Mersey Dark

by Michael Whitehead

  The boy looked at the two of them and shook his head, “You can’t expect to go in there and come out alive. He’ll tear you two apart.” Tanner could tell this wasn’t a threat but a genuine warning. This boy’s illusions had been shattered in the last few days. His run-in with Billy and the subsequent fears he had suffered seem to have made him realise he was in far too deep.

  “Let us worry about that,” Templeton said, from over Tanner’s shoulder.

  The boy shrugged and gave them a look that said it was their funeral. The password is “Liberation,” but you can’t get to Davidson. I can tell you how to get to the middle, where the main tunnels all meet. That’s where he has us gather when he wants to talk to us.”

  Tanner nodded and the boy began to describe the journey through the sewers. He told them of large round tunnels, narrow square access routes of workers and narrow tunnels that were no bigger than pipes. He gave them a rough idea where to go but told them that they would almost certainly get lost if he tried to be too specific.”

  When he had finished Tanner pointed to Evans who was walking back to the entrance from wherever he had stashed the second guard.

  “That is DC Evans. As you’ve already seen he could break your spine in two. You are going to stand the rest of your watch, and Evans here is going to stand with you.” The boy looked at Tanner with pleading in his eyes, Tanner continued before he could voice his complaint. “If you do this, at the end of the day he will take you to the station and find you safe passage out of Liverpool. He might even go with you to make sure you find somewhere comfortable and safe. If on the other hand you run, I will make sure to tell anyone and everyone how we managed to get inside so easily. You won’t be safe in Liverpool long enough to get to the end of your street.”

  “Okay, but if there’s trouble I’m out of here. I ain’t fighting for you lot, not a chance,” The boy said.

  Tanner pulled him to his feet, “Deal.”

  “You okay, Evans?” he asked the Welshman.

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine, Tanner. You two go steady now, you hear? Come back at the first sign of real trouble.”

  Tanner nodded and reached out a hand to Evans who shook it, before doing the same to Templeton. The two men stepped into the entrance and the darkness beyond.

  “Hold a second,” Templeton said. He produced a small metallic box, that could have fit inside a shirt pocket. He fumbled with it for a moment and it began to give off a faint light. It wasn’t a flame and it wasn’t very bright but in the total darkness it was enough for them to see the ground in front of their feet.

  “Neat trick,” Tanner remarked.

  “One of the things I’ve picked up on my travels,” Templeton said, and elaborated no further.

  They walked the tunnel, Tanner watching the side passages come and go, the oppressive and claustrophobic feeling of being underground growing around him. The entire town was above their heads and he could feel the weight of it bearing down on him.

  As a boy his father had told him tales of things that had happened to men at sea. He said all the men knew that drowning was a constant danger. One slip, one storm too many, and they would be overboard. He had seen men dragged back on deck, not many but a few. They had lungs full of water and were all but dead. When they had been able to speak again, their chests rid of the stuff that had tried to kill them, they had said the worst of it was the inevitability. Even when their arms were strong, they had known that it was only a matter of time before they died.

  Being underground gave Tanner the same feeling. Every step they took into the darkness was one more step they would have to take in order to breathe fresh air again. There was no deciding to just be outside, there were tons of rock above his head, and buildings above them. He felt the world begin to close in on him.

  “Are you okay, detective?” Templeton asked from a thousand miles away.

  “Give me a moment,” Tanner replied, his hands on his knees.

  “If you can’t do this, may I suggest we go back now?”

  “And let some other man come down here and risk his neck? Not likely,” Tanner said, displaying bravado he did not feel. Templeton nodded and stood patiently while Tanner caught his breath.

  Billy had been down here - a ten year old boy. If a child could do it, then Tanner was damned sure that he could.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and the two men stepped further into the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “Tommy? Is that you?” the questioning voice sounded a little older than the two guards at the entrance had been. Tanner said nothing, he knew whoever it was couldn’t make them out in the dim light of Templeton’s light box. “Don’t mess about, Tommy. You know I don’t like it down here by myself, mate.”

  “Liberation,” Templeton said. It was the first time they had come across anyone in the maze of tunnels, though they hadn’t been long on their journey. They both waited to hear the reaction from the guard.

  “Sorry, sir. I thought it was a friend of mine,” he said, obviously assuming that Templeton’s older voice meant the man must be an authority figure.

  “Keep up the good work, lad,” Tanner said. He looked at the guard as they passed, he was in his early twenties and had a deep red birthmark across the lower part of his left cheek. As he looked Tanner realised two things simultaneously, he had arrested this man, and this man remembered him. A look of recognition crossed his face, appearing like the moon coming out from behind a cloud.

  “Bollocks,” Tanner muttered to himself as he launched one of his fists into the man’s face. The guard dropped like a sack of coal from a cart. Tanner looked about him to see if any unseen guards were reacting to the very short fight. Nobody seemed to be moving up ahead.

  “If we keep on piling up bodies like this, we may as well leave a trail of breadcrumbs,” Templeton said, his face dimly lit.

  “He knew who I was, I put him away a couple of years ago,” Tanner replied. “I’ll find somewhere to stash him.” He dragged the man to a side tunnel they had passed maybe fifty yards back. He dropped him to the ground and wondered how long it would be before he woke up. It was a chance they would have to take.

  “If they see a guard is missing, there is a good chance they will know something is afoot,” Templeton said.

  “We need to get moving and put some distance between us and him.” Tanner gestured with his thumb back over his shoulder. They continued up the passage and further into the suffocating darkness.

  They tried to follow the instructions the young guard had given them as they moved through the maze of tunnels. Aim as if they were trying to go ahead and right. Each junction they came to they made a judgement call, trying to stay true to a North Easterly direction on an imaginary compass.

  Finally, after Templeton’s fine pocket watch told them they had been in the tunnels for an hour they came to a crossing of six tunnels. It was as if they had come to the nexus of a spiders web, and Tanner for one felt trapped like a fly.

  “Which way now?” he asked. Templeton didn’t reply for a long time, he simply stood with his eye’s closed, as if trying to listen for any sound or an inner voice.

  “This way,” he said, pointing not to the obvious route that would keep them on the direction they had been trying to follow.

  “Are you sure? The boy said to keep heading this way,” Tanner pointed down the tunnel that was the exact opposite of the one to which Templeton had indicated.

  “Either we took a wrong turn among our many, or the boy led us wrong but I’m positive we need to follow this route. There are more living creatures in this direction than any other, by some margin.” Templeton began to adjust something on the light box, giving Tanner time to think through his options. The detective wasn’t sure what his friend would do if he disagreed with him, but in the face of no better option he was willing to let the man have his way. He had, after all shown himself to be extraordinary a number of times, if it turned out that he had psychic powers, Tanner would not
be surprised.

  They took the route Templeton had indicated, a narrow and perfectly round passage that required both men to duck slightly.

  “What did you do back there?” Tanner whispered back over his shoulders.

  “I am a finder, Tanner. It’s what I do, among other things. It is part of my gift. It is not always accurate but down here, away from the people above, I can feel the life around me. There are smaller animals, either in the tunnels or the ground above our heads, but I can feel gatherings of larger life as well. We are heading toward the largest gathering of living creatures in these tunnels.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Tanner asked.

  Templeton stopped as if this were a question worthy of some thought. “If you have a better idea, I’m happy to hear it, detective.”

  “No. No, we carry on with this plan. It’s the only one we have.” He smiled at Templeton in the dim light and saw it returned to him.

  “Then I suggest we take it slow, because the group I sense is directly ahead of us, I can’t tell how far but the feeling is getting stronger with each step.”

  Tanner turned and began moving again, watching each step in the barely discernible light. He wondered again at the bravery of the two children who had brought them to this place. They had wandered in total darkness, evading Davidson’s soldiers in the claustrophobic terror.

  The end of the tunnel came sooner that he might have guessed, they stepped out onto another of the junctions. Templeton walked around the chamber letting the light find the furthest reaches. This was different from the last, some of the routes that met at this place were barely big enough for a man’s arm to reach in, not that Tanner would have done so for all the money in Liverpool. Others were bigger than the one out of which they had just stepped. Two sets of metal ladders were fixed to the walls of the chamber, leading up to a second level. In the middle of the chamber, wood had been piled up in a cone shaped fire, ready to be burned. It was by far the biggest open space they had found since they entered the sewers.

  “Any ideas?” Tanner asked Templeton. Again the older man had lapsed into a trance, this time Tanner knew to leave him to do whatever it was he was doing.

  “We are in trouble,” Templeton said almost immediately. He slipped his cane from his belt, unscrewing the silver ball and withdrawing the elegant blade from within.

  Tanner began a question, to ask him what he meant, but a deep voice cut him off before he got started.

  “How astute of you, Templeton. Most men don’t realise they are in danger until it is far too late. It is of course too late for you, but at least you had the wit to realise.”

  Above them first one, then another face appeared, peering over the edge of the upper level. Tanner started for the nearest tunnel, but the light of a lantern turned him back, as men began appearing from this and every other shaft.

  Templeton stood perfectly still but Tanner found himself pacing, cat like as he realised they had walked straight in to a trap. More and more men appeared all around them. Most were little more than boys, others were obviously older men, but their numbers were over whelming, there must be a hundred? Two hundred?

  Finally accepting his fate, Tanner moved to stand next to Templeton, he lowered his eyes to the ground between his feet and waited. Eventually the chamber was full of watching eyes, leaving the two men in the middle of a large circle.

  “Bring them to their knees,” Davidson said, still from his unseen place.

  A man stepped forward, leading three more into the circle. He reached for Templeton, it was his first and last mistake. He flashed out with his blade, stabbing once low into the man’s groin. Blood immediately began to pour down his leg, but the pain must not have been too bad because he continued forward for a few more feet. Templeton side-stepped his advance and waited for him to drop, his eyes on the second man.

  Tanner used the blunt truncheon, a weapon he was much more familiar with than a blade. He drove the end into the stomach of the first man to reach him, bringing his knee into his face as he doubled over trying to catch his breath.

  Turning as he felt a hand reach for him from behind, he caught his assailant across the jaw. The man had a face so marked by acne that he looked like a small pox victim. That face now slackened and twisted as the jaw broke dislodging three teeth which spilled from his mouth as he hit the floor.

  Templeton spun so that the two of them were back to back, during the manoeuvre he sliced his blade across the back of a boy’s calves. No more than sixteen years old the boy crumpled forward, the tendons cut and no longer able to support his weight.

  The men facing them paused, suddenly aware that this was not to be an easy fight despite the overwhelming numbers. Each man understood that they faced skilled opposition and that even if they were rushed, the first to reach them might have taken their last breath.

  “Enough!” the unseen voice shouted, the men inside the circle backed away and melted into the crowd. Above them they saw the crowd begin to part, soon there was a space where eight men had stood abreast.

  Davidson stepped into the space and filled it with his presence. He was huge, his arms as wide as a man’s thigh. His dark skin was oiled, reflecting the light from the lamps so that he seemed to glow with a copper hue.

  He wore sandals that laced up his calves with leather thongs and three quarter length, flannel trousers that ended where they met the laces. His chest was bare but his shoulders were draped in an animal skin that Tanner did not recognise. It was as if he had created one of his hybrids but using an animal that was other than a rat. His hair was long and braided with feathers and other adornments.

  “The more you fight, the worse it will be,” he said. He spoke in the same deep voice but quietly, forcing every man in the room to listen hard to understand what he was saying.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Tanner said.

  “So be it,” Davidson said once again. This time he did not give an order to his men, he merely signalled with his hand. Tanner had no idea how many men rushed forward but he was surrounded immediately. It was as if the presence of the man before them was enough that they forgot all fear.

  Tanner managed one good blow, smashing the end of his truncheon into the nose of the first man before he felt hands pull at him. He was punched and kicked, beaten to the ground with blows raining down on him.

  The pain was overwhelming, his head, arms, and body were pummelled as he tried to curl up tight. He was close to blacking out when he heard a repeat of the word, “Enough.”

  It wasn’t Davidson who spoke it was Templeton but the voice was no less commanding, and the effect was no less immediate. The men stopped their beating and stood back, Tanner looked up from his place on the stone floor to see shocked looks on some of their faces.

  Templeton was still standing, at his feet were three more of Davidson’s men but also his sword. He had surrendered in order to save Tanner, or so it seemed.

  Davidson signalled silently and two lengths of rope were produced from out of the crowd. Tanner was dragged roughly to his feet, one of the men who pulled him up jabbed a fist into his kidneys as he did so. Both men’s hands were tied behind their backs, the bonds so tight that Tanners fingers began to tingle through lack of blood. He twisted his wrists to find the place of most comfort.

  “Bring him out,” Davidson said to someone over his shoulder.

  From behind him a man was dragged forward so that those on the ground could see who it was. Tanner looked up into Evans beaten and bloodied face. He seemed to have no idea where he was or why he had been brought to this place.

  One of the people who dragged him forward was the boy they had left guarding the entrance. He glared down at Tanner with a savage grin, as he turned to find his place in the crowd Davidson patted him on the shoulder. Tanner cursed.

  Davidson took the barely conscious Evans and held him by the shoulders in front of him. He might have a benevolent uncle teaching his nephew a lesson, or showing him off to an admiring crowd
. He applied enough pressure to force Evans to his knees, still the Welshman seemed to have little idea what was happening.

  “You came to my home, you challenged my authority, you dared to try to bring your justice where it is not wanted. Now you will pay the price for all you have done. You will watch, then you will suffer.”

  Evans’ eyes were blank and unknowing as Davidson placed his hands on either side of his head. Tanner heard a voice screaming for the bare-chested man to stop, to show a little mercy, he knew it was his own voice but it spoke out of its own accord. The men around them laughed, and goaded them. One stepped forward and slapped Tanner, shocking him into silence only for him to begin screaming once more.

  Davidson twisted Evans’ neck in a sharp, snapping movement. It was a feat of incredible strength. His body fell to the ground from the higher level, crumpling boneless before Tanner. The world went white, then black, he felt the ground come up to meet him, but grasping hands stopped it before it reached him.

  As sense came back to him, Tanner saw Templeton being led in front of him, out of the chamber. He was not struggling, in fact he looked like he would have walked by himself. He did not look up at Davidson, not even a glance.

  Tanner fought hard, twisting and turning, trying to pull his arms out of the grasp of his captors. At one point he felt the grip on him relax and he drove his shoulder into the stomach of one of the men. The unfortunate soul hit the tunnel wall and Tanner was rewarded with a rush of air from the man’s lungs.

  They pulled him through a short tunnel, his knees dragging against stone and concrete, scouring blood from them. Finally he was dropped into a cage. He knew it was the same as the one Billy had been in, the boy had described it well. Beside him Templeton stood, looking unruffled, even now. They were left in the darkness, watched by unseen eyes.

  “The bastards killed him,” Tanner said to the darkness.

  “Save your strength, Detective,” was all Templeton could say. “Save your strength for a fight you can win.”