T-that’s pretty weird.’

Pamela nodded. ‘I was in over my depth, for sure. But he was as good as his word. His friend turned out to be a real hunk and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy myself. He was pretty enthusiastic. He was in the army. I found his ID card one day when I went through his things.’ She flashed an apologetic look at Warren. ‘Old habits die hard.’

‘Do you remember his name?’

Mariam saw a hard edge appear in Pamela’s demeanour for the first time. ‘I do. And I’ll tell you it, but that’s the last I want to hear about any of this. No come-backs, no more meetings, no bringing my name into it. You delete my number. I stay invisible and you and your guard dog here pass me by for ever. And more than anything else, the child is not to know who I am or where I am.’

Mariam noticed the hurt look in Warren’s eyes at being called a guard dog. Pamela didn’t have to do that, but then Mariam was discovering her first impression of Pamela Oakley was simplistic. She had the feeling she wasn’t the first to discover there was granite underneath the elegant, amused lady sipping her cocktail. The hard tap of heels on tarmac came back to her. ‘Okay, deal.’

‘He was a sergeant. David Ames.’

Mariam sensed Warren shifting in his chair. ‘And you had a child by him.’

‘I did. And Dr Hamilton took me to the Mayview for my check-ups. I had the child there. There was some sort of problem, I had to have loads of scans and injections but he was born a healthy baby boy and I left him behind me when I checked out of there. To save you asking, fifty grand. He let me keep the flat here for six months and then one day I got a note giving me notice. But by then I had set myself up with a better clientele. I owe him, to be honest.’

‘Did you notice any other mothers there at the time?’

‘Of course, I was in a ward with five others. It was all a bit sad, two of them died in childbirth.’

‘Do you remember their names?’

‘No, no I don’t. But one of them was a working girl, same as me. Now I’ve told you everything I know.’ She waved at a dark-suited business type at the bar. ‘And there’s David.’ She finished her drink. ‘Thank you for the drink and thank you for coming to see me. You won’t take it personally when I say I never want to clap eyes on you again, you seem like a nice young lady. But that’s all in the past now and it won’t become part of my future, you see. Now I must go. Goodbye.’

She snapped a smile at them and pushed back her chair. She sashayed across the floor of the bar, an arm curling around the suit’s shoulder and a kiss on his cheek. His hand was on her arse instantly. She whispered in his ear, he chuckled and they left together. She didn’t look back.

Mariam whistled softly. ‘She was certainly an unusual lady.’

‘She was hard as nails.’

‘She certainly was,’ Mariam concluded admiringly. ‘You knew David Ames.’

‘Was it obvious? Yes, I did. He was on the Odin programme.’

In the car on the way back to London, Mariam sat hunkered down in her seat, googling on her mobile. As they turned onto the M25, she surfaced.

‘Eugenics. Where are we?’

‘M25. What do you mean, eugenics?’

‘That’s Hamilton’s game. He’s breeding a master race. He hand-picked the soldiers on the Odin trial and used them to breed a generation of children. Odin’s not just a battlefield drugs programme, it’s a whole programme of human augmentation. Remember how Pamela said she’d had problems with the baby? What if Hamilton was messing with it, trying to increase its chances of being a super-baby? He kept the child, like he kept them all. He’ll have been doing all sorts of things to those kids to increase their potential, we don’t know how, but we know all the kids at the Institute are super-smart. And what if he’s breeding them to be super-aggressive, too? Like his soldiers?’