by Nick Fisher
And these hobby divers also nurture a powerful sense of self-righteousness. They see themselves as a benign and nature-loving force. Peaceful crusaders who seek to visit these wondrous underwater locations, not to rape and pillage and kill and remove, but only to observe and marvel, and make videos to post on websites and YouTube.
They are not hunters. They are simply spectators. They want only to photograph aquatic wildlife, not remove it and sell it to the Spanish and French. They are even prepared to part with substantial amounts of their hard office-earned cash for the privilege of being able to sink beneath the waves and record the mating displays of a tub gurnard or a spawn-heavy ballan wrasse.
In their eyes, the act of diving is all about observing, documenting and conserving what is a beautiful natural asset, in which we all deserve an equal share. The crabbers and commercial fishermen, on the other hand, believe that as their families have earned a living by removing fish from these locations for generations, long before neoprene was even invented, it is they that have a God-given right to continue to bugger and molest fish stocks.
And those playtime chubby rubber-wrapped dive buddies can just go and fuck themselves.
The mutual animosity means that some divers believe they’re doing a right and just and noble thing when they tamper with the awful keeper pots, by releasing those horribly and unfairly imprisoned crustaceans from the evil crabbers’ clutches.
Sadly, what they don’t do is think through the logic of the act they’re committing. If a crab’s had his claw tendons clipped in order that he can be safely incarcerated and not eat or crush his fellow inmates, it means he’ll be unable to defend himself, hunt or even just survive, in the wild. More likely he’ll just starve in a horrible, slow death, when he’s released back to the wide open sea, where good food has to be fought for.
Walking back across town, from the station, cutting through Asda car park and over the Town Bridge, Matty hangs a left towards The Sailors, and that’s when he first sees them, parked in The Loop car park. Two big bright orange RIBs – rigid inflatable boats – towed behind two almost identical four-wheel drive VW people-carriers. Both sporting the same self-adhesive decals and bumper stickers, announcing that these vehicles have travelled from Kidderminster, and reminding anyone, who might have possibly forgotten, that ‘Divers do it Deeper’.
The cartoon character of a neoprene-clad comedy diver grinning from the arse-end of a VW Caravelle eight-seater, catches Matty’s eye as he makes a beeline for The Sailors. Matty feeling confident that he can find someone in the pub to bankroll him a couple of drinks and maybe even a quarter Charlie, or at the very least a couple of Es.
The presence of the two dive RIBs in the car park tell Matty that the recreational dive fraternity clubs are here tonight in force. Probably means there is some big club outing or competition or something equally pointless going on. The roar of laughter from the Wetherspoons telling Matty that the massed body of divers were in the middle of some jolly drinking game and that the RIBs, and probably all the local dive boats too, would be out on the early morning ebb, aiming to catch the slack between the tides. The slack being the time the divers would most want to shoot their shot-lines and descend to the wrecks, reefs or maybe even drift-dive on the sandbanks.
Matty feeling a stiff breeze whip down the harbour making the tethered boats swing and jostle with each other and causing the wires on the yachts to clack and clang against their masts. He is almost at the door of The Sailors, well past the parked dive club RIBs, when it hits him, like a fucking toe-punt to the testicles.
There must be upward of 50 divers hoping to dive tomorrow morning, the rash of RIBs and people carriers and 4x4s in The Loop car park could hold that many, at least. And, what with a southerly wind whistling up the harbour mouth, this means the sea will have a big old ugly chop on it in the morning.
The chop wouldn’t affect the divers’ pursuit of pleasure when they were beneath the waves, but the chop would make their journey out across the bay very bumpy and very painful. Out-of-shape townie hungover hobby divers might well enjoy a feeling of weightlessness when they’re deep under the waves supported by salty seawater, but they do not like the sensation of pounding across short, sharp, spine-jarring white horses as they make their way to their chosen dive site, sat astride the narrow hard saddle of a RIB.
Tomorrow’s bad weather would seriously compromise the divers’ travelling range. They won’t be able to reach the far wrecks or the bigger reefs without pounding their tender kidneys to a painful mush. And so, they will reduce their expectations. Each of the dive masters and the local dive boat skippers will no doubt at this very moment be making executive decisions to change plans and dive some much nearer marks instead, rather than punishing their hangovers in an attempt to reach far off wrecks.
Matty realising that what they’ll most likely choose to do instead is to drift-dive over some of the nearer sandbanks, looking for blonde rays, undulate rays, turbot, brill, plaice, spider crabs and big red gurnard. Maybe even dropping off the rough rocky southern edge to collect a few scallops.
Meanwhile the cheekier divers amongst them will definitely make it their business to fuck with any keeper pots they might happen upon. And maybe even steal or release any lobsters they find incarcerated in any parlour pot that might, by some fluke chance have been shot along the edge of the sandbank.
Drift-diving a flat sandbank can get very boring even by the standards of your average office-working weekend-diving gas monkey. By it’s very nature a sandbank is an underwater desert. Not too many fish earn a living on sand. Sure, rays and plaice, turbot and brill are all equipped with the right kind of camouflage to make the sand a safe place for them to hang, but no one grows fat living on sand.
Kidney Bank is one of the favourite bad weather drift-diving sites and, although there’s rarely much potting gear on the bank, with that many keen-as-mustard divers descending at slack water, you can be pretty fucking sure someone’s going to have a close look at any pots they do find, on that sandy barren seabed. Probably stick a gloved hand in there too.
Adrian couldn’t eat. It felt like a knot had been tied in his stomach. Making his gullet feel raw and stingy. Helen was worried. She’d put meals in front of him and the boys; Jack and Josh attacking their platefuls like terriers with tapeworm, while Adrian sat staring at his baked potato like it was a galaxy of stars in a far off universe. Never even lifting his fork. His eyes wet and glazed.
He blamed the shock and the grief. She blamed the shock and the grief. But he felt nothing. No grief. No shock. Nothing. Like his insides had been hollowed out and repacked with polystyrene balls.
To make her feel better, he told her he felt hungry now and was going downstairs to eat his dinner, which she’d covered with a plate and left in the fridge. They’re in bed and she’s asking him questions, and telling him he should talk about it. Suggesting that if he just talked a bit about what happened and how he felt then, and feels now, it’ll soon begin to shift things. It’ll feel a bit better, less huge. Will lighten his load, if he shares his pain.
All he can see now, lying in bed, in the semi-darkness with his eyes shut, and his neck propped up on the mountain of decorative pillows – which seemed to be breeding and multiplying every week – was the back of Tim’s head. Didn’t make any difference if he shut his eyes or opened them a crack. All he could see was the dirty lank hair, the ring of spots around his grimy neck and the meat of the baseball bat crunching into the thick curved bone at the base of his skull. He could see it all again. A perfect replay, the noise, the vibrations, the shudder through the bat, as it made contact. Only now he could hear it louder and more sickening than ever before.
He lied and told Helen he was feeling hungry, but all he can taste is bile. She wants to warm his dinner for him, watch him eat. He manages to persuade her to stay in bed, knowing the long-term fatigue of running around after two toddlers all day will have her snoring in her mountain of pillows in a matter of minutes.
Even though he can’t eat, Adrian still puts his plate of dinner in the microwave for two minutes and lets the timer ping. Their house is so tiny. Sounds, especially at night, can travel half way down the street. She’ll be dozing. She’ll be listening for the timer to ping. Listening, trying to catch him out about not eating. Once the two minutes is up, Adrian takes the plate out of the microwave and sits and watches his dinner cool and congeal for the next half an hour, until finally he can hear the rhythm of her gentle snore from the bedroom above.
He opens a Tesco carrier bag and scrapes the cold thick food from the plate, feeling the knot in his stomach tighten and heave. He ties the handles of the bag together and opens the back door onto their tiny back garden. Adrian sneaks out the back gate to hide the evidence in next door’s dustbin, just in case tomorrow Helen decides to snoop for proof that he still isn’t eating.
In the lane, just outside the dim glow of the one weak street light, Matty is waiting.
Matty talks too fast and way too loud, Adrian pushing him further down the lane away from his house, in case the sound of Matty’s rant wakes Helen. There is no love lost. Helen is the kindest, purest-hearted woman Adrian has ever known: she finds the good in anyone and never, ever bitches about other people – even the ones who totally deserve it – and yet even Helen will bristle at the sight or sound of his little brother.
Matty ranting about divers. Boat-loads of them. The stench of vodka and cider and Golden Virginia making Adrian’s eyes water as Matty swears now about the weather forecast. The Met Office giving it fives increasing to sixes by midday. He swears about the size of the swell, the incline of the waves, the seas that will stop the hoard of divers making it out to the bigger wrecks and force them to execute their dives inside the shelter of Weymouth Bay instead. So they’ll dive on the sandbanks instead of further out amongst the sunken twisted ships.
“They’ll be trying to spear plaice on the fucking banks,” he said. “They’ll be scalloping on the ledges. No way they won’t dive the Kidney.”
Adrian could feel the hairs prickle on his neck. Matty’s rant reaching the point where it finally makes some sense. Weekend divers simply cannot leave crab pots alone. Any gear they come across during their ‘down time’ – whether it’s trammel nets, tangle nets, gill nets, cuttle traps or crab pots – bet your baby’s eyesight, they’ll fuck with it. Especially on a sandbank, which by its very nature is a desolate, desert-like feature, without much to entertain a hyperactive gas monkey, except the pursuit of the rather too well-camouflaged flatties. If they happen upon pots on the bank they will investigate, at the very least, to see what lurks inside. And if they find a pot rammed full of plastic wrapped black hash, what then?
“No fucking way can we leave it out there,” Matty says.
Adrian staring into his face, like it’s another plate of congealing chilli con carne and baked potato. Adrian lost in doubt and shame and fear. Then, snapping out of it, as his coping mechanism kicks in.
“We can’t use the Kitty,” he says. “She’s impounded. For forensics.”
“Fuck that,” says Matty. “She’s still tied to the harbour wall. We can be out and back before anyone knows.”
Adrian found himself looking at his watch, calculating, mentally factoring in the big ebb tide that was about to start flowing east to west which would give them a boost if they got out the harbour within the hour.
Adrian now thinking about Helen waking up. Shifting over to find his side of the bed cold. Padding through the house in her slipper socks, looking for him. Seeing his boots and overalls gone from the back door. She knows the Kitty is impounded. So her subsequent interrogation of him, about where he disappeared to in the dead of night, will be razor-sharp. His answers would need to be watertight. Or else, she’ll smell rat all over him.
Bugsy didn’t die that winter after all. Not because Helen begged for her life. Or cried or pleaded with her father to save her favourite pig. Bugsy didn’t die that winter because Helen’s dad decided she should live. Boy pigs are ten-a-penny, and useless for anything other than meat. Girl pigs can be tupped. Served. Impregnated. They can carry piglets. Spill them in the straw. Suckle them. Grow them into little weaned butterballs of sausage filler.
His big sow was 12 years old. She would need to be replaced. Sooner rather than later. Of course Bugsy was no pedigree. She wasn’t going to win any mantelpiece of ribbons at the Melplash Show, but she had heft. Her pelvis was wide. He could always buy a new boar for less than 50 quid this time of year. No one wanted to feed animals through the winter only for them to have lost weight by February, and cost good money in the process.
He could buy in a new boar. Probably even swap something with one of his mates over in the Marshwood Vale. Not even have to put his hand in his pocket. Which he never really liked to do. He’s got a pair of new trailer tyres that don’t fit on his current pig box. Someone’ll trade. Give him a boar. Bring in new blood. He can’t cover Bugsy with her father or a brother. But he could cover her with a new boar.
The Ridouts over in Toller Fratrum keep a strain of wild boar crossed with saddleback. Long snouted things with scrawny rear ends. Still, wild boar-cross meat makes good money. Pubs loving to put ‘wild boar sausages’ on their blackboard menu, a few places up above the sticky toffee pudding and six local cheeses.
Cover Bugsy with one of the Ridout wild boar-cross boars. Why not? Those hairy boys can eat for England. He definitely wouldn’t need to be digging more holes to bury any rabbit guts and heads. Not with those boys in his sty.
He knew about the tape. Adrian had seen the crime scene officers stretch the blue-and-white ‘Police – Do Not Cross’ tape all around the deck rails of the Kitty K before he left the harbour on the day of Tim’s death. He’d seen the forensic guys tie her up to the inside harbour wall; the Harbour Master, directing proceedings, wearing his peaked hat and carrying a walkie-talkie, which everyone in the harbour knew didn’t work. He was trying to look officious and efficient for the benefit of all the official guys in uniforms.
Adrian had seen them wrap an adhesive sticky version of the ‘Police – Do Not Cross’ tape around the mooring ropes and wrapping it over the cast iron bollard on the quay. But what he hadn’t seen was what they’d done to his wheelhouse door.
Matty and Adrian now staring down at the police-issue tamper-proof seal, that’d been drilled and threaded through the door and door pillar. They’d drilled holes in his door for fuck’s sake! To insert a thick cable wire connected to the police tamper-proof seal. Adrian supposing they did it because the wheelhouse door was the only part of the whole boat they could actually secure. Only part of the whole vessel that made any sense to them.
Couldn’t do fuck all with the 36 foot open steel deck. But show them a door, that’s different. They can secure a door. No problem. Just drill it. Wire it. Clamp on a tamper-proof seal. Job done.
Adrian now looking at the seal in the glimmer of the dull sodium yellow street lights, with a sense of hopeless dread. They’re fucked. No way can they open the door without breaching the seal. No way can they steer the boat, even start the engine, without opening the wheelhouse door. Could ask to borrow someone else’s boat maybe, if he rings around a few numbers Adrian could find one of the skippers who’d be prepared to drive down the harbour and hand over their keys. Maybe. For a price. Which wouldn’t be the real problem. Real problem would be the questions. Why do they need to borrow a crab boat in the dead of night? Did it have something to do with Tim’s death? What are they going to do while they’re out at sea? And why can’t it wait until daylight?
The more Adrian stares at the police issue tamper-proof seal, the more his heart sinks and the higher up his throat the level of bitter juice rises. He’s distracted by a noise behind him, sound of the toolbox lid closing and Matty moving up beside him. A claw hammer swings across his field of vision and smashes into the tamper-proof seal. One big meaty strike, ripping it from its steel wires.
All the w
ay to the Kidney Bank, the amber engine warning light of the Kitty K flashes on and off intermittently. She is sick. This is her cry for help. Her amber light. Her warning. Her way of telling Adrian she is about to cough up her lungs and die, with his hands still warm on her wheel. The blinking amber light could not be a clearer signal of impending mechanical doom. And yet, it barely registers with Adrian. Mainly because he already feels that all is lost.
All the way out to the Kidney Bank, as the amber warning light blinks, Adrian is scouring his brain. Searching every corner and crevice to try and find any excuse that would help him explain, to whoever asks; the police, the Harbour Master, his wife… but most of all the police, why he had defied their warnings and consciously contaminated a potential crime scene.
He had been expressly told not to use or touch his boat until the crime scene officers had finished investigating. What he was doing now constituted the crime of tampering with and attempting to conceal evidence.
Matty stands beside him, both of them staring out into the pitch black, the distant flash of Portland Bill lighthouse on the portside and the eerie orange glow in the sky over to the east was cast by the street lights of Bournemouth, 25 miles around the Jurassic coast, hidden by Old Harry’s Rock. Kitty’s navigation lights are all switched off. They don’t want anyone on shore, or at sea, to notice them, or have any chance of tracking where they’ve been.
All the regular instrument panel lights are switched off too, as is the GPS plotter screen and the echo sounder. The instruments all off, in order to reduce any glare, and give their eyes a better chance to adapt to the dark. The fact that every other light is switched off makes the blinking amber engine warning light ever harder to ignore. But they do. Neither brother even mentions it. They just stare out at the sea ahead, searching for a pot buoy.
