THE ANCIENT

by Muriel Gray

  Esther was gritting her teeth again. She groaned and then drew in a deep breath. “You need to know this… she wouldn’t have recovered, Matthew. She was gone. She was gone before they got her in the ambulance. The bit that was Molly died as a fireman called William Legget passed her body to the paramedic. She died then… at that precise moment, 2.34 a.m. and she was happy in the last few seconds of her life. Her feet and legs had burned, but there was no pain at the time she died. The burns had gone too deep. She was thinking about a plastic paddling pool you used to blow up for her in the back yard, of how much she liked the fish design on it and how cool the water felt on her hot feet. She died believing that you and Heather were holding her hands, dangling her legs into the cold clear water. All those weeks in the hospital. Those long twelve weeks. She wasn’t there… just her body. You… you did the right thing. She loved you. They both did. Molly’s at peace now.”

  Matthew Cotton opened his lips a little then closed them again, and then from nowhere that he recognized a wail erupted in him that tore his mouth open and threatened to burst his heart. And although the noise was like that of an animal in agony, it was a noise that was long overdue.

  Esther’s mouth turned down as she watched the man’s pain, and tears fell down her own cheeks. She lay back and groaned. Why had she done it? The Dark One was so near. Matthew’s arousal was her last chance and she had thrown it away for no other reason than because she had the chance to help heal his broken heart.

  She had no more strength. Esther gave up her fight and immediately the hot lava of knowledge flooded her head and made her gasp with the combined pain and ecstasy of it. The snowplough had run out of gas. She was his again, he was coming to claim her, and there was nothing she could do.

  There were too many things to think about at once without panic drying his saliva, and so Renato Lhoon tried to focus on them one at a time. He had barely recovered from the shock of what the flashlight beam had picked out in the cofferdams, when Skinner hit him with this. Renato was struggling. They had reached the bridge safely, and Renato stood quietly in tortured thought as Skinner trained binoculars on the pin-prick lights of the fishing boat less than a mile away.

  Cotton a murderer? Renato rewound the memories he had of Cotton at his best and worse. There hadn’t been a single incidence of Cotton getting loaded that Renato hadn’t been party to, usually since it was Renato’s paid duty to scoop him up and get him to bed. There had been plenty of shore incidents too, but without exception Matthew Cotton’s drinking bouts resulted in nothing more than some routine melancholy philosophizing before he quietly passed out. In all the time he’d known him, Renato had never seen one single display of violence or aggression from the sad drunk, even in the face of extreme provocation. But drugs. Everyone knew they made you crazy. The difficulty was that Cotton never took them. He’d been offered plenty, particularly when they were ashore in some of the seedy drinking dens Cotton ended up dragging them to.

  But unless Matthew had the supernatural power of deception to hide such a habit from him, even when the power of speech and standing up had deserted him, Renato had only ever observed a sad loser of a man who drank until his tank was full and then slept. Cotton wasn’t looking to alter his mind. He just wanted to be unconscious. Why would he change the habit of the last few years and take something that made him go mad? Was the girl a factor? Perhaps, but that seemed as crazy as the idea of Matthew Cotton messing with mind-altering chemicals. Like most seamen, Renato had seen plenty of drug couriers. The good ones, the ones who didn’t use, were harder to spot.

  But the low-life ones, the junkies paying for their habit by risking their freedom, often tried to use merchant ships and were usually foiled by their gaunt, dull-haired appearance and shifty, rodent-like behaviour that was a give-away to all but the most unobservant of crew members. They rarely got passage unless the captain was taking a cut. Esther Mulholland, in stark contrast, glowed with health. He thought of her taut, muscular body jogging around the deck, of the way her thick hair shone and how the whites of her eyes were almost blue with the clarity that sleeping soundly brings. You didn’t get to look like that by injecting smack. Even if she was a courier she most certainly wasn’t a user. So what the hell had happened? It didn’t make sense. How could two such unlikely people get out of their heads enough to commit a pointless, motiveless double-murder? But then, if he stopped for a moment to think about the other things that he’d witnessed on this ship in the last twenty-four hours, Renato realized that virtually nothing made sense any more. He rubbed a little too hard at the back of his neck, trying to find something in all this confusion and horror that could make him feel safe again.

  “Captain.”

  “Mmm?” replied Skinner, refocusing his binoculars.

  “Is the company ship near?”

  “Yes. I guess it’s very near.”

  “Can I know now why we were asked to meet it here?”

  Skinner kept looking through the binoculars, his face stony, his hands steady. “To be honest, Renato, I have no idea. I simply do as I’m instructed. Given our stricken circumstances let’s just be grateful we were.”

  Skinner was not particularly cautious in his reply and didn’t even cast a glance to his companion to see how it had been received.

  This unusual oversight was because his attention was elsewhere. The binoculars were no longer trained on the fishing boat, but on the shadows of two figures that he could just make out behind hold four. Slowly Skinner lowered the binoculars from his face and turned to face Renato. “They’re on the deck.”

  Renato’s eyes widened but he said nothing. He didn’t need to ask who.

  “Now listen. This is going to take guts, and if you aren’t up to it just say.”

  “I’m cool.”

  Skinner nodded in approval, a duplicitous and double-edged nod since what was receiving the captain’s approval was that Renato was as far away from cool as it was possible to get. That was just fine. “We need to go down there. It’s our last chance. I firmly believe they might run amok in the engine room where the men are unless we can stop them. Have you any idea what a Russian AK47 can do to a group of human beings in a confined space?” Skinner let himself think about that for a moment with longing, then continued. “Here’s what to do: I think I can approach unseen from behind using the starboard side of the holds while you walk right on up and confront them. They’ll be distracted. They’re not expecting to see you. If you think you have the balls you can keep them busy, reason with them while I come up behind and get the gun away from them.”

  Renato listened solemnly. None of that made him nervous. Far from inspiring fear in him, he was actually fighting to make himself afraid of two people he didn’t believe were any threat at all. He nodded, glad that the plan was so straightforward.

  Skinner held his gaze as though summing him up.

  Renato waited. There was clearly more.

  “There’s something I think you should know before you talk to them.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When I found them in the radio room, just after they’d killed Pasqual, they claimed they didn’t do it. They were wired but they both claimed innocence.”

  Hope started to grow in Renato’s heart. No matter how hard he tried to imagine Cotton as a drug-crazed, cold-blooded killer, it still wasn’t working. Maybe he wasn’t. That would be good. He hated Matthew for being Matthew, for keeping him back, for treating him like a lackey, hated him enough to want to do him down, to take his job. But the kind of hate he would have to kindle for the person who killed his wo crewmates would be quite a different thing. Renato cheered considerably and visibly. “Well, maybe they were telling the truth. I mean, did you actually hear the shots, did you actually see…”

  Skinner interrupted. “They said… it was you.”

  The captain’s slight hesitancy was perfect. Renato’s mouth opened a little.

  “What?”

  “Cotton said they’d caught you. That
you had a gun. That you’d shot them both because they knew it was you who’d been behind all the killings.”

  “But that’s insane.”

  “Yes. It’s insane. But it’s best you realize how completely out of it they are, that they’ll say anything, the first thing that comes into their spaced-out heads, before you go down there and deal personally with that insanity.”

  Renato took a moment to work out a way over this new mental obstacle course. He expelled a mouthful of air and put his hands on his hips.

  Skinner turned his attention back to the deck.

  “Captain?”

  “Yes?”

  “When they said that stuff. About me being a killer. Did you believe them?”

  Skinner smiled an internal smile, the secret smile of a tiger gazing through long grass at an innocent and trapped animal. Good question, Renato. Fucking great question. Renato was proving to be the perfect patsy. It was almost too easy. Skinner arranged his face into a mixture of regret, shame and resolve and turned back to face him. “Forgive me, Renato, but for a while, until I realized you were in the engine room, that it was impossible, the answer was… yes.”

  Renato’s eyes registered alarm and confusion. “Captain…”

  Keeping his voice and face as reassuring as he could, he put up a hand to stop Renato before he could protest an innocence both men knew to be true, but for very different reasons.

  “They’re persuasive, Renato. Chillingly, calculatingly believable. That’s why I’m warning you. If they think you can do them harm they’ll say anything to escape. They’re so far gone it shouldn’t be hard to disbelieve their lies. They’re the lies of the mad. Humour them as much as you can without putting yourself at risk, and concentrate on removing their weapon.”

  Renato looked out of the black windows to the hold deck. He nodded. Mad. It was all mad. But it needed to end. He was a first officer now, and he was crucial to the whole thing.

  “Let’s go.”

  How could he describe the pain? There was no physical impairment, no fleshly agony or slow methodical torture that could come close to the sensation that scoured Matthew Cotton as he lay on his back on the cool metal deck of the Lysicrates. His chest threatened not to be able to contain its swollen searing heart for much longer, but the rest of his body felt nothing. Flesh, bone and blood had been distilled into torment.

  “Molly.”

  He groaned the name with a throat that was raw from wailing and wrapped his arms over his face.

  Esther lay beside him, the gun clasped between them like a baby. Her sweat-soaked clothes stuck to her body as though she had been hosed down, and with closed eyes she spoke sporadically into the night, a garbled and senseless soliloquy that seemed to alternate between expressions of joy and pain.

  Renato stood at some distance taking in this bizarre scene, his fists clenched and his heart beating in his throat. Any doubts he might have had about the captain’s interpretations of events were put to rest. Esther Mulholland and Matthew Cotton looked utterly degenerate.

  Renato glanced up the deck to the holds at the bow where Skinner had taken his circuitous route, but there was nothing to see yet. He was on his own, and he had little idea of what he was going to do or say. A groan from Esther kick-started his resolve again and Renato Lhoon walked forward. It seemed as he stood over the couple that the captain’s plan was unnecessary. The evil-looking weapon that lay on the deck between their limp bodies was there simply to be picked up. Renato wiped a hand over his mouth, looked up quickly to the dark shadows of the holds, then bent down carefully and stretched over the softly groaning Esther Mulholland.

  Matthew Cotton’s hand shot out and gripped Renato by the wrist. He fell forward onto his knees beside Esther and let out a gasp of pain and surprise. Cotton’s grip was particularly firm, making Renato wince, and the ferocious nature of his expression suggested that he had no immediate plans to release it.

  “Leave it.” Cotton spat the words in Renato’s face.

  “Okay. Okay. Easy, Matthew.”

  Esther opened her eyes and squinted up at them. She smiled the relaxed smile of a Californian surfer, and pointed at Renato’s contorted face. “You shouldn’t have hit your wife that time in the kitchen. She doesn’t love you any more. She’s just scared of you now. And anyway, she was right about the money for your son’s schooling. There was none missing. None at all. You just added it up wrong.” She closed her eyes again and laughed, not unpleasantly. “Men. Fuckwits, all of them.”

  Renato stared at her, the pain in his wrist forgotten.

  Matthew picked up the AK47 with his free hand then hauled the kneeling Renato back into a standing position before pushing him roughly away. “Stand back. Hands on your head.”

  Renato Lhoon did not know whether to be more shocked by the fact that his shipmate was training a gun on him, or that a paying passenger had just related news of his private life to him that it was impossible for her to know. He tried to breathe normally, to regain his composure, and to start the process he placed his hands obediently on his head and looked back at Matthew.

  Cotton was in bad shape. His puffed eyes were swollen from crying and his face was dirty and tear-stained. When he spoke he had a catch in his voice. “What the fuck are you doing, Renato?”

  Cotton looked too mad, too unsteady with the gun in his hand for it to be sensible to upset him further. Despite wanting to run screaming from this loony duo, Renato tried to keep his voice calm. “I just wanted to help out, Matthew. You know. See if you needed help.”

  Matthew stared at him as though he had only just noticed it was Renato. “What?”

  He was clearly confused. Renato tried again. “Are you okay, Matthew? Is anything wrong?”

  Matthew took one hand off the gun and pressed his fingers to his brow. “Where are the rest of the crew?”

  “Safe, Matthew.”

  “I said, where the fuck are they?” he shouted.

  Renato took one hand off his head to make a patting motion in the air. “Sorry. Sorry. They’re still in the engine room. Everyone.”

  “We have to get them up here. Keep everyone together. Skinner. Where’s Skinner?”

  Renato had been wondering the same thing, but before he could answer a shadow flitted between the derrick and the hold behind Cotton. He was there.

  “I don’t know, Matthew. I came to find you.”

  Matthew Cotton looked at his prisoner properly for the first time. It was no monster. It was Renato Lhoon, the man who had been saving Matthew’s skin for years. The man who picked him up out of his own vomit, who put him to bed, who covered his back when he fell asleep on watch or did any of the dozens of moronic, irresponsible, dangerous things he did when he was loaded. It was his friend. Why in God’s name was he pointing a gun at his head? Matthew lowered the weapon and let it hang by his side. Slowly and with great caution, Renato did the same with his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Renato. I’m all fucked up.”

  “No problem, Matthew. We all are.”

  “Pasqual and Libuano are dead.”

  “I know.”

  “It was Skinner.”

  Renato stared at him. The accuracy of the captain’s assessment was astonishing. He had been on the verge of believing that Matthew was coming to his senses, that he was no threat, and yet here were the crazy lies starting. What had the captain said? Humour him, pretend to believe him until Skinner could creep up and surprise him. Renato didn’t need to feign horror. He was still reeling from Esther’s piece of news, still seeing his wife’s bloodied and broken face in the kitchen two years ago. He tried to keep his mind on Cotton. “Skinner? Jesus, that can’t be possible.”

  Matthew got down on his haunches, gun over his knees. His head was bent forward in exhausted submission. “This is his gun, Renato. Guess it comes in handy if anyone objects to going down with the ship. But know what? Our murdering captain isn’t our worst problem. We’ve got more than one monster on board.” He laughed and looked
up at Renato. “You think I’m crazy. I reckon I might be, but we saw the fucker. Looked right in its eyes. The one that’s been doing the slicing and dicing. I blasted it and ran. Didn’t stick around to see what shape it was in.”

  Without looking at her, he indicated Esther with an affectionate flip of the hand.

  “Our oracle here is saying it’s still out there, and know what? That’s good enough for me.”

  Skinner was only five feet behind him, low and dangerous, the handgun held up close to his shoulder. Renato tried very hard to keep his eyes on Matthew in case he should look up and follow the gaze that was fixed on what was behind him.

  Cotton groaned and mashed at the back of his scalp again. Both hands were on top of his head, off the gun. “I know. You think I’ve gone apeshit. The whole thing is fucking out of hand here. Help me, man. I can’t see any of us getting out of this in one piece.”

  The butt of the handgun swiped the back of Matthew Cotton’s head with a force that sent a pink spray of burst blood vessels from his nose as he crumpled, unconscious.

  Esther half-opened her eyes and looked impassively up at Skinner. She had, of course, been expecting him.

  Lloyd Skinner snatched up the AK47 and despite the amount of new information that Renato’s brain was being required to process, it nevertheless registered some subtleties about the process that made him uncomfortable. It bothered him that instead of throwing the handgun to Renato, the captain slipped it into his own shirt. But what bothered him more was the way in which Skinner was handling the semi-automatic. It was with a visible familiarity. Renato quickly reminded himself of Skinner’s past in Vietnam and dismissed it.