by Adam Melrose
Joe looked at Matt, ‘Didn’t you guys recognise Evo’s house keeper?’
Matt gave a pensive look, ‘No, should we?’
‘It’s the woman we met in The Wellspring pub with Old Fred. She was the one that served us, and drove him back to Nalebury.’
‘So she probably tipped Evo off then, that’s probably how he knew we were here. What’s up Max, something troubling you?’
‘No, not really, just unimpressed with Evo; he clearly doesn’t pay his house keeper well if she has to work in his pub kitchen as well. I can’t say I like the guy.’
‘Indeed.’ Matt pulled the whiteboard around to face everyone.
‘So, what did we think of this evening then?’ Matt cleared a space on the board, ‘Anything we need to be writing down?’
In truth there were only two areas to examine. They waited to be updated on what Bella and Evo had talked about and to go over any plans as a result.
Bella recounted step by step what happened in Evo’s study. Matt made a few notes on the board, and then asked Bella what overall feeling she got from Evo.
‘At first, I thought he was genuine and we were barking up the wrong tree; but then he did something that made me think he is somehow involved, or at least he has something to hide, however minimal his involvement may be.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because, when I said I was grateful for everything he could tell me about my husband’s work life, as I knew very little, I would swear that Evo physically relaxed. His shoulders dropped at least half an inch. I notice these things.’
‘It’s OK Bella, we believe you. Good job, well done.’
Bella blushed, ‘Thanks guys.’
Matt wrote The Portal on the whiteboard.
‘Right, The Portal, do we believe what Evo said about it? He was very convincing I’ll give him that.’ The team discussed the merits of what each of them thought for a while, but it was clear they could not draw any absolute conclusions.
It was Max who put forward the plan for the next day.
‘I think we are going to have to go and have a proper look at The Portal before Evo gets a chance to put more security in place. I think we need to go and have a proper explore, and I think we need to do that tomorrow.’
After a few minutes it was agreed that they would. For now though, it was 2 a.m. and everyone needed to get some shuteye. They would meet back in the Operations Room tomorrow at 11.30 a.m. giving everyone a chance to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow they would need their wits about them.
Chapter 22
Despite it being work, the evening out in different surroundings together with the good food and wine had helped relax the team enough that they all got a good night’s sleep. By the time 11.30 a.m. the next morning came around, they were all refreshed and rested enough to cope with an explore of the portal.
The cars had been sorted, the correct kit placed closest to hand. A couple of inflatable dinghies with small electric motors had been purchased at 9.00 a.m., much to the delight of the lakeside shop’s owner.
Max and Matt had had a meeting with Bella who had taken the day off to stay and be involved. She had agreed to a further two days funding. Bella had pushed very strongly to come with them to the portal, but Matt was equally forceful. Bella accepted that the team could not be totally free to devote all their attention to their investigation if they had to keep an eye out for her.
Before long the two cars parked in the same spot as they had before. They had looked on the map and did not fancy parking anywhere else. Matt had texted with Ollie that morning to find out if he had stayed overnight. He had. Matt asked Ollie if he would distract Evo for the morning. Ollie had said he and Jonathan had some stuff to discuss with Evo so it should not be too difficult, and would do his best. Hopefully that would just buy the team enough time to have one quick look around inside the portal.
If Alastor re-appeared and started to have a go, they would cross that bridge – so to speak – when they came to it. Everyone put on the lightweight body suits they had been given. Attached the non-slip soles to their boots, and began carrying the boxes containing the dinghies and the motors down the path towards the bridge, then back along the towpath.
Once at the entrance, Ava ran through the instructions for inflating the dinghies. It’s pretty simple apparently. You just open the top of the box, fold the top right back so it is not in the way and then pull the orange ripcord. The dinghy will instantly inflate itself, popping out of the box. Just make sure the ground all around the box is free of anything very sharp.
This they did, and before them, where moments ago there was only two large boxes, now sat two brand new bright red four-man inflatable dinghies. A few moments later, the two small electric outboard motors had been fitted, and the dinghies carried to the entrance of the portal. The strange concrete ramp sloping down into the water meant that they had to carefully carry the boats for the first few feet into the canal.
Once they had done so, they carefully climbed aboard the dinghies; taking care to place their boots on the floor mats that Ava had the sense to bring from both the cars. She was pretty sure the studs in their boots would burst the floor of the dinghies without too much problem. They adjusted the depth of the outboard motor’s propellers to the shallowest settings that would still allow good steering and propulsion.
Matt in one boat and Joe in the other were in charge of the super bright LED lights they had brought with them. They powered them up, and suddenly the thick curtain of darkness was instantly pulled back with a super bright and very clinical light. Ava looked as far forward as her eyes would let her see. She was wrong – the curtain had not been pulled back, it had simply retreated much further into the portal. It was still there, only much further back now, and served to give some indication of just how long this tunnel was.
Matt whispered, ‘Right is everyone ready?’
Despite his whispering, everyone heard him as if they were standing right next to him – such were the acoustics in this weird place.
Everyone quietly spoke, ‘Yes.’
Matt signalled forward to Norton who was operating the forward boat, and with a gentle hum and a gurgle of water, they slowly moved deeper into the bowels of the portal; with no idea what they were about to encounter. Norton had managed to find an app that would tell them how far they had travelled with or without phone service, which oddly seemed to be stronger in the portal than out.
The journey was uneventful and took a while. There was just row upon row of the same painted brickwork whenever they cast the beam from one of the torches over the walls.
It seemed like quite some time before Matt finally spoke.
‘Ah the back wall. Slow down guys. How far have we come Norton?’
Norton looked at the data his app was providing, ‘2958 meters and it has taken us about half an hour.’
Matt swung round to face the middle of the boat, ‘What’s that in old money?’
Norton did some quick mental calculations before choosing the conversion on the app to see how close he was.
‘About 1.833 miles. Is that the end, I see brickwork; it looks a different colour though.
The torch Matt was holding nodded slightly with Matt’s movement.
‘Yes we are at the end. It’s not a wall though, it looks like the roof.’
Ava and Bruno chorused together, ‘The roof?’
‘Yes,’ Matt whispered, ‘It looks like the roof has fallen in, and not recently.’
He shone the torch up to the ceiling. It was there, but with a different type of brick to the ones blocking their way, ‘I guess the roof is unstable and the old brickwork not up to it anymore. I think someone has repaired the roof with a more modern and durable brick, and not bothered to haul all the old bricks back out yet. I guess Evo wants it kept blocked to stop people playing in here. I guess no one has come through here in a long time.’
Both dinghies were side by side now, and it was Joe who replied to Matt
.
‘You’re wrong boss; at least I think you are.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘What have we not encountered on our way along here, that if the place was abandoned, we definitely should have?’
Max answered his brother instantly; his brain had picked up exactly the same missing element.
‘Ah yes, what’s in every spooky story you read, and what have we not encountered in here. We certainly should have but we haven’t.’
‘Cobwebs,’ said Norton in quite a loud voice, ‘Not a single cobweb in the place. I have more cobwebs in my house than there are in this portal. That’s not right – that’s not right at all.’
They all agreed. Matt thought for a moment.
‘Who has the selfie-stick?’
It was handed to him. He placed his phone on it, attached the gizmo that allowed him to remotely take photos, activated the flash, and hoisted the phone up towards the portal roof, where the new brickwork was. When it was at the right level, he took several photos before lowering the phone back down into the dinghy. He examined the photos closely.
‘Yes, that looks new. I guess this is a recent repair. How far does it come down the wall, can anyone reach any of it?’
Max realised he could.
‘Yes I can Matt, what do you want me to do.’
‘I know we shouldn’t, but any chance you can just scrape off a small amount of the mortar, and the surface of one of the bricks, then place them in two separate bags?’
‘Sure thing boss.’
‘Great, then we can compare it and see if it matches the sample for Pete. I just wonder if he was in here for some reason supervising things, and he was hurt in the fall. Maybe Evo moved the body simply because he didn’t want the attention and rubberneckers down here ruining his tourism project.’
‘That would make sense,’ said Norton.
‘Well, I don’t think there is anything else to see, what sort of depth do we have Ava?’
Ava reached into her bag and pulled out her mini sonar, and dipped the sensor into the water. ‘Six feet five inches to the bottom.’
‘Thanks.’
Matt cautiously lent over the side of the dinghy and shone the bright light into the water, ‘Well that’s equally odd, look at that. I can see The Portal floor below us, and it is as clean as a swimming pool in here.’
Cautiously the team took it in turns to look. It did indeed look like a swimming pool.
‘This cleanliness doesn’t match with a long disused collapsing tunnel any more than the lack of cobwebs does.’
A couple of agreements came from the darkness. Matt didn’t catch who it was.
Norton’s voice was the first to break through the darkness after a moment’s silence.
‘Whatever is going on here – unless these repairs are very recent, I think we have a link to Pete’s death with this place. That said, I fear for Bella that we are going to just end up with more questions than answers, but what else can we do?’
Matt turned his light back on.
‘I think what we can do is turn around and head out of here; there is nothing else to see. We can go back to the hotel, look up what we can on disused tunnels, and go from there whilst we wait for these samples to be analysed.’
They turned the dinghies around one at a time, and slowly made their way back to the mouth of the portal. All in all, they were back on dry land in just over an hour. Packing up and heading back down the towpath to the cars took another half an hour given the effort required to pack up the dinghies.
Once back at the hotel they ordered some sandwiches and drinks, and discussed what they all thought was going on with the portal. The consensus was that Evo probably just didn’t want people in there whilst he tried to restore it, and conjecture was pointing to how people like Evo massively protect their privacy. Had there been an accident with Pete, they could all very easily see that Evo would have the body moved. It was what they had talked about in the billionaire world; how money and power could turn down the volume on morality.
A bike courier turned up to collect the samples and whisk them off to Dr Brett. Matt had already arranged for a comparison to be rushed through between the concrete sample in Pete’s head and the one they had just collected. If there was a match as everyone expected, then they would need to call Inspector Stimpson and share their findings with him. He would be the one to decide if any official action was required.
Matt flicked shut the laptop, ‘I can’t find anything online about tunnels and tunnel floors that are clean. Not clean like the one we saw. I am not really sure what that tells us though.’
‘Either it’s a result of the recent repair works, or someone’s pool man got lost.’
Everyone laughed at Norton’s comment. It took an edge off the evening that no one had noticed was there until it was gone.
‘Shall we all head down and have something to eat. Dr Brett said it would be after ten pm before he would get a chance to look.’ Matt then walked towards the door.
Everyone headed down to the restaurant. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was raining, and there was a cool breeze blowing, so they ate inside. After the previous night’s feast, no one was that hungry and the evening passed quite quickly.
They were back in the Operations Room hanging on for Dr Brett’s call. If it had gone past 11 p.m. they would have all gone to bed. That was the plan. Matt had just poured everyone a coffee as his phone rang. It was 10.05 p.m.
‘Hello Matt speaking.’
Matt wandered towards the balcony doors, which for the first evening were closed. In lieu of being able to walk up and down the balcony, Matt paced at the far end of the room.
‘Oh really? OK, what can you tell me… anything?’
The gaps between Matt talking were fairly decent, so everyone in the room took this to mean Dr Brett was imparting some detailed information. In fact he wasn’t, and Matt looked a little down-hearted when he had finished the call.
‘Well I have to say I am definitely surprised. The samples we took from The Portal wall today certainly do not match the sample from Pete’s wound.’
The length of the silence that followed spoke of everyone in the rooms surprise at this revelation. Bella got up from her chair with some purpose. Matt assumed she was leaving to head back to her room. He started to get up also when Bella began to speak.
‘You have been kind enough to update me with all your findings, or more accurately your lack of findings today at The Portal. So, I am just going to come straight out with this; tomorrow morning – I want to visit The Portal for myself. I mean to go with or without you. I would not dream of asking you to trespass with me, but if any of you are happy to come, I would be delighted. I intend to head there about eleven thirty, Good night.’
With that she promptly left the room.
Matt got up and went after her. They could hear his voice out in the corridor.
‘Bella… Bella… wait please.’
Chapter 23
It was 11.30 a.m. and everyone was gathered in the hotel car park by the cars. Max and Matt had – for the first time in their working career had a slightly heated conversation the night before. Both wanted the other to persuade their headstrong client not to visit the portal; even though they both knew it was not their place, or their right to tell Bella what to do. After all, they worked for her; but both cared for her, and didn’t want to see her come to any harm. It was not that either was spooked by the portal, despite its sinister reputation. It was simply a case of being concerned by what the portal represented in the real world; namely, a large body of deep, cold, dark water and that inevitably posed a real danger to any human being who was ill prepared.
‘OK let’s load up and go then.’ Matt’s face had not lightened much since he and Max had talked. He did not want to be accompanying a client on a planned illegal trespass into a dangerous building; but he equally would not dream of letting her go in there alone. Bella had put him in an awkward po
sition.
Before long they were back again on the side of the road close to the portal. Matt took Bella to one side. He had not been sure how to play this, but his anxiety was rising rapidly. Bella had shown how strong minded she was, so for both their sakes, he was willing to insist on a couple of ground rules whilst she was with them. After all, he was responsible for everyone here but her.
‘Bella a quick word please before we go up there, I’m not happy about this; The Portal is a dangerous place with deep, cold water, darkness and nothing on the sides to hold onto if you end up overboard. We are all going to wear life jackets, you need to also. More importantly, you need to do exactly as I say whilst we are in there and not question me. You can question me later when we are all safely back outside; but I can’t have you endangering my team’s lives. Does that work for you?’
‘Yes Matt, that works for me, and for the record I do appreciate you accompanying me here.’
Matt’s anxiety lifted a little.
‘Good, my pleasure. Sorry if I seem a little heavy handed, but the reality is we should not be here, and neither should you.’
‘Not at all, totally understood.’
‘Shall we then?’
‘Yes Matt, we shall. Did I see you had a selfie-stick?’
‘Yes we do, why?’
‘I have a plan, but nothing that will cause any problems I assure you.’
‘Right everyone ready, let’s gather up and go.’
‘Err boss, just a quick word if you don’t mind?’
‘Sure Norton.’
Matt and Norton wandered off a distance from the rest of the group.
‘Look I know Bella is insisting she do this and all, but I want to register my protest. I think this is a very bad idea. I don’t think we should be doing anything that puts a client in potential danger. If she goes on her own, well fair enough; we can’t stop her doing that, but we should not have anything to do with this. What if she ends up in the water? This is a very arrogant way to behave.’