by C. J. Tudor
And I didn’t tell them – or anyone – what else I saw that evening.
A second figure, running away from the Block. No more than a dark shadow. But I knew. Even then.
He needs to be sorted.
Stephen Hurst.
32
The next day, I make plans. This is out of character for me. I’m not someone who believes in planning ahead. I’ve seen first-hand how planning is a predictor of disaster, an invitation for fate to screw with you.
But for this, I need to be prepared. I need to have a course of action. And, without a job, it’s not like I have much else to do.
Brendan left the cottage just before two this morning. I offered him the spare room, but he declined.
‘No offence, but this place gives me the feckin’ creeps.’
‘I thought you weren’t superstitious.’
‘I’m Irish. Of course I’m superstitious. Along with guilt, it’s in our DNA.’ He shrugged his coat on. ‘I’ve booked into a B&B down the road.’
The farm, I think, something momentarily flitting across my mind then flitting out again, before I can grasp hold of it. It was important, I think. But, like most important things in my life, now it’s gone.
I make a strong black coffee with the dregs of water in the kettle and smoke two brisk cigarettes before getting down to work. I sit at the small kitchen table and start making notes. It doesn’t take long. My plan is not complicated. I’m not quite sure why I felt the need to write it down at all. But then, I’m a teacher. I find comfort and stability in the written word. Pen and paper. Something tangible to cling on to. Or perhaps it’s just procrastination. Unlike plans, I’m good at procrastination.
Next, I pick up my phone and I make some calls.
One goes to voicemail. I leave a message. The second is a little trickier. I’m not even sure if she will answer. My deadline has been and gone. Then I hear her voice. I explain what I need. I do not know whether she will say yes. I am not really in any position to be asking favours.
Gloria sighs. ‘You realize this will take time. As well connected as I am, I’m not your fucking fairy godmother.’
I fidget, fingering a cigarette. ‘How long?’
‘A couple of hours.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, but the phone is already dead. I try not to take this as an omen.
The third call is to an international number. This one took a bit of research. Maybe it isn’t entirely necessary. But now the seed has been planted I have to know. I put on my most professional voice. I explain who I am and what I would like to confirm. I listen as the very polite American receptionist tells me to get lost in a very polite American way. I accept her wishes for a nice day – although it seems unlikely – and end the call.
I stare at the phone for a while, my heart just that little bit heavier. Then I get up to make another coffee. The final call I will make later. This isn’t procrastination. I don’t want to give him too much time to plan, or to rally his goons.
I’m waiting for the kettle to boil when my phone rings. I snatch it up.
‘Hello.’
‘I got your message.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve got lessons.’
‘You’ve never played truant?’
‘You want me to skive off school?’
‘Not regularly. Just this afternoon. It’s important.’
A deep sigh. ‘Is this why they sacked you?’
‘No. That was for something far worse.’
I wait.
‘Okay.’
I sit on the scrubby grass, staring out over the coarse landscape. A place like this will never be pretty or picturesque, I think. It doesn’t matter how many saplings you plant or wild flowers you seed; build all the playgrounds and visitor centres you like, something about it will always remain barren and unyielding.
A place like this does not want to be reclaimed. It is happy being forsaken, lying dormant and dead. A graveyard of lost livelihoods, lost dreams, coal dust and bones. We only skim the surface of this earth. But it has many layers. And sometimes, you shouldn’t dig too deep.
‘You’re here.’
I turn. Marcus stands behind me, on the incline of the small hill.
‘Yep. And twice as ugly,’ I say.
He doesn’t smile. I get the feeling that humour, being happy, just isn’t in his repertoire of emotions. But that’s fine. Happiness is overrated; it’s far too short-lived, for a start. If you bought it on Amazon, you’d demand a refund. Broke after a month and impossible to fix. Next time will try misery – apparently that shit lasts for ever.
He walks over and stands awkwardly beside me. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Admiring the view, and eating this –’ I hold up the Wham bar I have been chewing. And chewing. ‘Want one? I brought two.’
He shakes his head. ‘No, thanks.’
I regard the shiny pink candy. ‘A friend of mine used to eat them. You remind me of him.’
‘In what way?’
‘He was a misfit. We both were. He liked finding out about stuff. And finding stuff. I think you might be good at that too, Marcus. Like how you found a way past the school security gates.’
He doesn’t reply.
‘You told Miss Grayson that Jeremy found the cave?’
‘He did.’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so. Some places have to want to be found. It takes someone special to do that. Not someone like Hurst. Someone like you.’
He debates, and then says: ‘Hurst knew about the cave. A lot of the kids had heard rumours. He knew I came up here. He wanted me to help him look for a way in.’
I nod. ‘And you did.’
‘I just kind of stumbled over it.’
‘Yeah. That happens.’
He sits down beside me.
‘You want me to take you.’
‘Not really. But I need you to take me.’
‘You said it was important.’
‘It is.’
He seems to notice the rucksack for the first time. ‘What’s in there?’
‘Probably best if you don’t know.’
Silence for a moment. Then he stands. ‘Let’s go.’
I push myself to my feet. As I follow him down the hill he says, ‘You know, you shouldn’t offer sweets to strange kids.’
Maybe he does have a sense of humour after all.
There is no hatch this time. Instead, I find myself staring at a thick, semicircular grille beneath a low, rocky overhang. The metal is rusted almost the same colour as the earth and camouflaged by overgrown weeds and thorns. Marcus pushes them aside and carefully removes the grille. It’s heavy and I can see gouge marks on the edges where it must have been forced open.
At some point the villagers tried to seal off all the entrances, I think. But they couldn’t silence the pit. Couldn’t stop it calling. To Chris. To Marcus.
I take out the torch I brought and point it into the hole. I can see that this tunnel is less steep than the one from my youth. But it’s small, barely two feet high. I will have to crawl. This is not a comforting thought.
‘It’s about five minutes till it opens up and you reach some steps,’ Marcus says. ‘They take you all the way down.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you going to stop people going down there?’
‘That’s the plan. You okay with that?’
‘I suppose.’ He stares at me. ‘You know, you’re a weird sort of teacher.’
‘I’m a weird sort of human. But weird isn’t always bad. Remember that.’
He gives a small nod. And I’m not sure, but it looks like a smile momentarily grazes his lips before he turns and lopes away.
The thin sun catches him on the brow of the hill. It illuminates his hair in a lighter halo. For a second, he looks like the ghost of a boy I once knew. Then he descends into shadow and both ghost and boy are gone.
My progress along the tunnel is slow and crablike. My bad leg throbs c
onstantly. Several times I stop and consider turning back. But turning itself is an issue, so I crouch and shuffle onwards, fighting the cloying claustrophobia rising in my throat and wincing every time the rucksack on my back bumps against the tunnel roof.
After what seems like several decades – during which my knees have been scraped raw and my spine has developed a permanent hunch – the tunnel widens enough for me to stand, albeit bent over. Steep steps lead down to what appears to be a solid rock wall. I run the torch over it. The light reveals a narrow gap, almost hidden in the depths of the shadows. Of course. Another way in, or out. It explains how Annie disappeared. Why I couldn’t find her. I squeeze through.
Twenty-five years fall away. I’m standing in the cave from my childhood nightmares. It feels slightly smaller. Shrunk by my adult perspective. The ceiling is not so high or cathedralesque. The space not so vast. This doesn’t stop my scalp from bristling with ice.
A few skulls lie on the ground, along with some crushed cans of Woodpecker and cigarette butts. There are holes in the walls where Hurst and Fletch wreaked their wanton destruction but, higher up, the rock is still intricately inlaid with yellow and white bones. I stare at them. The ones who didn’t come back. Left to be used as macabre decorations, or perhaps some kind of offering.
I wonder how long this place has been here. Hundreds, thousands of years? Amazing that the mining didn’t destroy it. Or was it the other way around? I think about the Arnhill Colliery Disaster. Despite all the investigations, never fully explained. No one ever held accountable. And what about the other accidents? There must be mine shafts beneath the cave. Did the miners get too close? Did they threaten the ancient excavation that came before them? A place that had been here for centuries, lying dormant, waiting.
I walk slowly around, breathing deeply, trying to keep myself calm. This is just a cave. The dead cannot hurt us. Bones are just bones. Shadows are nothing but shadows. Except shadows are never just shadows. They are the deepest part of the darkness. And the deepest part of the darkness is where the monsters hide.
I need to do this quickly.
I take the item that Gloria brought me out of my rucksack. My hands are shaking, I am slick with sweat. I fumble, swear, catch myself. I have to do this right. Fuck this up and I will take myself apart. I place it carefully – oh so carefully – in the centre of the cave, my bandaged hand making me feel stupidly clumsy. Then I back away. I force myself to turn. I can hear them chittering now. A warning. A threat. I squeeze through the gap and hobble as fast as I can up the steps. I tell myself to be careful, that hurrying, careless steps are what they want. A trip, a fall – like before – would send me plunging back down.
I reach the tunnel and crawl along it. At least my rucksack is now empty. The thought of what I carried down there – and a sudden paranoia that I have no guarantee it will work as planned – spurs me on and out.
I emerge a sodden, shaking, jelly-legged mess into the fresh air, and collapse on to the stony ground.
I lay there gasping, letting the breeze cool the sweat on my skin. After a while I sit back and fumble my cigarettes out of my pocket. I light one and suck it down like it’s pure oxygen. I consider lighting a second off the butt of the first. Then I check my watch and reluctantly slide the cigarette back into the packet.
Instead, I take out my mobile. Getting hold of his number wasn’t difficult. I press Call and wait. He answers on the third ring. Nearly always the third ring. Ever noticed that?
‘Hello.’
‘It’s me.’
Silence. And then, feeling very much like a character in a bad thriller, I say: ‘I think we should talk.’
33
He’s done well for himself. That’s what we say, isn’t it, when we see an expression of someone’s wealth or success? Usually a big house, expensive suit or shiny new car.
Odd how we measure things. As if the ability to purchase a large building or the most fuel-guzzling mode of sitting in a traffic jam is the ultimate expression of achievement during our scant years upon this planet. Despite all our advancements, we still judge people in terms of bricks, cloth and horsepower.
Still, I suppose on those terms Stephen Hurst has indeed ‘done well for himself’.
His bricks and mortar is a converted farmhouse about half a mile outside of Arnhill. The sort of conversion that takes the original character of an old building and systematically tramples on it with the addition of acres of steel, glass and bi-fold bloody doors.
This evening only one car sits on the gravel driveway. A brand-new Range Rover. Marie is out with Jeremy in Nottingham – shopping for new trainers and then pizza. Around the back, I can see a long garden, a hot tub and a floodlit swimming pool. A man does not own a hot tub and a swimming pool on a councillor’s wages alone.
Maybe that’s why Marie stayed. And yet, ultimately, it all means nothing. Because the years enjoying the hot tub and the swimming pool are fewer than she could ever have imagined. And maybe it would have been better to use the time to enjoy some freedom, a life away from this place. I guess it all depends on how much you want those bi-fold doors and how much you are willing to sacrifice for them.
I check my watch – 8.27 p.m. I hesitate a moment longer then force myself to raise my arm and ring the doorbell.
Distantly inside I hear chimes. I wait. Footsteps. And then the door swings open.
I’d say it was impossible for a man to age in a couple of days. But I’d also swear that this is exactly what has happened. In the harsh glare of the security light Hurst looks like a much older man, pensionable even. His skin hangs from his face like a wet rag and his eyes are bloodshot slits within folds of grey skin. He does not hold out a hand or offer a greeting.
‘My study’s this way,’ he says, and turns, leaving me to close the door behind myself.
The house isn’t quite as I expected. It’s more tasteful, if a little chintzy. I get the feeling that the satin wallpaper and faux Persian vases are evidence of Marie’s hand.
He leads me along the hallway. Ahead, I catch a glimpse of a large open-plan living-room/diner. To my right, a sleek, marble-and-chrome kitchen. Hurst opens another door on his left. His study. I feel an underlying current of resentment course through me. Hurst has all of this, with everything he has done.
And a wife who is dying of cancer.
I follow him into the room. In comparison to the rest of the house, the study is more minimalist. A large oak desk dominates. A few black-and-white pictures adorn the walls. A glass cabinet displays an array of crystal glasses and expensive whiskies.
It’s like a parody of a gentleman’s study, even down to a heavy glass paperweight on the desk. The study of a man who believes he has done very well for himself indeed.
Except, he doesn’t look it right now. He looks like a man who is falling apart at his expensive, custom-tailored seams.
‘Drink?’ He walks to the cabinet and half turns. ‘Whisky?’
‘Fine by me.’
He pours two large measures into two sparkling crystal glasses and places them on the desk.
‘Sit.’
He gestures to an armchair in front of the desk. I place the bag on the floor, next to the chair. I wait for Hurst to sit in his high-backed executive recliner then lower myself on to the creaky leather. It puts me lower than him. Whatever makes him feel superior. I have the winning hand.
For a moment, nothing is said, nothing is drunk. Then, at the same time, we both reach for our glasses.
‘What do you want?’
‘I think you know.’
‘You’ve come to beg me for your job back?’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Not really. What I’d like is for you to go home. Leave us all in peace.’
‘Some people don’t deserve peace.’
‘You always thought the worst of me.’
‘You always did the worst.’
‘I was a kid. We all were. It was a long time ago.’<
br />
‘How’s Marie?’ I ask.
I can tell the question rattles him.
‘I don’t want to talk about Marie.’
‘You’re the one who sent her to see me.’
‘Actually, it was her idea.’
Not what she told me. But this is Hurst. Lies are as natural as breathing.
‘She thought she might be able to talk some sense into you. Avoid any more unpleasantness.’
‘Like sending Fletch’s boys to beat me up? Trashing the cottage? That sort of unpleasantness?’
A thin, whip-sharp smile. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Didn’t find it, did they? I bet that really pissed you off.’
He shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink. ‘You seem to think I care more about the things that happened back then than I actually do.’
‘You cared enough to follow Chris up the Block that evening. What happened? Did you argue? Did you push him?’
He shakes his head, like he’s dealing with a sad lunatic.
‘Have you heard yourself? You know, I feel sorry for you. You made some sort of life for yourself. You had a career, and yet you’re willing to throw it all away. For what? To settle old scores? Search for answers where there aren’t any? Just let it go. Leave now before you make things even worse for yourself.’
I reach for my drink and take a long, slow sip.
‘I saw you. You were there.’
‘I didn’t hurt Chris. I tried to save him.’
‘Right.’
‘I tried to talk him down. But he was beyond reason. Rambling. Insane stuff. And then he jumped. And I ran, I admit it. I didn’t want to stick around, have people leap to the wrong conclusions.’
I wonder if his choice of words – ‘leap to’ – is deliberately callous. But I don’t think so. And I don’t think he’s lying. Deep down, I’m not sure I ever believed he pushed Chris. I wanted to. It gave me another reason to hate him. And maybe, it gave me a get-out too. Because if Chris jumped, it meant I’d let him down. Just like Annie.
Of course, I don’t believe Hurst tried to save Chris either. The only person Hurst has ever cared about saving is himself. That’s what I’m counting on.
