On Shining Wings

By Alan Gilmour Nairn

What do you do at sixty when the juices are still flowing but everyone treats you like a pensioner Sasha Gilbèrt, Dream Analyst and part-time writer is emerging from her mid-life crisis and hankering for greater adventures. When her sister has an unusual dream, Sasha tries to solve the mystery and sees criminal activity behind it. When the police refuse to act she turns detective and becomes embroiled in bomb plots and crimes of revenge in a Nuclear Power Plant. Escaping from these adventures she becomes involved in Jason Edmundson’s dreams to build a Curling Rink and Museum with his local authority surplus cash.

This is all set against the background of the fall of the Berlin Wall and she reflects on events in her native Czech Republic with her sister Golda who still lives there. Alan Nairn has written a revealing and witty story of the adventures of a dream analyst but there is a serious side to this story – What would happen if we really took our dreams seriously and acted on them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665585132

Alan Gilmour Nairn

Alan Gilmour Nairn had very vivid dreams about 15 years ago and this prompted him to study the subject. After having several non-fiction articles published in Scottish memories magazine and The Scotsman newspaper, he decided to write a novel on the subject of dreams. Nairn qualified as a scientist in 1976 and worked for many years in Insurance. Writing is a hobby taken up after his mother died in 2000. He enjoys reading historical novels, especially Walter Scott, William Boyd and Patrick O’Brien. He tries to keep up with popular science and play the piano for recreation, with which he volunteers at a stately home in Scotland as a pianist on their 1896 Bechstein grand piano.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

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Hidden in a quiet country lane, Steve sat with Rob in his nearly new Audi assessing the situation.

Quinton said he would be here half an hour ago, doesn’t he know the risk we are taking?

Rob considered the statement, as he considered all statements pointed his way with detached disrespect.

Shut up, this isn’t going to take long. Not if I have my way. Check the explosive again and stop fiddling with the wiring, everything’s going to be alright – I’ll make sure of that.

Rob looked in the mirror and adjusted his tie. A reek of fine linen-fresh perfume drifted through the car as his anti-perspirant wafted from his clothes. The suit that he had bought especially for the occasion was giving him trouble and didn’t sit easily with his shirt. Like most of his choices in clothing, his pretentiousness got the better of style and resulted in combinations that didn’t quite fit. In most people this would have looked amusing but Rob had complimented this over the years with a slightly threatening attitude that defied you to say what you were thinking. Most people didn’t.

For his forty years, Rob looked young and his thin, mousy features could have belonged to an office manager. Unfortunately, the lure of cash and a glamorous life had proved too much and that goal was never reached. Add this to his intelligence and his bad attitude and he had diverted towards a life of crime. Steve looked at his watch again. Impatiently he sprang out of the car and gazed over the hedges to the main road in the distance. A small 4 by 4 moved noiselessly down the main road and turned into the lane towards them.

It was quiet in the car. Despite Rob’s criminal activities, it was Steve who was the man of action. Done up in his favourite shell suit, he could have been an off-duty bouncer in a nightclub. However, he looked down on club stewards – they had become part of the establishment with their emergence into official life and he liked to be a free agent. He worked on North Sea Oil platforms as a rigger most of the year but in his free time he became restless and longed for some exploits.

This wasn’t the first time the two had met but was by far the biggest job they had been asked to do. Usually this kind of revenge work was exacted against people they knew and despite being part of an underworld there were rules. Working with a stranger made them uneasy, especially someone who was so determinedly middle class and professional. He had been nervous and had little idea of the danger involved.

Quinton drew his hatchback opposite them and wound down his window.

Where have you been? We have been sitting here for hours said Rob.

I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being followed, said Quinton.

Followed – we haven’t remotely committed a crime yet. Rob adjusted his tie again to emphasise his smartness.

Quinton moved round to the back of the car and slid into the back seat.

We talked on the phone about all this, you never know who is listening.

Steve threw him a withering glance. Fat chance – you’re more likely to die in an explosion in an atomic plant.

There was a moments silence in the car before Steve gave Rob a wicked look, slapped him on the thigh and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Quinton gave a withering look to the two fools before him, leant forward and grabbed Rob’s suite by the lapel as he sneered and whispered through his teeth at them.

Here’s what we’re going to do. Take a right turn down there into the visitor centre and park somewhere quiet. Remember, you are tourists. Just act as if you are interested. Ask questions. Have you got the map of the administration building?

Rob rumbled in a back pocket and flourished a piece of paper.

Right, now do as I told you and leave the …. Quinton hesitated to search for a discreet word, … package in the place that’s marked. Just wait until the tour is nearly over and everyone is tired talking and then the guide should be easy to manipulate while Rob slips out and places it. There’s no danger. The admin building is the last place protected by heavy security. Once you have done that, I can activate it later.

Quinton Rees would pass in most company as an intellectual. It wasn’t until you engaged him in conversation that you noticed the restlessness and the inability to relate to people. While he was very personable and put you at your ease, there was an edge to his conversation that made people wary.

Far back, he had been left much to his own devices by a busy father and a harassed mother. The wealth of the family had not helped Quinton for their busy lives had meant that much of his care had been franchised out to nannies and carers. His father’s job in the oil industry had meant frequent changes of location, so his son had failed to make any close friends. Emerging from childhood, he had turned to books for companionship and the world of novels had become his reality. Unfortunately, he had picked on crime novels and became entranced not by the morality of justice but the glamour of the criminal underworld.

Early in life he made what he saw as mistakes that would be seen by others as immoral acts. There was the incident at twelve where he had slammed a piano lid down on a small girl’s hands when he was unable to make her co-operate in a duet. His mother had sent him to piano lessons at eight. He was successful for a couple of years but then his mother had entered him in a piano duet competition.

It wasn’t that he disliked the girl, just that this was his one way of getting the attention he so much craved. Combine this with his cool mind and any mistakes in others couldn’t be tolerated. His mother had been shocked at the time and had no choice but to stop the piano lessons altogether. Then had started his retreat into his own world – not unreal, for his reading taught him about life accurately - rather amoral for in his inexperience he could not know what was acceptable behaviour for his circumstances. The meeting over they all proceeded back along the lane to the main road and down to the power station.

It was cold – cold enough to freeze the ponds but dry in the East Coast that day in February 1988 with an expectation that winds from the north could sweep in snow. The haar rolled in from the sea as you drove south. You passed through banks of fog into a painted landscape of blues and emeralds lit by the sun – a weak light that struggled to exert itself through winter’s grip. Step outside and the freezing air had a heaviness to it as if you were trying to breath in a liquid. Villages of small cottages that could be in Surrey punctuated vast and rich fields of grass. There was a quaint church sitting beside the green and an old pub advertised lunches. A glow of rustic colour contrasted with the pastel shades of the fields. White harled walls were set under the ubiquitous red tiled roofs.

The architecture here was reminiscent more of Hamburg than Harlesden. There was no hint of Georgian or Tudor revival. The houses had foot-thick walls and tiny windows to protect against the harsh, Scottish winters. There were crow-stepped gables on the roofs and in the more prosperous Victorian houses staircases were enclosed in a small, round tower in a corner of the buildings that had all the air of a Swiss castle.

On the coast road, a power station loomed in the distance. The concrete box gave no concession to design. Only near its roof could you distinguish flat, glass panels across its width built to admit some light. There were no marshalling yards, fuel storage containers or signs of industrial activity. Indeed, you could travel very close to the structure unimpeded.

Stop near the plant and the first impression was of the silence. A faint wisp of steam disappeared from the top of a tower. You had to enter the building itself to hear the hum of the vast energy under your feet. Outside there was the smell of the morning frost giving way to the freshness of grass about to spring into growth. Sheep grazed in the fields nearby. By necessity the complex was situated by the sea but the broad sweep of sandstone rock at the shore was unbroken by any sign of man’s activity.

The only sign of the function of this site was a ten-foot high wire fence topped with barbed wire and supported by solid concrete posts completely surrounding the station. To the passer-by this seemed a contradiction for a sign on the fence did not warn you to keep out but directed you to a gate where the road led to the visitor centre. From here, it stated, tours of Pitwhin Nuclear Power Station take place every day at 1030 and 230 in the afternoon. Despite the peace and quiet there was an air of calm business night and day.

Quinton directed the other car to the visitor centre car park and he flashed his pass to the security guard and proceeded to his own space to check up on progress at the plant.

The Audi moved quietly into place and Rob and Steve put on an impression of cool. Usually, this happened at midnight as they approached a nightclub to assail some unsuspecting gang member and their attitude of brisk purpose and breezy confidence was lost on the lady at the centre reception desk.

They settled down to a coffee in the waiting lounge and fixed on today’s other tour visitors. A pleasant hum of jazz music pervaded the room from a speaker on the wall and pitched the ambience somewhere nicely between hotel foyer and Council office, complemented by prints of modern graphic design lining the room. There were a few posters describing the workings of a Nuclear Power Station scattered around. One elderly gentleman seemed to be lost and not quite sure why he was here. Possibly he was the sort of person who spends all day in a library or shopping mall and was a bane to security guards. The other two gentlemen seemed to be retired but were holding an animated conversation with the lady at the counter about the workings of the plant. They were describing to her their intimate knowledge of the safety measures taken to ensure that no radiation leaked onto the nearby beach. Nowadays there was always somebody in the tour who wanted to quiz the guides about Reactor safety.

There was no problem, Rob concluded. The tour guide would be kept occupied with these three so there would be no difficulty creating an excuse to slip off the tour. The guide was about sixty and seemed to be a retired technician at the plant. He ushered the five of them into a small minibus and set off towards what must be the Admin building, Rob concluded.

They filed into a small room at its corner filled with more of the same kind of posters exhibited at the visitor centre. The guide launched out on his story.

We British are lucky. This Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor is unique and in fact more efficient than those overseas. There is really very little danger from radiation here. Even for those living close to the plant, the average extra dose is thirty times smaller than your average yearly dose. Most of this comes from the radon gas in buildings and from the ground ……

Steve’s attention wandered as his business instinct took over and he assessed the character of the people he was with. The only risk was getting lost in the maze of corridors and rooms. Everything would be alright as long as he stuck to Quinton’s plan.

They turned a corner and were in the gallery overlooking the control room. This was truly an amazing place. Beyond the carpeted luxury of this room they viewed banks of lights and switches down below in the noiseless calm. What was really astonishing was that they were supervised by two guys who seemed to be the most laid-back in the world. This place must run most of the time on autopilot, Rob thought.

Steve remembered Quinton’s comment about being natural.

What about the ‘China Syndrome’, then? Could that ever happen here? Steve asked.

The tour guide stopped. All eyes turned to Steve in bemusement.

What do you mean, the core melting through the bottom of the containment shell?

The guide looked at Steve with polite indulgence as he nodded in agreement.

It is possible but not at all likely is the short answer. Think of the reliability and safety of cars compared to twenty years ago. Regulations are even tighter for us. There are so many controls in this plant that it should shut down long before any problem becomes so serious.

Steve gave a satisfied grin. The guide moved on with an air of superiority. The tour took them to the Turbine Hall and then back to the Admin Building. The two retired gentlemen started asking questions about the location of the water cooling pipes and the chances of radiation leaking out to sea. In his haste to be patient and answer correctly, the guard lost sight of his other charge and had to backtrack round a corridor before the other man became detached from the party. Eventually he had his story back on track.

…… and for the future almost 30% of our electricity is produced by nuclear energy and it is constant. When demand is slack at night, we use the extra power to pump water up to the Cruachan Dam to feed the Hydro-Electric plant at Loch Awe……

By this time Rob felt his confidence and boredom level rising. He looked at Steve and got a nod.

Excuse me, is there a toilet near here?

The guide paused and weighed up his frustration with the party against the desire to keep things quiet. He searched in his pocket for a key and let Rob into the corridor leading to the offices. Pointing to the sign on a door beyond he moved back to his audience and left the door ajar for him to go through.

Rob closed the door behind him, walked up to the toilet door and paused. There was complete silence. Through a window at the far end of the corridor he could see a couple of technicians moving about in a courtyard hundreds of feet away. No one was watching him. He looked round and, in a moment, removed a piece of paper from his pocket. He followed the corridor three doors down opposite a door with some sort of radioactive warning sign on it and a key pad with a set of numbers. He drew a breath and typed in the four numbers written on his paper. As he pressed the last number, he felt a latch click into place and he pushed the door. Nothing happened. He almost felt like laughing but remembered the money at stake for him and stepped back to think. Did he type in the correct code? Surely a modern place like this didn’t have ill-fitting doors and sticky locks? He gave the door a pull to make sure it was locked and then he started again. This time when the tumblers engaged, he put a deliberate shoulder to the door and gave a firm nudge. The door swung open.

The office was neat like any modern research lab. Why does he want it here, he wondered? Rob reached into his inside pocket and drew out a box the size of a small transistor radio. Copying a time setting into the LCD display, he set it under the desk near the window as Quinton had asked, pressed a small, red button on the side and went back to the corridor.

Rejoining the others in the hall he gave a smile, adjusted his tie and smoothed his hair as the guide locked the door behind him. Rob gave a curt nod to Steve to let him know that the mission had been accomplished. This wasn’t bad work for £1000 each. They both listened to the rest of the tour with the happiness of charmed children.

Half an hour later they saw Quinton in the Visitor Centre car park deep in conversation with another man. Tactfully deciding to hang back they could just overhear an argument going on between them. The other man seemed to be rather displeased with Quinton, who had the rictus of a dead-pan expression fixed on his face. As they got a little closer, they could see his hesitation and he looked very nervous as he thought of something to say:

Well, there’s no reason for you to get all the glory. I was just putting the finishing touches on a new plan to put all these points in a newsletter to staff, said Quinton as he nervously wiped sweat from his brow.

The man gave Quinton a doubtful look as he marched back into the building.

Steve and Rob paused for a few minutes to let him settle himself before they approached.

Well, did everything go alright? asked Quinton.

That depends. We want to see some of our money first, said Steve.

And who was the person you were talking to as we came out the building? asked Rob.

It was just my boss, Mike Templeton. I had no idea he would be here today. But that doesn’t matter as long as he doesn’t suspect what we are up to. Meet me back in the lane in twenty minutes.

Later at the rendezvous, they all sat in Quinton’s car in silence while he rummaged in his case and pulled out two fat envelopes.

OK, it went well, said Steve. The two criminals agreed on that point. They fixed a meeting in a week’s time for final payment once Quinton had confirmed the device was in the right place.

Quinton headed off home in a bitter-sweet mood. He had felt hurt for so long after being passed over as plant manager that there was little sense of elation. Rather, he felt relief that things were going to even out a bit now. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mike Templeton had been a bit more conciliatory afterwards but he had used his position to rub his nose in the dirt at every opportunity.

Matters had come to a head a couple of months ago. Quinton could absorb arguments with Mike and not bother too much about it if he felt in control. Usually this happened when they were alone touring the plant or having discussions in Mike’s office. Then, Mike would try to manipulate Quinton by springing new ideas on him at a moment’s notice or by making up plans in advance and leaving him no room to manoeuvre to give his own thoughts on future developments. But what had annoyed Quinton was one occasion when there had been a progress meeting to review developments for the next month. There had been a gathering of about ten or twelve of the heads of departments in the conference room to discuss plans for the next month’s tests on the progress of plant operation. Mike as usual wanted to press ahead with running the reactors at full power as much as possible to boost the figures for production. But Quinton foolishly had used this meeting to try and get Mike to understand that this was jeopardising safety in the building. There had followed a heated argument in front of everyone and it had ended with Quinton having to apologise for bringing the matter up in the first place.

It was probably this that pushed Quinton over the edge. It was with a feeling of sympathy that he greeted his wife Isabella and children Ryan and Suzanne at home. He would never again empathise with their innocence in the same way but he felt curiously comfortable with the deceit of the criminal that he had become. This was a small price to pay for the payoff in prospect. If family life would never be the same, his career was about to become a whole lot more interesting. After all, he had been instrumental in designing the plant and developing its systems. Pity the management if they ignored his expertise and let other people have the fun and destroy the place and half of Scotland with it. His experience was about to come into play in a big way.

He sat down with his wife and children in a relaxed mood.

"Hey, let’s go out for a walk