Itchcraft (23 page)

‘I feel OK, thanks, but I need check-ups. There’s a clinic in Exeter I need to go to—’

‘Hi, guys!’ called Lucy, pulling on a jacket. ‘We going straight away?’

‘There’s a kettle just boiled if you fancy a tea,’ said Nicola. ‘Lucy said you were heading to West Ridge . . .’

‘Might be a change of plan,’ said Itch. There was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be my brother Gabriel. He’s driving us.’

Lucy let him in and made the introductions.

‘Mum thinks I need to take Chloe to Exeter, and I guess it does make sense,’ said Gabriel. ‘Sorry, Itch – maybe leave the euro-testing for another day.’

Itch sighed. ‘OK, I suppose it can wait. Not sure when Alexander will be able to help next, though. He has some lab time this morning, that’s all.’

‘Sorry,’ said Chloe. ‘You’re making me feel guilty. You don’t all need to come, you know.’

Their plans disrupted, they stood around wondering what to do next.

Nicola Cavendish brandished her kettle. ‘Why don’t I take Itch to West Ridge and Gabriel take Chloe to Exeter?’ she said. ‘That way everyone’s sorted.’

‘Really?’ said Itch. ‘Aren’t you busy with . . . something?’

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ she said. ‘It’s been many years since anyone mentioned “lab time” to me. Lucy’s father was always obsessed with booking it whenever he could. We had to arrange our dating around it.’ She smiled ruefully and Itch was taken aback to hear Cake discussed in this way.

The Cake of his memory was the worldly-wise drifter, selling elements to whoever he could find; not a domesticated boyfriend arranging dates around his experiments. He realized it had never occurred to him to ask Lucy’s mother about Cake, but now didn’t seem like the best time to start.

So he said nothing.

‘Why don’t I go with Mum and Itch to the mining school,’ said Lucy, breaking the silence. ‘Jack? West Ridge or Exeter?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ll be more use with Chloe,’ she said. ‘Some female companionship!’ Her cousin smiled appreciatively.

‘Sorted,’ said Gabriel. ‘Let’s go.’

The two cars left Lucy’s drive within seconds of each other, both heading inland. They passed a hire van, a Renault, parked in a bus stop, the occupants apparently busy with a large map. In the Cavendish car, Itch watched it in the mirror as it rejoined the road, a good hundred metres behind them. He remembered to text his destination to the police.

At the dual carriageway, Gabriel turned left, waving farewell. Nicola, Itch and Lucy turned right. He waited to see which way the Renault turned. He thought he detected indecision: neither indicator was flashing and for a moment he thought the car had stalled. Then it went left, heading for Exeter, and Itch wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or not. He sent Jack a text.

Nicola shifted in her seat, and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Itch, I hope you weren’t embarrassed when I mentioned Lucy’s father back then in the house. I’ve realized that I got out of the habit of talking about him with her and that was a mistake. So I’m trying to make up for it now.’

She glanced in the mirror, but Itch wasn’t sure how Lucy was reacting and didn’t want to turn round to check. He realized he needed to say something, but no words would come. It was Lucy who helped out.

‘Itch bought loads of stuff from him, didn’t you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘I got all my cool elements from Cake. There aren’t too many element hunters around, so we got on great. He just seemed to know stuff. He got it; he understood. I didn’t have to explain why carbon is interesting – he knew that anyway.’ Itch realized he actually had lots to say. ‘When I asked him about lithium, he knew about it being one of the three elements around after the Big Bang. He knew that burning magnesium is impossible to put out, and that my sulphur sample came from a volcano . . . and that it is mentioned fifteen times in the Bible and blew up Sodom and Gomorrah. We talked about the Periodic Table, and the stuff you weren’t allowed to have, even if he seemed to know how to get most of it . . .’ Itch trailed off.

‘Which is where the 126 came in,’ said Lucy quietly.

‘I guess so,’ said Itch.

They had turned off onto the twisty lanes that led to West Ridge before Nicola tried again. ‘Did you talk about anything apart from chemistry?’ she said.

Itch thought about that. ‘Not really. He did ask about my family sometimes, and he met Jack and Chloe.’

‘Did he seem happy?’ She had stopped drumming on the steering wheel, and was gripping it tightly.

Itch hadn’t thought about that, either. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Actually, very happy. Probably the happiest person I knew. He loved just drifting around. Unless he was shouting about governments, pollution and not trusting anyone. Then he was quite noisy.’

Nicola smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, that sounds familiar . . .’ She was silent for a while; then, as if she’d had enough of reminiscences, asked, ‘Who are we meeting in West Ridge?’

‘Dr Alexander – he’s the boss there. He analysed the 126 – he’s got all the kit at his labs. Nice guy with some weird ideas about the planet, which he’ll probably mention.’ Then, remembering a conversation he’d had in his garden at home, ‘And he says he knew Cake too.’

‘Really?’ chorused Lucy and Nicola.

‘Yes, he said he was really called Mike. Is that right?’

‘Wow, he really
did
know him, then,’ laughed Nicola. ‘Hardly anyone remembered that – he was always Cake. I was even Mrs Cake to some people, though I soon put a stop to that.’ Itch saw her smile to herself, a private memory. ‘He’d have been fantastically proud of you both, you know.’

She glanced at Itch, who was surprised to be referred to in the same breath as Cake’s daughter. He nodded his thanks, looking away. Lucy had told him that before, but somehow it was all the more telling coming from the woman who had been Cake’s partner.

Itch, Lucy and Nicola walked into the reception area, and immediately heard Dr Alexander’s greeting as he strode round the corner.

‘Why, Itch, how good to see you again!’ His smile was broad and his eyes sharp. He held out his hand and Itch shook it, then introduced Lucy and Nicola.

‘Of course. Cake’s family. I’m so sorry for your loss . . .’ He paused, rubbing his greying, closely cropped hair. ‘We met a few times, you know. He came to a couple of events here and we saw each other at some science fairs – that kind of thing.’ Nicola nodded as Dr Alexander struggled for what to say next. Then he smiled at Lucy. ‘And Itch’s father tells me it was you who knew how to destroy the 126 – spallation and the ISIS labs.’

Lucy nodded. ‘We used to hang out there,’ she said. ‘I just remembered Dad’s conversations about neutron capture and stuff.’

‘Well,’ said Alexander, smiling, ‘that science gene of your father’s has most certainly been passed on.’ He smiled at Nicola, then switched his gaze to Itch. ‘And your father, Itch, tells me you have one of those burning euros for me to look at . . .’

Itch reached into his pocket and pulled out the charred ten-euro note.

Alexander’s eyes lit up. ‘Come! Come! Let’s get it under the Raman microscope!’ And he strode off down the corridor towards the labs.

‘I’ll wait here for you,’ Nicola told Lucy. ‘You don’t need me. I’ll catch up on some emails. You carry on.’

Lucy nodded, and she and Itch ran after Alexander. ‘You all right, Itch? You look a little green,’ she said.

‘I’m OK, really. Last time I was here was when Jack and I got kidnapped by Flowerdew, that’s all . . .’

‘And I took a kicking from that Greencorps thug,’ called Alexander over his shoulder. ‘Served me right for talking to that woman who said she was a reporter for the
International Herald Tribune
. Too vain! I was far, far too vain! A problem not unique to scientists, but we have more than our fair share, I think.’

The corridor ended in a T-junction, and Alexander turned right, walking and talking. They entered a brightly lit room, filled with benches and lined with overflowing shelves. Itch wandered over and peered at the jars, tubs and bottles that looked as if they had been left mid-experiment; tubes and assorted glassware stood next to bowls and a calculator.

‘Those rocks were the temptation, you see,’ said Alexander. ‘A previously unknown energy resource – and sitting in my lab! Look, I still have the readings.’ He pointed at a notice board; pinned in the centre was a printout of a spectrum. ‘The data from the spectrometer – the only proof that they were here! I stare at them most days, and wonder. You know I wanted the rocks, Itch – we could have done great things with them.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ said Itch. ‘“Earth’s last chance” or something.’

‘I thought so, yes. For a few moments I thought so. A way of getting through the new hot age. The Earth is a living organism, you know, and this was a spectacular way of showing that it has a regulatory mechanism.’

Itch had glazed over but Lucy was intrigued. ‘You mean, like a thermostat?’

‘Kind of, yes,’ said Alexander. ‘If it’s cold in the morning, you’ll put on a jumper or turn the heating up. If it gets warmer, you can open a window. We do it all the time. This Gaia theory I told Itch about basically says the Earth does the same: the biosphere regulates the environment to suit itself. Stops us from freezing or boiling, basically. That’s what I think the 126 would have done.’

‘I think we’ve sort of done this bit, Dr Alexander,’ said Itch, impatient to test the euro.

The director turned slowly to face him. ‘I know. And we’ll doubtless do it again. Then one day, maybe when you’re a more eminent scientist than I am, you’ll remember what I told you, and you’ll walk in and tell me I was right.’

He gazed steadily at Itch, then nodded. ‘But we move on. Lab Two here is for microscopy, and I have the Raman ready to go.’ He indicated a white, black and silver microscope that was connected to a large cream-coloured circular box set up on the lab’s front bench. ‘A Raman microscope. A lovely thing! An ordinary microscope, but with a spectrometer attached. You remember the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer next door?’

Itch smiled. It was the machine that had fired X-rays at the rocks of 126, then analysed the ones that bounced back, telling Alexander precisely what he was analysing. It had caused the director – despite being in his early sixties – to dance around like a crazed teenager.

‘I’m not likely to forget it really, Dr Alexander. Or your cool moves afterwards!’

‘Yes, well . . . it was one of those moments, wasn’t it? So, with this machine, you load what you want to study under the microscope in the conventional way. Then, when you’ve got it in the middle of the crosshairs, you flip the microscope to spectrometer mode. If you don’t, you’ll shoot its laser straight into your eye, which might limit your career prospects as a microscopist a little!’

Lucy laughed at that. ‘So what do you see, Dr Alexander, once it has gone to spectrometer mode?’ She pulled her hair back, fixing it with a small band.

‘Well, it uses the vibration of the molecules it’s analysing to produce a spectrum – a plot with peaks and troughs. The waves have numbers, and you match the peaks to a library held on a computer. That tells you what you’re looking at.’

‘Is it pretty instant? Like the X-ray spectrometer next door?’ asked Itch.

Dr Alexander nodded. ‘Yes, we’ll know straight away what caused the money to burn. It’s an analysis that the Spanish will be doing right now, so we may as well find out too. Ready?’ Itch nodded and handed over the ten-euro note. Dr Alexander rubbed his hands together and smiled. ‘This is my favourite bit,’ he said. He placed it on the sample slide. Then, with the briefest of glances at his audience, he bent down and put his eyes to the binocular-style eye-pieces of the Raman microscope.

The head-injury clinic of St Michael’s Hospital in Exeter proved more difficult to find than anyone would have thought possible. Chloe, Jack and Gabriel had walked through what seemed like miles of corridors before pushing through some double doors and arriving at the reception area, marked by plastic flowers and large posters of trees and flowers. A family sat in a corner looking bored; opposite them, an elderly man was busy with a newspaper crossword.

‘Anyone with a real head injury would have died long before actually finding this place,’ said Gabriel.

‘What do you mean, “real” head injury?’ said Chloe, punching him on his arm.

‘I mean someone who’s bleeding and everything!’ said Gabriel defensively. ‘Obviously yours was bad, Chlo – I just meant . . .’

‘Who are you seeing?’ said Jack, gazing at the directory board. ‘They have neuropsychologists, a neuro-rehabilitation specialist or a neurootolaryngologist. Whatever that is.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Chloe, and she approached the woman seated behind the reception desk. Her badge said
SANDRA
, and she managed a rather bored smile as she looked up Chloe’s appointment.

‘You’re early,’ she said. ‘You’re due to see Mr Schaffer at three. Take a seat and fill out this form, please. Do you have an adult with you?’

Gabriel put his hand up. ‘Me,’ he said, smiling. ‘I am. Well, most of the time, anyway.’

Sandra didn’t look impressed. ‘You sign too, please.’ She returned to her computer screen while Gabriel and Chloe sat with Jack by a low table piled high with a selection of the dullest magazines they had ever seen.

‘Missed two texts from Itch,’ said Jack. She showed her phone to Gabriel and Chloe.

‘
You being followed? Check out the Renault behind you
,’ read Gabriel. The second text gave its registration number. He shrugged. ‘No use now,’ he said. ‘I didn’t notice anything, but then my instructor always told me to use my mirrors more. Sorry. You see anything?’

‘Call him,’ said Chloe.

‘Really? But we’re here now!’ Gabriel was about to protest further, but Jack just stared at him.

‘Call him,’ she said. ‘If Itch is concerned about something, then
I
am.’ Catching a look from Chloe, she amended, ‘
We
are.’

‘OK, calm down,’ he said. ‘I’m on it.’ He got out his phone, dialled and listened, but gave up after a few seconds. ‘On divert.’ He looked from his sister to his cousin and back again. The carefree atmosphere seemed to have gone: they both looked tense.