‘Look at it, go on. Turn around. That’s an order, Commandant.’
He slowly turned and looked over the edge, and down into the depths of the crater. In the pit at the bottom, glowing a brilliant red in the tropical dusk, the magma boiled and popped and churned to an endless soundtrack of booms and roars: the resonant cannonade that filled the air and shook your very soul. The magma itself, with its irregular pattern of almost geometric cracks, reminded him of cobblestones. Massive, shape-shifting cobblestones. It wouldn’t be like diving into a lake; it would be like diving into a street.
It was Lena’s turn this time to read his mind.
‘Imagine you’re diving into an ocean,’ she said. ‘A cool, deep ocean.’
But he didn’t have time to imagine for long. Drayle’s voice cut in behind him.
‘Now put your hands behind your back.’
Ruart turned. Lena was still pointing her gun at him, itching to pull the trigger judging by the look in her eyes.
‘Now just stop for a moment and think about this―’ he began.
Drayle punched him, hard, under his right eye. It was a swift left hook from nowhere that hit the pause button in his brain. He reeled. Sound and vision took a moment to return.
‘… what I say,’ Drayle was saying. ‘You listen, and you do. Or else…’ And he indicated Lena’s gun.
‘It appears I’m going to die anyway.’
‘We’re all going to die, Ruart. You’ll just be heading off a little early. But if you don’t want Lena here to blow your kneecaps off, turn around and put your hands behind your back.’
‘It’s your balls that’ll be going first,’ said Lena, who’d altered the angle of the gun barrel to match her threat. At the same time, Drayle had produced a set of handcuffs.
‘So why the handcuffs. If I am diving.’
‘Put it this way. You won’t be needing your arms for swimming. Now turn around.’
A loose idea began to form in his head, but it wasn’t fully formed. Nevertheless, an unformed idea was always better than no idea. He slowly shuffled around until he was facing the precipice again.
‘Hands behind your back.’
Ruart offered his left hand first.
‘Both of them,’ Drayle said, cuffing his left wrist.
Luckily Ruart knew a thing or two about handcuffs…
‘Hurry up…’
He quickly spun around to his left, making sure he kept Drayle between him and Lena’s gun, and managed, in one lightning-fast movement, to both snatch the handcuffs away from Drayle’s grasp and cuff Drayle’s left wrist. Tying yourself to the dragon: a particularly desperate – and highly unreliable – form of insurance.
From that point, a terrible, close-proximity struggle ensued, the two men handcuffed left wrist to left wrist: Drayle was trying to either knock Ruart out or push him away for Lena to get a cleaner shot; Ruart was attempting to keep Drayle close, and at the same time he was hoping he could steer Drayle away from the crater’s edge and towards the volcano’s steep outer slope – if he could get him to that, they could roll down the mountain, away from Lena, and maybe Drayle would hit his head, maybe Ruart could somehow stay alive…
But Drayle was too strong, he sensed what Ruart was doing and pulled him back. Tried to head-butt and elbow him. Ruart had his right arm pressed hard against Drayle’s throat…
‘Shoot him!’ Drayle managed to croak at Lena.
Drayle managed to push Ruart out to one side, and Lena took a shot, but she was too cautious and it went wide, raising a puff of ash about five metres behind them. Drayle got his leg under Ruart’s and managed to roll him and for an instant there was separation again before Ruart pulled himself up into Drayle’s face again like a tango dancer. Again Lena fired a shot and missed.
‘For fuck’s sake shoot him!’ Drayle screamed at Lena.
‘I’m trying to! Where’s the key? Get the key!’
‘In my pocket but I’m kind of busy right now, fucking just shoot…arrrgghhh!’
Ruart had grabbed Drayle between his legs. He had a good handful of penis and testicles and was squeezing as hard as he could…
‘How does it feel to have your―’ Ruart hissed, before Drayle’s right fist hit him in the side of the head and the lights went out again. It was only for a second, but it was all Drayle needed – he twisted Ruart around and Lena fired three shots in quick succession and the third one hit him in the stomach.
It felt like he’d been kicked, but he knew what had happened. He didn’t wait for the pain to kick in. While the other two hesitated, taking in the changed circumstances, Ruart made one of the fastest and most significant decisions of his life. Knowing there was a good chance he’d bleed to death no matter what happened now, he mustered the last of his strength and sprang with all his might, pushing past Drayle in a twisting motion and plunging over the edge of the precipice.
The dive, just as they asked.
His left arm was almost yanked out of its socket as he slammed into the loose, crumbling rock and ash of the crater wall. Felt a satisfying sliding feeling as Drayle followed him over and down, but then another painful jerk as everything, all movement, abruptly stopped. He was flat against the near-vertical slope – any more sheer and he would have been dangling in space. His feet couldn’t have found any purchase on the ash even if he’d wanted it. He and Drayle had stopped falling, and looking up, he could see that Drayle had managed to get a handhold, using his free right arm, on a knob of rock jutting out just below the cliff edge.
‘Lena!’ Drayle yelled.
From Ruart’s angle, he couldn’t see Lena – which was possibly a good thing, given her proven willingness to shoot him, although there was hardly any purpose to be served now. From their point of view, Ruart may as well have been dead already: he wasn’t moving, not just because he was content to see how this was going to play out, but also because he couldn’t. He’d used up the last of his reserves pushing himself and Drayle over the cliff. He was done.
‘Lena!’ Drayle yelled again. ‘Help me!’
‘How?’ Ruart couldn’t see her but he could hear her voice. ‘I’d never be able to pull you both up.’
‘Well just try!’
‘What, and fall in too?’
‘Lena you filthy Russian whore, pull me up! Or so help me God I’ll―’
‘I can’t do it, Dominique. I can’t, I’m sorry! but it’s not possible!’
‘Fuck! I will fucking kill you!’
There was a pause. Then another jerk as Drayle and Ruart slipped down a centimetre, before stopping again. A moan from Drayle.
‘Lena! Please…’
He sounded drained. Ruart doubted Drayle could hold on for much longer. As for himself, he could no longer feel his left arm and the pain in his stomach wasn’t so bad if he didn’t think about it. He could feel the blood flowing down his left leg, and he wondered if it was forming rivulets on the steep wall of ash. The ash and the blood and the magma. All grey and red, red and grey.
He felt as though he was about to faint. He wanted his final thoughts to be about the things that mattered and he focussed on Constance and on Marine and of course Madeleine and dear little Jack. He hoped Jack would be brave, when the time came. He hoped he’d be remembered for his successes and not his failures. He hoped―
They slipped another centimetre. Another snarl of anguish from Drayle. Nothing from Lena.
Looking down, past feet that already looked like they didn’t belong to him, there it was, the refulgent lake of magma. Liquid rock, boiling and flipping, cracking, mocking… incandescent manhole to the centre of the earth… coruscating porthole to the limits of the imagination… Just a small, final slip-of-a-grip away from molten consummation―
And there it was.
A final jerk
downwards, a yell and a curse
from Drayle and the slide
began, steadily
at first, and then picking up speed
sliding, bumping,<
br />
bouncing
flipping―
93. 19° 31' 46" S 169° 26' 43" E
(Mount Yasur, Tanna Island)
6.10pm Vanuatu Time (07:10 UTC)
Monday, 28 October
‘Lena!’
They’d just gone over and Dominique was yelling at her. It had happened so quickly. She had no idea how Ruart had done it. It was a miracle they hadn’t kept going. She’d rushed to the edge and there was Dominique’s hand: muscular, veins bulging, knuckles white, clasped around the only solid chunk of rock in the area.
‘Lena! Help me!
What could she do? She’d never be able to pull Dominique up, let alone the two of them. The moment she grabbed Dominique’s hand and he let go of the rock, that would be it.
‘How? I’d never be able to pull you both up.’
‘Well just try!’
Dominique was red-faced and angry, as furious as a dangerous predator caught in a trap. Which is exactly what he was.
‘But I’d fall too.’ Dominique, she knew, would have no hesitation in pulling her in with him if it meant there was an outside chance of saving himself. Or even if there wasn’t. He’d make sure she went with him.
‘Lena will you pull me up! Or God help me!’
‘I can’t do it, I’m sorry. It simply isn’t possible.’
‘Fuck.’
In fact the more she thought about it, the worse the situation became. She could hardly go for help. And the longer Dominique held on, the greater the chances of them being seen by someone. She’d be almost better off if―
She watched on helplessly with mixed feelings of horror and hope as Dominique’s hand slipped down another notch. She couldn’t believe he was still holding on. The man was powerful, she’d give him that.
The seconds that ticked by felt more like hours. There was another slip and then, finally, it happened. Dominique’s strength gave out at last.
She kept an eye on them as they fell, tied together. First they slid, with Dominique, using his one free hand, desperately grabbing at the loose flakes of lava and rubble and then, where the slope became even steeper, they bounced once, twice, and then cartwheeled, limbs splayed like two rag dolls. They descended into the darkness and into the bright red glow of the magma lake.
By the end, she could barely see them – they were just a cohesive small dark blob, they could have been a rock, bouncing down the slope, and then a small shadow, and then nothing… until a small spot on the surface of a darker section of the lava suddenly flared up.
It reminded her of a fly hitting an electric insect killer, with its triumphant incendiary send-off.
94. 50° 47' 25" N 0° 0' 0" E
(“Lucinda”, Peacehaven)
At the same moment…
7.10am Greenwich Mean Time (07:10 UTC)
Monday, 28 October
Absorbed. He was completely absorbed. Perhaps too much so.
Only ten minutes had passed since he’d arrived back at Lucinda, but it felt more like ten years. The storm outside was at its height, the wind was howling, peeling tiles off roofs, tossing rubbish down the street… and Jon hardly noticed. Because ten minutes ago, when he walked into the living room, he had an uninvited visitor sitting there, waiting for him. Isla.
* * *
He stared at her. It was really her. She was still wearing the same clothes (as was he, of course) – dark blue jeans, tan boots, brown top and a dark green cotton jacket that dampness had turned to virtual black. And it wasn’t just the jacket; all of her, she was dripping wet. She looked cold.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I broke in.’
‘How did you find me?’
She smiled and wiped some of the moisture off her face and pulled back her red hair which, like her jacket, had become several shades darker from the soaking. Her brown eyes, as she looked at him, were several shades warmer.
‘The restaurant,’ she said. ‘I was there.’
‘What?’ He checked the street through the blinds and made sure no-one could see in.
‘What is it?’
He shook his head. ‘What do you mean you were there?’ He was sounding more unfriendly than he would have liked. But these were difficult times.
‘In the restaurant where your friend wrote the address on the table, in salt.’
‘You could read that?’
‘You could see it a mile off.’
He had to smile at that, at least. ‘So why were you following me? In the first place?’
She didn’t answer.
A cardboard box bounced down the footpath outside and into the front gate. He looked out again.
‘Hey, are you expecting someone?’
‘I hope not. You must be freezing, though. There’s a tumble dryer here that works I think. If you want, I could…’
‘Great. Thanks.’ She stood and began removing her jacket.
‘You can use the bedroom through there if you like.’
‘It’s OK. Do you have a bathrobe or a towel?’
By the time he returned to the living room, she was naked. Not a stitch. Stark-naked and completely unconcerned about his presence. She was busy emptying the pockets of her jacket and jeans.
‘Thanks,’ she said, accepting the overcoat he handed to her.
‘It was all I could find.’
She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to put it on – in fact she draped it over a chair as she checked her phone. She caught his look. She laughed.
‘Oh sorry.’ She went back to scrolling through her messages. ‘I hope I’m not… um… offending you. I do this for a living… Life modelling… And, you know… I always forget it’s not so… normal. For other people.’
She finished with her phone and put it down.
‘No, it’s fine,’ he said. Her body was what was fine. She had creamy skin – English skin – and a perfect figure, in his eyes at least. Champagne glass breasts (saucer not flute) and fruit-shaped buttocks (pear not peach). He tried not to stare, not to look at all, but―
‘Are you admiring my tattoo? Or do you hate it?’
He could hardly have missed it. On her right buttock, there was an eye-catching geometric pattern, maybe two or three inches across, in blue and red and green that looked, to him, slightly Islamic. He told her. It even looked a bit familiar…
‘So what is it? It looks―’
‘It’s a long story.’
And she finally put the coat on – much to Jon’s relief, in a way – and then he gave her a brief summary of what had just happened to him on the beach.
* * *
He was beginning to doubt his own words, doubt that it had really happened. He could tell, though, that Isla had no such problem.
‘I still can’t believe the way he came after me. No questions, not a word. Like an executioner. I think at one point he was actually smiling.’
‘It’s called sadism. I told you to watch out for Detective Stephens. How sure are you that you killed him?’
‘I’m not. I mean he went down. And he didn’t get up, or not that I saw. No-one followed me back. I’m sure he doesn’t know about this house.’
‘You’d better hope so.’ She checked the street, just as he had earlier. ‘We’d better hope so. These men… Have you still got your gun?’
He nodded and walked over to his BOAC bag. Pulled out the Beretta.
‘Recognise it?’ he said. ‘It’s your boyfriend’s.’
She ignored the barb. ‘Is it loaded?’
‘It was, at least. Obviously.’ He fiddled with the magazine until it released. Noticed Isla had her hands over her ears. Not engendering confidence, then. ‘I haven’t fired one before. Hadn’t.’
‘And floored a cop with your first shot. Very impressive.’
‘So he was really a detective, that guy?’
She nodded. ‘And as you just found out, completely psychotic. Well-connected though, knows all the right people. Meaning all the wrong ones.’
The thought of Step
hens, dead or alive, seemed to draw a cold fog into the room.
‘So where’s Irwin?’ he asked, as much to break the silence as anything else. In a way, he didn’t want to know.
She stared at him for a moment, with wide brown eyes. He almost turned around, to see what she was looking at. And then he wondered if she’d fallen into a trance.
‘I killed him.’
It was his turn to stare.
‘You…?’ He wanted to ask how, but there were too many questions. ‘Well we’re a couple of killers then, aren’t we.’
‘At least I’m not a cop killer.’
She threw him an uneven smile that was soft and apologetic and heart-warming in a way he didn’t fully understand. And he thought how easy it would have been for him to have walked over to her at that moment – and it was ludicrous, crazy, he’d just killed a man, a cop, of all the moments – but he could have walked over and put his hands around her shoulders and pulled her up, overcoat and all, and kissed her, kissed those vowelly, red-brown lips, and pushed his hands up and through her thickly tangled wet hair…
He shook the image free and chose the moment to excuse himself, and put her clothes in the dryer.
‘I think…’ he said, when he returned to the living room. ‘I think you need to explain to me why you were following me in the first place. And following the judge, Martin Nevers, I know about that too. What’s he got to do with any of this?’
Isla looked down for a moment, then stood up, wrapped her arms about her as if she were suddenly cold and peered out through the blinds. Turned back and sat down. Sighed, and eventually spoke.
‘I grew up in Switzerland. I was adopted. By a Spanish couple. For some reason they decided I was the independent type and called me Isla, Spanish for “island”. They got that right I suppose. Unless we follow our names, I can never decide which it is. Anyway, we moved from Spain to Switzerland when I was two.’
‘You don’t look very Spanish, did they adopt you there?’
‘In London.’
‘Ah, well that…’
Dark Oceans Page 42