The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  The migrants never backed down from a fight either.

  They were all hard men brought up in abject poverty, driven from their barren homelands by war and deprivation. In the cases of the Bosnian contingent they had seen family and friends brutally murdered. Some, as little more than children, had fought their way across the unfriendly states of Europe to this England- a country famed and mocked for its policy on immigration and free handouts. But there was work here, work that England's own people would not do, content to accept the handouts of the famous Welfare State living in the houses that were their birthright, the streets lined with satellite dishes; there were places to live and lives to be worked for. Then there were the English girls. Everything was there for the taking in this country if you were prepared to work hard, unlike the obese daytime TV obsessed underclass none of whom would bend their backs to earn their daily bread. Walid, whose father had been a shepherd, compared these people to his goats, happy as long as they were led to a lush meadow but hardheaded as soon as they felt that they were missing out on that to which they felt they were entitled. But they did not know what it was to truly fight for survival; the people of this country had long ago grown fat and complacent.

  The migrants had everything to fight for- a new life, survival in a land that was utopia in comparison to the savagery that they had faced only a few years before; the Gypsies fought because that was they did. It was in the blood.

  Every man carried a cutting instrument.

  The leader of the migrants, a tall, dark haired Polish man by the name of Krzysztof stepped forward, distinguishing himself to the Gypsy King, Farley. Farley had a deep scar etched from the corner of his mouth up to the curled hair line above his left ear. The Pole brandished a meat cleaver, while the traveler held a machete loosely at his side. The men eyed each other with respect. This was war. No need for spite and hatred. Both men knew in their different ways that this type of war was a thing of purity. It was the words of politicians that contaminated men's hearts and minds and perpetuated the filth of mankind. When two tribes stood their ground to hold a line, the rhetoric of politics was irrelevant. This was about feeding and clothing children, laying down roots, staking a claim for life. That was what they both believed. They saw the enemy as an enemy to their very survival and as a result, would give no quarter. This simple desire to do what was right made them easy victims of the river darkness.

  Both men were wrong; they had been persuaded.

  Unwittingly, they had shared the same broth of lies and rhetoric from a man that had met with a girl who had spoken to a young woman that had recently married a man that had spent time with Martin Clear.

  The pyramid expanded.

  Farley nodded at Krzysztof and the Pole returned the gesture. The gypsy smiled with the scarred corner of his mouth and raised his eyes in a what-has-the-world-come-to gesture. Krzysztof returned the sentiment with a shrug.

  The rain continued to fall.

  Then, without a grand gesture or fanfare, the gypsy charged at Krzysztof raising the machete above his head as he did so. The Polish expertly threw his side into the midriff of the charging man and viciously thrust an elbow into the Gypsy's groin. As the traveler doubled and fell away from the Pole, the tall man brought the cleaver down hard into the back of his neck. The blade severed the Gypsy's spinal chord and stayed there as a geyser of bright red blood cut an arc across the slate sky. The scarred man fell in to the mud and danced the spasms of death. Krzysztof looked down at the stricken man and spat into the mud. As he bent forward to retrieve his weapon from the Gypsy's neck, a cry went up from the ranks of the travelers. It was a war cry that was soon met by that of his comrades. All around him men flew at each other with murderous intent.

  In this way, The Battle of Carter's Field began.

  *

  4

  "Stay in the car!" Collins barked and slammed the door behind him as he followed PC Hendricks towards the fray. There were three other police cars halted at slanted angles on the edge of the field. In the dim light Weaver could see dark uniforms among the wrestling figures on Carter's Field. Beyond them, of course, there was the swollen river. He shook his head. This was all too much. He watched the old policeman head purposefully toward two huge men locked in a death grip in the mud; they were both plastered in brown filth. One of the men had a six inch blade in his fist. He pushed it towards the other man's throat. The other man repelled the attack seeming to grin at the challenge. In the gloom, other figures lay still on Carter's Field. They were either dead or dying. Collins had taken a truncheon out of the dash board and now employed it deftly on the base of the knife-wielding man's skull. Knife man relinquished his grip as he lost consciousness. The other man looked up at Collins and grinned, all teeth within the shit mask he wore. There was no gratitude in that look. Collins looked away and turned to another group of men, an impossible tangle of bloody limbs on the fallow field.

  The river wants to kill the town, Weaver thought. Collins' words. He watched as the mud-streaked man reached down into the mire and took the knife from its resting place. He staggered to his feet and began to shamble towards the DCI’s retreating figure, the knife wielded with one purpose in mind.

  Weaver moved quickly. He was out of the car and running through the slime towards the policeman in an instant without thought of consequence. The big man with the knife, ten feet behind his target, raised the weapon above his head.

  "Collins!" Weaver screamed and Collins swiveled in time to see the gypsy's arm sweep down towards him. He threw himself backwards on to the ground and the traveler skidded at the policeman's feet, almost lost his footing and then stood over the prone man. He looked down at Collins and grinned. Collins saw the emptiness in the other man's eyes and had time to think I was right, they've all got it. They're all insane now before the gypsy raised his arm once more. On the inside of his forearm, a tattoo danced before Collins' eyes- the all-seeing eye in the pyramid- and then the knife came down towards him.

  Weaver hit the gypsy with his full body weight. That, combined with the velocity he had gained by sprinting from the car and leaping feet first at the knifeman's back, created enough force to send the gypsy reeling over Collins' spread-eagled figure. His impetus carried him through and he landed on the Gypsy's back. He sprang off the attacker, knowing that the man was huge and that he had a knife, knowing that he should probably run away now, terrified by what he had done. The gypsy rolled on to his side and Weaver saw the shaft of the knife protruding from the centre of his chest. Dark blood ran through the mud on the gypsy's chest and trickled from both sides of his mouth.

  Corpses littered the field around him. Off to his right a man lay on his face with a vivid red ravine in the back of his neck. A few feet away a reclining figure looked back unnaturally as a result of the fact that his throat had been slashed so deeply he was semi-decapitated. Weaver noticed a bite mark in the man's cheek. A whole chunk of the man's face had been torn off by the teeth of another. Those were the corpses he could see. Other inert forms lay in the field while the battle raged on. He heard a scream off to his left and saw that one of the uniformed coppers that had helped Heaney lift his son out of the rowing boat was pinned to the ground by two dark skinned men while a third raised an axe above his head like a man chopping firewood. Stunned, Weaver saw the axe come down. He squeezed his eyes shut but heard the thunk as the axe split the young PC's skull.

  Weaver was unaware of the figure standing at his shoulder until Collins, in a voice that was unnaturally calm, understated: "This is not good. We need to leave now!" Collins pulled Weaver away from the dead gypsy and back towards the car. He looked away from the dead man on the ground and saw Hendricks backing away from the three bloody men that had killed his colleague. Two of the men had knives; the other- and largest of them- carried a machete. The axe remained where he had left it. That was when Weaver noticed that the men on the field had stopped fighting. All around them shadows moved towards the four police vehicles. Hendricks ba
bbled into his radio. Weaver caught the words armed back-up and turned back towards the car. Collins did not follow. "Start the car!" Collins snapped at him. Weaver ran to the Rover, expecting to feel something sharp in between his shoulder blades at every step but it felt good to be doing something especially given that what he was doing was geared towards getting away from this insanity.

  Behind the wheel, he turned the engine and the car lurched forward. Hendricks had left it in gear. He stalled and started again. This time the engine rumbled smoothly into life. He revved the engine and shifted into reverse. The car skidded around onto the field in a 180 and Weaver put the car into first ready to go as soon as the two men were in the car. He watched in the mirror as the uniform and Collins backed towards the car. Collins waved his hand back at the dirt track pointedly. Get off the field, he thought. He wants me to get off the field. He lifted his foot off the clutch and stalled. Fuck. He re-started the engine and was easier on the clutch this time. He found the bite and tried to edge out of the quagmire. The wheels span sending geysers of mud over Collins’ trench coat. Collins made an urgent slashing gesture for Weaver to stop. He was confused until Hendricks turned around looked above the Rover, his thumbs raised. Weaver had been vaguely aware of a whirring sound; he had thought it was the engine until a shadow passed over the bonnet and the men's clothes began to dance in the wind stirred by the helicopter blades. A voice boomed from directly above the car.

  "PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND LIE FACE DOWN ON THE GROUND. PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS!"

  The three men squinted at the helecopter giving the policemen time to back all the way to the car. Instead of getting in they stood against the bonnet and watched. In the distant gloom of the field men were already hobbling away towards the river. Weaver watched in confusion. He saw Collins gesticulate wildly at the unseen helicopter. He pointed at the dozen or so men moving across the field into the descending darkness of the riverbank. The sound of the helicopter was deafening.

  SLAM! SLAM! Weaver felt the roof of the car buckle and his heart leap painfully in his chest before seeing the cause of the impact on the car as two pairs of army boots landed squarely on the Rover's bonnet. The Marines leapt off either side of the car and ran towards the three men that had attacked Collins and Hendricks. Above, the helicopter's engine roared and Weaver saw it at last as it sped towards the riverbank in pursuit of the others.

  "STOP WHERE YOU ARE! DO NOT MOVE!" Weaver heard as the helecopter moved away. He watched the men in green combats, armed with rifles, as they moved towards the three combatants and allowed his mouth to gape as one of the bloody men lunged at the foremost Marine with his knife. The Marine side-stepped easily and slammed the butt of his rifle into the attacker's jaw. The big man went down like a felled tree.

  He saw the helicopter sweep around and along the river and strained to see the other men in the rapidly failing light. He could see none of them. As the helicopter began to land, the passenger door opened and Collins leaned in at him. The detective looked wild-eyed and pale.

  "Did you see that?" Collins ranted at him. "Did you see what they did?" Weaver could only nod dumbly. There was so much that he had seen in the past week, he did not fully understand the question.

  "They dived into the river!" Collins screamed at him. "How the fuck could anyone do that?"

  Weaver blinked at Collins.

  "They just dived in," the older man repeated and slumped in the seat next to Weaver. "And now they're gone. Gone."

  *

  Chapter Twelve

  1

  Collins' duffel-coated elbow went easily through the glass; the cardboard he had carefully slid beneath the back door had caught the majority of the broken shards.

  "You're on the wrong side of the law," Weaver whispered. Collins grunted.

  Given the strength of the wind and the endless rain, Weaver didn't think anyone would have heard even if he'd tossed a brick through the glass. More than that he didn't think anyone would dare investigate even if they did hear anything suspicious.

  Polly Road was preternaturally quiet even for such a suburban street, Weaver thought as he followed the policeman into the dark interior of the house. There were few lights on in Polly Road and many of the curtains were still open; that could only mean that the residents had gone away or- more ominously- weren't thinking normally. He saw again the savagery of Carter's Field and shuddered. He shook his head and followed the shape in front of him. He could hear the swish of leather on walls as Collins’ gloved hand felt around for a light switch.

  "Et, voila!" Collins muttered and illuminated the kitchen. He switched off the torch and sniffed. "Likes his bleach doesn't he?" Collins said.

  Andrew Davies must have been an obsessive compulsive when it came to domesticity or else he had a whole team of housemaids working for him around the clock. The kitchen was literally spotless. The telltale signs of male cooking were absent from the tiles around the cooker- not a tomato stained blotch to be seen anywhere. The hob was not simply clean; it looked as though it had never been used. Weaver thought of the state of his kitchen back in Brighton. The lounge was the same. Weaver looked at Davies' white leather armchairs and half-expected to see the plastic covers still in place. There was a ground floor bedroom- a box-room that served as a study. A simple pine desk stood with a pot of pens in the top left hand corner, next to a coffee coaster reading The World's Greatest Teacher with a cartoon drawing of a stereo-typical teacher brandishing a piece of chalk before a board with e = mc2 scrawled upon it. The grinning caricature was complete with leather elbow patches. Weaver picked up the coaster and there was a dedication beneath. Happy Xmas Sir! You really are the greatest! Sarah. X.

  "His students loved him," Collins said from the hallway. Weaver was about to close the door when he noticed the empty shelves above the desk.

  "Where are his books, notes, et cetera?"

  Collins shook his head dismissively. "Down the station. Nothing to see. Boring stuff. Articles, lesson plans, marking records, some thing called schemes of work. All labeled and ready for us to pick up. As you can see Davies is probably the most anal man I've ever come across. I had a uniform reading through his folders and he found out nothing of value except for why the decline of The British Empire was an economic inevitability after World War One."

  Weaver coughed a brief laugh. "What about his computer?"

  "Same," Collins said staring at the coaster on the desk. "All work related stuff."

  "Any thing related to local history," Weaver asked.

  "Of course. But nothing that would explain why Davies went diving like James Bond in the middle of the night or where he would go to do such a thing."

  Weaver scratched his head. There was something missing. He thought of his own area in Paul's studio on the seafront down south. There was his easel with his current project- Nirvana Mark IV- a paint-splattered desk off to the side covered in rough sketches and screwed up pieces of paper. It was a place of creation, albeit rather stunted of late, a place of thinking and re-thinking. A man with a project needed a place to work, a place to think, to make mistakes. Then his neat desk in his apartment flashed into his mind. The neat pot of sketching pens, a blotter full of Hippy ideas on the desk next to his pens. It was matter-of-fact, to the point. Day-job work space.

  "This isn't it," he said to Collins shaking his head.

  "I know, I know. That's why I had to come back, to find something else, something that would give us something to go on."

  "That isn't what I mean," Weaver said. "I've got two places where I work. One of them is in my apartment where I do my bread and butter work. The stuff that doesn't require much thought, if you like." He paused, feeling that he had done his little hairy cartoon friend a disservice- after all Hippy paid the rent. "But I also share a studio with a sculptor. That's where I do the work that I really care about. The work that requires mental sweat."

  Collins looked at him blankly.

  "They're different things you see," Weaver
said. "I know it might sound strange but being an artist who- I dunno- draws pictures of Bob Marley smoking a spliff is different from someone that creates something new. If you do both, you can't always use the same space. I know it sounds weird but it's not always possible. I'd imagine it's the same for someone like Davies."

  Collins nodded. "It makes sense. By day, a mild mannered leather-elbowed teacher; by night, a scuba diving hunk with a sense of adventure."

  "And a nasty little secret," Weaver added. "You said that there was no trace of porn anywhere?"

  "None," Collins said.

  "Seems strange doesn't it? Or is that just a stereotypical image that we have of paedophilia, that all paodophiles require kiddy porn to satisfy their sickness."