As the last traces of Professor Britton were being brushed from the Embankment that evening, Jake found himself in The Dolphin, King’s Cross. The tremble in his fingers was gone and his pool cue glided over the fulcrum of thumb and forefinger. He blew a strand of hair from his brow and his brown eyes narrowed; the background fug of drinkers seemed to withdraw, belonging to a different place. Jake’s life had become fuzzy and confused, like a lens knocked out of focus – only here on the pool table did it make sense. He released the shot with the crack of a sniper rifle and the black was assassinated.
They say skill at snooker is a sign of a misspent youth; reflecting on his adolescence, Jake could concur. He was clever but scatter-brained and only after muddling through university had he soared in ambition. That was before the booze had dragged him down again. Thirty-something, and he still hadn’t grasped the vicious circle that linked falling achievement with rising intake of units. Jake took a double swig from his pint, the level falling by a clear inch.
“So what’s this job then?” Luke McDonagh was a freelancer with a lazy eye whose freckled head reminded Jake of some kind of bean. He was also one of the best diggers in the business.
“An intriguing one, this,” said Jake, handing the researcher his article. “Winston Churchill discussing classics with the Secret Service at the height of the war. I just don’t know what to make of it.”
“It’s an oddity all right,” said McDonagh. “What on earth’s gone on there?”
“Lord knows. I’ve already whacked the Freedom of Information request in, but that’ll take weeks to come back.”
“Waste of time,” said McDonagh. “If it’s related to national security they can bat it back without explanation. They don’t have to give you the information and they don’t have to tell you why.”
Jake smiled gloomily and took another gulp of lager.
“I’m thinking a forensic audit at the National Records Office in Kew,” said McDonagh. “Let’s find a linked document – cabinet minutes, other declassified files. Paperwork like this doesn’t exist in isolation.” He spun the black ball inside the triangle. “Do I get a bonus when it makes a front-page splash?”
“Ha ha, very funny.”
McDonagh retrieved his cue, slapping the London Evening Standard on the table. Jake’s pint was halfway to his lips when he saw the front page.
He let go of the glass.
The pint plummeted downward before exploding on the carpet in a foamy starburst.
McDonagh’s trousers were soaked. “What the hell?”
“The paper,” Jake croaked. “It’s him.”
The headline screamed: “Lightning horror on the Thames.”
Alongside the professor’s photograph was an image of the strike itself, obtained from a nearby CCTV camera. The lightning bolt lanced to earth from the north-west, a jagged line of white in a sea of grey.
McDonagh peered at the mugshot. “You knew that guy?”
“Not really,” said Jake. “He’s some nutter – sorry – some bloke who rang me this morning. About this story, actually. He wanted to meet. But I gave him short shrift, I’m afraid. He wasn’t well in the head. And now he’s been struck by lightning, for Christ’s sake.”
The article’s tone was grave, but as McDonagh read he struggled to keep the smile from his voice. “The professor had written several acclaimed papers on the ancient belief in interpreting the future through omens such as lightning bolts.”