Liz Jensen - The Rapture

‘We’re obviously a team,’ begins Ned hesitantly. But he can’t follow it through. Being more pragmatist than diplomat, he’s thinking the obvious thought. She’s a loose cannon. A danger to herself and others. A mad girl. A liability. The police are looking for her. There is no way she can be involved. Kristin is eyeing Bethany with a mixture of dismay and profound distaste. The physicist is inspecting his hands.

‘Wheels,’ says Bethany. Her eyes are glittering and her mouth has turned down at the edges. I feel a faint, high buzzing in my ears, like a pressure-change on an aeroplane.

When I swivel to face the others, an ache spreads across my shoulders, pressing me down. I shift and straighten.

‘This is also a moral decision.’

The é minence grise sighs wearily. The others look uneasy.

Modak says, ‘They seem to keep coming.’

‘Yes, Professor My’ snarls Bethany. Angry tears are tracking down her face. ‘And you’re supposed to be good at them. Your reputation’s kind of based on that idea, right? I Googled you.’

Harish Modak closes his eyelids and exhales quietly. ‘I had not expected quite so much pressure to be exerted on me today, concerning my status in the world,’ he murmurs. ‘But one must be consistent, I suppose.’ I breathe out. I had not expected this much relief. He opens his eyes and scrutinises me. ‘As for your role in this, Miss Fox…’

I shrug. ‘You don’t stop doing your job just because someone fires you. I’m doing my job.’

Ned shifts in his seat, but says nothing.

I think: I am doing my job because Bethany is my job.

And Bethany is all I have left.

Having established the principle of her freedom, the human hand grenade disappears into the next room to watch TV, while the others begin an intense technical discussion, orchestrated by Ned. The first priority, he says, is to obtain Traxorac’s seismic data; the second, to ensure that the warning they issue at the press conference reaches the maximum audience. ‘I have a stunt lined up involving the marine biologist mate whose house we’re in, and a team of his in Greenland. But in the meantime…’ He clicks the laptop to reveal a screen filled with eight columns of bullet points over a map of the North Sea. ‘Here’s the way forward as I see it.’ I understand why Frazer Melville recruited him. He is a strategy machine. But there’s an item he has not yet factored in. While Harish Modak stops Ned with a question about the tonnage of Buried Hope Alpha and Frazer Melville and Kristin Jons dottir reach for their notepads, I leave the room unnoticed and roll down the corridor.

Huge and sombre, the farillhouse kitchen has low beams and a dark oakwood table, varnished to a high gloss. On it sits an open laptop. I set the kettle to boil on the range, locate teabags, cups and milk, boot up, and check the news online. Sure enough, the story I have been dreading ever since the phone call from Kavanagh is one of the main headlines.

Teen abduction: disabled therapist suspected . I flush with irritation at the word disabled. As I read on, the flush spreads. The hunt for the teenager abducted from a hospital ward last Wednesday has intensified following the disappearance of her former therapist, Gabrielle Fox, who now joins Dr Frazer Melville, a research physicist, as a prime suspect in the case.

The photo is unflattering, and doubtless chosen to suit the story: it shows me looking vengeful. I recognise the occasion from the shapeless outfit I’m wearing, an unhappy hybrid of tracksuit and dress. They held a small party when I left the Unit in Hammersmith. It was Dr Sulieman’s idea. Perhaps he thought it would cheer me up. But it didn’t. I got drunk, and someone had to ring for a taxi. The image of the physicist is smaller: an anodyne corporate shot in black and white. The BBC Online article, which describes us, mortifyingly, as ‘the couple’, continues with a quote from Leonard Krall, demanding the immediate return of his estranged daughter, for her own safety and that of others. This is followed by a statement from Detective Kavanagh, another from an Oxsmith spokeswoman, and a defensive comment from the senior administrator of St Swithin’s hospital. Joy McConey is quoted only towards the end of the article. ‘There’s something I believe that her kidnappers haven’t understood. Bethany Krall is damaged, dangerous and very angry.’ I picture her homeopathically pale eyes. ‘She has killed before. She’s quite capable of killing again. Whoever is sheltering her should know that unless she is safely contained, lives are at risk. The best way to help Bethany is to return her safely to the professionals.’

I presume that the BBC, along with the main news agencies, will not run its interview with Joy in full because it has a reputation to maintain. But the rest of the net is free of such scruples. Within a few clicks, I have located a video clip of Joy McConey, extracted from a longer interview. I turn up the volume and press play. She has worked hard on herself since our meeting in the playground. Gone is the combat gear. Her pale red wig is coiffed into a feminine chignon, while discreet make-up and a sombre business suit provide a professional gravitas she must be credited for mustering at such short notice.

‘When she was an inmate at Oxsmith, Bethany Krall foresaw several disasters which all then happened on the exact dates she predicted,’ she says. I remember Joy’s voice when she called me on the phone, shrieking at her husband while he battled to restrain her. Now, levelly and reasonably, she runs through the list of catastrophes Bethany foresaw, starting with Mount Etna a year ago, and ending with the Istanbul quake. ‘My biggest concern isn’t that Bethany Krall can predict events like these.’ She pauses to emphasise her point. ‘It’s that she’s somehow able to cause them. I don’t say this lightly. I myself have personal proof of how powerful the forces within her are. When I contracted cancer two months ago…’

The kettle is boiling but I have given up on tea. I pause the clip and hurtle back to the others.

‘Right, this’ll mean a change of plan,’ says Ned, when I have conveyed the news, to which he and the others listened with evident alarm, though if any of them now regrets the decision to allow Bethany to stay with us the cavil is not voiced. ‘Gabrielle.Instead of coming with us to London, you, Frazer and Bethany will need to stay here. We can’t risk you being seen. After the press conference, we’ll collect you by helicopter.’ He flips open his phone and punches in a number. ‘But I’ll organise alternative transport for you, just in case.’ He looks at his watch, sandwiching his mobile between cheek and shoulder. ‘Kristin, Harish: we’ll need to leave here within the next couple of hours. Hi, Jerry. Ned again. Another car, untraceable… yes, today.’

I glance at Frazer Melville, the man who showed me a new world, then smashed it. If the morose expression on his face is related to the sudden prospect of staying here with me and Bethany, instead of going to London with his lover and the others to warn the world about the catastrophe on the horizon, then I share his gloom.

The others have left, and it is late. Frazer Melville has prepared a Marks and Spencer’s ready-meal, which we eat in the kitchen around the oak table, largely in silence. The food sticks in my throat. Even Bethany is subdued.

‘I’ll be sleeping on the sofa in the living-room,’ I say, when Bethany has left the kitchen, announcing that she is going to bed.

‘We need to talk,’ says the physicist.

‘There’s nothing to say. I’ll clear the dishes, if you check on Bethany and lock the doors.’