Dead Watch: a fast-paced thriller you don't want to miss

by Steve Liszka

  That was the idea anyway, but in reality, it never really happened. It wasn’t that he didn’t earn a decent wage in the fire service, because he did; he had friends who would be happy to take home his pay packet. But by the same token, he knew labourers who took home more money than he did once he had paid his tax and pension contributions. Jen worked when she could, she had a part time job in a care home down the road, but her work hours had to revolve around taking the kids to and from school, and his shifts.

  In order to pay the mortgage, the bills and all the other bollocks that went with it, Jimmy had found himself working more and more with Bob, and seeing less and less of Jen and the kids. Becky was going on eight, George was four, and he knew he should have been there more to watch them grow up. Before long, they’d be stroppy teenagers not wanting to know their old dad, so while they were willing, he should make the most of it. Yet, it seemed like it was only at the weekends that the family got to be together, and by then, he was too knackered to do much of anything.

  Jen also felt it and would encourage him as often as possible to do less work and spend more time with them. It usually ended up in them fighting, especially when he had to remind her that unless they wanted to end up knee-deep in debt, like so many other people they knew, he would have to keep working. Becky had been nagging them for riding lessons for months, and for some reason, Jen had agreed to it. Who did she think was going to pay for them? There was no riding lesson fairy who could wave her wand and give the girl what she wanted.

  So, yes, things had been bit a sticky for the two of them lately, and money, or the lack of it, seemed to be at the core of their problems. But would Jimmy have done what the others had done that night and taken the cash? Would he bollocks. He knew with complete certainty that if he had been in charge, it wouldn’t have happened, simple as that. Yet, as usual, it was him trying to solve the mess they had gotten themselves in. If that bastard came around again wanting to get his money’s worth out of the Watch, then Jimmy was worried he would have to take matters into his own hands, and all he could see if that happened was things getting very nasty, very quickly. The guy had frightened him the day before, and it was a feeling Jimmy hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Even so, if he needed to, he would protect his Watch. That’s what he was there for.

  ‘Come on, then, sunshine,’ Bob said. ‘These footings aren’t going to dig themselves. Now, do me a favour and get the breaker from the van. My old legs aren’t what they used to be.’

  Jimmy rolled his eyes. ‘Seriously, what would you do without me, you lazy old bastard?’

  Bodhi

  Bodhi sipped the last of his coffee and stared at the Adur River. He had been watching it for the last hour. It was one of the things that he liked to do to every day; sit and watch the river from the comfort of his home. At high tide, the water would raise his boat completely out of the water, but it had receded to almost a trickle, and he could barely see it over the sand and grasses that would be underwater in a few hours. This was his favourite time, when low tide would soon be on them. He loved the low tide, because if the wind was right, and that day it was, then it was time for him to get out and do his thing.

  He got up from his hammock and took another glance at the windsock that hung from the twelve-foot pole next to him. As was normally the case, the wind was blowing from a south-westerly direction and looked to be gusting at around twenty miles per hour. It was perfect. He stretched his arms into the air until he was standing on tiptoes and could reach no higher, then he bent over like a jack-knife, grabbing his ankles so that his curly hair brushed against the floor. He held the pose for nearly a minute then performed half a dozen sun salutations. When he was done, he left the deck of his houseboat and headed below to grab his gear.

  Shoreham-by-Sea was a rapidly growing ex-fishing village situated six miles to the West of Brighton. For years, the town had been a pretty but rather quiet place, with not an awful lot going on. The crazy price hikes that had taken place in Brighton, as more and more commuters moved down from London to live out their seaside dream, now meant Shoreham had become a highly desirable place for young families to live. As a result, the town had changed a great deal in a relatively short time. A large development of swanky flats and townhouses had sprung along the river, and was soon followed by gastro pubs, restaurants and a newly pedestrianised high street where every other building was now a coffee shop with outdoor seating in the summer months. It was a nice town, all right, but certainly not spectacular.

  The one talking point that did mark Shoreham out as different, and even brought tourists in to view the attraction, was the thirty or so houseboats that lined the southern bank of the Adur. The river travelled down from the north alongside the western edge of the town, then just before it hit the coast, it meandered sharply to the east for the best part of a mile then turned south again and met up with the sea. The spit of land that the river’s course had created was known simply as Shoreham Beach, and for many years, the place had been home to all manner of interesting people.

  At the end of the beach was a fort that was created in the 1850s when the government was still paranoid about being attacked by the French. The whole venture turned out to be a waste of time as they stayed away, and no action was ever seen there. Instead, in the early twentieth century, the place was transformed into a film studio due to the good light that was meant to bestow the place. The studio brought with it a number of actors who no one could probably name anymore, but at the time were superstars of the silent movies. Many of them ended up staying in the area and buying houses on the beach.

  If you took a stroll along the pebbles and checked out those houses, it would be hard not to be impressed by the sheer variety of architectural styles. There were art deco towers, concrete monoliths, New-England-style wooden houses and a couple of mansions with more bedrooms than you could count on first passing. It was an impressive gathering of styles and ideas, but nothing on the beach could match the originality and eccentricity of the houseboats and their owners.

  The first of the houseboats had rocked up in Shoreham in the seventies on a tide of flower power and hippy positivity. These boats were owned by artists, artisans, musicians and anyone else who had tuned in, turned on and copped out of a society they felt isolated from. When you looked at the boats, it was easy to see which came first. The one with a bus welded to the sides and a giant butterfly on the front immediately grabbed the visitor’s attention, but there was also the giant minesweeper that had to wait for the largest tide in years before it could make its way up the river without getting stuck on a sandbank, or the tugboat that on a low tide leaned so much to one side, it was a wonder that the residents could walk in a straight line without holding on to something.

  Many of the newer boats that made Shoreham their home were not there for the alternative lifestyle, but to find an affordable home in an increasingly unaffordable area. Some of these boats looked more like floating penthouses displaying swish lines and curves, and made of cutting-edge materials. Bodhi’s boat fell somewhere in between. Five years earlier, a friend of a friend had moved their crumbling boat out of its moorings and sold it to him for what was a ridiculously cheap price. He had bought the hull of an old disused coal barge for pennies, then spent the next few years building a timber framed construction on top of it that was worthy of any house builder’s praise.

  He had decked out the interior of the boat in a mash-mash of things he had salvaged when he was still working as a trio with Jimmy and Bob. The open plan living area was a sight to behold. The kitchen cabinets were constructed of old wooden pallets, and the worktops were made from sanded and varnished plywood that had cost next to nothing. The furniture was constructed of scaffold planks and driftwood he had collected from the beach, and parquet tiles taken up from a school hall they had renovated, lined the floor. In theory, it shouldn’t have worked, but anyone who had visited would have told you it did. It had taken three years to get the boat as he liked it, and Bodhi
had done every single scrap of work with his own bare hands.

  When he first joined East Sussex Fire Service, he swore he would never move there. Despite what most people said, he didn’t think that Brighton was that great a place. It was all right, yeah, but if you wanted to go to a decent place by the sea, then you should try going to Cornwall, his part of the world. The place was rammed with some of the prettiest coastal towns and villages you could imagine. Compared to them, Brighton really was nothing special. And then, there was the beach; it was full of pebbles, for one thing, and only a stone’s throw from the main road. He used to laugh at the thought of Londoners wasting a day travelling down to Brighton Pier when if they’d only driven a few hours further, they could have seen something really special. Even Devon and bloody Somerset were better places to go.

  Finally, and this was the thing that well and truly made Bodhi’s mind up about never living in Brighton, was the surf, or lack of it, to be precise. Sure, there was a little wave just outside of the Marina or the Hot Pipe next to the power station, but without meaning to be disrespectful to the local surfers who raved about them, it was usually wind-generated slop they surfed, and a poor substitute for a man who had been brought up surfing the pristine groundswell of North Cornwall’s bays.

  No, Brighton was never a place Bodhi intended to call home, and a career in the fire service was something he had never bargained on, either. The whole thing had pretty much happened by accident, which kind of made him feel guilty, knowing how hard some people had tried to get into the job, and how many failed attempts it had taken them before they finally got in. Bodhi was accepted on his first time of trying, and he wasn’t even trying that hard; he’d just gone along for the ride. But then again, he was a surfer, and that was what surfers did. For them, it was all about the ride.

  Before he’d joined up, Bodhi’s life had revolved around surfing. He first took to the waves when he was seven, and his uncle, a devotee of the sport who had no children of his own, took him out into the white water on the biggest board he owned. Bodhi was instantly hooked, right there and then. When he managed to stand up and catch his first wave, he resolved that, like his uncle, he was going to spend the rest of his life surfing. And he did too. Except for the few months of the year when it was too cold for a young lad to get in the water, Bodhi was a regular site on Watergate Bay. It was only a mile from his house, and he used to cycle there with one hand as his other gripped his board.

  He could never understand why his dad hadn’t followed his brother into the water. He was strong and athletic, and Bodhi was fairly certain he would have been a natural. The man was also a workhouse; he spent all his time on the building site as a bricklayer and was always too knackered to even contemplate hitting the water when his day finished. Bodhi admired his father’s work ethic, and elements of it he would end up adopting himself, but, for him, even though he knew how to graft, work was just a way of financing his adventures in the water.

  When he left school with no qualifications (why learn when you can surf), Bodhi became a hod carrier for his old man, and very soon, his life took on a pattern that would continue until he found the fire service. He would bust his ass working long days on site through the summer, and proving himself to be a practical young man who could turn his hand to most things. It wasn’t long before he was laying bricks himself, or whatever else needed doing. When he wasn’t working, he was surfing.

  When it grew colder, Bodhi would take the money he had saved over the previous months and head to warmer climes. In the first few years, he stayed relatively local, camping in Biarritz or southern Spain, but as the years went by, he pushed further out to more exotic destinations like Indonesia, South Africa and Australia. It was a simple hand-to-mouth existence, but Bodhi loved it and wouldn’t change his lifestyle for anyone. He didn’t need money when he had some of the best waves in the world at his disposal.

  Then one year, when he was in his late twenties, it all changed. The summer was drawing to a close, and he was preparing for what would be his biggest trip to date. He was heading to Hawaii, the Mecca of the surfing world. He had wanted to go there since he was a kid. He still had a poster on his wall of the legendary Ken Bradshaw, a beast of a man and a beast of a surfer, hammering down the face of a thirty-foot wave in Waimea Bay. The place was the home of big wave surfing. The home of icons like Gregg Knoll, who had turned up there one summer in the sixties with a bunch of friends and spent every day out in the break, perfecting their surfing in the day and sleeping on the beach and getting drunk in the evenings. Bodhi was going to go to the place where surfing royalty was made. He was going to the North Shore.

  About a month before he was due to leave, Johnny-Boy, one of his surfer buddies, told Bodhi he was going to East Sussex at the weekend as the fire service were holding an open day for candidates. Bodhi knew Johnny had been trying to get into the job for years, it was all he ever talked about. He had applied to join all the local brigades, but it was only East Sussex who was taking on at that time. It could be another year or two before Cornwall or Devon started employing. Johnny didn’t fancy going all the way there on his own, and wanting a little moral support, he invited Bodhi along for the ride. Bodhi agreed right away. He wasn’t doing anything that weekend, and the chance of a wave was zero, so fuck it. He decided to go and help out his friend.

  He didn’t know why he took his sports kit along with him, maybe it was fate. Bodhi was a pretty reflective kind of dude, and while he wasn’t even sure if such a thing as fate existed, he was into the whole Karma vibe. Once, he had gone out with a yoga teacher who had told him that Bodhi was actually a Buddhist term and referred to the truth or enlightenment of men. So, perhaps when Johnny-Boy picked him up that Saturday morning, Bodhi was just playing out the role the universe had planned for him since the dawn of time. Or maybe, he just wanted to get involved; he wasn’t one for being a spectator.

  Being healthy surfer types, both guys nailed the fittest tests, and even though he was no academic, the written tests were pretty straightforward too. You just had to prove you were fairly literate for the English section, and the maths, luckily for him, was based around practical things he could relate to. It was the whole ‘If a tanker holds five thousand litres of oil, but is losing 120 litres a minute, how long will it take for it to be empty?’ kind of vibe.

  Two weeks later, the successful pair had to return for their practical, role-based tests. Again, they both stormed most of the challenges. Running out lengths of hose, although tricky until you got the knack, had been no real obstacle for them. They both flew through the strength exercises, carrying various pieces of equipment and hauling them aloft, and both were fine on the ladder tests, neither having a problem with heights. It was only when they were made to go through the rat run; a series of tunnels that were only just big enough to crawl through, did Johnny’s problems begin. Wearing full fire-kit and breathing apparatus, he had to go through the run in complete darkness in less than five minutes. Two minutes into the exercise, Johnny became aware he was more claustrophobic than he’d ever considered. The instructors had had to open the side panel and let him out when he started freaking out after getting stuck going around a tight corner. Bodhi was in and out of the run in the quickest time of the day.

  Luckily, Johnny took it well when he found out Bodhi had been offered a job. The interview had taken place a week later, and he had come out of it smelling of roses. His training was due to start a month later, two weeks after he was meant to be flying to Hawaii. Bodhi always said that he fell into the job, but there must have been something about it that made him give up on the biggest trip of his career. Maybe he recognised in himself that he was going to be a good firefighter, perhaps even better than he was a surfer, and that was saying something. Bodhi’s dedication meant he was one of the best surfers in Cornwall, which basically meant one of the best in the country. If he’d wanted to, he probably could have made a half-decent living on the pro tours, but that wasn’t his style. Surfing
for him was about being out there doing what you love, not competing against your mates for a cheque and trophy.

  Training school wasn’t a problem for him. Okay, some of the classroom stuff may have tripped him up now and then; he was surprised by how much science was involved, but he struggled through. On the fire-ground, though, he had no equal. His time on sites had equipped him with the practical mind and can-do attitude that most firefighters longed for. Unsurprisingly, at the end of the sixteen weeks, he was awarded the Silver Axe, and unlike in Jo’s case, the other recruits were genuinely pleased for him.

  So, Bodhi got a job at Brighton, but due to his dislike of the place, he was determined to do what numerous other firefighters before him had done and commute for his four days of work. He would rock up at the station in his prized VW Westfalia camper van, and at the end of his day shifts, he would park it down by the sea and sleep in it. On nights, rather than share the dorms with the others, he would park his van in the spare vehicle bay and sleep there. The commute could be a pain in the arse, but it was worth it to get back to his beloved beach breaks in North Cornwall.

  And then, he discovered kitesurfing, and everything turned on its head. Bodhi thought he would never find anything that matched the feeling surfing gave him, but one morning, after waking up stiff of leg and back, he got out of the van and saw a guy in the water being propelled at ridiculous speeds by the giant kite he was harnessed too. Moments later, the man was thirty feet up in the air and he stayed there for what seemed like an age until he came back down to the water with such grace that he barely made a splash. It was right then that Bodhi decided he needed a large serving of what that guy was dishing up.