The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  4

  Davey put his finger into the white powder and pulled it back quickly.

  "Ouch!" The track was hot enough to blister; a combination of the hottest summer ever and the recently departed Inter City 125. It was amazing. Every stone, including the big ones that Grant had risked his life to salvage, had been pulverized (Grant's word and what a brilliant word it was, Davey thought, as he said it to himself- never had a word seemed so right).

  Grant had the best ideas. Maybe that was why no-one liked him; everyone was jealous because he was the best at thinking of things to do, even the grown-ups who, if you thought about it, were pretty boring really. His mum's new boyfriend, Tony, never had good games to play. Grant on the other hand always thought up good things to do. There was the naughty stuff like this but Grant also seemed to know how to entertain himself in any circumstances. That spring Davey had stood up to his thighs in burbling brook water collecting tadpoles in a jar, netting minnows and becoming aware of the universe below the surface of the musical stream that had tinkled past the foot of the garden all of his life. Grant was the guide, teacher and protector of all creatures great and small. They had also spied birds' nests in the overhanging boughs from what Grant decided was a safe distance. Bad Grant Moran who ensured the survival of hatching chicks by checking that the mother was not alarmed, that tadpoles were released after a reasonable period of examination, along with newts and minnows. Grant wore his Wellington boots all the year round; he even played football in them, running as fast wearing those as most of the boys in the neighbourhood could run in trainers and pumps.

  "Let's do it again!" Davey enthused. Grant looked into the distance in the direction that the train had gone.

  "Alright," he agreed absently, "but let's make it interesting this time."

  Soon a dual line of chalky pebbles whitened both tracks for half the length of the bridge. Grant stood with his hands on his hips looking satisfied, like someone’s daddy would looked after finishing a job in the garden. A can of beer and a cigarette would have completed the image. Davey's brow creased anxiously.

  "Don't you think it might be dang'rous?" he croaked; the combination of the heat of the day and the dusty stones had left him parched. Grant only shrugged.

  Neither boy had noticed the police car that had drawn up to the curb on the road at the edge of Ross's fields. They could have had a clear view as the two constables shielded their eyes and squinted towards the railway bridge. The policemen moved purposefully down the dirt track towards the river. The older of the two men spoke into his radio as they walked. The younger constable pointed at a trail though the long grass. He was young enough to remember the short cuts.

  The third man had made his way along the side of the track, after hopping down from the platform of the town train station. One particularly irate train guard had alerted the rail official of the activities of two boys on the track by the bridge. It was he that had alerted the police. When the bridge came into view, he hid himself behind a wiry dried up bush. Through the gaps in the bracken he could easily spy the movements of the two vandals. Christ, he thought, one of them was only a baby. He couldn't be any more than four years old. He waited for the boys to realize that the police were coming. When they ran this way, he would be waiting. But Christ it was hot. He wiped perspiration away from his eyes.

  Grant and David were looking upriver towards the nesting swans in the long reeds before the river snaked away and began its slow twist out of sight. The policemen mounted the embankment on the boys’ blind side. The younger man reached the top in several bounds, nonchalantly grabbing at clumps of summer yellowed weed for traction. His older colleague sweated and puffed his way to the summit. Oblivious, Grant picked up a stone and tossed it over the side. Davey whooped at the massive impact it seemed to have below. The older man put his finger on his lips and nodded towards the unsuspecting boys. They took long stealthy strides towards the track and would have had the boys by their scruffs if not for the pebbles on the track. Older policeman flicked one with his heel and it rattled against the sleeper before settling back in between the tracks. Grant turned and saw the uniformed pair no more than ten paces away. He grabbed at Davey who literally jumped when he saw the men.

  "Now don't move boys," the older PC said, smiling. Both men had their hands outstretched in good will gestures. "No-one's in trouble, we just need to talk." Both men took tentative steps towards the boys. "Let's take it nice and easy."

  Grant's grip tightened painfully on Davey's upper arm. "Run!" he screamed yanking Davey with him. Davey stumbled as the younger policeman lunged at him and felt the breeze from the policeman's hand. Then he was up and running across the bridge after Grant. He could hear the policemen behind him and knew he was going to get caught. He could see the end of the bridge beyond Grant's fleeing figure and redoubled his efforts. He heard a muffled thud and painful exclamation from behind and dared to glance back; the older PC had stumbled and brought down his colleague in a tangle of uniformed limbs. They were going to get away, they were-

  The man in the British Rail uniform stepped out from behind a bush and grabbed at Grant. Davey skidded to a halt and saw Grant bring his Wellington boot up in a perfectly executed running kick at the man's privates. The man turned away in time but was knocked off balance momentarily. He moved into the centre of the track and shook his head grinning.

  "You ain't goin' anywhere," he said. Grant looked over his shoulder at the approaching policemen and back at the railway man. Davey looked up at his friend. He was terrified; he wanted to cry; he was only five. Grant's eyes flicked down to the left. His smile was more of a twitch, making the beauty spot on his upper lip dance momentarily. In that split second, Davey loved his older friend with a hero worship that is only common among young boys. For the rest of his life he would remember that image of his friend, as he stood defiantly against the backdrop of the railway bridge, the distant hills and the clearest blue sky he had ever seen. At that moment he would have done anything for his friend so when Grant mouthed catwalk at him he knew what to do.

  The two boys dived for the side of the bridge, the older boy leading, and proficiently swung themselves down onto the ladder overhanging the river, a motionless body of green-brown water fifty feet below. Within seconds they were under the bridge.

  The two policemen exchanged worried glances. The railway worker walked towards them. He took out his cigarettes and offered them. They all lit up.

  "It's not safe down there," he said. "Should've been condemned years ago."

  The older of the two policemen spat meditatively onto the track. His colleague spoke into his radio.

  "Look," the older said pointing at his spittle where it had began to dance on the blistering track. "There's a train coming."

  The older man reached for his radio.

  5

  Why weren't they coming down to get them? Davey wanted to know. Grant had told him they were chicken; either that or they were too big to squeeze through the catwalk and they knew it. Now all he wanted to do was go home and play with his little soldiers along to the merry voice of the stream- now a mere trickle due to the drought- at the foot of the garden rather than clutching on to the rusty struts and railings beneath the bridge high above the muddy waters of the Meas. Don’t look down, Grant had said, but you had to, you couldn't help it; each glance below made the world spin like after the waltzers at the fairground but that had been fun. This was not fun.

  He hugged a vertical strut, pressing his face against the corroded roughness of the iron bar; his feet were squeezed onto a narrow step that seemed to form the bottom rung of a crude ladder. Looking up was like looking into a jungle of iron bars with supports for branches, nuts and bolts for foliage and a canopy that was the bridge itself.

  "Boys," called a voice from above. "Hold on tight, don't move!"

  Grant flicked two fingers back in the direction of the voice. "They're trying to trick us," he said. "Come on," he muttered and began to make his way to
the middle of the catwalk.

  Davey could not move. He squeezed the iron support harder, his eyes screwed shut He shook his head firmly.

  "It's alright, Davey," Grant said. His voice was almost soothing. "I won't let anything happen to you." The way Grant had used his name got him moving. He opened his eyes, looked down and snatched his gaze away from the drop to the river with a jerk of the head. He took a deep breath and reached for Grant's outstretched hand.

  "Put your foot on that bar there," Grant pointed, "and I'll pull you towards me."

  Davey stepped out above fresh air; he felt the world shift as his other foot slipped from its safety. He was going to fall.

  Grant grabbed his wrist and hauled him up onto the next level of the catwalk.

  After a minute of heavy breathing in which Grant had to untangle the younger boy's limbs from his own, they began to shuffle along the network of iron, both dimly aware of the low rumbling in the distance. Finally, they reached what Grant thought was probably the central point of the bridge. They huddled against each other, gripping the structure. The men above were calling to them but they could no longer make out the words only the fact that they seemed to be getting more and more annoyed.

  "What are we going to do?" Davey asked.

  "Wait until they go away," said Grant simply.

  "But what if they don't go away?"

  "They will," Grant sounded sure. "Do you think they're going to wait there all day?"

  "I don't know."

  "Of course they won't. They're not going to call for help either. They'll look really stupid if they do. They'll be laughed at if they tell everyone two young boys fooled them won't they?"

  Davey thought it through. Grant was probably right. Besides, Grant knew about the police because of his daddy except Grant usually referred to them as The Pigs. Davey

  thought he could hear thunder in the distance getting louder.

  "They'll go away or pretend to until we get out and they'll try and get us in Ross's. They won't get us though because-" He halted suddenly, staring at the metal in his hands. Davey looked at his own hands. They were vibrating. In fact they'd been doing that for a while. It felt quite nice in an absent sort of way. Davey looked at Grant for an explanation. For the first time that he could remember in all of his dealings with Grant, his friend looked afraid.

  Davey was afraid then.

  "Wh-what is it?" he asked on the verge of tears.

  Grant looked over Davey's shoulder back the way they had come.

  "It's a train."

  Davey looked at him confused. But that was okay he wanted to say. They were safe down here. Then he understood. He remembered the violence of the train at close range, the fragments of metal that showered the riverbank when Grant's stone had hit the catwalk. He remembered the way the world itself had seemed to shake as the train passed them.

  "We'll fall off, won't we?" Davey breathed.

  Grant's eyes flashed with anger.

  "No we won't. Come on, back the way you came."

  They clumsily turned on the narrow shelf and saw the young policeman hanging on to the ladder at the far end.

  "Don't move boys," he called. His voice echoed along the catwalk. "There's a train coming, just hold on tight." He sounded worried, Davey thought. He didn't like it when adults sounded like that. It scared him.

  "No. This way," Grant urged and turned back towards the other bank.

  "Grant-" Davey faltered.

  "Come on!"

  The thunder sounded like a train now. It was accompanied by the distant wah-waaah! The policeman began to work his way onto the catwalk. He cried out as he snagged the side of his torso on a sheered bolt.

  "For fuck's sake stay where you are!" he shouted.

  The structure was shaking more than vibrating now. Grant pushed on to the other side, Davey following. The thrumming metal stung his hands as it shuddered against his palms. It was too painful. Davey looked at his feet. They were trembling on the same thin horizontal rung. He stopped, too afraid to move any further. The noise of the train became a roar; it had to be close now, how much louder could it get? Davey pulled his face against the bar he held on to, the movements making his teeth chatter. Tiny fragments of rust rained down while large objects pinged off the catwalk before dropping into the river below. The violence of the vibration increased. His feet edged forward with each shudder of the overpass. He shuffled back onto the metal rung but the combination of tremor and shiny soled sneaker began the process the instant he was sure-footed once more. The bars jarred against his hands like a jack hammer. Grant turned around and saw him. He screamed something at him that he could not hear. He would never hear Grant's voice again except for in his dreams.

  Then the train hit the bridge; a hurricane of noise in the catwalk.

  The tumult reached its critical point; the shuddering world became indistinct; every atom seeming to buzz before his eyes. Davey was literally shaken off the catwalk. He reached for purchase but only felt his hand stung by the angry iron strut before him; his sneakered feet teetered on the brink, only his heels on the step, and the rest over fresh air. A blurred shape lunged at him, missed and then he was falling.

  It was almost a relief to fall away from the din of the train; he focused only on the feeling of descent- woosh!- saw the distant rooftops until the treetops obscured them, he looked down stream to the weir, the scattered remains of the abbey, the sewage works, the riverboats, idling away towards places he had never been.

  Hitting the water from that height was like hitting a wall. His foot connected with something immovable only feet below the surface. He felt his leg snap; an explosion of pain and then there was no more. He was unconscious before the other two hit the water.

  The young policeman, PC John Collins, did not hesitate. He leapt from the catwalk even before the boy hit the water. If he'd waited to see what happened to the little boy, he may have avoided the same injuries. His leg was broken in two places. He remained conscious until he was dragged onto the bank by his older and wiser colleague.

  Grant watched with horror as his young friend went under. He could see the remains of the old catwalk a few feet below the surface; if he moved across from the centre of the bridge a few more feet, he guessed, he would clear it and avoid the same fate as Davey and the copper. The copper was screaming as he dragged himself through the water towards the bank. Grant moved along the catwalk and peered downstream for any sign of Davey. He was gone. He remembered old Mrs. Thould from down the street talking about the drowning of the Granger boy the previous summer. It's the undercurrent y'see, it's vicious.

  Grant jumped.

  Chapter One

  1

  Measton

  January, 14th 2001

  11.52pm

  Andrew Davies snorkeled downstream, the moonlight reflecting on the ice cold waters of the Meas.

  After a few minutes he stopped and looked over at the opposite bank, searching for the marker. Nothing. The marker was a broken old jetty that had long ago become a child's death trap. But it was too dark to see. He decided to paddle to the other side any way; it couldn't be too far from here.

  Looking at the riverbed, intent on checking the efficiency of his torch, Davies almost swam head first into a splintered and rotten edge of the jetty. This was the place. According to the old records he had squinted at in the poorly-lit back-room at the Abbey museum, the tunnel entrance was perhaps three metres down. He pointed the light of the torch in a descending diagonal. As he suspected, there was still ancient brickwork there but disguised by generations of weeds and mud. He could not see the entrance though. He held the BCD inflation hose above his shoulder and dumped the gas; after a slight pause in which he realized he was holding his breath, he exhaled and began to descend. He swam to the river wall, equalizing gently as he did so by pinching his nostrils and blowing through his sinuses. He reached out and touched the old masonry; it was slick to the touch but he still felt the old thrill of handling something that
had been created when the world was considerably younger. He examined the outer abbey wall at close range, looking for inscriptions, clues to the old world, anything. He controlled his slow descent by lung control, the combination of the vegetation filled water and the flashlight beam giving the wall a luminescent quality.

  Davies’ calves grew colder, followed by his knees and then a new current seemed to pull at his lower body. His legs were drawn towards the coldness. He scrabbled at the wall and pushed himself away from the suction and shone the torch down into the coldness. His heart sped up with excitement. There it was- the mouth of the tunnel. He continued his downward drop until the tips of his fins touched the slick mud of the riverbed. Taking an extra lungful of oxygen to ensure that he would remain buoyant, he examined the entrance. His heart was beating rapidly with excitement but he had to remain calm; over excitement would cause the rapid depletion of his air supply. That was the last thing he wanted; he took his time and shone the beam of light into the blackness of the tunnel. He could make out the internal brickwork disappearing into the darkness but that was all.