Afterlight (59 page)

She turned back to face the others along the railings. ‘This is my mum’s place, for fuck’s sake! She took you all in! You can’t just kick her off!!’

‘This is now a place of God! A place of worship!’ said Latoc. ‘I asked her to join with us, to pray with us. Instead she took a gun and shot me,’ he continued. He waved his bound hand over the side. ‘Do you see? I cannot allow her to stay here any more.’

‘This is
my
home, as well!’ cried Leona. ‘You can’t stop me coming aboard!’

‘Yes we can!’ shouted Alice. ‘You pissed off looking for something much better, didn’t you? Well tough shit! It’s the
faithful
only allowed on here. Do you understand!’

‘Alice!’ snapped Valérie, hushing her. ‘I am sorry,’ he continued. ‘I cannot let you and your friends with their guns come onto our ark.’

‘This is a holy place now, Leona! These people have been waiting for me!’

Adam turned to look at Leona. ‘That guy’s a headcase,’ he muttered.

She nodded.

Without warning, something landed with a heavy thud on the foredeck behind her. She spun round to see the bottom end of a rope ladder snarled in a pile of coiled rope and wooden slats. She looked up to see that it had flopped down from the main deck. At the top of it was Martha.

‘NO!! This isn’t no holy place!!’ Her shrill voice cut across the space above them. She looked down at Leona. ‘You come up, Leona, love!’

Valérie Latoc’s eyes widened. ‘Get that rope up now!’ Several people, not too far along the main deck from where Martha stood, stepped towards her.

‘Oh-my-God-grabbit!’ hissed Leona.

Adam leapt across the deck and got a hand on the rope ladder before it could be yanked up beyond reach. Meanwhile, Martha had turned to fend off the people approaching her. ‘You stay back!!’ she screamed, slapping the face of the nearest woman with the palm of her hand. The others stepped forward and wrestled with her. The scuffle quickly became an undignified tangle of flaying hands; an almost comical bitch fight between her ample form and three others, hair-pulling and face slapping.

Adam turned to Walfield. ‘Danny! A warning shot, please.’

The sergeant shouldered his SA80 and cracked a single shot into the air. The effect was instantaneous; everyone dropped back from the railings and out of sight. Except Martha and the others still slapping, scratching and screaming at each other.

Adam pulled himself up the first few slats of the rope ladder. It swung precariously over the side of the tugboat’s foredeck with his weight, leaving him swinging above the water.

‘Just cover me till I get my leg onto something!!” he bellowed as he swung. Working quickly he pulled himself arm over arm, up the next dozen wooden slats until he was banging his hip against the side of the spider deck’s safety railing. Several pairs of hands snatched at his khaki shirt trying to pull him off the rope ladder. Walfield fired another single shot that whistled close to them and zinged off the underbelly of the deck above. The hands disappeared back out of sight.

Adam swung against the railing again, this time letting go of the rope and grabbing at the rusty metal, hoping it wasn’t so corroded that it was going to snap loose and bend out of shape and come tumbling down into the sea with him. He swung himself over the railing with the clumsiness of a man too exhausted to care how he landed. The spider deck rang with the impact. A moment later he appeared on his feet again, pulling the gun down from his shoulder.

‘All right, everyone get the fuck back!’ he screamed. ‘
Please!’
he added as an afterthought.

The nearest of them melted away from him, wide-eyed at the sight of the levelled gun. A deck above them they could hear Valérie Latoc screaming an order for someone -
anyone
- to go and retrieve the community’s weapons from Walter’s trusty locker room.

 

 

 

‘S
he’s in here?’ Leona asked incredulously. ‘They shoved her in here?’

Martha nodded tearfully as they made their way down the dark, unlit and narrow passageway towards the battery storage rooms. They were on the same deck as the generator room and connected sludgery. Even though neither had been in use for several months, the stink was everywhere still; ingrained in the very walls of this place now. It was overpowering to Adam, a step or two behind Martha and Leona, and he fought an urge to gag.

‘How could you?’ she demanded, looking at Martha then turning round and glaring at Tami. ‘Mum? Your friend, right?’

Martha sobbed as she led them to the door. She had no answer and instead she shook her head, ashamed, unable even to look Leona in the eye.

‘He had a hold over them,’ Dr Gupta uttered. ‘He . . . we . . . there was nothing I could do . . .’ Her voice broke and faded to nothing as she began to cry as well.

Martha slid the bolt and opened the door to reveal, in the gloom, Jenny perched on the cold hard floor, a bowl of cold uneaten broth at her feet. A toilet bucket in the corner. Leona’s first reaction was a shudder of familiarity.

Leona pushed in past Martha. ‘Mum? Mum, it’s me.’

There was a faint spear of light coming in through a tiny cracked window, clogged with bird feathers, at the top of the wall. Not much light, but enough that Leona could see her eyes remained locked on the scuffed and peeling wall opposite. Leona knelt down beside her.

‘Mum?’

At her daughter’s touch her trance broke and she turned to look at her, a momentary look of confusion on her scarred face.

‘Mum? It’s me!’

‘Leona?’

‘Yes!’

‘I thought . . . it was. Like your father . . . just a dream . . .’ Then the hazy look of bewilderment was gone, replaced as her eyebrows suddenly arched and her face crumbled. She wrapped her arms tightly around Leona and began to sob uncontrollably into her shoulder.

‘It’s okay, Mum, I’m back. I’m back.’ She said I not We. Right now wasn’t the time to tell her about Jacob. Not now. If Mum asked she decided some white lie would do for the moment. Jenny sobbed a stream of tear-soaked words into her neck, none of which Leona could untangle or make much sense of. She recognised Walter’s name in there somewhere, however.

Adam stepped past Martha into the store room. ‘Leona, we should make sure we find that fella. You know? Before he decides to rally his fan club and give us any more grief.’

Leona loosened her mother’s arms and pulled back slightly. ‘Mum, we just need to go and straighten things out, all right? Then I’ll be back and we’ll talk.’

‘Lee, don’t go again . . . please . . .’ she whispered.

‘I’m not leaving you, Mum. I promise. I’m home now.’

She got up slowly, easing her mum’s lean arms from her, and started to follow Brooks out of the room.

She stopped and turned to Tami. ‘Dr Gupta?’ Formal - she didn’t feel like indulging in first names with either of them right now. ‘See to her, will you? Clean her up. Take her back to her quarters?’

‘Of course, Leona. Of course.’

Outside in the passage, Adam turned to her. ‘That was your mum?’

She knew what he was asking by the tone in his voice.
That’s the tough woman you warned me about?

‘Yeah, that’s my mum.’ She wanted to add,
you’re not exactly catching her at her best.
But she decided not to.

Adam seemed to understand. ‘So, let’s go find that fucking bastard, shall we?’

She nodded. ‘Let’s.’

 

Leona looked at the far end of the walkway: the primary compression platform, a crowd of people on the main deck just beyond the walkway’s wire cage.

Whilst she’d been looking up from the tugboat at the safety rails lined with once-familiar faces, Leona had assumed the
whole
community was in thrall to Mr Latoc. However, as soon as they’d managed to scale that rope ladder, as soon as his loyal followers had digested the sight of four soldiers bearing firearms . . . and Leona, looking like she was ready to cut herself a scalp or two, his support had quickly begun to fall away.

Funny, that.

And now they were staring down the walkway at his more loyal acolytes, those who had run back across onto ‘Valérie’s platform’. Her lips pressed out a hard smile. Little more than fifteen minutes ago that manipulative bastard had considered all five platforms to be his own personal fiefdom. It was now him and fifty or sixty of his followers over there and, having checked Walter’s gun locker, there was a solitary gun somewhere amongst them.

She caught the glint of gun-metal, and saw it was Howard who was holding it shakily. Aiming it down the walkway at her. Right behind him, her head poking over his rounded shoulder, was Alice Harton.

‘You fucking well stay back!’ she screamed at them. ‘Or he’ll shoot you!’

Despite the warning, Leona stepped forward onto the walkway and into the wire cage. ‘Where is that bastard?’

Alice angrily jabbed a finger over Howard’s shoulder. ‘You stay right there!’

Leona advanced calmly, unarmed, fortified not so much by any notion of courage as an unshakeable desire to wrap her hands around the bitch’s throat. She’d never been a big fan of Alice Harton. Certainly much less so now.

‘Where is he, Alice?’

The woman said nothing.

Leona felt the walkway grille under her feet vibrate and turned to see Martha joining her.

‘Lee,’ she said, her strong voice catching with emotion. ‘I . . . I was as guilty as them. I listened to him. I believed in him. I . . . I’m so, so sorry, love. I was one of the
first
to turn against your mum. He told us God sent him to us. He told us we was
chosen.
’

‘More fool you, then,’ replied Leona coolly.

Martha nodded. ‘Yes . . . yes, he did fool us.’ She stepped closer until she was standing shoulder to shoulder with Leona, looking down the remaining fifty feet of walkway.

‘He lied to us!’ she shouted towards Alice and Howard and the others. ‘Valérie lied to us!’

Alice was about to shout something back, but Leona saw Howard hush her.

‘Valérie is a bad man. He did the . . . he was the one who killed Natasha! It
wasn’t
Walter!’

There was a ripple of response amongst those at the end of the walkway, dark ‘o’s appearing on their faces.

‘And . . .’ Martha hesitated a moment, unsure whether to continue. She glanced at Leona’s set face. ‘And I think he was the one who killed Hannah!’

‘It was an accident.’ Leona turned to her. ‘Wasn’t it?’

Martha shook her head. ‘We don’t know for sure, love,’ she replied quietly. ‘But I found things in his pockets, things he kept.’

‘What
things?
’

Alice Harton had heard enough. ‘Martha! You bitch! You fucking traitor!’

Martha turned back towards the others. ‘I found things, Alice! I found things amongst Valérie’s clothes! Things that belonged to the girls!’

There was another ripple of consternation. Howard’s gun dipped slightly.

‘Yeah? Oh . . . just now? That’s bloody convenient!’ replied Alice.

‘No.’ Martha shook her head, ashamed. ‘No, it was days ago!’

‘You never said anything. You’re a liar!’

‘I was afraid!’ replied Martha. Her voice wobbled. ‘I was afraid! I didn’t want to believe it was him . . . and not Walter! I didn’t want—’

‘What things did you find?’ called out Howard.

Martha’s voice quavered and broke. ‘Hannah’s hair!’ she sobbed. ‘Natasha’s pants!’

Leona saw Howard’s eyes widen, his bushy white eyebrows locked angrily. ‘Her underwear?’

Martha nodded. ‘He kept them . . . like a trophy.’

Howard stared at her in silence, the gun trembling, slowly lowering.

‘And there was blood on them!’ she continued, her words broken up by sobs and her breath hitching. ‘He hurt her, he killed her! And then he blamed Walter!’

‘You can’t believe her!’ snapped Alice. ‘It’s not true! She’s making this up!’

‘Fuck this!’ shouted Howard. He turned round, pushed past Alice, and disappeared into the crowd.

Leona grasped one of Martha’s heaving shoulders. ‘You just said he had Hannah’s hair
on him?’

She nodded. ‘A . . . a lock . . . and . . . and one of her ribbons.’

‘Are you saying he killed my Hannah? He
killed
her?’

‘I . . . I don’t know, love. I . . . I just don’t know.’

‘What? Is he a . . . is he a child molester? Is that what he is?’

She looked at Leona through streaming eyes. ‘I . . . I think we let a monster in.’ Her lips quivered and she heaved in a shaky breath. ‘An’ . . . an’ he made us think it was . . . it was p-poor Walter.’

The walkway was ringing with footsteps. Leona felt Adam’s hand press the small of her back.

‘Looks like they’re folding over there. Let’s take advantage of that and go get this fella.’

She nodded, leading the way across. As they approached the far side, Leona could see the uncertainty in Alice’s eyes. She came to a halt in front of the woman. ‘You’ve always been a vicious bitch, haven’t you?’ whispered Leona. ‘Always the one moaning, bitching, causing trouble.’

Alice’s mouth hung half open.

‘What, not saying anything this time?’

Her mouth still hung open, her eyes seemed to be searching the far off horizon for inspiration.

‘Let me guess, you were hoping you could spread your legs for Latoc? Become the queen to his king? Become the queen bee here? Was that it?’

Alice looked at Martha. ‘I . . . I . . . just wanted . . . what was best for us all. That’s all I ever—’