Part 20 (1/2)

'Could he have been literally blown off the cliff by the explosion?' asked McGarry.

The scene-of-crimes officer, who, Hickman decided, looked as if she had just left college rather than had four years at a busy police station, did not think so. There were not even any slight blisters or fabric scorches. If caught in an explosion, even for a second, the blast would have caused some damage if it had been strong enough to blow someone over a cliff. Having delivered this statement - therefore suggesting that Charlie Coates jumped, fell or was pushed prior to the explosion - she returned to her proper task: trying to ascertain what had happened inside the two buildings. It took her three hours to come to the same conclusion Martin Hickman had immediately. There were no answers, and the questions would remain unresolved for ever.

155.

Hickman's team, however, did find something near the rubble. Mewing quietly to itself, half-starved, was a white kitten, possibly only six or seven weeks old. Its slightly singed fur suggested that it had been near to the explosion and was the one lucky survivor. 'I think we'll call you Solo,'

Hickman said. 'You're the only one here and it goes with that black patch around your eye.'

Five hours, twenty-three minutes after he and his team had arrived, Hickman led his engines back to the village.

All he could think about were eight funerals, eight eulogies and eight coffins - only one of which would contain a body. And somehow he believed that Charlie Coates's estate would have difficulty finding enough pallbearers, let alone mourners.

As he turned the steering wheel and coasted his engine into the depot, Martin Hickman felt the little white cat with the black-circled eye crawl on to his lap, purring. 'I wonder what you'll be like when you grow up,' he muttered.

'Tickets, please. Oh, you all right, miss?'

Polly looked up at the old man in uniform through aching, red-rimmed eyes. She had been crying reasonably quietly but constantly for nearly five hours now. Every time she thought she had exhausted her reservoir of tears, she just had to think about Simon, Carfrae or Peter and she would start again. Uncontrollably.

'Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Just a bit weary and tired. I'll be fine.'

'If you're sure. Ticket, please?'

Polly momentarily panicked and then remembered what Tim had said. Or tried to - it seemed a bit dim, rather like when he went to buy the tickets. Something about not really needing them, and getting free rail travel. Polly had been sure that was bound to be illegal, even in 1994, but he had seemed so certain. Just as he had been about not being able to do anything about the kids.

156.

'My . . . my friend's got them. He's queueing at the buffet car . . .' That's what he had said she ought to tell the ticket man.

'I see. Right. What does he look like, then? Your friend?'

'What? Oh, you don't believe . . . well, he's very tall, wearing black. A leather jacket. Jet-black hair swept back, high cheekbones you could rest a cup on. Blue eyes - deep blue eyes. Soft spoken. . .' Polly trailed off. That was a highly emotive description of someone, she thought.

The ticket collector obviously thought so too. He smiled.

'Can't really miss him then, can I?'

'It's all right, I'm here.'

Polly found herself eager to smile at Tim as he arrived back and a strange flush ran through her. He was back and everything would be OK. Tim would sort out this annoying, interfering man with his petty tickets and inane concerns about her ridiculous crying.

'You don't need to see our tickets.'

The ticket collector frowned. 'I think I do, actually.'

Tim whistled. Softly but just audibly. The ticket collector stared blankly at him for a moment and then smiled. 'All seems in order, sir. Thank you. Can't be sure when we'll get to London though, sorry.'

'Why not?' asked Tim.

'Problems earlier in the Chester area. No one's telling us what exactly but it must be quite serious. The whole area has been closed off and we're being diverted via the Leeds line. We'll be arriving at Kings Cross rather than Euston.'

'Thank you. Please don't pa.s.s this way again.'

'Certainly not, sir, whatever you say. Have a safe journey.' The ticket collector wandered away, whistling to himself, checking everyone else's tickets and informing them of the delay.

'How did you do that?' Polly leaned across the table and flipped the lid off a steaming cup of British Rail tea. She sniffed. 'Well, here's something that hasn't changed in twenty years. It still smells and looks awful.'

157.

'It hasn't changed in about forty actually. They made a conscious decision to use bad tea when they introduced catering facilities for second-and third-cla.s.s travellers.'

Polly grinned. 'D'you remember that? How far back do you go?'

'A long way. A proper Methuselah.' Tim sipped his tea and grimaced. He blew on it to cool it down and instead forced a few drops to leap on to the tabletop.

'Messy pig.' Polly wiped up the mess with a British Rail napkin. 'I see your manners are still on a neanderthal level.'

'Fractionally before my time.' Tim tried the tea again.

'You know, if we wanted to, Thorgarsuunela and I could have taken over this world.'

'Thor who?'

'Oh, you know her as Fraulein Thorsuun, bursar of South Thames University or whatever it's called. Miss Frost she said the students call her. They're not far wrong.'

'So why didn't you? Take over the world, I mean. Can you control everybody like you did that ticket man?'

'Yes. If I want to. The humanoid brain is especially susceptible to ultrasonics. There were secret military experiments in the mid-Eighties using sound as a weapon.

Restructuring the harmonics of people yelling or screaming.

Women in labour, the severely mentally disturbed, accident victims - basically people in pain, which always produces the most natural and violent harmonies possible.'

'That's evil,' said Polly. 'I'm glad I missed the Eighties.

Why did people put up with it?'

'Well, the general public were largely unaware of it.

Those few that stumbled across the truth were warned to keep out - or face the consequences. Faced with that kind of deterrent, they kept out. But sound is a terrific manipulator. Just the slightest out of resonance harmonic, and the human mind becomes malleable. It does no permanent damage but temporarily makes people susceptible to subliminal or coercive suggestions. Like you saw with that man.'

158.

Polly stared out of the window. 'And Coates? What did you do to him?'

'I simply told him to drop off to sleep. He's probably wide awake now.'

Polly suddenly remembered. 'No, he might have been in the Gatehouse when that went up like the Grange. He's dead, too!'