by J. S. Law
From where she was parked, she couldn’t see the submarine’s casing and so had no idea at all where Ryan had gone. She fingered her phone again, touching the key so that the screen lit up, and cycled between missed calls from Felicity and a single word text message from John, ‘sorry’. She read it again and waited.
Ryan was back suddenly, his hand grasping for the door and pulling it open.
Dan started, quickly putting her phone back down and turning to look at him. He smiled, seemed more relaxed.
‘All OK?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’ He handed over a sheet of paper. ‘Combo for the safe.’
Dan took it and read the numbers. ‘And there are no other safes back there?’
‘Well, yeah, there’s loads, but not down where you’re going.’
‘OK, so I just sneak across the aft gangway, right?’
‘Yeah. The engine room hatch is open with some services running through it. Wait a minute, ’til the trots change over. There’ll be more of ’em there, but they’ll be chatting and stuff. I’ll go talk to ’em, you shoot over onto the casing. The Two Fatties are on watch in the engine rooms.’
Dan raised her eyebrows, even though she knew he couldn’t have seen it, and turned her palms upwards in a shrug.
Ryan caught the second gesture.
‘Two of the afties, both fat, both lazy, too much time scoffing middle watch spuds. They do this watch ’cos they get to do nothing but sit and fill their fat faces with biscuits and pizza. So you should get down to the lower level no bother.’
‘OK,’ she said, feeling anything but.
She looked at the clock; they had a few minutes left before she would need to go. She picked up her phone again and looked at the screen.
‘No signal down there,’ said Ryan.
‘Yeah, I know. No one can hear you scream, eh?’ she said, with a very nervous smile. ‘Ryan, if anything goes wrong, would you call this number?’ She showed him John Granger’s number. ‘Call him and tell him what’s going on, please. He’ll know what to do.’
‘We didn’t think you were the sort to call for help?’ said Ryan.
‘We?’
Ryan smiled. ‘Me and Ben.’
He looked sad, as though the mention of Ben’s name had brought back all the troubles that being focused on this task had removed. ‘We talked about you sometimes. He liked you, you know. I think he’d have helped you.’
Dan smiled. ‘I hope so. We’ll get these guys; I swear it. I just need to confirm something.’
‘Well, now’s the time,’ said Ryan, pointing at the clock. He took the phone and looked at the number. ‘I’ll call if it all goes to shit.’
‘Thank you.’
She stepped out of the car and watched as Ryan got out of the passenger door and dropped the phone into his pocket.
Ryan went first and Dan followed him past the exclusion zone monitor’s box, the monitor’s boots the only thing she could see as she crouched below the level of the window.
‘He’s kipping anyway,’ whispered Ryan. ‘Go.’
Dan peeled off to her right as Ryan continued towards the main gangway.
On the casing she could see a small cluster of sailors talking among themselves.
She darted across to a large piece of equipment and crouched behind it. It wasn’t running and although Dan had no idea what it was, she knew that she would have welcomed the continuous hum of a motor as she looked at the six feet of open space ahead of her. Beyond that followed the twenty feet of bridge-like gangway that would leave her further exposed as she stepped onto the black casing, aft of the submarine’s conning tower.
There were lights all around, and their beams seemed only to accentuate the darkness that they pierced.
Glancing across, she saw Ryan step onto the forward casing and call out to the other submariners.
They turned as one and their greetings were almost audible above the freezing wind.
It was now; never was simply not an option.
She crouched low and scuttled across to the gangway. She’d forgotten about the large tarpaulins that ran down either side of it, proudly displaying the submarine’s name and crest. A spark of relief ignited inside her and she kept low, hidden by the side screens. In seconds, she stepped down onto the aft casing, stumbling as she miscalculated the height of the drop.
The submarine groaned and she heard the roller, which allowed the gangway to move across the casing as the tide ebbed and flowed, grind against the metal surface.
She could still hear the men talking, but the dark shape of the conning tower blocked them from her view. To her immediate right rose a soft glow of light and she was able to see several heavy-duty black hoses running towards it, and down into the engine room hatch. She followed them and then lay down on her belly, dropping her head slowly into the hatch as the sea lapped like oil against Tenacity’s hull. The rim was so deep that she wasn’t able to see a thing and she listened intently instead. The sound of the waves and the gangway groaning with the subtle movements of the water all seemed to grow louder. It was as though the submarine and the elements were working together to prevent any confidence of a safe and undetected descent.
‘Do it, Danny,’ she whispered to herself under her breath.
In a single movement, and trying to ooze confidence, she stood up and quickly climbed down the ladder onto the aft platform, the very spot where she had watched Ben Roach draw his final breath. Her hand went to her pocket, ready to pull out her warrant card and act in a superior manner the second she was challenged. The Milgram experiment was running through her mind, obedience in the face of perceived authority, and that was all her authority would be now: perceived. She clutched her card as she landed gently on the deck plates.
There was no one there.
Glancing through the large, watertight bulkhead door she could see the ankles and black pusser’s socks of one of the watchkeepers resting on a seat.
She listened. The engine room was never completely quiet or free from the hum of some machinery and she finally heard a voice from the manoeuvring room and then, after a pause, the reply. They were both in there.
She turned quickly to her left and looked down the short ladder onto the starting platform, the same entranceway that she had seen Ben’s suffocating body being dragged up while she watched, helpless. She took the short ladder and turned back on herself down onto the second level. As she rounded and descended again, she could see the long drop down into the engine room lower level, the lights dim, the shadows weak, the spectre of Walker’s lifeless body flirting with her imagination. The near vertical ladder disappeared fifteen feet into the depths of the engine rooms, the drop that Walker would have faced before his end. She took a deep breath, faced the ladder and began to descend.
It seemed to take a long time, her forearms and hands tight by the time she had descended all the way. The men, used to these ladders, flew up and down them without a thought, but looking up Dan couldn’t help feeling pleased she’d made it down at all.
She was facing aft, towards the back of Tenacity, and needed to go to the port side ‘dog kennel’, a storage area that was outboard on the left side of the submarine.
Ryan had scoffed at the idea of drawing her a map. It was too simple, he had said. ‘Down the ladder, turn towards port and you can’t miss it.’
‘Come on, Dan, basic stuff,’ she whispered, her throat dry and her stomach churning. She turned so that she was facing forward, towards the bow of the boat. Then she turned left and headed along the walkway past the equipment. When she could go no further, she looked down to her left and instantly recognised why this crawl space would be called the dog kennel.
Her knees felt sore against the metal deck-plates as she knelt down to look inside. It was dark and the lights around her failed to penetrate the space far enough for her to see the back bulkhead. She hesitated for a few moments before drawing out her small torch, gritting her teeth and crawling in. The safe, long, thin and
antiquated, was halfway into the space; its chunky black dial looked worn and loose.
Dan pulled the paper that Ryan had given her out of her pocket, rested it on the floor, and began to turn the dial and input the combination to open the safe. Five turns clockwise to clear it, stopping at twenty-six, then four turns back anti-clockwise to number six, then three turns clockwise to the number five, and finally two turns to zero. When she had done that, she turned the dial sharply to the right and pulled. Nothing.
‘Shit,’ she whispered, instantly wondering if Ryan had given her the wrong numbers.
She took a deep breath and spun the dial five times again.
It opened on her third attempt and she smiled. She pulled the door open, and then lifted the whole door off as it easily disengaged from its slot hinges. She placed it down beside her and looked inside.
‘Holy shit,’ she said.
The safe was probably a metre long and maybe half that in depth and height. Stacked in there, taking up almost ninety per cent of the space alongside some thick technical reference books and a short coil of EBS hose, were neatly stacked bricks, each wrapped in brown paper.
Dan had hoped to find some pictures, maybe a trophy or anything else that would link Ben Roach, the Old Man or the Chief Stoker to Walker’s suicide, Cheryl Walker’s assault and murder, or any crime at all. As she looked at the bricks now, she felt breathless. Leaning in, she pulled one out and ripped the brown paper. The brilliant white powder packed tight into the polythene bag seemed to cast off its own light in the gloom.
She had found a motive for murder.
Chapter 38
Sunday Morning (Early Hours) – 5th October 2014
‘You’ll be wanting to come out of there please, ma’am.’
Dan spun towards the voice, startled. She was hunched forward in the cramped confines and lost her balance, over correcting and falling onto her rump as she looked up.
The Coxswain was squatting down at the entrance to the dog kennel. He smiled at her, his arms folded across his chest.
Dan looked at him, then back to the open safe and the packages of drugs now in plain sight.
‘The Special Investigation Branch are on their way. You’re done, Jago,’ she said, hearing the waver in her own voice.
She watched him smile, tried to read his friendly face and calm manner.
He must have watched her expression change and laughed, actually laughed out loud at her. ‘I don’t think anyone’s coming, Dan, can I be calling you that now? I think it’s Danny for your close friends, isn’t it? Well, we did a lot of checking on you before you came here, Danny, and we’re thinking you don’t know how to be asking for help. So I’m going to be feeling pretty confident that no one’s on their way. I bet no one even knows you’re here. Hell, Johnny-boy Granger was telling me that charging on into places all on your own is something of a trait of yours.’
Dan stared at him, refusing to break eye contact.
He stepped forward and offered her his hand.
‘Come on,’ he said, as though he were talking to a small child. ‘Let’s be having you out of there.’
Dan jerked away, shuffling on her bum further into the dead end of the dog kennel and further away from him. She dropped her torch, instinctively scrabbling to find it again. The sound of it rattling off metal as it dropped down into the bilge below mimicked her diminishing hopes as she shuffled backwards further into the dark.
‘Don’t make this hard, Danny. You’ll only go making me hard,’ he said, smiling. ‘You didn’t get to feel me hard on our date, only my fingers. But you might not remember that.’
Dan’s stomach tightened and she felt a sense of nausea grow in her gut. ‘Fuck off,’ she said, looking around her. She had crawled back further into the space now and the long, reinforced safe door lay on the deck between her and the exit where the Coxswain, Jago Maddock, was waiting.
‘People know I’m here. They’re on their way. Don’t make it any worse, Jago,’ she shouted, hoping she might be heard.
He smiled again. He seemed to be in no hurry at all.
‘Ryan Taylor has already called the dockyard police too,’ she shouted. ‘You’re done. Now back away.’
He laughed again. ‘Ryan, eh? We’ve been a bit worried about him. He’s not been liking me much since the whole “Ben Roach” incident; you could say he hasn’t been talking to me, feels like we should have dealt with Ben differently. But it turned out that our Ben was loving the money, didn’t mind beating up women, but bottled it when you turned up the heat. He thought he might get caught and was thinking he could hang us out to dry, snitch on all of us, show you some of this stuff and hope to get off for being a grass.’
The Coxswain shook his head and managed to look genuinely disappointed.
‘Now old Ryan, he’s a really complicated one. That boy loves the money. He was pissed about Ben, all right, but he was even more pissed that we were going to have to sit on this lot for another patrol. I think he nearly wet himself when you gave him the opportunity to get us back into Devonport.’
Dan looked at him, looked at his relaxed face and patient smile as he spoke.
‘You really thought you managed to trick a submarine communicator into sending a signal without the Old Man knowing?’ said the Coxswain, looking incredulous and shaking his head. ‘I’d been thinking better of you, truth be known. Anyway, Ryan’s forward of the Tunnel now, waiting to come and help unload this little lot.’
He leaned forward and looked around as though he was going to confide in her. ‘I think he’s forgiven us for killing his precious Ben; seems love does have a price.’
‘Cheryl Walker?’ said Dan, looking around, frantically trying to think of a way out. ‘What was the price for her life?’
He looked perplexed by that, so much so that Dan focused on him for a moment, watching as the cogs turned. ‘She was alive and breathing when I left her,’ he said after a moment, shrugging as if it were one of life’s little mysteries that might never be solved.
‘You mean you raped her and killed her, and when Ben found out, he wouldn’t go along with it,’ Dan shouted, hoping someone might hear her as she reached down into the bilge and tried to feel for her keys and torch. ‘You’ll go down for her murder. You and anyone who helped you.’
‘I won’t.’ He shrugged, so calm that it seemed he really couldn’t have cared less whether Dan believed him or not. ‘Now out you come, now.’
He reached forward into the tunnel and Dan kicked out at his hand the instant it came near.
‘You’ll not be wanting to do that again, Danny. I’m not one who’s known for my patience.’
He reached for her again, having to turn his body and extend his arm to full stretch to even come close without entering the dog kennel himself.
Dan waited a bit longer this time, until she could see his hand and forearm within range, then she kicked out hard, aiming her toecap at his forearm and hitting it clean.
‘Fuck. You stupid bitch.’
She could see his face as he checked his arm, his teeth gritted and his breathing starting to get heavier.
‘Now come out of there,’ he said, his voice rising now and his lips curling into a snarl.
He leaned forward into the entrance and Dan shuffled back again; this time she hit the cold, hard surface that marked the end of the space.
‘You’re going to jail for murder,’ she shouted.
The metal around her reverberated as her foot slipped and kicked against the side as she pushed herself backwards. The noise was loud and sustained and she kicked again, fumbling around in the dark for something else to use to hit against the hull that would make more noise.
She could see him starting to shake; his face looked different, contorted.
‘Stop that and come out of there,’ he shouted. ‘Do as you’re fucking told.’
Even in the dim light, she was sure she saw some spittle running down his chin as his rage seemed to grow with every shallow breath.
She grabbed at the safe door, wielding it in front of her, and smashed it against the side of the submarine. The clang of metal against metal rang out, carrying easily in the silent spaces. She lifted it again.
He leaned further forward and began to lunge quickly into the kennel, his arms outstretched towards her.
Dan panicked. Instinctively, she hefted the long safe door in front of her; using all her strength, she drove it towards him. From a seated position she couldn’t get much power behind it, but her effort, combined with the speed at which he was approaching, meant that the metal-reinforced wood struck him hard in the face, right across the bridge of his nose.
He stopped, stunned for a second, and Dan, seizing her only chance, spun onto her knees and drove the door into him again.
This time she pushed herself up to a standing crouch and charged towards the Coxswain.
He fell backwards, clutching his face, and toppled onto the platform outside.
As soon as she was clear of the restrictive confines of the dog kennel, Dan raised the door again and brought it down with all her might onto the Coxswain’s head. She was sure that it had landed solidly, but she did it again anyway. Then she threw the door down onto him and ran towards the long ladder that would take her back up towards the platform and out of the submarine.
She grasped the first rung of the ladder and began to climb. Her hands were shaking and she felt as though she had no strength left anywhere within her. Her feet missed the unfamiliar rungs, slipping off, but she began to climb as quickly as she was able.
Her hand had grasped the final rung when she heard him mount the ladder below her.
His heavy breathing was distorted by muttering and swearing that Dan couldn’t fully make out and his feet rattled on the rungs in quick succession as he climbed up behind her.
Dan knew, before it had happened, that he was on her, his hand reaching for her ankle.
An infusion of adrenaline burst into her as she gripped tight to a single rung with both hands and pushed her feet off the ladder below her. Her body dropped to arm’s length and she kicked out hard in all directions, flailing her legs as though she were drowning and was fighting to keep afloat.
