The Darkfall Switch (9 page)

‘Yes, it was certainly odd. But the Americans took a look at the dead bodies and said that somebody had probably blown them up. They claim they found evidence that somebody’d fiddled about with them in a clumsy, bungled effort to get the systems working again. And in their panic damaged them.’

Foster stared at him. ‘What, the whole lot? At two separate sites?’ he asked.

Burnett raised his eyebrows and shrugged. ‘I know,’ he admitted, shrugging. ‘But the Americans say they’re used to having to clear up after gorillas working on their systems overseas. They think that all engineers outside the US of A are somewhat less than competent.’

‘But we know different, don’t we?’ Foster growled. ‘In general, the instrument engineers here are among the best, even if they are in short supply.’

‘Agreed! But try telling that to our American cousins.’

There was little more to discuss, so after a few more minutes, Foster left.

He was preparing his breakfast the next day when his phone rang. It was Grant asking about progress and after Foster filled him in Grant asked if he had managed to gain any understanding of what the Darkfall reference had been.

‘They couldn’t tell me much at Birdlip,’ Foster replied. ‘At least, nothing that I didn’t know already. As I suspected, they’re a bunch of administrators and sales people, with a thin scattering of commissioning engineers. No design staff. That’s why I need to visit the PPD headquarters. I’ll need to talk to them and get some detailed technical information about the system out of them.’

‘All right.’ Grant’s voice sounded resigned.

‘Actually,’ Foster said, ‘I’ll need your help. Somehow, I suspect that they’ll be less than willing to discuss the inner workings of their system with a complete stranger, and a foreigner to boot. I’d appreciate it if you could arrange for them to be asked to co-operate – and for the request to come from the highest possible level.’

‘Aye. I’ll see what I can do. When will you be able to go?’

Foster considered his dinner-date for that evening with Janet Coleman and told Grant that he would be free to leave in two days. Grant concurred and said that the tickets would be delivered to him by
courier the next day.

He hung up, turned on his computer and looked up a number. It was the direct-dial line for Carol Lopez, the technical director at Universal Digital Systems, the control-system company that he’d worked for many years before. She had taken over his job there when he left and had helped him while he was investigating the incident in China. They had kept in touch intermittently since then. When news of Fiona’s death had reached her she had immediately telephoned him to offer her condolences. She had even sent flowers and attended the funeral.

‘Dan!’ she exclaimed now, when he got through. ‘How nice to hear from you. Everything OK?’

‘Yes thanks, Carol. Well, as OK as it could be. But I need some information.’

‘Happy to oblige. What is it?’

‘I’ve been asked to look into the blackout.’ There was no need to say which one, or when; it had been the single most important topic in the power industry ever since it happened. ‘And I’m curious about Powerplant Dynamics—’

‘Them!’ The venom behind that single word came through clearly. ‘They’re killing us, Dan.’

‘How come?’

‘They’ve consistently taken all the big jobs from us over the past few years.’

‘On price or performance?’ Foster asked. In the intense competition for large contracts, companies lost the bidding battle either because their price was too high or because they were unable to meet some aspect of the extremely rigid technical specification.

‘Oh, price,’ she answered quickly. ‘We’ve always been able to meet the specs. Sometimes we’ve even managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and offer something better than the client expected, but it never made any difference: PPD always managed to undercut us.’

‘By much?’

Lopez gave a bitter laugh. ‘By miles.’

‘But how?’

‘I don’t know Dan. They seem to be able to get hardware and software from their American parent at knock-down prices. We simply can’t compete.’

Foster was still pondering the implications when she went on, ‘And
from what we hear they’ve been able to repeat the trick right round the world. They even manage to beat the Germans in their own traditional markets … and the Japanese in theirs.’

‘Good God!’ In areas where the big German and Japanese companies had established footholds they quickly developed strong loyalty from their clients and it inevitably became very hard to wrest projects away from them afterwards.

‘Yes. By now it looks like virtually every new power station in the world has a PPD control system controlling it. Likewise all the old ones that have come up for refurbishment.’

‘I can see how it must be hurting you,’ Foster commented. ‘And all the others.’

‘Hurting!’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘We’ve been forced to lay off people. Oh, we get the odd small job. We’ve had to branch into other fields, like the water industry, but the jobs there are small, Dan. All the big work goes to PPD. And, in any case, we’re beginning to see competition from PPD in the water industry too. In spite of the company name, there’s no way they’re just powerplant people now. We’ve really got our backs to the wall, Dan.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Carol.’

‘Thanks for the sympathy. We’ll survive, but it looks like we’ll have to downsize, move to smaller offices in the sticks.’

He was really saddened by that. He had been with Universal Digital from the time they had started life in Windsor, and he’d been involved in buying their swanky high-tech office and factory complex in Abingdon. Now it was going to pass into other hands and the company –
his
company once – would become just another small operation somewhere in the backwoods.

The conversation tailed off after that. They agreed to meet in the near future.

After Foster had hung up he sat back and stared at his computer screen for several minutes, deep in thought.

He considered what he had heard and was appalled. With PPD, and their system with a critical vulnerability, having such a stranglehold on the international electricity industry, the possibility that a hacker could gain access to any power station in the world was frightening.

He realized that the problem was now far more widespread than he had suspected.

He heard her footfall on the companionway and he came out to meet her. She smiled at him and he smiled back, wondering how he should greet her. A handshake seemed too formal; would a peck on the cheek be too forward, too intimate? After all, he had met her just that once, at the Coopers’. She took the initiative and offered a cheek. He kissed it briefly and she turned to offer the other cheek. He was immediately and strongly aware of her perfume. It was intoxicating.

He led her into the wheelhouse and she looked around in amazement. As she walked round, touching the glass-fronted book-case and the leather captain’s chair and armchair, he was suddenly reminded of Fiona’s first visit. He remembered her tilting her head to read the titles on the spines of his books.

The memory hurt.

He cleared his throat and said, ‘I’d offer a drink, but the place I’ve booked for dinner is a couple of miles away. We’ll get wine there. Is that OK?’

She nodded. ‘I’d offer to drive,’ she said, ‘but I saw your car at Alex and Tina’s. I’d like to turn up in that. It’s a Morgan, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘A plus eight. My pride and joy.’

‘I bet it is. And I bet it attracts attention.’

‘You’re calling me a poseur?’

‘No. I didn’t mean that.’

He showed her round the boat and she was suitably impressed. Then they went to where his car was parked beside the towpath. She gave a small smile of admiration: the little open-topped sports car was dark green with stone-coloured leather interior.

‘It’s gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, as she lightly ran her fingertips along the shining bonnet.

‘You should know that Morgans are known in the business as Moggies.’

‘Hello, Moggie!’ she said softly as he opened the low door for her to get in.

The wind whipped her hair as they drove along the road towards Hampton Court. He could sense her excitement as the fruity roar of the exhaust echoed off the brick walls of the parks on either side of the road.

‘This was what driving should be like,’ she shouted above the noise at one point.

When they arrived in Esher he swung the car round and parked it in a service road close to a small bistro. They went in and were given a table overlooking the pretty high street.

Foster studied his companion as she read the menu. She was certainly very beautiful. Her cheekbones were high and well defined, her lips full and inviting. She glanced up and for a long moment they looked into each other’s eyes. Then she returned to the menu, breaking the spell.

‘I’ll have the cannelloni,’ she said as she passed the menu to him.

He ordered and, with her approval, selected a carafe of the house red.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘how is it that you live on a houseboat?’

‘I like it.’

Her eyes mocked him. ‘Mmmm. Somehow I feel there’s more to it than that.’

He looked out of the window and thought carefully before returning his gaze to her. ‘I bought it when I was broke,’ he said. Then he added, ‘I’m sure Tina told you that I was married at one time….’

‘Not the one that died in the blackout?’ she interrupted.

‘No. We never married. It was before her. We broke up.’

‘Divorced?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she cleaned you out?’

‘No. Not her. The lawyers did. I was the injured party, but I was prepared to go halves with her; split everything down the middle.’

‘And…?’

‘Well, she had some sharp law firm working for her and when I saw what was happening I found myself one as well. Between the two of them, those bastards skinned the pair of us.’

The wine arrived. She took a sip and gave an approving nod. ‘You said you were the injured party.’

‘I did.’

‘What happened?’

‘I caught her in bed with somebody.’

‘Oh.’

She took a deep breath and repeated. ‘Oh. So at the end of the divorce you ended up on the boat.’

‘Yes. I had always fancied the idea anyway, but in the end it was all I
could afford. Not that it was a cheap option.
Goddess
cost me a fair packet.’

‘She’s lovely.’

He smiled at her. ‘Yes, I think so too.’

Their meals arrived and as she started on hers she said, ‘And the one who died?’

He paused. It was still painful to talk about it, but perhaps it would help. ‘Fiona,’ he said finally. ‘She worked for a firm of London lawyers. She’s the one who got me involved with the thing in China.’

‘Tina told me a bit about it. Sounds very complicated.’

‘It was. But it made my name. Got me out of debt and left enough to get some urgent work done on the boat. And to buy the Morgan.’

‘Well done!’

‘But that’s enough about me. What’s your story?’ He wanted to get away from the subject of discussing Fiona now.

‘Nothing as exotic as yours,’ she said. ‘But I was married too, once.’

‘Once?’

‘Yes. He was a bastard. But I never really knew. Then a so-called friend of ours got drunk one night and told me about a string of affairs he’d been having. I think she’d had a fling with him and when he dumped her she decided to tell me about him. When I tackled him about it he just laughed. Said everybody did it.’

‘The proverbial open marriage!’

‘Open from his side,’ she said, a trace of bitterness in her tone. ‘But if he saw me so much as talking to another man at a party he’d fly off the handle. Then he’d be silent and moody for days.’

‘So you ended it?’

‘Yes, it was messy. I was still at work, so I could escape. And after it was over I threw myself into work and made it so important that it dominated my life and filled my thoughts.’

‘And you did well,’ he said. ‘I think Tina told me you are your firm’s chief executive.’

‘Yes. That’s right. I suppose that focusing all my attention on the job was what did it. I got to the top in two years.’

He looked at her and gave an admiring smile before saying, ‘But there’s more to life than work.’

She smiled. ‘Yes. And I have a reasonable social life.’

‘Is there anybody … I mean, is there a man in your life?’

She frowned and looked down before replying, ‘Not really. I go out on the odd date. Friends try to “fix me up” from time to time.’

He took a sip of his wine. They had finished eating and the waitress came to take their orders for desert. They both said they’d just have coffee.

After the meal they drove back to
Lake Goddess
. As she got out of the car she swayed and clutched at the door for support.

‘Gosh!’ she giggled. ‘I must’ve had more wine than I thought.’

He took her arm and steered her to the companionway. She leant against him and it felt good to hold her firmly, if only to steady her.

‘I think you’ve had a tad too much to drink,’ he said. ‘You can’t drive like that. I can get you a taxi if you like.’

She looked at him seriously and he returned the eye-contact as he went on, ‘Alternatively, you can stay here.’ He smiled, raised both hands, palms towards her and added, ‘No funny business. You can go in the guest cabin; it’s quite comfortable.’

She continued to hold his gaze for a while, then she smiled. ‘All right. I’ll stay.’

He had just started to drop off when he felt the boat sway slightly. He heard the soft click of her door opening and was instantly wide awake as she entered the master cabin and slipped under his duvet. He reached out in the darkness and pulled her to him. She was naked.

‘Hello,’ he whispered. ‘This is a surprise. A nice one though, I must say.’

‘No PJs!’ She giggled quietly. ‘I love your boat, but the bed was cold.’ She paused and he could sense her looking thoughtfully at him in the darkness as she asked, ‘Is it a bed, or is it called a bunk?’

He smiled, and stroked the back of her neck. ‘Either will do,’ he answered.