The Drowning Ground

by James Marrison

  ‘Jeeeesus,’ Turner said, stunned.

  The fireman watched the fire for a moment longer, and then grabbed me roughly by the arm and marched me straight towards the raised platform and the French windows. Turner pointed beneath the broken steps. I got on my haunches and peered into the darkness below.

  A massive-looking piece of timber, perhaps one of the main joists, had fallen from somewhere high upstairs and smashed right through the raised platform. The paving stones had shattered outwards in splintery pieces and lay all around the edges of the hole. One end of the thick, very straight piece of wood now lay at an angle and was visible through the steps, which were also shattered and covered with rubble and ash.

  Turner was pointing at the hole beneath the steps. I pulled up the visor of the helmet, wiped my eyes and leant in. The heat was unbelievable.

  ‘There!’ Turner yelled above the din. ‘Can you see it?’

  I looked. The piece of wood had not only broken through the platform but had also pounded its way some distance into the ground beneath it. There was something poking out from amongst the dirt, dust and debris. A flap of something. It was difficult to make out what it was. An overcoat? A blanket? I couldn’t be sure.

  I wiped at my eyes with a corner of the heavy coat. The smoke cleared for an instant, and I finally saw what it was. Just visible was the corner of a groundsheet. Green tarpaulin covered in earth and dust. I took another step.

  Gail Foster. Elise Pennington. Which one was it? Unless they were both buried here, perhaps their bodies entwined together. Down here all this time. Hurst, the bastard, must have buried them really deep. And what sort of room was this? A cellar? I could just make out other objects in the space below.

  What had he done to them? I felt a surge of despair as I stared at the fire. Now the flames would take what was left.

  I crouched down a little further, looking up anxiously from time to time at the house burning above me. There was so much smoke I was already out of breath.

  The other fireman was still spraying water from the edge of the lawn. The stream rose above me, so that water hit my back and fell in tinny thumps on my helmet like rain. The visor was making it hard to see, so I stood and lifted it up again.

  I got on my haunches once again and stared in. Smoke filled the space beneath the stone steps, and I could no longer see anything. I raised my arm to my mouth and peered through the gaps in the smashed-in stairs.

  Suddenly I felt a hand grabbing me by the shoulder. I wheeled around, furious. It was Turner. The yellow bands around the sleeves of his uniform shone in the light of the flames. Turner shouted out something; I couldn’t hear him. I shook him away. He reached for me again and then, giving up, gestured to the visor. As a concession, I reluctantly put it down and pushed first my head and then my neck and shoulders through the narrow space.

  For a moment everything seemed almost calm, like being at the bottom of a raging sea. But once again a hand grabbed me by the shoulder, and this time I pushed it roughly away. I saw the edge of something frail near the groundsheet. I breathed in sharply when I saw it. It was a hand. Beyond it lay something smooth, along with a mass of clumped, dirty-looking hair.

  The platform was going to go at any second. The whole house shook. Something landed hard near me, sending a shower of dust into the narrow space. But I was already pushing my way through the hole. I crept along the narrow passageway, coughing up dust and smoke. The huge piece of wood wedged in the centre shifted slightly, the floor rattled and a burning rock fell through and hit hard against my knuckles.

  I kept moving, inching ever closer to the body. Fear rose. I tried to push it away. With each inch of progress I was certain that the ceiling would collapse. My fists clenched and unclenched. The dread of each step reverberated off the memory of the last, so that I became increasingly fearful and hesitant. Instinct screamed at me to turn around and get out while I still had the chance. For a few moments my mind went mercifully blank, and I took in nothing but the sound of the fire raging all around me.

  I took another hesitant step. The tarpaulin was the type gardeners used to collect weeds or mounds of grass. It had a metal eyelet in one corner, the sort that allowed you to put a rope through it. The metal was something cheap, possibly tin. The edge of the tarpaulin had been buried in the earth.

  Once again the floor rattled and something landed with a shattering bang above. Another avalanche of stone cascaded down, and a piece of rock hit my helmet so hard it was as if my head had been driven into my neck. My ears rang. I held my breath and shut my eyes. But, for the moment, the ceiling by some miracle still held.

  I reached for the tarpaulin. It was covered in a layer of very dry earth, but poking up from the surface was the smooth, rounding curve of a skull, and her hand. It looked as if she were trying to pull herself out of the earth.

  A noise came behind me, muffled in the roar of the fire. A shout. I looked back. Turner was crouching in the opening of the space, gesturing wildly for me to get out. I had never seen anyone so angry or so scared. I ignored him and concentrated on the body in front of me. They would never find her again if the house collapsed. She had been down here long enough.

  I started scrabbling away at the earth with my hands, scraping out handful after handful. The joist had smashed through the earth and jolted the body from its resting place, shifting the earth upwards. She came away with surprising ease: she could not have been buried very deeply. The tips of my fingers suddenly touched something buried beneath her. The other end of the groundsheet. I pressed the flat of my hand upon its uneven surface and dug around it. My own fear seemed to rise again, wavering and flickering. My whole body was trembling beneath the heavy fireman’s coat.

  I moved my fingers in the earth, again and again, digging around the edges of the groundsheet, until I was able to clutch the base of the tarpaulin at both ends with both hands. I gave a hesitant pull and then another more insistent tug. The earth began to give.

  There was another more furious yell from behind me. Turner had pushed himself through the hole beneath the steps and was making his way towards me. He looked like he wanted to kill me. I couldn’t blame him. For some reason I laughed. It came out wrong, though, and I didn’t like the sound of it. I shut my mouth and kept digging, fixed on the idea that there could be another body.

  I moved away more earth. All around me was a steady, cackling roar. I could hardly see or breathe.

  I thought of the girls lying down here for all these years, and then I thought of their parents. Moved away. Gone forever. And, as I dug, I felt from time to time the smooth fragile contour of her bones and the soft crumbling fabric of her clothes. My fingers dug into something soft yet very dry. I tried not to think about it.

  I cleared away more dirt; I gave it another pull.

  It still wouldn’t give entirely. Were there two of them down here? Had to be. I looked down. No, definitely just the one body. I caught a look at her from the corner of my eye. She had been down here for a long while, but there was still some flesh on her bones and on her face. But she was unrecognizable.

  I pulled, and the tarpaulin flew out in one go from under her, but she remained where she was, down in the hole. I swore very loudly in Spanish, cursing the dead girl and the groundsheet roundly. Then I clambered across, leant down, picked her up as gently as I could and put her back on the groundsheet. Then I began to drag her out.

  Turner was suddenly beside me. There was hardly any room for the two of us, but, when he saw the girl, he reached for the other corner of the groundsheet without a word and we both began to pull her out and back towards the steps.

  We moved quickly. A huge chunk of masonry exploded through the floor in front of us. We covered our heads. Dust and smoke everywhere. Turner grabbed my arm, motioning for me to stop, and we waited for the dust to settle. The large timber in front of us had caught fire and was now surrounded by burning pieces of wood and more rubble. We shook off the dust and the burning rocks and moved back
the way we had come.

  I could now recognize the discarded and forgotten objects lodged down here: stacks upon stacks of bottles in plastic crates. Unidentifiable pieces of machinery. An old tyre. A kid’s mountain bike. Ancient newspapers.

  The ceiling of the space was on fire, expanding in ever-widening pools of flame. Turner grabbed me hard by the arm, and we shuffled our way along, past the burning timber, dragging the groundsheet behind us.

  I didn’t know where I was suddenly. What direction to take. I desperately waved at the smoke. My breath was harsh and ragged. Fear, cold and sharp, rose in the pit of my stomach, freezing me for a moment. I kept going. The thumping in my head grew louder. Turner was moving forward, pushing through the rubble with his fists, searching in the darkness for the way out. I grabbed the groundsheet again and pulled myself after him, weaving our way out.

  A vicious orange glow rose up as the enormous piece of timber shifted and fell, thundering against the floor. I could not believe just how quickly the fire had spread down here. The sound of it raged inside the narrow space, emanated from every corner.

  Masonry was falling; stone creaked and shifted and fell on to the floor and on to our backs. Ash covered our faces, while plaster dropped in clumps all around us. The smoke thickened, whirring and twisting in the air, choking us.

  I started to cough again, and found that this time I couldn’t stop. Turner was doing the same. Fear had in a matter of seconds become a grinding panic. The old newspapers that had been dumped here burst eagerly into flame. A thick sheaf of paper was lifted and held briefly by the rising currents like a bat.

  All around us fell sparks of impossibly bright and dazzling flame. The fire was marauding its way through the narrow space. Cinders and chunks of wood burnt my face and arms. The blackness rose up, and with it a whirling nausea. I blinked and the darkness went away, but not for long.

  Turner grabbed me and pulled me along and shouted something. By some miracle, we had reached the steps at the entrance to the hole. I looked up. The stone platform was sagging and beginning to crack, a thin long line suddenly racing across it. Another, larger crack followed, spreading quickly along the length of stone. Turner was trying to smash through the rubble blocking the exit at the steps. But it looked hopeless. We had become lost in the din and the smoke and the debris, and there was no way out.

  I still clung to the groundsheet. An ember landed in the girl’s hair and it suddenly caught fire. I stared in a kind of numb horror as a burning smell rose off her. Withered old burning flesh and bone. But it wasn’t just her: what remained of her clothes had also caught alight. Then came a smell of melting plastic. The groundsheet.

  I could feel the flames once more beginning to rise at my back. But I crouched there for a moment with a dazed fascination, unable to tear my eyes away as the fire burnt relentlessly into the girl’s body. Her smile seemed to get much wider; she was grinning up at me as the orange flames curled up towards her cheek. The fire reached out and burnt the back of my coat; it clutched at me from all sides.

  I realized that the girl was melting. Right in front of me. Melting. Melting. Melting. Like the wicked witch in that old film. The name came to me in Spanish in an instant: El mago de oz – The Wizard of Oz. And for a moment all I could think about was the old witch in that old film disappearing inside her coat and the pointy hat lying on the floor while the silly little dog Totó went running around in circles. Then the horror rose again, and the smell of her burning filled my consciousness.

  A voice – tentative at first – now screamed so loudly and so clearly that it eclipsed even the din of the fire. Tengo que salir de acá. ¡Déjala! ¡Por ¡Dios! ¡Déjala! I had to get out. I had to leave her here. I had to help Turner and get out. I lurched to my feet and stood as high as I could and ripped off the heavy coat. Then I placed it over her, smothering the fire.

  Turner was now smashing his whole body against the solid weight of the rubble. Everything was getting dark. A shifting darkness that came and went. It was hard to breathe and impossible to think. I felt light-headed, sick and weaker than a child.

  I glanced backwards and looked on helplessly as the fire began to sweep its way towards us. I was now coughing almost all the time. Again, everything went momentarily black, but it was a different type of darkness this time – more insistent. A heavy kind of light-headedness that became something far more serious. I was passing out. I could feel the whole place falling away. I saw the back of the steps towering above me, and as the blood rushed and pounded in my head I began to topple over. Everything went blank. And then, a second later, Turner was reaching for me and screaming. I got to my knees, coughing, struggling for breath.

  In the gathering smoke, I grabbed a broken rock and crouched next to Turner. As he pounded away with his shoulder, I smashed at the rubble with the rock. The fire was billowing along the walls with a relentless and steady purpose. We hammered at the stone.

  Then I saw Turner freeze. I heard something else above the rumble of the fire. It was coming from the other side of the rubble. It was like a scream coming from under water.

  Men’s voices on the other side of the debris. A voice I recognized: Graves’s. A shout again, which fell abruptly to a murmur. I looked up and saw some of the rubble above me shudder and then shift. Turner was starting to yell through the widening gap. One of the rocks above him gave way and landed hard against his shoulder. The edge of a long metal pole came through, and the rubble began to fall away. Turner was shouting and motioning for me to get back. I collapsed backwards and lay there helplessly as more rubble shifted and moved and fell.

  A face appeared. A fireman. Mule-faced and squinting. I got to my knees and staggered towards him in disbelief. The fireman and Turner started to pull away at the rubble. I got a glimpse of men on the other side. More hands were suddenly there helping. Bricks and rocks tumbled at my feet. Air was rushing in. Turner’s hand shot forward and grabbed me roughly by the shoulder, trying to pull me out. Another hand dug deep into my flesh, pulling me, dragging me through the hole. But I shook them off. I reached behind me, and with the last of my strength grabbed the body wrapped in my coat and thrust it out towards the waiting hands. The hands took it and disappeared. Then I moved forward. In seconds I was pulled through the gap.

  My head hit something hard. Turner had already emerged from the hole. The smoke, drawn towards the oxygen of the only exit, poured out and choked us both as we flailed about like hooked fish in the open air.

  The whole world was on fire. It rose above the manor’s roof in a gigantic ball of flame that lit up the sky. Two firemen began to drag me away from what was left of the raised stone platform, past the broken balustrades and down the shattered steps. From behind me, I could see Graves. Shouting all the time, it seemed.

  I wanted to stay exactly where I was; to breathe in the cold air and cough out the smoke still deep in my lungs. I wanted them to leave me alone. But the damned hands wouldn’t let me go. I was being dragged down mossy slippery steps, then across the grass. The hands released me for a split second, only to redouble their grip.

  When the fireman finally let me go, I fell straight on to my back. I found myself next to an old wheelbarrow. Its red wheels were buried in snow. I turned over, and got to my knees. I leant on the wheelbarrow for support and tried to stand up. But the wheelbarrow collapsed on its side and out spilt a bunch of old weeds.

  They’d got the girl out. They had placed her gently in the centre of the lawn. Graves was now standing above the groundsheet, protecting her. I tried to stand up again, and couldn’t. It didn’t surprise me all that much. So I lay back down on the cold grass and let everything go black.

  PART TWO

  15

  Frank Hurst’s funeral was held five days later, on a cold Monday afternoon. It had stopped snowing, but many of the smaller roads were still impassable. I arrived late, because of the pills the doctor had put me on the moment I left the hospital. They were bright yellow and there were too many z�
��s on the labels, and they all made me feel weak and slow on my feet. I parked my car on the green. For a moment I stayed where I was and glanced across my seat at the open copy of the Cotswold Herald beside me. UNIDENTIFIED BODY LINKED TO PITCHFORK MURDER CASE ran the headline. Thankfully, as yet no mention of the girls. I scrunched up the newspaper and threw it in a nearby bin as I left the car. Then I stalked up the hill and pushed open the wooden gate to the church. I began to thread my way as quickly as I could through the oblong tombs and crosses of the graveyard.

  Halfway along by the wall a cherub’s face looked up at me above an open bible. I patted the cherub on the head and, although not particularly religious, prayed to whoever was up there and gave heartfelt thanks for my safe delivery from the fire. I picked up speed when I glimpsed the small funeral procession through the trees, on the other side of the churchyard. There were only a few mourners, and as soon as the rector left the others followed. All apart from Simon Hurst.

  Last time I had seen him he had been sitting in the back of the ambulance at Dashwood Manor. He had heard about the murder on Meon Hill on the radio and, after being unable to contact his brother, had gone rushing off to his house to see if he was all right. Of course the first thing he had seen was Cleaver fast asleep in the squad car and his brother’s house on fire; he then unwisely tried to rush in and put it out. He had made a quick recovery, all things considered. But even here, in the bright morning light of the graveyard, there was a nervous and restless quality to him. The resemblance to Frank was unmistakable, though he looked like a watered-down version: less intense and somehow not all there. There was a weakness and a petulance to his mouth that he seemed unable to conceal. Seeing me looking at him, he nodded curtly and slunk off.

  I waited a while longer and then stepped through the arching darkness of the rugged yews; the outlines of the final rows of tombs emerged. I stood for a few moments in front of the overturned earth. Other Hursts were buried out here in the family plot. Next to where they would later place Hurst’s headstone was one of polished marble. I knelt down and looked more closely, brushing away the snow and reading the name.