The Bone Yard (34 page)

“He was like a man with a mission. For him Edinburgh's very survival depended on the gas-cooled reactor.” The man lowered his head. His hands were shaking even more than they had been. “He forced us to break into the sarcophagus round the fuel elements. You see, the Council had been in such a hurry to close down the plant that it took the easy way out. Instead of spending money to make the reactor safe, it did the minimum. Then encased it in concrete.”

Katharine had gone very white. “You mean it's still live?”

The woman shook her head slowly. “The original Council wasn't that irresponsible. Basic safety procedures were followed. It just wasn't a very good idea to break into the core.” She was suddenly looking even frailer.

“There were explosions,” I said softly.

The man nodded. “It could have been a lot worse. The radiation leak was minimised and the city was lucky. There was a south-westerly wind and the cloud was carried over the North Sea. There have been so many leaks from old reactors in Russia and the Ukraine that it probably hardly showed up on the monitors abroad.”

“So the only people who suffered were us,” the woman said, her voice shrill. “The forty of us who were in the immediate vicinity. We had no chance. Seven died on the spot.”

Katharine put her hand on the woman's. This time it wasn't shaken off. “They brought you here?”

“They could hardly let us back into the city, could they?” said the man. “The tourists would have disappeared overnight.” He looked at me with his milky eyes. “Besides, we've been useful to them. All the city's viruses and contamination have ended up here.”

“BSE,” I said, glancing away in the direction of the cattle.

“And worse,” the man said, shaking his head.

There was something else I wanted to check. “Did you know the auxiliary Watt 103?”

“Oh, aye,” the woman said brightly, then shook her head. “Poor Alasdair. He was even worse off than us. They made him stay at Torness. There were four of five of them. They had to monitor the reactor after the sarcophagus was closed up again.” Now she was looking at me. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Katharine squeezed the woman's knee gently. “I was with him when he died not long ago. He got out of Torness.”

“I'm glad,” the woman said. “He was a good man and he deserved better from the Council.”

“So did you all,” Katharine said, bending her head and resting it on the woman's thigh.

I was thinking about what the lumberjack said about the cattle trucks. “If they're monitoring BSE there must be a laboratory here.”

“There are several labs,” the woman said. “They had us working there before we got too shaky. Not that we know much about chemical procedures. We were nothing more than lab assistants.” She laughed weakly. “Probably the most overqualified assistants in the world.”

The man smiled at her, his mottled skin seeming almost to crack. For all the agonies and indignities they'd suffered, they were both undefeated. The iron boyscouts should have been shot for taking advantage of them.

“So chemists had to be drafted in?” I said.

The woman nodded. “There are three of them. The woman in charge is a toxicologist by specialisation. She's not been here long.”

I was prepared to bet my entire collection of crime fiction that she was the one the chief toxicologist had been grooming to succeed him. I tried for a royal flush.

“When you were working in the labs, did you ever see any blue pills being produced?”

There was total silence for a few moments. Even the ravenous crow had decided to give it a rest. Then they both nodded.

“She called them Electric Blues,” the man said. “I overheard her on her mobile once. She wasn't too pleased when she saw me, but who did she think I was going to tell?”

That was it. Time to call in the cavalry. I had my mobile halfway to my lips when Katharine sprang to her feet and cupped her ear in the direction of the clearing.

“Guards,” she said, motioning to us to hit the ground.

I hadn't heard anything, but her experience of field operations was a lot more recent than mine. Then heavy boots came crashing through the bracken, getting nearer and nearer.

Until they stopped a couple of tree-trunks away.

“I'm fucking freezing out here,” said a male voice. “Have you got that bastard whisky?”

“Aye.”

A screwcap was undone, then gulping could be heard.

“Christ, that's better. Here you are, Jim.”

Not exactly standard guard language, but the headbangers posted out here probably didn't give a shit about regulations.

“Where the hell are those stupid old fucks?” the first voice said. “Do you think they've croaked?”

I watched the faces of the ex-engineers. They were motionless, their lips slack.

“If they haven't yet, it won't be long. Their lead boxes are ready for them.” A guttural, soulless laugh. “Come on. The commander'll be looking for us if we don't report back soon.”

The sound of their legs brushing through the undergrowth faded.

Katharine helped the others to their feet. “I'm sorry you had to hear that,” she said. “Those guardsmen are scum.” She settled them on the fallen tree. “Won't you tell us your names?” she asked, looking at each of them in turn.

“Our names?” the woman said slowly. “Our names? The Council took those away from us years ago when we became auxiliaries.”

“Yes, but surely you remember them.”

The man turned towards her and smiled. “This is the Bone Yard. You saw the blank slabs. No one needs names here.”

I swallowed hard then punched out Hamilton's number on the mobile. For a horrible moment I thought I wasn't going to get a connection. At this range nothing was certain. Then I heard the buzz and breathed out.

“Dalrymple,” I said when I heard the guardian's voice. I told him where we were, then lowered my voice. I was so wound up that I'd been shouting. “I've found the lab where the Electric Blues are being produced.”

“You have? Well done, man. I'm on my way.”

“Bring as many squads as you can,” I said. “And don't take any shit from the sentries on the gate – this is a top-security facility.”

“Are you sure? I've never heard of it.”

“That's the wonder of top security, Lewis. Two more things.”

“Go ahead.”

“Bring a camera. In fact, bring several cameras. This place needs to be recorded for posterity.”

“Right. And the other thing?”

“Whatever you do, Lewis, don't tell the senior guardian where you're going. It's a matter of life or death.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Davie always did fancy himself as a racing driver. He caught up with Hamilton by the suburbs and called me again when the convoy of guard vehicles was approaching the gate.

“The guardian's demanding entry now, Quint. They don't look too happy on the other side. Hang on  . . . bloody hell, that was neat. The guardian just grabbed the sentry's mobile and smashed it against the gatepost.”

It looked like Lewis was taking my point about the need for secrecy seriously. I just hoped there weren't many more mobiles inside the compound.

“Right, we're on our way in,” Davie went on. “Where are you?”

“We're breaking cover now. Meet us at the labs behind the big house. Out.”

I nodded to the others. “They're here.”

Katharine was helping the man and woman to their feet. “It's over,” she said, smiling at them. “You'll soon be free of this place.”

They both shook their heads. “Where else is there for us? Our friends are all over there,” the man said. The two of them looked over towards the clearing with its lead slabs as if their eyes were drawn by an ineluctable force. “That's where we want it to end. With them.”

I couldn't argue with him. But I was going to use them first. I felt bad about it but I had to convince Lewis Hamilton that the senior guardian was even more off the rails than the last train that tried to cross the Forth Rail Bridge after independence.

“Can you take us to the labs?” I asked.

They nodded and we set off through the bracken. As we cleared the woodland, a shot rang out to our right. I made out a guardsman on the wall with a rifle and, further along, a sentry slumping back in his box. The guardian really was taking my warning seriously. Firearms are only issued in extreme cases. Then I saw the sentry's arm move upwards. There was another shot and he was still.

My mobile buzzed.

“Dalrymple? Are you all right?”

“Yes, Lewis. What's going on?”

“My people spotted one of the sentries with his mobile to his mouth. I hope he didn't get through to whoever he was calling. We think we've secured all the other mobiles.”

“If you haven't we might be fighting a civil war.” I signed off and led the others out into the open. In the enclosure ahead the cattle gazed at us without interest as they ruminated. They were in luck. Their date with the furnace and the tall chimney had been indefinitely postponed.

Guard personnel were swarming all over the place. Outside the labs a small group of white-coated figures had been assembled, their hands cuffed behind their backs. Hamilton was strolling around like an officer on parade. He'd been waiting for an operation like this for years. He was about to learn something about the chief boyscout that would make him even more pleased.

Davie came towards us.

“You okay, Quint?” he called, his eyes widening as he took in our companions. It looked like he'd made the connection between the state they were in and what had happened at Torness.

“Don't worry, lad,” the man said, smiling faintly at him. “We're not as radioactive as that.”

Davie realised his mouth was hanging open like a whale's in plankton-gathering mode. He closed it, stepped forward and took the man's arm, giving Katharine a grim smile. If it was safe enough for her, he wasn't going to hang back.

“What is this place, Dalrymple?” Hamilton shouted as I came into range.

“This is the Bone Yard, Lewis. Did you bring a camera?”

“Three, plus directorate photographers.”

“Good. There's plenty for them to work on. One of them can start with these people here.” I indicated the shuffling couple beside me. “You can send another over in the direction we've just come from. There's a clearing marked out with lead slabs that you'll be interested in.”

“And the third?”

“There's a lab in there that should have a large number of small blue objects in it.”

There was a sudden movement to my right. I turned and watched as the chief toxicologist's loose frame covered twenty yards at amazing speed.

“Is it you, Eileen?” I heard him say, his voice cracking. “And you, Murdo? I was told you'd both died a couple of years back.”

“We're still going, Ramsay,” the woman replied, clutching at his arm. “Not for long though.”

The toxicologist's face was wet. “So this is what they called the Bone Yard,” he said, shaking his head. “I heard the name a couple of times but I was told never to repeat it.”

You didn't have to be Einstein to work out which of the city's scientists had given him that instruction. I left them to their shared pasts and went over to a tall young woman in a white coat. She had her head bowed as if the scene with her former lab assistants was causing her pain. There was more on the way.

“You're in a quicksand full of shit, Lister 436,” I said to her. “Your only chance of avoiding a long and unhappy life on Cramond Island is to come clean about the Electric Blues right now.”

Her eyes jerked around for a few seconds, their dark brown colour in striking contrast to the ashen white of her skin. She was obviously wondering if selling out the senior guardian was a sensible option. A quick glance at Hamilton's miniature army helped her make up her mind. She led us in and showed us her chemistry set.

We had a council of war in the long conservatory that had been the staff's messroom. Old copies of the
Edinburgh Guardian
were scattered around the wooden floor, which was buckled all over as if moles had been trying to effect entry. Except no self-respecting mole would have wanted anything to do with the lowlife that made up the guard personnel here.

“Right, we've collected documents and taken photographs of everything,” Hamilton said. “And all the Electric Blues we could find are in my Land-Rover.”

“Make sure they don't fall out on the way back,” Katharine said, making it sound like she had no faith in the guardian's competence.

I glared at her. I'd already spent more time than I should have persuading Lewis not to arrest her. Now he was doing his impersonation of Krakatoa seconds before eruption.

“It's one forty-three,” I said, trying to move things along. “We can only hope that no word got out about our presence here. So the question is, what next?”