“I’d say you were on pretty safe ground, there. Although, he didn’t sing anything, so I can’t be sure.”
“Right. So, we’ll pull all personnel records for the maintenance staff. We can eliminate everyone who shows up for work in the morning. We’ll give the details of the others to the Met, and they can scoop them up, pronto. In the meantime the hazmat team will hopefully prove there’s no caesium missing. Then, if we can get Elvis to ID the fireman, that should get the job done.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We chewed things over a little longer, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing to be gained by hanging around talking, and nothing to be lost by finding something decent to eat. It turned out that Melissa’s favourite food was steak and kidney pie, and she knew a little pub that made their own less than a quarter of a mile away. That wasn’t far, but she decided to abandon the wheelchair for the trip down the bumpy footpaths and narrow passageways that ran alongside the river.
“My sister used a chair,” she said, when we’d been going for a little over five minutes. “I don’t know if I told you that before.”
“Is that the place?” I said, nodding towards a half-timbered building at the corner of the next street. “The Frog and Turtle?”
“She was in a motorcycle accident when she was seventeen. She never walked again. And I’d watch people looking at her, time after time after time, and only seeing the chair. They had no idea who she was. How smart she was. How beautiful she was. So that made me think. Any time I need cover, I’ll use a chair, too. And hey presto. I’ll be invisible.”
“Is that the only reason you use one? Or is it a kind of tribute to your sister?”
“That’s the only reason. It’s entirely practical.”
“Is she younger than you? Or older?”
“She was older.”
“She’s no longer with us?”
“No. She got hit by a fire engine, would you believe? Four years ago. Crossing the road. About a mile and a half from here, as it happens. It was late at night. A streetlight was broken, and it turned out the driver was just someone else who didn’t see her. Or the chair.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Melissa. Truly. That’s a terrible story.”
“The Frog and Turtle?” she said, after a few seconds. “Yes, that’s the place. Strange name. Good pies.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” I said. “You can’t eat a name.”
There were no free tables when we arrived at the pub, so we made our way over to the bar. A woman was sitting in the booth nearest the door. She was on her own. There was only a quarter of an inch of wine left in her glass, so I took my time to deliberate over the eight kinds of beer they had on draught, watching her in the big mirror on the wall. I finally bought a pint of Timothy Taylor for myself, and a bottle of hard cider for Melissa. The woman took a final sip of her wine, so we wandered across and loitered close by till she got up and left. Then Melissa slid her legs under the table and I settled in opposite her.
The place was busy and the rumble of background conversation was correspondingly loud, but Melissa still leaned in close before speaking.
“How long are you going to stick around?” she said.
“Tonight?” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“That’s not up to me. I’ll be here till I’m told to be somewhere else.”
“Another country?”
“Always is.”
“Must be strange, never being in the same place very long.”
“Must strange, always being in the same place.”
She took a couple of long pulls on the cider, then turned back to me.
“There’ll be more to this than just finding Elvis, you know,” she said.
I nodded.
“Hopefully he’ll lead us to the fireman, but that won’t be the end of it, either,” she said.
I took a sip of my beer.
“We’ll have to run his background,” she said. “Even if he’s a genuine firefighter it doesn’t mean it was a genuine misunderstanding with the door.”
“It doesn’t,” I said. “And here’s another thing. You guys have been obsessing over whether this really was a robbery attempt. I guess that’s what your procedures set you up to do. But have you ever wondered whether actually stealing the stuff was never part of the plan?”
“What do you mean?”
“It could be someone just wanted to do enough damage to cause a radiation scare. Even if none actually leaked out, it could trigger an evacuation. Of the hospital, maybe the whole area. Then, who knows what would be possible. Are there any high profile patients, who are normally guarded? What buildings are around here? What’s stored in them? What about access to infrastructure, that could be sabotaged? Perhaps the attack on the door is the tip of the iceberg, not you.”
Melissa smiled.
“All good points,” she said. “But we haven’t just fallen off some collective turnip truck. I told you, there’s more to our operation than meets the eye. Your eye, anyway. Remember all the phone calls I’ve been following up? Well, every patient; every employee; every structure, current and abandoned, above or below ground; every phone, power, gas, water, TV, and traffic signal network; every London Underground line; even the old pneumatic pipes the Post Office used to us - all of that’s been checked and risk-assessed. We’re not worried.”
I shrugged.
“But I am worried about starving,” she said. “Are you ready to eat?”
I nodded.
“My treat,” she said, and wriggled out of the booth.
Melissa eased her way through the crowd at the bar, and realised I wasn’t the only one watching her. A couple of city boys liked the look of her, too. They were perching on stools with champagne flutes in their hands, with the rest of the bottle on the bar between them in a black plastic ice bucket.
Melissa spoke to the barman, and while she was waiting for our drinks to be poured one of the city boys slithered off his stool. He straightened his tie, ran one hand through his hair, and sidled up to her. He said something to her and she moved half a step to her left, away from him. I could see her upper lip curling into an expression of distaste. He moved after her and said something else. She looked away. He leaned in close, and presumably kept up his pursuit in a more intimate tone. He’d have been better advised not to because she spun around towards him, shot out her right hand and took hold of his ear. I knew what was coming next. She was going to gouge her thumbnail into his lobe. It was a simple move. Innocuous, on paper. But agonising in the flesh. And judging by his scream, she executed it perfectly. She held on for a couple of seconds, then picked up our glasses and moved back to the booth.
“The food’ll be here soon,” she said as she sat back down. “And I got you a pint of something called Old Peculier to go with it. I thought it would suit you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Good choice. And more popular with you than champagne, tonight.”
She shrugged.
“Morons,” she said.
“Are we going to have trouble with them, later?” I said.
“I doubt it.”
I glanced across, and saw the barman filling their glasses from a fresh bottle of Krug.