Lie of the Land (9 page)

‘The guy who dropped that package off for you must be camping up at the forest,' she said, softening. ‘You told my dad that you were meeting up with an old friend.' Her raised eyebrows said it all: what kind of an old friend hides in the forest?

Thankfully, Carl wasn't so drunk that he'd lost control of his tongue. There was an abridged version of the truth that could be used on those who asked awkward questions. He pointed to the glass cabinet that lined one wall of the lobby.

‘Are these bottles full of whisky or cold tea?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘They've been on display for years, most of them. For as long as I can remember.'

Carl considered the lines of bottles. ‘And how long has that been?'

‘Since I was seven.'

Uncertain, Carl peered at the waitress. ‘Bit young to start working, isn't it?'

‘That's when my dad bought the place.'

‘Who – George . . .'

‘Cutler. I'm Simone.'

Carl processed this information. He turned back to the cabinet full of whisky bottles. ‘Well, Simone, if you uncork one of these to find out whether or not it's tea inside, I'll tell you my dark secret.'

‘What happens if it's cold tea?'

‘Then it's name, rank and serial number, and nothing else.'

•

He threw the room key on the dresser of Room 14 and sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, tugging at his laces. He kicked off his shoes.

Struggling into bed, he lay a while with the lamp on. Simone was a funny woman. Music student then single mum, her defences too ready to come up.

There was a funny feeling in his guts, and he assumed it was to do with the booze. Eventually, he fell asleep.

10

His alarm went off at 8 a.m., the tone knifing into his head. Once he was over the shock, something like consciousness seeped into him. It hurt. Off the booze was an altogether gentler place to be. As he lay there, getting used to being awake and in pain, he wondered whether Inverlair Hotel could stretch to a full fry-up. Furred arteries and high cholesterol were best avoided, but a hangover demands such damage. Only saturated fat and sugar can make the morning-after body shock better. He lay there for a while, thinking about Simone. Sensitive subject, her son's dad. As soon as he'd touched on it, Carl had seen the shutters come down. She was happy enough to talk about playing the flute and being a session musician and living in Bristol, content to hear about his journalism and life in Glasgow. But the personal stuff was off-limits. Her dad might be American, but Simone had not inherited any propensity to gush at complete strangers, be it on the subject of medical complaints or familial tensions or any other stuff that Brits deemed too private to talk about. And thank God she hadn't.

He got up to piss, groaning as he splashed into the bowl. In the bathroom, beside the wash-hand basin, there was no mini-soap and no towel, so he splashed his face with water a few times. He made a coffee, swallowed two painkillers, pulled on yesterday's clothes, and crept downstairs. He heard Cutler complaining about how the weekly minibus from Inverness was late, and there was no answer from the brewery. Carl accepted the offer of two fried eggs and tomato on toast.

‘You couldn't spare a towel as well, could you, and some of those wee soaps?'

Cutler said he would bring them up.

It was just after ten. Less than two hours until the time lock on the video file expired. Carl wasn't sure if it was the fact that he was hungover, but he was beginning to feel a bit unsettled. There was no wireless signal in Inverlair; he couldn't check his texts or his feeds. Brindley's cloak-and-dagger act was a pain in the arse. He must be on the run, to camp out like that.

Fried food was the second part of the remedy for his hangover. Showering had been the first part. Now that he was out walking in the fresh air, the fuzz of seven pints and an after-hours whisky had all but lifted. Salt on the breeze. Sun on the water, oily rainbow diesel-sheen lapping against the pier's legs. He felt better for being outside. Carl leant on a railing, looked out across the bay at the open horizon, and behind to the rising land, the dark hollow of Inverlair Bay. What the fuck went on here? How could people live?

If Brindley was on the run then he wouldn't stay anywhere official, like a hotel or guesthouse. Had he come by sea? Carl walked back through the village, along the shingle shorefront, stopping at some old boat sheds, his mind wandering. He had to tell the waitress, Simone, something. Yes, he was a journalist, and, yes, he was working on a story, but it was nothing to do with Inverlair or any of the locals. Doubtless she had her own story to tell if he could be bothered to probe for it. Everyone has a key, well hidden usually, even from themselves. He turned back along the shingle beach towards the concrete slipway.

It was 12.04 p.m.

In Room 14, Carl played the second file on the memory stick for the third time. Nothing but the inside of Brindley's tent. No sign of him. He played the first file again. Brindley looked tired, kept rubbing his bald head, massaging his eyes. He hadn't shaved for a few days. But his words were definite: ‘The second file is
time-locked until noon on the seventeenth – tomorrow if you made it in time. It'll explain everything.'

Yet the evidence on the screen said the opposite. File two was empty.

Okay. There was no other option: he'd have to find Brindley, wherever he was hiding. Carl grabbed his jacket and shoulder bag and headed down the stairs. At the reception desk a German couple were asking for directions to a prehistoric cave in the hills. Simone nodded to Carl as he walked past and out the main door.

Standing on the steps of the hotel, Carl let the door bang behind him. What the fuck was Brindley playing at? He could be anywhere in the forest – if he was up there at all. Nothing for it, he'd have to get his trainers wet. So intently was he looking across at the conifer plantation at the head of the bay that it took him a few seconds to register who was walking towards him along the rhododendron-lined track. Unlike the video file, this Brindley was clean-shaven and didn't look quite so tired.

It was Brindley who spoke first. ‘Your picture in the paper makes you look older.' He forced a smile. ‘You've tried the second video file and now you're on your way to track me down.' It was a statement.

Carl nodded. ‘Yes.' He looked about, at hills and water, and wondered who might be lurking close by. ‘Look, do you want to talk out here, or shall we go inside?'

Brindley's faced darkened. ‘Do you have a car?'

Carl nodded.

A flood of emotions crossed Brindley's face in an instant, before settling on anxiety. He could only stare at the ground. ‘Let's go then. Rather than talk, I'll show you what SCOPE has done.'

•

Two hours later, Carl came into the hotel's public bar, ashen-faced. He stood for a while at the door, watching the few regulars, Simone pulling pints.

‘I'll tell them,' he said to Brindley, who sat down at a corner table.

Behind the bar, George Cutler was complaining that the bus was almost four hours late and the satellite TV was still down. ‘We're nearly out of draught lager,' he murmured to his daughter. ‘And the bloody power is still off.' He quietened when he saw Carl in the doorway. ‘Enjoy your walk, Mr Shewan?'

Without answering, Carl pointed at the optics. Simone gave him the glimmer of a smile, but it didn't register. None of this was real any more, he thought. It was finished. There was a wrecking ball on its way. Any minute now it would shatter everything.

George shook his head and took silence for an answer. ‘Feeling rough, eh?'

They don't know, Carl thought. They don't know, and he would have to show them, like Brindley had shown him. That was the only way to convince them. George went into the office and Simone eyed Carl from down the bar.

‘Are you all right?'

He threw back his whisky in one gulp as George stamped through from the office.

‘They're still not answering the phone,' he said to his daughter. ‘I can't even get online. The shop's expecting a delivery as well.'

Another whisky went smartly down Carl's throat, firing his stomach and clearing his head. But he didn't want a clear head. He wanted a head that was unable to form coherent thoughts, so he smacked the empty glass back down on the bar and demanded another shot. The only real thing left was to get pissed.

Brindley appeared by his side.

‘Who are you waiting for?' he asked George.

It was a direct question, spoken loudly and without any hesitation.

‘The brewery,' began George. ‘Every two weeks they arrange for a deliv—'

‘They're not coming.'

George looked puzzled.

‘Are there any police in Inverlair?' It was another direct question from Brindley.

‘Yes,' said George slowly. ‘P.C. Gibbs.' He glanced at Carl. ‘Is there any . . . trouble?'

But Brindley kept firing the questions. No time to waste on politeness.

‘Do you have a local councillor, community leaders?'

‘Look, what's this about?'

‘Do you have a local councillor, Mr Cutler? Yes or no.'

Flustered, George said: ‘Yes, but . . .'

‘It is vital that you get a group of people together immediately.'

‘Look, whoever you . . . what the hell's all this about?'

Brindley considered an answer, then gave up. He looked at Carl, who was now well into his third double. Carl knocked back what remained of his measure.

‘Come with us and we'll show you.'

•

George sat in the back of Brindley's car along with the moustachioed P.C. Gibbs. As they drove away, a woman came out of the tiny shop and wondered where they were all going in the same car.

Just over two miles into the drive they all began to hear it. George touched his temple as Carl stopped the car and turned the engine off. He glanced in the rear-view mirror at Brindley.

‘What's that noise?' said George. ‘Something's clicking.'

‘Microwave hearing,' said Brindley. ‘The sound isn't actually hitting your eardrums – it's being generated in your brain's auditory centres.'

‘Where's it coming from?'

Carl started the engine again, and they drove on.

The noise changed to a continuous high-pitched intensity, growing louder and louder. They drove on, south and east, away from the bay, their headaches growing worse, until the shrieking noise cut right into them. Carl stopped the car, wrenched the gear stick into reverse, his eyes streaming, and turned back the way they'd come, the passengers shouting and grabbing at him to stop. He fought them off. ‘Don't get out,' he shouted, racing the car back towards Inverlair and down into the bay. The high-pitched tone vanished, and their headaches eased.

•

They all sat in the lounge bar. It reeked of stale beer and sweat. They listened, or at least appeared to listen.

‘The system is named SCOPE,' said Howard. ‘That stands for Secure Communications Open Emergency. It's a system of transmitters using pulsed microwaves designed to give complete asset management and communications coverage in the event of a national emergency or crisis. Most base stations have SCOPE now, site-sharing with commercial operators.' He looked at his watch. ‘SCOPE was networked, across most of Europe and North America at 09.28 GMT, just over three hours ago. An imperfection in tiny diarite crystals that are used in the microwave filters has caused a standing harmonic, a signal, that has propagated throughout the entire system. This harmonic resonates at 2.14 hertz, the same frequency as deep sleep. Everyone outside a notspot – an area without signal coverage – is now asleep, and will remain that way until they die, within a few days, a week, however long it takes, unless SCOPE, somehow, shuts down. The pain and noise you felt and heard were simply interference patterns at the very edge of the electromagnetic field.'

Councillor Diane Matheson gave a nervous laugh. She turned
to George Cutler. ‘What's he talking about, George? Stupid bloody nonsense . . .'

Cutler could only stare at Brindley. The councillor waited for an answer.

‘We can't leave,' said Carl, helping himself to another whisky. ‘And everybody who's within range of this fucking delta signal, which is a big chunk of the developed world, is as good as dead.' He looked out the window while slugging his drink. ‘I think that just about covers it.'

There was silence in the room.

‘Mum,' said Simone. She looked at her dad. George knew, and Brindley wouldn't meet his eye. ‘My wife is in Edinburgh,' he said, pleading.

Brindley took a deep breath. He looked from the councillor, to George Cutler, to Gibbs. ‘You have to start planning, because there is a chance that nothing is going to come in from the outside world for a long time.'

‘For how long?' said Gibbs, tears in his eyes.

‘Well,' said Brindley, ‘the delta signal in rural areas is coming from hundreds of base stations, but in the cities there are thousands of smaller nodes in the grid. They all use high-temperature superconductors so they only need a tiny amount of power. The system is designed to scavenge the national grid. Solar and tidal will give it what it needs . . . for years . . . for power.'

‘No,' said Simone firmly. She stormed though the fire door and into the annexe.

Gibbs stood and buttoned up his uniform jacket. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about this SCOPE system, Mr Brindley.'

‘Our company worked on systems integration, telemetry, for CivCon's main contractor.'

Councillor Matheson slammed her hand down on the table with such force that it made everyone jump. ‘Constable Gibbs, what absolute bloody nonsense is this man talking about?'

The policeman glanced at Cutler.

‘I'll take her,' said George.

‘Take me? Take me where? What're you on about, George?'