The Dead & The Drowning

by Cameron Bell

  “We get what we get,” she says in a soft conciliatory tone.

  I nod and push open the back door. The tiled kitchen floor is bereft of muddy footprints and I see no other signs that they have returned. We clear a room at a time and satisfied we are the only occupants I sling the spade into the earth. I then return to a swivel headed Jon who has locked himself in the Ranger with the engine running. We load ourselves with gold and make trips up and down the steps. In the kitchen we fill the silver pot, which in itself is a prize find and place the lid back on the top.

  Then the three of us stand for moment staring at it lost in transformative thought. I have the least involvement, the least stake in this. I am an accidental tourist that swam into a maelstrom. One dormant for a thousand years and set back into motion by Jon, Toni, Marcus, Adam, Marta and me - all pulled into it, colliding and smashing into one another. I wedge the kitchen table against the back door and say,

  “I don't know about you guys, but I could do with a drink.”

  Chapter 24

  Jon goes into a corner of the lounge and opens a drinks cabinet that looks like a box made out of old, distressed floorboards. He lifts out a clear wine shaped bottle with a black label and places it on top of the cabinet. Then with his piano player’s fingers he presses three shot glasses together and puts them alongside the bottle.

  “This is Brennivin Iceland’s own liquor, also known as Svarti Dauði – Black Death.”

  “I'll have a go at that,” I offer, and taking one of the glasses hold it out in readiness.

  Jon unscrews the cap and pours a full measure.

  “What is the expression ... you are not backward at coming forward,” he opines.

  “It has been said,” I reply.

  When the other two are filled Jon raises his glass to us and offers a cheer,

  “Skál.”

  Repeating the toast, I knock it back and it tastes pleasingly like licorice schnapps. Jon refills our glasses and with a quiver in his voice says,

  “I pursued this dream, and it seemed like a dream for ten years. This means so much to me and I want to thank you for making it happen, and of course you will get an ample reward from the Heritage Agency for your troubles.”

  The glass is raised again, and I quaff another down, the thrusters firing, the dog let off its leash.

  “Jon that is bloody nice,” I hint wagging the glass.

  Jon being a good host indulges my appetite and I not wanting to be too rude, take my time with the third.

  Toni is first in the shower. I take a seat in a tired, old chair by the window, its red colour faded by the light, its firmness yielded a long time ago. Under the window there is a wooden chest that serves as a coffee table. On top of the tarnished wood is a runic metal coaster, a pair of round framed reading glasses and a book: Egil's Sagas. I sup some Black Death and think about the Nadurra I'm going to visit after it.

  Jon kneels at the grate of a wood burning stove and constructs a pyramid of paper and kindling wood. He strikes a long match and nurtures a fire. The stove door is closed, the vents are opened up and the fire blazes to life. Jon adds more kindling and then a cut log from a half full basket at the side of the grate. He places the log carefully not to smother the fire and closes the door. It takes a minute for the fire to get its teeth into the log but once it does it ravages it with flames.

  Wood crackles and the fire glows into the room. Jon sits in a sunken two- seater across from me.

  “So, Will what do you think of Iceland?”

  The joke is not missed, and I reply smiling,

  “Well I think my tourist experience has certainly been different!”

  “You've adventured like a Viking,” says Jon chuckling and he raises his glass.

  “I suppose I've always been an adventurer of sorts – a backyard adventurer in the sordid underbelly of life,” I elaborate, knowingly straying into pretension for the fun of it,

  “As a policeman I've never had to travel far to find trouble or for trouble to find me.”

  Jon nods and I can see the concentration of him qualifying the words.

  “A policeman's lot is not a happy one.”

  It sounded familiar but from god knows where,

  “That is from?”

  “It's a song from The Pirates of Penzance. As well as Icelandic history I like musicals.”

  I cannot make my drink last any longer and finish it. I exaggerate the motion of placing the empty glass on the coaster. Jon takes the crude hint and fetches the bottle over,

  “Another,” he asks.

  “Why not.”

  For there were few things worse than an uncertain or dwindling supply of booze.

  “How well do you know Toni Jon?” I ask nestling the back of my head and shoulders into the chair.

  “I have known of her all her life. I had met her father Jim before she was born. I've gone over to the States and visited Jim and his family a couple of times. The first time in 1990 and the last time in 1997. Toni wasn't there the second time she had dropped out of college and ran off to Miami with some party man. Jim and Joan were really pissed,” and it is evident from the twinkle in his eye that Jon enjoys American vernacular too.

  “Party man?” I query.

  “Yeah … eh events, puts together events, music, dancing you understand?” explains Jon conjuring meaning with his hands.

  “Ah an event organizer ... yeah I know. So, she wasn't a dancer in New York then?”

  “No, that was her sister Olivia I'm sure, and she now has her own dance studio in Boston.”

  The liquor is now talking and Jon dropping his voice says humorously,

  “I think Toni, Toni is ... the black sheep of the family.”

  Another lie, a segment of her sister's life stolen and used; what at all is true about her past?

  Toni comes in rubbing her hair with a towel. She is wearing purple silk pyjamas and backless slippers. The nipples of her potent breasts are erect, and they push through the thin material. The sight sabotages my line of thinking and is a reminder to me of the weakness of men.

  “I'm running you a hot bath Will and I've added some salts to ease your aches.”

  I'm split about confronting her, the accusation is poised on my tongue, but I choose to swallow it. This isn't the right time, perhaps there doesn't need to be a time at all? Just hand the gold over and go our separate ways. If it is that simple; it is the hooks that make it hard, they're in deep and there are pangs of hell knows what as I try to twist them free.

  ◆◆◆

  I hear splashing of water as I trudge up the stairs and see steam condensing against the glass at the top of the bathroom door. Along the landing I enter the bedroom of a long-departed son, where I will be laying down my head tonight. I sit on the side of the bed and flashback to the ennui of a week ago. It is still there, diminished by the danger of recent days, its spurs rubbed back for now. Numbed and cushioned by the alcohol to a tap that drips. I strip off my dirty, bloody, sweat odoured clothes and take the towel left for me by Toni.

  The bathroom is decorated with sea green ceramic tiles that run dark on the floor and lighten up the walls. Subtly depicted waves roll along the edge with the odd dolphin and gull in and above them. There is the smell of salts and I pick up the aroma of lavender. I add enough cold to make the water tolerable and I lower myself in. The heat soothes and within a couple of minutes I feel the tug of sleep. Out of a pseudo politeness Toni knocks the door though doesn't wait for a reply. She shimmies in with a tumbler of whisky in each hand, the pyjama top open down to her navel and her lips in a filthy pout.

  “A Nadurra for my hard-working boy,” she purrs, the silk draping perilously around the half-moons of her breasts. She puts one tumbler into my hand and takes a sip from the other. Then leaning over she runs her left hand through my hair and clasping the back of my head plants a tender kiss on wounded lips. I taste the Nadurra and I think that there can't be anything better than a hot woman with whisky on her breath.
She straightens up and the silk on the left side slips away revealing a firm, heavy breast with just the right amount of droop to make the artificial seem real. The bathroom light shines off the gold bar piercing, making it appear as a sun above the stark black tree below.

  “You are right, I am wrong, it will work out though,” she admits, her tone contrite yet sensuously coated.

  I am disarmed and words rush out of my mouth to forgive.

  “It's an insane, life changing amount of money Toni, capable of turning anyone's head. It had me for a minute … they don’t call it gold fever for nothing.”

  She winks at the door,

  “I'm going back to the fire, I'll see you in a bit.”

  I hunker down in the hot water and savour the Nadurra, and with its subtle notes prefer it to the Brennivin. I am in a pensive mood though I don't wish to be; I'd like to remove my head and put a blank one on instead - one that weighed a feather. But wishing don't make it so and I have to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. Firstly, I'd give Toni a pass on the lies. It could be she feels she needs to paint over a wasted, dissolute youth bumming around the clubs of Miami – then who am I to puncture that balloon - I too had sold myself short.

  Secondly, what of work: I would go back and fight, fight the complaint and fight to get back out on the street where I belonged. I would not give the smug, brown nosing ladder climber the satisfaction of feeding me to the wolves. I would cut down on the booze, get running again, coach at the club, and just try to see straight – it is what Beth would want. And Antonia Brookes, well the whirlwind had to subside to find out if there is anything the other side of it. If there is something it would survive and be built upon in one of those sad long-distance relationships that Marcus frowned upon. Take a step back, uncloud my judgement and carefully strip back the lies - maybe, then maybe.

  I grin that I may have found my way back to the path and reach for my phone to call Nathan for a quick chat. I press the phone icon and the call log appears. The last call is the one Toni made to her father. I look at the mobile phone number and a sudden stabbing suspicion moves me to check it. I enter the number into Google and search for it first. It pops up, and although I'm not completely shocked at the result, a sickening anger ignites in me. The number is listed under K.B. Aviation and I learn from visiting the website that K.B. is Kyle Banks, a commercial pilot based out of Albany, New York.

  Kyle has his own plane - a red and white Cessna 210 Centurion, and K.B. Aviation offers a number of aerial services, though smuggling gold coins internationally doesn't seem to be one of them. K.B. has a photograph of himself above a resume that I haven't the time to read.

  He is a plain, chinless man approaching fifty with the indolent body you get from sitting down all your working life. K.B. hadn't stood a chance with Toni, he wouldn't have known what hit him - she would have knocked him clean out of the park. I imprint his face and file it to memory. I take a gulp of Nadurra and give Kyle a bell. He answers on the fourth ring and carelessly speaks first, offloading information,

  “Babe, I'm on my way, I've hired a car, booked a motel and the plane is being refuelled at Bildudalur for an 8am flight. I should be with you in twenty minutes - I can’t wait to see you. Is everything going according to plan?” He speaks rapidly, nervously and with a thick, whiny, New York accent.

  “Babe are you there?” his voice rising an octave.

  I cut him dead and make a quick note of the destination and registration number of the plane - N771DH. A plan is under way and I have a part, a part I don't know, a part that I fear I'm not going to like.

  ◆◆◆

  I climb out of the bath and feel light headed. I half dry off and still wet go into the bedroom. I still feel dizzy and the wall zooms in and out. I'd shipped a few hard shots to the head over the last couple of days, had slept poorly and been hitting the bottle pretty hard – I needed to slow down and rest up. I dress quickly and putting on my boots I roll off the bed. No, I could take a beating and hold my booze – this is something else. I lay there feeling smothered by fatigue and with the room moving around, it dawns on me that I've been drugged.

  I crawl to the door and use the frame to pull myself up. I use the wall to keep me upright and cling onto the bannister for dear life. I am walking on pillows and my knees seem to have been replaced by worn springs. I'm in shit shape and need help. I fumble for my phone to call the police, patting and scooping pockets for a phone that I'd left in the bathroom. I turn on the stairs to go back up and get it and the toe of my boot scrapes the carpet and extends through. I fall on my front and slide down to the bottom. I push up, lose my balance and giddy as a spun drunk career off the doorway of the study, stumble over and sprawl onto the hardwood floor.

  Lying face down my body acts like it is encased in rusty armour and could sink right through the floor into unknown depths beneath. With great effort I prop myself up into a frog squat and topple on to my ass. I vaguely hear a click, and a distortion of it in echo, though I am unable to detect the direction or distance of the sound. I see the lounge door in front of me open, and Jon is standing the other side, not looking well at all.

  Chapter 25

  Jon's face is grotesquely swollen, his skin is blotchy, and his eyes are puffed out to slits. He wheezes through sausage fat lips that seem ready to burst, and his engorged throat is one you would see on a bed bound glutton. Toni swoops from behind, wraps her right arm around his shoulder like a cape and whisks him back into the room. I hear Toni, her voice tinny and dislocated.

  “When they broke in they must have disconnected the phone and hid it somewhere!”

  I crawl to the door and pull myself up the frame. Jon has been seated and is crouched over his knees. The wheezing is loud and whistling and the bloated lips are cyanosis blue. Toni stands cross armed on the threshold of the living room and kitchen. Behind her an open cupboard door its contents in disarray, ransacked onto the kitchen counter and floor.

  “Hold tight Jon, I'll carry on searching for an EpiPen,” she says calmly in a voice that is nearly monotone.

  The room spins slowly, stops and zooms in and out. Objects fuzz and blur and then the floor moves like the drop dive of a roller coaster. I cling onto the door frame with arms made of lead and look to my left to the front door. I have to get out of the house. A hand grips my chin and twists it back. Her face is in front of mine and she says flatly without expression,

  “Will you are howling drunk, you'd better lie down.”

  “Yoo … Yoou druug.”

  “Yes Will, I put GHB in your whisky; we get what we get you said, how true. Now sit down!”

  She bares her teeth and shoves my head back and I fall heavily to the floor. I raise myself onto an elbow and Jon is off the chair and on all fours. I hear with varying volume and effect his desperate, strangulated wheezing, then the strength in the arms gives out and he is forehead to the floor drawing his final constricted breaths. She gazes down on me with her hands on her hips, no more the sultry gunfighter - just a killer.

  “It is always said Will that women are good at multitasking, well I guess this is proof of it,” and she scoffs cruelly.

  I struggle to get up, but all of gravity is against me and I collapse on my back. The hallway light dives and rises, dives and rises. The shape of her stands over me, hazed and vibrating, cold blue fire flashing from her eyes.

  “It is a shame you were too much of a pig. It was an asset in the beginning, but an obstacle at the end. Go to sleep Will and the dreadfulness will soon be nothing.”

  Her voice is in stereo, distant, loud, resonant and at times garbled and hoarsely satanic. Shadows sprout from her back, flapping and spasming into terrors like a dozen raven's wings. My eyes flicker, and it seems that I am ceasing to breathe, and then the darkness comes.

  Chapter 26

  A sound pierces my unconsciousness and I assimilate it into a dark, torpid dream. The sound persists and cracks open the dream. I am jolted awake, yanked from the realms of
the dead by Get Carter. My eyes blur into focus as the phone throbs the tune. The screen illuminates the pine needle earth on which it rests; a candle in a canopy of thick night. In attempting to sit up I am braked by something I have around my neck. Instinctively I reach for my throat and icicle cold fingers touch the coarse fabric of a towel. The towel is densely rolled and fixed in a tight noose with the knot at the nape of the neck. I loosen it like I would a tie, then I twist at the waist and rotate round until I can reach the phone without rising.

  I think it is Annabel and I swipe towards the green phone icon to answer.

  “Dad, Dad is that you, are you all right? Please don't do anything silly please!” my daughter begs crying hysterically.

  “Mam would never forgive you!”

  “I'm okay, I'm okay what do you mean?” I slur, confused to what the hell had happened or what is happening now.

  “The text Dad, the text you sent everyone saying that you'd had enough, that you couldn't live any longer without Beth, that you were sorry but had to end it.”

  I am lagging from whatever I'd been given, and my recollection of events is fragmented, yet I knew I wouldn't inflict that pain with a text of all bloody things. Keeping the phone to my ear I turn toward the knot and in the glow see a belt looped around the towel and buckled to a broken branch.

  “No, I didn't Bell ... that wasn't me ... I wouldn't do that to you.”

  “What do you mean it wasn't you? Have you got blind drunk again, and sent a lot of shit that you don't remember sending?”

  I loved my daughter's voice; however, anxiety and anger had made it a shrill sound to my hurting head. I feel like the slowest kid in the class who can't keep up, who stares out of the window daydreaming – adrift from it all.