Offshore

by Lucy Pepperdine

  McAllister grunted and turned his attention to the screens. “Knock yourself out.”

  Brewer took the second seat, fascinated by McAllister’s dexterity. It was like watching someone play a video game on three separate monitors at once.

  One displayed status information from the ROV - depth from the surface, height from the sea bed, degrees of direction faced and degree of up or down tilt from the artificial horizon, together with speed of movement, forwards and backwards.

  The two others showed grainy images of a bubbling, swirling morass of grey greens, filtering beams of ethereal sunlight.

  Long brown strands of kelp wafted lazily in the current, stroking against the camera’s lens. Down deeper - less light, less detail. A flare bleached out the images momentarily, settled again, and the pictures became clearer.

  “What happened then?” asked Brewer.

  “I put the lights on,” explained McAllister, not taking his eyes off the screen. He pressed another button and a black box set atop the middle screen whirred.

  “What’s that?”

  “Video. Got to make a record.”

  McAllister nudged the joystick to the left, twitching his head to match, as if he had become one with the equipment.

  Brewer’s own attention shifted between the images on the screen and the picture of absolute concentration on McAllister’s face.

  He stole a crafty snap with his camera. McAllister did not notice, too busy tracking activity on the screens, his hands moving independently over dials, switches, buttons and joystick.

  At times his tongue poked out between his lips and occasionally he would hum in his throat and move the joystick a shade, changing the camera’s position for a better view, eyes peeled for any sign of damage, deformation or deterioration in the platform’s supporting column. Totally engrossed.

  “Everything looks okay,” said McAllister after nearly thirty minutes of concentrated silence. “Just one more place to look, a couple of samples to take from the sand at the bottom and we’ll call it a day. Tomorrow we’ll start on the anchors and cables.”

  He teased the joystick and the images shifted.

  “Hey, a fish,” said Brewer. “A cod I believe. Big one too. Good job I brought my rod. Might be worth a dip.”

  “Gonna need a whole shedload of chips to go with that,” McAllister chuckled, his mood lightened now that the initial pressure on him had eased.

  “How far down are you now?” asked Brewer, taking advantage of his companion’s new found verbosity.

  “About a hundred and fifty feet, give or take. She should hit sea bed in a few minutes.”

  “And what are you looking for down there?”

  “Mermaids if I’m lucky.”

  They waited, following the images on the screen as if they were watching a wildlife documentary, until McAllister spoke again. “Here we go. Let’s have a look see.” Once more the mask of concentration fixed itself over his features as he manipulated the controls. One slip this far down could be costly indeed.

  If the ROV became snagged on something, or lost power, or slipped from its support cable and tumbled to the seabed, he would be the one to have to don his diving suit and go and get it back, breathing in the unpleasant mixture of oxygen and helium which would make him talk like Mickey Mouse on speed.

  Retrieval, however, would not be the end of it. The ROV could be hauled up immediately, not so McAllister. He would have to spend at least eight hours in the freezing water, ascending foot by foot, decompressing on the way.

  Any faster and he risked developing a case of the bends, a painful, potentially fatal condition, one from which a friend of his had suffered, and one which he had no desire to go through for the sake of a piece of machinery.

  “What’s that?” Brewer said.

  “What?”

  Brewer tapped the screen. “That there. Some sort of weird looking rock? It looks like …” He laughed quietly. “It looks a bit like a skull. Isn’t it amazing how your eyes can play tricks on you?”

  McAllister leaned closer to the screen, straining his eyes to see, but could not make out the detail. He hummed again. “Yeah, that is weird … let me just move her in a bit and see what we’ve got …”

  The joystick twitched and the object drew closer. In the circle of yellow light cast by the ROV’s spot lamp, the object filling the TV screen became dreadfully clear indeed.

  McAllister suddenly yelled and shot to his feet, retreating to the far end of the room to press himself against the rear wall of the Portakabin, quaking, mumbling incomprehensibly, his face an ashen sickly grey green, eyes so huge in his head they were in danger of falling out of their sockets, arms and hands pumping.

  “My dear fellow,” said Brewer, alarmed at the man’s cadaverous, agitated appearance. “What is it?”

  McAllister looked as if he might faint. “It’s …” Audible gulp. He pointed at the screen. “It’s a head … Lonny’s … head!” The last of the colour drained from his face as he doubled over and vomited copiously and noisily over his boots.

  “It can’t be,” said Brewer, turning back to the screens. “You must be mist–” The words died. There was no mistake. His eyes had not been playing tricks on him.

  There, filling the centre screen, were the remains of the face of the missing crewman, Lonny Dick. Only two days in the water, but already much of the soft tissue had been picked free of the underlying bone.

  The eyes, always a favourite, were the first to go, plucked from their sockets and leaving behind hollow pits. Next went his fleshy cheeks and squint rubbery nose, along with his lips, exposing a double row of peg like teeth set in a permanent idiotic slack jawed grin.

  “Bloody hell fire!” exclaimed the scientist, nearly five years since he last uttered an expletive of any kind.

  The internal phone in the control room buzzed. Eddie, sifting his way through a pile of paperwork, reached for it. “Yeah,” he said casually.

  Silence.

  “This is Capstan. Who’s there?”

  Muffled talking.

  “Mr Capstan?”

  “Yeah? Is that you Prof?”

  “Yes. I wonder, Mr Capstan, if you could come down to the ROV control shack for a moment. There’s something we think you should see.”

  “What’s the matter?” Eddie said. “Found Blackbeard’s treasure?”

  “Please … come down, Mr Capstan.”

  Brewer hung up.

  So did Eddie.

  A few minutes later he sauntered into the red Portakabin. The entire grim faced crew, including Lydia Ellis, were crammed into the tiny space.

  A deeply upset McAllister was still sitting on one of the chairs, hunched over, staring at the floor, Lydia’s hand resting on his shoulder, offering professional comfort. All eyes were trained on the TV screens, all except Lydia’s; she was looking expectantly at Eddie.

  “Wassup?” he said.

  With a dip of his head, Brewer indicated the television screen still displaying its ghastly image.

  “I think we have found our missing crewman, Mr Capstan,” he said with a calmness which belied the situation.

  Eddie stared aghast at the screen, at a small fish tugging a loose shred of skin from Lonny’s cheek and making away with it.

  “Holy shit,” he murmured, and dragged his hand down his cheeks and over his mouth and chin, pinching his lower lip.

  “Confirmation then, he did go overboard.”

  A mumble of agreement circulated the group.

  “How the hell did it happen? He was experienced. He knew the drill - stay away from the rails when the wind and water is up. In fact, stay away, period.”

  “Easy done I suppose,” said Brewer, wearing the mantle of spokesman for the group. “If he was feeling ill and needing some fresh air, maybe he leaned over the rail to puke and took his eye off the ball. Big wave comes up and Bob’s your uncle, so to speak.”

  Eddie’s worst case scenario spoken out loud.

  “Gormless s
od,” said Reynolds, his eyes fixed on the part stripped skull, and for the briefest second Eddie thought he detected the trace of a smile sitting on the young man’s lips.

  He risked another glance at the screen for himself, in time to see a small black crab emerge from Lonny’s vacant eye socket to wave a claw at the ROV’s camera. This is mine, it threatened. Go away. Get your own.

  “Where’s the rest of him?” asked Lydia from beside Jock’s chair.

  No one looked in her direction. No one wanted to answer the question.

  “Sharks. Fish. Crabs. Lobsters. You name it, it’s had a go,” said Eddie. “It doesn’t take long to strip a carcass when they get into a feeding frenzy. Once the bones get loose they get scattered by the current and his clothes will have been carried off by it too.”

  Lydia’s face twisted with bitter distaste and she returned to her patient. Eddie pressed the power button on the TV, banishing the disturbing picture and turning the screen a safe dull grey. Everyone stood in silence staring at the blankness, not knowing what to say or do for the best.

  Eddie cleared his throat. What he had to say next would sound officious and heartless, but it had to be said nonetheless. “I hate to have to bring this up now, Jock, but … um … in your own time, could you see to … erm … recovery of the ROV?”

  McAllister uncurled himself from his crouched position and glared at Eddie. “What did you say?”

  “I … um … ” Cough. “I asked if you wouldn’t mind seeing to the ROV. We can’t leave it down there. It’s an expensive piece of kit.”

  “The gear?” McAllister said, with all the warmth of a mid-winter’s day in Aberdeen.

  “Please.”

  A slow nod. “Of course. Let’s not forget about the precious machinery, shall we, eh boss? Best not allow the death of a colleague to get in the way of the FUCKING JOB!”

  He leapt to his feet, sending his chair back against the wall, hard, and stormed from the room, knocking against Eddie’s shoulder on the way past, rocking him on his feet.

  Eddie felt himself shrink under the silent stares of the others. Without uttering a word, they each filed out, leaving him alone with Lydia.

  The look of utter disappointment on her face made his stomach clench. A moment’s hard gaze from those sea coloured eyes cowed him some more, before she averted them and she too left.

  Chapter 21

  Lonny’s bones had been found sooner than he expected, but no matter. Euterich was not worried.

  The others had drawn their conclusion – the big man had fallen overboard. A tragic accident. There was nothing else they could do. End of story.

  They would not send the ROV down again any time soon, if they got it back at all. Jock McAllister was in no fit state to operate it just now, which would give the current time to drag the sunken canvas bag containing Daz Reynolds’ bits and pieces far away where they wouldn’t find it. He remained confident of being clear and clean on that score.

  He would not, however, chance tossing another set of leftovers into the sea. Twice he might get away with, but a third? When the time came, and it would soon enough, he would have to be a little more inventive with his method of disposal.

  Euterich lay on his bunk giving careful consideration to whose body that might be, when a rapid tuneful knocking on his beloved’s cabin door across the corridor distracted him.

  His enhanced hearing automatically tuned in to feed him information, allowing him to visualise the scenario from sound and imagination, like a blind man sitting through a movie.

  A muffled, feminine voice. Lydia: “Just a minute.”

  Shuffling about. Tidying up? Door opening.

  “Can I come in?” Eddie Capstan, curse him.

  Long pause. “I suppose.”

  He pictured the scene: The two of them in her cabin, standing a respectful distance apart, each waiting for the other to speak.

  Eddie went first. “About today … I think I was a tad insensitive.” Lydia closed the door.

  “A tad?! You’re not kidding you were.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s been a shite day from dawn to dusk–”

  “No excuse, Eddie–”

  “I was just trying to … I don’t know, but…” He scrubbed at his hair. “Whatever it was, I got it wrong.”

  “Yes, you flaming well did.”

  Pause.

  “How’s Jock?” he said.

  “He’s in shock,” said Lydia. “What do you expect?”

  “How are you?”

  “The same. We all are. Anyone would be who didn’t have a heart of granite. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Sit down then, and I’ll make us a drink.”

  “No. I can’t stay. I just wanted to … I’ve got to–”

  “Sit-down.”

  Eddie lowered himself onto the edge of the bunk, sitting stiffly, hands sandwiched between knees pressed together.

  “Have you made your report?” Lydia said, spooning coffee into the mugs.

  Sigh. “Yeah.”

  “And …?”

  Eddie drank coffee and told Lydia how he’d reported his findings to Longdrift Headquarters and received nothing but griping and carping in return; how they said it would be better all round if Lonny had never been found, because discovery meant they would be the ones to have to declare a sudden accidental death with an unrecoverable body to the Coroner.

  They would have to deal with all the paperwork. They would be the ones to have to inform Lonny’s next of kin, to express sympathy for their loss and stump up some form of pecuniary compensation package. Their safety record would be screwed; insurance rates would go up, blah, blah, blah.

  They did not balk at the opportunity to twist the knife over the potential loss of an expensive piece of technology either.

  Neither did they spare an ounce of sympathy for those who witnessed the horrifying discovery and were having to come to terms with the loss of a workmate, leaving Eddie in no doubt at all that they too considered the entire debacle to be entirely his fault. As if he didn’t feel bad enough already about how he had handled the situation.

  Lydia made sympathetic noises in all the right places, giving him the impression that, when he finally finished, she might offer some other kind of comfort.

  Not this time.

  Instead she offered only a severe lambast of his self pity and sent him on his way to pen his report, her order to ‘Grow a pair!’ still ringing in his ears.

  Euterich, still listening, smiled to himself.

  “Not quite what you were expecting was it, Mr Capstan? Looks like I might still be in with a chance after all.”

  Chapter 22

  Light from the corridor leaking through the opaque glass circles in the double swing doors spared the sickbay complete darkness.

  It was dim, but not so much that Euterich could not find his way to the rear of the room, to the oblong of soft gleam spilling from the open door of Lydia’s office.

  There she was, at her desk, back straight, head bobbing in time to the tinny chee chee chee of music playing through her headphones, her fingers tap tap tapping rapidly on her keyboard, filling the document on the screen with row after row of text.

  Soundlessly he inched forward to stand behind her. She continued to bob and type in unison, oblivious to his presence.

  He leaned toward her bowed head, his nose mere millimetres from her slender neck, inhaled and filled his nostrils with the scent of her. He exhaled, moving her hair.

  Feeling the draught, she gave her head a little shake to put her hair back into place. Another urge, overwhelming, impossible to resist, and he touched his lips to the soft downy hairs at the back of her neck, a gossamer touch as light as a butterfly’s wing.

  Her fingers froze, poised over her keys, and her eyes changed focus from the words on the screen to the reflective surface of the glass. Had she picked up the shadow of movement perhaps?

  She turned her head slowly to the left, removed her ear pod and list
ened intently. The doorway stood empty, the room beyond dark and quiet.

  Euterich held his breath.

  If she turned to the right, she would see him.

  Stay still. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

  Seeing and hearing nothing and blaming an overactive imagination for her nervousness, she returned to her keyboard and her staccato tapping.

  He saw her shoulders relax as her fear left her and she became once more absorbed in her work.

  Now!

  “Hello Miss Ellis.”

  She shot to her feet, yanking the pods from her ears.

  “Jesus, you scared me. I didn’t–”

  He drew the razor sharp steel blade cleanly across her throat, severing her jugular and carotid arteries and dividing her trachea with one pass.

  Her hand went to her throat as if to scratch an annoying itch. Instead it found a gap which shouldn’t have been there, a widely smiling extra mouth from which a scarlet fountain spewed forth in rhythmic sticky pulses.

  She clutched at it with both hands in a valiant yet vain attempt to stem the flow. Crimson liquor percolated through her fingers to run down her arms and drip from her elbows, leaving their own unique pattern on the immaculately clean floor.

  Euterich stepped back. He didn’t want to get blood on his clothes or his shoes … and he didn’t like the hot metallic stench. Beneath wide staring eyes, her blood filled mouth opened and closed, silently pleading, although managing not much more than a bubbling cherry coloured spray.

  She staggered the few yards to the doorway to the medical room, one hand to her ruined throat, the other stretched out, seeking something more substantial than fresh air, a red trail following in her wake, until her oxygen starved brain shut down, her eyes rolled back in her head, and like a puppet whose strings had been cut she folded to the floor with a solid thud, coming to rest face down on the tiles.

  A fine red rivulet made its way to the tip of Euterich’s blade, to hang catching the light like a single liquid garnet, until gravity threatened to tease it from its mooring and draw it down to join its fellows on the tiles.

  He lifted the blade and touched it to his lips, transferring the bright jewel.