The Jonah

by James Herbert

  Kelso went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Cook slumped back in his chair. He hated to lose a good man, but he had no choice; the others wouldn’t work with him any more. They could be made to, of course, but that would only breed unease, resentment. He liked to keep his team tightly knit, no rifts. The funny thing was that he hadn’t really explained it to Kelso, hadn’t needed to. They both knew what it was all about.

  Nobody wanted to work with a Jonah.

  3

  He crunched his way along the shingle beach, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his black reefer jacket. The collar was turned up to protect the back of his neck from the March breeze which carried with it the chill dampness from the North Sea. He enjoyed the feel of shifting pebbles beneath his feet, the stones at first yielding then joining firmly to resist his weight. The sound was that of a distant army.

  Dark shapes squatted along the beach to his right; weatherbeaten fishermen’s huts, deserted now, only the heavy smell of their daily catch clinging to the sea-impregnated boards. There was a quarter-moon tonight, and the stars littered the sky like glitter-fun, piercing every inch of darkness to deny its dominance. Kelso was relieved that the dark, swollen clouds which had gathered over the town during the day, threatening to fall the final few feet and crush everything below, had moved on to menace others. He looked up to seek out the aircraft, whose droning noise competed with the harsh lapping of waves on the shoreline. The A-10 was low, its searchlight stabbing through the night, red lights a startling contrast to the silver shimmering pinpoints it seemed to pass through. The aircraft was headed inland, homing towards the NATO base just a few miles away; others had scratched the sky with long vapour trails throughout the day, usually in a formation of two as though the American airmen were afraid to wander through British airspace alone. The moving lights rumbled by, the strange upright tail fins that Kelso had come to recognise invisible in the darkness. Soon it was gone, sinking lower until the houses on the cliff at the back of the small coastal town screened the rest of its descent completely. Kelso shivered, then looked back towards the shoreline.

  There were more lights stretching along the beach in either direction, but these were strung out and solitary, lonely beacons of sea-anglers who were content to suffer the night’s coldness for the sake of a good catch. Their nocturnal activity had surprised him when he had arrived in Adleton three weeks before, but he was slowly becoming accustomed to the habits of the local fishing community. He almost tripped over a taut steel wire used to winch a fishing boat up onto the beach; other such craft, similarly hauled ashore, lay around the area like stranded whales, slumped and useless without the water that gave them purpose. Kelso made towards the narrow concrete roadway running parallel to the shoreline. He paused by the small sea wall, and sat for a moment, cupping a hand around the flame he lit for his cigarette. He drew in smoke and flicked the match back onto the shingle. A lifeboat on its concrete mounts, ready and eager to sprint to the sea, loomed over him.

  It was a good town, its residents preparing for the early summer rush and grateful to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, the two big holidays resorts further up the coast, for taking the main brunt of the holidaymakers. It was quiet – after eight o’clock in the evening, three people walking down the high street constituted a crowd – so quiet that Kelso thought he was wasting his time. There was no drugs pushing here; there were hardly any young people to push drugs on to. The incident of a month before had to be a freak, or maybe someone playing a particularly nasty trick. It didn’t merit a lengthy undercover investigation. Three weeks and he’d discovered nothing. He continued walking, the narrow strip of road bordered by closely huddled houses on one side, the sea-wall on the other. Windows glowed with friendly lights, increasing his feeling of being an outsider. Or worse – a snooper.

  A middle-aged couple strolled by, arm in arm, their mutual affection spreading a little to include Kelso when they bade him a good evening. He guessed they were from the hotel just ahead, out for sea air and stars before an early bed, perhaps a freshening of their marriage. If they were married. The woman giggled like a schoolgirl when the man whispered something, and Kelso wondered if the joke was on him. Easy to get paranoid when you were on your own. Even easier when things happened that you couldn’t explain.

  He passed by the hotel, its exterior brilliantly lit by floodlights. The restaurant, open to view through a wall of glass, was almost empty, the diners existing on separate islands, communication between them restricted to occasional side glances, only the waitresses puncturing their reserve. The summer trade would change all that. There were very few lights ahead: the tiny coastguard tower was in darkness but, just beyond, stood a curious windmill-shaped building, its sails missing, every window lit up. After that, there was only the muddy track leading to another strangely shaped building, a round fortress left over from the Napoleonic wars, this, too, a private residence. The old defensive Martello tower faced water on either side, for a wide river ran parallel to the sea, its estuary several miles further down the coast. The fortress stood on the strip of land that divided sea and river, the river itself widening out into a natural, protected harbour as it turned inland and cut a decisive path through the marshlands towards less yielding territory. High banks on either side strived to contain the waterway, the waterlogged fields behind them giving evidence to their lack of success.

  The ground on which he stood had once been an opening into the natural habour, but centuries of silt had built up to block the entrance, the locals eventually using the land as it became more firm. Now boats that moored inside the inland harbour had to travel down the coastline and enter through the estuary, avoiding the treacherous sandbanks around its mouth, then wind their way back along the calmer waters. A small quay had been built for the two fishing boats that were too large to haul up onto the beach. Kelso could just make out their bulky shapes among the more elegant sailboats and motor launches as they stirred on the gentle waters. He had spoken to one or two of the fishermen over the past few days, careful not to mention the incident that had dismayed the townspeople a month ago, talking only of the nature reserves in the area and the scavengers that awaited their catch. True to their image, the fishermen were brusque but friendly enough, finding some inner amusement at his questions. They were well-used to ornithologists visiting the many bird sanctuaries in the area and, if they found him a little different to other bird men they had met, they gave no indication. It would have been totally out of context to ask them about the constant flow of river traffic, whether they had noticed any unfamiliar boats using the estuary recently, but, given time, he would guide their conversations in that direction. And he had plenty of time, it seemed.

  He took one last drag from the cigarette, then crushed the stub with his foot. It was pointless to get angry again, but it was hard to contain the resentment he felt. They couldn’t sack him – he was a good cop – but they had put him where they considered he could do the least harm. His reputation, apparently, had followed him into the Drugs Squad; now he was on loan to the undermanned Suffolk Constabulary, attached to the drugs team based in Lowestoft. A perfect solution for his boss in London: send him out to assist the yokels, let them have some of his bad luck. Cook and his counterpart in Drugs had made a deal, probably not unkindly. Cook wanted him away from the Yard for a while, away from the hostility growing around him, giving it a chance to die away; Detective Inspector Wainwright of the Drugs Squad had provided the answer. Kelso wondered how many bottles of booze it had cost Cook.

  And yet there might be something to the case he was now on. The coastline, with its vast deserted stretches of shingle, marshlands and natural inlets, was perfect for a certain kind of criminal activity. A more than keen vigilance was kept on the sea port of Harwich by Customs and Excise, but the same observation could hardly be maintained all along the coastline. In the old days, the area, like Devon and Cornwall, had been notorious for smuggling and piracy. Now drugs had become t
he main, illicit, merchandise because Britain had become a clearing-house for them since Spain had clamped down. Deals worth millions of pounds were negotiated along the Algarve, a natural trading-post for such transactions, for it was close to the major cannabis production areas of North Africa and the Middle East; from there to Britain, then onwards to countries like Holland, Belgium, Scandinavia and America. The authorities suspected that this part of the coast was being used, but so far had made no major hauls.

  The quayside itself was small, more of a jetty, but big enough to allow the two drifters that used it to load up their catch directly onto waiting lorries. Now the fishing boats were silent and brooding, straining against their moorings, waiting for the pre-dawn when they would thrum with life again. Kelso turned away, the cold breeze making him ache for somewhere warmer, the dark emptiness of the night increasing his need for human companionship – the rumble in his stomach for something inside it.

  His cover was that of an ornithologist working on a project for a certain London-based conservation society. The paper he was to write (which, he had told locals interested enough to ask, might eventually be turned into an illustrated book) was on the increasing pollution in the waterways of East Anglia and its danger to the many species of wildfowl inhabiting the marshes and woodland sanctuaries. It had seemed a reasonable cover, giving him a good excuse to move freely around the area and talk to people, but although he had gone out of his way to be friendly to the natives, particularly those of his age or younger, he was getting nowhere. As yet, no one had even mentioned the strange happening at the Preece house.

  The police had been called to the Preece house just a month ago by neighbours who had become alarmed at the strange screams coming from inside. When the local policeman had arrived – it was early evening – he had been surprised to see the youngest member of the Preece family, a boy of seven, standing on the windowsill of the upper floor, his arms outstretched as if he were about to dive into the garden below. The constable called to the boy, who informed him that he was about to fly over the town. And he had attempted to do so.

  Fortunately, the house was not very tall and the small garden consisted mainly of soft flower beds. The boy only dislocated his shoulder and sprained an ankle.

  As the policeman, PC Sherman, knelt over the squirming boy, shrieks from inside the house distracted him. By then, several neighbours had joined him in the garden and, giving orders for someone to call an ambulance, the constable approached the house, two of the neighbours going with him. They had to get in through the back door and they found the boy’s mother crouching beneath the kitchen table, her hands covering her eyes as though she were afraid to see. They tried, gently at first, to pull her out, but she resisted with a vigour that frightened all three men. She screamed every time they tried to take her hands away from her face. The policeman left the two men with her and went in search of her husband. He found him in the sitting-room, in an armchair, smiling, staring. The man pointed at the wall and the policeman turned to look; all he could see was a flower-patterned wallpaper. The man nodded enthusiastically, although his movements were slow, dreamlike. The constable tried to speak to him, but only a soft crooning noise came from the man. When PC Sherman noticed the dilated pupils and Preece’s apparent serenity, he began to understand what was happening. The boy, the mother, the father, were all in a state of trance. They had been either hypnotized or . . . Or drugged. That was it; they were tripped out. A bad trip for the boy and his mother and, it seemed, a good one for the father.

  Shouts from the kitchen sent PC Sherman tearing back down the hallway. One of the neighbours was on the floor, a bewildered look on his face; the other was just disappearing through the open doorway. The woman who had crouched under the table was gone.

  The policeman rushed to the back door and was just in time to see Mrs Preece running through the allotments behind the row of houses. He knew a footbridge crossed the narrow waterway that separated the houses on the edge of the town from the open marshlands and guessed the woman was making towards it. She wasn’t. She plunged into the stream.

  Fortunately, the water was only a few feet deep, but the woman seemed determined to stay beneath the surface. It took the constable and another two neighbours at least five minutes to drag her screaming from the water.

  The Preece family were swiftly taken to hospital where the constable’s guess was proved correct. The couple and their son were hallucinating and urine analysis showed traces of lysergic acid in their systems. The effects gradually wore off some hours later, suggesting that the intake had not been too great or that the LSD had been diluted in some way. But the mother had suffered a mental breakdown and, although she had been released from hospital two weeks later, her local GP was keeping a close watch on her.

  So how had it happened? How had a quiet family who had lived in the town all their lives without causing any bother, any scandal, any controversy, suddenly become involved with drugs? Particularly with LSD, the more dangerous kind. The husband, who worked in the town’s boatyard, was known to enjoy a drink in the evening, but that was the extent of his high living. The rest of his free time was usually spent on his allotment tending his vegetables. The mother was a timid sort of woman who worked part-time in the high street bakery and whose idea of a good night was to watch the telly with a hot pot of tea by the fireside grate and a box of Milk Tray on her lap. The son was no problem, inconspicuous at school, helpful to his father on the allotment. After interviewing them all – it had been several days before they could get any sense out of the woman – the CID from Leiston came to the conclusion that it was a freak incident, that there was no way that the Preece family could be taking drugs. It had been a normal Tuesday evening for them: the boy had gone to meet his father from the boatyard, they had returned to the house, had dinner, then settled down to watch television. Within the hour, the boy was running around the room, laughing and shouting that he had no weight, that he was as light as a feather, the mother was hiding in the kitchen screaming that the walls were closing in on her, and the father was watching the dazzling neon lights in the wallpaper. The CID found no pills in the house apart from a box of Anadin. No powders, no syringes. How the Preece family had absorbed lysergic acid into their systems was still a mystery.

  The Lowestoft Drugs Squad was called in and they, too, were mystified. They knew of no drugs ring in that area, but believed the incident might uncover one. Unfortunately, their small drugs team was overstretched; they could not spare officers on what could have been a fruitless investigation. Assistance was requested and it was the Yard, itself, who supplied someone, a man who had experience of undercover work, someone who had the knack of getting on well with the more unsavoury elements of society. Kelso, go to the top of the unsavouries class. And take your time with this one, there’s no rush. It might be nothing, but dig around; something could turn up. If you’re lucky. Grin.

  Kelso lit another cigarette.

  He wasn’t renowned for his good luck.

  He turned away from the harbour and walked back towards the town. Water had seeped through his sneakers, making his socks damp, the big toe on his left foot numb. That was always the first one to go. Poor blood circulation. He was conscious of the stiff breeze glancing around the tip of his nose.

  Kelso had watched the Preece house for several days, squatting on the embankment on the far side of the marshland which separated the town from the river. The bank rose pyramid-shaped from the water, descending just as sharply to the marsh on the other side. It was manmade and meant to contain the floodwaters when they rushed up the ten-mile estuary from the sea. Several canals crisscrossed the marshland, natural drains for when the river overwhelmed its confines; one such canal bordered the allotments which led up to houses on the town’s edge. The Preece woman, poor cow, would have drowned in there if she hadn’t been dragged out. Kelso had watched through powerful binoculars, a natural aid to an ornithologist, as Preece had dug his vegetable patch. Preece worked alone,
for his son was still in hospital with his dislocated shoulder, and Kelso had seen no suspicious activity. The man usually worked till dusk, stopping occasionally to chat to neighbours. He would leave his tools inside a small hut on the site (Kelso had searched the hut by torchlight one night and had found nothing other than rusting and blunted garden equipment) and then return to the house. And he would stay there. Even his evening drink had been forgotten.

  But maybe tonight he would change his mind; he may have regained his thirst by now. It was reason enough – and a good excuse – for Kelso to visit the man’s local.

  The lights of the town beckoned him back and he left the coastal path, sliding down a concrete incline to the car park which was used by tourists in the busy season, but empty now. It was a convenient short-cut to the high street, but like dropping into a large, black pit. The urgent sound of waves pounding on the shore was muffled by the sea wall and concrete slope, the breeze skipping over the barrier to swoop down towards the middle of the dark arena. The gravel beneath Kelso’s feet had a less satisfying crunch to it, too compact and, unlike the seawashed beach, too filled with dirt. He cut a diagonal path across the car park, both hands tucked into the pockets of his reefer jacket, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his shoulders slouched and head bent forward as though studying the ground before him. His footsteps slowed; he came to a halt. He took the cigarette from his mouth and raised his head.

  He looked around.

  Nothing but black shadows. Lights ahead, stars above; in between – darkness. His nose twitched and he whirled around. No one there, but he could smell that faint, familiar aroma. Familiar because it had come to him before, sometimes in dreams, sometimes when he was awake. An odour that was elusive, yet sometimes strong. He had been a child when the strange smell had first come to him and then it had merely been unpleasant; now he had learned to fear it. It was the smell of vomit. Vomit and blood. And corruption.