The others were already seated and chatting amongst themselves by the time he entered the room.
‘What makes you so sure?’ said the woman.
‘He’s intellectually capable of understanding our purpose and compassionate enough to support our motives,’ replied Volker.
‘But that’s what you said about Professor Morantz,’ the gentleman to his immediate left piped in.
Frederick sighed. ‘I believe that, given time, I could have persuaded Erik round to our way of thinking. It was just unfortunate that we didn’t get that opportunity.’
‘And if your new recruit doesn’t support our ideals, what do we do then?’ the woman queried.
Frederick looked around the room at the blank computer screens on the walls before resting his gaze back on the woman. ‘We’ll have no option but to replace him,’ he said with some finality.
‘How sure are you that the experiment tomorrow will not be successful?’ asked a man on his right, changing the subject.
Frederick looked to the man on his left for the answer. ‘I have placed a small device on one of the coolant tanks, which is designed to cause a small leak when the Collider reaches maximum power. I have every confidence that the maintenance crew will discover the seepage and the operation will be closed down again, for a number of months, whilst they check that everything is in working order.’
The man who had asked the question nodded his approval.
‘Now, if there are no more questions, I’d like to reconvene this meeting in two days’ time.’ Frederick looked at each one of the people sitting around the table in turn. He had known them for more years than he cared to recall and, as he looked at the age lines etched in their faces, it only served to remind him of his own mortality. Getting no response, he bid them all a goodnight and left the room.
CHAPTER 8
Tom was exhausted. He suspected it was a combination of disrupted sleep, jetlag, excellent food and nearly a full bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. All he wanted to do was sleep until his body told him it was time to get up, but he had scheduled a meeting with Serena Mayer for 8 am the next morning to go through the previous day’s data. Perhaps she’d understand if he didn’t make it, but then again he didn’t want to give the wrong impression.
He made his way to his apartment, past all the other nondescript doors, following the numbers printed on the walls to ensure he didn’t get lost. The corridors were soulless and identical — one false turn and he would find himself walking around in circles in this concrete maze.
He opened the door with his key and surveyed his living room; it didn’t look any more homely than he remembered. And then a shiver went down his spine as he recalled something that Frederick had said over dinner, which didn’t really register at the time. ‘He must have gone back to his apartment — your apartment — more disturbed than I realised because they found him the next morning. He’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills washed down with a bottle of whisky.’
He was literally stepping into a dead man’s shoes and probably sleeping in a dead man’s bed, come to think of it. He closed the door behind him, wondering where they had found Erik’s body. If he were to take his own life, where would he do it? The bedroom would be the most comfortable place, or maybe the sofa. But then again, the kitchen would be more practical.
The loud knock on the door nearly gave him a coronary, shocking him out of his reverie.
‘Professor, sahib,’ came the voice. ‘It’s Ajay. I picked you up from the airport this morning.’
Tom opened the door to see Ajay’s smiling face. He was carrying what looked like a thick, black, leather-bound photo album under his arm.
‘Professor, sahib, I have a scrapbook that I made of my grandfather, that I would like to show you.’
Tom groaned inwardly. He wanted to tell Ajay to leave it with him and he would look at it in the morning, but he could tell by the enthusiasm on his face that Ajay literally meant that he wanted to show it to him. Perhaps he regarded it as too valuable an item to let it out of his sight. Tom also recalled making Ajay a promise to finish the stories about his grandfather when they got back to CERN, so he only had himself to blame. So much for an early night.
‘Come in, Ajay. I was just about to make a coffee,’ Tom lied.
Ajay entered the apartment and stood awkwardly by the door.
‘Please take a seat. The sofa would probably be best and then we can look at the scrapbook together.’ Tom beckoned him further into the room.
Ajay eyed the orange sofa as though it was a wild animal.
‘Is something wrong?’ Tom asked, catching his expression.
‘I haven’t been into this apartment since Professor Morantz, since Professor Morantz…’ Ajay was having difficulty finishing his sentence. ‘Since I found Professor Morantz on the couch.’
Well, that certainly answers that question, Tom thought.
‘Okay, if you’re uncomfortable in here, why don’t we look at the scrapbook in your room?’
The suggestion seemed to pacify Ajay and the savage look on his face was replaced by a genteel smile. ‘Follow me, sahib,’ he said to Tom, making a hasty retreat through the door.
Ajay’s apartment was the size of Tom’s living room, not what he’d expected for the grandson of the great physicist. A single bed took up the whole of one wall. Along the wall opposite was a kitchen sink and worktop with a microwave and a two-ring hob on it. Underneath was housed a small fridge. The single window that provided all the natural light was centrally positioned between the two walls, and the ‘designers’ had managed to squeeze a small table and chair underneath it. To the right was a narrow bookcase stacked from top to bottom with books. A door to the left of the kitchen sink was obviously where the bathroom was, Tom surmised. The décor and carpets were the proverbial beige and fawn, although Tom had difficulty in determining the colour of most of the walls as they were plastered with newspaper cuttings.
Tom scanned the articles’ headlines:
‘Massive quake kills thousands in China’
‘Wenchuan earthquake leaves 5 million homeless’
‘Earthquake rocks Port-au-Prince, Haiti, thousands feared dead’
‘Magnitude 7.1 earthquake strikes Chile's Maule Region’
‘Tsunami triggered by Chilean earthquake leaves thousands homeless’
‘Pacific coast of Tōhoku, Japan, hit by massive earthquake and tsunami’
‘Earthquake off the coast of Sumatra measures 8.6’
‘Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in melt-down after quake hits’
‘500,000 dead or missing after worst nuclear disaster ever’
‘Are you, by any chance, interested in natural disasters, Ajay?’
‘Not all, only earthquakes.’ Ajay was making the coffee and had his back to Tom.
‘It’s an interesting subject. Would you like to be a seismologist?’ Tom ventured.
‘As you can see, I read a lot of books on the subject…’ Ajay turned around and pointed to the bookcase beside the window. ‘But I don’t think I’m smart enough.’
Tom was getting a bit too tired for small talk. He looked around for a suitable place to sit and chose the edge of the bed. Ajay joined him, carrying two steaming mugs, which he placed on the floor in front of him. He grabbed his scrapbook and sat next to Tom.