The Unquiet Dead (15 page)

She pushed the door open and turned right into the narrow passageway that opened quickly into the main room. Flotsam floated around her legs.
That put an end to the battle between herself and Mark. No one could use this crime scene now. Dirty water lapped at the base of each rotting wooden pillar. She could have been standing beneath the old pier in Brighton. The smell that she hadn’t been able to put her finger on before was now stronger than ever. It was a strong acrid odour that stuck in the back of her throat. In amongst the pillars were the four rusty tanks. Jessie heard another screech. This wasn’t wind in the pipes or the noise of a distant tube train. It was an animal. And it sounded in distress. She looked at the beams, trying to make out their faint outline against the dark space above her head. They were moving.

Jessie blinked. Her eyes were playing tricks on her again. She pulled the torch out of her pocket, switched it on and pointed the beam upwards. The movement stopped. Then the screeching started again and suddenly, from nowhere, the whole room began to move. From unseen holes in the wall they poured out at the double, scrabbling over themselves to stay above the rising water. They spiralled up the pillars, fanning outwards along the beams. Within moments the water was thick with them, screeching and clawing for something more solid than another rat. Jessie felt something brush past her. She looked down. A rat was climbing up her leg. She screamed, kicked out and dropped the torch. As the slim tube hit the water, the central lights went out. For a brief moment the water
around her feet glowed a pallid yellow, then the water seeped inside the torch and killed the light. Once again, Jessie was sucked into complete darkness. For a second she stood absolutely still, then the wave of vermin that had spilled out from behind the wall hit her. She was surrounded by screeching, clambering rats that began to claw up her legs. She forced herself to swipe madly at them, shuddering in disgust each time her hand brushed against the coarse fur. She felt something sharp slice across her skin and snatched her arm back in pain. She couldn’t have gone more than two steps into the room. The door was just behind her. She wiped down both her legs, turned and jumped through the water, her arms outstretched, desperately searching for the metal door. She hit a wall. A brick wall. Behind and above her the rats still screeched. Jessie screamed. Madly she searched the brick wall for the door. Brick. Brick. More bricks, and more and more rats. Overwhelmed, she screamed again:

‘HELP ME!’

She hit a corner. A dead end. They were everywhere: on her, above her, below her. And more were coming. She could hear them scrabbling for a way out of the stinking, cold water. She was trapped. The door had vanished. She could feel their claws through her cotton shirt, their teeth biting. ‘Help me,’ she pleaded.

Suddenly a shaft of white light shone into the room.

‘Help me,’ she said again, her voice just a croak. There was a sudden clatter of metal on metal.

‘Get out of it!’ shouted an old gravely voice. The beam moved round to where Jessie stood pressed against the wall. The door was pushed open wider. The door that she’d missed. The door that hadn’t been there seconds before. The door that she’d just walked straight past and felt nothing but brick. She saw a chain swing high and wide, the rats retreated.

‘Who’s there?’ shouted the voice on the end of the torch.

‘Me,’ said Jessie, shaky and quiet.

‘Bloody vermin!’ he shouted, swinging the chain again. ‘Quick, take my hand.’

He pointed the light in Jessie’s face. She put her hand up to shield her eyes and noticed immediately that her hands were bleeding.

‘What the hell are you doing down here in this weather? I told you, I told you this place floods when it rains.’

‘Don?’

‘Yes. Who did you think it was?’

‘I can’t see your face,’ said Jessie.

‘Don’t matter,’ he said. ‘Take my hand, I’ll see you get out of here all right.’ A thick, calloused hand appeared in the funnel of light. ‘Come on, Jessie, the water level is rising. After a certain level, this door will close for good.’

She lunged forward and grabbed the man’s hand. He pulled her towards him and in an instant she was back at the bottom of the stone staircase. Jessie
shivered. They were both knee-deep in filthy water. The rats did not follow them. Jessie’s lower lip was quivering.

‘Let’s get you to the new boiler room, it’s warm in there.’

Jessie didn’t trust herself to speak. It wasn’t the cold that was making her shake.

‘You’ll need a tetanus injection for them,’ he said, pointing to the bloody patches on her arm. ‘Keep your hands away from your mouth till we’ve got you cleaned up.’

She followed him up the steps until they were once again standing in the concrete corridor. Dry ground. Below them the dark, swirling water held the doors tightly shut. How could she have missed those doors? How?

‘Follow me, Jessie. You’re safe now.’ He swept the corridor with light then pointed the torch at their wet feet. Up ahead was more darkness. Jessie hesitated.

‘Don’t let them get to you,’ said the caretaker. ‘Remember, they’re more scared of you than you are of them.’

‘What?’

‘The rats.’ He put a hand on her back and coaxed her gently down the corridor. ‘You shouldn’t have been down there. Not even the junkies go down there.’ As soon as they reached the door at the far end, the lights returned.

‘And I told you about those lights,’ he said, putting away his torch. ‘I told you to install a back-up.’

Jessie stared at her bleeding arms. ‘I thought we had.’ She was still shaking, but less and less with every step away from the basement. ‘Don, I have to ask you a question.’

He nodded as though he’d been expecting it. ‘I should have told you about them. We’ve developed a sort of respect for each other. I let them know when I’m coming down by rattling the keys and making a loud noise. They don’t like it when you creep up on them. Basically, I leave them alone, they leave me alone, and I never go down there when it’s raining.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The rats. Weren’t you going to ask me about the rats?’

‘No. I wanted to ask you about Jonny Romano.’

The caretaker stopped dead in his tracks. ‘I rescued you, didn’t I?’

‘Of course. And thank you. But this is about something else.’

‘That happened a long time ago,’ he said, staring at his feet. He kicked at the ground, agitated.

‘What exactly happened a long time ago?’

He looked up sharply. Like Niaz, the man was nervous. He kept tapping his hand against his leg, the weighty chain rattling with the movement. Jessie tried to step back but the passageway was narrow, one swing of the chain and she would be unconscious. Or worse.

‘It’s the sewage,’ said Don. ‘It backs up with all the rain. Used to take hours, but these days it floods
in a tick. One minute you’re standing on dry land, the next you’re up to your middle in shit. It comes up like a geyser through the drains at the bottom of those pits. Typical that the two with no lids are the ones that were never closed off.’

‘So it has always flooded?’

‘As long as I can remember –’

Jessie tried to push open the door at the end of the corridor, but the warden grabbed her wrist. ‘You’re not going to tell, are you?’

‘No,’ said Jessie as calmly as she could, ‘I just thought you were the one to talk to, being such an expert on the baths.’

He accepted the compliment with a nod. ‘I’ve been here the longest.’

‘Perhaps a cup of tea would be nice,’ said Jessie, ‘if you can spare one.’ She smiled with false bravado.

‘You’re all the same. Friendly at first, then questions, questions, questions.’ He let go of her wrist and abruptly turned away. ‘I have to go now. My overall will be ruined if I don’t get it to the laundrette.’ He moved quickly through the doors and along a pipe-lined passageway to the boiler room. Jessie’s arms were hurting; she was torn between following him and escaping to the nearest pub. Then the lights flickered, making the decision for her. She had no intention of behind caught in the dark again.

When Jessie reached the modern boiler room, Don was already filling the kettle, humming softly
to himself. On the wall were newspaper clippings of proud moments in the history of Marshall Street Baths. Jessie recognised many of them from the articles Niaz and Asma had put together in the library that morning. What the country did in civic duty, it did well. There were sponsored swims for the disabled, volunteer lifeguards teaching children and adults to swim, fancy-dress life-saving classes … Happy, smiling, decent people – all giving back to the place they had been given. Jessie could understand how such a place and the people within it could become a man’s life. She could also see how its slow decay and his dissolving circle of friends might depress him.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got for your arms,’ said Don, as calm and charming as when she’d first heard him speak. ‘I’ve got some Dettol in the first-aid box. This place may be closed, but we are still a stickler for Health and Safety regulations.’ The man reached inside a small cupboard on the floor. On the top shelf was the kettle, a box of PG Tips, two cups and a teaspoon.

‘That wasn’t the case the day Jonny Romano died, was it?’

Don, already on his knees, lowered his head as if in prayer. He sighed heavily.

Jessie pressed on. ‘I’m sure it’s difficult to talk about it, but you are the one person who has the facts. You were here.’

‘The Marshall Street Baths’ staff were ex… exor…’ He paused.

‘Exonerated?’ ventured Jessie.

‘Yes. Ex-on-er-a-ted.’ He sighed again. ‘They decided that in a court of law.’ Don turned his torso and looked at Jessie from over his shoulder. ‘It seems I don’t have any antiseptic after all. Sorry.’

‘That’s okay. Where were you when Jonny drowned?’

‘Didn’t you hear me? A court of law. That makes it final, right?’

Jessie nodded. ‘It doesn’t hurt to talk about it, though.’

He stared at her for a moment with a look of incomprehension on his face. ‘You’ll get a bad infection if you’re not careful.’ He turned back round. Jessie could hear him fiddling with something, but she couldn’t see over his hunched back.

Her arms were beginning to throb. ‘I’ll go to casualty later,’ she said.

‘I’m not supposed to talk about it.’

‘Says who?’

‘I don’t like questions. No more questions.’

‘No more questions,’ repeated Jessie.

‘That’s what they all say.’ He stood up and turned around. In his hands were a large pair of rusty scissors and a roll of bandage. He started to walk towards her. Jessie stepped back. ‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve done lots of first aid.’

Niaz knocked on Jessie’s door and heard a grunt from inside. He walked in to see Burrows lifting his head off Driver’s desk. Burrows had a long red welt along his cheek. It matched the edge of the notepad that the sergeant had been sleeping on.

‘Do you know the whereabouts of DI Driver?’ asked Niaz.

Burrows blinked, looked at his watch, then blinked again. He rubbed his face with both his hands and tried to focus on Niaz.

‘What?’

‘I saw her bike. Perhaps I was mistaken, but I made the presumption that she was here.’

‘I must have dozed off, I’ve not seen her yet.’

‘She is probably in the canteen. Yes, I should have gone straight there.’

‘When you find her, will you give her a message? Tell her she was right about Anna Maria Klein. The girl went into the car park and changed unseen behind a Range Rover.’

Niaz smiled graciously. ‘She is a truly remarkable detective. She was also right about February 23rd.’

‘What about February 23rd?’

‘The date the watch stopped. The date Jonny Romano died.’

‘Who?’ asked a sleep-deprived Burrows.

‘Jonny Romano, the boy who drowned.’ Burrows frowned more deeply. ‘Didn’t you go with DI Driver yesterday?’

‘Yes. To the vicarage.’

‘The vicarage?’ Now it was Niaz’s turn to look confused.

‘Then I dropped her off at the library, where I thought she was meeting you.’

‘Correct. At the library we ascertained that on February 23rd, 1989, a boy called Jonny Romano drowned as a consequence of a fit, most probably induced by a reaction to amphetamines.’

Burrows shook his head. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘The drugs were sold by a middle-aged man called Ian Doyle, who subsequently disappeared.’

Burrows shrugged.

‘The man in the morgue.’

‘Ah,’ said Burrows, finally enlightened. ‘Great, so we know who he is.’

‘Indeed. DI Driver returned to Marshall Street Baths to question the caretaker, but obviously discovered nothing. However, there is good news: I have the address of the dead boy’s father.’

‘Why did Driver want to talk to that old man?’

‘He would have known all about the incident. He had access to the basement and possibly chains. Doyle was tied up by a chain before he drowned. I thought you were meeting her there?’

The words hung like icicles in the air: still, sharp and dangerous. Niaz waited hopefully for his senior officer’s confirmation. Instead, Burrows ran his hand nervously through his hair.