The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  Collins tried the heavy oak door hopefully. It was locked.

  "We don't need to go inside any way, sir," Heaney said.

  "That's right," Hendricks agreed. "You can go around the side and climb the railings."

  Collins patted his shoulder gently. Heaney had re-dressed the wound when he had arrived at Polly Road and given the older man pain relief. Collins seemed more like himself again. "And how do you propose I do that?" Collins commented with an edge to his voice.

  “You won't be doing any thing, sir," Heaney said and set off around the side of the old house. At the wrought iron railings, they looked at the scattering of ancient ploughing machinery and mangles on the museum lawn alongside the inevitable set of stocks and there- in the centre of the courtyard- the well. All were discernible thanks to the shaft of moonlight that broken through the clouds in the last few minutes giving the edge of the well a blue tinge and turning the grass an enchanted silver. Hendricks pulled his weight against the bars and easily stepped up onto the diagonal support some four feet off the ground. In one swift movement he pulled himself to the top of the fence and placed his leather gloved palms on the spikes.

  "Easy now," Heaney said from below. The spikes were more for ornament than damage but they could still do the careless some serious mischief.

  Hendricks eased his weight upwards until he could place his feet in between the spiked railings. The young PC looked down onto the museum garden to ensure there was nothing there to do him any harm and jumped, executing a perfect knee bent landing, completed with a sideways roll.

  "Have a look around, Hendricks," Collins said and watched the young man stride purposefully around the museums outer buildings. Shortly after Heaney had arrived at

  Polly Road, as the two men tried to decide what was to be done, Collins' mobile began to buzz again. The caller had been Hendricks. Upon joining them at Polly Road, he had told them of the confusion at the station. Their colleagues were missing, panicking in the absence of any form of command or staring into space in shock. At this last piece of information, Heaney and Collins exchanged a meaningful look.

  "Is there something that I need to know, sir?" Hendricks asked. Heaney had told the PC everything that they knew and had taken the opportunity to tell them both about what had occurred at his wife's house, about the hypnosis, about the presences within his son. When he had told them of the sweet voice singing Row Your Boat, Heaney could not go on and Collins had put his hand on the Irish man's shoulder. When he had finished, the four of them sat staring into space. Tom broke the silence. He told them everything that had happened to him that night, finishing with what Mary had told them. At the mention of Grant's name, Collins blurted out: "That boy has been dead for over twenty-five years! How the hell'-"

  "How the hell could any of this happen?" Heaney shouted at Collins. Collins flinched but did not respond. Heaney swallowed and controlled his anger. "Does any of this make sense to you?"

  After a moment, in which Collins allowed Heaney to stand up and pace the room angrily, the senior detective said to himself: "So Mary's going to the tunnels. Hmm. How will she get down there?"

  Tom shrugged. "Dunno. She seemed to know where she was going though."

  "Paul told us he was under the ground somewhere," Heaney said. "In fact he said that there were a lot of people down there."

  Heaney looked at him thoughtfully. "The missing people?"

  "Why not? We've looked everywhere else."

  It was then that they discussed possible ways in to the tunnels. Hence the visit to the museum at three in the morning.

  "No-one here," Hendricks said as he returned to the fence. "So who's first?"

  The drone of a motorcycle engine attracted their attention and as they followed the direction of the noise, the single headlight cut through the trees to where the three of them stood. A bulky figure steered the motorcycle their way. Heaney tensed. Collins said: "Wait!" Tom slowed to a stop in front of them, removed his helmet and removed the tool bag from his shoulder. The reason for his bulky appearance became apparent then. A thick cord of rope was wrapped around his shoulders and midriff.

  "Help me get this off," he gasped. Heaney lifted the rope from his shoulders and helped Tom uncoil the rest. It took several minutes.

  "Where did the bike come from?" Collins asked. They had separated after they had used Heaney's rowing boat to cross the river- the old boat had been tied to a tree on Riverside- the idea being that Tom would get rope and meet them back at the museum.

  "The old man's," he explained. "John-o must have put it there after I tried to torch Phillips. He had a set of keys for it; we used to share it. My keys were in my jacket."

  "Jesus, how much have you got here?" Heaney asked.

  "A lot," Tom replied and began to root through the tool bag. He pulled out two large torches and handed them to the two policemen, glancing at the rusty iron chain around the museum's side gate, Tom took a set of heavy duty, long-handled cutters from the bag. 'The old man has everything you could imagine up at his place," he said but looked troubled.

  "Was your father there?" Collins asked. Tom shook head his briefly.

  "Nice," Hendricks breathed from the other side of the gate as Heaney set to work. The tool made easy work of the chain.

  The four of them looked into the well as Heaney and Hendricks shone the torch into the darkness. Despite the power of the beam, the light could not illuminate the foot of the well. "It's very deep," Collins said. Heaney took the rope and began to tie it around his waist.

  "I'll go first," he said. Collins regarded him coolly.

  "Are you sure?"

  "My boys," Heaney replied shortly.

  "That's not going to work," Tom said. "It'll cut into you like that. If we make a kind of loop, a harness you can sit in that would be better." He took the rope from Heaney and set to work. When he handed it back, Heaney stepped through the loop and pulled at the knot it held fast.

  "It's not brilliant," Tom apologised, "but I think it will hold your weight about here-" He slapped his upper thigh. "-and it will still allow you to kick against the wall as you go down. We'll lower you."

  "That's good enough," Heaney said and climbed into the ancient brickwork.

  It has to be a way in, Heaney had reasoned. Why? Collins snapped at Heaney. Because a nutter like Davies wrote about it in his diary? What else did you find out? His favourite colour? But Heaney had stood firm informing his superior officer that he was going to investigate with or without support. I'll come with you, Tom had said and Hendricks had looked to Collins. I suppose you want to be a hero too, do you? Collins barked at the PC. I just want to try to help, Hendricks had replied avoiding Heaney's eyes. He still felt embarrassed about the way he had spoken about young Paul Heaney's mental health earlier that afternoon at the station. Back when the world had seemed to be a relatively normal place.

  "Let's go," Heaney said and the two younger men took up the slack. Collins shone the flashlight into the pit. Heaney held the other torch in his left hand. He stepped onto the lip of the well and caused loose masonry to crumble and fall over the edge; Heaney let out a nervous sigh and leaned back so that he could control the descent with his feet. "Give me some slack," he said and leaned into the well.

  Tom and Hendricks let the rope inch through their hands and Heaney began to move down. Hendricks took the majority of the weight on his back as the anchor while Tom held the rope in his hands a few feet in front of the young policeman. The torch illuminated the top of Heaney's balding scalp as he was lowered further. Soon only Collins could see the Irish man as he peered down into the hole.

  "Are you alright, John?" He called to Heaney.

  "Yes. Tell them to let me down faster," he said. Both men heard him and allowed the rope to pass through their fingers with more freedom. "That's good," he called up the well. "Keep it like that." He looked down into the blackness and wondered how much further he would have to go before he reached the bottom. He had been keeping an estimated t
rack of the depth. He thought he was perhaps thirty metres down. How much more rope was there? He called the question back up the well, his voice echoing and resonating around him. "Lots of rope, don’t worry," Collins returned. It was amazing how distant Collins seemed. In terms of sound and physical presence. Heaney shone the torch on the damp brickwork and marveled at the fact this well had been sunk by human hands almost a thousand years before.

  Forty metres.

  Surely it would have to be soon. Why dig a well so deep?

  In answer to his thoughts his feet and ankles dipped into icy water.

  "Hold it!" Heaney shouted. The rope stopped.

  "Are you okay?" Collins; distant, remote.

  "Yes! I'm in water! I'm going to see how deep it is!"

  "-careful!" Collins voice echoed. Heaney lifted himself off the looped rope and allowed himself to drop into the sub-zero water, holding his torch well out of the water. He looked up and saw the light above, now obscured by three heads. It stank down here; the water was stagnant and old. He reached down with his feet and felt his boots scuff against slimy stone. The bottom. He wondered why the well water wasn't deeper given the flood waters everywhere else in the town and checked that what he felt was indeed the bottom. He held onto the slick masonry as he worked his way around the bottom of the well tapping at the floor with his feet. Having completed half of the circumference he felt a temperature change in his extremities and a slight pull towards the wall. He reached in to the water and, sure enough, at mid-thigh height, there was an opening in the wall. Overcoming his revulsion, he slid his palm around the hole in the wall. It felt vaguely arched. Using his feet, he established the fact that it went all the way down to the floor. It was a doorway alright.

  He looked up towards the torchlight, impossibly far above it seemed.

  "I've found a doorway!" Heaney called up to Collins. "I'm going to see if you can get through it!"

  Collins shouted down something like be careful, Heaney thought. Heaney grabbed the rope and forced the loop through the torch handle. The knot Saunders had tied held the flashlight dangling above the water. Heaney breathed rapidly, shivering in the frigid water. He looked up once more at the friendly lights above. Are you really going to do this? Are you really going into that opening where you could get stuck or lost and die in this filthy slime? He didn't have to do this, did he? There had to be another way down to those tunnels, if the tunnels existed at all that was, there had to be.

  You should have left me alone dad. Paul's voice.

  Heaney closed his eyes against the tears that formed there. We need men like you out there. He remembered the smell of his wife again. That good smell. It was a scent that he wanted to experience again. It was the fragrance of another life, when all had been as it should have been. Yes. If he ever got out of this, he would find a way to get back to her. The past could be regained. It had to be. Heaney took several quick breaths and then breathed in as deeply as he could. He grabbed the top of the underwater doorway and pulled himself down towards it. The inhospitable waters immediately numbed his face, even the top of his head. Heaney felt his way under the arch and reached forward. It was not blocked that far anyway. He opened his eyes but the blackness was complete. There was no way that light could find a way down here. Using his feet, he pushed himself out of the crouching position into a full length glide. The sensation of the brickwork gliding past his arms ended abruptly. He had drifted for no more than five metres and the tunnel opened out. He felt his heels scuff the edge of the arched passage as he left it and felt himself floating upwards. The doorway behind him in the gloom, he was aware that, unless he found another way out of the water, he may never find the doorway again which would surely mean death. His lungs began to ache. Still he drifted upward.

  Heaney's head broke the surface. He let out the used air with a whooping cough and breathed in deeply, kicking his legs to keep afloat. He opened his eyes. He was in complete darkness still but the sensation of space around him was unmistakable.

  "Hey," he called into the darkness and the size of the echo that came back at him indicated the fact that he was in a spacious cavern of some sort.

  What now? With no light, he was lost. Even his breathing resonated in the dark chamber.

  Somehow they had to get light in there.

  "Okay, think," he muttered and immediately regretted it as the words ricocheted around the walls. He had not changed direction upon surfacing. If he turned approximately one-eighty and swam back that way surely he would come to a rock wall and somewhere along the bottom of that wall, he would find the door. At least he knew that he could come back up for air if necessary. He turned around and began to kick towards what he hoped was the wall. A few seconds later his finger tips touched rock. A sighed out of relief and felt the wall with the palms of his hands.

  His cry of pain sent another volley of repetition around the cave. His wrist had cracked against a metal pole jutting vertically out of the water. He ran his hands over the cold metal and felt a join as it was connected to a horizontal piece. He traced the horizontal line until it met another vertical pole. With a trembling hand he reached up until he felt the next step.

  It was a ladder.

  His stomach churning with hope, Heaney reached down into the water with his feet and located the ladder. His feet settled on one of the steps. It made sense that this ladder would lead down to the arch. Why else would it be there?

  He flexed his hands. They ached with the cold. His mouth juddered convulsively. No time to waste. Heaney started down the ladder taking a lungful of air before he put his face into the water.

  He found it easier to glide down the ladder with his feet to either side, using his hands to push him deeper. He felt the void open before his legs and knew that this was the tunnel back into the well. He pushed himself through until, moments later, he felt the passage widen into the circular foot of the well. He came up and grabbed the hanging loop of root gratefully, exhaling noisily. He immediately heard excited voices from above.

  "I'm alright!" He shouted and pulled himself into he loop, desperately in need of relief from the freezing water but the damage was done. He was as cold out of the water. "We need to waterproof the torches so we can see what's on the other side!"

  "Okay," he heard distinctly. "Hang on."

  Heaney looked up at the circle of light above and waited.

  *

  9

  Private Tony Griffin saw the figure emerging from the wooded area to the north of Measton and got on the radio immediately. As he watched, the running man staggered in the sticky farmland mud and fell onto his face.

  "We've got one, sir," he told his sergeant. The radio crackled back that he should hold firm. Do not approach. Keep a distance of at least twenty metres. Back-up imminent. Sarge wasn't kidding around. As the man regained his footing and pulled himself through the sticky field, Griffin heard the RV roaring along the narrow road towards him.

  The man in the field stopped and raised his hands. In the poor light, the man looked as though he was wearing combats.

  The RV came to halt and two men leapt out. Both men carried their rifles. Corporal Granger approached Griffin. "Has he said anything to you, Tony?"

  "Not a word, Corp," he replied. "He fell over in the mud and then, when he heard you approaching, put his hands in the air."

  "Well you would, wouldn't you?" Private Lee Heath quipped. "Prob'ly shit 'imself."

  The man in the field remained still, hands skyward. Granger considered for a moment; he was a thoughtful Yorkshireman with an easy manner that went well with the others in their unit.

  Granger said, "In formation and keep an eye on t' woods. I've heard stories. Follow me." The three men started towards the figure- a living scarecrow in a farmer's field until they were close enough to see the man's combat dress.

  "Identify yourself!" Granger barked at the man.

  The mud streaked face looked up at them; he was hollow eyed and had the haunted look that Granger re
cognized from Afghanistan- a look that he had seen on his own face in the shaving mirror after he’d seen close-up the effects of suicide bombing.

  "Anderson," the man said weakly. "Private. 242. Herefords."

  "Check it, Lee," Granger ordered. He did not lower his SA80. He’d heard stories that, as unlikely as they seemed, called for extra caution. Heath repeated the information into the Bowman and waited for confirmation. When it came he spoke quietly in Granger's ear. All the time Granger did not take his eyes from the man in the field. "Bruce Anderson. Private. With the 'erefords. Checks out, Corp."

  "Thank you, Lee," he said quietly before calling to the man in the field. "I want you to lie down on the ground with your hands above your head! Do not make any sudden movements! Do you understand me?"