Submersion (22 page)

‘What do you mean
back-up plan?
’

‘You always have to have a back-up plan and a few secrets when you work for the likes of Monty Harrison. He likes an address, does Monty. Likes to know exactly where I’m working, but there’s another rule you have to follow when working for Monty – you must never trust him. If I told him about the laboratory and its exact whereabouts, there’s every chance he’d raid it himself and I’d have no business left. So, I always have a back-up address – a credible one - just in case he wants to visit. Never had to use it before. This place was the first one I found – there’s a few bits here, but not to make enough money, given the risks. Mind you, some of those floorboards would have been worth taking out – good solid wood.’

‘You said there were four similar buildings?’ I asked and he saw what I was thinking even through the darkness.

‘All just like this one,’ he answered, putting off where our conversation was inevitably going.
I’m not going to show you,
was implicit in his tone.

‘Apart from the one we raided, which was a graveyard for an extinct, annihilated species.’

‘Apart from that one,’ Jessie agreed, his voice flat, committing to no particular emotion.

‘So, what’s your back-up for
this
particular task?’

Heading north-east, we travelled another thirty minutes before we reached our destination. It was no less shocking the second time round. If anything, coming across the mass open grave of pale, pickled-looking cadavers was worse. In my mind, I was numbed to it, but walking into that rear room, cautious the floor could diminish at any tread, a wave of unexpected nausea rushed up from my stomach. I ripped my face mask off and splashed the nearest corpses disrespectfully with the contents of my stomach.

Jessie brought the additional supply of fuel Monty had given us – conveniently stored in two large, oblong cans – and we took one each. Starting in the left and right far corners respectively, Jessie and I generously laced the bodies with petrol, until the cans were all but empty. It seemed a criminal waste of a commodity that was rationed and hard to obtain from the black market, but we had to clear the evidence.

‘Get the engine going,’ Jessie instructed me and I took careful steps back out towards the boat, where I did as he said.

As the boat
brummed
to a start, I heard a sudden
whoosh
from inside the lab and felt the instant heat rush at the night. I worried for a mere second, but then I saw Jessie come flying out, somehow keeping his balance as he stomped through the trip-hazard marshland to his awaiting escape vehicle.

We took the boat further up river, a distance safe enough from the lick of the flames and also distant enough for us to be geographically disassociated, although the smell of fuel on us both and Jessie’s sooty appearance exposed us as obvious culprits. Watching, we saw the fire rage for a while, but the overall dampness in the building meant it didn’t rage out of control. Didn’t spread to the forest.

‘That was a calculated risk, yes?’ I asked Jessie.

‘Of course,’ he responded, uncommitted.

As flames smote to smoke, Jessie revealed the rest of his plan.

‘We haven’t got enough fuel to follow the rest of Monty’s instructions, but two days east there is very little else to see. There’s another of these old labs, but it’s pretty much empty.’

‘Shouldn’t we check it out, and the forth one you mentioned?’

‘For bodies?’

I nodded.

‘And do what? Start another fire?’

‘Yes.’

‘With what?’ he asked, indicating we had used up all our spare fuel.

I didn’t have an answer to that, only a further plea.

‘We need to check.’

‘No we don’t,’ Jessie said, staring back at the building we had destroyed. ‘We did this out of necessity, but it’s too dangerous. I’m not out to uncover things on purpose. We need to stop looking.’

‘Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what’s going on and who’s behind this?’

Jessie sighed, deeply, with a hint of exasperation – at himself or me? I wasn’t sure.

‘Even if I did, we don’t have the resources for this. We’re in too deep for what we have already. And they were dead, Tristan. There’s some comfort it that.’

‘But not long dead,’ I interrupted.

‘We don’t know that,’ he insisted, his frustration now clearly directed at me.
‘Does it matter if the bodies were old and preserved – or fresh? Whatever was going on here didn’t succeed - the puppies died, whether recent or long ago. Maybe whatever is in this water did kill them?’

‘You don’t believe that.’

Jessie gave me a momentary grin. ‘No, I don’t, but I’m just not prepared to search further. Not tonight, or tomorrow. It’s too dangerous, Tris. I’d prefer to remain a bit ignorant than take too many risks. Not prepared to let you take them either.’

We remained quiet for a minute for two. L
ooking back at the smoldering laboratory we had left behind, I wondered if destroying the evidence had been the right move after all. Maybe we should have simply covered it up and waited for the right opportunity, the right person to report it to. Yet, there were no such persons, as far as I knew. No one you could trust, at least. I also couldn’t help but wonder what else was lurking in these dense, claustrophobic woods. I understood perfectly why our search couldn’t continue – it wasn’t practical or safe in any way – but equally I wondered what evil remained hidden. What further evil lay hidden, awaiting our curiosity or accidental finding, in the laboratories Jessie knew of, and in other places he had yet to explore or discover? I knew we wouldn’t find out, not tonight at least, if ever.

Jessie exhaled into the night, expelling until his lungs required a great intake of air.
This acted as a signal to break our silent thoughts.

‘I suggest we take the boat a little further north-east and moor somewhere for a couple of days,’ Jessie said, but it wasn’t a suggestion, just a confirmation of what he intended. ‘Then, we time it just right and return home. I’ll see Monty on my own, so you won’t need to lie to the big man. I’ll tell him we found three more buildings – one of them burnt out and two others relatively empty – all of which I can vouch for. If we wants to come out and see for himself, he can – it’s close enough to the truth, if a little too close. But he won’t. It’s not his style. And then I promise never to drag you into this kind of work again. So, do we have a deal?’

I nodded, slowly. I didn’t have any better ideas. Besides, my ride home was dependent upon Jessie, so it paid to comply. Taking my slow nod as a contract sealer, Jessie got the boat moving again and we headed north-east through the dense, dank suffocation of water, trees and night that enveloped us.

Four nights later, we returned home. I stayed at Jessie’s, whilst he settled things with Monty Harrison. He still intended to sail dangerously close to the truth when retelling his tale to his gangster boss, an approach which made sense, given that Monty appeared to recognise bullshit for what it was. The cover of darkness must have well and truly shielded Jessie when he’d duped Monty into thinking we were in the right laboratory.

Jessie left me clear instructions not to come after him. If he didn’t return after a day or so, I was simply to take over the business. There was work and people lined up to do it. So, in the event of his prolonged absence, I was simply to make a few calls and keep his enterprise afloat until he did return.

As I waited, his telephone rang a few times – I later discovered it was Agnes, though she believed it wasn’t answered as there was water on his line – but I just let it ring. I needed some space to think, and with Jessie absent, I took full advantage. I needed to get my head around everything that had happened and how everything was continuing to happen. From Elinor’s suspicious disappearance through to our discovery and destruction of the mass grave of dogs, we were jumping from one dark mystery to another. There were other smaller dramas along the way – Agnes’ conviction that the authorities were snatching children again, like in the old days, Papa Harold’s hermit murmurings, and the muffled tape recording we had found in the train graveyard that Old Man Merlin – as Billy called him – was trying analyse. In my head, it was all adding up, but I wasn’t sure of the outcome. It was definitely a sum, but not a simple one. And now Monty Harrison was involved – I couldn’t think of another bed partner I’d least like to have.

‘Just hope your judgement was sound on this one,’ I muttered to an absent Jessie, awaiting his return, just as a dramatic rattle of his front door knocker made me jump in my skin.

Enjoying the therapy of solitude, I ignored whoever it was. They didn’t repeat the frantic rapping, so I guessed it wasn’t that important.

It was late when Jessie returned, after midnight. Too late to head back to Agnes’, though I was starting to feel very guilty that I hadn’t informed her of our return. It was four days since I’d left her in bed, telling her I was off to get Jessie and then to visit Monty Harrison. She would be frantic with fear by now.

‘Will she still be awake?’ Jessie asked, searching the far reaches of the cupboard under his kitchen sink. He pulled out a bottle of something that made my eyes pop with pleasure at the surprise. ‘So, will she still be awake?’ he repeated, smiling at the look on my face. I shook my head. ‘Then stay till morning. Right, grab two glasses from the shelf behind you, we’re celebrating.’

I hadn’t tasted Southern Comfort in a long time and I devoured it sip by sip. By the look of the faded label, this was a long treasured bottle that Jessie had hoarded, bringing it out only on rare occasions. I felt nothing less than pure undiluted joy as the thick, slightly sickly whiskey burnt the back of my throat.

‘So, you passed the interrogation and came out unscathed?’

We were sat in his living area, on the two seats he’d retrieved from a car that served as his soft furnishings.

‘Oh yes, sailed close enough to the truth to be convincing. Didn’t fail on a single question from him or his mobster men.’ Jessie chuckled at his last comment.

‘Any word about the fire?’

Jessie shook his head.

‘He didn’t mention anything. But its miles out. It might not even have been detected. And, if it has been, it’s not necessarily going to be reported to Monty.’

‘What if he has men on the inside?’

Jessie raised an eyebrow, mocking my paranoia.

‘He might,’ I defended, softly.

‘Then he wouldn’t have sent us back to check it out, would he?’

There was some sense in what Jessie proposed, so I let it drop and enjoyed the spirits he was generously sharing – the alcoholic one from his cupboard, and the positive one he had returned with from Monty’s lair.

However, with the morning came doubts – doubts that began when we were about to leave and we discovered something floating in the flooded stairwell that led to the inhabitable ground floor. Something that was bobbing against the top of original staircase.

It was a package – bloated with water and covered in brown parcel paper and thick tape. As Jessie reached out for it, my imagination sent me in search of sinister explanations – I saw Jessie unwrap the sodden article to reveal the head of a loved one. But it was nothing like that at all.

As Jessie held it, water instantly poured out of it, reducing its capacity and shape.

‘It’s mainly wrapping,’ Jessie explained, as he felt the object, before ripping away the wet packaging. ‘Looks like someone pushed it through the old letter box on the front door,’ he guessed, indicating the first floor exit point with a nod. I thought of the frantic knocking on the door the night before, which I had ignored. Could it be connected? ‘There’s something in the middle. Something hard.’

It was a tape – an old video tape. And it had one word on it - in thick, blurred ink - that made both of us wonder if we had celebrated a false victory the night before. That distorted word was
security.

‘Didn’t fail on a single question, eh?’ I said, echoing Jessie’s assertion from the night before.

‘Let’s find out what’s on it first,’ Jessie suggested, ignoring my question and continuing ahead – out the front door and onto his speed boat.

We were at the Cadley residence in three easy minutes. The old man let us in, then took the video tape and examined it.

‘Looks like the water’s got in it. Plus, I’m not sure I’ve got the right machine.’ He smiled, as a puzzled look appeared on our faces. ‘It’s not any old VHS, you know. This is a Betamax, rarer. Leave it with me. I’ll play about with it. I’ll be in touch.’

That was our signal to leave and I wondered how long the old man would keep us suspended in our anxious state of unknown. It was exactly a week, and it was Agnes who answered the door to him when he called at her house.

‘That tape you gave me, I’ve finally got it working,’ he said, once he’d hassled himself out of his outdoor clothing, cursing as he stripped.

‘What tape?’ Agnes asked, and I realised I had a similar question on my lips. Did he mean the one we found in Elinor’s bag at the train graveyard, or the video tape from a few days before? I quickly realised he meant the latter, as he handed me a clumsy plastic oblong, slightly smaller than the recording I had given him just days earlier.

‘Took a lot of work and fiddling about, but I’ll spare you the science.’

‘Anything on it?’ I asked and noted that, despite her ignorance on the matter, Agnes was as eager to know, too. I threw her a look to assure her I’d explain everything later.

‘Yes,’ old Merlin replied, matter of fact. ‘You. You are on it. You and Jessie. But you’ll need to come to the house if you want to see it.’

I called Jessie and within ten minutes we were all in the old man’s house, in his back room that was filled with all types of television screens.

‘I’m afraid they’re all wired up to the video, so it’ll play on several screens at once,’ he explained, as he pushed the tape into a video player. ‘And the quality isn’t perfect. Like I suspected, the water got to it. Plus I had to transfer it over to another tape that played in this machine. Doable,’ he added, grinning, as he enjoyed sharing his skills with us, ‘but tricky and imperfect. Right.’ On this final word, he pressed
play
on the machine and we watched ourselves on a dozen or more screens simultaneously.

It was shot from a distance, but there was no denying what could be seen in motion picture monochrome: Jessie and I, coming in and out of the front of that laboratory, filling up his boat with looted scientific artefacts.