Nomansland

by D.G. Compton

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

The Attrition. It was a bloodless, bureaucratic word, chosen to hide the appalling reality of the plague that had changed the face of civilisation. Now Dr Harriet Ryder-Kahn, born four years into the Attrition, thinks she may have an answer. But in a world convulsed by trauma she finds there are those who do not want a solution. And they are prepared to go as far as it takes to silence her . . .

Release date: November 14, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 283

Sample

I didn’t believe what I was hearing. I did believe it. And Dr Marion’s performance was so shameful and so shameless that for once words failed me. He smiled, he spread his hands, he stared at the cedar-panelled ceiling, he elaborated his argument. He cheated. Watching him operate, seeing him behind his priceless antique desk, his hi-tech desk lamp, his array of screens and telephones, his machinery of power, I was suddenly afraid of him. Oswald Marton was the Minister’s aide. People said she listened to him.

I folded my hands in my lap. My knees were together, the hem of my white lab coat pulled down over them, and my back was straight. I waited coldly, letting him run on. I wasn’t some snivelling clerk. I too had friends and position. Maybe my silence, and all his words, would embarrass him.

Him? Marton? Embarrass Oswald Marton?

The ironic thing was, I’d asked my secretary to make this appointment entirely as a matter of courtesy. There’d obviously been a clerical error somewhere, and I’d decided it would be tactful to clear it up in person, have a quiet chat with someone, and save departmental face. I knew how government departments worked. It wasn’t easy, but Maggi eventually fitted this meeting in between a voice-over session with the bloody TV dubbing people and some computer time I’d already booked on the Institute’s mainframe. She allowed me seventy-five minutes: thirty minutes travelling each way and fifteen minutes in which to sort out the mistake over my application.

Fifteen minutes, it now turned out, in which to be made to feel like a snotty-nosed schoolgirl.

Marton had stopped speaking. His silence joined mine. The room was elaborate, cedar-lined with rich period fretwork, more like a private study than a government office. I noticed distant sounds of traffic, then the slow tapping of one of Marton’s fingers on the red leather of his desktop as he returned my gaze. I didn’t speak and neither did he. He was insultingly unconcerned.

Finally, the point made, he cleared his throat and produced another of his smiles. Tea, Dr Kahn-Ryder?’

I shook my head. It was a tiny movement but he caught it instantly. Marton never needed telling twice. I’d expected some girl, some clerk; I’d got the Minister’s aide himself. This was Chief Secretary Marton. A man. In those days, forty years into the Attrition, only the top echelons were men. They might be a dying breed, but they clung to power.

Marton didn’t press the matter of tea. He started a reprise.

‘Frankly, Dr Kahn-Ryder, your presence here surprises me.’ It had surprised him for the last ten minutes. The Minister’s memo was explicit. Regretful, of course – nobody likes saying no to a scientist as distinguished as yourself – but quite explicit. And in any case – ‘ he fingered my application file yet again ‘ – in any case, I’m surprised that you yourself should wish to go public. Your team’s research is clearly incomplete. It does not support your conclusions. The International Patent Office would laugh at us. Premature publication is – ‘

That’s for the IPO to say, Dr Marton. Not you – and certainly not on the basis of the summary you have there. Do you really imagine the World Health Organization would have invited me to Paris in December if – ?’

The Department doesn’t operate in a vacuum, Dr Kahn-Ryder. We consult.’ He sat back, rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘We have advisors. We take the scientific temperature. We – ‘

‘Advisors? What advisors?’

‘Respected people, Dr Kahn-Ryder.’ Again the spread hands. ‘People working in your field. I don’t have to tell you how big Syndrome-related research is these days. You have no lack of well-informed colleagues.’

‘No lack of rivals, you mean.’

‘Oh, come now, Dr Kahn-Ryder … ‘

That had been a mistake. I took a deep breath, counted to ten. I was handling this badly. They were trying to take away my scientific freedom and I was letting myself sound paranoid.

I began again. ‘I ’m sorry, Chief Secretary Marton, but within the broad spectrum of MER Syndrome research my own area is unique. There are no respected people working in it. And that’s not just my vanity – you know it’s true as well as I do.’

He tried to interrupt but I talked him down. ‘And what’s more, even if there are people working in it, I cannot believe that any of them – on the basis of the data you have there – would dare to give an opinion on the adequacy of my research. That must wait on the full text of the paper I plan to publish. And the responsibility for that paper is mine, Chief Secretary. It has to be. Not yours, not the Minister’s, not the Department’s – mine. It has to be.’ I was on my feet now, angry again, leaning forward across his desk. ‘I t has to be, because it’s my reputation that’ll be at stake, Chief Secretary. Not yours, not the Minister’s, not the Department’s – mine.’

He stared up, carefully observing me. Now, with winter begun, at five in the afternoon the uncurtained window behind his chair was bright black glass, a mirror. In it I could see myself, leaning forward, just as Dr Marton could see me. I was too vehement. I was shrill, my hair was cut too short, my white lab coat, straight from the Institute via the recording studio, no time to change, was too crisp, the priority bleeper on my lapel was too prestigious. At five o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, with two hours of his official male workday still to go, Chief Secretary Marton would detest me. I was the New Woman. Very soon, if the Syndrome wasn’t checked, I would inherit the earth. Until which time, for as long as he lived and breathed, Chief Secretary Marton would do everything in his power to humiliate me.

I saw all this, how mighty issues can hang on matters of clothes, hair, vehemence, executive accessories, in the polite half-minute he waited to be sure that I had done. I saw it much too late, of course.

I’m still not good with people, and then I was terrible. Thirty-six years old and I’d learned so little. My husband Mark, with his journalist’s eye, had summed Marton up in one brief meeting. A small man, and probably not out of quite the right drawer, Dr Marton had been ambitious enough, and intelligent enough, to avoid over-compensating for these handicaps. He moved slowly, spoke softly, and dressed with low-key elegance. And he’d chosen an office chair over the arms of which he could drape his short legs as if they were long, displaying slim handmade shoes and smart amounts of grey silk sock. And while the premature silvering of his hair was probably natural, the irises of his eyes, very brown and bright, showed the tiny scars of recent corrective surgery. Image mattered.

Mark had seen in a flash that Marton was a force. He had taken himself, and the world, firmly in hand. He was impressive. Dangerous.

But how else could I have handled him, that day in his cedar-smelling office? Insulted us both with silly frills and simpering?

The trouble with you scientists’ he was telling me, ‘is that you lack a sense of proportion. For all your great abilities you remain – forgive me – strangely naive. Which is all the more strange in your case, considering your husband’s profession. I would have expected a science writer – ‘ he paused fastidiously ‘ – that is what Mr Kahn does, I believe? – to have his feet pretty firmly on the ground.’

‘Mark’s away. I haven’t discussed this with him.’ I too paused. ‘Yet.’

Marton could take that as a delicate threat: a fair response to his delicate scorn. He chose not to.

‘You should take his advice. I’m sure he’ll say the same as me. Basically the Minister has your interests at heart. There’s plenty of time. Premature publication would do none of us any good. What’s wrong with an additional test program along the lines suggested in our memo? Three months, six months … surely, Dr Kahn-Ryder, it’s better to be safe than sorry?’

‘What’s fucking wrong with an additional fucking test program, Chief Secretary, is that it’s not fucking necessary.’ I’d lost. And I was wasting my time – I’d lost long before I’d even got there. ‘And what’s more, Chief Secretary, it’s none of your fucking business anyway. Scientific freedom, Chief Secretary – it’s written into my fucking contract. I was to have complete scientific freedom.’

He rested his chin on his steepled fingers. ‘Ah yes, your fucking contract … ‘ His repetition annihilated me. He’d reduced me to just another foul-mouthed woman. ‘And while we’re talking of contracts, it seems I must remind you of another. You signed the National Security Protocol, I believe? Including the ‘97 Amendment?’

‘I t was a formality. You told me yourself, Chief Secretary. All civil servants have to. It was a formality.’

‘I t was indeed. But on the authority of such simple formalities heads have often been severed from bodies, Dr Kahn-Ryder. I speak historically, of course – ‘ he sighed, to show he wasn’t joking ‘ – but I’m sure you take my meaning. It would be very unfortunate indeed if you were to disregard the Minister’s recommendation.’

‘Recommendation? Is that all it was? I must admit I thought it was something rather more … rather more … ‘ I tailed off. I couldn’t think why I bothered.

Neither could my companion. He glanced at his watch.

‘You force me to be frank, Dr Kahn-Ryder – ‘

‘Yes.’ I came in quickly. ‘Yes, I do. For the good of your soul, Dr Marton. Just for once – to see how it feels.’

I’d raised a spark. He heaved himself to his feet, lifted my file, angrily stabbed the air with it. ‘Frankly, ma’am, if one word of the material in this proposal were to get out, you’d be in serious trouble. And I don’t just mean instant and total withdrawal of government funding … The smallest leak, even if you were to find some journal willing to take the risk, would bring down the full weight of the law upon you. The Security Protocol is not to be taken lightly, Dr Kahn-Ryder. You accepted that when you chose to work for the state.’

I had chosen to work for the state principally because I believed – foolishly, it now seemed – that political restrictions would be less offensive than capitalist restrictions.

He flung the file down. ‘Go back to your department. Take my advice and stick to what you know. Research is what you know. Stick to it. Resubmit your proposal, properly supported, in six months’ time. And Until then – ‘ He checked, stared at me thoughtfully, lowered his voice. ‘Believe me, my dear, one day you’ll thank us for saving you from making a fool of yourself. Time is on your side. Get your stuff right and it’s Nobel material. My minister realises that. Do your homework properly and you’ll have her fullest possible support.’

I stood up also. The man was too obvious – first the stick and then the carrot. Scare the little lady to death with dire threats, then send her away with promises of fame and fortune. The trouble was, I’d already done my ‘homework’ – my ‘stuff already was right. Our team at the Institute had been confirming its findings for the last year and more. Nothing remained to be done – I was ready to publish.

I was going to publish.

I eased back, away from Marton. I had to be careful. He wasn’t dumb – he’d see through too easy a capitulation.

‘I n six months’ time, Dr Marton, the Minister’s support will probably be too late. It’s being first past the post that matters, and in six months’ time, for all I know, someone in the private sector will have pre-empted us. The patents rights will have gone elsewhere, to Brandt or Unikhem. What will the Minister tell the taxpayers then about the millions of their money she’s poured into my work?’

He was putting my file away in a desk drawer, making a production out of locking it. Now he came round the side of the desk, laid a fatherly hand on my shoulder. He’d won: he could afford to be generous.

‘You’re a scientist, my dear. Leave the politics to us. And trust our connections – we’ll be the first to hear if anything of that sort threatens.’

He turned me round and we started the considerable walk to the door. I said. ‘I hate being muzzled like this. I have to warn you I’ll be seeking expert legal advice.’

He smiled tolerantly. ‘Please do. I’m confident that any lawyer will confirm what I’ve told you.’

‘And what am I to say to the WHO’s Paris organisers? They’ve invited me to deliver a paper in December. What am I to tell them?’

‘Tell them you’ll go. It’s a great honour. And I’m sure you can cobble up something.’

Cobble up something … he made me sick and I moved sideways to disengage myself. His hand lingered briefly on my neck, then fell away.

‘No hard feelings, my dear?’ Still smiling. ‘I t’s part of my job sometimes to have to play the heavy father. I promise you I don’t enjoy it.’

I didn’t believe him. He loved it. As I turned in the doorway my smile was similarly false. ‘Fathers seldom do enjoy it,’ I told him, hurt more than I knew. ‘My own enjoyed it so little, all of it, that he killed himself. Destroyed his trachea. Drowned in his vomit. You’ve read my file, you already know that.’ I glanced at my watch. I was a busy lady. ‘Thank you for giving me your time, Dr Marton. At least I know where I stand now.’

His hand still hovered. Already ashamed of myself, I shook it. Dragging in Dada’s suicide was cheap. It had hardly been Oswald Marton’s fault. Why, after seventeen years, did it rankle so?

We parted. If he’d intended to deliver a final warning, my briskness told him he’d made himself sufficiently clear. He closed the door behind me and I hurried away, my flat heels squeaking faintly on the marble floor.

I seethed. Solemn portraits of presidents glided by, and the occasional range of national mountains under optimistic pink snow. The pink snow cheered me. I was going to publish. I’d made up my mind. With or without the Minister’s permission, if not at the Paris seminar then by some other means, I was going to claim my right to scientific freedom. What could they do? Once I’d gone public the Minister wouldn’t dare prosecute. World opinion would be on my side. I wouldn’t even need their bloody funding – the big pharmaceuticals, Brandt, Unikhem, would be trampling each other in the rush. I could take my pick. I could go for the Swiss. They paid best.

Out in the foyer I found a telephone. I wanted to talk to Mark, to tell him about Marton, and I called home but he wasn’t there. Yvette answered, very much in the middle of giving Anna her supper. Mark wasn’t at Science News either – the switchboard said he was away on a job, not bleepable.

Of course he wasn’t there. He was out in the farmlands, researching his piece on UV radiation. He’d told me that morning where he’d be, and that we weren’t to wait supper.

I leaned my head against the inside of the phone hood. My brain was buzzing. I needed to talk to someone, confide in someone I could trust. Someone who would advise me. I needed to let out my anger and be told I was right.

The clock in the Ministry foyer said I was already hopelessly behind schedule. I ought to contact the Institute, tell them to release my computer time. There were always people hanging round in the hope of a cancellation.

I had a brainwave – I’d call my brother. It was a brave thought: we weren’t exactly talking, but we weren’t exactly not talking either. And he worked in security so he’d be able to advise me. He was in the private sector but he’d have a good idea of the guns at the Minister’s disposal.

I called for his number on my datastor. I didn’t ring him often enough to remember it. Often enough? Once, in maybe the last four years … In any case, he was stationed out of town these days, at NatSekur’s headquarters down in the South Forest, so the area code alone was as long as the number of miles to the moon and back. I read it off the display, fed in my card again. The screen in the booth was small and scratched, but I paid the extra. I wondered how Danno was doing. He’d been running to fat, four years ago.

We weren’t close. Well, we were close but nobody’d have known it.

Danno wasn’t in his office. Once I’d got past the computer the young woman at NatSekur put me on hold, Fingal’s Cave and seagulls in long-shot against an improbably blue sky, while she ran Colonel Ryder to ground. Once again I thought about the distances between Daniel and me. Once again I decided they weren’t because of anything I’d done. Except to grow up, maybe. I’d always been the clever one, but oddly that had never bothered him. In fact, he’d been proud of that in the old days. So what happened?

‘Harri? I’ve run all the fucking way, Harri.’ He lurched into focus. ‘Don’t tell me. Someone’s died. That’s it. Who then? It’s that fucking canary of yours.’

‘We don’t have a canary,’ I told him. ‘Annie’s got a cat. For his sins, Elvis.’

‘So who is it then?’ He peered into the camera: the same square, simple, wary man, still unlined, a little less puzzled now, at forty, but the same Danno. ‘Someone must have died. I don’t rate phone calls for the fun of it.’

And the same bitterness. But it wasn’t only ‘ who hadn’t called him – he hadn’t called me.

‘I might just want to talk to you, Danno.’

‘I ’m listening, Harri. Talk on … how much?’ He reached for his wallet inside his dark blue uniform jacket. ‘I always was a sucker for a pretty face.’

Bugger it. I needed his help, but not this much. I’d never gone to him for money. Before today I’d never gone to him for anything. ‘Forget it, mate. Just forget it.’ There was a small office behind him, its door open, beyond it racks of guns. ‘Get back to your noisy toys, Danno. I can see I interrupted you.’

I reached for the cut-out.

‘Hang on. Hang on there … Harri, I’m sorry. I was only joking. It was only a joke.’

It was never a joke. But I recognised my own short fuse and its reason. Guilt. Why else was I calling him, four years late, except because I wanted something? ‘I ’m sorry too, Danno. It’s been a bad day … I really need to talk.’

He settled himself on the edge of the office desk. ‘Fine. Fine … ‘ His waist was thick, but it wasn’t life-threatening. ‘I ’ve given my girls five but they’ll be happy to take fifteen.’

‘I don’t see any girls, Danno.’

‘You’ve caught me down on the indoor range. I’m passing out a group of recruits on their marksmanship tests.’ He held up a pair of ear-muffs to prove it. ‘Between you and me, Harri, there’s not one in five can shoot worth a damn. And that’s not sexism, that’s what’s called virgin card. Targets unpenetrated. Ten zeroes out of ten. It’s hard to believe.’

He was establishing himself: after four years, hitting me with his macho profession. Challenging me to disapprove, which I always had. Secretly. Maybe not so secretly.

‘I ’m in trouble, Danno.’

‘I tell you, for half of them a handgun’s a fucking fashion accessory.’

‘I need advice, Danno. Your sort of advice. Legal. You see, I’ve done some research, and I want to publish it because it’s important, and they won’t let me.’

I watched him reel himself in. ‘Who won’t let you?’ He frowned. ‘Who’re you working for these days? I see you on TV, sounding off, my sister the famous scientist, but – ‘

‘I work for the Government, Danno. For the Science Ministry. And they’re throwing the Security Protocol at me, and some amendment that – ‘

‘Ninety-seven? Well, they would. I mean, working for them, you signed it didn’t you?’

‘I must have done. I signed a lot of stuff. But in any case, what can they do? Once I’ve published it’ll be too late. They can arrest me, I suppose, but … Don’t I have any rights, Danno? If not as a scientist, then just as a citizen? Won’t the European Court be-?’

‘Wait a minute, Harri. Stop right there. I fucking mean it. Whoa.’

The screen went blank. I waited. We hadn’t lost the connection – I was still getting audio. He’d covered the lens, maybe hung his cap on it. I waited. Around me footsteps hurried in the Ministry foyer, telephones rang, lift doors hissed open.

The picture returned: Daniel, the door behind him now closed. ‘Harri? First thing, Harri, if they go for ‘97 that’s the end of your rights. You don’t get none. They’ve got you tied up tighter than a nun’s – ‘

He broke off. Self-censorship? On my account? On my account, no twats? Was that how much we’d changed together?

‘Second thing, Harri, I reckon you’re calling from a booth, and you’re using your card.’

Of course I am.’ The censored twats upset me. ‘How else would I get through to you? I’m still on your access list with NatSekur, obviously, and my card matches, so of course … ‘

So of course … the penny dropped. The eurocoin descended. He was telling me that if NatSekur could match my voiceprint with my eurocard in a nanosecond, then so could the Ministry’s watchdogs. He was telling me that from now on I was marked. Telephones were out, even from home. We’d been paying by eurocard for years – it simplified accounting. It was also great for pulling in automated phone taps. The card woke up the computer and the computer woke up the tap.

The Ministry would have Mark’s card on file. I needed to warn him.

‘So if you want my advice, Harri, it’s calm down.’ He gave two fingers to an imaginary someone off camera. The listeners. They didn’t tap the video yet. ‘Forget the European Court. If the Ministry says no, chances are the Ministry knows best.’

‘You think so?’

‘You asked my advice. That’s my professional advice.’

‘OK.’ It stuck in my throat, but I needed to be believed. ‘I ’ll do as you say. I’m not the martyr type. Besides, what would Annie do, with her Moma in jail? And Mark … ‘

‘What about my career prospects? Famous scientist I survive. TV Green I survive. Jailbird I don’t survive.’

I laughed. I couldn’t help it – the mimicry was terrible but we watched the same Jewish TV comic.

‘Thanks for the advice, Danno. I’ll be good.’

‘Fine. Fine … After all, they’ll have you tagged. ‘Tagged? Not so soon – tagging was for criminals out on licence, and needed a magistrate’s order. But so did phone taps. He was saying they’d got me all ways. ‘You sign the Amendment, Harri, you stick to it … How’re you keeping otherwise? How’s Mark? And little Annie?’

‘We’re in good shape. Annie’s not so little. She’s coming up fifteen. And how’re you?’

‘Never better.’

‘And Bert?’

‘Bert’s going along.’

Bert Breitholmer was a NatSekur officer also. They’d shared a flat ever since Danno first joined. I’d never met him but I’d seen him once in the street. He was older than Danno, a powerful presence, and I’d imagined there was something sexual between them. Mark said matchmaking was part of women’s need for continuity, but if Bert was still around, maybe I’d been right.

We waited. There was a chance now for one of us to say something real. I could have told him how I’d dragged up Dada’s suicide and wished I hadn’t. He could have told me about his life with Bert. We could have exchanged news about our crazy moma in her island convent. We could have talked about why we never talked.

‘Well, Harri … time I got back to work.’

‘Of course. It was good to chat.’

‘Yeah.’

‘We don’t do this often enough.’

‘You’re a busy lady.’

‘That’s no excuse.’

‘Fuck excuses. If you need excuses, that means there aren’t any.’

‘Who said that?’

‘Search me. I did. ‘Bye, Harri.’

‘See you, Danno.’

He cut the connection. We both knew very well who had said it. Dada had.

I stood for a moment in the booth, brooding on the sad things that happened to families. Then I ducked out, and away across the Ministry foyer. I half-expected the guards to stop me under the ‘97 Amendment but they let me through.

Out on the pavement a news-stand was flashing another karate killing, the sixth, a sixth young woman with her throat smashed in. Janni Wintermann. The killing wasn’t news – women died violently often – only the method. Every now and then, no pattern, a throat smashed in. A karate blow, allowing the media their cheap glib phrase, karate killers … Poor Janni Wintermann. I saved my money, thinking of Anna and glad that few of the killings had been here in the city.

I turned up my collar against the cold, hurried across the street, and flung myself on a tram that was going in my direction. I rode it to the bottom of our neighbourhood, twenty minutes of soothing rubber tyres on rubber track. I set my mind in neutral. It was a useful trick. Time enough to think about what to do next when I’d talked to Mark. For the moment I considered the coming winter and the cross-country skis we’d promised Anna.

Our house is in what I have to admit is a classy area. It’s a big last-century house, traditional, painted black and red, L-shaped, with a broad raised porch filling in the L, its upstairs windows tucked deep in under wide eaves and curlicued barge-boards. That October we’d just repainted all the window shutters and put up the storm screens round the porch, ready for the snow. The house stands on a low grassy mound, hidden from its neighbours by mature pine trees and silver birches, and it has a double garage left over from the oil-rich years. There was a single small Saab-Honda in it then. We’re professional people, Mark and I, and we’ve done well. If I feel any need to apologise for the house and the classy area, it’s because of the area. It’s too rarefied. There isn’t the sort of security screen some areas have, but there might very well be for the amount of contact most of us have with flesh-and-blood living. I didn’t like bringing up Anna so fancy, and neither did Mark, but we didn’t want her growing up in the real, angry world of the Attrition either.

I ran up the steps to the porch, eurocard ready in my hand. I hadn’t yet telephoned the Institute about my unused computer time and I needed to discuss it with my program director. Natalya Volkov was with me for her obstetrics experience, a big sensible woman from the Russian Federation, but she’d shown a skill in statistical analysis that made her doubly valuable. Perhaps she had something going that she could take over to use up what remained of my mainframe time.

Yvette was finishing in the kitchen and Anna was upstairs, washing her hair. They were both going out, Yvette for a meal in town with her latest elderly boyfriend and Anna to a girl just up the road – she and Jessica did their physics homework together. Jessica’s father was a British psycho-engineer we were on dinner-party terms with. Mark wasn’t home yet.

I called Natya and we fixed something. I can’t remember what, and it doesn’t matter. What happened later that evening was so unexpected, and so horrible, that I remember very little of the time immediately before it. I played the piano for a while, to unwind, then Anna came down and we sat and talked about ordinary things, and I thought how unusually beautiful she was that night. Her father was black and she’d inherited his lustrous dark eyes, with my Nordic bone structure: her gold skin glowed with good health and her hair, newly washed, took the best from both of us, blue-black and in shining waves to her shoulders. I know I seem to boast about my daughter, as if I was responsible, but I’ve worked in genetics too long for that. It’s not pride, it’s more like celebration – the delight of a lottery winner who can’t believe her good fortune.

So we talked, and I thought how beautiful she was that night, and Elvis arrived in his stately fashion and settled on her lap – a terrible name for a cat, but Anna’s choice, back when she was seven and the video firms were hyping vintage Presley – and then it was time for her to go up the road to her friend.

We know an amazing amount about the generations immediately before us, back to Presley and beyond. A hundred years of their lives, sometimes in the minutest detail, their rituals preserved, their fears articulated, their aspirations easily inferred. How sad it is that their experience is of so little use to us.

But I’m putting off what happened next. I’m afraid of it and I’m putting it off. What happened next is that Yvette left for the city, and Anna went up the road to her friend, and I ate the supper waiting for me in the oven, and the front doorbell rang. And when I checked through the spyhole there was a young woman standing on the step, a short-haired blonde, about my age, in a neat, not unfeminine grey-green woollen suit, holding up a card with her picture on it, the big letters SPU, a lot of other writing, and the state coat of arms.

‘Sergeant Milhaus,’ she said through the answerphone. ‘Special Police Unit.’

My first thought was that something had happened to Mark. I let her in.

‘I ’m on secondment to the Science Ministry,’ she told me. ‘I s your husband at home?’

I shook my head, relieved.

‘And your daughter?’

She had a nasty voice, ugly vowels, sharp and demanding.

‘She’s out too.’

She caught the question in my expression. ‘I t’s just that I don’t want us to b