Offshore

by Lucy Pepperdine

  “What sort of symptoms?”

  “More bruising, a cough, coughing up blood; anything out of the ordinary or which gives you cause for concern. I’ll give you painkillers to be going on with.”

  She took a bundle of keys from her pocket, selected one and inserted it into the door of a grey steel wall cabinet. As soon as she opened it, a red light glowed, indicating the controlled medicines inside were insecure. She took out a small brown bottle containing round white pills and checked the label.

  “These should do you,” she said, relocking the cabinet and extinguishing the lamp. “Take two every four hours. No more than eight in any twenty-four hour period.”

  Lydia held out the bottle for him to take, and when he reached for it they both noticed the slight swelling and discolouration to the knuckles of his right hand.

  “Bashed that too did you … on the stairs?” she said.

  “Yup.”

  She nodded. “Okay. If you’ll come with me please, we’ll get the paperwork done.”

  Euterich pocketed the pills and followed her into her little office, where she sat him down beside her desk as she signed into her laptop.

  “Right,” she said, fingers poised over her keyboard. “I have to tell you I am legally obliged to report all incidents, accidental or … otherwise, and fully and accurately record the nature of the injury, how it was caused, any treatment administered and medication prescribed. Everything has to go in the book. So …”

  “I slipped on the stairs,” Euterich said.

  He then proceeded to spin a fine yarn about how he had lost his footing and taken a tumble, coming down hard against the edge of a step, banging his nose on the handrail on the way down and scraping his knuckles on the chequer plate tread for good measure.

  Lydia’s fingers danced across the keys as she took it all down. So like in his dream. Her upright posture. Her tip tap typing. Him cutting her throat from ear to ear –.

  “Thanks very much,” she said. “I think that’s everything. You can go now. Take care … on the stairs.”

  He had almost reached the door when she called to him. “How’s the other fella? Did you give as good as you got?”

  He continued out the door. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Soon enough she did find out.

  Jock McAllister stopped by sickbay less than half an hour later, claiming a trip over a badly wound coil of rope had caused him to topple head first into the safety rail of a catwalk, opening a small cut above his eyebrow, and causing a split in his upper lip.

  She bathed his lip with antiseptic, closed the cut to his head with superglue and three SteriStrips, and entered a second fabricated story into the incident log.

  She couldn’t put what she suspected to be the truth - two men getting on each others nerves and letting off a little steam by trying to knock seven bells out of each other. Instead she opted to make a side note regarding how she suspected these separate trips and falls had been brought on by overwork, tiredness, and a shitty dangerous working environment.

  The men had enough to cope with without being hauled up before a conduct standards panel investigating their behaviour under pressure, and from what she had seen on her tour of the platform – loose wires trailing from the ceiling, wobbly railings on stairways and gangways, sections of floor plating missing, etcetera, it was time Longdrift’s approach to health and safety became the subject of a little re-evaluation of its own. She did, however, make a note in her personal journal about Reynolds’ disrespectful and discourteous attitude towards Eddie, underlining the words ‘envious’, ‘resentful’ and ‘bastard’ several times.

  Chapter 25

  Four days since the fight with McAllister, and Euterich had had enough of Reynolds’ injured body.

  He looked like a panda with his two black eyes and bruised nose. The pain in his ribs annoyed him, the bandage restricted him, and the painkillers made him feel sick. Time for a change. But who would be the lucky recipient of his attention this time?

  A quick study of the whiteboard in the Control Room helped him make his decision, and he prepared to make his move.

  However, when he overheard a conversation between McAllister and Capstan at lunch, he changed his mind. An easier option had presented itself, but he didn’t have a lot of time.

  The light from the cutting torch was blinding and surprisingly noisy – yellow white sparks fizzing and crackling, shooting off in all directions like an out of control firework, belching smoke and the smell of hot metal.

  A piece of the metal detached itself and fell to the floor with a clang, its cut end shifting colour from a bright cherry red to a dull orange as it cooled.

  The flare died, yet the bright image remained, burned into Euterich’s retina, appearing to hang before his eyes like a shifting purple cloud. Slowly it too faded.

  A gloved hand laid the torch on the bench and raised a Cyclops windowed mask over a mess of fiery red hair, revealing a grimy sweaty face with three white stripes above an equally red eyebrow.

  Euterich/Reynolds sidled into the room, pushing the door closed behind him with his backside, both hands occupied with carrying cardboard cups with plastic lids from which the sweet smell of fresh brewed coffee emanated.

  “What do you want?” said McAllister sourly.

  Euterich offered McAllister one of the cups. “Peace offering,” he said. “Haven’t got an olive branch. Will this do?”

  McAllister grunted and wiped his glove over his damp cheek leaving behind a sooty smear. “Took you long enough,” he sniffed. “Bit late don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. I was having a bad day. Not enough sleep. Things got a bit out of hand. I didn’t mean what I said, and … I’m sorry I hit you.”

  McAllister shrugged. “Yeah, well.” He took the cup. “Me too I suppose. Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  While McAllister drank his coffee and examined the cooling end of the metal he just cut through, Euterich looked around this compact utilitarian enclosure where cutting and welding could take place in relative safety. Constructed of prefabricated fireproof concrete panels, it wasn’t much larger than the average garden shed. Of its four walls, two were plain panels, one had the door, another a high up non-opening window inset with a rapidly whirring extractor fan. The roof comprised sheets of corrugated tin dotted with holes where salt water had eroded through it.

  At the far end of the enclosure, man sized oxygen and acetylene cylinders stood side by side in a cage, their rubber pipes snaking from rounded gauges to end in brass connectors, to which could be attached any one of a dozen different heads depending on the job.

  Laid out on the workbench were some of those heads, as well as a few other tools a metalworker might need – hammers, pliers, wrenches, along with various bottles and cans and containers.

  What really caught Euterich’s eye was a bright orange metal and plastic device - a nail gun powered by a canister of compressed air.

  He picked it up. “This looks like a serious piece of kit,” he said.

  “Careful with that,” warned McAllister, sipping from his coffee. “It’s loaded and it’s got a hair trigger. The slightest twitch and poof, straight through your boot and your foot. You’ll find yerself pinned to the floor, and trust me it bloody hurts.”

  “Wouldn’t want that.” Euterich laid the device back on the bench with deliberate care. “So, you fixing something?” he asked.

  McAllister released the piece of metal he had been working on from the clamp and examined the cut end, running a gloved thumb along the smooth edge.

  “As if I haven’t got enough to do, our Lord and Master broke his chair,” he said. “Base is shot so I’m cobbling up a new one from some odds and sods. Shouldn’t take long.”

  “Mind if I watch.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  While McAllister worked at smoothing the edge of the metal with a rasp, Euterich inched his way to the door.

  No lock, but with everyone busy
elsewhere, they shouldn’t be disturbed. Shouldn’t, but might.

  There, on the floor by the door, was a wedge; normally used to illegally override the hydraulic auto-return mechanism on the door, holding it open. And if it could hold a door open … it could keep it closed. McAllister made adjustments to the cylinder outlet valves, changing the gaseous mixture, before swapping the head on the connector from destructive cutter to constructive welder.

  He handed Euterich a spare mask. “You might want to put this on. Don’t want sparks in your eyes, or your hair.”

  Euterich poked the triangle of iron with his foot, forcing the thin end under the door, ramming it home until it wedged tight, and took the mask.

  There followed a period of intense light, of crackling and fizzing, and the stench of ionised air. The light went out and McAllister lifted his mask and took a sip from his coffee cup.

  “Very interesting,” said Euterich, feigning interest. “I’ve not seen much welding close up.” He pretended to examine the weld closely. “Looks good. Nice job. You’ve got the touch.”

  “Years of practise,” said McAllister. “Give it a minute to cool and we’ll see how we’ve done. Open the door and let some air in will you? Stinks summat awful and that fan’s useless.”

  Euterich ignored the request.

  McAllister removed the chair from the clamp, stood it on the floor and swivelled it. It stood firm and spun freely. He then seated himself and bounced in it, testing the loading on the new joint. It held.

  “Suits you,” said Euterich, slipping his fingers around the hand-grip of the nail gun. “Made to measure. Ever fancied being Captain?”

  McAllister turned a full circle. “Me? Nah?” He then sniffed and wiped his hand under his running nose, picking up a silver trail which he deposited on the leg of his trousers.

  “Argh, soddit.” Another wet sniff and he reached across the bench to pull a square of blue paper towel from the oversized roll, blasted his nose clear and wiped at it, leaving it rosy red at the tip.

  Euterich hesitated, his hand still around the nail gun’s grip. If McAllister was getting sick, even with an organism as simple as the coryza virus - the common cold, he was leaving right now.

  “You getting a cold?” he asked.

  “Nah. I always get this way when I use the cutter or welder. The bright light makes my nose run. Go figure.”

  Good enough.

  “I’m going to open that door before we both suffocate,” McAllister said, but before he could make a move Euterich snatched up the nail gun and pressed it against his temple.

  “What–”

  Phut.

  A short sharp burst of air drove a full five inches of cold steel into his right temporal lobe.

  Pressure, a millisecond of exquisite pain, followed by … nothing.

  McAllister twitched. Gasped. Froze. Eyes open, mouth agape. For good measure Euterich pressed the gun against McAllister’s chest and squeezed the trigger again, three times in rapid succession.

  Phut. Phut. Phut.

  In short order a trio of galvanised spikes penetrated McAllister’s heart.

  A smile of pure pleasure sat on Euterich’s face as he patted McAllister’s cheek. “Well done, Jock. You died well. Clean and tidy. Thanks very much.”

  He dragged the body to the floor, unzipped its overalls and pulled up its T-shirt, revealing a chest and stomach as replete with red hair as McAllister’s head.

  “Your pubes must look like the original burning bush,” he said. From the hiding place in the collar of his boot, he took the scalpel. “Now then, let’s see what you’ve got to offer.”

  He took a moment to measure out the perfect place to cut, before inserting the blade into McAllister’s still warm flesh and proceeding to slice, opening him up from sternum to pubis.

  He reached under the ribcage, felt around for the hot ball of heart, and eased it out as far as it would go.

  Deft slices through the superior and inferior venae cavae, the pulmonary artery and the aorta, freed the organ from its restraining pipework to sit snugly in the palm of his hand. Then, using a pair of pliers from the workbench, he gripped the heads of each of the nails and extracted the blood smeared spikes as carefully as he would de-skewer a spatchcocked quail.

  He teased off the fibrous layers of pericardium, and the naked organ beneath glistened the colour of an oversized ripe plum – dark red and juicy. The sight and smell of it flooded his mouth with saliva, and so he did as anyone would do when presented with an especially fine sweet fruit - he sank his teeth into it up to the gum line, sucking so as not to waste a drop of the precious juice, ripping out a satisfying mouthful.

  This tasty morsel was quickly followed by a hefty portion of liver, the lower lobe of the left lung, the right kidney and the tastiest of sweetbreads, the pancreas.

  Half an hour later Desmond ‘Daz’ Reynolds was nowhere to be seen. In his place the newly created McAllister/Euterich chimera stood, rubbed his satisfied stomach and let out a diaphragm rattling belch.

  “Pardon me,” he said, to the glassy eyed shell staring up at the ceiling. “Might have overdone it a bit this time.”

  He pulled a square of paper towel from the roll, used it to wipe his red stained lips, folded it neatly and tossed it into the waste bin.

  What to do with McAllister now.

  This change had been a spur of the moment decision; the opportunity arose and he took it, so he hadn’t planned on how he would dispose of the body, although one obvious route did present itself.

  Dangerous places these welding huts, what with all the flammables, tanks of acetylene and oxygen, bottles of methylated spirits, liquid paraffin, solvents. Accidents could happen, particularly to people who are reckless enough to sneak crafty cigarettes in places they shouldn’t.

  A wicked smile twisted his mouth.

  He’d got what he wanted, why not have some fun and give the rest of them, or more specifically that pompous arse Capstan, something to ponder in the process?

  He swapped identity badges with McAllister’s body and redressed it, but not before he’d used the scalpel again, this time to make subtle and interesting alterations which would have Capstan scratching his head.

  After stowing the incriminating nail gun into the steel tool chest, he used a pair of needle nosed pliers to root out and extract the nail from McAllister’s temple, leaving a neat round hole.

  He then gathered together every piece of flammable material he could find – cloth, wood, plastic, paper, and spaced them at strategic intervals around the room, doused them all, including McAllister’s body, with half a gallon of paraffin and a bottle of methylated spirits.

  Oil and solvent soaked rags, twisted tightly, made an effective slow burning wick. He tucked one end of it under McAllister, and faced his first obstacle. He had no matches and no lighter - no naked flames allowed on board - with the welding enclosure or the smoke shack.

  This called for some improvisation.

  The merest amount of acetylene hissed through the hose. He applied a spark from the flint striker and a tiny yellow flame no bigger than a candle’s bobbed about at the end of the torch. He applied the flame to the wick; it caught easily.

  “See, Jock, there really is more than one way to skin a cat.”

  He turned off the gas valve and the extractor fan, couldn’t risk a draught blowing the flame out, and exited the welding hut with the repaired chair, closing the door softly but firmly behind him.

  A minute later, with a soft whoomph, the paraffin and meths mixture set alight and enveloped McAllister in a blanket of steady blue flame.

  The fire would take hold and progress solidly, the enclosed poorly ventilated space acting like an oven, increasing the temperature to gradually bake and consume all the fuel and oxygen within, and then desirous of the need to feed its single toxic lung, it would break from its confines and the fun would begin.

  Euterich, as McAllister, would of course be one of the crew sent to tackle the blaze val
iantly and heroically, to save the entire place from certain destruction, only to have their gallant triumph shattered when they found a body inside the burned out shell, baked to a crisp and melted to the floor.

  He would, of course, express his own brand of disbelief and revulsion, and would of course join in the pondering as to whom the poor unfortunate deceased could possibly be. Why, shock horror, the only one missing from the group, who else. The detestable Desmond Reynolds.

  Grinning like a naughty child who had just set up some especially devious practical joke, Euterich pressed the button to call the service elevator.

  After delivering Eddie’s repaired chair to the Control Room, Euterich slipped into the games room, just as Eddie was strolling through the empty lounge toward the mess, ready to eat and expecting to join the short queue to be served.

  No smell of cooking met him. The meal should be ready by now, it was gone six. Who was down for kitchen duty? He pulled his notebook from his pocket. Reynolds and Brewer.

  Brewer was there, a chef’s apron protecting his everyday clothes, wrestling a tin opener around the rim of a huge can of macaroni cheese. But where was that idler Reynolds? Shirking in the pantry?

  “Before you ask, it’s going to be at least another quarter hour,” said Brewer.

  “Where’s Daz? He’s supposed to be–”

  Brewer frowned. “Supposed to be, but as you can see, isn’t.” He peeled back the rim of the can. “And although I am perfectly capable of opening a tin and warming stuff up, being on my own makes for a delay, so a second pair of hands would be useful if you could rustle some up.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Eddie. “Where is everyone else?”

  “Games room.”

  Eddie ambled the short distance across the lounge and through the swing door, in time to see McDougal throw his dart at the board, scoring a double top.

  “Get in theer ya bastard!”

  He waited for the cheer to die down.

  “I hate to interrupt your fun and games folks, but has anyone seen Daz? He should’ve been on kitchen duty. Dr Brewer’s in there on his own.”