NORTHMAN, page 15
“Only because I won’t do it standing up,” Michelle replied, smiling widely. She liked Michael as a director and as a man. He wasn’t gay for a start, which was almost unusual in TV, and she enjoyed the little thrill of sexual banter, frowned upon by the more militant of her colleagues as sexually demeaning, and hugely enjoyed by the rest.
Michael shook his head sadly, “It’s only so you won’t get pregnant, and the straps are for safety, to stop you hitting the roof with ecstasy. I make no apologies for the llama milk.”
They both laughed, comfortable now that the relationship had been re-established.
Terry looked from one to the other. “Glad I’m just a boom op, wouldn’t like to think what your milk bill’s like.”
They all laughed; one more component cemented into place.
Michael glanced at Michelle and became serious.
“BBC? Professional? Where was the call sheet, Mich? No crew list. No presenter. I don’t even know who the producer is.”
“Sorry, I screwed up I’m afraid.” Michelle shrugged. “Just finished a long doc in Estonia, all last minute. Zena’s given me a bollocking already.”
Michael expelled a grunt of disapproval. “Not Zena Haas?” He glanced at the ceiling, but she was not hanging there upside down, as he expected. “Here we go again on the dichotomy of the modern woman in a repressive society.” He glanced at Michelle.
“Not here, is she?”
Michelle nodded. Michael groaned. “I hope she’s shaved.”
“She’s not that bad, Michael,” said Michelle. “At least she’s not interested in your body.”
“So what? Muammar Gaddafi probably wouldn’t have been, but I wouldn’t have been too happy working with him either.”
Michelle consulted a clipboard on the seat beside her.
“Jolyon Lyons on camera,” she said.
Michael groaned. “Are you pulling my wire, or what?”
“Charlie Swindell on sound, Terry as boom swinger, Mark Gribling - assistant camera, Ferdie on make-up - he’s flying in tonight - Kate somebody or other as presenter, yours truly and Zena. That’s it. Oh and Maria Ramirez, our interpreter. Nice woman, you’ll like her.”
“Why the fuck have we got that pillock Lyons on camera? He’s about as useful as a foreskin in a synagogue,” Michael cursed. “You remember that fiasco in Dublin?”
Michelle nodded wearily. Terry inclined his head in query.
Michael continued, addressing Terry. “Three thousand feet of sixteen mil Eastmancolour neg on Seamus O’Connor, you know, head of the Provos? We all risked life and limb to get it. Some beautiful, totally terrifying statements, straight to camera, no pissing about. Unrepeatable. Lyons screwed it up.”
“How?” asked Terry.
Michael turned away in disgust and continued. “Every way he could. Wrong stock, underexposed, out of focus, camera-shake. It was a mess.
Terry looked flabbergasted. “Why?”
Michelle glanced at Michael who was contemplating an antique carved wooden stallion in a glass case. She turned back to Terry. “He said it was just bad luck.”
“Bad luck? Didn’t he get canned for it?”
Michelle shook her head, “His father was the producer, remember Vivian Lyons? No, perhaps not, before your time. Anyway the upshot was that Michael took the shitstorm. Didn’t work for the Beeb for, oh what was it Michael?”
“Two years. I was just starting out. First major commission.”
“He wanted Michael’s job, you see,” said Michelle. “He wanted to be director, but didn’t have what it took, so he decided to stitch Michael up to prove his dad was wrong in not letting him loose on it. It wasn’t personal. Except between him and his old pater.”
Terry whistled. “Bugger me, I’m glad I’m just an ‘umble labourer. Providing I get me furry object up their noses and out of shot I’m ‘appy.”
Michelle smiled at Michael. “Didn’t stop the Great Director, though, did it? How many features is it since then? Eight, nine?”
Michael did not respond. The mood of euphoria with which he always strove to start a shoot had evaporated, and it now looked like a week’s shooting with a cameraman whom he detested. A ‘take the money and run’ week.
“Come on Michael, he might be a dickhead, but its a long time ago now. You’re a first line feature director and he’s still just a cameraman, not even a director of photography. You should be beyond tantrums now.” She reached out and put her arm around his shoulders, treading familiar territory, “We can always do it standing up, if you like?”
Michael took his eyes from the cracked wooden horse and looked into the dark orbs of Michelle’s. He smiled. “You’re a clever bitch, Mich. Why don’t I take you for a ride in the lift?”
Michelle smiled, looking into Michael’s blue eyes seeing the thin line of possibility stretch to breaking, feeling her body swaying towards his unconsciously.
Impulsively she kissed him on the nose and patted him on the hand, removing her arm from his shoulder. But she could not remove her eyes from his. It was no-mans land. “I have to take the stairs tonight, Michael,” she breathed, finding her way back beyond the border.
“On the banister, then,” Michael said, smiling more widely. “Llama milk all the way.”
“Feck me, we’re back to the bleedin’ milk are we?” Terry knocked the remains of his San Miguel back in one gulp.
“Not without the straps, Michael,” said Michelle, safe now in the trench.
Michael leaned across patting her on the knee and was about to reply, to continue the delicious spiritual intercourse they were both engaged in, when the voice of Zena Haas boomed out across the foyer.
“McLaren, take your hands off that woman…”
Michael didn’t look around. “Fucking Zena,” he said, still smiling.
“Rather you than me,” said Michelle putting her hand over the top of his and pressing it into her skin, before removing it gently from her knee.
Zena strode through the foyer towards them with all the confidence of a JCB. “I want you to meet your presenter, Michael,” she said, plonking down into a brown leather armchair, “this is Kate.”
18.
SALMO SALAR
The sight of his beloved Jaguar XJ6 on the back of a tow truck brought tears to Peterson’s eyes.
The garage owner was quite embarrassed about the elderly Skoda.
“It’s the only thing I’ve got,” he said. “Pile of Russian crap really, before Volkswagen bought them, but it goes well.” He paused reflectively. “It used to, I should say. When it was new, twenty years ago. Just the one problem now, when its cold the brakes sometimes freeze up, so below zero its best not to do more than about twenty miles an hour in it. Apart from that it’s, well, I suppose you’d say it’s… well it’s all right for now. Oh, and sometimes the door comes open when you’re going along. Jag’ll be about two weeks. Blown its bottom end, melted a piston, cracked the head. Cost serious money that will.”
Peterson decided to wear his corduroy golfing cap as he drove off. It was a size too large and an effective disguise.
By the time he reached the university everyone had gone home. Doctor Weatherall was not to be found; the porter seemed to think he might be found in the Red Lion Inn enjoying a sherry, but couldn’t be sure.
The pub smelt of tobacco and old trousers, and what the odour promised the vision fulfilled.
Peterson fought his way through a cloud of illegal but unrepentant black shag fug tinged with the pungent odour of cannabis emanating without disinction from several young and earnest students and a group of aged academics clutching sherry glasses. The academics might have been dead, but if observed closely could be perceived to be moving in a different space-time continuum. Peterson reached the bar.
A lively discussion about female breasts was in progress. Professor Ogilvy maintained: ‘They are dimensionally inaccurate and have no place in a formless, nay Kafkaesque existence’. His argument was balanced by that of Professor Mildew, categorical in his opinion that ‘Boobies are boobies, and no amount of messing about with their topographical characteristics can alter their essential usefulness’. This latter argument was agreed with by many, not the least of whom was Professor Baldman, who, having had three schooners of sherry instead of his usual two was inclined to get carried away by spurious argument, diseased rhetoric and incoherent references to superstring theory, but not by Professor Sridat on loan from the University of Sri Lanka, who quietly said, ‘squeeze, lick, suck and fondle’, before passing out from a surfeit of Amontillado, whilst still standing.
“I’m looking for Doctor Weatherall,” said Peterson, as the conversation subsided into a considered visualisation of Professor Sridat’s final statement.
“So is he,” said Professor Baldman, trying to prop the increasingly weighty Sridat up, “has been for years.”
“Corner,” said Professor Ogilvy, indicating a place hidden behind the screen of smoke, “with the other ruptured intellects.”
Peterson bought a whisky and made his way through the fogbank.
Sitting alone in the corner, in solitary intellectual rupture on a hard, black wooden settle was the Professor. His face was wrinkled in concentration giving him the appearance in the fog of the figurehead of the Marie Celeste, several years after it sank. His hands restlessly shuffled several pieces of yellowed, hand-scribbled notepaper in front of him on a polished glass and cast iron bar table.
Peterson bore down on him. “Doctor Weatherall?” he asked, politely.
“Could you bog off for a moment, Brandon,” Weatherall said without looking up, “I’m not going to revise my opinion about that awful paper, but I might consider another sherry in about five minutes.”
“Peterson, Group Captain, RAF.”
“Don’t be silly Brandon, I know…” he glanced up at Peterson with annoyance, “Who are you? What do you mean masquerading as Brandon. Explain yourself or I’ll have you ejected.”
Peterson sat down and took a sip of his whisky. “May I get you one, Doctor?”
Weatherall shuffled his papers towards him and glared at Peterson.
“Certainly not. Who are you? What do you mean by all this?”
“I’m Group Captain Peterson, RAF. I’m investigating the crash of two Typhoons of 3 Squadron at Willington, Derbyshire on the fourteenth of November, and I believe that you witnessed the accident?”
The doctor passed one hand over his brow and peered at Peterson. Then he smiled. “Of course you’re not Brandon, you haven’t any hair. Please forgive me. Sit down.”
Peterson ignored the last and continued, reaching into his pocket for an Ordnance Survey map. He pointed to a field circled red on the map. “You were out in this field at around seven p.m.?”
Doctor Weatherall’s bright eyes sparkled. “Are you suggesting that I was not?”
“No. I am simply trying to...”
“Buy me another Fino?” suggested the doctor.
Peterson returned from the bar some moments later with the sherry. The doctor took an appreciative sip.
“Skoal. Now, I must apologise for my behaviour, Group Captain, but I’ve been desperately trying to avoid a chap called Brandon, one of my students, for the last two days. He sounds just like you, but of course he’s not a group captain. Now how can I assist?”
“I’d just like to know what you saw if anything. If you can help me, in your own words, I would appreciate it.”
The doctor frowned. “I was in the little copse digging. I heard the two aeroplanes come down the valley. I could see their lights. Then there was the sound of a collision and when I looked up, the side of one of the cooling towers on the old power station site was on fire. Then, I heard the second aeroplane turn around and come back. It proceeded to fall into the river.” The doctor spread his hands. “That’s all.”
Peterson leaned forward. “Did you see the first Typhoon crash into the cooling tower? Was there anything erratic or odd about it just before it impacted? Did you see anything on the ground that might have interfered with it?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I didn’t see the first aeroplane clearly at all. I saw the second one, must have been one of those aeroplanes that can hover, would you say?
Peterson did not reply, just continued listening intently.
“Its engines went out, and it fell into the river. Perhaps it ran out of fuel?” The doctor took another sip of sherry.
“It had half-full tanks”, Peterson said, throwing back his whisky in one movement. “Are you sure you didn’t see the first one?”
Weatherall leaned back against the polished wooden back of the settle and eyed Peterson with gravity. “Were the poor chaps inside killed?”
“One. A good friend. The other can’t talk.”
“Your friend was in the first one?”
“Yes.” Peterson looked for any remains of whisky in the glass and finding none placed the glass back down on the table with a controlled movement.
“I can’t help, I’m afraid,” Weatherall leaned forward and put his hand on Peterson’s arm. “It probably seems like the action of a lunatic to you, but I’m afraid that I was too excited to notice the passing of your friend. I had just found something very exciting, and, Providence forgive me, I was almost annoyed that I had to look up when your friend crashed. I’m sorry.”
Peterson nodded, not understanding.
Weatherall continued. “I was halfway across the field to my car when I heard the fire engines, and, well, it didn’t seem that I could do anything helpful; I know very little about aeroplanes, you see, so I returned to my find.” He shrugged and drained his glass. “Sometimes, I do wonder how important archaeology is. When I could ignore death like that.”
Peterson went to the bar and returned carrying two more drinks. “Your assistant…”
“Kate? She saw less than I. She was in the hotel at the time. Have you spoken to the landlord of the Three Tuns?
Peterson nodded.
“Strange chap. Should have been a philosopher, you know. Or a serial killer.”
Peterson nodded again, feeling like one of those plastic dogs in the back window of a 1970’s Morris Marina. The last avenue had closed. Someone had drawn the neck of a string bag tight. He wanted to be sick. Just one lead, that was all. Just one, for fuck’s sake. There was nothing to get his fingernails into. No crack to prise open inch by blessed inch. But there had to be an explanation. There was always an explanation. All was soluble by application, intellect and luck; the former two attributes he believed he had, the latter one eluded him. I’ll see the assistant, Kate, there’s just the chance…
“When could I see your assistant?” Peterson asked.
“I’m afraid that she is no longer with me,” replied the doctor. “Works for the BBC now, gone up in the world, grubbing in the money pile instead of the muck, and jolly good luck to her. Fine woman. Should never have been an archaeologist.”
Peterson stood and held out his hand. “Thank you Doctor Weatherall. You were my last chance really. It’s a pity… oh well, thanks again, and I hope your digging was worth it.”
They shook hands and Peterson walked to the door. He was surprised to find the doctor at his elbow with a quizzical expression. “There was just one thing. It was a shield I found, you know, a ninth-century Viking shield, and, well, I’m not a superstitious man, but it was just at the moment I uncovered the shield that your friend hit the tower. Precisely at that moment.”
Peterson smiled at Doctor Weatherall. Old fool.
“Well, thank you once more Doctor.” He turned to go, but the doctor continued, lowering his voice in embarrassment. “Just as he crashed the shield vibrated, and well, I put it down to excitement, but I could have sworn I heard someone laughing. I’d never forgive myself if…” the doctor paused and looked up at Peterson.
The pub seemed to fall suddenly silent, and Peterson heard the final words with the strange sensation that he was being spoken to by a priest, and they were not in a civilised Cambridge pub, but somewhere else. Somewhere where it was not wise to raise their voices for fear of being overheard. He strained for the words that carried with them that otherness, words that in this place should have been the words of someone mentally unstable yet were not.
“And then again when the second aeroplane crashed. Laughing. Like a madman.”
******
On the road, in the Skoda, Peterson thought about the doctor’s last words. Some sort of sonic device? A vibration weapon? The Yanks had done some work on a weapon that could shake the rivets from a fighter, disassemble it in mid-air using amplified, low frequency ultrasound. But it would have to be loud. Or perhaps not. Find the frequency of vibration of the gauge of an aluminium or a composite panel on a Typhoon, send it out sub-sonically and… no, it was too far-fetched, that theory belonged in ‘Star Wars’.
So what was the alternative? Weatherall was suggesting that finding the shield had something to do with the crash. No, he wasn’t suggesting that, he was merely trying to give Peterson something to chew on. But in doing so he had suggested something else. Something preposterous.
Peterson shivered involuntarily. Total balls. Viking shields were made of wood were they not? They were not sonic devices. They were incapable of transmitting anything except force vibration. Surely.
He couldn’t talk to the woman yet; she was in London, presumably. He laughed to himself, but it was not very convincing. Spooks. That would look good on the report. Yes sir, it was a wooden Viking shield that brought two high technology Typhoons down. The most sophisticated multi-role combat aircraft in the world swatted by a piece of wood. For sure the Americans would want one. Ridiculous. But it was all he had.
At the next roundabout he swung the nose of the Skoda around and headed back to the Three Tuns. Soon sort this one out he thought, grimly. Bloody Viking shield.
Absolute shite.
******
Four thousand miles away, the temporary curator of The Field Museum in Chicago did his final round for the night. It was not strictly his responsibility, but he was proud of the museum and its two main displays. He’d come a long way from Vancouver and his first job as a teenager in the fish cannery.
