Liz Jensen - The Rapture

Ned looks at me sharply. ‘Are you telling me you think it’s overrated?’

I fill my lungs and breathe out slowly, as I encourage people to do in my relaxation classes. ‘Being human, it’s a question I can’t answer,’ I say. And stare out of the window at the cornfields. ‘Van Gogh committed suicide after painting a scene like this.’

‘We could stop if you need to.’

‘I’m fine,’ I say, finally hauling my components together. This man is clearly in the dark about my relationship with the physicist. I shoot him a shaky smile. ‘Explain the postcard with the bagpiper.’

‘A diversionary tactic.’

‘I’m glad to know you’re taking Bethany seriously enough to risk a prison sentence. But Detective Kavanagh’s no fool.’

‘He’ll still have to have it investigated, and that requires manpower, which is a pain in the arse for him.’ The climatologist slaps an insect on his forearm and inspects it. ‘If Kavanagh rings, don’t say where you are. Say you’ll call him back, and when you do, you’ll know what to say because I’ll have told you. This visit is just a day trip for you. You’ll have to drive back to Hadport this evening.’

Although I understand the rationale and the non-negotiability of this, the prospect doesn’t appeal to me. When I packed my suitcase, I must have thrown in more hope, or foolhardiness, or self-delusion, than I realised.

‘Where are we going?’

‘A farmhouse in Norfolk. Belonging to a marine biologist mate of mine. He’s somewhere in the Arctic Circle, digging up deep-sea worms. He’s one of the world’s leading experts on chemi-luminescence. Those GM glow-in-the dark rice paddies they’re experimenting with in Asia? That research was done by one of his students. Who defected to the darkish side.’ Ned gives me a sidelong smile. But I don’t smile with him. More questions are formulating themselves.

‘From what I’ve worked out, this is all about frozen methane. That somebody’s been drilling for.’

‘That’s what the drawings suggest. When Kristin first saw them, she was impressed by the detail.’

‘She was one of the people Frazer contacted?’

‘No, not directly. But his mail was passed on to her. She got in touch with him.’ And then they became lovers . ‘And he rang me and I flew in. Turn right at the next junction. Let’s get the news.’

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.