The Great Darkness by Jim Kelly

Author:Jim Kelly [Jim Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749022570
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Peter Aldiss was in what he referred to as the ‘roach room’, monitoring changes in habit related to light amongst several hundred specimens of the Blattodea. The study of circadian rhythms was a ceaseless labour. Brooke had long ago declined the opportunity of seeing them in the flesh, as it were. Even here, in the coldly lit laboratory, he thought he could hear the insects through the door, the strange, almost metallic rustle of their carapaces touching the concrete floor as they fled into the corners, like shadows. The fireflies, behind their door, were silent.

Aldiss appeared with a single cockroach in a glass beaker which he set on the bench-top, cleaning his hands with a cloth.

‘Did you find our night climbers?’ he asked.

‘I’m close, thanks to you.’ Brooke sat at one of the sturdy laboratory benches. ‘You said you’d try and find out more about Lux’s work …?’ he asked.

The manner of the American’s death, or rather its mysterious concealment, disturbed Brooke. He wanted to know more before confronting Marcus Ashmore. Had he simply dragged the scientist’s body away from the college buildings to protect his own academic career? It was the coincident death of Childe which rankled. Lux had been at the Galen that night, and he too had seen the film. Brooke was on the trail of a motive for something darker than an accident; could it lie in the American’s work?

‘I asked,’ said Aldiss. ‘They’re a bit jumpy, as you can imagine, the powers that be. The professorial class is not exactly given to idle chat. In the end I was honest, often a disastrous tactic, but it worked this time. I said you wanted to know about Lux’s field of study. The name helps. Your father’s still … what’s the word, Brooke? Revered.

‘So I was allowed an answer of sorts. Let me show you,’ said Aldiss, walking over to the light switches and plunging them back into darkness.

‘See?’ Aldiss’s voice came from the corner.

What was clear was the illuminated face of his watch, swinging from side to side like a pendulum.

The lights, restored, revealed the watch, free of the scientist’s wrist, now laid out on the bench like an exhibit.

‘They get women to paint the numbers on these watch faces, there’s a big factory in the States. United Radium. They’re the market leaders. So, imagine I am such a woman in such a factory …’

He put his empty mug to one side and from the bench drawer produced the finest of paintbrushes.

‘I put glowing dots on the backs of the roaches with this. I can see certain individuals in the dark. Imagine my mug holds the paint.’

He picked up the brush, put it in his mouth and drew it back through his lips, then pretended to dip it in the paint, acting out the precise craft of configuring the tiny numerals on a watch face. Then he licked the brush again, repeating the procedure.

‘Do that every time and you can imagine the result. They called them the radium girls, the victims.

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