Portent (13 page)

    'Why would it help? There's nothing your people can do to control them.'

    'Who knows? Maybe one day we'll be able to. For now we'd settle for long-term advance warning.' He brushed off a large fly from the back of his hand and the insect flitted away, buzzing vehemently. Rivers noticed a tiny spot of blood on his skin where the fly had been gorging itself. He wiped it with a handkerchief. 'Why bother to find out so much about me, Diane? Surely it can't be that important to you.'

    'I guess we wanted to know what kind of person you were, and if we could trust you.'

    'You trust me? That's a little cockeyed, isn't it?'

    'Not if we were going to tell you about the children.'

    He looked sharply at her, his eyebrows raised. 'You thought I might have harmed them?'

    'We're sure they're in danger of some kind. You saw what happened last night.'

    'A freak wind. It had nothing to do with the children. Any one of us could have been hurt by flying glass.'

    'The malevolence was directed towards them.'

    'Malevolence? Oh boy.'

    'They've felt it before-we all have. But last night was the first time it positively manifested itself.'

    'Why do I get the feeling I should have left when I intended?'

    'You were in no condition to drive last night. Before the… the incident, or afterwards.' She looked him squarely in the eyes and he saw the fierceness of her determination. 'Why are you trying to resist us? Why can't you take us at face value?'

    He couldn't help but laugh. 'Do you have any idea at all of your "face value"? Any normal person couldn't help but take you for a bunch of weirdos.'

    Surprisingly, she laughed too, and her smile was genuine when she said, 'I don't think I'd blame them. And I wouldn't blame you in the least for thinking so. Mysterious lights, psychic children… welcome to the funny farm.' She indicated the cows and the geese. 'Literally…'

    It broke the frostiness between them and Rivers felt some of his tenseness easing. His doubts, however, and his disquiet, lingered. 'You really believe Josh and Eva have some kind of paranormal power?' he said.

    'I know they do. They've proved it many times.'

    'How?'

    'Oh… small things. Finding missing objects without even looking. Knowing exactly what the other is thinking or doing when they're apart. Seeing things they couldn't possibly see through their own eyes…'

    'I don't understand.'

    'A few weeks ago Eva was playing with her dolls in the kitchen when she ran across the room and threw herself into my arms. She was crying, but managed to tell me that one of the sheep was caught in the barbed-wire fence around the field and was cutting itself badly trying to escape. We found the poor creature over in the far field, tearing its coat to shreds as it tried to pull itself free.'

    'She hadn't seen it from a window?'

    'No way. The field is screened from the house by trees.' A bee flew between them, its drone full and resonant in the sultry air. 'And y'know, Josh wasn't far behind us. He'd been with Mack in the cow-shed when he'd had the same-vision, I suppose you'd call it-as Eva. There are other examples-like I said, mostly small things. But they're convincing all the same.'

    'I've read about disturbed children-'

    'They are not disturbed, Mr. Rivers.'

    Her annoyance cut into him.

    'In every way they're perfectly normal kids. But they have a gift that none of us understands. Maybe they're the children of a new age, or maybe a throwback with powers we all possessed in a bygone time.'

    'If that's so, if they really do have some kind of paranormal power, then it could be that they, themselves, caused those windows to shatter last night.'

    'So what became of the freak wind you mentioned earlier?' she challenged.

    'I'm not dismissing that possibility.'

    'Huh.' It was a small, derisory sound.

    'But on the other hand, it's not unknown for the troubled thoughts of…' He hesitated, not quite knowing how to state it. 'Overwrought children?' he suggested tentatively. Her expression tightened, but he went on. 'To, uh, manifest themselves in a physical way.'

    'Josh and Eva are not overwrought, Mr. Rivers. Far from it. But they are sensitive to certain things.'

    'Okay,' he said placatingly. 'I meant no offence. Just try to look at it from a stranger's point of view.'

    Her body seemed to relax and the faint, almost playful, smile was back. 'We're not being very fair to you, are we? You get caught in the English version of a monsoon, crash your car, spend hours listening to our diatribe on global warming, very nearly get cut to pieces by flying glass-and now you've got spooky kids to contend with. You must be wondering if you've wandered into the Twilight Zone.'

    He didn't laugh, nor did he smile. 'It'd crossed my mind.'

    She laughed for him. 'We're not crazy, believe me, we're not.'

    'If…' he began. 'If the children are…'

    'Look, why don't you use the word intuitive? It might sit with you more easily.'

    He nodded. The word was almost acceptable. 'If they are intuitive in the way that you say they are, then how long have you known?'

    'We've been aware that they're a little unusual since they were, oh, I guess since they were around a year old. Since we adopted them, in fact. As babies they had a way of communicating with each other that-'

    'Wait a minute,' he interrupted. 'You're not their natural mother?'

    'Josh and Eva were Romanian orphans.'

    He wasn't sure why he was quite so startled, for the two children bore little resemblance to Diane herself. Even her hair was dark auburn, rather than black. And her eyes were slightly almond-shaped, whereas theirs were wide and rounded. He'd assumed they favoured their absent father. He was about to comment when a distant shout caught their attention.

    They turned to see Hugo Poggs hurrying through the orchard towards them, his stride laboured and his face red with his haste. Even from where they stood they could hear his wheezing breath.

    'It's just been on the news, Mr. Rivers, Diane.' He slowed a little so that he could catch his breath. 'Grenada…' they heard him say. 'It's terrible He stopped in front of them, one hand reaching for Diane's shoulder as if for support. He drew in deeper breaths, gradually gaining control. Rivers winced at the rasping sound coming from his throat.

    'Forgive me,' Poggs said at last, his face beginning to lose its alarming hue. 'Must get back to smoking a pipe. Only thing that'll save me.' He cleared his throat and dropped his hand away from his daughter-in-law's shoulder. 'The children were right. A tidal wave… a massive tidal wave… struck Grenada last night, their late afternoon. According to the radio, the island has been devastated, ruined. It took the full force of the first wave, then the others that followed. Oh dear God…'

    Rivers felt a coldness invading his mind as well as his body. It couldn't be… He thought the children had been dreaming, had suffered a nightmare, no more than that. He hadn't even bothered to check with his own office whether any bad storms or conditions had been reported or noticed on incoming satellite data. Christ, he thought it would have been irrational to do so.

    Something, a compulsion, made him look back towards the house.

    The two small, dark figures stood near the centre of the orchard. They were hand-in-hand, perfectly still.

    They were watching him.

    

    

    Pilgrim Hall was discreetly set in parkland high on the broken ridge of hills that stretched through the home counties of Surrey and Kent to the east coast, known as the North Downs. To the south were green vales and hilly woodlands, parts of these now toned an unhealthy brown, while to the north was the vast concrete sprawl of Greater London. On this humid, sunny day, something odd tainted the atmosphere, lending the faintest yellowish cast to the air itself; it was neither a smog, nor a heat haze, but something brought by high winds from the far south. It was sand that sullied the sky, sand carried from the Sahara Desert by the sirocco, a wind that before had only managed to reach the shores of the Mediterranean and the islands west of Africa, but which now strayed as far as the southern regions of England itself. It rendered the light peculiarly oppressive, lending an eerie, almost crepuscular, tint to the landscape.

    To avoid the city, Rivers had taken the eight-lane orbital route, eventually leaving it for the narrow lanes that led to the top of the Downs. He passed through steep woodlands in the hillside before reaching the high point that was the long ridge itself, and it was not too far from there to the discreet entrance of the woodland park. The tar and gravel road ran straight for some way before curving sharply towards a small cluster of single storey structures, interspersed with satellite dishes and antennae, all these dominated by what had once been an elegant Georgian house, complete with white porticoed entrance. Other less classically designed appendages sprung gracelessly from its sides; these attached working 'sheds' housed various experimental models, computers, consoles and a magnetic tape library databank.

    He parked the car in the shade of Pilgrim Hall and, after wiping a hand across the windscreen and examining the fine dust left on his palm, limped to the columned entrance. His skin was sticky from the heat even before he reached the air-conditioned coolness of the building's foyer.

    There was no reception as such, but an open door with a plastic ENQUIRY sign served the purpose. A secretary looked up from her typing as he passed the doorway, her eyes magnified owlishly behind blue-framed glasses.

    'Mr. Rivers? We didn't expect you today.'

    'Can't break the habit.' He paused by the door. 'Is Jonesy in?'

    'He did the weekend shift, but he'll be back tomorrow. Oh, he left this package for me to bike to your home this morning.' She picked up a large brown envelope from the comer of her desk. 'I rang you earlier to make sure you'd be there for the delivery, but there was no reply.'

    He was momentarily puzzled, then remembered he had asked his assistant to get details of yesterday's storm to him. He took the envelope and turned to go.

    'By the way,' the secretary called after him, 'Mr. Sheridan is here.'

    Rivers slowed for a step or two. Why should the Research Director be there at Pilgrim Hall? Usually the mountain had to go to Mohammed. He quickened his stride, the rubber tip of his cane tapping dully along the tiled hallway, a suspicion beginning to grow in his mind.

    Ahead of him the slim figure of a girl was emerging from a room marked G23. Celia's hair was an untidy mess of lacklustre curls and she wore her usual expression of absorbed concentration. Her face was painfully thin, almost gaunt, but even so the Met Office had once considered her pretty enough for the so-called 'glamour' side of weather forecasting, the coveted television slot after the evening and lunchtime news programmes. It had been a mistake, for Celia Jar had been ill at ease under the gaze of millions of viewers and noticeably uncomfortable wearing brisk power suits and coiffured hair. It was Rivers who had rescued her from such high-profile trivia, realizing her potential as a dedicated researcher when she had come to him one day in a desperate search for more serious meteorological pursuits. Happy now in casual clothes and conscientious studies, she had proved to be an invaluable member of his team.

    She stopped dead when she saw him, and her mouth opened in surprise.

    'Hello, Celia.'

    'This is your week off. Why are you here?' She seemed almost irate with him.

    'I get the feeling I'm not welcome today.'

    'I didn't mean… Jim, Sheridan's here. He's in your office.'

    'In my office?'

    'With Marley.'

    Adam Marley was the head of Working Group Two, a pallid, stooped man whose colleagues had dubbed him the Ghost.

    'What're they up to?' Rivers kept his voice steady as anger rose with the suspicion.

    'I'm not sure. They gave me a grilling earlier this morning.'

    His frown asked the question.

    'They wanted to know about our programmes and future projections.'

    'I gave Sheridan a rundown last week before the conference. And I flatly refused to give any short-term or long-term projections until we've gathered more data. What the hell's he playing at?'

    She blinked up at him, biting anxiously at the comer of her lower lip. 'He's impatient, he wants results. I told him he'd have to speak to you.'

    Celia was not a natural rebel and he knew it would have been daunting for her to stand up to the Research Director, particularly with Marley's Ghost present; the latter, who shared the same rank as Rivers and who regarded their separate projects as competitive rather than cooperative, tended to treat the lower ranks with ill-disguised disdain. He touched her arm and managed a smile to go with the gesture.

    'I suppose Sheridan knew Jonesy was away today?' he said.

    'He didn't ask for him.'

    No, he wouldn't; Jonesy was cantankerous at the best of times. 'Don't worry about it. Probably the men from the ministry have been on Sheridan's back since last week's World Conference looking for results that we can't provide.' Yet, to be fair to Sheridan, he had always staunchly supported his three divisions-Atmospheric Processes Research, Short-range Forecasting Research, and Extended-range Forecasting and Climate Research-against any brickbats thrown by the Chief Executive and his Meteorological Committee or the Ministry of Defence itself. Rivers had even witnessed Sheridan's admonishment of the Meteorological Research Sub-committee, a distinguished body of scientists, high-powered industrialists, and senior officials from certain government departments, when it had the audacity to question the need to spend money on a particular area of climate research.