‘I’ll make you something to eat. It brings you back to earth.’
She followed him back to the kitchen and sat while he made tea and toast. He brought out butter, jam and cheese and set them all out in front of her. As the smell of toasting bread reached her, the walls became flat again and the last echoes of that other world faded. Her face still stung and she felt it with her fingertips. ‘I feel like I’ve got bugs crawling on my skin.’
‘Yeah, that’s normal.’
‘You have a very strange definition of normal. Harri, why are you doing all of this for me?’
‘Because you asked me to, remember?’
‘You could’ve said no. I mean, you don’t take people into your life very easily, do you?’
‘No.’ He looked up and took a breath. ‘I don’t.’
‘So, why me?’
‘Because you’re just like I was, and I needed someone to help me too.’ He smiled with his eyes before turning his attention back to the food. Maybe it was the weird distorting effect of the Salvia leaves, but he looked different tonight. Less bookish and awkward, more…
She cut the thought short, hoping he hadn’t read her mind. There was no privacy in the company of Harrison Jones.
He piled the slices of toast on a plate and she ate as if she hadn’t eaten all day. Her muscles felt like jelly.
‘I saw people,’ she said, after five or six large bites.
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
‘I want to. I saw … the people I’ve lost. The ones I haven’t been able to save. They were all dead, but they were running with me and they were protecting me. It was …’ She shook her head because she didn’t know the word. ‘It was kind of beautiful.’
Now that the dizziness had subsided, a strange power flowed through her. Those spirits had come to her side to keep her safe. They weren’t angry, they weren’t lost or damned, they were grateful. Even though she hadn’t been able to keep them alive, they were grateful that she had tried. They hadn’t spoken any words at all, but she knew they wanted to return the favour. They wanted to serve her. It was humbling, and it was also a thrill.
‘But then ... he tried to pull me into the water, and I got scared.’
‘Who tried to pull you into the water?’
‘A man. He was in the water, and ... he wanted me to come with him. I’ve seen him before, I’m sure.’ Then it dawned on her. She knew exactly who he was. ‘Harri, I think it was Tim Cartwright.’
He put down his mug and combed his fingers through his beard. ‘Right ... okay.’
‘He was trying to take me to her.’
‘He was in the water?’
‘Yeah. I want to go back,’ she said. ‘Tim was trying to show me where Lucy is. I know he was.’
Harrison considered her words with a mouthful of tea. If he had thoughts about what she’d seen, he wasn’t giving them away. ‘Not tonight.’
‘I don’t want to lose it.’
He sighed. ‘You’ve seen enough for one night. Besides, you don’t always get to control where you go. Tell me what you remember about where he was.’
She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the details. ‘It was dark, I didn’t see very much. It was like ... a pier, or a quay. It just came out of nowhere. There were lights in the distance, out on the water.’ Some possible pieces clicked into place. ‘I think Lucy might be on a boat.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I had a dream a few days ago that I was sneaking onto a boat like some kind of commando. It was a yacht, a properly enormous floating palace. Maybe I was there to rescue her. I should have told you before, but I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t think it was connected.’
‘Could you tell where you were?’
‘Some Mediterranean port. Not a big place.’
‘Somewhere in Greece?’
‘Possibly. I’ve never been there, I wouldn’t know.’
‘Would you recognise it if you saw a picture?’
‘I’m not sure, Harri. I mean you can’t just go chasing off somewhere you’ve seen in a dream, can you?’
‘Why not?’
Sometimes his questions were so naive that they threatened to undermine every assumption she’d ever made about anything at all. It was like he’d never learned the rules. Or more likely, he had decided to rewrite them.
TWENTY-ONE
Later on, Amy called herself a taxi and left Harrison alone with a tumbler of whisky and his doubts. He hadn’t expected her to have such a powerful vision her first time. It indicated ability far beyond what he’d first seen in her, and he worried about unleashing it further. It would change her life, and not necessarily for the better. There were so many things he hadn’t told her. How you could never really be alone in your head again. And how at the same time, you could never really be open with anyone. How you had to unlearn everything you had been taught about science, about life and death, about reality. How easy it was to lose touch with yourself because you could no longer tell your own emotions from everyone else’s.
How ordinary relationships were impossible. These days, he rarely allowed himself to think about his years with Sophie, who had given him more than half a decade of her young life, believing him to be the person she would grow old with. He had allowed himself to believe that too, but to stay the course, love needed privacy. It required tactful dishonesty, and Harrison was incapable of giving those things. That lesson had proved exquisitely painful, for both of them.
He had to talk to Amy and make her understand these things before he let her chew the Salvia leaves again.
But he was thinking too much and losing valuable time. It seemed obvious now that Tim and Lucy were in danger, or soon would be, but he was doubtful whether a warning from a stranger via social media would do anything to keep them safe. He could feel the shadow of something much bigger and more ominous hanging over this whole affair, but couldn’t yet see any detail.
Right now, he needed guidance. He picked more leaves. One of the plants was starting to look a bit depleted, and it would be much harder to replace them now that Salvia had been criminalised. He had to tend them carefully and keep them alive. It was time to lay off the stuff and let the plants and his brain cells regenerate.
He lit two candles and sat in their dim flickering light, thinking as hard as he could about Tomas. He closed his eyes and listened to the cadence of his own heart. It began to echo, as if his body had been hollowed out. He was following it down a tunnel, into the Cerro Rico. He’d never been here before.
The walls were crumbly and unstable, held up by rickety wooden supports. The only light was a tiny beam on the dirt floor directly in front of him. The ceiling lowered and he had to bend almost in half to move through it. He listened for the voices of men working and the clink of picks against rock, but all he could hear was his breath and the boom of his heartbeat. Every pulse felt like an explosion deep underground. If he wasn’t careful, he’d bring the mountain down on top of himself.
‘Tomas!’ he called into the darkness. His voice echoed back at him, repeating endlessly like reflections between two mirrors.
He began to run, still hunched over, one hand over the top of his head to protect it from the low beams. The tunnel descended more sharply now and gravity felt stronger than normal in here. He couldn’t stop or turn around if he wanted to.
His foot caught on something and he pitched forward. He was falling down a chute. The walls lit up with seams of gold and silver, which blurred like lights inside a road tunnel as he fell past them. Precious metal blades protruded from the walls and scored his skin. He was being flayed alive.
He landed in a bloody heap and the wind was knocked from his lungs. Gasping like a landed cod, he pushed himself to his knees and stared blindly into the darkness. His hands felt wet and he could hear his blood dripping onto the hard-packed floor.
‘You spend too much time with dead people, brother.’
He tried to speak. His lips made th
e shape of Tomas’s name but no air moved through his larynx.
‘Relax, compadre. You know this is not the place of your death. It is mine.’
At last, Harrison’s lungs inflated. He sucked in as much of the hot, sulphurous air as he could and squinted toward the source of the voice. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that they were in a chamber, scarcely bigger than a tomb. Indeed, a tomb was exactly what it was.
Tomas was a shadow, sitting with his back against a shimmering wall. His face was blackened with dried blood. He swept his hand wide, showing off a gleaming seam of silver.
‘How do you like that? I died a rich man.’
‘Fat lot of good it did.’
‘Watch what you say or I’ll keep you here to share the wealth.’
‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘To tell you something you need to know. These tunnels were made by slaves.’
‘I didn’t need to fall down a hole to know that. Tell me, Tomas.’
‘You must free the slaves, Harri. That is what you must do.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Free the slaves and you will find the gold.’
‘You never used to talk in riddles when you were alive.’
‘I am giving you the answer, my friend.’
The ground beneath Harrison’s knees began to rumble and dust began to fall from the ceiling. ‘Tomas, what’s happening?’
‘The mountain is hungry.’
Stones began to shower down on him, tiny ones at first and then larger ones. He shielded his head with his arms and curled up as tightly as he could. The rocks pelted his spine, his hands, his legs, breaking his bones, paralysing him. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. The rocks delivered crushing blows to every part of his body except his skull. He was going to be fully conscious until the end. The mountain’s roar became louder and the chamber collapsed on top of him.
He woke up face down on the rug. Slowly, he pushed himself up. His body felt bruised and pummelled, and his head was pounding. That was how Tomas died. Painfully, brutally, fully aware of what was happening to him. Harrison had never allowed himself to visualise it before. Tomas wanted him to see it.
It was hard to breathe. He put his palms up to his eyes and they came away wet. How could Tomas go to work every day, six days a week, knowing what could happen at any moment? How could a man with a wife and four children, a man with so much love of life, get up every morning in the dark and walk into that hole?
Because he had no choice.
Free the slaves. That’s what Tomas said. But which slaves?
The pain in his bones was still receding and he got up slowly. The Salvia hadn’t mixed well with the whisky and he felt nauseous. The corridor in his flat still had a distinct downward tilt, and the rotten egg smell of the mine was still in his nose. Even with the lights on, he could feel the rumbles coming from deep within the earth. Doing his best to ignore them, he cleaned up the remnants of their food and washed the dishes. It was late and he needed sleep, but if he went to bed with the Salvia still working through him, he’d go straight back into that awful place. It had been a long time since a vision had been so frightening and so visceral. Even Tomas was telling him to give it a rest.
And yet ...
The word slave repeated in his head.
He made himself a cup of tea, sat at the table and studied his hands. It was hard to believe they were clean and intact. In the mine, they were so black they looked like they had been burnt.
He studied the timeline that he and Amy had been working on. Free the slaves and you will find the gold. He remembered the vision of Lucy in that room, singing for those men who all coveted her sweet body and shimmering, golden curls. The question was, which one was she: the gold, or the slave?
And could it be there were others?
The office of LASAR-Net was open but empty when he arrived the next morning. A buzzer bleeped as he pushed the door open, and Nessa Walker shouted from somewhere in the back, ‘I’ll be right with you.’
As he waited, Harrison read the posters and leaflets on the notice board. They promoted English classes, training courses and women’s charities. One leaflet said in large black letters: Human Trafficking and Enforced Labour: Report It! Beneath that, there was a helpline number. Harrison took a copy.
‘Oh ... it’s you.’
He turned around. ‘Can you spare a minute?’
‘Aye.’ Nessa pulled the door to the back room closed behind her and looked him over, a good deal less suspiciously than she had when he’d been with Amy. ‘I haven’t heard any more from Tim, if that’s why you’re here.’
‘My partner found an article in the Coventry Telegraph. Tim’s mother has reported him missing in Athens.’
‘Oh my God.’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I knew something like this would happen.’
‘We don’t know what’s happened yet,’ he said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘This might sound strange, Nessa, but have you got anything here that might have belonged to Tim or Lucy?’
‘Like what?’
‘Anything. Clothing they might have left here? A scarf, a book, any old thing.’
Nessa sneered. ‘What are you, like a dog trying to catch a scent?’
‘You’re more or less right.’
‘So, you’re a psychic detective, then?’ She was amused and curious, but mostly just making fun of him. Thankfully she didn’t give him time to answer. ‘I’d have to look around. There might be something. Where’s your partner today?’
‘Amy’s working on another line of inquiry.’
This elicited a grin. ‘You make that sound quite exciting. So, are you two like ... a husband and wife team?’
‘We just work together.’
The more she wanted to know, the more open she became. If he went with it for a few minutes, she might give away something else. He ran his fingers through rain-soaked hair and wiped his hands on his coat. ‘It’s awful out there today. I hate this time of year.’
‘It’s lonely for a lot of people.’
‘Aye, it is,’ he said, and sighed for effect. Then he shook his head. ‘Sorry. How did you get into this work, Nessa?’
‘I fell into it by accident. I went to uni to become a teacher but I got ill and dropped out. Eventually, I started volunteering for a mental health charity that helped me, and then I got a job there, and I’ve been working in the voluntary sector ever since.’ She paused with her mouth half-open, as if she was afraid of saying too much. ‘I love this job, but it’s hard. The people’s lives ... the things that have happened to them are like nothing I’ve ever heard. I don’t know how I haven’t cracked up yet.’
‘Anyone who spends their life helping folk in need earns my respect.’
She beamed, inside and out. Harrison got the impression she wasn’t used to receiving praise. ‘Thank you. That’s awfully kind of you. You don’t need to hear my life-story. I can’t think of anything Lucy or Tim might have left here. Sorry.’
‘It’s fine. I’m sorry for taking up your time. I’d better make a move.’ He made it sound like he’d rather not.
‘Hang on.’ She reached out for his arm. ‘I’ve just remembered, I have something in the back that I think might interest you. Stay here.’ She hurried away and came back with a small frame. ‘This belonged to Kostas Gianopoulos.’
It was an icon on a small panel of wood, perhaps three inches by five: something you might buy in a Greek souvenir shop. It depicted Mary and the baby Jesus with passive moon-shaped faces, gazing at each other against a background of bright gold. Harrison took it between his hands and studied it. Desire and frustration shot through it like opposing magnetic charges.
‘This is a strange thing to leave here.’
‘It is, aye. He gave it as a gift to this young Iraqi Christian woman we were helping. I don’t know why. She’s a bonny girl, so maybe he was trying to get in with her. She didn’t want it. I never knew what to do with it, so I just st
ashed it at the back of a storage cupboard.’
Harrison closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. He saw Kostas trying to force the icon into the woman’s hands, saying, ‘Please, take this as a token of our friendship. I can help you.’ A heated exchange passed between them, but he couldn’t make out the words. Kostas was angry that she wouldn’t take it. Women didn’t often refuse his advances.
‘Mr Jones, are you alright?’
He forced his attention back to Nessa. ‘The woman he gave this to. Do you know where she is now?’
‘Aye, Maryam’s still around. She volunteers with us and she’s applying to university. She’s one of our successes.’
‘Do you think she’d be willing to speak to me?’
‘What about?’
‘About Kostas.’
‘She might. Is it relevant to your case?’
‘Aye, I think it might be.’
‘What were you doing just there, praying to it or some bloody thing?’
Harrison pretended he hadn’t heard her question. ‘When is Maryam next in?’
‘This afternoon. She can be intimidated by men she doesn’t know. I won’t bother telling you her story, but if you know anything about the recent treatment of Iraqi Christians, you can imagine.’
‘I can imagine all too well. Would she prefer to speak to Amy?’
‘Probably.’
‘Okay, we’ll pop in. We’re not going to scare her or cause her any trouble, I promise. You can sit in, if it would reassure her.’
‘I’ll see what she says.’
‘Once again, Nessa, thank you.’ He held up the icon. ‘Can I take this until later?’
‘Keep it if you want. I’ve got no use for it.’
TWENTY-TWO
Nessa Walker left Harrison to man the front office and showed Amy into the back room. It was a windowless square containing a meeting table, six dirty chairs, bookshelves with over-stuffed file boxes, and a row of grey metal filing cabinets. A corner of the ceiling was water-stained and sprouting black spots of mould, and the carpet didn’t bear scrutiny. Amy had a brief moment to wonder what it would be like to spend your working life in this squalid, musty place, before Nessa came back in with Maryam.
Siren Song (Harrison Jones and Amy Bell Mystery Book 1) Page 14