Find My Brother
Find My Brother
David Chilcott
Chilcott, David
Find My Brother
2015, David Chilcott
First edition
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Also by David Chilcott
Murphy's Heist (2014)
Cruise the Storm (2014)
Find My Brother
PROLOGUE
Over one third of the gas consumed by Europe is produced by Russia. In addition it exports huge quantities to China.
It is a very valuable source of money for Vladimir Putin, who has very carefully nursed the sales of the product. Oil and gas comprises ninety percent of Russia’s exports. Quite a lot of the gas is produced by fracking. The Russians were ahead of most in perfecting the technique, and brooked no complaints by their citizens.
It quickly became clear that there are vast shale rock reserves over the whole area of Europe, and if other countries began developing these reserves, the price of gas would collapse, and Putin was selling gas at four times the cost of production.
Together with the SVR, the Russian Intelligence Service, he came up with a plan where extreme propaganda would be directed at other European countries, inferring that fracking to extract gas and oil was dangerous, both to earth’s climate, and to the population who lived in the vicinity.
To help defray the cost of this propaganda, the middle eastern oil producers, who were also eager to stop the competition, provided some of the cash.
Such was the success of the scheme that France, Germany and Italy banned fracking. The Russians came within an ace of persuading the EU banning all fracking in any member country.
The only country in Europe continuing the pursuit of fracking is the United Kingdom, and with such high stakes, the Russians clandestinely backed the protesters, and as a result, every new drilling site has been prevented, so far, from operating. The main organizers are The Green Party, apparently unaware of the help from outside sources.
Chapter one
John McBride parked his car in front of the Wellington Arms. He leaned into the back of the car, and pulled out his case. His art equipment he left locked in the boot.
The front bar was old, the building a timber frame structure dating back to the Middle Ages. The small windows let in very little daylight, and the electric lights were on, despite the sunny evening; wall-lights round the room, and spots behind the bar, light gleaming and reflecting on the horse brasses. He noticed pictures on the walls, old sepia photographs of village cricket teams, long gone. The main door had activated a chime, and a man bustled through behind the bar. He was dressed in a smart suit.
“Good evening, Sir.”
“I have a room booked. The name’s McBride.”
The man turned to a computer on a shelf at the back of the bar. He opened a screen, perused it, and took a key from a row above the shelf.
McBride signed the booking form that the man presented him with, filled in the registration number of his car.
“Busy?” said McBride, to make conversation.
“Well, it’s the end of the season. After this week there will be very few holidaymakers, though some business people, of course. But we’re always busy in the restaurant. That draws the locals.
“You probably saw the protest camp on your way into the village? They spend a lot of money in here, but they put off the regulars. A rough lot, by and large. We only let them in the public bar, of course. I wouldn’t even let them in there, but I’m afraid they might decide to blockade the pub.” He looked down at the registration form. “Mr McBride? Are you the artist?”
McBride nodded and smiled.
“Are you painting round here?”
“Hoping to, if the weather holds, and it might. Beautiful countryside.”
“I hope you will enjoy your stay. Can I book you in for dinner tonight?”
McBride agreed he could. He said he would eat at eight thirty, which would give him time to preview painting opportunities. No point in trying to paint so late in the afternoon, the colours are all wrong as the sun descends. He dumped his case in the room, and set off.
There was a footpath directly opposite the pub, across the road, and up a gentle rise. It ran through a stand of trees. McBride strode out at a fair pace, glad of the exercise after a few hours’ driving. As he got to the top of the hill he looked down and could see the protest camp below.
A string of tents of varying colours pitched along the edge of the field, on the other side of the hedge was the road out of the village. Two people stood in the entrance to the field holding placards. A rough hardcore track led across the field to a fenced off area with trucks and equipment surrounding a drilling rig.
There was a lot of activity in front of the tents, a camp fire with cooking utensils scattered about and people sitting in groups on folding canvas chairs. A caravan was parked a little way from the tents. A couple of old cars completed the scene.
McBride was on the edge of the national park here, so the drilling rig was a couple of miles from National Trust land. McBride, in the course of the next couple of hours, found three views that he could do justice to with his watercolours. One of the views was back towards the pub and the village from the top of the hill. He determined that he would paint that scene early in the morning when the sun was just in the right place.
By the time he got back to the Wellington Arms, he could hear a babble of voices, the clink of glasses coming from the bar, and he had to push his way through the drill rig protesters, maybe twenty of them. It was only a small bar. A young man was behind the bar, and his size and build proclaimed that he would stand no nonsense from the customers.
McBride’s room was in a wing built in the nineteen nineties behind the pub. The rooms were on the first and second floors, and the restaurant on the ground floor. The pub actually had a four star rating, and two rosettes for the quality of its food. McBride couldn’t disagree with that.
He was up early, as he intended and after breakfast picked up his easel and board from the car and set off the way he had gone the previous evening. As he was topping the rise, he spotted a figure away to the right, deep in the trees. It looked like a woman, dressed in dark jeans, and with a lightweight jacket, dark brown. She had a pair of binoculars up to her eyes, leaning forward against a small tree, looking round the bole. She wasn’t bird-watching; the glasses were trained downwards, at the protesters’ camp.
It was nothing to do with McBride, and anyway he was a fair distance away, so he walked on up the path and reached the first of his painting spots. He wandered about to frame the view. When he had decided, he erected his easel, which opened out into a box on a tripod. The box contained his brushes, paints, and a container of water. He accessed it from a drawer, which he pulled out in front of the stays supporting his drawing board. For the next two hours, he worked steadily and with concentration. He lifted the board off the easel, set it against a nearby tree, then sat down on the grass, and studied the painting. It was finished, he decided. The art of painting was, he had been taught long ago, knowing when to stop. Over-painting was a professional hazard, which he decided he had avoided.
He packed up his easel and decided to go straight on to the next scene, not going back to the pub for lunch. He had a bar of dark chocolate in his pocket, which would keep his hunger at bay. He
would continue painting this afternoon. Tomorrow might bring rain.
He was back at the Wellington Arms at half past four, finished for the day. He left his art gear in the boot of his car, and went into the public bar.
The girl he had seen in the woods was standing at the counter, a glass of white wine in her hand and a hotel key lying beside her purse on the bar top. McBride went up to the bar as the manager bustled in, summoned by the bell on the door.
“Hello, Mr McBride, you want your room key? The weather has been fine for you.” He put the key on the counter.
“I’ll have a half of lager as well, please”
The manager pulled the half pint, got a new beermat from under the bar, laid it on the counter, the glass on the mat. “I’ll put it on the account, Sir.” With that he was off.
McBride took a long pull at his drink, and turned to the girl. “I saw you bird-watching this morning when I was walking up the path on the hill. I didn’t call out in case it frightened the bird.”
She smiled slightly, and studied his face, as if weighing up what to say. He looked back at her with patience, the glass in his hand.
“You knew I wasn’t bird-watching, didn’t you?”
McBride smiled and nodded.
“Who are you? How do I know you aren’t one of them?”
“Whoever they are. I’m John McBride, a watercolour painter, of whom you may, or may not have heard. You can ask mine host, he will vouch for me.”
“I suppose you aren’t one of them. You look too good for that.”
McBride sipped at his beer. “Kind of you to say so. I did notice that you had your glasses trained on the protesters’ camp.”
“I will ask the manager to vouch for you. If you are who you say you are, I’ll come into the lounge bar after dinner, and then we can talk. If I’m not there you will know I can’t trust you.”
McBride grinned at her again. “And ditto, if I’m not there. What time?”
“About half past nine.” She picked up her purse and room key off the counter, and without a backward glance, she went through the door to the bedrooms.
McBride had finished dinner at shortly after eight thirty. He had been hungry, missing lunch, and had eaten early as a result. He told the waiter he would take coffee and a brandy in the lounge bar and perhaps he would arrange for it to be brought to him.
There were only two couples in the room when he entered, and he chose a table in the corner where the girl and he would not be overheard. If she turned up, that was. He could hear the protesters through in the public bar, shouting and laughing. He went to the door and closed it. He had finished his coffee, and was halfway through the brandy when she arrived. She sat down across the table from him.
“I passed,” he said.
“Yes, of course. I’m paranoid, I suppose. But I’m so worried.”
“I’ll buy you a drink, what will you have?”
“What are you drinking?”
“It’s a brandy, do you want one?”
“Yes please.” And McBride raised his hand at a passing waiter. “I thought this table is secluded enough for a confidential discussion. But we had better wait until the waiter has brought your drink. How long are you staying here, at the pub?”
“I’m going home tomorrow. I have to go, my holiday is over. I go to work again on Monday.”