The Genesis Glitch Read online

Ratty looked at the screen. Birmingham airport was an hour and nine minutes away.

  ‘If we are to hire a jet at Birmingham, then we’ll need to crack the conundrum of Ruby’s pin number fast. What is important to her? What would signify a number that she would never forget?’

  ‘Her pin will not be necessary,’ said the Patient.

  ‘If you’re thinking of jolly well helping ourselves to a plane right under their Brummy noses and refusing to pay for the bally thing, well, I just think that’s drifting somewhat towards the lawless side.’

  ‘We will not need a credit card upon arrival, Ratty.’

  ‘If you’re expecting a warming sense of Yuletide charity on behalf of some random pilot chap to enable us to fly to the hot side of the world on a day that he’d rather spend on his Ikea sofa watching the Queen and a Harry Potter film, I suspect a grand disappointment heading your way. I’m going to think of possible numbers that Ruby might use. Her birthday. Erm, do you happen to recall the date of her birthday?’

  ‘Ruby’s birthday is not important to her,’ he replied. ‘What she cares about more than anything, although her ability to show it is, admittedly, limited, is you. If I needed to guess at a pin for her cards, I would use your birthday, Ratty.’

  ‘Goodness. You really think so? Seems rather flattering.’

  ‘In any case, as I have tried to explain, the number is not necessary. I have booked our flight online using her debit card and the security number printed on its back. We have a private jet waiting to take us to any destination we choose.’

  ***

  Back at Stiperstones Manor, Ruby gave up her search for Ratty and the Patient. She had run back to the house to warn them, but despite looking in every room of the main house and the cottage, there was no one home. She skulked back along the driveway to where she had abandoned her car. The car was gone, and so, it seemed, were the men who almost given her a heart attack when they emerged from hiding in the rear of the Volvo. But Ratty’s dilapidated Land Rover was there, key still in the ignition. She climbed inside and coaxed the machine to the village centre.

  Constable Stuart was standing in the street, wrapped in a warm overcoat, looking as if he had been expecting her. He opened her door and helped her down in a display of obsolete chivalry.

  ‘Don’t say anything until you’ve had a nice cuppa,’ he said in response to her temporary inability to articulate her concerns. He led her into the front room of his cottage. A plywood counter with a reception bell. Posters on the wall recommending driving at slow speed in built-up areas and extolling the virtues of hiding valuables from thieves. A pair of threadbare seats. He lifted the counter and invited her to the private part of the cottage. She followed him into a living room with low beams and a dominating fireplace in which a homely pile of embers glowed. The sofa looked as if it had lived as eventful a life as Ratty’s Land Rover. The coffee table was sprinkled with so many ring marks it looked like it was branded with Olympic logos. Stuart and Ruby squeezed past his furniture and into a narrow kitchen with 1960s cabinets and an Aga stove that smelled of rising dough. He pushed open the back door, exposing them to cold air that vibrated with the sound of a neighbour warming up the diesel engine of a van. Stuart guided Ruby to the far end of his garden. Up a couple of wooden steps was a summerhouse screened by a row of potted bay trees. ‘Take a seat in there,’ he told her, holding the door for her. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’ He closed the door with a gentle click and returned to the house.

  The chairs in the summerhouse were sumptuous, spotless and fashionable. The coffee table gleamed. Paperback books were neatly arranged on a shelf, though none of the volumes possessed the tell-tale spine cracks that would be present had they been read. The shiny electric radiator was maintaining a cosy warmth. A blue shag pile rug on the floor appeared never to have received the imprint of anyone’s sole. The discontinuity between the constable’s two living spaces perplexed Ruby so greatly that it was some time before the absence of windows caught her attention. Framed mirrors hung where there should have been windows, reflecting the many LED ceiling lights and deepening the perspective of the fashionable interior space. And all was silent in there, as if the nearby diesel engine had been erased from the soundscape.

  She closed her eyes and thought about the events of the day. Nothing made sense to her. The attempted break-in at Stiperstones, the strangers hiding in her car, Ratty and the Patient’s disappearance and, finally, the revelation that a village policeman who hadn’t updated his cottage in half a century should have an ultra-modern garden room that had never been used. Why had he seemed to expect her? And where was this tea he had promised?

  She decided to return to his kitchen on the pretext of offering assistance.

  The summerhouse door was jammed shut. She pulled at the sturdy handle to no effect. She banged the wall and it rang like steel. She looked more closely at the room: its dimensions had a familiarity that initially she couldn’t place, but now it clicked.

  This was a shipping container.

  Yelling for the constable to return was pointless, but she did it anyway. Somehow it felt better having expressed her low opinion of the man who had sealed her into a metal box. Admittedly, a box that had been comfortably disguised on the inside and cleverly screened outside, but nevertheless to put her inside it without her consent was an act of inhumanity. She still had no idea what was going on, but whatever was happening, the policeman was part of it. Instead of spending Christmas day driving to Spain on gloriously empty roads to direct the excavations at Empúries, she was going to spend it in a windowless prison in a police officer’s garden in Shropshire. There had been many disappointing Christmases in her life, but this one marked a new nadir.

  She grabbed a random book from the shelf and opened it. Eye of the Desert Storm by Matt Mountebank. She couldn’t believe it. Her ex-lover’s imaginative – if annoyingly readable – war memoirs. She screamed and hurled it at the wall. She plucked another book, this time without bothering to look at its title, and threw it even harder than before and with a yell that scorched her throat. The throwing and screaming continued until the shelf was empty and her voice was hoarse.

  The container swayed. She felt a sickening upward lurch. The lights went out and the radiator ceased to function. The container was moving and she was in complete darkness.

  ***

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ whispered a voice. Ratty rubbed his ear in the hope that the voice would leave him alone. ‘The new day has brought us the gift we were hoping for,’ added the Patient, standing over Ratty’s reclined seat and pointing out of the window.

  Nothing had woken Ratty since the brief stop in Bahrain for refuelling and a change of pilots, when the British pair were replaced by Italians. A deep embrace of sumptuous leather and a journey largely free of turbulence had been most conducive to comatose travel.

  ‘Christmas? Humbug,’ said Ratty. ‘Would you pass me a humbug? The descent is making the old ears pop like champagne corks.’

  The Hawker 4000 jet was circling above the Bay of Bengal. Ratty sucked hard on the proffered sweet and followed the Patient’s gaze out of the oval window. Thousands of feet below them was a cluster of ships, midway between Preparis Island and mainland Myanmar.

  ‘This is the precise spot where the meteorite was reported to have impacted,’ said the Patient. ‘It matches the linear arrangement of the megaliths. I believe we have located the crash site of Halford’s pod. Somewhere in the ocean beneath us is a twelve-thousand-year-old man who, if the science of the ancients was successfully applied, may shortly reanimate.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks to Halford and his second coming. We’re here to find Ruby. She’s down there too. Tell the pilot chappy to drop us off.’

  ‘He is taking us to Yangon International Airport.’

  ‘Rangoon,’ Ratty corrected.

  ‘I have already arranged to rent a car to take us to the megaliths so we may check our calculations, and we will then collect a boat from the ne
arest docks on the Irrawaddy River. I have selected a wooden vessel, of traditional construction, so that we may avoid attracting undue attention.’

  ‘Did you sleep at all, Patient chappy?’

  ‘No. I have been studying the maps and charts of the area. Downloading academic papers about the megaliths. All historians misinterpret the purpose of the stones, by the way. Familiarising myself with essential elements of the Burmese language. Learning the control systems for the boat I have rented. Pondering various scenarios that might be helpful in Ruby’s rescue. Considering backup plans and emergency options.’

  ‘Been busy, then? I had a dream about trousers.’

  A ‘ping’ sounded and seat belt signs illuminated.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen, I trust you had a pleasant flight,’ said the pilot over the intercom, even though the cockpit door was open and his passengers could have heard his strong Italian accent naturally. ‘My co-pilot will be coming through with a little drink to say grazie before the final descent into Yangon.’

  ‘Rangoon,’ said Ratty, under his breath.

  A dark-haired woman walked in wearing a forced smile and an immaculate uniform which bore no sign that she had been on duty all night. On the tray held in her hands were two flutes of champagne.

  ‘A little token of our appreciation. You have been extremely valuable customers,’ she said, offering the fizzing glasses to the two passengers. Ratty and the Patient politely sipped and nodded their gratitude.

  She returned to the cockpit and closed the door. Ratty chinked his glass with the Patient and enjoyed the sensation of champagne bubbles spreading through his throat and nose. Sleep hit hard. Glasses fell, unnoticed. The jet landed in Yangon and taxied to a hangar. The pilots carried out the usual post-flight checks and then dragged the unconscious bodies of the passengers to a waiting car.

  ***

  ‘Oh. For real? I guess twenty million bucks don’t buy much these days. Well, look at you!’

  ‘Bless you,’ said Ratty, sitting upright, blinking and wondering why steel handcuffs were chafing his wrists.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Frightfully wotnot.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Ratty slowly processed the scene. A window. The light outside was bright. Not English. The ceiling was attempting a trial separation from the paint to which it had once been happily married. The walls were clad with rough wooden boards, seemingly alive with insects of an unnervingly exotic variety. The atmosphere was dry and dusty. A voluminous man sat near the door, reading a book and chewing gum noiselessly, and, sitting in an unpainted rocking chair close to where Ratty had lain on a sweaty mattress, was the young woman with whom he had been conversing.

  ‘I was under the not entirely unjustified misapprehension that the elevated levels of particulate matter in the air had triggered a sternutation, though such a sneeze could be symptomatic of an underlying physical indisposition.’

  ‘Speak English?’

  ‘It would appear from our so far brief but enlightening acquaintance that you do, indeed, employ a form of parlance that is not wholly dissimilar to that of—’

  ‘Do… you… speak… English?’ she repeated, hoping to stem the irritating flow of nonsense that came from the mouth of her expensive purchase.

  ‘I hardly think that the aforementioned question necessarily warrants a direct response.’

  ‘Twenty million for this guy and I don’t understand a damn word he says! Aargh!’

  ‘My dear, are you in pain? Do you require medical assistance?’

  ‘Now that I understood. OK, ice broken. We’re getting somewhere. Do you know who I am?’ To her relief, Ratty chose to shake his head rather than unleash several hundred words in her direction. ‘I’m Madison, and I’m from Texas.’

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘No, Madison.’

  ‘I mean, where is Ruby?’ Concern filled his eyes as memories awakened. ‘Do you have her?’

  ‘I never heard of her. The only woman round here is me. Are you still with me?’

  Ratty looked around him, then eyed her squarely,

  ‘It would appear still to be the case.’

  ‘The name Ruby Towers is of no significance to you? Archaeologist. Probably a headmistress in a previous life. About this wide.’ He tried to move his arms apart, then realised he couldn’t.

  ‘I got no idea what you’re talking about. I can only tell you about me. What else you wanna know about me?’

  Ratty concluded there was nothing he could do for his missing friend until he had found a way to resolve his own predicament. He decided, in the absence of any other option, to co-operate with this captor.

  ‘Madison? A curious name for someone of the feminine persuasion. A corruption of “Matthew’s son” I believe. Or could it be a tribute to the state of which it forms the capital, Wisconsin? In which case your mother and father may have had in mind the fourth stage of the glaciation of your country during the Pleistocene when choosing your name. A touching thought.’

  ‘You never saw the movie Splash?’

  ‘As much as I dislike diverting to the tangential, I appear to be wearing handcuffs, and that gentleman by the door looks, if I am not mistaken, as if he is tasked with hindering my freedom.’ Ratty pointed with both arms together to the large man near the door who had so far not deemed it necessary to join the conversation. ‘Therefore, I was wondering, having made the obvious deduction that I am in some kind of pickle, is this kidnap or enslavement?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not immediately, although the latter has an implication of permanence which I would prefer to avoid. And, forgive my presumption of future freedom, but it would be useful to get the terminology correct should I one day choose to recount this incident in my memoirs.’

  ‘You’re one weird cookie.’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  ‘Look, honey, I bought you fair and square. OK, maybe not fair, but you know what I mean. I guess it’s more of a rental, anyhow. If I keep you for a week, that’s a little over a hundred and nineteen thousand dollars an hour. You’d better be worth it.’

  ‘I endeavour to deliver satisfaction; however, modesty usually prevents me from an assumption that I am of such gargantuan value. What service can I possibly fulfil that would justify this price?’

  ‘You just need to do as I say, right? It’s real simple.’

  ‘I presume your meaning to be that it is really simple. In which case, gosh, of course. Perhaps we could continue the thingummies. You’re Madison, as we have established. And the name of the gentleman of Herculean proportions by the door?’

  ‘Honestly? Dunno. Speaks even less English than you. But you are right. He’s been paid to stop you leaving.’

  ‘Please bear with me while I try to comprehend this peculiar scenario. You see, one minute I was preparing to land in a Burmese airport, drinking champagne that frankly should have been more thoroughly chilled but about which it would have been ungracious to complain, and the next I appear to have been sold to a – if I may be so bold – not unattractive young lady who, if I may also be blunt, is an American. I have some questions.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘How? Why? Where? Who? What? Er, when? I think that should cover it. Let me know if I have missed anything.’

  ‘How did you get here? Some guys. They had you up for auction.’

  ‘You mean I was put under the hammer like a prize sow? I profess to no recollection of attending a slave auction. Not since I was at university, anyway. When did this event take place?’

  ‘I think you were still in the plane while the auction was happening. You guys were both sold before you landed in Myanmar.’

  ‘Burma. Both?’

  ‘You and the other dude. He went for much more, by the way. Not so much interest in you.’

  ‘Patient chappy sold for more than me? I say, that’s a bit rummy. I’m the Eighth Earl of Ballashiels!’

  ‘Ah, that might explain it,’ she said.

 
; ‘How?’

  ‘Eighth. Hah! Can’t be worth as much as the first. Anyhow, I got you, Lord Fauntleroy or whatever your name is.’

  ‘Ballashiels. So I was really sold for twenty million of your American thingies?’

  ‘I like to think it’s an investment. What else you wanna know?’

  ‘May I ask the reason for my purchase at auction?’

  ‘Have you heard of me before?’

  ‘I have to confess I don’t recall you ever gracing the society pages of Tatler.’

  ‘Whatever that shit means, I think it explains where I’m coming from.’

  ‘Which, as you’ve already mentioned, would be the fine state of Texas, correct?’

  ‘Listen, honey. Two years ago, I won the state lottery. More money than I thought existed. Half a billion bucks. Even after tax, and even with shitty rates of interest, do you have any idea how much I earn from that?’

  ‘A goodly sum?’

  ‘About twenty bucks.’

  ‘I’m not renowned for my financial wotsname, but even to me that sounds disproportionately diminutive.’

  ‘Twenty bucks a minute. Twenty bucks every minute of every hour, night and day. And I don’t need to do anything. The money keeps on coming and it keeps on growing. That’s what happens when you win half a billion.’

  ‘In that case, please accept my most hearty and sincere congratulations on a most deserving—’

  ‘It’s not enough,’ she told him, cutting in with a look of self-pity.

  ‘Terribly sorry to hear that,’ Ratty replied, trying to disguise a face that told a different story. His ingrained politeness was unstoppable. ‘I’m a little stretched for readies at the moment, what with this and that and the price of mackerel, but I could probably lend you ten pounds.’ He patted his pockets. ‘I’m sure I had it somewhere.’

  ‘It’s not enough to keep me famous,’ she explained. ‘I was a celebrity for a while. And it was good. I was on all the chat shows and a couple of reality shows. Six months later everyone lost interest. Just didn’t want to know. Hell, there’s nothing lonelier than a has-been. When you’re at the top, it’s a long way to fall. You with me?’