Only Darkness

by Danuta Reah

He didn’t know what to do. He could drive to Moreham, see if she was still at the station. She had someone with her. He kept telling himself that. She wasn’t alone, she had someone with her, she should be all right. But he couldn’t stop the feeling of unease that was getting stronger, making it harder to concentrate, to make decisions. He rubbed his hand over his face. Think, Neave! There were three possibilities. She was at Moreham station waiting for the next train. Tim Godber was probably with her. Or she’d gone off somewhere with Tim Godber – for a drink, maybe back to his flat. He didn’t want to think that, but she was angry, upset. It was possible. At least she’d be safe. Or something had gone wrong and … He felt that welling up of emotion again, of rage and frustration and something else he couldn’t put a name to. He trod hard on his feelings. He was good at that. Think. Right, if she was at the station, or if … Think! He needed to be at Moreham. The other option he couldn’t do anything about until tomorrow. He could shelve that. He needed to be at Moreham.

  Then he remembered, with a cold clarity, the photograph still in the wallet, still in his desk drawer. Now, he could see it – now it was too late. He’d known – hadn’t he, really? – it couldn’t have been Gina Sykes’s foot that had carelessly crushed that picture, kicked it out of sight. And he’d waited, hesitated, worried – and finally forgotten. In his mind, he heard the scream of tyres on an icy road, the crash of a car going through the low wall and rolling, tumbling down the steep edge. He heard the first crackle of the flames and could smell the smoke as it twined through the fumes of spilled petrol. Angie … But it was too late.

  He switched the ignition on, and was just preparing to pull out of the station forecourt when his phone rang. He wanted to ignore it, but it could be Louise, it could be Debbie, who’d know he’d been ringing. He picked it up.

  It was Lynne. ‘You didn’t hear this from me,’ she said, ‘but you’d better get out to Moreham station as fast as you can.’ He listened to what she had to say, then spun the wheel and headed north.

  For a moment, Debbie watched herself watching the figure squeezing through the opening above her. Something reached down and touched her hair, then pushed against her face, cold and clammy. She tried to scream, but only a thin, high sound escaped through the gag. Her nose clogged and she choked. She heard that giggle again, and again something brushed her face. She felt something touch, cold and slug-like against her screwed-shut eyes. Then the paralysis broke and she realized she could move. She gripped the knife tightly, and the next time the touch came on her face, she cut and slashed at the thing touching her. It snagged the knife, almost jerking it from her hand until the blade snapped, releasing it. She pushed the blade up a notch. And slashed again. There was a grunt from above her. She pressed herself back against the wall and stared up through the darkness. The bulk was still there. Another whisper, harsher. Deborah Sykes. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark and she could see more in the small amount of light the gap let in. He’d reached down with his hand before. Now he was swinging his legs over the edge, climbing into the pit with her.

  She gripped the knife with both hands and ripped it down the leg, pushing to send it in deep. The blade broke against the fabric. Something warm spattered on to her face. He kicked out at her, catching her shoulder and sending her sprawling above the drop. She rolled back and slashed out at his leg again, choking for air. As he drew his leg back, she ripped the tape from around her mouth and screamed. Not loud enough. She didn’t know if anyone could hear her, if there was anyone to hear her. She slashed out with the knife again, and again the leg swung out of the way. She took a deep breath and screamed as loudly as she could. Then he was pulling his leg back over the edge. She could see the shape of his head looking down at her. Again the whisper, Deborah Sykes. Then the gap was narrowing, it was getting darker. No … There was the grating sound again, and something closed over the gap above her, leaving her in the dark. Sobbing with terror, Debbie reached up and put her hands against the underside, which was metal. She pushed. It wouldn’t shift. She pushed up at it again, trying to use the whole force of her body, but her legs were trembling with cold and shock, and she could feel the strength running out of them. It wouldn’t move. She was trapped, alone in the dark. She could feel blood from her hand running down her arm, and she felt cold and weak. The trembling in her legs got worse and she realized she would fall, maybe fall off the edge into the unknown drop where the water gushed. She dropped to her knees, still clutching the knife, and shook with terror.

  Tim sat in the back of the dark patrol car and gnawed at his knuckle. It had happened too soon, too quickly – he’d missed it! He’d missed it by minutes. He could have seen it, he could have been a hero, and now he was having to explain things to two Plods, while all the action was going on elsewhere. He’d told them, My car broke down, I got held up in the pub, I don’t know where she is. They didn’t believe him, he could tell. He peered through the rain. He could just see two other cars, blue lights flashing, people getting out and milling round in the rain. Had they found her? He tried his door. It wouldn’t open from the inside, of course. He needed to get out, get down on the platform, watch what was going on. He hammered on the car window, trying to attract the attention of one of the officers.

  It seemed like an age, but it must have been only seconds, when water started splashing more heavily on to Debbie’s face, and she began to control her panic. She had to get out of here by herself. There was no one else to help her. She sat up and tried to get an idea of where she was, of what surrounded her. The smell of wet decay was still in her nostrils, but the water that fell on her face was clean, smelled of the air. Rain. She had a better idea of where she was, now. She was on a ledge just under the lid that sealed the pit – she suddenly realized where she was. She was under one of the covers that let into the inspection pit for the storm drains. The storm drains by the track? She didn’t know. She didn’t know how long she’d been there, how long she’d been unconscious. The track drains must empty into the river. The drop would take the water down. If she could get down there, she might be able to get out. Then what? Drown in the river? It was deep, dirty and fast-flowing. Better that than wait.

  The cold was beginning to overcome her. She shook uncontrollably and her hands and feet felt numb. Her gloves had vanished – they would have been useless in this wet, anyway. Her feet were soaked, frozen beyond the point of pain. At least she was still wearing her shoes, heavy and wet than they were. She would need their protection. She could get rid of them if she made it to the river. Up or down. She had to get out. If he came back he would kill her. If he didn’t come back, she would die of cold like an animal in a trap. No one would find her here.

  She reached up again and tried to move the cover from the opening to the drain. It wouldn’t shift. The effort started her hand bleeding again. She edged towards the drop, sat with her legs dangling over and felt with her feet. She could feel something in the side – rungs. People were meant to climb up and down here. The thought of people, ordinary people, made the dark place seem less threatening, less unknown.

  She clutched the knife in one frozen hand, rolled over and began to inch herself over the edge, feeling with her feet for the rungs. It was difficult to tell when she had found them as she was losing the feeling in her legs. She found hand grips and began her descent into darkness. The roar of the water seemed louder, faster, and the stench of decay was stronger. This time it reminded her of the night she was trapped on the stairs, that same sickening smell. How far down did the drop go? She wasn’t sure how long her hands would grip. She climbed down further, and reached out with her foot, feeling for the bottom.

  Then the whispered babble – none so blind … cunt … see no evil, see no … and something gripped her ankle with unbelievable strength and pulled.

  And then the heavens opened. The rain fell in sheets, filling the gutters in seconds, running over the suddenly full drains. Roads became rivers, drain covers exploded as the pressure of the
water burst through. Moreham centre became a torrent as the water flowed across the drains and poured through the precinct, washing away the accumulations of rubbish that danced and swirled in the eddies and flows.

  Neave’s car swerved as his wheels aquaplaned on the flooded road. He cursed and slowed down, the chunk, chunk of the windscreen wipers speeding up as they battled ineffectually with the torrent.

  The police car slammed to a halt outside Moreham station, and Lynne leapt out, closely followed by Berryman. The rain cut through Lynne’s clothes, soaking her to the skin in the few seconds it took her to get under the shelter of the station canopy. The ground was running with water, backing up from the overloaded drains to start pooling in front of the ticket office.

  The platform was awash, the line starting to flood as the rain teemed down. It was dark, the rain turning the view up and down the track to black nothingness. The drumming on the canopy was a roar, drowning out all other sound.

  In the centre of Moreham, the security cameras caught a young man, dressed for summer, riding an improvised surf board through the flooded precinct.

  The rivers rose. The Porter, running through the west of Sheffield, changed from a gentle beck to a fast-running torrent as it rose over its banks and spread across the finger of green that ran from the countryside into the heart of the city. Paths and grass disappeared under a sudden influx of tributary rivers that gradually joined into one racing mass of water.

  In Moreham, the rush of the river became a roar as it rose higher up its concrete banks, washing away the green track beside it, flattening out the weir, rising and rising, covering the exits from the storm drains, backing the water up and up.

  Her hands, already weak with cold, lost their grip. The knife slipped through her fingers and clattered into darkness. She clutched frantically at the rungs, scraping her face against the wall as she slipped and fell. Her head cracked against the side of the shaft. It wasn’t a long drop, and she lay stunned and winded in the fast-flowing stream at the bottom, hearing that mad giggle. She could see the light through the grating of the storm drain far above her. The darkness around her was dank and rotten. Water was flowing underneath her. She must be in the pipe that led to the river. So near! Her breath came in great sobs. She smelt his closeness and lifted her hands to protect herself, rolling over as his heaviness landed on top of her, taking the force of his weight on her ribs rather than her stomach. She felt something snap inside her. She doubled up with pain, aware of his hands pulling at her, but unable to do anything but reach for the air that had been crushed out of her lungs. Her hands grabbed at the side of the shaft, searching for the rungs of the ladder, but finding only wet brick or stone. She was lost, disorientated. Her breathing drowned out other sounds, a gasping, sobbing rasp. Her hands found the rungs, and she reached up, gasping at the stabbing pain in her chest, then hands grabbed her hair and pulled her back and down.

  Lynne looked along the track. She’d looked at the maps so many times, she could picture them in her mind. She knew that the track and the river ran close together a short way down the line back in the direction of Sheffield. She shouted her plans in Berryman’s ear, and he nodded. Calling to West and McCarthy, she set off down the line, the light from her torch barely penetrating the rain. The downpour was easing off slightly. Lynne was glad of that because the water next to the track was almost over the tops of her shoes. She had boots in the car, she remembered, too late.

  Her light shone on the track ahead. She moved it from side to side. She didn’t know what she expected to see, didn’t know what she was looking for. Her mind was running over the timings. Tim Godber had lost sight of Deborah for about twenty minutes. In that time, someone had to subdue her and get her out of sight. Out of the station and into a car? It was possible, but other people were looking for that. Somewhere in the station? Berryman was there with Curran and Barraclough. Down the line? Possibly, and she was here. Up the line, there was no one, but others were arriving by the minute and Lynne was gambling now, working the odds.

  Debbie’s strength was nearly gone. A cold heaviness was weighing her down, a resignation that made her struggles slow and ineffectual, a grip round her throat that made her voice a thin and feeble whisper. She could hear a monotonous chant, a litany of obscenities that whispered and echoed around the dark, telling her what she was, telling her what he was going to do. The fear was something detached from her, something distant, abstract. She knew she was going to die. She wanted it to happen soon, to get the stench of him out of her nostrils, the feel of him away from her body. She could see the faint light high above her, and her mind drifted away to sunlight and blue skies and clouds on summer days. She was walking in the woods near Goldthorpe with Gina, the woods of her childhood, the ones she knew so well … but there was something wrong. The cool shadows under the trees beckoned. Something was waiting for them, something terrible, something dangerous. She turned to Gina to tell her to keep away, and she heard her mother’s voice: Fight! And she pushed with all her remaining strength, twisting her body, throwing off the weight that was pinning her to the ground. Her hands reached out, and one hit against the cold metal of a rung. A lifeline that she gripped on to as she felt him lurch towards her in the blackness, knowing that that was it, that was all she had, she had no more.

  Then there was a rush of water up the pipe, river water, she could smell its filth. The water filled the pipe and almost washed her away, flooded her nose and mouth, making her gasp and retch, but she hung on to the rung and the water pushed her up the shaft as it began to rise. She felt something grab at her feet again, this time from under the water, this time with a frantic grasp, and she slipped again, her head hitting against the rungs as she fell back into the water.

  Arms round her waist, gripping her tightly. Something pressing into her stomach. Blackness, swirling darkness, her chest tight, her heart hammering. Air. She had to breathe. She couldn’t pull herself free, couldn’t get her head above the water. She kicked madly, and in her panic her mouth opened and she breathed the filth of the river into her lungs.

  The dark place, and the beast is waiting. The mother’s face is turned away – the child holds her, grips her, presses his head into the folds of her skirt. Mam! … Out of my sight … Out of my sight … She pushes him deeper into the dark. The child is locked into it – he struggles but he can’t escape. Shiny tracks on his face, in the moonlight … But there is no light. Just the darkness and the beast, and the child drifts away … Mam … Mam … Whispering in the darkness, in the emptiness, gone …

  Lynne played her torch over the gravel by the track, and then up against the wire fence that separated the track from the river path. The fence was intact, as it had been all the way along. She shone her torch further. No sign of any break. Was there anything here, anything at all, apart from the closeness to the river? Her light travelled over the raised storm drain for the second time before it registered and she went over to look. There was something lying across the cover. Her eye caught sight of something on the ground, and she shone the torch on it. A glove, a woman’s knitted glove, soaked by the rain. Could have been there for ages, but … She called to McCarthy, who was shining his torch into the undergrowth. He and West ran over. She directed their attention with the light of her torch. McCarthy shone his torch at the drain, and said something. She couldn’t hear, but he grabbed her arm and pointed. Lying across the cover was a heavy iron bar. The water pooled underneath it looked dark – rust? Dirt? Lynne looked closer. As she shone her torch on it, the colour changed. Blood?

  West was looking at the fence, and called. Behind the shrub, the wire was pulled away at the bottom, leaving a gap easily large enough for an adult to get through. There were stains on the wire. She thought. Quickly, woman! ‘Get Berryman!’ she shouted to West. ‘Quick.’ Her gestures transmitted any of the message the storm obscured. She turned to McCarthy, pointed to the cover of the drain. ‘Help me get this thing open.’ It took two of them to shift the heavy bar h
olding the cover down.

  They were dragging the cover off with an improvised lever as Berryman ran up with Curran. Lynne shone her torch inside. A ledge, just about four feet below the opening, and a deep dark shaft. There were dark stains on the ledge, and something that looked like crumpled paper. She shone her torch down the shaft. Water, just a few feet down, dirty and stinking, and … something floating, weed, rags, no, hair, a woman’s long hair, a woman was under the water in the shaft.

  Neave could see the cars by the station, the blue lights flashing, the officers keeping back the small crowd that had gathered even in the appalling weather. He ran up to the entrance. One of the officers was someone he knew. He couldn’t remember the name. ‘They phoned me,’ he said.

  The man looked doubtful, but didn’t try to stop him as he pushed through. He sprinted down the ramp. He could see lights along the line, bobbing as though the people carrying them were running. He ran on, wiping the rain out of his eyes. The lights grouped ahead of him, stopped, but seemed to be getting no nearer. Then he was there. The rain was slowing now, and he could see them clearly, the men working in the open drain, Lynne and Berryman standing to one side, Berryman talking urgently into his radio, the light of the signal hanging like a green eye above them. He looked back up the track and saw the figure of Tim Godber on the bridge, watching, hands raised to his face. Flash! Lynne turned. She came and stood with Neave and they watched together as West and McCarthy lifted the lifeless body of Deborah Sykes on to the ground by the track.

  18

  Berryman was tired – more tired than he could remember being. It was a mess. Loose ends flapping around, and no way to tie half of them up quickly. They’d searched the drain after the river level dropped. They’d found the body of a man down there. He wore blue overalls that had ripped on the sleeve and caught on a broken rung set into the wall of the inspection pit. He had cuts – they looked as though they’d been inflicted with a knife – on his hands and legs, but he’d almost certainly drowned, hooked on the metal as the river flooded in. The postmortem would confirm it. There was nothing on him to identify him. Lynne’s late – almost too late – findings about William Stringer would give them a starting point, and Berryman hoped, a finishing point, at last.