Submersion

  In there, I mouthed, indicating the walk-in, under-the-stairs cupboard in the corner.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, composing myself just in time, managing to focus enough to respond naturally to Tristan’s excited return.

  On entering the room and seeing me, relief appeared to flood his senses and, taking a chair, he rapidly calmed.

  ‘Needed to see you,’ he offered, a little short of breath, indicating he had hurried home, not an easy task in a small rowing boat.

  I smiled, flatly, a little unsure. Tristan wasn’t unromantic – but on the whole he was realistic with his affections and not prone to spontaneity. So, this sentimental explanation for his hurried entrance raised instant suspicions.

  Sat opposite him, I said nothing, allowing him to quickly realise I wasn’t convinced.

  As he composed himself, I studied him. Have I described him to you before? He has dark brown eyes, deep and full, eyes to get lost in; eyes, I know, that hide a multitude of secrets I have yet to discover. His hair is dark, too – just short of shoulder-length and with a slight curl, suggesting it would curl right up if cut short, not that I have ever seen it short. His face and build are similar to Jessie’s – he has a labourer’s tan and is tall and naturally muscly, as if his physique was built on hard work alone. Maybe this physical similarity to Jessie is one of the attractions? As I gaze at him, expectant of an explanation, I feel guilty for the words I have shared with Reuben. I’ve somehow remained in love with him, I said of Xavier. Whilst it is true, it suddenly feels like a reflection of my relationship with Tristan. As if, by silent default, I have suggested to Reuben that I do not love Tristan; which isn’t true. Drowning in this man’s beautiful, troubled gaze, I felt a sense of love that was unimaginably deep and wanted to haul Reuben from his hiding place and make that clear.

  Tristan coughed as an introduction to what he had to impart and then spoke.

  ‘I found something. We found something – Jessie and I.’

  And all of a sudden I wished I’d simply introduced Reuben and then sent him on his way. I had no way to stop Tristan talking, no way to naturally intervene and suggest we discuss it later. I just had to let him confess whatever it was – and hope it wasn’t too illegal or controversial. And hope that my missionary man was as good as his word when he said that everything discussed within my four walls remained confidential. Hope – there it was again, that word. Useful and frequent.

  ‘On our salvage trip. The secret one that Jessie signed me up for. We found bodies.’

  I put my hands in my lap and crossed my fingers. Please don’t say anything else.

  ‘It’s a government building. An old laboratory we’ve been raiding. I knew this, but it looked abandoned, old. But the bodies – they aren’t. They are young, recent.’

  ‘Young?’ I questioned, unable to hold my silence, wondering just how I could manoeuvre away from this subject. I lowered my voice, hoping Tristan might mirror me. He did.

  ‘Puppies,’ he confirmed, answering my next question before I had to ask.

  We stayed silent for a while, as I absorbed what he had said and what Reuben may or may not have heard. The cupboard was insulated with plaster and shelves housing various items – old books, cups, bowls, tinned food we had saved. This quiet served to increase my anxiety too – what if Reuben moved and created a sound? Things had gone too far now to end easily. So, I broke the silence with a suggestion.

  ‘Why don’t you shower, wash off the dirt – then we can eat, think and talk this through?’

  To my relief, Tristan nodded and stood, heading out the room. At the door, he turned and eyed me strangely. I wondered if he’d heard something I hadn’t.

  ‘You didn’t ask me how many,’ he said, as if my lack of curiosity was an oddity.

  ‘No,’ I responded, instantly feeling how unnatural it sounded. ‘How many?’

  ‘Too many, Agnes. Too many and I’m frightened.’

  Forgetting my urge to get him out of the room, and get Reuben out of my house, I met him in the doorway and put my arms around him, holding him as tight as possible.

  ‘I think I’m doing okay on the water ration, so maybe I could run you a bath?’ I offered, and then we entered the bathroom together. Twenty minutes later, when the bath was run and Tristan was submerged in its warm suds, I came back into the living area and checked the cupboard.

  Reuben had gone.

  Later, over a simple meal of baked potatoes and beans - which we ate in bed, off trays, by candlelight - Tristan talked me through the rest of his news, and I pushed all thoughts of the missionary from my head. He would do nothing, I told myself. He would say nothing, either. And, furthermore, I would worry about it another day.

  ‘We found an area where the floorboards were weak with rot. You couldn’t tell, as they were covered with old sacking, but I felt one give, as I walked across it. Was lucky not to lose a foot in the hole. Lucky not to be hurt. We removed the sacking and the rotten boards and there they were – little bodies on top of each other, packed in tight under the floor. I don’t know how long they had been there, Agnes. But they looked fresh, and we’ve been emptying that place out for three months. So, either they have been preserved in something – or someone put them in there recently. Only…’

  He paused, for thought and food.

  ‘Only?’ I prompted, as he swallowed, emptying his mouth.

  ‘Only, the place looked undisturbed, and the only mess was ours. Otherwise, it was like the lab had been abandoned, left to gather cobwebs and rot. But the numbers, Agnes. Jesus! We looked a bit further, pulled away a few more rotten planks and the rows of corpses just went on and on. A hundred at least – probably more, but we stopped. We needed to cover it all up and think.’

  I thought of what Papa H had said and repeated it to Tristan.

  ‘He doesn’t believe they are extinct. Doesn’t buy it that the flooding drowned them out, that there was poison in the water.’

  ‘Looks like he’s right, only with this many bodies...’ Tristan sighed and spoke in a grave hush. ‘Someone’s breeding them, Agnes.’

  ‘And then someone killed them all,’ I added, equally grave in tone. ‘What you going to do next?’

  ‘Talk to Jessie,’ he said, jumping up, indicating he wasn’t going to wait till the morning. ‘And then talk to Monty.’

  ‘Monty Harrison?’ I questioned, hoping it was another Monty. But we didn’t know any others, so it was an empty hope.

  Suddenly, the situation shifted a gear; the danger we were potentially in intensifying.

  ‘Jessie’s been working for Monty Harrison all this time,’ Tristan added, pulling on a jumper, then socks, before heading for our bedroom door. I glared at him in disappointment and anger. Of all the people! was the phrase my look conveyed. ‘I didn’t know until today. Jessie has never told me, and I didn’t suspect anything on this scale.’

  On that point, he kissed my forehead and then headed down the stairs to the first landing, where I heard him wrestle into his outdoor gear. Despite what we knew about the water and what we suspected about the atmosphere outside in general, we continued with the protocols. We didn’t want to attract any further unwanted attention.

  Hearing the soft creak of the stairs to the flooded ground floor, I went after him, calling down.

  ‘Please be safe,’ I said.

  He was at the door and turned, nodded gently at me.

  What I meant was I can’t lose someone else, but Tristan knew this without my saying. Besides, I hadn’t lost anyone else, had I? They were simply missing.

  I didn’t see Tristan for five days.

  When I tried telephoning Jessie’s, there was no answer either, although we all knew he had trouble with the line. I had no one else I could turn to or trust. Had no idea how to contact Monty Harrison directly – and even if I had, that would not have been a wise move. Like our shadowy authorities, Monty Harrison was not to be trusted and you certainly didn’t want to be on his radar.

&
nbsp; I considered talking to Papa H, but decided that the less people that knew what Tristan had discovered, the less people could get hurt.

  When Reuben turned up at my door on the Monday, he confirmed that he had heard everything Tristan said. So, filling him in on the connection to Monty Harrison didn’t seem much of an additional risk.

  ‘Who is this Monty fella?’

  ‘He’s someone you’d want on your side in a fight, and someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley on your own,’ was my response. Sensing this was inadequate, I put it more simply: ‘He’s a local gangster and you don’t mess with him.’

  ‘So this is a big mess, Agnes?’

  ‘Yes, Reuben, it doesn’t get any bigger. And couldn’t possibly be any more confusing. I’m worried sick about both of them. God knows what happened when they went to Monty. Five days they’ve been gone. I’ve not been away from Tristan for a single night since he turned up here the day the flooding started.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘What can I do?’ I asked, exhausted and out of ideas.

  But Reuben wasn’t. He had that word – hope – on the tip of his tongue again and I wondered if he was finally going in for the kill with me. He’d turned up in my weakest, most vulnerable hour, so it might have worked. Yet, what he did, what he said was quite unexpected.

  ‘You should go back to work,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’ I questioned, puzzled. I couldn’t see how this helped.

  ‘You work with the authorities, Agnes. You have access to information.’

  ‘I work in administration. Food administration. I don’t have access to anything useful. Believe me, I’ve looked.’

  But Reuben wasn’t letting this one go. He had clearly given this thought.

  ‘But you have friends and colleagues. And your boss – Jerry?’

  ‘Yes, Jerry.’

  ‘Jerry’s been kind to you, extended your leave, left your job open for you. He must like you. He might help you. Just ask him.’

  It felt wrong. The conversation, its direction – not what I was expecting from my missionary man. It felt underhand, illegal. Not something I was averse to – just something that didn’t sit right with Reuben. Reuben and his mission, his purpose in all of this.

  ‘Can it hurt to ask?’ he said, before carefully adding a line that sealed the deal. ‘And he might know something about your daughter. If he has the right connections, he might just help you find her.’

  I waited a week. Within that time, both Tristan and Jessie returned and I found out what had happened to them during those lost days and the questions that remained. And whilst I waited, I realised my new friend was right – I did need to go back to work. There were potential lines of enquiries there that I hadn’t explored. Avenues that might just lead me to finding where they had taken Elinor.

  Another week on and I had a visit from someone I didn’t expect. A visit that led to another revelation – another mystery unfolding. It was the old man from the Cadley residence that everyone called Merlin.

  When I opened the door, I found him sat in his little boat, floating just beyond my threshold.

  ‘Is Tristan there?’ he asked, in a light sing-song voice, as if he was calling by to play.

  I smiled softly and beckoned him in. Once up to our landing, Tristan greeted the old man and helped him off with his outdoor gear.

  ‘Blasted fuss we have to make, just to drop down a few doors,’ he cursed, light-heartedly. And then, once stripped of what he called a hindrance, he got straight to business. ‘That tape you gave me, I’ve finally got it working. Took a lot of work and fiddling about, but I’ll spare you the science.’

  ‘What tape?’ I asked.

  ‘Anything on it?’ Tristan asked, ignoring my question for now, and we both listened intently for a response.

  ‘Yes,’ old Merlin replied, matter of fact. ‘You. You are on it.’

  He was looking directly at Tristan.

  PLAY

  ‘I’m a little worried.’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think someone knows.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I’ve been followed.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I know. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘This person? Talk to them. Tell them the truth. And tell them to keep it secret.’

  ‘And what if they refuse?’

  ‘Then you make them disappear.’

  PAUSE

  7. Tristan

  The body count at the laboratory that day was exhaustive.

  We found the first batch by accident. We had made our way towards the rear part of the building, into a large room we hadn’t checked before. It was packed with desks and chairs, stacked and folded, draped with a damp veil of hefty, dense dust. We were moving these out - to enable us to check out the entire space – when my foot sank into a rotten floorboard. On pulling it out, the boards crumbled away. Turning back the carpet of equally decayed sacking that covered the floor, the first set of dog corpses were found.

  Jessie had instinctively felt out the surrounding floor, padding his feet firmly enough to get a feel for the stability, but not too heavily footed that we encountered another accident.

  ‘Let’s rip this up,’ he suggested, indicating another run of perishing boards.

  Breaking off pieces of sopping, spongy timber revealed more of the same: tiny, pale canine corpses squeezed together in tight rows.

  ‘Jesus!’ I expelled, pulling my gas mask back on, hoping it might diffuse the putrid smell of death. It didn’t.

  ‘Shall we keep going?’ Jessie asked, unsure. This wasn’t part of the deal. I could tell that from his face. Whatever arrangement he had with Monty Harrison, whatever we were supposed to bring back, the contents of this mass grave was not it. ‘What the hell are we supposed to do?’

  ‘Tell Monty.’

  Jessie sighed deeply, shook his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with me.

  ‘What if we weren’t supposed to find this? What if, when I report this in, we just find ourselves in...? Well…’

  ‘In deep?’

  Jessie nodded, acknowledging me this time.

  ‘Then we’re in deep, but first we have to decide what we’re doing next. Now.’

  Jessie took a minute to mull over our options.

  ‘Okay. We keep going for a bit – but let’s be careful. We need the option to cover this all up again, but let’s just see how far this goes first.’

  For the next thirty minutes, we carefully removed more floorboards – taking them out as gently as possible, with the view of replacing them before we left. Even the sight of them dead, locked in their infant form, made my heart beat a little faster. The threat of mindless cruelty and savage destruction was there in those cold, still eyes. I found myself flinching on a several occasions, my mind playing tricks, fooling me that one of them had moved – a flick of a tail, a roving eye, a clicking jaw. But that’s all it was – hidden childhood terrors creeping out and spooking me.

  ‘You okay?’ Jessie asked me a couple of times.

  I’d nodded and returned the question.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ he’d replied, not quite smiling. This was the closest we got to admitting that we were both sensing past horrors return, pulsing through our veins alongside the blood.

  There was also a feeling of revulsion twinned with this horror – at the sight of so much cold, preserved flesh, at the stench of whatever had been used to conserve its state, and at the thought that men had undoubtedly had a hand in this. Men had created this scene.

  The nature of their burial was uniform throughout the area we searched: densely packed-in infants, pickled in a fowl stench, but far from decayed.

  ‘This is weird,’ Jessie confessed, replacing a fragmented plank as delicately as he could. ‘This place looked abandoned. It was covered in dust, cobwebs, and dirt. It was
unsettled. But these bodies are not that long dead, I’m certain. Or they’ve been preserved well. Either way, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Agreed. And that’s a lot of bodies – a lot of similarly aged bodies.’

  ‘So someone has been breeding.’

  ‘Maybe this isn’t an old government lab, Jessie. Maybe this is a farm.’

  ‘But the place looked deserted, hadn’t been touched in years, Tris,’ Jessie repeated, unable to shake the puzzle. ‘And the bodies aren’t. It doesn’t match up.’

  ‘So what shall we do, Jess?’

  Within another thirty minutes, we were back in the speedboat. Jessie did away with all previous precautious – we were way past blindfolds and handcuffs by then – and my eyes were exposed the entire journey. Not that I really took it in. My mind was moving as fast the vehicle itself. What did this mean for us? Not only was it dangerous to be involved with Monty Harrison – Monty Harrison! Just the thought made me want to scream at Jessie. But to be involved with him and make this discovery. What if we weren’t supposed to find it? What if Monty was involved in farming these fierce creatures? If he was bringing this hell back to our cities, what would he say and do when we confronted him? And it wouldn’t just affect us. The likes of Monty wouldn’t just stop at the front line. If we were now in danger, so were our families.

  We initially agreed to sleep on it that night – reconvene in the morning and decide our next move. As always, we had loaded the boat up with salvaged items, as if it was any other trip. Jessie would drop them off at a pre-agreed location and I would take myself home.

  ‘We’ll act as if nothing has happened,’ Jessie stated and I agreed. Only, Jessie was going home to an empty house, whereas I was heading back to Agnes. As I rowed as rapidly as I could along Jessie’s street and into mine, that sense of anxiety that nagged at me all the way home returned with an intensity. By the time I was moored and through the door, I couldn’t get to her soon enough. To see she was safe; to check that no harm had come to her yet.