The Disappeared

Andy pulled off his mask and ripped at the Velcro tabs on his apron. The beach club T-shirt he was wearing underneath was soaked through with sweat. 'Sonia says she's found radioactive particles on the surface of the skin. They're beta emitters, which starts to narrow it down. She also found a particle in the nasal passage. It's early days, but her initial impression was that Mrs Jamal has been in an environment where she's come into contact with a radioactive substance.'

'Such as?' Alison asked.

'There are some medical and commercial applications for these radionuclides - iodine 129 is used to treat thyroid complaints - but it's more likely she's been exposed to low- or medium-level nuclear waste.'

Jenny said, 'How likely is that?'

'Beats me,' Andy said. He pulled his dosimeter from his pocket - a small yellow gadget about the size of a pager - and switched it on. He waved it in Jenny and Alison's direction and checked the digital readout. 'You're both clear.'

Sonia Cane was a Ghanaian woman who wore a permanent frown. Having finished her work at the fridge she scrubbed down in the autopsy room while reeling off a list of urgent tasks. The Health Protection Agency would have to be informed immediately. Their radiation team would oversee the clean-up of the mortuary and the storage and eventual disposal of the body. Until the building was clear of contamination it would be sealed off and no bodies would be allowed to come or go. The levels of radiation were high enough to make this a significant incident.

'Do you have any idea where this came from?' Jenny asked her.

'No, but I can tell you what the substance is. There'll be more detailed tests, but I'm pretty certain it's caesium 137. Tiny amounts - no more than specks of dust - but from a potent source.'

'What's that when it's at home?' Alison said, saving Jenny from revealing her ignorance.

'A by-product of the nuclear industry,' Sonia said. 'It results directly from the fission of uranium. You'd also find it where there'd been a nuclear explosion — '

Jenny interrupted, 'This woman worked in a clothes shop.'

Sonia said, 'I find it as puzzling as you ... If she worked at a nuclear power plant you could understand it.' At a loss, she shook her head. 'You read about terrorists trying to get hold of this stuff to make dirty bombs. It doesn't make any sense.'

'Do you know when she was contaminated?' Andy said.

'Very recently - the particle in the nose can't have been lodged there for more than a few days, even hours before death. The natural processes would have expelled it.'

'And this contamination was on her skin, right?' Jenny said. 'Her body was found naked.'

'I'm not sufficiently expert to tell you whether or not she was clothed or not when she was exposed,' Sonia said. 'We'd have to bring in specialists.'

Jenny's mind raced through a number of equally baffling possibilities. None of them seemed credible. All of them pointed to Amira Jamal having a far more complex connection with her son's disappearance than Jenny could ever have imagined.

'We'd better inform the police,' Alison said.

Andy reached for the phone on the wall.

Jenny stopped him. 'Hold on. I'd like to go to her flat first. It's only a few minutes away.'

Sonia said, 'This is a radiological incident. We're under a legal duty—'

'I know. But let's find out how big the incident is first, shall we? Could you come with us?'

Sonia and Andy traded an uncertain glance.

'He can make the call in half an hour. Meanwhile I'm gathering evidence for my inquest into her son's death - I'll explain on the way. Bring whatever you need to take measurements, but we'll have to be quick.'

Alison held fire until they were marching back out across the car park. Sonia, following behind, was on the phone offloading the day's domestic duties to an evidently disgruntled husband.

Alison said, 'Would you mind telling me what you think you're doing, Mrs Cooper? We have a duty to report this incident immediately.'

'It was you who told me that the Security Services put pressure on the police to shut down their investigation in Nazim and Rafi's disappearances before they wanted to.'

'I told you there was talk, that's all,' Alison said defensively.

'That's not how I remember it . . . Look, I know Pironi's your friend—'

'He did everything he could.'

'He could have resigned.'

'Why are you bringing him into this?'

'Why wouldn't I? He's part of it.'

'He's a decent man.'

'That's not what I'm hearing.'

'Oh, from McAvoy—'

Jenny stopped abruptly next to her car. 'You may trust a man who allowed himself to be silenced. I don't, and I'm the one running this inquiry. So which horse are you going to ride?'

Alison met her with a flinty glare as Sonia's arrival brought their exchange to an unresolved end.

'Your call,' Jenny said.

Jenny drove Sonia the three miles to Mrs Jamal's flat in her Golf, repeatedly checking her mirrors for Alison's Peugeot.

There was no sign of it. She felt an unexpected pang of sadness verging on betrayal. Relations with Alison had always been bumpy, but until this week she had never truly doubted her loyalty. In the space of a few days it appeared to have all but dissolved.

It took three long blasts on the doorbell to rouse the irritable Mr Aldis, the caretaker, who growled over the intercom that he didn't work on weekends so could they kindly get lost. Jenny responded with another extended ring which finally drew the hefty, bulldog-faced Mrs Aldis hobbling to the front door on a single crutch. She shoved a set of keys at Jenny telling her to help herself, then limped back indoors.

Sonia Cane produced a sensitive dosimeter the size of a small cellphone. It was fitted with a Geiger-Muller counter, she explained, and was able to differentiate between different categories of radiation. She held it discreetly in her hand so as not to alarm any passing residents and took a reading in the front hall. There was an electronic crackle - each blip an electron firing through the dosimeter's sensors like a microscopic shotgun pellet. It was a similar reading to that she'd found on Mrs Jamal's body - fifty milliSieverts. It petered out towards the stairs, but spiked alarmingly to eighty when they entered the lift.

'We're going to have to get this building cleared,' Sonia said anxiously.

'Five minutes,' Jenny said. 'Let's just sweep the flat.'

Sonia moved quickly, not wanting to take a fraction more radiation than she had to. The trail cooled to twenty-five milliSieverts along the stretch of landing between the lift and the front door of Mrs Jamal's apartment; once inside the front door the dosimeter erupted like dry twigs on a bonfire.

'Je-sus,' Sonia said, poking the meter around the living- room door. 'Ninety-three.'

Jenny pointed to where Mrs Jamal's clothes and the whisky bottle had been found. 'She was sitting just about there.'

Sonia hastened into the room, pointed the meter at the spot, then swiftly drew it in a circle around her. She stepped towards one of the two armchairs and swept the meter over it.

'A hundred and ten.' She headed for the door. 'That's enough. We're going.'

Sonia was reluctantly persuaded to sweep the remaining four landings of the building before reaching for her phone, but found only slightly higher than background levels. It confirmed that the trail led from the front door directly to Mrs Jamal's flat. The fact that the fabric of an armchair had the highest reading suggested that someone or something contaminated had come into direct contact with it. It was only a matter of a few particles - a faint dusting, Sonia called it - but it screamed to Jenny that in her final hours Mrs Jamal had had a visitor.

Sonia refused to take the lift and hurried ahead down the stairs, making a call to the Health Protection Agency. Within the hour the building would be evacuated and sealed off. A team of operatives in post-apocalyptic white overalls would search for and suck up every last radioactive crumb. The neighbourhood would never have witnessed a more incongruous sight.