combined elements of human, reptile, and fish. The old man in the woolen jersey seemed most advanced, his skin scaly, his gill-slits wide. The priest was not surprised when along with his clothes he removed a false beard and hairpiece. His mouth was almost lipless, the nose flattened, the eyes immense. His head bore a crest of scales, while his outsize feet were like flippers.
“You're monsters!” he cried.
“I thought the church was more tolerant nowadays, Father,” said the fish-man, leaning over him. “We could sue you for discrimination, I reckon.”
“No time for jokes, Angus,” chided Mrs. Bell. “Let's get him ready.”
Malahide put up little resistance as they stripped him naked, then hauled him up onto the stern. Despite their assurances, the priest was sure he was going to be killed. He remembered Hackett's diary and imagined himself as a sacrifice of some sort. His fears were apparently confirmed when Morag produced heavy gold bands that she proceeded to put onto his wrists and ankles. He struggled at this but the others simply lifted him off his feet and held him steady.
“Don't want you bobbing up again before she's done with you,” Morag whispered in his ear. “Believe me, you'll thank us later.”
“Still not too late, Father,” Mrs. Bell said, from his other side. “Just go along with us, have some rumpy-pumpy with Morag, or whoever you fancy.”
“Whore of Babylon!” shouted Malahide, feeling his sanity begin to disintegrate. “I will not be seduced by the Scarlet Woman!”
“Oh dear, he's a ranter,” Mrs. Bell said to Angus. “I'd never have thought it. All right, chuck him over.”
Before Malahide could scream any more imprecations, he was easily hurled up and over the gunwale of the boat. He landed flat on his back, and sank at once. He clawed desperately at the gold anklets and bracelets, but Morag had fastened them with catches that seemed impossible to open. He held his breath as he descended into the darkness, but felt his lungs begin to swell and had to release a burst of bubbles from his mouth. He tried to swim upwards, but seemed to make no progress.
I am going to run out of air in a few seconds. The thought was clear, precise, impersonal. I am going to die.
Suddenly he became confused, seeing what looked like a starlit sky beneath him. Tiny points of light glowed green through the murky water. Then it came to him. He was seeing a vast number of tiny, luminous sea creatures rising up from the depths. The fuzzy lights were arrayed in long lines, stretching out from a brighter patch of luminescence in the center. The effect was rather like a fairground wheel at night, only this one was not rotating, but growing ever larger. Resigned to death, Malahide thought the effect quite pretty.
Then the rows of light began to curve up and around him. Fear reasserted itself as he realized that he was not seeing a vast number of tiny organisms, but one vast entity rising to grasp him in dozens of enormous arms. This was the deity of the islanders, some slimy, tentacled denizen from the ocean’s depths. To be consumed by such a monster would, part of him assumed, make him a true martyr.
Except nobody will ever know, he thought as one of the great arms encircled his waist. Pity.
The monster drew him down into itself. The priest closed his eyes and let the last gasp of air escape his lungs. A loud buzzing sound filled his head and he began to lose consciousness.
Chapter 6: New Acquaintances
It took Dan a couple of weeks to recover from his injuries. After three days, he was sent home from hospital. The police interviewed him about the kidnapping, and he was straight about the Korochenko connection. However, when a young detective asked him why he was in the Salisbury Square area at that time, he simply said he was 'visiting a friend'. After a pause, the officer pointed out that people lie to detectives a lot, and criminal prosecutions sometimes ensued.
“Okay,” Dan had said. “Truth is I was looking for another job. I don't want my boss to know, so I'd be really grateful–”
The detective had waved Dan to silence and left. Later he was told that Korochenko had fled the country, while his henchmen were being charged with a range of offences. Dan would be contacted about the trial, which might not come to court for a year. In the meantime, the thugs were in custody.
“Win, win,” said Dan to himself in the bathroom. “Bad guys neutralized, and this good guy has his entree to the club. Kinda.”
He went back into the bedroom and reviewed the research he had done in hospital. 'Soray Treasure' had been vague, but a little Googling had revealed quite a lot. Soray was a medium-sized island in the Outer Hebrides, which Dan was surprised to find that it rhymed with cheese. The island lay in a rough arc off the Atlantic coast of Scotland, and was notoriously rugged.
“Wouldn't be a challenge if I just had to walk around the corner,” he sighed.
The treasure had proved tougher to pin down. Eventually he settled on two possibilities. One was a cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat near Soray in 1941. It was rumored to contain British gold bullion bound for the US to pay for machinery, food, and oil. However, according to most sources, the ship had gone down in very deep waters, and attempts to salvage the gold with advanced equipment had failed.
“Three failures by experts,” Dan added to himself. “No way could I do it. Not without a magic wand.”
There was, however, another possibility. A vague legend had spread in the seventeenth century that the folk of Soray had come into wealth, allowing them to build a fine new church, among other things. Nothing had come of this, except for one occasion in the 1740s when a Soray fisherman was said to have got drunk on the mainland. He had, it was claimed, tried to pay for his whiskey with an old Spanish coin. A suspicious tavern-keeper had given the coin to a local magistrate, who was also something of a scholar. The magistrate said the coin dated from the time of the Armada. The Soray man had vanished by then, and was never seen again.
This clue led Dan to check out the route of the Spanish fleet in 1588. Sure enough, after being defeated off the Dutch coast it had sailed home with the prevailing winds, which meant going right round the north of Scotland and then down past the Hebrides. Many ships had been lost along the way. Some had carried cash to pay the thousands of troops on board. But nobody had proved that there was a wreck around Soray.
“Great,” he muttered. “How can I search the entire coast of an island? Where would I even start?”
Dan looked up, half-expecting Melinda to appear with a gnomic tip on how to proceed. But she did not. Whatever the vision of his college girlfriend had been, the weird phenomenon had evidently run its course. He had not seen any 'ghosts', in fact, since his experience in hospital.
Maybe that bump on the head shook something loose, he thought. Or shoved something back in place.
He closed his laptop and pondered his options. He could simply forget about the Mephisto Club, throw in the towel. That was the wise option. Or he could travel to Soray, a place he knew nothing about, and ask a bunch of fishermen if they knew about a Spanish shipwreck.
“Even if they did, why would they tell me?”
He cracked open a bottle of wine and turned on the TV. About an hour later, he was fairly drunk when the phone rang. It was Lisa from the office, asking how he was. Smiling at the sound of her voice, Dan thanked her for sending a huge card signed by everyone. She had visited him in hospital, the only person to do so. The experience had underlined how few real friends he had. His most recent girlfriend had dropped him for being 'self-absorbed', and it had not been the first time.
“I'm doing fine,” he told her when she asked. “Soon be back in the saddle.”
Lisa launched into a detailed, if typically garbled, account of work life, her life, and things in general. It was when she mentioned Tim Burdus' funeral that Dan thought of something.
“Lisa,” he asked, “do you remember when you texted me that he'd died?”
She did.
“Okay,” he went on, choosing his words carefully. “Do you remember that I said I thought I had seen him
that morning?”
There was a pause, then Lisa said, “I don't remember, Dan, sorry. But did you? I mean, that's pretty weird.”
“Never mind,” he said hastily. “Maybe I didn't remember it right.”
“You've been through a lot,” she said. “I remember texting you when I heard the news, and being really upset of course …”
Dan heard the emotion in her voice, anticipated tears. Trying to change the subject, he asked Lisa about her new boyfriend.
“Chad? He's been a right pain lately, going on about his bloody boat! I think he loves that thing more than he cares about me. Certainly spends a lot of more on it–”
“Boat?” Dan sat up, knocking over the wine bottle standing by his chair. “Crap, just a second – did you say boat?”
“Yes, he keeps talking about going on a cruise somewhere, but of course he never seems to do anything except fix it, paint it, put new gadgets on it, paint it again …”
“Is Chad into diving, by any chance?”
***
Dan met Lisa and Chad in a noisy, trendy wine bar in the fashionable district of Chelsea. Chad was an American of the sort Dan tried to avoid – the sort of guy who always seemed too loud for the room. But even if he had not wanted to get something out of Chad he would have been friendly, as he did not want to hurt Lisa's feelings.
“So,” Chad said, after Dan had got himself a drink and sat down, “I hear you're interested in kinda chartering the Dulcibella?”
Seeing Dan's puzzlement Lisa put in, “That's the name of the boat, isn't it sweet?”
I would have expected something like the Sea Vixen, thought Dan, or maybe the Hot Chick.
“Yes, that would be cool,” he said. “I plan to do some diving.”
The conversation went back and forth, with Dan carefully dishing out just enough data to keep Chad interested, while not mentioning treasure. Dan rightly calculated that Chad would be keen to impress Lisa with whatever diving skills he possessed, and mention of a shipwreck sealed the deal.
“But Scotland,” Lisa said, when Dan and Chad shook on the agreement. “Won't that be really cold?”
“I guess we'll need dry-suits,” Chad said, sounding authoritative. “It's okay, I know this guy – English, called Steve. He taught me a lot about dry-suit diving.”
“A dry-suit is …?” Lisa asked.
“Like a wetsuit, but it keeps you dry,” Chad explained, with a straight face.
Dan nearly laughed, but then realized Chad was not joking.
Wonder if Steve is another bullshitter, he thought. Well, if it all falls through I can try and hire someone else.
They talked on, Chad's booming voice easily penetrating the soft rock from the speakers. Dan began to develop a headache and was about to make his excuses and go when Lisa leaned forward, touched his arm.
“Don't turn around,” she said, “but I think somebody knows you. She's over by the door.”
Dan did, inevitably, turn around, but he could see nobody he recognized in the group by the entrance.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“Oh, just some girl,” Lisa said. “She must have left. Quite pretty, young – dark, wavy hair. She was looking at you, I'm sure. Really intense.”
Dan looked down into his nearly empty wine glass.
“Something wrong, bro?” asked Chad. “You got a psycho stalker, maybe? Us good-looking guys gotta be careful.”
“Nah,” said Dan. “Just a case of mistaken identity.”
***
The following six weeks were taken up with Dan attempting to locate a competent but not-too-scrupulous diver. As usual the internet proved a vital resource, and eventually he contacted a middle-aged Englishman called Steve. Steve admitted that he was down on his luck after losing a job in the North Sea oil industry, and was willing to go on what amounted to a paid vacation to the Hebrides. He was a straightforward, athletic guy with a lot of tattoos.
Steve naturally wanted to know why Dan needed his diving expertise. Dan said simply that an anonymous client wanted some of the mysterious 'Soray treasure'. Steve was content with this, so long as he got paid. Dan paid him up front for his time, plus the diving suits and other gear they would need. Then he introduced Steve to Chad and Lisa, so they could sort out a plan.
They met on Chad's boat, which was tied up downriver, in the Thames Estuary. Chad, true to type, had wanted to invite some 'chicks' for Steve and Dan. With Lisa's help, Dan had talked him out of it. Now they sat on the aft deck of the Dulcibella, a forty-foot yacht, sipping bottles of Czech beer.
“This is a treasure hunt, seriously?” said Steve. “Because the British government is very hot on protecting wrecks. You can do prison time for disturbing them, especially if they're also war graves.”
“Yeah,” Dan said, “but the government doesn't know there is a wreck. Hell, I don't know. But the instructions I got from my client said go, and I think they know what they're talking about.”
“But you won't tell us the name of this client, bud?” Chad put in. “Asking us to take a lot on trust.”
“I don't know the client's name,” Dan retorted. “I met some old guy who gave me a written instruction. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that a Spanish treasure ship went down off the island.”
Steve shrugged, took a slug of his beer, put the bottle down by his feet.
“Okay,” he said. “Your money's good, and if that ship sank in 1588 there will be precious little left of it anyway.”
“Oh,” said Lisa, disappointed.
“No,” Steve went, smiling at her, “that's a good thing. It means all the masts and rigging are long gone, along with the hull, except maybe the lower decks that were covered in shifting sands. It's the hull and other stuff that traps divers. We'll be surveying a flat seabed, much less hazardous than diving on a recent wreck.”
“But if the ship's gone, man,” Chad began.
“If there was treasure, it was in the form of precious metal,” Dan put in. “That means it will have lasted. And we're talking heavy metal, so it won't have been carried far by tide and currents, right?”
He looked at Steve, who nodded.
“Yep, and that's why we would have a fighting chance of finding the loot if we knew where the ship originally foundered.”
There was a pause as the others looked at Dan.
“I'm going to guess that it was near Soray's only town,” he said. “It's also got the only harbor, so where else would a ship in trouble be heading for?”
Steve shrugged, while Lisa gave a little nod. Chad shook his head.
“That's pretty weak, man,” he said. “Don't the locals have a legend, or something like that?”
Dan felt irritation, mostly because Chad had a point.
“Well, when we get there the first thing we'll do is ask around,” he said. “Maybe offer some cash for information, talk to the local historians, that kind of thing.”
“What if the natives aren't very friendly, though?” Lisa asked, looking worried.
“Oh come on, hun,” Chad said, putting a tanned arm around her shoulders. “They'll just be ignorant hick types. We'll dazzle 'em with our wealth and sophistication.”
***
After the meeting, Dan took the Tube home. It was a Saturday evening in June, and London was one-bit party city. The loud, jostling crowds were annoying, but he had to smile at his own irritation.
Once you're past thirty, youth becomes a massive pain because you feel yourself losing it.
The Underground train was packed, and Dan spent the journey hanging from a strap, jammed up against a big, sweaty guy who was talking loudly on his phone. He noticed that a tall, pretty, young woman was stuck on the other side of the sweaty man. He caught her eye and gave a rueful smile. She stared back at him, her eyes pale, mouth set in a grim line.
Jeez, lighten up, he thought, diverting his gaze.
Now he was looking at a plump soccer-mom type with a small child on her lap. They, too, took to
staring at him. He had a moment of panic, wondering if his zipper was undone, then realized there was no way they could see that low.
Do I have something on my face?
He tried to lift his free hand to surreptitiously rub his face but couldn't get it past his large neighbor's butt-cheeks. He looked back at the tall woman, and again saw her looking straight at him. Feeling uncomfortable, he decided to get off at the next station and walk the two or three miles home.
Dan managed to wriggle his way through the crowd and got off. As he made his way along the platform, the train pulled out. Then another train appeared, moving fast, just seconds after Dan's had vanished into the tunnel at the other end of the platform. This train came to a juddering halt but its doors did not open. Dan stopped, staring, puzzled by its appearance. It looked old-fashioned, and through smeared windows he saw passengers in raincoats, with men in bowler hats, one or two carrying furled umbrellas.
Some kind of historical pageant, he told himself.
A roar from the tunnel behind the train grew, blended with a screech of brakes. He saw a light, the square front of another old-fashioned Tube train, then the sound of the crash deafened him. He covered his ears, crouching on the platform, as glass sprayed over him. Electrical sparks flew and a smell of burning filled the air. The voices of people in pain and terror rose around him like a chorus of the damned.
“You all right, mate?”
He looked up to see a couple of black teenagers bending over him. There was no glass, no smell of burning, no screams of suffering victims. Most people were behaving like typical Londoners, flowing around Dan and his would-be helpers like water around a rock. Nobody, for a mercy, had started filming him.
He got up, grinning ruefully at the girls.
“Sorry,” he said. “I had this – flashback.”
Dark Waters (Mephisto Club Series Book 1) Page 9
