‘No, not directly. But his mail was passed on to her. She got in touch with him.’
He switches on: a tinny blast of music announces it’s eleven o’clock. More food riots in developing countries. The mayor of London has pleaded guilty to charges of embezzlement. And the father of Bethany Krall, the psychiatric patient missing after being abducted from a general hospital on Wednesday, has made an emotional appeal for her safe return. Ned and I exchange a glance and he reaches to turn up the volume.
‘My daughter is a very sick child,’ says the Reverend Leonard Krall. His voice is velvety, thick with sadness. ‘She desperately needs psychiatric and spiritual help. Please, if you have seen Bethany or you know where she is, call the police, or take her to the safety of your church. We’re all praying for her return.’
Ned switches off the radio. Behind the sunglasses, he is looking at me intently. ‘Surprised?’
I think for a moment. ‘Yes. On two counts. First that they’ve named her publicly so soon. Second that Leonard Krall’s chosen to get involved. He never bothered to visit her once in Oxsmith.’
‘So why did he?’
‘Because I think he genuinely believes she’s dangerous. He’s a Faith Waver. Satanic possession, Creationism, the Rapture, the whole can of worms. Joy McConey—’
‘The shrink with cancer?’ I nod. ‘Frazer told us she was a convert to his way of thinking.’
‘My guess is that Bethany perceived Joy’s illness before it was officially diagnosed. When Joy refused to get her out of Oxsmith, Bethany let her think she’d caused it. It would have given her a feeling of power.’
‘And in the event of a disaster…’ He doesn’t need to finish the question, and I don’t need to answer it. My mind has been speeding along the same track. If the forthcoming catastrophe is publicly linked to Bethany, and people like Leonard Krall and Joy McConey give it their spin, we have a witch-hunt on top of whatever else we’re facing. We contemplate the depressing implications of this for a moment.
‘So you’ve specialised in these clathrates?’ I ask eventually.
‘No. But I modelled a lot of scenarios at the NOAA. Methane catastrophes among them. Since the energy companies started trying to exploit the sub-oceanic hydrates, the drilling’s increased the threat. Dramatically. Post-peak oil, everyone’s after it. China, the US, India. Hundreds of experimental rigs, planted off coastlines all round the world.’
‘How do they access the gas?’
He makes a contemptuous noise. ‘By playing Russian roulette. You can inject hot water beneath the seabed to destabilise the hydrates. Which will force a pressure change and release methane. The gas moves along the cracks and works its way up. Then you can liquidise the hydrate on the ocean floor and pipe it up like oil and gas. Or release frozen chunks of it from the sea floor and trap them at the surface of the ocean in giant tarpaulins. Exploit the hydrate fields safely, and there’s no such thing as an energy problem. Methane’s cleaner than oil or coal, if you handle it right. You can power anything with it, and it’s there in quantities you can’t even imagine. But it’s highly volatile. Which means it may cost more than anyone’s ever paid for anything. Ever.’
‘But with the climate protocols — ?
Ned Rappaport gives a bleak grunt. ‘They were being flouted before they were even established. Never underestimate the hypocrisy of governments, or the selfishness of a tribe.’ He swats at another insect. He seems to attract them. ‘And the human capacity to think wishfully. And in the short term. Politicians will say one thing and do another. Or do things that cancel one another out. Don’t look for logic.’
‘So if something happens—’
‘Then, to put it brutally, Gabrielle, we’re fucked.’
I drive on in silence.
Having headed north from Thornhill we cross the M25 and travel up to Norfolk. Somewhere between Ely and King’s Lynn, there’s a sprawl of retail parks and housing estates and processing plants which fall away, leaving the flat countryside gaping at us again: furrowed fields that meld into a horizon pricked with pylons and vanilla-coloured sheep grazing under a low sky. We’re on a straight road flanked by unseasonal primroses and a brackish, putrescent canal, black as dye. The sun is lurking behind a slur of congealed grey cloud. There’s a smell of silage and burnt vegetation with a chemical undercurrent. After fifteen kilometres, we turn down a rough track fringed with nettles, briar studded with rosehips, and random patches of mustard. I wind down the window and catch a whiff of diesel and oilseed rape. We round a bend and the landscape opens up again to reveal the shallow slope of a hill and a grey stone house, its garden enclosed by a scrape of herringbone wall. Beyond is a small glistening lake surrounded by clusters of silver birch, a deserted greenhouse and a huge wind turbine rotating with mournful grandeur.
‘It’s secluded, but we can’t base ourselves here for long,’ says Ned. Now that we have arrived, he seems tense, as though this morning’s visit to Thornhill for our rendezvous was a relaxing interlude in the midst of something prolonged and unbearable. ‘We’ll need to move out again soon. You can park round the back.’
I catch my breath as we skirt the turbine.
She is there.
Her back is turned, but I recognise her immediately. Her hair is brighter than in the photo. And finer. Like pale, spun honey. She is talking on the phone. I don’t know how I will handle meeting her.
‘That’s Kristin,’ says Ned. I try to look interested instead of appalled. ‘I’m hoping that the person she’s talking to is Harish Modak.’
Modak: the Planetarian with the hooded eyes. The eco-movement’s e
‘His wife Meera was Kristin’s supervisor and mentor. And a mother-figure too, I gather. After Meera died, Kristin stayed in touch with Harish Modak.’ She is wearing a long sweater but you can see the shape of breasts and hips beneath it. ‘Modak is our biggest hope at the moment. If we can get him on board, we’ll get the attention we need.’
‘And if we can’t?’ I can see why the physicist would want her in his arms. What sane man wouldn’t?
‘I’d like to say we’ll find another way. But I can’t.’
I think: I shouldn’t even blame him.
‘So what if Harish Modak can’t be convinced?’ I ask, to distract myself.
‘He has to be,’ says Ned, pointing ahead. ‘Just pull up here. That’s why Frazer’s been in Paris. He took Bethany’s drawings with him, and just about everything else he could lay his hands on. But Modak’s a difficult old bugger. He wants more evidence.’
I stop and turn off the engine. ‘Would he be willing to speak out publicly if he had it?’
Ned stifles another sneeze and opens his door. ‘There’s no telling with Modak. He’s seventy-eight. He doesn’t have kids. And he has no great affection for the species. He thinks we’ve been hard-wired to self-destruct as part of some Gaiac cycle. To him we’re just a species like any other. And species come and go. So if he ends up believing us, he may still decide to do nothing. Just shrug his shoulders, say we’re getting what we deserve, and enjoy the fireworks.’
‘How would you propose to change his mind?’
‘You’re the psychologist,’ he says, undoing his seat belt.
‘Is that the other reason I’m here?’
He flashes me a boyish, winning smile. Even in a foul mood, with my worm wreaking havoc, I can’t dislike him.
He opens the car door. ‘I’ll get your chair.’
The interior of the house exudes the nostalgic, grandmotherly smell of wood-polish. Low ceilings. Darkness, after the blaze of the sun, giving way slowly to a dull ivory gloom as the eyes recalibrate. Thick ceiling beams. From upstairs, the sound of a running shower which abruptly stops.
‘That’ll be Bethany,’ says Ned. ‘Glad to say she’s discovered hygiene. She’ll be down in a minute. This way.’
I follow him along a corridor past an impressive if haphazard collection of art: dark woodcuts, limpid watercolour landscapes, heavier oils, and lavishly detailed diagrams of insects, fish and molluscs. Sometimes you don’t realise how hungry your eyes have been. Perhaps it’s a displacement urge. But I want to gorge.
Ned Rappaport pushes open a dark door to reveal a cavernous living-room-cum-study fetid with age. The
