The Lucifer Network by Geoffrey Archer Page A

to visit his sister. Beryl, married to a naval scientist and well settled in an estate outside Portsmouth, was the custodian of all their father’s paperwork. It would bean uncomfortable meeting, the first since their mother’s funeral five years ago.
    The traffic was heavy heading for the coast, families making the most of one of the few sunny weekends of that bleak, wet summer. He turned off the motorway and took the Meon valley road through the Hampshire countryside, passing rain-flattened wheat fields and the lush green parks of old mansions.
    His father had been serving on a diesel boat in the year of his birth, a Porpoise class submarine based in Gosport. Away at sea for months at a time, he’d missed his son’s coming into the world, an absence his wife had never forgiven him for.
    Fareham where they’d lived was an overspill town for Portsmouth. Sam found his way easily at first, driving through the housing estates as if on autopilot. But when he entered his old road it all looked different. The houses had been upgraded with B&Q doors and coach-lamp porch lights. To identify his old home he had to check the house numbers. It was odd seeing it again. Everything looked smaller than he’d remembered. Staring up at the window of his one-time bedroom, he shivered as he remembered the chill there’d been in that house when his father wasn’t there.
    He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find. Today’s residents of the estate were not from his time. They all looked so young. Not much more than teenagers but with small children snapping at their heels. His own mother, one of the last of her generation to move, had left ten years ago for her sister’s in Southsea. There was nothing to see here, and what there was, he didn’t want to look at.
    He switched on again and drove down the road, then took the A32 north for a few miles before turning onto the high down that overlooked Portsmouth. His sister’shusband worked in a windswept Admiralty research centre perched on the ridge. Sam had met him a few times. The quiet type. Beryl liked her men docile.
    Four years older than Sam, Beryl lived with Jim and their two girls in a modern house of dark brick. He found his way to their village and through the estate, passing homes with tricycles and speedboats in their drives. Outside number 12 Magnolia Close a teenager’s bike lay on the lawn and a trug full of weeds blocked the path. The front door was open. Sam switched off and got out. As he stepped over the basket a figure emerged from the house wearing gardening gloves.
    â€˜Well, bless my soul!’
    Thinning fair hair brushed back, metal-framed glasses and a long thin nose, Beryl’s husband was shorter than Sam. He wore old cords and a blue check shirt.
    â€˜Hello, Jim.’
    â€˜Nice to see you, Sam.’ Jim Butterworth pulled off a glove and reached out his hand. His voice had a touch of Hampshire about it. ‘What a surprise!’
    â€˜Beryl didn’t mention I rang?’
    â€˜No. Must’ve slipped her mind,’ Jim said charitably.
    â€˜Well, I was in the area so I thought I’d try my luck. High time and all that . . .’
    â€˜Absolutely. How are you?’
    â€˜Fine. Just fine. And you?’
    â€˜Oh, you know. Rubbing along. Come on in.’
    Sam’s sister emerged from the hall. She’d put on weight but it had done little to soften the pinched, disapproving expression she’d inherited from her mother. She wore green shorts, revealing pasty legs that had lost their once decent shape.
    â€˜Well . . .’ she grunted. ‘So there you are.’
    They made no attempt to embrace and went into the kitchen. The children were summoned to say hello tothis uncle they’d seldom seen. Two girls, aged twelve and fourteen, both quite pretty, studied him with idle curiosity.
    â€˜Still no wife in tow?’ Beryl enquired, peering theatrically towards the door.