Still Water (37 page)

At the blacktop he stopped and leaned against an oak to stretch, pulling out the tightened calf muscles and working the big muscles in his back. When he started running again he took the road that led along the ridge towards the turn-off to the point. It was warm and he was already sweating. He quickly found his pace and allowed his mind to be numbed by the rhythmic slap of rubber soles against the blacktop. His breathing was easy, his limbs working with smooth fluidity. A twinge in his groin caused him to stop briefly to stretch again until there was a slight pop at the top of his inner thigh, and then the pain was gone and he resumed his pace. After fifteen minutes he passed the turn-off to the point.

The air smelt of pine and bayberry with the underlying scent of salt and seaweed and it seemed to wash away the grimy coating on the inside of his skull, the legacy of everything he’d drunk the night before. Eventually he came to the track that led to the clearing outside the house where Bryan had lived. The trees pressed close on either side, a mixture of cedar and scotch pine. The air was heavy with their dark scent and their dense needles partially filtered out the remaining light, then the woods changed to oak and cottonwoods and maples and the darkening sky appeared through the leafy canopy and the air was redolent of the thick loamy woodland floor and the smell of the sea grew stronger.

When he reached the clearing, he slowed to a walk. He was breathing heavily now, and sweating hard. The house was empty and silent and told him nothing. He walked on towards the cove, and emerged from the woods on to the narrow strip of dirty sand against which the water lapped. The wooden jetty pointed out across the bay, a narrow road that led nowhere. He went to the boat shed and pulled open the door, not knowing what he expected to find. It was as empty as it had been before, the air damp, a scurrying in a dark corner.

Something was wrong. Matt felt it in his bones. He went back to the water’s edge and stood looking out, waiting for something that nagged at his mind to come forward and reveal itself, but there was nothing. Nothing at all.

When he got home and pounded up the steps the phone inside was ringing and when he picked it up Ben Harper was on the line.

“You remember I said I might have an idea? Well, I’ve been doing some checking. I talked to that guy Carl Johnson who saw Ella’s boat out by the cove.”

“What about him?”

“Well, it’s not him exactly. It’s what he said he saw. I guess you’d still like to know if he was right about Ella dumping something from her boat, right? I mean if he was wrong that would put Ella in the clear wouldn’t it?”

“How do we do that? It’s too deep over that channel for a diver.”

“Maybe not,” Ben said. “Can you meet me?”

“Where are you?”

“At the harbour master office.”

“I’ll be right there.” Matt called Baxter after he hung up, thinking he ought to hear this too, whatever it was, then he went to shower and change.

Baxter was already waiting when he arrived. He and Ben and Tom Spencer were standing around a table on which a chart had been spread.

“What’s this all about?” Matt asked. Baxter shrugged.

Ben looked as if he was enjoying himself. “Now that you’re here, I’ll explain. Carl Johnson said he saw Ella’s boat around here.” He stabbed his finger on the chart, and Tom peered over.

“That’s it. Right over the channel.”

“Way too deep there for a diver.”

“That much we already know,” Baxter commented.

“But Johnson said that when he hailed her, Ella switched on her lights and motored back towards the harbour. He said he watched her for a while.” Ben traced a line across the chart with his finger. “Then according to Johnson she stopped again, and it was then he figured that she dropped something over the side.” He looked around at the others, his grin broadening as they saw the light dawning. “See, if she took roughly this course, which Johnson claims she did, because I checked with him, that put her right about here.” His finger was stuck on a spot closer to the cove. “There’s a shelf here beyond the channel. The water’s only fifty or sixty feet deep there. No problem for a diver.”

He went on to explain that if there was anything down there, the currents would hold it roughly in position at least until a storm blew. “So if you send a diver down, and don’t find anything, that would go a long way towards proving that Ella was telling the truth wouldn’t it?” he finished up. He looked around and appeared perplexed that nobody else seemed as pleased as he was.

Matt looked at Baxter and thought they were thinking the same thing. It hadn’t occurred to Ben that sending a diver down, far from proving Ella’s innocence, might prove the exact reverse.

Almost reluctantly Baxter asked if Ben would be willing to hire his services to the town to make the dive in the morning, which Ben readily agreed to.

“Okay, that’s it then,” Baxter said. “We go out at first light.”

Howard sat in his car outside the Schooner. He watched with interest as two men crept stealthily along one of the docks. He’d seen them when they passed by earlier, though neither of them were aware of his presence, and recognized them as local men. He lost sight of them for a few moments, then they appeared again, each carrying a large box which he guessed they’d stolen from the seiner that was tied up at the end of the dock. Howard knew the boat. It belonged to a man from the island who fished for herring which he sold to Howard’s own plant. The last few days, however, the seiner had been out looking for bluefin like everybody else. He wondered what was in the boxes. Supplies probably, which they would probably sell to somebody with charter customers. There was a shortage of everything in town, from food and beer to cigarettes. There would be more on the ferry in the morning, but these men obviously weren’t planning on waiting.

Howard shook his head, and slipped down in his seat as the two men came back towards his car and crept by. The election was just two days away and though Howard expected to win, the town’s sudden preoccupation with those damn fish made everything uncertain. What if half the population simply didn’t bother to vote? What if they forgot and somehow that skewed the result in Ella’s favour? Not likely maybe, but possible. Howard wasn’t about to leave anything to chance. As if to reinforce that view he caught sight of one of Ella’s posters on a wall across the street. There weren’t many left now but he’d told that Berryman kid to go around and tear down any he found but this one hadn’t been touched and it felt almost like a sign to Howard.

Across the street, the door of the Schooner opened spilling light and loud voices on to the sidewalk. A bulky figure filled the doorway, then shambled over the road towards a parked truck. Howard hastily got out and reached Jake as he was fumbling for the lock on the door.

“Is that you? Thought I saw you…” He stopped abruptly as Jake swung around, his face contorted in surprised anger. Jake grabbed him by the shirt and spun him around and slammed him painfully against the front fender of the truck, knocking the wind out of him. He crumpled to the ground, and scrabbled for his glasses.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing?” He spoke in a strangled wheeze. Jake looked down at him, tense, his fists bunched at his sides and for a moment Howard thought Jake didn’t recognize him.

“It’s me Jake, Howard.” To his relief, Jake relaxed a little. “Help me up will you.” He extended his hand, which Jake ignored.

“What the hell are you sneakin’ around here for?” Jake demanded.

Howard struggled alone to his feet. “I was just out walking and I saw you.” He saw immediately that Jake didn’t believe him. He peered closer. “What happened to you? “Jake face was swollen and discoloured as if he’d been in a fight that he’d come out of badly. Jake didn’t answer, and Howard noticed then that Jake had an odd glazed look in his eyes. It wasn’t just that he was drunk, it was something else. Kind of demented. Jake winced suddenly and put both hands against his temples. “You okay?” Howard asked.

Jake grunted and waved him away. Beads of sweat popped like magic from his skin. He mumbled something like a cross between an animal sound and a lengthy curse. After a few minutes he leaned back against his truck, taking deep breaths, the pain or whatever had afflicted him apparently subsiding.

“What is it? Headache?” Howard ventured. “I get them too. It’s stress.” He didn’t know if Jake was listening. He began to think this wasn’t such a good idea, but he figured since he was here already he might as well say what he came to. “I guess you’ve had a tough time lately.” He paused, Jake was staring at him, some unfathomable process going on his head. “Doesn’t seem right does it? Ella catching that fish, making all that money after what she did? What did I tell you Jake? There’s no justice in this world, that’s a fact.”

Howard felt a dry constriction in his throat. He licked his lips. It was unnerving the way Jake didn’t say anything, but all the same, waves of menace seemed to bleed out of the man. He took an involuntary step back. What was he doing he asked himself?

Across the street the door to the bar opened again and someone staggered out and began throwing up. The sound of laughter rose and fell again as the door swung closed. Howard looked back at Jake, and found him still staring with the same dead eyed look. Howard decided that he was making a mistake here.

“Well, I should go,” he said, and nervously he stepped away. Jake still didn’t say anything. Howard went back to his car and got in behind the wheel. Jake remained where he’d left him, immobile, staring off at who knew what. “Crazy bastard,” Howard muttered to himself, and started his car.

When Gordon woke he wondered what the time was, and still groggy from sleep he felt for the flashlight on the floor beside his bunk. He saw that it was only three in the morning and groaned. He turned off the light and lay in darkness for a while, half awake, lulled by the gentle motion of the boat on the water. Though he tried to will himself back to sleep it was no good, his mind was filled with thoughts that dragged him up through layers of consciousness. He wondered what had woken him, He listened to the creaking of the Santorinfs timbers, and the gentle bump of the hull against the old tyres strung along the edge of the dock. Somewhere close by a boat on a mooring had a wind chime which made a pleasant tinkling, though it sounded vaguely muffled. Very faintly a ship’s horn carried into the harbour from the sea beyond.

The cabin didn’t feel so small in the darkness. Gordon lay on his back, with his toes touching the bulwark, one thin blanket covering him for warmth. He knew if he reached out his left arm he could just touch the far wall, and that when he was standing there was barely enough room to turn around in the cabin, but the darkness provided the illusion of space. He didn’t mind the cramped quarters anyway. The sense of freedom he experienced in his new home made up for any concessions he’d made to comfort.

Earlier, he’d sat on deck for a while, smoking and sipping a beer, nodding to people who passed by. Some of them stopped to exchange a word or two, others went on by as if he was a stranger, rather than somebody who’d lived all his life on the island. He didn’t care about the people who ignored him. They had sided against Ella because they resented her, as much as anything else.

From outside somewhere, maybe on the dock, Gordon heard something. Metal on concrete, or some other hard surface. Earlier, when the bars had emptied out, it had been noisy but now it was quiet. He listened hard. It was never really silent in the harbour. There was always the bump of a hull against the dock, the constant lap and suck of water, the rattle of a loose line in a breeze. A hundred small sounds, each distinct and familiar and comforting in their way. If one of them were to cease without warning, Gordon was certain he would be aware of it immediately, though consciously they barely registered. In the same way, a sound out of place made him curious. He tried to fit an image to what he’d heard, but he couldn’t. After a while, when there was nothing else, he dismissed it.

He closed his eyes, willing sleep to come. He heard it again; a metallic scrape. Then in the stillness that followed, as he lay hardly breathing, he heard a muffled thump, and then another, and he knew that somebody was on board the Santorini. For several moments he didn’t move, unsure what to do. His first thought was that it must be Ella, but when the hatch door remained closed he dismissed the idea. He could hear somebody moving about the boat now, and it seemed to him that the movements had a furtive quality. He swung his legs from the narrow bunk, and groping on the floor he found his flashlight. For the moment he left it off, and dressing by feel he quickly pulled on a pair of jeans before groping his way back through the galley towards the steps that led to the hatch door. At the top he froze, his hand on the latch. His weight on the step caused it to bend and creak. A sound he might barely have noticed another time seemed unnaturally loud. The shuffling on deck ceased. Gordon waited, counting off the passing seconds, his hand slick on the flashlight handle.

He heard a soft thud from the direction of the dock and he lifted the hatch and stepped out onto the space between the wheel-house and the hatch door, and as he did so a flicker of light seemed to move in an arc from the wharf to the deck. The light had a peculiar, ethereal quality, as if seen through a thick haze, and it was a moment before Gordon realized that a thick fog engulfed the harbour. He could feel its clammy dampness against his face. Even as he turned on the flashlight, Gordon knew that what he’d seen was a flame. There was a muffled roar along the deck and he had an impression of a figure already vanishing into the darkness, and then all he could see was blue and yellow flames and he smelt the acrid tang of gasoline. The flames slithered towards him like a living thing, and then there was smoke and heat.

Barely pausing to think, he grabbed the extinguisher from the wheel-house. He fumbled with the nozzle, and lost precious seconds which allowed the flames to envelop him. The heat was intense, and the smoke stung his eyes, but he didn’t think about any of that as he directed the spray to the area around his feet and then started working back along the deck. When the extinguisher ran out he ran back for a blanket from below. He leaned over the side to soak it in the harbour before running back again to beat at the flames. He worked furiously to smother them, and because he’d acted so quickly, and the fire hadn’t had time to catch properly, he beat them down. From the wharf he would have looked like a madman, working like a devil in the yellow heat that singed the hair from his scalp and eyebrows.