The Bone Yard Read online

Katharine nudged my elbow. “What do you think?” she whispered. “They don’t exactly look dangerous.”

  We stood still as the figures reached the grave that was nearest to their side of the clearing. The lead slab was surrounded by a rim of fresh earth. The two of them stood staring down at the grave, arms round each other’s back. It was then I realised that stooping seemed to be their usual stance. After a while one of them knelt down slowly and placed a small sprig of holly on the surface of the metal. There was a long silence, then a solitary crow cawed from behind us. The two figures raised their heads instinctively and looked straight at us.

  I wanted to run across the clearing and reassure them we meant no harm, but that would have meant stepping over the graves and I didn’t think that would endear me to them. Then it became obvious that they weren’t disturbed by our presence. In fact, the one who was kneeling started carefully repositioning the holly on the slab. Perhaps they hadn’t seen us after all.

  “Come on,” I said to Katharine under my breath. “They’re the best chance we’ve got of finding out what the hell’s been going on around here.”

  We circled the clearing and walked towards the figures slowly but without stealth. As we approached they finally seemed to register our presence, but they didn’t speak – just turned and lifted their faces when they heard our footsteps.

  I heard Katharine draw breath in rapidly. I could see why. The kneeling one was a woman. I knew that from the softness of her skin and the delicate line of her jaw and neck, even though her face was blotched with dark red lesions and her eyebrows had disappeared. Her male companion’s face was also heavily marked and his limbs were shaking with rapid movements. But their eyes were what was hardest to look at. If the lumberjack’s were clouded, theirs were almost completely opaque, like watered-down milk. That was why they hadn’t noticed us for so long.

  “What harm are we doing?” the woman asked querulously. “Alec’s at peace now. You can’t get anything else from him.”

  Katharine and I exchanged helpless glances.

  “You’re not doing any harm,” I said. “We’re not on the staff here.”

  An expression of what looked like joy flashed across both their faces, to be replaced almost immediately by a terrible sadness. It was as if they’d been waiting for this moment for years, only to realise as soon as it arrived that salvation from what they were going through was an impossible dream.

  “Not on the staff?” the man repeated, his ruined features contorting as he struggled to work out who we were.

  The woman rose to her feet with difficulty, holding on to her companion’s arm tightly. “Surely you haven’t come over the wall?” she said, her voice fraught with fear. “You’ll never get out again, you know.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said, trying to sound more in command of myself than I was. “In the meantime we need your help. Will you be missed for a few more minutes?”

  The man laughed. It wasn’t a pretty sound, but it raised my spirits. Whatever he’d suffered, at least he could still laugh. I saw that Katharine was smiling.

  “They won’t miss us. Now that we can’t work in the labs or with the cattle, they’re just waiting for us to join the others here.” His head started to shake like his arms and legs. The woman drew him gently away from the grave.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’d better get into the cover of the bushes.”

  Katharine took her arm but she shook it off firmly. We let them move slowly ahead.

  In the undergrowth they lowered themselves carefully on to the trunk of a fallen tree and sat hand in hand like a couple of kids who’d strayed away from a school picnic.

  “If you’re not on the staff, who are you?” the man asked suspiciously. “No one’s ever volunteered to enter this place before.”

  “I’m Dalrymple,” I said, preparing to launch into a sanitised account of what we were up to. I didn’t get the chance.

  “Quintilian Dalrymple?” they said in unison. I wasn’t aware that my name had become part of a Gregorian chant. “The investigator?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “How do you know?”

  “We haven’t been here all our lives,” the woman said. “Though it often feels like it. We knew about you when we were in the Science and Energy Directorate.” She shook her head slowly. “Your mother was responsible for all this, you know.”

  I’d been wondering when my mother, the former senior guardian, would come back to haunt me. The lesions on the couple’s faces were a silent reminder of the lupus that had ravaged her. But I suspected that what they were afflicted by was even worse than that.

  “Don’t worry,” the man said. “We won’t hold it against you.” He sighed deeply like a torture victim who’s tracked down his abusers but can’t find the strength to avenge himself on them. “We’re long past that.”

  “Tell us,” Katharine said simply, squatting down on the damp bracken in front of them. “Tell us what they did to you.”

  “Very well,” the man said. “This is our story. I hope you both find it informative.” His voice broke towards the end of the sentence but I couldn’t tell if that was the effect of emotion or his physical condition.

  I settled back against the gnarled trunk of an ancient oak and shut out the harsh call of the crow that was still haunting the wood. Maybe it had found a rabbit – or something larger. Then I leaned forward and listened to the old man’s soft, uneven tones.

  “We’re . . . we were mechanical engineers. Specialising in steam turbines. Before the Enlightenment we worked at Torness. Of course, after the plant was decommissioned, we had to retrain.”

  The woman laughed bitterly. “Coal. I hate the bloody stuff. We spent most of our time patching up what passes for a coal-fired power station in this benighted city.”

  Her companion nodded. “Until we were called into the Science and Energy Directorate in 2019 and told we were to be part of a top-secret team. They gave us false identities as ordinary citizens.”

  “To work on starting up the nuclear plant at Torness,” I said.

  They were seriously shocked. “You knew?” the woman exclaimed. “How? No one outside this hell-hole is supposed to have heard about the project we took part in.”

  I looked at their devastated faces. “Not quite no one. There were a few others. My mother and the science and energy guardian, for instance.”

  “Guardians,” the man said. “Why would they talk?”

  I considered defending William McEwan, but time was running out. The longer we were in the compound, the greater the chance we’d be caught.

  “We heard your mother died, Quintilian,” the woman said, giving me a surprisingly sympathetic look.

  “She did. Last year.” I paused for a moment, amazed that the woman could feel anything for the guardian who was at least partially responsible for what had happened to her.

  “It would never have worked,” the man continued. “All our colleagues were agreed on that. But there was great pressure on us to come up with a positive recommendation. The deputy guardian . . .”

  That’s what I wanted to hear. Some dirt on the one-time deputy science guardian who was now senior guardian.

  “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. “I
t 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 p
eople 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.”