by Joseph Kiel
She was his sweetheart, the only girl in the world. She lived in Lucca, in the Tuscany region of Italy. During their year of corresponding, they’d bared their souls to each other and grown closer despite the distance. The only problem was that after nearly a whole year they hadn’t had the chance to meet up again.
It would happen one day though. As soon as Michael had the time and the money, or as soon as Faridah was able, then they would get together. The others, particularly Larry, would rib Michael about it all the time. Of course, Michael was totally wasting the best years of his life on a girl who was over a thousand miles away. But Larry wouldn’t be able to understand what Michael and Faridah had.
The days of virtue and trust were gone now it seemed. Michael was a rare breed, one that still believed in being pure in his feelings, of nurturing the weakest links instead of voting them off, of not sexing everything up and putting everyone down. He still held on to his ideals, still imagined similar dreams shared by that certain other Libra whose voice he could hear right now.
Michael stroked his chin as he read over the letter for the third time that day. When he reached her signature and the seven x’s, he folded it up and carefully put it back into its envelope. It was time to put her out of his mind for now, to stop trying to solve that eternal conundrum about when and how they were finally going to meet up again. Time to concentrate on his assignment. He munched on the rest of his sausage roll and then washed it down with the coffee. Where to next?
Michael wandered off campus and found himself walking through the town centre, past the shoppers out buying milk and bread, and past the school kids queuing outside the chip shop. They were wearing Harbour High uniforms, the same badge that Michael had been wearing only four years ago. They all looked so young and so uncouth, constantly scuffling and fidgeting.
Was the story of the Tuckwell murders still to be found on their lewd lips, or was it all video games and X Factor? Maybe they wouldn’t care anymore anyway. Some school kids get murdered? They probably had it coming to them! They were obviously mixing with the wrong sort, working class scallies who don’t know better. Everyone in this town had been handed the power to judge, the means by which to seek retribution.
Michael continued down Lafford Street and wandered into his church, an empty Saint Anthony of Padua’s. He figured that before too long the doors wouldn’t be left unlocked. But, for now, Michael could go in whenever he needed some inspiration.
Standing by the ring of votive candles, he looked up at the grand painting of the Virgin Mary. She was standing on a mountain and beneath her was a fissure from which protruded a horn: the eternal battle.
He peered closer to the candles and saw their flames bend and cower under his breath. He suddenly remembered himself as six years old, a party hat on his head, a big chocolate birthday cake before him. Blowing out candles and his brother telling him to make a wish.
His wish as a twenty-year-old would be much different. Sometimes it was difficult to see any soul in this town at all. Michael didn’t know whether the Halo of Fires organisation were the ones to cause the poisoning of the Harbourian psyche or whether it had caused them. Sure they may parade themselves as moral crusaders these days, but back around the time when Michael was growing up, their reputation was much different.
They were evil anarchists. Child killers.
But how could he present to the world what he knew? He couldn’t write an article about a story handed down to him by his older brother, even if his brother had been a creditable source. He still needed more information.
After making some prayers, Michael continued with his spontaneous meandering. He found his feet walking towards the market place, opposite which was the town library. Perhaps there might be some information in the Harbour Gazette news articles, the archives of which were stored at the library.
The rumour at the time, echoed within the local press, was that the Tuckwell murders were part of a Halo of Fires hit that got out of control. The vigilantes had gone hunting for the grandfather, the adoptive guardian to the two brothers, but innocent youth was caught in the crossfire, a whole family exterminated. Or so the story went.
The younger brother’s body had never been found, but, even so, it still felt to be a dead end story. No doubt they’d just hidden his body in a good place. So what chance did Michael have of discovering what had happened to him if even the police had failed to find anything?
As he combed through the microfilm at his workstation, he felt that there was something slightly out of reach, a piece of the puzzle that didn’t quite fit anymore. But it was waiting, or rather hiding, from Michael’s illuminating eyes. He’d often wondered what had happened to this younger brother… Jeremy Tuckwell.
Jeremy! He saw the name in one of the articles and Michael now remembered. Michael’s brother recounted interesting stories about that young boy at their Sunday afternoon dinners. Within these tales were certain things that wouldn’t have made any of these reports, that was for sure.
‘I had to go looking, Michael. He was out there somewhere, Simon’s poor little brother, lost on the streets. I had to find him so I went out on my bike, riding all over. But I never saw him anywhere.’
Michael eventually found the article where they’d called off the search for the young boy. It appeared that they’d assumed the boy to be dead.
‘But I couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t supposed to happen!’
The young student paused from his reading and closed his strained eyes for a moment. The voice from years gone by still echoed in his mind.
‘No, I don’t think we’ll ever find him now, Mikey. It’s the good that die young, you know.’
He’d done enough research today, done enough thinking. It was only making his mind go round in circles, and unbalancing his mood scales. Perhaps it was all a little too personal for him. Plus, there was no one around he could interview. It wasn’t like he could get that business card back off Larry, ring up Halo of Fires and ask them if they wouldn’t mind talking about the murders. So who else was there?
He left the library and walked out into a blustery snap of wind. People wobbled around as they walked past him, but Michael’s feet were rooted to the pavement. He didn’t know where to go next.
If it wasn’t so late in the semester, maybe he would think about finding a different topic. Still, it wouldn’t do much good to go against the valuable advice in his horoscope today.
Somehow Michael was going to have to keep on track.
Chapter 3.4
Captain Harp was clearly starting to get a bit fidgety. He’d picked up a curious habit of singing the first couple of lines of a shanty and then suddenly stopping, as though he no longer knew the words. Then he’d go and put the kettle on even though they were still drinking a cup from the last brew. It would have helped if he’d had someone to repeat his tales to, or to give a commentary to on whatever was rattling around in his brain, but a lot of the time he would only have Devlan to talk to. Devlan wasn’t a conversationalist.
Another amusing habit that Harp had developed was to answer on Devlan’s behalf in order to keep the conversation going. ‘Did I tell you about that time with the octopus and the rocking horse? No? I don’t think I did, did I? Well, listen here to this one…’
All Devlan would do was sit there quietly grinning to himself with his fishing line cast into the sea.
Harp now wandered over to him. ‘Anything biting today?’ he asked him.
‘Only little fish,’ Devlan replied.
As that particular conversation came to an end, a seagull cawed overhead as the glassy waves plinked gently against the side of the boat. The skies were completely clear today, the sun beating down as though it was a midsummer’s day. It was days like this when rocking in a boat was the best place in the world to be.
These repetitive days weren’t a problem for Devlan at all. Devlan had purpose again. He had a reason to be.
So often people had avoided
him, and so he’d lurked on the periphery of life. It was only reckless people like Floyd who would take a chance on him, who knew that Devlan could be a very useful tool.
It was perhaps unfortunate that hanging around with Floyd seemed to perpetuate the rumours about Devlan, that he was a brute who preyed on people in the middle of the night in order to satiate his craving for fresh human blood.
Just what is that thing? A vampire? A monster? Was he the creature of the night Old Shiner, still haunting the unfortunate folk of Dark Harbour after all these years? Floyd knew how Devlan provoked so much fear in people and he’d seen how he could take care of himself. Nobody could ever got the better of him. He was just too frightening, too savage. Or so people saw him. Devlan didn’t mind. Being feared by everyone meant that the troublesome sort left him alone.
Devlan sat back in his deck chair and breathed in deeply the sea air, the salty taste attacking his nostrils sharply. He felt a sudden tug on his line. As he stood and wound in his line, a very large salmon eventually appeared, flipping and jolting around on his hook.
‘Always a bigger fish,’ he whispered to himself.
‘Devlan! Devlan!’ Captain Harp called out from the other end of the boat. ‘I think our friends are returning for their midday snack.’
Devlan looked over the side as a froth of bubbles sparkled on the waves. The head of one of the divers eventually bobbed above the foam.
‘Hullo there!’ shouted Harp. ‘I guess it’s time for me to fire the stove up, is it?’
‘Hold that,’ said the diver, one of the Americans. ‘We’ve found something.’
For a moment or two nobody spoke. Devlan and Harp looked at each other. Both of them could sense that it wasn’t just another piece of Second World War memorabilia he was referring to.
‘What have you found?’ Harp asked.
Chapter 3.5
Eastgate is a quiet street just off the town centre. It’s pretty dull: no pubs, no amusements, and except for a small outfit that sells crystals and new age items, there aren’t even any shops. Down this street you’ll mostly find the accountants, the solicitors, and the consultants. You will, however, find a quiet little café called The Cheshire Cat. For those in the know, this unassuming establishment is a gateway to something else, a shade within the shadows.
Most people never fail to pick up on the strange atmosphere of Eastgate. Although it’s close to the bustle of the high street, the sound of the traffic doesn’t seem to carry. The narrowness of the road, which is in fact a one-way road, seems to shield the street from the wind and makes the air feel stale and dead. Like a winding lane out of a ghost town, pedestrians would be forgiven if they thought that the rest of the town’s population had suddenly died in a nuclear holocaust.
But for someone like Floyd, whose perception was somewhat limp at the best of times, the vapid ambience of Eastgate did not register at all as he made a beeline up the street towards The Cheshire Cat.
There was only one thing on Floyd’s mind this Friday afternoon, and that was how he was going to tell Henry about his extra competition in the search for the Akasa Stone. When he reminded him that Floyd always, always got the better of him, it would give himself so much pleasure twisting this knife around in Henry’s gut, especially when he told him that Devlan had found undeniable proof that he was closing in on the sunken Tatterdemalion. Floyd loved pissing over people’s dreams. That’s what his life was all about.
As he walked up the narrow pavement, fantasising about the look of despair that Henry would have on his face, it appeared that there was actually another soul present today on this street. It was in the form of a bright yellow baby duckling, an offspring of the early spring.
The lonesome duckling stumbled and flapped around in the middle of the pavement directly ahead of Floyd, as if it had just fallen off an Easter card. It made more of a squeaky chirping sound rather than a quack, tripping over its webbed feet as it did so.
As Floyd approached the duckling it squeaked even louder at him as if to say: ‘Did you see which way my mother went?’
Floyd stamped his size 13 Doc Martens boot down on the pathetic excuse for an animal. The duckling managed to tumble slightly out of the way and Floyd only caught about half of its body. It was enough to squeeze out some of its innards and make it stick to the pavement, but not enough to kill it. The little duckling flapped spastically as it tried to free itself from the tarmac to which it was now welded.
Floyd thought about leaving it to die slowly, but instead he decided to stamp down hard on it once more to put its survival beyond doubt. He couldn’t miss this time. The duck population in Dark Harbour had grown unwieldy in recent years and they’d started to become a nuisance, especially at this time of year.
Having exterminated it, he imagined the lovely gooey mess on the bottom of his boot. He walked onwards to the café and entered without wiping his feet. Scanning the room he saw there were a few customers sipping at tea and munching cherry bakewells.
Apart from the white marble tiles on the floor, the café had striking splashes of colour on the furniture. Circular tables were dotted around the room with padded wooden chairs arranged neatly around them. They were all purple, the backs shaped like a wide grin. On the walls hung abstract pictures of random shapes that didn’t resemble much in particular to Floyd. They looked like some three year old had squirted paint bottles over them, grabbed her mother’s lipstick and scribbled a bit with that, and then thrown up on them for good measure.
Behind the ever-gleaming counter was Nigel Lyons, the young man who ran the establishment. He wore a neatly trimmed beard around the edges of his face and thin-wired spectacles. His hair was a mass of wiry strands that all stood like antennae on his head, able to pick up foreign wavelengths from way out in the cosmos. He always wore a Persil-washed white shirt, whiter than an angel’s wing.
Nigel looked up and smiled at Floyd in the same friendly way he greeted everyone who should happen to walk in there, whether it was the Pope, a tramp, or an alien from another planet. Nigel was the calm, collected type who would ensure that the coffee was flowing even if that extra-terrestrial had come along in order to take over the human race. Anger and anxiety were foreign emotions to Nigel who lived on his own wavelength way beyond everyone else.
‘Hello, Floyd. You’ve heard about my new blueberry doughnuts, haven’t you?’ he said with a cheerful smile on his face. He spoke in such a relaxed voice all the time, as though he should be making books on tape.
‘Is he in?’ Floyd grunted.
‘Who?’
‘Maristow’
‘In what?’
Floyd scanned the faces in the room again. ‘At his office?’
Nigel shrugged, confused. ‘Whose office?’
Floyd looked at him blankly for a moment and then decided to backtrack outside, leaving the disturbed Nigel Lyons alone with the alien voices in his head.
Floyd continued down the road to the town centre. Having ruled out the café, there was only one other place Henry would be.
Along the seafront road were many of the hotels staring out across the watery landscape. A lot of them dated back to Victorian times when the British seaside holiday of promenade strolls and beaches cluttered with bathing tents and deck chairs was in its heyday. Dark Harbour had revelled in that glorious era, as the posh and the riffraff alike had flocked to the shores each summer, to indulge in the carnival of fun, building sandcastles by the rock pools, scoffing cockles and candy-floss, and breathing the healing sea air. The seaside was the gateway of mystery, where people could gaze across the waters and only imagine the distant lands that lay beyond the blue horizon. Dark Harbour, like all the other coastal resorts, was like a glamorous movie star with hordes of fans falling about her feet.
That was before the days of cheap airline flights, before her fickle fans started to look elsewhere within this ever shrinking world, and the ever crumbling Empire. Other countries offered a more exotic environment, even further myste
ry and better weather. The once popular British seaside town stopped getting those movie offers, and was left to grow old while she had only the memories of her golden days to resentfully reflect on. It had been a glorious past, but now time had stopped and the seaside playground had been left to gather dust like the candlelit dressing room in Satis House.
Although certain entrepreneurs like Allington Senior had been practical enough to bring in other industries, certain people like Des Floyd and Henry Maristow had kept the tourist industry ticking over, trying to attract more than the daytrippers and working class holidaymakers who still couldn’t afford those Easy Jet flights. Not that they ever acknowledged it, but Henry’s hotel and Floyd’s Amusements formed something of a symbiosis.
Clarence Hotel, part of the business empire Henry had built up after joining the Fires, was a renovated establishment that stood out amongst the decaying, grimy faced hotels of the past. Although it was invariably the place where any dignitary would take accommodation while visiting the town, the hotel also played host to many conferences and wedding parties.
The hotel was four storeys high, Henry’s office being on the top floor. The flat façade of the building was a pure white with flower boxes in each of the large windows. Floyd made his way up the porch steps and clomped his boots along the marbled floor of the lobby. Beyond the reception was a lift for disabled people. Floyd got in and jabbed the button with his bony finger, as though he was trying to prod his finger through the panel.
When he arrived upstairs and the doors opened, Floyd saw the grand mahogany door with the shiny gold plate with Henry’s name on it. He stepped towards it but only got halfway when he heard a voice.
‘Hello. Can I help you?’
Floyd turned round. It was Henry’s secretary, a woman called Aurelia. She was late-thirties but wore clothes as if she was still in her twenties and had never had any children. She was unfortunately pretty and thought that her beauty was a power that could be used on everyone. It wasn’t the case with Floyd though who ignored her and carried on towards the door.
