Submersion (20 page)

As he composed himself, I studied him. Have I described him to you before? He has dark brown eyes, deep and full, eyes to get lost in; eyes, I know, that hide a multitude of secrets I have yet to discover. His hair is dark, too – just short of shoulder-length and with a slight curl, suggesting it would curl right up if cut short, not that I have ever seen it short. His face and build are similar to Jessie’s – he has a labourer’s tan and is tall and naturally muscly, as if his physique was built on hard work alone. Maybe this physical similarity to Jessie is one of the attractions? As I gaze at him, expectant of an explanation, I feel guilty for the words I have shared with Reuben.
I’ve somehow remained in love with him,
I said of Xavier. Whilst it is true, it suddenly feels like a reflection of my relationship with Tristan. As if, by silent default, I have suggested to Reuben that I do not love Tristan; which isn’t true. Drowning in this man’s beautiful, troubled gaze, I felt a sense of love that was unimaginably deep and wanted to haul Reuben from his hiding place and make that clear.

Tristan coughed as an introduction to what he had to impart and then spoke.

‘I found something. We found something – Jessie and I.’

And all of a sudden I wished I’d simply introduced Reuben and then sent him on his way. I had no way to stop Tristan talking, no way to naturally intervene and suggest we discuss it later. I just had to let him confess whatever it was – and hope it wasn’t too illegal or controversial. And hope that my missionary man was as good as his word when he said that everything discussed within my four walls remained confidential. Hope – there it was again, that word. Useful and frequent.

‘On our salvage trip. The secret one that Jessie signed me up for. We found bodies.’

I put my hands in my lap and crossed my fingers.
Please don’t say anything else.

‘It’s a government building. An old laboratory we’ve been raiding. I knew this, but it looked abandoned, old. But the bodies – they aren’t. They are young, recent.’

‘Young?’ I questioned, unable to hold my silence, wondering just how I could manoeuvre away from this subject. I lowered my voice, hoping Tristan might mirror me. He did.

‘Puppies,’ he confirmed, answering my next question before I had to ask.

We stayed silent for a while, as I absorbed what he had said and what Reuben may or may not have heard. The cupboard was insulated with plaster and shelves housing various items – old books, cups, bowls, tinned food we had saved. This quiet served to increase my anxiety too – what if Reuben moved and created a sound? Things had gone too far now to end easily. So, I broke the silence with a suggestion.

‘Why don’t you shower, wash off the dirt – then we can eat, think and talk this through?’

To my relief, Tristan nodded and stood, heading out the room. At the door, he turned and eyed me strangely. I wondered if he’d heard something I hadn’t.

‘You didn’t ask me how many,’ he said, as if my lack of curiosity was an oddity.

‘No,’ I responded, instantly feeling how unnatural it sounded. ‘How many?’

‘Too many, Agnes. Too many and I’m frightened.’

Forgetting my urge to get him out of the room, and get Reuben out of my house, I met him in the doorway and put my arms around him, holding him as tight as possible.

‘I think I’m doing okay on the water ration, so maybe I could run you a bath?’ I offered, and then we entered the bathroom together. Twenty minutes later, when the bath was run and Tristan was submerged in its warm suds, I came back into the living area and checked the cupboard.

Reuben had gone.

Later, over a simple meal of baked potatoes and beans - which we ate in bed, off trays, by candlelight - Tristan talked me through the rest of his news, and I pushed all thoughts of the missionary from my head. He would do nothing, I told myself. He would say nothing, either. And, furthermore, I would worry about it another day.

‘We found an area where the floorboards were weak with rot. You couldn’t tell, as they were covered with old sacking, but I felt one give, as I walked across it. Was lucky not to lose a foot in the hole. Lucky not to be hurt. We removed the sacking and the rotten boards and there they were – little bodies on top of each other, packed in tight under the floor. I don’t know how long they had been there, Agnes. But they looked fresh, and we’ve been emptying that place out for three months. So, either they have been preserved in something – or someo
ne put them in there recently. Only…’

H
e paused, for thought and food.

‘Only?’ I prompted, as he swallowed, emptying his mouth.

‘Only, the place looked undisturbed, and the only mess was ours. Otherwise, it was like the lab had been abandoned, left to gather cobwebs and rot. But the numbers, Agnes. Jesus! We looked a bit further, pulled away a few more rotten planks and the rows of corpses just went on and on. A hundred at least – probably more, but we stopped. We needed to cover it all up and think.’

I thought of what Papa H had said and repeated it to Tristan.

‘He doesn’t believe they are extinct. Doesn’t buy it that the flooding drowned them out, that there was poison in the water.’

‘Looks like he’s right, only with this many bodies...’ Tristan sighed and spoke in a grave hush. ‘Someone’s breeding them, Agnes.’

‘And then someone killed them all,’ I added, equally grave in tone. ‘What you going to do next?’

‘Talk to Jessie,’ he said, jumping up, indicating he wasn’t going to wait till the morning. ‘And then talk to Monty.’

‘Monty
Harrison?
’ I questioned, hoping it was another Monty. But we didn’t know any others, so it was an empty hope.

Suddenly, the situation shifted a gear; the danger we we
re potentially in intensifying.

‘Jessie’s been working for Monty Harrison all this time,’ Tristan added, pulling on a jumper, then socks, before heading for our bedroom door. I glared at him in disappointment and anger.
Of all the people!
was the phrase my look conveyed. ‘I didn’t know until today. Jessie has never told me, and I didn’t suspect anything on this scale.’

On that point, he kissed my forehead and then headed down the stairs to the first landing, where I heard him wrestle into his outdoor gear. Despite what we knew about the water and what we suspected about the atmosphere outside in general, we continued with the protocols. We didn’t want to attract any further unwanted attention.

Hearing the soft creak of the stairs to the flooded ground floor, I went after him, calling down.

‘Please be safe,’ I said.

He was at the door and turned, nodded gently at me.

What I meant was
I can’t lose someone else,
but Tristan knew this without my saying. Besides, I hadn’t lost anyone else, had I? They were simply missing.

I didn’t see Tristan for five days.

When I tried telephoning Jessie’s, there was no answer either, although we all knew he had trouble with the line. I had no one else I could turn to or trust. Had no idea how to contact Monty Harrison directly – and even if I had, that would not have been a wise move. Like our shadowy authorities, Monty Harrison was not to be trusted and you certainly didn’t want to be on his radar.

I considered talking to Papa H, but decided that the less people that knew what Tristan had discovered, the less people could get hurt.

When Reuben turned up at my door on the Monday, he confirmed that he had heard everything Tristan said. So, filling him in on the connection to Monty Harrison didn’t seem much of an additional risk.

‘Who is this Monty fella?’

‘He’s someone you’d want on your side in a fight, and someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley on your own,’ was my response. Sensing this was inadequate, I put it more simply: ‘He’s a local gangster and you don’t mess with him.’

‘So this is a big mess, Agnes?’

‘Yes, Reuben, it doesn’t get any bigger. And couldn’t possibly be any more confusing. I’m worried sick about both of them. God knows what happened when they went to
Monty. Five days they’ve been gone. I’ve not been away from Tristan for a single night since he turned up here the day the flooding started.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What can I do?’ I asked, exhausted and out of ideas.

But Reuben wasn’t. He had that word –
hope
– on the tip of his tongue again and I wondered if he was finally going in for the kill with me. He’d turned up in my weakest, most vulnerable hour, so it might have worked. Yet, what he did, what he said was quite unexpected.

‘You should go back to work,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’ I questioned, puzzled. I couldn’t see how this helped.

‘You work with the authorities, Agnes. You have access to information.’

‘I work in administration.
Food
administration. I don’t have access to anything useful. Believe me, I’ve looked.’

Bu
t Reuben wasn’t letting this one go. He had clearly given this thought.

‘But you have friends and colleagues. And your boss – Jerry?’

‘Yes, Jerry.’

‘Jerry’s been kind to you, extended your leave, left your job open for you. He must like you. He might help you. Just ask him.’

It felt wrong. The conversation, its direction – not what I was expecting from my missionary man. It felt underhand, illegal. Not something I was averse to – just something that didn’t sit right with Reuben. Reuben and his mission, his purpose in all of this.

‘Can it hurt to ask?’ he said, before carefully adding a line that sealed the deal. ‘And he might know something about your daughter. If he has the right connections, he might just help you find her.’

I waited a week. Within that time, both Tristan and Jessie returned and I found out what had happened to them during those lost days and the questions that remained. And whilst I waited, I realised my new friend was right – I did need to go back to work. There were potential lines of enquiries there that I hadn’t explored. Avenues that might just lead me to finding where they had taken Elinor.

Another week on and I had a visit from someone I didn’t expect. A visit that led to another revelation – another mystery unfolding. It was the old man from the Cadley residence that everyone called Merlin.

When I opened the door, I found him sat in his little boat, floating just beyond my threshold.

‘Is Tristan there?’ he asked, in a light sing-song voice, as if he was calling by to play.

I smiled softly and beckoned him in. Once up to our landing, Tristan greeted the old man and helped him off with his outdoor gear.

‘Blasted fuss we have to make, just to drop down a few doors,’ he cursed, light-heartedly. And then, once stripped of what he called
a hindrance,
he got straight to business. ‘That tape you gave me, I’ve finally got it working. Took a lot of work and fiddling about, but I’ll spare you the science.’

‘What tape?’ I asked.

‘Anything on it?’ Tristan asked, ignoring my question for now, and we both listened intently for a response.

‘Yes,’ old Merlin replied, matter of fact. ‘You. You are on it.’

He was looking directly at Tristan.

PLAY

‘I’m a little worried.’

‘Worried?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I think someone knows.’

‘What?’

‘I think I’ve been followed.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I know. I don’t know what to do.’

‘This person? Talk to them. Tell them the truth. And tell them to keep it secret.’

‘And what if they refuse?’

‘Then you make them disappear.’

             
PAUSE

             
7. Tristan

The body count at the laboratory that day was exhaustive.

We found the first batch by accident. We had made our way towards the rear part of the building, into a large room we hadn’t checked before. It was packed with desks and chairs, stacked and folded, draped with a damp veil of hefty, dense dust. We were moving these out - to enable us to check out the entire space – when my foot sank into a rotten floorboard. On pulling it out, the boards crumbled away. Turning back the carpet of equally decayed sacking that covered the floor, the first set of dog corpses were found.

Jessie had instinctively felt out the surrounding floor, padding his feet firmly enough to get a feel for the stability, but not too heavily footed that we encountered another accident.

‘Let’s rip this up,’ he suggested, indicating another run of perishing boards.

Breaking off pieces of sopping, spongy timber revealed more of the same: tiny, pale canine corpses squeezed together in tight rows.

‘Jesus!’ I expelled, pulling my gas mask back on, hoping it might diffuse the putrid smell of death. It didn’t.

‘Shall we keep going?’ Jessie asked, unsure. This wasn’t part of the deal. I could tell that from his face. Whatever arrangement he had with Monty Harrison, whatever we were supposed to bring back, the contents of this mass grave was not it.  ‘What the hell are we supposed to do?’

‘Tell Monty.’

Jessie sighed deeply, shook his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with me.

‘What if we weren’t supposed to find this? What if, when I report this in, we just find ourselves in...? Well…’

‘In deep?’

Jessie nodded, acknowledging me this time.

‘Then we’re in deep, but first we have to decide what we’re doing next. Now.’

Jessie took a minute to mull over our options.

‘Okay. We keep going for a bit – but let’s be careful. We need the option to cover this all up again, but let’s just see how far this goes first.’

For the next thirty minutes, we carefully removed more floorboards – taking them out as gently as possible, with the view of replacing them before we left. Even the sight of them dead, locked in their infant form, made my heart beat a little faster. The threat of mindless cruelty and savage destruction was there in those cold, still eyes. I found myself flinching on a several occasions, my mind playing tricks, fooling me that one of them had moved – a flick of a tail, a roving eye, a clicking jaw. But that’s all it was – hidden childhood terrors creeping out and spooking me.

‘You okay?’ Jessie asked me a couple of times.

I’d nodded and returned the question.

‘You?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ he’d replied, not quite smiling. This was the closest we got to admitting that we were both sensing past horrors return, pulsing through our veins alongside the blood.

There was also a feeling of revulsion twinned with this horror – at the sight of so much cold, preserved flesh, at the stench of whatever had been used to conserve its state, and at the thought that men had undoubtedly had a hand in this. Men had created this scene.

The nature of their burial was uniform throughout the area we searched: densely packed-in infants, pickled in a fowl stench, but far from decayed.

‘This is weird,’ Jessie confessed, replacing a fragmented plank as delicately as he could. ‘This place looked abandoned. It was covered in dust, cobwebs, and dirt. It was unsettled. But these bodies are not that long dead, I’m certain. Or they’ve been preserved well. Either way, it doesn’t make sense.’

‘Agreed. And that’s a lot of bodies – a lot of similarly aged bodies.’

‘So someone has been breeding.’

‘Maybe this isn’t an old government lab, Jessie. Maybe this is a farm.’

‘But the place looked deserted, hadn’t been touched in years, Tris,’ Jessie repeated, unable to shake the puzzle. ‘And the bodies aren’t. It doesn’t match up.’

‘So what shall we do, Jess?’

Within another thirty minutes, we were back in the speedboat. Jessie did away with all previous precautious – we were way past blindfolds and handcuffs by then – and my eyes were exposed the entire journey. Not that I really took it in. My mind was moving as fast the vehicle itself. What did this mean for us? Not only was it dangerous to be involved with Monty Harrison –
Monty Harrison!
Just the thought made me want to scream at Jessie. But to be involved with him and make this discovery. What if we weren’t supposed to find it? What if Monty was involved in farming these fierce creatures? If he was bringing this hell back to our cities, what would he say and do when we confronted him? And it wouldn’t just affect us. The likes of Monty wouldn’t just stop at the front line. If we were now in danger, so were our families.

We initially agreed to sleep on it that night – reconvene in the morning and decide our next move. As always, we had loaded the boat up with salvaged items, as if it was any other trip. Jessie would drop them off at a pre-agreed location and I would take myself home.

‘We’ll act as if nothing has happened,’ Jessie stated and I agreed. Only, Jessie was going home to an empty house, whereas I was heading back to Agnes. As I rowed as rapidly as I could along Jessie’s street and into mine, that sense of anxiety that nagged at me all the way home returned with an intensity. By the time I was moored and through the door, I couldn’t get to her soon enough. To see she was safe; to check that no harm had come to her yet.

Agnes knew instantly that something was up and so I confessed it all with little resistance. And later, after I had bathed, whilst we were eating and she told me about Papa Harold’s suspicions, I knew there would be no sleeping on anything.

And I knew that Jessie and I had to act that night; that we needed to see Monty.

What I didn’t know was how the evening would play itself out, and just how deep in we were about to get.

What should I tell you about Monty Harrison?

Ronan described him as a
nasty piece of work,
but not to his face.

Penny and Jimmy referred to him as
that Mr Harrison
– an expression that captured their fear dressed as respect. In the days when they had run a shop in the city, Monty had run his own business, offering
security
– his description – to small entrepreneurs, who might
otherwise be exposed to exploitation or crime
. So, they had direct experience of his persuasive sales techniques and were right in their approach – even if it was unnecessary to keep it up in front of family.

Jessie, Agnes and I were blunter in our views – he was an evil crook, full stop. We didn’t care who knew, or who heard us express these views and – to date – we hadn’t come to any harm.

Even before I knew Agnes, I was aware of Monty Harrison – his crime lording territory stretched to all four corners of our city. The different facets of his criminal enterprise – protection racketeering, loan sharking, money laundering – were widely known. Rumours of more sinister crimes – human trafficking and mercenary hire – were all discussed in fearful whispers, but I had seen no evidence of these. His illegal businesses were hidden behind legitimate ones and, that night - once I’d roused Jessie and convinced him we needed to act there and then - I dragged my good friend and boss along to one of those very establishments.

They say that every person, every venture, every city has a place where the road splits and you have to choose your direction. The same could definitely be said of our town and the geographical point for us was far North, beyond the dump, where the river roads became shallower, although there was still no dry land in sight. An actual fork in the road, it was known locally as
Destiny’s Point.
The lane to the right led you down a righteous path – police and medical services headquarters were in that direction. The left-hand track took you to Monty Harrison’s lair – clubs and pubs for those who had currency to spare on gambling and other expensive entertainments that he denied any knowledge of on the occasions the authorities raided his properties. This was not the only area that Monty’s empire occupied – he had buildings all over the city, including a handful mixed amongst the government’s floating warehouses near the Black Sea, south-side. But this northern part of our landscape was where he had majority rule, and it was where you went looking for the man, too.

Breakers
was not only one of Monty’s public fronts for his illicit businesses – it was also the most likely place where we were going to find him. His unofficial headquarters.

Jessie had not been entirely sure that we should act so rashly and go straight to the man.
We need to think it through, need to think about what we’re going to say. And we need to go in the daylight. You want to take us straight to him – on his territory, with his heavies around us, under the cover of dark?
But I felt we needed to act instinctively, and act as if we didn’t suspect Monty at all. Any delay would suggest doubts, put us in a weaker position.
Okay, we’ll go with your plan, but I need to take the lead. I know him better than you. Know how to handle him.

Breakers
was a five storey building with a bar on the first floor; neon signs from an old age flashed at the windows in electric pink and blue. The next two floors up were occupied by snooker, pool and billiard tables and low lighting that gave it a seedy, smoky atmosphere. You entered the fourth floor by invitation only – there was a room with card tables, a roulette wheel and a private bar where Monty entertained his friends and individuals who wished to keep their connection with him undercover.
Bent coppers and dodgy politicians,
was Jessie’s interpretation of this and I wasn’t in disagreement myself. It probably explained why the man was able to run a business that had easy access to alcohol supplies without coming under much scrutiny. Needless to say, I’d never received a personal invitation.

The only way in and out
Breakers
was via a set of external metal steps that spiraled up the side of the building and had originally served as a fire escape. The original ground floor entrance was bricked-over. Despite the lower water levels on the north side of the city, it was still flooded. Rumour had it, Monty had cleverly adapted the old ground floor as a swimming pool area where he only took people he had a very special interest in; rumour also had it that they didn’t tend to do very much swimming.

The point of entry for us was a double fire door on the first floor. Flanked by two of Monty’s own security meatheads – more muscle than human, and dressed in black protective gear that served to highlight their menacing size and purpose. The steps to the upper levels were chained off. The security guys recognised Jessie even through his face mask and opened the doors for him, waving him through. I was stopped and padded carefully, before also being admitted. Once inside, we were instructed to remove our own protective gear and hand it in to a cloakroom assistance, who gave us in exchange a black plastic tab with a number on it and a pair of indoor pumps to wear on our feet.

Inside, it was exactly as I had imagined. A long bar stretched across the length of the room, with a mirrored backdrop, festooned with bottle after bottle of illicit spirits, fixed upside down and ready to release intoxicating shots at the push of a glass. A neon sign – in pink and blue like those in the windows – was fixed above the bar and flashed each individual letter of
Breakers
in sequence, before flashing the word twice in its entirety. It was crass and luxurious at the same time and was a reflection of the proprietor’s own style and attitude: he had it and he was going to flaunt it, if only to highlight the fact you didn’t.

Opposite the bar were little booths with high backed, plush seating and generous round tables. Jessie indicated that I sit there, whilst he approached the bar. He came back with two glasses of something I hadn’t seen, let alone tasted, in a long time.

‘Cider,’ he said, placing two pints of golden liquid on the table.

In other circumstances, I would have received the drink with the excitement and sense of celebration it deserved. Whilst we did on rare occasions procure alcohol from Jessie’s contacts on the black market – contacts I suspected occupied the very building we were visiting – it was usually cheap wine that had been crudely and hurriedly manufactured. Something about the colour and the sparkle of the liquid Jessie brought to our table spoke of quality, of a flavour to savour. Yet, we were not here because we could afford the entertainment and liquor on offer – we were here to find out if we would ever sleep safely in our beds again.

‘Taste it,’ Jessie insisted, sensing my reluctance to enjoy it. ‘Just a sip.’

I did as instructed, but it wasn’t quite the flavour I expected.

‘Made from pears,’ Jessie said, sensing my surprise. ‘Can you believe it?’

If this had come from someone else, in this situation, I would have been worried. It might have suggested we were distracted, so wowed by the rare wonders on offer that we were in danger of forgetting why we were there. In danger, too, of forgetting the gravity of the immediate situation. But as this was Jessie Morton, who was always on the ball, no matter what you saw on the surface, I had no fear of that.