A Line to Kill

3 BAN NAB

Marc Bellamy did have a point with his joke about elastic bands. The plane that took us to Alderney was one of the smallest I’d ever flown in – with two propellers and a single wing that could have been strapped across the top. It actually reminded me of one of the models Hawthorne liked to make. He and I were sitting shoulder to shoulder, which made me uncomfortable in all sorts of different ways. He was the sort of person who liked to keep his distance. When I was working with him, we were either confronting each other face to face or I was two steps behind him. A sideways view was strangely unnerving.

The plane rolled along the runway at Southampton Airport, then stopped for a minute as if the pilot was questioning one last time whether it could actually fly. Then the engines rose in pitch and we belted along, finally lurching upwards, our stomachs doing the same but in the opposite direction. We were in the air! We broke through the clouds and buzzed along for about thirty minutes, the clatter of the propellers making any conversation almost impossible. We dipped down again and Alderney came into view. With my face pressed against the window, I looked down on what – from this height – seemed to be a largely uninhabited strip of rock, one that might have been cast loose, floating on the sea. We banked and curved round for landing and I saw a black and white striped lighthouse perched at one end, white froth crashing far below. Hawthorne had been reading his book throughout the journey but as he folded it away, I couldn’t resist it any longer. I leaned over and shouted: ‘Why did you want to come here?’ It was hard to make myself heard against the sound of the engines.

‘What?’

‘In London. You said you’d always wanted to visit Alderney.’

He shrugged. ‘It looks nice.’

In all the time I had known him, I don’t think I’d ever heard Hawthorne shout. It wasn’t just that he was even-tempered. If I had recorded his delivery and transferred it to a screen like a heart monitor, he would have been a flatliner. This was the first time he had raised his voice.

He was also lying to me. I was sure of it. He was here for a reason and it had nothing to do with the scenery.

We landed and then bumped and jolted our way across another stretch of grey concrete. The pilot turned off the engines and I watched the propellers as they slowed down, becoming visible moments before they stopped. The door opened and we uncurled ourselves and made our way out. The airport’s one terminal was right in front of us, managing to look both temporary and thirty years out of date at the same time. We went in through a swing door that led into a small, irregular space: the arrivals hall. Serving the island since 1968 read the sign behind an empty check-in desk. Nothing much seemed to have changed.

There was a solid, rather aristocratic woman in her forties waiting for us beside a weighing machine. She was wearing a tweed jacket, scarf and pearl necklace and was carrying a sign with ALDERNEY LIT FEST typed in large letters. It had to be Judith Matheson. She had seemed nervous, standing alone in the empty arrivals hall, but her expression quickly turned into surprise and pleasure that we had actually arrived. She had spent a lot of time working on her make-up and even more on her hair, a wispy chestnut, which had been beaten into submission. She was someone for whom appearances mattered. That was the appearance she gave.

‘Hello! Hello!’ she announced as we gathered around her. ‘I’m Judith. Welcome to Alderney! I hope you all had a good flight. Plane nicely on time, I see. The luggage will come through in a minute and if anyone needs to use the loo, it’s just over there.’

‘How far is it to the hotel?’ Anne asked. She seemed a little breathless and I wondered if the flight had made her nervous.

‘Ten minutes.’ Judith managed to sound enthusiastic about everything. ‘Nothing’s very far on Alderney. There’s a minibus outside. Can I get you anything? A glass of water? The luggage really should be here very soon.’

‘No. I’m all right, thank you.’

I heard the revving of a motor, a vehicle approaching, and a minute later the first cases appeared, pushed through a rubber curtain onto a silver table. I noticed Kathryn Harris, who had taken her own case but was also struggling with two more belonging to her employer and I went over to her.

‘Can I help you with one of those?’ I asked.

‘Oh – thank you.’

I grabbed one and almost dislocated my shoulder with the weight of it. I was surprised it had even been allowed on the plane.

‘It’s full of Marc’s new book,’ Kathryn explained. ‘I’m sure it’ll be a lot lighter going home!’

Marc Bellamy had overheard us. ‘It had bloody well better be!’ he chimed in.

My own case came through, then Hawthorne’s. Somehow we all managed to disentangle ourselves and made our way out into a car park with taxis and car rentals on one side and a white minibus with Alderney Tours painted above the sliding door waiting just ahead.

Judith continued to fuss over us as we stowed our luggage and climbed into the bus, then finally we were away. Alderney is just three miles long and a mile and a half wide and my first impression as we drove down the very straight lane from the airport was how little of it seemed to be developed. There were no buildings nearby. Fields stretched out in every direction, the grass strangely etiolated, as if the colour had been swept away by the strong breezes coming in from the sea. We came to a main road – not that there was anything very main about it – and at the junction I noticed a makeshift wooden sign hammered into the soft earth with a message in red paint. BAN NAB. I wondered what it meant. I wasn’t even sure what language it was in.

We turned left and passed a farm but no other houses or any buildings, continuing downhill until we came to what looked like a Napoleonic fortress, very square and solid, with tall, evenly spaced windows and a great many chimneys. It was sitting on its own in a swathe of grass with the sea behind. In front of me, Kathryn Harris held her iPhone against the window and took several shots. My eyes were drawn to an old oil drum standing abandoned in the grass with, once again, the same words – BAN NAB – painted in red letters on the side. I wanted to ask Judith Matheson about them but she was deep in conversation with Anne Cleary.

‘Did you see that?’ I asked Hawthorne.

‘What?’

‘Ban Nab. It’s a palindrome.’ He said nothing, so I added: ‘It reads the same forwards and backwards.’

‘Do geese see God?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

Hawthorne shook his head and looked away.

The road curved round and we came to an ill-defined harbour area that should have been prettier than it was: too much of it had been given over to retail and industry. Even the chip shop could have been more welcoming, standing on its own, surrounded by concrete. But things changed when we reached the Braye Beach Hotel on the other side. This was a traditional seaside hotel, the sort of place I associated with childhood, long summers and ice-cream cones. It was made up of several houses joined together with a conservatory at one end and a long veranda looking out over the sand. The bus pulled up in front of the main entrance and Judith led us inside, talking all the while.

‘If you want to collect your keys and pop up to your rooms, you’ve got free time until the first session at half past four this afternoon. That’s George Elkin talking about the occupation of Alderney at the town hall on the rue de l’Église, which opens the festival. You’ll find welcome packs with maps and telephone numbers on your beds. We thought we’d all meet for a drink straight afterwards at The Divers Inn, which is right next door. Dinner tonight is at the hotel. If anyone has any questions they can call me any time.’

The inside of the hotel was bright and airy, with comfortable, mismatched furniture, dried flowers, ships made out of driftwood and books on shelves.

‘I’ll see you later, Tony.’ Hawthorne started to move towards the reception desk.

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.

‘Drop my stuff … then I thought I’d go out and explore.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No. It’s all right, mate. I’ll catch you later.’

The other writers had piled in behind Hawthorne, eager to get to their rooms, and I wandered into the lounge, where I found myself alone with Judith. For a few moments we looked at each other uncertainly. I decided to break the ice. ‘So this is your first festival,’ I said.

‘Yes. We have the history festival earlier in the year, but this is our first crack at general fiction and poetry.’

‘Have you always lived in Alderney?’

‘Absolutely. It’s a wonderful place. I hope you’re going to find time to explore. You can’t miss Gannet Rock, and there are some lovely walks. We have a house at Les Rochers.’

‘We?’

‘My husband, Colin. Plus three children, although two of them are away at boarding school. Actually, you’ll meet Colin tomorrow. He’s agreed to interview you and Mr Hawthorne.’ I already knew this from the programme. ‘I had to twist his arm,’ she went on. ‘He would have preferred to do George Elkin.’

I wasn’t sure how to take this so I smiled and said: ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘What does “Ban Nab” mean?’ Her face fell and she seemed unwilling to answer. ‘It’s just that I saw it on a couple of signs …’ I tried to make light of it.

She fumbled with her pearl necklace, at the same time giving me a nervous smile. ‘I rather hoped you wouldn’t notice. It’s actually quite upsetting. Alderney is normally such a close community, but I’m afraid this has completely divided us.’

I waited for her to go on. She did so reluctantly.

‘NAB stands for Normandy-Alderney-Britain. A company called Électricité du Nord is planning to build an electric power line to connect France and the UK and they want to route it through Alderney. It will actually benefit the island in lots of different ways. Cheaper electricity, cheaper internet and a payment of £60,000 a year, but naturally there are some people who’ve decided it’s a bad idea and they’ve been demonstrating against it.’

‘Why?’

She sighed. ‘This is rather difficult for me, Anthony,’ she explained. ‘Colin happens to be the head of the NAB committee that’s been deciding on the issue and so he’s very much at the centre of things. He’s a barrister and he’s also a member of the States, which is what we call the island’s parliament, so he was a natural choice. But it has rather put our heads above the parapet.’

‘And he’s for it?’

‘There was a vote and although it wasn’t unanimous, the committee recommended that we go ahead.’

‘So what is it that people don’t like?’

‘Well, there are some issues.’ Judith Matheson glanced around her as if afraid of being overheard. ‘There will be some local disruption and there are questions over which route the line will take. Generally speaking, people in Alderney are hostile to change.’ As she spoke, she had been looking past my shoulder in the direction of the balcony and suddenly she beamed. ‘Oh, look! Mrs Lovell and her husband are sitting in the sunshine. Why don’t you let me introduce you? She’s a remarkable woman.’

It was obvious that Judith had grabbed the moment to change the conversation, but before I knew it, I found myself being ushered outside.

The terrace ran the full length of the hotel with really lovely views. There was a stretch of wild grass, then a sandy beach curving round in a bay and, on the other side, a rocky hillside with another ancient fort holding its own against an enemy that had never actually bothered to arrive. The only invaders were the clouds, a puffy armada floating across an otherwise blue sky.

Elizabeth Lovell and her husband were finishing their lunch at a table about halfway along. Elizabeth had her back to the sea, but then she had no interest in the view: her round black glasses spoke for themselves and in the loudest possible way, making it difficult to focus on any other part of her face, which was perhaps just as well. She did not look healthy, with pale skin, sunken cheeks, grey lips. Her black hair was tightly permed. Despite the warm weather, she was wearing a long-sleeved dress and a shawl. Her husband – in polo shirt and baggy cotton trousers – was small, plump and bald and was drinking a glass of wine. She had ordered soup. He had been eating lobster. The broken shell and claws were all around him.

‘Hello, Elizabeth. Have you had a good lunch?’ Judith had regained her good cheer.

‘Lovely, thank you.’ Elizabeth turned towards us, craning her neck awkwardly. Her words sounded strangled, as if they were trapped in her throat.

‘I’m with Anthony. He’s just arrived with the other writers.’

‘Dark hair, untidy, going grey. Jewish. Late fifties. Didn’t shave this morning. Short-sleeved shirt, linen trousers … crumpled. Doesn’t look too pleased to be here.’ This not entirely flattering portrait of me was rattled out at speed and without emotion by her husband. ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he went on. ‘Liz likes to know who she’s talking to.’

How could I be offended? ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ I said.

But it wasn’t. I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in an afterlife. And it’s always been my feeling that anyone who calls themselves a professional medium can only be exploiting the all-too-real sadness of people who have suffered a loss. I once had dinner in an expensive restaurant with an actor whose wife was supposedly psychic. She insisted that my mother, who had been dead for thirty years, was standing next to me and continued to pass across messages from her. My mother was happy. She hoped I was happy too. It quite put me off my fish pie.

I didn’t say any of this to her, of course. Instead, I asked her, ‘When did you arrive?’

‘Yesterday,’ Elizabeth said.

‘Flew from St Helier,’ her husband added. ‘Via Southampton and Guernsey. Took half the day. The ferry’s no better.’

‘Well, we’re delighted you’re here,’ Judith said. ‘Have you got everything you need?’

‘Top-notch.’ Sid picked up a lobster leg, gripped it between his teeth and sucked out the meat. ‘Will you join us, Anthony?’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, ‘but I’ve just got off the plane. I’m sure we’ll see each other later.’

Why did I say that? Why is it that whenever I meet someone who has lost their sight, I’m unfailingly clumsy? Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice. Her husband poked around for another piece of flesh. She ate her soup. I nodded at Judith and left.

Judith came back with me to the reception area. By now all the other writers had taken their keys and mine was the only one remaining.

‘I’ll see you at four thirty,’ she said. ‘And then afterwards at The Divers Inn. Call me if there’s anything you need.’

I took my key and my suitcase and went up to the second floor. The rooms at the hotel had been given various designations – Platinum, Silver, Premium and so on. I noticed from the card that had been given to me with the key that mine was simply a Guest Room. It was small, with two single beds, two chairs, two pictures of Braye and, disappointingly, a view over the car park. But it was comfortable enough and I would only be here for two nights.

I unpacked and took out my laptop but I was too tired to work. It had been a long day and I’d had to get up early to meet Hawthorne at Waterloo. I had a book to read but in the end I dozed off, stretched out on the bed.

I was woken by a loud banging on the door. As I opened my eyes and stumbled to my feet, slightly ashamed to be found asleep in the middle of the afternoon, I realised that it was not actually my door but the one belonging to the neighbouring room. It opened and closed again.

Almost at once, an argument began on the other side of the wall. Some of the words were indistinct, but as the two people raised their voices I was able to hear whole sentences.

‘Why didn’t you tell me he’d be here?’

‘I’m sorry, Marc. I didn’t know.’

‘You accepted the invitation.’

‘I asked you! You said it was all right!’

It was Marc Bellamy and his assistant, Kathryn Harris. He was the one who had knocked on the door so the room must be hers. His voice grew louder and more violent.

‘I can’t bloody stay here!’

‘I’m sorry …’ She sounded on the edge of tears.

‘You’ve really screwed up.’

I heard the sound of an impact. He had either kicked something or thrown something at her and it was enough to get me to open my door, half afraid for her safety.

I was just in time to see Marc Bellamy go storming past. He didn’t notice me. His fists were clenched. He was staring straight ahead.

He had murder in his eyes.