CHAPTER 5... is live
The story continues
“THE BOMB IN THE SHED…” - CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2 - CHAPTER 3 - CHAPTER 4…
Previously on “The bomb in the shed…”; Camilla hears some uncomfortable truths from her daughter in law Andrea. Meanwhile Jacob battles Winterbourne to get Kinga to sign off on the investment and Gibson uncovers some secrets in Arthur’s past.
And here we go with CHAPTER 5…
Chapter 5
Arthur felt like a kid in sweet shop on pocket money day as Jacob showed him around the labs of Sensidium. He’d spent so long in the shed with just Elizabeth, Scout and Bella, that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to surrounded by state of the art facilities and a team. Not that he didn’t like the shed and Elizabeth’s company, but this was something else altogether.
It was like coming home in a way, he’d worked in big labs at the forefront of new technologies most of his life, at the MOD, at private contractors, the US. He’d never thought he'd be back. Although it wasn’t quite the same. It was more like coming home after someone else has moved into your house and renovated the place. Everything was a little different to how he remembered.
Jacob was parading Arthur about the place like he was some kind of superstar. It was excruciating. They were joined by a scientist called Winterbourne who led the introductions. But Jacob always had something to add or a smart question to ask. His ability to span so many complex topics and cut to the quick was a marvel really. A kind of intelligence Arthur didn’t really understand, but one he could appreciate. Winterbourne seemed a smart and level headed kind of chap too, but he was eyeing Arthur warily. It was particularly noticeable because of the contrast to Jacob’s enthusiasm.
When the tour was done Jacob took Arthur aside to an empty room.
He said, “What do you think?”
“It’s impressive.”
Jacob smiled. “I thought you’d like it. As I said, you’ll have everything you’ll need.”
The lab was still visible through the window. Dozens of scientists and technicians were milling about working with busy industry, like bees in a hive. The facilities matched or exceeded anything Arthur he’d seen anywhere else, even New Mexico. But then again, that was two decades ago.
“Where will I be working?” he asked.
“I thought we could set up your lab in here. Give you a little space and privacy. You’ll have your own team too.”
“And I can continue to work on Bella in the shed at home?”
Arthur has insisted on this from the beginning. Jacob had tried to persuade him to bring Bella into the lab. But Bella has to stay in the shed, with Elizabeth. It was the only way.
“Yes, that’s the deal. So, you’re in?” asked Jacob.
He was doing it again, hand out, looking to confirm things with a handshake.
“Don’t we need contracts? Lawyers?” Arthur asked.
Jacob laughed, “Yes. There’ll be plenty of those, don’t worry. But right here, right now. Just you and me. What do you think, are we doing this?”
What would Elizabeth say? Probably For God sake, Bear, shake the man’s hand.
So he did.
---
“Netflix? That’s so exciting, Mum.”
Camilla wanted to tell Alex all about it but she was finding it hard to speak. All she’d managed so far was to hold the mountain pose for three minutes but she was already out of breath and sweating buckets into her T-shirt. Alex’s body looked strong, sinewy and glistened with sweat. Camilla had assumed her daughter had been wasting away under her loose fitting clothes, but in reality her lean body was powerful in a way Camilla didn’t recognise. There was a snake tattoo curling up from her calf the length of her body to her shoulder. Camilla had heard about it many times but refused to be shown. It all made her suspect she really didn’t know her own daughter well at all.
They were in one of the spare rooms in Alex’s flat in Shoreditch. The room had a sprung wooden floor, mirrors on the walls, an infrared heater set to 400 and a humidifier at 50%. Imagine that, having enough spare rooms in your house so you could turn one into a hot yoga gym. Maybe Camilla could do something similar with a new house in Hampstead. A writing room perhaps. A reading room. A ‘guests round for coffee in the morning and wine in the late afternoon’ room.
She managed to get a few words out, “Angela thinks I should hold out for more control.”
Alex didn’t react at hearing her sister in law’s name. It was often a trigger that led to some kind of argument. Instead she kept her eyes closed and her body perfectly still as she held her pose. “Maybe she’s right.”
The response was unexpected. Perhaps yoga invoked a zen-like state of calm in her daughter. Something to keep in mind if she wanted more reasoned debate about the family with her in the future.
Alex lent to the side, shifting into a half-moon pose. “I’d love to see Jacqueline Devereux on TV, but not if they’re going to ruin her.”
Camilla tried to follow Alex but couldn’t reach the floor with her right hand or get her left leg up parallel with the floor. She reverted to the relative safety of the mountain pose before she fell over trying. If Angela was right about Netflix maybe she was right about Arthur too.
“She also talked about your dad.”
“Did she?” Alex opened a quizzical eye.
Maybe that zen-like trance had been broken. Best tread carefully.
“She though he might be suffering from depression, what do you think?”
It was hard to tell what Alex thought, with her face at a ninety degree angle, but she certainly didn’t look so happy.
“Dad’s just dad. He’s always been like that.”
“Has he though? He was different when he got back from New Mexico. We all saw it. I thought he got better. Maybe we just got used to it.”
It looked like Alex was losing concentration, her previously rock solid half-moon was beginning to wobble. “Maybe, to be honest I gave up expecting anything from him years ago. I know that sounds awful but he just didn’t seem at all interested.” She pulled out of pose and reached for her water bottle. “You should drink too, Mum.”
The water made Camilla feel a lot better. Was it surprising Alex had tuned her father out over the years? She’d left home about the time he got back from the US, first to Uni and then starting her career. It was a stage in life when you had to put in a little extra effort to stay close with your kids. Arthur had done the opposite. He was far more interested in that bloody shed of his. Was Angela right about that too? Was he doing something dangerous in there? He never talked about it. Was he being purposefully secretive? To be fair she’d never asked him, she wasn’t interested. Maybe that was a mistake.
Alex was wiping the sweat from her face with a towel, “Are you going to go back to him?”
It had been a week since Camilla had left. She and Arthur had talked on the phone a couple of times but it had been awkward. He hadn’t asked her to come back and she hadn’t offered. She missed him in some ways but, honestly? She’d being enjoying herself more than any other time she could remember. Spending time with her children and grandchild, seeing her old friends, making time for herself. And she’d written more than she had done for months. It could be some kind of honeymoon period she was experiencing, but then again it could just be real life.
“I don’t know yet.”
One thing was for certain. If she was going back to Arthur things would have to be very different.
---
Arthur ignored his ringing phone as he was deep into a complex conversation with Elizabeth about energy transference and didn’t want to break his train of thought. But she reminded him he’d been expecting a call and should probably answer it.
“I thought you’d retired.”
Paul Granger never bothered with pleasantries on the phone, or face to face for that matter. It was one of the more likeable things about him.
“So did I,” replied Arthur.
“In fact I wasn’t entirely sure you were still alive, Arthur. Your email was a bit out of the blue.”
“Can you help?”
“God you never change, do you?”
It was another of those questions that didn’t seem to require an answer, so Arthur didn’t.
Paul filled the gap. “Yes I can help, Arthur, in theory. But this is going to be a complex contract and I’m no expert in the field. There are so many ways you could lose out. Do you want me to refer you to a specialist?”
“Not really,” Arthur replied. “All I care about is funding my research. If you make sure that’s secure I don’t care about anything else.”
Elizabeth gave Arthur a thumbs up and an encouraging nod.
“Ok, it’s your call.”
There was only so much fight Paul would put up when there were more fees on the table.
He added, “Listen, Arthur, I’ve got another golfing weekend coming up with the old gang in a couple of weeks. No-one’s seen you in years, I know they’d love to have you there. Why don’t you come?”
It was true, Arthur had let things drift. A social life that was pretty full before New Mexico had become increasingly sporadic after his return, then ground to a halt entirely after he retired and focussed more of his time on Bella. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to see everyone again, find out what they were up to. Maybe Camilla would see it as a good sign and want to come back home.
But Elizabeth was staring at him and shaking her head. “We don’t have time for that, Bear.”
She was right of course.
He said, “Sorry, Paul. Maybe another time.”
---
Professor Robert Fitzpatrick didn’t do many public lectures these days, but when he did the main conference hall at MIT was always packed, standing room only. Even after all these years he loved the moment he walked on stage under the glare of the lights, when the hubbub died and he paused to revel in absolute silence. It was the moment of ultimate potential before his performance was unleashed. Like an actor who only truly thrived on stage he needed to see the whites of the audiences eyes once in a while and feel their presence.
But today there was no nervous chatter as he entered the back of the auditorium. No hushed tones and sea of expectant faces staring back at him as he walked on stage. The lights of the lecture theatre were on full and bright and the room was empty.
Where the hell was everybody?
He reached for his phone. Best to check he had his facts straight before calling the department secretary to find out exactly who screwed up, how and why. But then he noticed a single figure sitting high up on the back row, a middle aged Latino woman in a dark blue trouser suit.
She called out to him, “Professor Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes?” he replied, his voice failing to project with the authority he’d been anticipating just a few moments ago.
“I was hoping to ask you a few questions.” The woman got up and made her way to the front. “I’m sorry about your lecture. This was the only way I could get some time in your schedule at such short notice.”
Robert had a sinking feeling in his stomach as the woman approached, holding up her credentials. Gabriela Alverez, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). He’d been dealing with people like her most of his life and they all gave off a similar humourless air. Although the long dark hair twisted into a loose ponytail and the faint smell of musky perfume was different.
He sighed and took a seat on the edge of the stage. “How can I help?”
Alverez took a seat opposite him on the front row. It meant she was a good couple of feet higher looking down at him. How can I help? wasn’t the real question he wanted to ask of course. The real question was what clearance do you have and how much can I reveal to you? Assuming Alvarez even know the right questions to ask.
She said, “I head up the Defence Nuclear Security program within the NNSA…”
Which meant that this woman had ultimate responsibility for the safety and security of the US nuclear programme and everyone in it. It meant she had the keys to the darkest closets.
“…I need to ask you some questions about operation Sunglass.”
Of course she did. What else would she be here for?
“Anything you want to know is in the files. If it’s not there, I probably don’t know the answer.”
He’d let his frustration show, which was careless, but he couldn’t help it. He’d lost years of his life to that programme, then months during the enquiry afterwards, going over every detail again and again. It was all behind him. No way he wanted to dredge all that up again. Anyway, how could it matter anymore?
“Yes, I’ve read the files and I know everything that happened in New Mexico.” Alvarez paused and let that hang in the air between them. “I’m just looking for a little local colour, from someone who was there on the ground.”
He had to be patient, cooperative. “Ok.”
“What can you tell me about Arthur Price?”
Not what he was expecting. Why would anyone want to know about Arthur Price for Christ’s sake? Still, if they were talking about Arthur they weren’t talking about Elizabeth Chambers. That was a good thing. All anyone had wanted to talk to him about before was Elizabeth.
“From what I can remember he was brought over from the UK to work on a specific engineering challenge. I barely knew the guy. He was quiet, hardly spoke to anyone.”
Basically, he was a nobody.
“What was he working on?”
She must know this, from the files.
“Plasma diagnostics. It’s a specialist area, pretty clever stuff. But self-contained, he wasn’t exposed to the broader programme.”
He glanced at his watch, a bad habit he had when he wanted to be somewhere else. But of course he had a two hour window clear, nowhere else he could claim he needed to be. If Alvarez noticed she chose to ignored it.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“I guess he would have moved back to the UK and the MOD right after the programme closed down. He’s probably retired now. Or dead. I haven’t heard anything about him on the academic circuit. Why are we talking about Arthur Price?”
“Has he contacted you recently?” She was staring at him in a way that left him feeling deeply uncomfortable.
“No.”
“Has anyone contacted you on his behalf? Or asked you about him or his work?”
It was just a question, but under the glare of those dark eyes it felt more like an accusation.
“No they haven’t. And I would have flagged it with the agency if they had, you know that. I’m not going to talk to anyone about New Mexico, believe me. Not now, not ever.”
Alvarez held his gaze a few moments more, then nodded, seemingly satisfied.
She said, “That could be a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if Arthur Price, or anyone showing an interest in Arthur Price, were to get in contact with you I want you to talk to them. And I’m going to tell you exactly what I want you to say.”
That’s it for Chapter 5, I hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to more.
NEXT CHAPTER OUT NOW - Chapter 6
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Thanks!
I’m struggling with the weekly release of chapters. When I sit down to read I like to dedicate a good length of time to it, really get into it and switch off. Just as I get into this it stops. When I pick it up again I spend time trying to remember what’s happening. Chapters 3 & 4 did not continue the story of Arthur and his bomb so I felt a bit adrift. I’m starting to be more interested in Camilla’s story . Maybe because it’s more relatable to me.
Really enjoying the book, Jonathan. Love the entwining of Arthur and Camilla’s separate careers and how they interact (or not!) with their family. Just noticed in Chapter 5 that you introduce Prof. Robert Fitzpatrick but then Alverez greats him as Prof. Wilson. Great story!