The Darkfall Switch (3 page)

‘No!’ Janet and Tina chorused, clearly appalled.

‘But yes! Think about it. Tens of thousands of people deep underground, on trains, platforms, escalators. All dependent on lights, ventilation systems and so on. It’s almost as if they were in a giant
spaceship
: virtually being kept alive by a complex life-support system. Think Apollo 13; think what happened then.’

‘God!’ Janet exclaimed. ‘So what happened in the summer … you’re saying that it had been predicted?’

‘Yes. And predicted with uncanny accuracy. The consultants’ report outlined a scenario almost identical to what happened in July.’

An icy chill fell on the room, and it was several moments before Janet let out her breath and, shaking her head slowly, whispered, ‘I’m so sorry. So very sorry. I shouldn’t have asked….’

‘No.’ Foster gave a bleak smile. ‘You weren’t to know. Anyway, life has to move on.

‘But you’re right anyway. That’s what happened. She was still alive when they got to her. She managed to tell them a little before….’ He
took a deep breath before concluding, ‘Before she died. That’s how they know.’

He stopped, deep in thought, and another long silence followed. This time it was an even more awkward one, everybody wondering what to say next, how to move away from thoughts of the tragedy. In the end it was Janet who broke the spell. ‘Tina tells me you live on a houseboat,’ she said.

He let out a pent-up breath. ‘Yes,’ he replied, glad to move on. ‘Near Kingston.’

‘I’ve never known anyone who lives on a houseboat.’

‘You should go down and see it,’ Tina interjected. ‘It’s very … well, it’s very Dan.’

Foster looked at her, wondering just what ‘very Dan’ meant.

‘I’d like to,’ Janet said smiling at Foster.

‘Sure. Come down sometime. She’s called
Lake Goddess
. Moored just upstream of Kingston Bridge, on the Middlesex side. She’s in a bit of a mess at the moment … after….’

Foster took in a deep breath. His initial fears had been justified. The evening was indeed proving to be tough. Initially, the conversation had flowed easily enough. But now it kept reverting to Fiona. The carefully constructed, civilized and polite structure that everybody had been at pains to create, to hide the past tragedy, was collapsing about them.

In spite of everyone’s best efforts, the walking-on-eggshells atmosphere persisted throughout the remainder of the evening, and it was a relief when Janet and Tina left the room to put away the dishes, leaving the men alone to talk.

When they were alone Cooper poured malts for them. Normally a gin-and-tonic man, he had decided to share the malt with his friend. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said quietly, as he handed Foster’s drink to him. ‘And I don’t mean the small size of your drink; I mean that conversation back there.’

‘Forget it, Alex. I have to get my life back on track. This is the first social event I’ve been to since … since the summer. It was bound to be hard. Must get better from now on.’

‘I’ll drink to that, mate!’

They clinked glasses and sipped at their drinks silently for a few moments.

Then Cooper spoke, again very quietly so that his wife couldn’t hear.
‘I’m sorry about Tina’s matchmaking too.’

Foster grinned. He had guessed. ‘Not a problem. She means well.’

‘That’s for sure. Trouble is, she never listens to me. When she said she was going to ask Janet to come here tonight I said … well, I didn’t think it would be a good idea.’

‘Oh well!’ Foster thought carefully as he sipped his drink. Then he asked, ‘But what about Janet? She’s a good-looking woman. No partner?’

‘Well there was,’ Cooper stared ruefully into his drink. ‘They were married. He was some big shot in retail. Went off with the daughter of one of his company’s partners.’

‘Christ! That doesn’t sound like a good career move for him.’

‘Depends. The new woman’s old man liked him, so it was OK. Anyhow, in the end I was glad she came. I felt sorry for her. It was Tina who thought you two would be a good match.’

Foster smiled. ‘I’m not ready for another involvement, pal,’ he said. ‘Not right now anyway.’

They were silent for a while, old friends sharing a drink in pleasurable company with each other.

‘So there’s nobody in your life?’

‘That’s right,’ Foster took a thoughtful sip of his malt and grinned again. ‘Nobody. I’ve lived the life of a monk for the last three months, Alex. I’m not used to that and it’s beginning to get to me.’

At that, the two women re-entered the room, gaily chattering like old school friends. They sat down and Cooper poured them drinks.

‘Dan,’ Tina said, ‘Janet’s been asking about the thing in China. I’ve been telling her what I know. But can you fill in some of the details for her?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Janet apologized. ‘I know it’s a sore point with you. It must bring back painful memories. But it sounds fascinating. I read the reports of the public inquiry in the newspapers, so I know a little bit about it of course. I think everybody does.’

‘I’m amazed that you remember anything at all about it,’ Foster said, raising his eyes from his malt. ‘It was years ago. A nine-day wonder, I would have thought.’

‘It was anything but a nine-day wonder,’ she laughed. ‘It almost brought down the government.’

Something in her voice made Foster look at her as she sipped her
wine. He hadn’t been counting glasses but he guessed she must have had most of a bottle already.

‘That it did,’ Foster agreed. ‘A minister had tried to cover up a huge illegal deal that he’d brokered. It was for a computer system for power stations. The deal was a subsidy, to help British exports into China, but it broke loads of European Community rules. He’d have got away with it too, if there hadn’t been a serious fault in the computer system.’

‘Gosh!’ Janet said. ‘How interesting! I hadn’t realized how complicated electricity was until then. But
The Times
had a very nice explanation. For a while it made me think twice every time I turned on a light.

‘But then, what happened in the summer? It wasn’t just the Tube, was it? London lost all its electricity. And wasn’t most of the country blacked out too?’

‘That’s right. Well, most of the South, anyway. You see, the grid system’s like a house of cards in some ways; take one away and the whole lot comes tumbling down. There’s plenty of redundancy built in but – two incidents on the same day, when plant was already down for the summer overhaul programme so that the system was already stretched – that was all it took. It’s called “cascade tripping” and, well, everybody knows what happened. The fact is, though, that nobody’s quite sure about the details. At least not right now. Still, it’s early days; there’s a lot of investigation going on. But, what is known is that there was a major fault on one of the cables feeding London, though that wouldn’t have been enough to cause the mayhem, not on its own. What compounded the situation was a big power station tripping at about the same time. The two simultaneous faults were more than the system could handle—’

‘What do you mean when you say that a power station “tripped”?’ Tina interrupted.

‘Just that. It shut down suddenly.’

‘And nobody knows why?’ Cooper asked.

‘There are all sorts of rumours going round, but basically it’s a mystery. All I’ve heard indicates that the plant’s computers decided to shut it down.’

‘Computers?’ Janet asked.

‘Yes. All these things are controlled by computers these days.’

‘It was a computer problem in China too, wasn’t it?’ Janet asked.

‘It was similar. But the problem there was a generic fault. It was a weak point in the design, which caused a fatal accident in Hong Kong, and could have been much worse on the mainland plant, because it was nuclear.’

‘But that’s not what happened here in the summer.’

‘No. This time it seems that everything worked well. It looks like the computers just took it into their heads to suddenly shut down the plant. That, coupled with the cable fault, was all it took, and when London fell off the system the resulting instability brought the whole grid to its knees.’

‘Any clues as to why? I mean, what caused the power station to shut down?’ Tina asked.

‘No. No clues. Or, at least, none that I know of. But then, I’ve not actually been involved in the investigation that’s been going on. Other people are working on it. But I do know the firm involved in the investigation and they’re a good bunch. Anyway, all in all, I’m glad to stay away from it.’

Janet stared at him and a slight frown crossed her face. She leaned forward to put her glass down on the small table in front of her. The base of the glass caught the edge of the table and some of the wine spilled out. Janet mumbled an apology. Tina sprang to her feet and almost ran to the kitchen, returning a moment later with some paper towels which she used to mop up the spill.

‘Don’t you think you should get involved?’ Janet continued, when the spill had been mopped up. ‘To me it sounds very similar to the case in China, at least in that it involves computers, and power stations and things like that – things you seem to have specialist knowledge of, and experience. It’s meat and drink to you, surely.’

The question annoyed Foster. She’d had a fair bit to drink, and her words were slightly slurred, but that was no excuse. What right had she to tell him whether he should or should not get involved? ‘This isn’t an Agatha Christie detective story, you know,’ he said tetchily. ‘It’s a major investigation. The government’s appointed a good firm of consultants, proper experts, to look into it. The engineering equivalent of Hercule Poirot turning up, sticking his nose in and saying that his “leetle grey cells” are telling him something … well, that’s just not going to happen.’ He felt the slight touch of humour might just cool down a situation that was becoming uncomfortably warm. It might deflect her.

But she persisted. ‘So you’re not even going to try.’

‘No,’ Foster retorted, his rising annoyance beginning to show in his tone. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Even though your partner was killed?’

His response was slow to come. ‘I’ve said, no.’

The chilly silence was back. It hung threateningly in the air. Tina and Alex were intently studying the after-dinner drinks that they were holding.

But Janet seemed oblivious of the chill. Clearly, she was not one to be easily rebuffed. She pressed on doggedly. ‘Earlier on you talked about the consultants’ report, the one that forecast the disaster. I don’t know if you meant it, but I felt that you were hinting that there was some sort of conspiracy.’

‘I don’t know anything about a conspiracy,’ Foster growled, his annoyance now turning into anger, ‘and I’m not going to be pushed into something by someone who doesn’t know anything about the subject.’

She defended herself. ‘Isn’t that just ducking the issue?’ she asked acidly. ‘It doesn’t matter whether or not I understand, does it? What does matter, surely, is your own integrity. Whether or not there was a conspiracy, whether or not the authorities let you get involved, and whether or not you could contribute something if they did. Don’t you owe it to yourself to try? How could you live with yourself if you knew you could have prevented something like that happening again, and hadn’t done anything about it? What if it does happen again? What if—?’

‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ Foster interrupted. ‘Now, that’s it. Let’s change the subject. Enough’s enough.’

But she wasn’t going to give up so easily. ‘If you don’t owe it to yourself,’ she asked, ‘don’t you owe it to your partner?’

Foster rose angrily to his feet. ‘That’s it! I’ve had as much as I’ll take!’

He turned to his hosts. ‘I’m sorry, Tina, Alex. It had been a really nice evening. Until now.’

Janet started to say something: it was probably an apology. But he pretended that he hadn’t heard and, pointedly turning his back on her, he thanked his hosts for the dinner and then strode out of the room. Cooper, at a nudge from his wife, stumbled to his feet and followed him out.

As they arrived at the front door Cooper muttered an apology. ‘God, I’m sorry, mate. That all mushroomed out of nowhere!’

‘Not your fault,’ Foster said, giving his friend a wintry smile. ‘Your wife’s friend doesn’t know when to back off, or when to stop drinking. That’s all.’

They both spoke quietly, so that their words shouldn’t carry to the room where the two women seemed to be talking as though nothing had happened.

‘You’re right,’ Cooper said. ‘She’s had too much wine. She does tend to drink a bit. Seems to be getting worse lately. Still, I’ve never known her to shoot her mouth off like that. That was pretty bloody awful.’

‘It’s certainly something I could have done without, Alex. I had high hopes for tonight. I’d hoped I was getting over things: somehow this evening’s just showed me that I haven’t.’

Cooper put his hand on Foster’s shoulder and looked into his face. ‘You’re doing fine, mate. I think you handled it very well. She’d no right to ask you those questions.’

‘I didn’t handle it well. I blew my top, and I shouldn’t have…. But there it is, Alex. I must deal with it my own way. Thanks for what was, for the most part anyway, a really good evening. And thank Tina for a great meal. I’ll be in touch soon. We’ll have a beer – just us, you and me.’

As he opened the door for his friend, Cooper said, ‘That’d be nice, mate. Make it soon.’

Foster walked down the path to his car. He wondered if he hadn’t been a bit hasty. Perhaps he should try to get involved in the investigation after all.

As he drove home, Foster’s anger began to gradually subside. His rage at Janet’s intrusion into what he had considered to be his own, very personal, grief had been intense at the time but, as he put the miles behind him he began to regret his petulance in storming out of the house as he had. There was no doubt that she had been overly intrusive and she had ventured into an area of his life that was far too close to his pain, but as the incident began to fade he began to wonder if there was any possibility that his wrath had actually been a mask to conceal – if only from himself – something much deeper. Perhaps it was even deep-seated guilt.

For the first time after that terrible instant when he had been told of her death, he began to review what had happened. Immediately after hearing the news he had fallen into a fit of despair. Unable to accept losing her, he had angrily railed at his fate: his beautiful, vibrant Fiona gone, his hopes for the future destroyed. After the traumatic experience of identifying her body at the mortuary, he had gone on one almighty bender. It had lasted for only three days; but hadn’t they been wild, desperate, angry days! When he woke on the fourth morning, dishevelled and stinking of whisky and vomit, he had cursed his own stupidity in thinking that alcohol could have in any way helped alleviate his grief.

It had taken an extraordinary concentration of will, but somehow he managed to pull himself together. Agonizingly slowly, he once again began to get busy, and before long he was deeply involved with work
that completely occupied his mind. There was quite enough to achieve that aim: after his appearance at the public inquiry into the incident in China, law firms had been beating at his door to commission him to act in the role of expert witness. Previously he had been picky about those he chose to accept: now he renewed his various contacts and soon became involved in several cases. They were all complex and interesting, and the activity occupied his life so completely that it left little time to think about Fiona.

Eventually he decided to make an effort to return to a more normal life and to socialize again, and it was at that time that Cooper’s invitation to dinner had arrived, so he had accepted it with alacrity.

Now, when he recalled Janet’s words at the Coopers’ party he began to wonder whether it hadn’t been a mistake after all, whether it was still too early to resume anything like a normal life. But what had happened had happened, and her goading achieved something that he had briefly considered but then rejected. She had made him wonder if he should indeed have made some effort to investigate the Underground disaster. Janet had been right to point out that he had the specialist knowledge that could have helped determine the facts – if not with the Underground system, of which he knew very little, then with the underlying failure of the power system that fed it.

Still wondering about all this as he drove home, he had reached a roundabout on the outskirts of Kingston when a police Land Rover swept round it in front of him. In the darkness he had a brief impression of the front-seat passenger peering at him intently as they passed. He followed the car round but, as he turned off, he was surprised to find it continuing its tour of the junction so that it now seemed to be heading back in the direction from which it had come. He wondered about it idly as he left the junction but then, as he drew away, he saw in his mirror that the car had reappeared behind him. This time its blue lights were flashing.

He drew over to the side and stopped to allow it to pass, but it pulled up behind him. He frowned and began to count the number of drinks he had taken at the party. He had been careful, so he was sure that he must be well under the legal alcohol limit. He looked in the driving mirror and saw the driver emerge and walk towards him.

‘Good evening sir,’ the policeman said, as Foster opened the window.

‘Good evening, Officer. Did I do something wrong back there?’

‘Not at all sir. It’s just that we saw your car….’ His words tailed off and then he asked, ‘Excuse me, sir, but are you Doctor Foster, Dan Foster?’

Foster frowned. He knew modern police surveillance techniques were quite extensive and comprehensive, but for a patrolling police officer to know his name…?

‘Yes I am, but….’

‘Nothing to worry about, sir,’ the officer said, smiling reassurance. He was now leaning on the Morgan, his hands on the door frame. ‘We’ve been trying to pass on a message. Your mobile phone’s been switched off and we’ve just been down to your houseboat.’

‘Yes, I turned the phone off,’ Foster replied, now thoroughly puzzled. ‘I was at a party and didn’t want to have it spoiled by the ringing of a mobile.’

‘Of course, sir. Very annoying that would be. But when somebody wants to talk to you….’

He left the question dangling in the air and Foster felt a chill. Suddenly, for no obvious reason, he could sense the hand of Ian Forsyth, the portly little Scotsman from Fiona’s law firm, Arnold Coward and Partners. It was they who had engaged Foster to investigate the incident on the power station in Hong Kong, and they who had supported him when his investigation had uncovered high-level corruption. They had even stood by him when the enquiry concluded with the resignation of a senior government minister.

Forsyth alone, among all of Foster’s acquaintances, had the power to set the present train of events into motion.

‘It must have been urgent,’ he said.

‘It was sir. We were asked to find you because they couldn’t raise you on the phone. As I said, we’d been to your houseboat and we were just going back when we spotted you at the roundabout. Lucky for us you drive such a distinctive car. Made it easy to spot.’ He smiled and looked admiringly at the car before continuing, ‘But anyway, we were asked to find you and ask you to come with us to Westminster.’

‘Westminster?’ Foster exclaimed, his eyebrows rising in amazement. He looked at his watch. ‘You mean as in The Palace of?’ The policeman nodded and he continued, ‘At this time of night? Christ, man! I’m going home from a party. It’s past midnight.’

‘I know sir. I can only tell you what I’ve been asked.’

Foster looked around him at the dark buildings and the bright yellow street lamps, wondering what had brought about this odd turn of events. Although a cold certainty had invaded his thoughts, he hoped he was wrong. But all doubt was dispelled when the policeman continued, ‘I’ve been instructed to tell you that it’s about the power blackout in the summer.’

Foster tensed, his eyes closed.
They wouldn’t have called me in unless there was something very strange going on, he thought. And in that case it has a bearing on Fiona’s death. I have to go
.

‘OK, Officer,’ he said with resignation. ‘What now?’

‘Thank you, sir. Just follow us.’

The policeman went back to his car and the little convoy set off. They took a couple of turns and soon were speeding up the deserted A3 towards London, the police car’s blue light flashing continually ahead of him.

When they reached their destination the police car stopped at the steel gates barring their entrance to the Houses of Parliament. A uniformed officer emerged from the guardroom and spoke to his escort. He then stepped back, looked briefly at the Morgan and returned to his post.

They were obviously expected. As the heavy gates opened, the policeman who had escorted him there opened his window and waved Foster forward. As he drew level, the officer leaned across his passenger and called across to him. ‘This is where I leave you, sir. The security guard says that there’s a car-park just round the side of that building. Park there and somebody will be out to take you in.’

After Foster had thanked him he went on, ‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir, I’d like to take a closer look at that car of yours some time.’

‘Of course. Any time you’re passing. You know where I live.’

The policeman nodded and the window wound shut. As Foster drove through the gateway he saw his escort turn and speed away back towards Kingston, this time without the flashing blue lights.

As he parked, a uniformed official came over to his car and instructed him to follow him.

Very soon they were walking along a panelled corridor towards one of the committee rooms.

As soon as the door opened he recognized the man inside: it was indeed Ian Forsyth. Foster gritted his teeth; the last time they had met
had been at Fiona’s funeral. Sitting beside Forsyth was a tall, redheaded man with a Rugby-player’s shoulders. Like Forsyth, he, too, wore
half-moon
spectacles. He also sported a neatly trimmed red beard.

The two men welcomed him with smiles, and there were squeaks as they pushed back their chairs to stand. Forsyth spoke first, ‘Foster,’ he said, as he walked round the desk with his hand outstretched. ‘It’s good to see you again.’ His Scots accent was as strong as ever.

Foster grasped his hand and said, ‘Hello, Forsyth. What’s going on?’

‘I’m sorry I had to get you up here at this late hour,’ Forsyth said, returning to his side of the desk. ‘But something’s happened, and we think mebbe you would be able to help us. But first, let me introduce my colleague, Hamish Grant.’

The second man nodded and shook Foster’s hand before giving him a business card. Foster looked at it and saw that Grant also worked for Cowards: the card said he was a Senior Client Liaison Officer.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Grant,’ Forsyth said.

Grant smiled and in a Scottish accent that was, if anything, even broader than Forsyth’s he said, ‘Hamish, please.’ Foster was pleased; for some reason, throughout the time he had known Forsyth, they had never got on to first-name terms; it was also ‘Foster this’ and ‘Forsyth that’.

‘You said you needed help,’ Foster said.

‘Aye,’ Forsyth replied. ‘As you know, we act for the government on certain specialist matters. In this case it is the loss of power this summer.’

Not for the first time, Foster wondered what the relationship was between Cowards’ and the government, and the nature of the ‘specialist matters’ that drew them together. Why were they meeting here, in Parliament, instead of Cowards’ offices, which were quite nearby? ‘I’d guessed,’ he said. ‘But why the rush? Why couldn’t it wait ’til tomorrow?’ Foster looked at his watch. It was now past 1 a.m.

Forsyth smiled and nodded. ‘Aye, normally, it would have kept right enough, but something happened a few hours ago, and suddenly everybody’s worried.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘We have to go back a wee bit.’ Forsyth waved to a chair facing him across the desk, and Foster sat down. Then the Scotsman smiled. ‘But I’m sorry, I’m not being a good host. I’ve nae asked you if you’d like a drink. A dram perhaps?’

Foster considered it briefly, but decided that what he needed most at
this hour was something to wake him up. Sooner or later he had to drive back to Kingston. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have a coffee please. Black.’

Forsyth looked at Grant, who nodded, and then picked up a telephone and ordered three coffees.

‘Before we start,’ he said to Foster, ‘there’s something I want to say … about Fiona.’

Foster grimaced. He had planned this evening to be a step away from the darkness. But she’d returned to haunt him at Cooper’s house and now it was Forsyth who was raising her name. At the funeral they hadn’t had much of an opportunity to speak privately, and after the service Forsyth hadn’t presented himself at the simple gathering that Foster had organized in the clubhouse of the local cricket club.

Before Forsyth could continue, a secretary brought in a tray with their coffee and some biscuits. She seemed perfectly unfazed at working this late at night, and Foster wondered if it was normal to have meetings held at such hours. Perhaps they worked shifts. As Forsyth handed him his cup, he came to the conclusion that it probably was normal for this place to operate round the clock.

‘I just wanted to say how sorry I was to hear of her passing,’ Forsyth said. ‘She was a bonny lass.’

Foster knew that Fiona had worked for Cowards for some little while, and she had been promoted after her part in bringing to light the conspiracy in China.

‘We all liked and respected her,’ Forsyth continued. ‘And, personally, I was glad when you two became engaged.’ He hesitated for a while before continuing, ‘Your loss was our loss too, y’know.’

Foster looked at him, the sadness welling up again. He could see that they were united by her loss. ‘Yes,’ he said softly ‘I do know.’

Forsyth held his gaze for a moment then sighed and looked down at his desk. He cleared his throat and continued, ‘But we must move on. You’ll be needing to know what’s happened.’ He nodded towards Grant and added, ‘My colleague has been brought in to help,’ he said. ‘He is more technically competent than I am. He’ll be dealing with much of this affair.’

Grant drew up a sheaf of papers in front of him but didn’t read them; he merely tapped them into a neat pile while he eyed Foster pensively. He looked like he had a well-rehearsed speech to make, and was putting his thoughts in order before he spoke. Eventually he said, ‘After the Tube
incident the government appointed a well-respected firm of consulting engineers to look into what happened. Everyone knew about the overheating of the high-voltage cable at the Regent’s Canal, and the subsequent fire. It was well understood that the unusually hot dry summer was responsible for that, and the authorities will make sure that that situation is dealt with properly. What nobody knows is why Queensborough power station failed. At least, they don’t know the exact details. It’s clear that the two failures happened at more or less the same time, but it is also clear that it was accidental, a complete coincidence.

‘Originally we had no reason to suspect that the shutdown was the result of anything but an unfortunate fault. But now something has happened. We’ve discovered that Queensborough was brought down by the deliberate action of somebody who broke into the power station’s computer control system. Somebody hacked into it.’

Foster was amazed and appalled. He blurted out, ‘Good God! But how? These systems are very secure. They have to be.’ Then he remembered an important fact: most power stations comprise several completely independent generating units, each consisting of a turbine and a steam generator, or boiler. ‘There’re four units at Queensborough,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me all four were shut down simultaneously.’