The Silent Pool (24 page)

He was on a landing and stairs led down to what looked like the entrance hall forty feet below and in front of him. On the landing there were two more doors off like the one he had just come through. He decided to try these first and he picked the one to his left.

He tried the door handle and it turned easily.

The room was another classroom like the one he had just come from except the desks here were not scattered around the classroom but rather piled on top of each other, almost reaching the ceiling. They looked like a bonfire or a funeral pyre. There was also the stench of something truly unpleasant, rich and heavy. He thought it may be a dead cat or pigeon. He gagged. He had a quick look around and decided there was nothing of any interest in this room.

He left and tried the remaining door. It was locked. He stood back and aimed his boot at the door; it gave easily with a soft sigh. Inside, this room looked more promising. A wooden desk faced the door and there were some old boxes, full of papers that had almost dissolved down to a mush, lining one wall. He tried to pick up one of the folders that protruded from one of the melted boxes but all he succeeded in doing was tearing off chunks of congealed paper and cardboard. Slowly, he picked up another folder, cradling it like it was an infant and then placing it on the floor next to him. They were case files, the names printed on a small index card but as he picked them out, they dissolved into soggy mush.

Erasmus tried the desk. The drawers were unlocked and empty save for the last he opened. Inside was a heavy, wooden crucifix.

Erasmus was about to leave the room when he noticed the picture on the wall. It was hanging lopsidedly and with a start Erasmus recognised it straightaway. It was the photograph of the six boys with Father Michael. Erasmus realised that he must be in Father Michael's old office. Erasmus took the picture down from the wall. Like everything else in here it was sodden although he hoped the glass, though broken, might have saved the picture. He placed it in his inside pocket and took a step towards the door.

His shoe cracked glass underneath his foot. He lifted his foot up and looked down: there was another picture on the floor. His foot had smashed the glass frame. He picked it up. There was a small black and white passport photo sized picture of a child in the corner of the frame set against what looked like a poem or song lyrics written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

From downstairs there was a bump, it sounded like something wet and heavy falling to the floor. Erasmus pocketed the second picture and, as quietly as he could, opened the door.

He moved along the landing and then paused for a few seconds and listened. There was no noise save for the sound of the rain falling onto wet wood. It was like being inside a dark damp log in the forest.

He looked at the staircase and decided it looked solid enough. He started to descend. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard another noise. Something large was moving. It seemed to be coming from one of the rooms that led off the hallway. Almost on tiptoes he descended to the hallway. The sound was clearer now; there was definitely someone else in here with him.

Erasmus had tucked the iron bar back in his belt loop. Now he removed it and gripped it tightly in his right hand. Slowly, he started towards the open doorway to the room where the noise was coming from.

He made his way to the side of the doorframe. There was somebody moving only a few feet away from him, he could hear their breathing. Erasmus steeled himself and then quickly shot his head out and back to look in the room. What he saw made his heart pound through his chest. The room was a toilet with cracked and broken ceramic urinals lining the walls. In the dim light he had made out the shape of a person carrying a piece of lead pipe. Luckily they had their back to him.

Erasmus moved quickly, his military training kicking in: move while you have the advantage. A back turned to him amounted to just that. He slipped inside the room and quickly covered the four or five yards before the figure moved and turned to face him.

He raised the iron bar and then saw that he was about to smash it down on Rachel Harrop's head.

Rachel brought her knee up sharply and Erasmus blocked it just before it connected. Her face registered shock and then relief.

‘What are you doing here?’ said Erasmus.

‘Thank God it's only you.’ She flung her arms around Erasmus’ neck and then just as quickly jumped off. ‘I guess you've come round to my way of thinking then. Have they been after you as well?’

Erasmus hesitated and then decided to tell her. ‘Somebody doesn't want me looking into the past. I presume it's Bovind. I tried calling you. Where have you been?’

‘At a friends. I got sent on an assignment and let's just say I get the feeling that they would be surprised if I turned up back at work.’

‘You found anything down here?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Nothing but scrunched up top shelf material. You?’

‘Not sure. So what brought you here?’ He fingered the picture in this pocket.

‘I guess the same as you: that lawyer who got killed, Ford, and then the other guy. The connection is Faith in the Community. I thought there might be something here, some clue as to why those boys are being targeted.’

‘You heard about Petersen then? News travels fast.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘Petersen? No, that's not the guy's name. I'm talking about the guy on the beach.’

This was news to Erasmus. ‘What guy? Let's get outside and talk. How did you get in?’

‘There is a basement entrance and I came prepared.’ Rachel picked up a bag from the floor and showed Erasmus the bolt cutters inside.

‘Good thinking. Come on, let's go.’

Rachel led Erasmus down a rotten flight of stairs into the basement. She had brought a torch and Erasmus placed his feet in her footsteps. A shaft of moonlight pierced one corner of the basement illuminating iron steps that led up to wooden delivery doors at ground level.

‘Up here.’

Erasmus followed Rachel up the steps. At the top she pushed at the wooden doors.

‘That's strange,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ asked Erasmus.

‘I cut the chain that was locking these doors, but now,’ she pushed at the doors, ‘they won't open.’

Erasmus pushed past her and put his shoulder to the thick oak doors. They didn't yield an inch.

From outside there was the sound of movement.

‘Pete, is that you?’

Erasmus’ answer was liquid in his face, poured from the outside, sloshing through the gaps in the wood. It burnt his eyes.

‘Get back!’ He pushed Rachel back down the stairs.

‘What is it?’ she cried.

‘Petrol. They are going to burn this place!’

The petrol was pouring down the stairs now and pooling on the floor.

‘Come on!’ said Erasmus. He took hold of Rachel's hand and led her up the stairs. Behind him he heard a soft whoosh as the petrol ignited.

Air was sucked past them down into the basement from which they had fled and a second later the dark hall was backlit by the flames pursuing them from below.

Rachel broke free from his grasp and ran to the front door. She opened it but was faced with a steel plate that was bolted onto the outside frame. She screamed as liquid seeped through the bottom of the door and then ignited. Her shoes were set ablaze as she stood still with shock. Someone began to bang rhythmically on the steel door.

Erasmus pulled her away from the door.

‘Up here!’

He led them up the stairs to the room where he had entered. Erasmus risked a look behind: the whole downstairs was ablaze, the flames licking at the stairs up which they had fled. Even though the timber was damp, its brittleness had made it like paper and the flames bounded after them. The heat was already oppressive but the real danger was the thick, black smoke that curled and writhed around them.

‘We need to get out now. Is there is an open window through here?’

Erasmus tried to answer but a coughing fit rendered him speechless. He shook his head and pulled her into the room where he had entered. He shut the door behind them but the smoke was already thick and deadly.

He rushed to the window and pulled back the steel plate further and stuck his head outside. The air was cold and sweet but on contact with his inflamed lungs caused another coughing fit. Of Pete, there was no sign.

The flames outside were halfway up the wall making it impossible to climb down and the floorboards underneath their feet were cracking and spitting as they and the joists were burned from below. Erasmus guessed they had moments before the rotten, burning floor collapsed beneath them. He looked around and spotted what looked like a tramps den, an old stained and crusted sleeping bag and the ashy remains of a fire, on the ground below.

‘We have to jump, aim for the sleeping bag!’

Rachel was coughing furiously but nodded and then climbed onto the window ledge. She didn't hesitate and a second later she jumped and was gone.

He held onto the ledge and prepared to climb up. Suddenly, the floorboard under Erasmus’ feet gave way. Erasmus dived headfirst through the gap and plummeted towards the ground fifty feet below.

CHAPTER 30

Anthony discovered the Mayor on the floor of his office. For a second he thought the unspeakable had happened and the Mayor was suffering from a genuine illness or was dead but then he heard the sounds of whales singing and he realised with embarrassed horror that the Mayor was meditating.

He coughed quietly but the Mayor remained motionless, lying on his back, his eyes closed and his hands clasped over his sternum. He was snoring, his nostrils flaring on each exhale and exposing tufts of grey hair.

Anthony walked over to the Mayor and gave him a quick kick to the ribs with his tan brogues. The Mayor made a noise like an old dog shaking spittle from its jowls and opened his eyes.

‘Elena?’ said the Mayor.

‘No, sir, I'm afraid it's just me,’ said Anthony. He bristled slightly at the mention of the Mayor's mistress.

The Mayor began to get up. A laborious process akin to raising the
Marie Rose
, in Anthony's mind. He watched the Mayor pause on one knee before making the final ascent to the vertical.

‘Feeling relaxed?’

‘I wouldn't know relaxed if it came up to me and massaged my temples,’ said the Mayor before taking his seat behind his desk.

‘This isn't going to help you relax, I'm afraid. Professor Cannon has been on hold for ten minutes.’

‘I know, I asked Andrea to hold all my calls while I tried to meditate. He's the last person I want to speak to’

‘You've got to take the call,’ said Anthony.

‘Why?’

‘Because he's made the call in public in front of a Sky News camera crew, he's calling you now – look!’

Anthony picked up the remote control on the Mayor's desk and pointed it at the giant plasma screen on the far wall. The TV on and he selected Sky News and turned up the volume to drown out the noise of a passing helicopter outside.

There was Professor Cannon in his study at Cambridge University surrounded by leather bound tomes. He was cradling a telephone and there was a yellow banner running along the bottom of the screen: Mayor Lynch running scared of Cannon.

‘What's the on-hold music?’ the presenter asked.

The Mayor grimaced. He had picked the on-hold music. He knew what was coming.

‘It's the Jungle Book…’ King of the Swingers’. Very apt,’ replied Cannon.

‘And still no answer?’

‘They are telling me he's not in the building.’

The helicopter noise was deafening now.

‘Good work, Andrea,’ muttered the Mayor.

‘We go live to Liverpool,’ said the unseen presenter.

The Mayor watched in horror as he recognised the building on screen as the town hall and then the camera focused in on the second floor window and the Mayor was afforded the most modern of technological privileges of watching his own emotions appear simultaneously on his face and the TV as soon as he felt them.

Outside the window above the adjacent building the news helicopter was hovering, affording the on-board cameraman a clear view into the Mayor's office.

‘Shit, get the blinds.’

Anthony dutifully pulled up the blinds.

‘You have to answer the phone now! You can't look weak!’ said Anthony to the Mayor.

‘Fuck!’

‘Mute that,’ he said, nodding towards the plasma screen.

The Mayor picked up the phone.

Anthony hit mute.

‘Andrea, put Professor Cannon through.’

There was a click on the line.

‘Hi, Mr Cannon. How are you?’

‘It's Professor Cannon and why did you get your assistant to lie and say you weren't in the office?’

The Mayor felt a flush rising to his face.

‘I can assure you that no one is lying to anybody, Professor. Just a bit of administrative confusion that sometimes happens to the best of us. Anyway we're talking now so what can I do for you?’

Professor Cannon made a noise that sounded like a low growl.

‘Well, a good start would be to ban the teaching of creationism in your schools, you've put Liverpool on a similar footing to Dayton, Alabama. You will recall the Scopes Monkey trials that made that town infamous as a byword for ignorance and Christian fundamentalism?’

The Mayor wasn't too sure but he took a stab. ‘They made it into a film didn't they?’ he tendered speculatively.

‘Yes!’ boomed Professor Cannon. ‘A marvellous film with Spencer Tracy. It explored the medieval trial of a schoolteacher who was prosecuted by the State for having the cheek, the daring, to teach the theory of evolution which ran contrary to the Alabama's law that nothing should be taught that runs contrary to the belief that the world was created according to Genesis!’

‘Ah yes, I remember it now. A good movie. But, this city encourages all views, it's nothing like the movie.’

There was a pause.

‘Are you all right, man?’ asked Professor Cannon.

The Mayor nodded.

‘Speak,’ hissed Anthony.

‘Yes fine,’ said the Mayor. ‘You were saying?’

‘Will you ban the teaching of creationism?’ boomed Professor Cannon.