by J. S. Law
She licked her lips, thinking, aware that Roger’s face was changing from pity to impatience.
‘I need one thing, Roger,’ she said, reaching out and touching his arm to stop him from turning away. ‘Just one thing and I’ll go home; I’ll talk to people and help in any way I can, I promise. I just need Ryan Taylor’s home address. That’s all I need. Please, Roger?’
Blackett shook his head and placed his hand on hers, slowly removing it from his arm, and walked back to his car.
Chapter 36
Saturday Evening – 4th October 2014
She’d already found Ryan Taylor’s address when a text came through from an unrecognised number, gifting it to her. It had to have been from Roger, late, but receiving it made her feel good anyway, like he was still on her side, as much as he was able. She saw another missed call from Felicity and mentally promised she would return it later, then typed the postcode and house number into her satnav and followed the commands towards the Waterfront.
The destination, a long, narrow street, was deserted. It was gone eleven o’clock and there wasn’t a single gap in the rows of parked cars that ran the length of the road. Everyone who lived here, it seemed, was home and tucked up inside with their loved ones.
Finding a small parking space two or three streets away, Dan lifted the collar of her thin jacket against the wind and hunched forward as she made her way between the interconnected pools of light cast by the streetlights. She was heading towards Ryan Taylor’s flat, which she now knew he had shared with Ben Roach.
The door buzzer at the entrance to the block wasn’t working, but neither was the lock, and the heavy door made a long, loud groaning sound as it rubbed against the concrete floor when Dan pushed it open just wide enough for her to slip inside.
A faint smell of urine hung in the air and she looked around and listened for a moment, sure that she was alone.
Ryan’s flat was on the second floor.
There was no longer any number mounted on the wooden door, but the clean shadow where the number had once protected the paintwork showed that she had found it.
Dan knocked.
The landing was eerily silent around her, even for the late hour, and the lights were dim enough that she worried at a small torch attached to her key chain. She couldn’t hear any sounds of life from this, or any other apartments. Not a radio or television. No people talking or laughing, or voices raised too loud with somebody shushing them back into a respectable silence. There was only the wind outside and, in the odd times when that stopped to draw breath, the long, lonely silence inside.
Dan knocked, three quick raps, and waited.
The door opened a few inches and she saw half of Ryan’s face look suspiciously at her through the gap. A thick chain ran just below his eye level and prevented the door from opening any further.
‘I ain’t allowed to talk to you,’ he said.
‘And I’m not allowed to talk to you,’ replied Dan. ‘But I really think we should.’
He didn’t move, making no attempt to remove the chain and open the door, or to shut it.
‘I can help you, Ryan. I want to help you.’
A snuffle, maybe a half-laugh, sounded from behind the door and she thought she saw a tear roll down the part of his cheek that was visible. It touched the metal door-chain and then gathered there, growing fat before it finally dropped onto the dusty floor.
‘The Old Man said you’d try this shit if you found me. He said you’d chat about takin’ the heat and gettin’ me off.’
‘I will, Ryan. I promise I will.’
‘He also said it’d be total bullshit, ’cos I’m so deep in it that no fucker can do anything. He said you’re proper obsessed with getting what you think you want and you’ll trample any poor bastard into the deck to get it.’
‘And he can help you?’ Dan leaned her head forward as she said it, raising an eyebrow and waiting.
‘I ain’t saying nothing else,’ he said again, and slowly pushed the door closed.
Dan felt a rage take her. She lunged forward at the door, but it was already shut-tight. She kicked it, hard, and then regretted it as pain shot up through her toes. She limped onto one foot and then lowered herself to her knees with her eyes scrunched shut in pain. Turning, she sat down, leaning her back against the door. Desperation had brought her here, and it was a mistake.
There was a sound.
It was faint, but enough to make Dan cock her head back up, forget the pain in her foot, and listen intently.
He was there, on the other side of the door, sitting with his back against it in the same way she was.
The sound again.
Maybe his clothes rubbing against the door, or maybe a sniff, a stifled sob.
She turned quickly and knelt up. There was a letter box, white, cheap and plastic; she pulled it open.
‘Ryan,’ she said quietly. ‘I know you’re hurting. I know I used you to get that signal off the boat, but everything I told you was true. I really think they killed Ben, murdered him. The Old Man was right, Ryan, I can’t stop and I won’t stop, no matter what I have to do, until they pay for what they did, and they can’t pay until I know why they did it. If that means getting myself into trouble, then so be it. It also meant getting you into trouble, but I really think Ben was worth it. Whether you speak to me or not, I promise I’ll try to help you. I’ll tell them the truth about what I did and I’ll tell them you had no part in it. I’ll tell them I intimidated and coerced you into sending that signal. But Ryan, the thing I promise the most, is that I will not stop, regardless of any consequence, until I find the person who murdered Ben. I’ll find out why they did it, and I’ll see them rotting in prison for it.’
She waited, hopeful, listening for any further sound.
There was none.
She lowered the letter box down carefully and turned around again, leaning back against the door.
Without warning she fell a few inches backward. Looking up she saw Ryan again.
He was looking down at her now, his eye below the level of the security chain.
‘Who knows you’re here?’ he asked.
‘No one.’
She waited.
Then she was thrust forward as the door was firmly closed.
Her head dropped, her hopes crushed until she heard the familiar sound of metal scraping metal as the chain was removed from its housing. She leaned forward just in time to prevent herself from rolling backward into Ryan’s hallway as the door was fully opened.
He didn’t wait for her, didn’t offer to help her at all. He just opened the door and left it that way as he walked along a short corridor, deeper into his home.
Dan clambered to her feet, leaning her shoulder through the door immediately, as if it might blow closed at any moment and rob her of her chance. So delighted was she to have made it this far, that she had closed the door behind her and walked halfway down the corridor before the contrast hit her.
The drab grey outside, the dirty stairwells and peeling door were as far as the dilapidation went.
Inside the apartment, she was walking on solid oak flooring with a tasteful rug running down the centre of the hallway. There were paintings on the wall, a modern style that Dan didn’t recognise, but permanent light fixtures illuminated them all. Four large LED screens acted as changing photo frames, wired into the walls and slowly meandering through story after story of Ryan and Ben’s time together.
As she stepped into the living room the opulence increased further.
Ryan was seated on a leather couch; the light brown surface was the type of expensive leather that only looks better with age and use. The television and sound system were the centrepieces of the room, the television itself taking up what seemed like an entire wall.
Music was playing quietly from a large speaker in the corner.
‘Oh, Ryan,’ she said, turning to the young man on the couch.
He was seated on the edge of it, his knees together and his he
ad resting in his hands. He didn’t look up and his shoulders began to vibrate slowly as another tear made its way through his fingers and dropped onto his light-denim jeans.
‘Ryan, you have to tell me how you paid for all this.’
He didn’t move, didn’t answer.
‘Tell me the truth. I’ll help you.’
He looked up, fresh tears on his face, but the look in his eye was defiant, as though these were the very last tears that he had left and there was no more grief or pain that he could take.
‘The truth?’ he said. ‘Tell the truth?’
‘The truth, Ryan,’ said Dan, nodding in a way she hoped was reassuring.
She moved across from the doorway to a single armchair in matching leather and perched on the edge of it, facing Ryan.
‘The truth,’ he paused. ‘The truth is, I don’t know.’ He shrugged, turning his palms upwards as if offering her all that he had. ‘Ben paid, he always did.’
‘You must have questioned it, Ryan. Some part of you must have known that he couldn’t be paying for this out of his wages. Some armed forces guys at Ben’s grade are drawing income support. There’s no way he was paying for this from his salary.’
Ryan nodded; he knew.
‘Does he have a lot of debt?’
‘He did. But it all got cleared off a while back.’
Dan looked around the room. She shook her head, she couldn’t help herself.
‘When did he come into the money?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.
Ryan just nodded at her; he knew that she knew.
‘The Old Man, he got Ben drafted to Tenacity, right?’ asked Dan.
Ryan nodded again.
‘And that was when Ben’s debt cleared up and the spending started?’
Ryan nodded.
‘And Ben never said a word to you about it? Nothing, not pillow talk or a drunken slur, nothing?’
Ryan looked her square in the eye, unflinching. ‘He never told me nothing and I didn’t ask.’
Dan stood up and took a deep breath.
‘Why did the Old Man draft Ben to Tenacity? Do you know?’
Ryan nodded. He looked as though he was pleased that he could answer the question. ‘The Old Man gets what he wants. Everyone knows it. He wants someone, he gets them, he wants to do a run ashore in Amsterdam, he gets it. That’s why the lads love him, ain’t it? Tenacity’s the luckiest boat in the flotilla.’
‘But why Ben?’
Ryan stared at her; his cheeks seemed to flush. ‘He always liked Ben.’
Dan shivered and wasn’t sure why. Something in the way Ryan had said that made her uneasy, something in the way his eyes had become hardened and bright.
‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged and looked away. He seemed agitated, like he didn’t want to talk about this any more. ‘They met on the boxing team.’
‘Right,’ said Dan, a little too enthusiastically.
Ryan looked at her and frowned.
‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I still can’t see the Old Man as a boxer.’
Ryan nodded and smiled. ‘Yeah, he’s piled on the pounds, right, but Ben said back in the day the Old Man was a proper, serious fighter; amateur international at light-welter.’ He paused and Dan could see his face redden again. ‘They was friends when the Old Man was the officer in charge of the navy boxing team, before he got his third ring.’
‘That was years ago,’ said Dan. ‘How old was Ben?’
‘Sixteen,’ said Ryan. ‘He joined the team straight from basic, he was handy as fuck.’
‘Sixteen?’
‘Yeah, he was a minor, so him and the Old Man spent a lot of time together.’
Dan was pausing now, thinking carefully about how to ask the question. She knew she needed to ask, but was unsure as to how he would deal with it.
‘Ryan,’ she began.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Don’t know what?’ asked Dan.
‘I might sound thick, but I’m not. You want to know if the Old Man was fucking Ben and I don’t know.’
His tone was changed, angry now, and the fact that he was hurting when he talked about this answered Dan’s question.
‘OK,’ she said, adding no more.
‘There’s a load of them boxers on Tenacity,’ Ryan said, seeming to forget his previous upset. ‘Known each other for years. Ben used to say, right, if Tenacity put a team out, and they was all at their best, you know, in their primes, they could beat all the rest of the armed forces’ boxing teams put together.’
Dan wasn’t listening properly. Her mind was churning as she thought about Ben and the Old Man: a pair? Maybe. She thought about what might have been in No.2 AMS and then she thought about the Chief Stoker threatening Ben. Dan saw Aaron’s face when she had spotted the chief back aft, before the exercise, down in the engine room lower levels, looking around where Aaron thought he didn’t need to be, where Ben would have gone to act as the casualty for the exercise.
‘Ryan, how well do you know the engine rooms?’
‘All right, I suppose. We all have to learn the whole boat to get our dolphins.’
‘When you look down from the lower level ladder and then out to your left as far as it goes, there’s a little space …’
‘Dog kennels,’ he said. ‘Yeah?’
‘What’s in there?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Some kit, dosing pumps for the boilers, stores, an old safe and some other stuff. Crap we don’t have anywhere else to put, really.’
‘Who could access that safe? Could the Old Man access it?’
‘Old Man can access anything he likes though, the whole boat’s his. I guess the Coxswain could give access to anyone too, but that safe back there, I think that’s one of the Chief Stoker’s safes.’
Dan was silent for a long time, thinking about Ben Roach, the Chief Stoker and the Old Man, before she finally spoke. ‘Ryan, I need you to get me back on board Tenacity, tonight.’
Chapter 37
Sunday Morning (Early Hours) – 5th October 2014
Dan’s hands were shaking as she drove Ryan’s car towards the dockyard gate. There was no traffic, but she still felt as though it was taking too long.
‘Have you called anyone?’ asked Ryan, from the seat beside her. He looked pointedly at her phone clutched in her hand as she drove.
Dan put the phone down in the centre console. ‘Not yet,’ she said quietly. ‘I doubt anyone would come anyway, except maybe to arrest us.’ She saw Ryan’s shoulders slump. ‘Me, Ryan, I really mean me. You’ll be fine, I promise.’
He snorted and shook his head. ‘If I’m in the shit now, how deep d’you think I’ll be in it after I’ve robbed the combo for a safe?’
‘Are you sure they’ll let you on at all?’ she asked, trying not to dwell on the possible answers to Ryan’s question.
He nodded. ‘The trots’ll have been briefed about me at the boat, but at this time there’ll be no one up to escort me, and they know I got kit on there to get. They’ll let me on.’
Dan faced the road and drove on towards the dockyard skyline, the glow of lights from the ships and services silhouetting the cranes and buildings against the night-time backdrop.
She approached the gate slowly, dipping her main beam to avoid irritating the guards and drawing attention to herself. She looked ahead, her eyes grainy and sore from lack of sleep, and prayed that on a cold night like this the guards would only carry out the briefest of inspections.
She recognised his silhouette immediately, the guard who had stopped her the previous morning.
He was wrapped up in a warm coat, a black scarf around his neck, and was pacing in the wind, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘What kinda dickhead walks that way?’ said Ryan, his voice sounding like it might break with nerves.
Dan brought the car to a halt and held her ID up to the window.
He walked over slowly, leaned down and looked at their cards
and then at them.
Dan looked down at the wheel, not sure if he had bothered to look her in the face the last time, certain she wouldn’t give him the chance now.
He paused and then stood up and waved them through.
Dan exhaled as she turned the main beam back on and headed down towards Tenacity.
Submarines are manned by a duty watch at all times, twenty-four hours a day and three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Tonight, though, there was no one around on the jetty, as the security surrounding Tenacity was finally relaxed and the investigation wound up.
Dan still felt herself glance nervously up at the squadron building, checking that all the lights were out as they passed.
‘Park in there,’ said Ryan, pointing.
She pulled into a parking spot next to a Portakabin that sat just outside the perimeter of the exclusion zone. It was the temporary galley, where the duty submariners would come to eat when their galley on board was down for maintenance.
‘So what’s your plan?’ she asked, turning towards Ryan. ‘Are you sure you can get me on board?’
He almost smiled.
‘First, I gotta go see who’s on trot. Once I get them to let me go inside, I’ll go get the combo and bring it here. After, I’ll go back again and distract the trots and you’re on your own.’
Dan knew the route she would take to get into the engine rooms. She had used the aft gangway the first time she had visited Tenacity: as had Walker, on the last time that he did.
‘You sure you want into that safe? I bet it ain’t even used; it’s a pain in the tits to get in there, and if we’re caught …’
‘I’m sure,’ Dan replied.
‘OK,’ he said, resigned. ‘I’ll be back in a while, wait here.’
He climbed out of the car and disappeared into the night.
The while seemed like an eternity as Dan sat alone and watched the dockyard around her. Her eyes were desperate to close, the past days seeming devoid of sleep, but the adrenaline of what she was doing, was about to do, was enough to keep her alert.
A security wagon trundled past, its lights causing her to jump as they suddenly illuminated the car from behind, but the driver and his passenger didn’t even look at Dan as they drove past.
