Scorpion [Scorpions 01] (7 page)

    

    

    The Greener’s Arms had its usual lunchtime crowd but Allan managed to find them an empty corner table. Chris sat down while Allan collected plates of cold chicken and salad and a bottle of chilled wine.

    ‘Do you come here often?’ Chris asked, and laughed at her use of such an old line.

    Allan responded to her laughter, relaxing for the first time that day. They began to talk easily, steering away from the matters that had brought them together.

    Chris told Allan about her work as a freelance illustrator. She took commissions from book and magazine publishers, creating visual interpretations of the written texts. Her most recent work, she told him, had been for an American paperback publisher - six paintings to be used on the covers of a new series of science fiction novels.

    ‘It was quite a feather in my cap,’ she said, ‘getting a commission like that against American competition.’

    Allan raised his glass. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘Even if they are a little late.’

    Emptying her glass Chris allowed Allan to refill it for her.

    ‘Allan,’ she began, her light tone vanishing, ‘what killed Les?’

    Allan stared over her shoulder at the clock on the far wall. He noted absently what time it was. He’d been expecting this question all through lunch - yet it still caught him off guard.

    ‘In simple terms he died from blood-poisoning, brought on by the toxic venom introduced into his system by whatever stung him.’

    ‘But what?’ Chris asked.

    ‘We don’t know. I was unable to pinpoint the venom.’

    Chris studied him for a time. ‘Is there more?’

    Allan didn’t hesitate. He decided that if anyone had a right to know what he thought it was Chris.

    ‘There have been two more deaths since Les Mason’s. Both over the weekend, in the same general area where Les Mason was stung.’

    ‘You mean people being stung, and dying as a result?’

    ‘In one case, yes. The second death was as a result of a high-speed car crash - but I’m certain in my own mind that before the accident the victim had been stung.’

    Allan described the details concerning the deaths of Jack Lippman and Fran Collingwood. He also told Chris of his clash with Camperly and the playing down of the mystery surrounding the cause of the fatalities.

    ‘The question is what stung the victims? In the beginning I considered some kind of snake, but that has been ruled out now. The wounds are suggestive of an insect, and in this country that brings us back to bees, wasps or hornets.’

    ‘Could it be a new species?’ Chris asked. ‘One that has adapted itself to the changing environment? I’ve studied this subject a little since my involvement with the protest group - some animals have been forced to change, adopt new lifestyles simply because of the way we’ve been treating the world around us.’

    She stopped suddenly, a self-conscious smile appearing on her face.

    ‘There I go - up on my soapbox!’

    ‘Don’t stop on my account,’ Allan said. ‘I’m all for keeping nature the way it is. If it isn’t already too late.’

    He glanced at his watch. ‘Well, if I don’t get back I’ll be forced to change my lifestyle - to being out of a job!’

    As Allan drove back to the hospital Chris asked: ‘Do you think there could be more of these fatal stingings?’

    ‘It’s hard to tell. I hope there aren’t - but until we know what’s causing them we can’t do anything to stop them.’

    ‘But if your Doctor Camperly has ordered you to leave the matter alone what can you do?’

    ‘As well as being extremely curious I’m also very stubborn.’

    ‘Allan, please let me help if I can.’

    He smiled at her. ‘I will.’

    He eased the Capri into the hospital car park and they got out.

    ‘Thanks for the lunch, Allan. I really enjoyed it. And the company.’

    ‘I’m glad.’ Allan ran his fingers through his dark hair. ‘I don’t want to push so soon after Les Mason’s death, but maybe we could do it again?’

    Chris’s smile was instantaneous and genuine. ‘I’d love to. Give me a call whenever you’re free. My number’s in the book.’

    

    

    Chris drove back through Long Point to her small cottage. She parked in the drive and went inside.

    For some odd reason she felt restless. She made herself a cup of coffee. She decided that her mood had been generated by her talk with Allan about Les Mason. She felt angry - angry at the way Les had had to die in such a wasteful way when he’d had so much to do with his life. She sat down and started to read through the manuscript she’d been studying the night before. The script had been in Les’s car, and noticing the heading Chris had brought it home to read. It was the rough draft for an article Les had been preparing - an in-depth investigation of the problems of nuclear energy. Les had often talked about the article; it had been his pet project. As she read through the draft Chris saw that he had put a great deal of effort into the research. From what she could see the article was pretty close to completion. As she read the notes Les had jotted down Chris realized that he had died before following up one last important piece of information - and that information directly concerned the Long Point Nuclear Plant. Written in the margin of the last page was a name and an address, and beneath it Les had added his own comments. Chris read what he’d written and felt a tingle of excitement. It appeared that someone had information regarding the plant that would be of great interest to anyone objecting to its existence - the kind of information that the authorities would want to keep quiet about.

    Chris got up and hurried out of the cottage. On her way to the door she picked up a notepad and a pen. She climbed in her car and drove towards Long Point. Parking in the town square she hurried across the street and entered the old, grey stone building that housed the printing works and offices of the local newspaper. The
Long Point News
had been established, so the story went, somewhere back in the dark ages, and there were those who suggested that the editor, Harry Farnum, went back even further. Farnum was a living cliche, the model on which every fictional newspaper editor had been based. He was a hard-drinking, blunt, often melodramatic character who ran the paper with the power of a Mafia Godfather.

    Climbing the dark stairs leading to the editorial offices Chris made her way through the big newsroom. Most of the time it was alive with noise but today, oddly, the place was deserted. Chris recalled that a special church service had been arranged for Les Mason’s friends in the newspaper business. Even though a lot of them had attended his funeral on the previous Sunday, the emptiness of the newsroom showed the depth of their feeling for Les.

    A partitioned section with frosted glass panels stood at the far end of the room. Chris could see a bulky figure moving about behind the glass. She tapped on the door and heard a muffled acknowledgement from inside the office.

    ‘Hello, Harry,’ Chris said as she entered the office.

    ‘Chris.’ Harry Farnum, a bulky file in his big hands, crossed the office. He put a powerful arm around Chris’s shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. ‘How are you, love?’

    ‘I’m fine, Harry.’

    Farnum dumped the file on his untidy desk and lowered his solid bulk into the creaking swivel chair. He gestured for Chris to sit down, his keen eyes noting her pale complexion. ‘Shouldn’t you be taking things easy?’

    ‘I don’t think that would help, Harry.’

    Farnum nodded. He tugged at the collar of his crumpled shirt. ‘Damn heat,’ he muttered. ‘That was a good service they held for Les on Sunday,’ he said.

    ‘Yes. I didn’t see you there, Harry.’

    He smiled. ‘You know I’m not one for crowds. I had a nice view and I heard every word.’

    ‘I see everyone has gone to the special service they’re holding today.’

    Farnum scratched the top of his balding head. ‘Any excuse to get out of the office,’ he said gruffly. ‘I probably won’t see ’em again today.’

    ‘Harry, I want to ask a favor,’ Chris said.

    ‘Oh?’

    ‘Did Les ever mention an article he was planning on the nuclear energy problem?’

    Farnum smiled. ‘He hardly ever stopped mentioning it. Why?’

    ‘Because he’d already done a lot of work on it before he died,’ Chris said.

    ‘Pity it isn’t finished.’

    ‘It practically is. Except for tidying up and adding one last bit of information.’

    ‘Maybe we can do something with it,’ Farnum said. ‘I should think one of the boys could pull it into shape.’

    ‘Harry, that’s the favor I want to ask.’ Chris paused. ‘Let me finish the article, follow up the last piece of information.’

    ‘I can’t do that,’ Farnum said. ‘For one thing you’re no journalist. What would the union say if they knew I’d let a non-member take over a story? Jesus, girl, when you ask a favor you damn well know how to ask!’

    ‘Harry, this is important to me. If it hadn’t been for Les, the Long Point Protestors would have lost a lot of their strength. I know how hard he fought for us. You made him sweat for every word he got in the paper about our demonstrations and our policy. I think we both owe him something.’

    Farnum leaned back in his chair. He wagged a finger at Chris. ‘You play dirty, young lady,’ he said. ‘If you ever think of giving up being a painter I reckon you could make a good living behind a news desk.’

    ‘Coming from you, Harry, that’s a compliment,’ Chris said. ‘Now what do you say?’

    ‘All right,’ Farnum said. ‘But keep it quiet. Make sure of your facts before you bring it to me. I’ll check it and word it so it’ll read like Les’s work. If it’s okay it can go out under his byline - it’ll be easy enough to imply that he wrote it before his death.’

    ‘Thanks, Harry.’

    ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ Farnum grumbled. ‘I just hope I don’t regret it.’ He glared at Chris. ‘By the way, just what is this revelation you’re about to make?’

    ‘It concerns the Long Point Plant. Les’s notes hinted at something the public weren’t supposed to know about.’

    ‘That’s all?’

    Chris smiled. ‘I thought that was all a good newsman would need to send him out yelling ‘Hold the front page’.’

    ‘You can cut that out,’ Farnum said. ‘Playing the Hollywood editor is my gimmick.’

    ‘But there is something else, Harry,’ Chris said. ‘After the demo last week, when we had all that trouble, I caught one of the security men off-guard. We had a few words and I said something to the effect that there must have been something to hide if he had to set us up like that. He didn’t say anything, but I keep remembering the look on his face - just as if I’d caught him out.’

    Farnum opened a drawer in his desk and took out a thick newspaper. He laid it out on the desk for Chris to look at.

    ‘I’d almost forgotten about this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know whether you’d seen it. Apparently whoever did the story hung on to it until the Sunday editions.’

    Chris felt her anger rise as she scanned the front-page spread. There were big headlines and pictures. The whole article was slanted towards smearing the protest group as nothing more than a bunch of hippy-type layabouts with nothing else to do but interfere with the running of an important government establishment. Chris glanced up at Farnum. He shrugged slightly.

    ‘He chose his paper well. Real muck-raker, that one. They could run a story on the Pope and make him read like a drug-taking moron. That kind of paper makes me sick - but there’s always somebody who wants to read about the worst in us.’

    ‘How do they get away with it?’

    ‘How? By being clever, by vetting every word before they print it. They seldom ever openly accuse, it’s all done by implication - which is close to accusation but not so close that anyone can point the finger at them. The theory is that if you read something dirty into what they’ve written then it must be true and all you’ve done is find yourself guilty. Like I said, it’s clever - but it bloody stinks!’

    Chris stood up. ‘If that’s the way it works, Harry, then it’s proved to me that there is something being hidden. And I’ll find it.’

    ‘Chris!’ Farnum called as she reached the door. ‘You be careful now.’

    ‘Don’t worry, chief, I’ll bring you the scoop of a lifetime!’

    

    

    

    

    The small motor launch drifted slowly over the calm surface of the sea. There was no wind. The only sound was the ceaseless smack of the waves against the smooth worn rocks at the foot of the high cliffs that formed this part of the coastline.

    Chris Lane stood at the rail of the launch. Beside her was a lean, sunburned man dressed in a thick fisherman’s sweater and salt-bleached trousers. Bernard Guillerman was sixty years old and he had been sailing this part of the coast for over forty of those years. It had been Guillerman’s name on Les Mason’s manuscript.

    ‘Been trouble along ‘ere ever since they started up that place,’ he said bitterly. ‘They laid that blasted pipe across the top of the cliffs, feedin’ it all the way down and run it into the water. An’ when they set that there atom station goin’, all that hot water they got from keepin’ it cool come down the pipe an’ into the sea. Anyways it started to upset right off. Every fish round ‘ere upped and vanished, swam off up the coast. An’ no wonder. Water in this ‘ere cove was too hot for ‘em.’

    Chris stared round the area. She could see why this place had been ideal for the drainage from the plant. The formation of the cliffs formed a deep half-circle, a lonely cove without a beach. There was no access from either above or below. The cliff was too high and too sheer, offering no attraction, almost deliberately discouraging interest. Raising her eyes she was able to see the silver glint of the steel pipe where it showed at the top of the cliffs. It curved out over the edge, then wormed its way down the sheer rock. It must have presented the construction engineers with quite a task, she thought, as she followed the pipe all the way down to the foot of the cliffs. Here it had been laid across a short concrete wall, the three-foot wide pipe gradually curving down to vanish beneath the restless waves. And down there it disgorged, day and night, its superheated, excess water. Water that had been used to cool the contained, raw energy created in the heart of the nuclear plant.