With everyone else occupied in all corners of the platform, he figured he had at least two hours clear. If all went well and nobody interrupted him, he could have the job done well before that time.
He dragged Brewer’s body over to the drain hole, rolled it onto its back, unzipped its overalls and stripped it naked.
“You’ve spent too long sitting behind a desk, my friend,” he said, sliding the blade of a ceramic knife over Brewer’s soft belly. It made short work of separating skin, fat and underlying muscle, to expose the sheath of peritoneum.
He sliced through the layer to reach the organs beneath, took out the liver and heart, along with the kidneys, and set them aside. A few swift strokes dissected the main arteries and veins, and some of the smaller ones, flooding the cavity with blood.
“Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him,” Euterich said, dipping his finger into the gore and tasting it as if it were a fine sauce. “Hmmm. Not bad. Good iron level. Moderate blood sugar. But not what I want right now.”
Carefully he flipped the body over onto its stomach. With no beating heart to push it around, the blood would need a little encouragement to leave.
Aided by gravity, red oozed from the many incisions, found the slope in the floor and migrated toward the drain hole, slipping down it in a steady stream. All very neat and tidy.
Exsanguination in progress, Euterich fed, satisfying himself with Brewer’s liver, heart, and one of the kidneys. Forty five minutes later the flow of blood stopped.
The new full bellied Euterich/Brewer turned the old one onto its back, and scooped out the contents of its abdominal and chest cavities, dumping the slippery entrails into a plastic bucket to be disposed of in the sea later, leaving the body’s interior as clean and empty as a newly slaughtered pig.
The vacant shell now considerably lighter, it needed little effort to manoeuvre it onto the prep table in readiness for the next stage.
At over sixty inches long, the flat bed of stainless steel with integrated sink could have been custom made for the job, and with the body correctly positioned, a single decapitating blow from the cleaver sent the head into the sink along with a small glug of clotting blood.
“A sorry waste indeed that so much intelligence should end up being flushed down the drain,” Euterich said, turning on the tap to wash it away. “But not before it rubbed off on me. What you knew, I know. And you, my friend, had a fine mind. Thank you for sharing.”
A thin stream of diluted scarlet trickled down the drain hole into the waste water recycling tank. Time to get to work.
With practised ease he separated all divisible joints; the ball and sockets at the shoulders and hips, the hinges at the knees and elbows, cutting through joint capsules, slicing through ligaments, dissecting cartilage.
Sawing through bones was both cumbersome and unnecessary. This method was by far easier, quicker, and less messy. With the cleaver he hacked through the softer bones of the ribs, sternum and spine, and in a little over thirty-five minutes, he had the body in twelve separate portions with barely a drop of blood anywhere but in the sink.
He selected the portions which carried the most meat; the thighs, buttocks, upper arms and upper back, exchanging the cleaver for a filleting knife with which to strip off the flesh and fat, and debone them.
The parts he did not require or could not use, including the head, hands and feet, he wrapped in plastic sheeting, tied up in a black plastic bag, and pushed into the refuse chute. He selected one thigh from the remainder. There would be enough meat there for his needs.
The rest he hacked into smaller, more usable portions, enclosed them in plastic bags, and placed them in an insulated box which he carried to the freezer locker. He cleaned up the floor of the cold-room and wiped down the tabletop. Satisfied with his efforts, he stripped off the plastic apron and gloves. They too went into the refuse.
Time for a quick shower to remove any residual blood spatter or smell that might be clinging to him, before switching modes from butcher to chef and to begin the preparation of the evening meal.
It had been a long time since he’d had a decent steak and kidney pie.
“That smells braw!” exclaimed McDougal, fresh from his shift and shower. “I’m sae starved my stomach thinks ma throat’s bin cut.”
Euterich stretched Brewer’s face into a benign smile, “What an unfortunate choice of phrase Mr McDougal, if I may say so. It won’t be long … I wonder …”
Time to set minds stirring.
“… have you by chance seen Mr McAllister? It would seem that every time I am rostered onto kitchen duty, I find myself here on my own.”
“Cannae say that I have,” said McDougal. “Bin hard at work cleaning off gull shit all afternoon. Filthy bastards get everywhere. I wouldnae be surprised if I picked up some foul disease from it.” He grinned widely. “Or indeed some fowl disease.”
“Such a dreadful waste of your talents, Mr McDougal,” Euterich sympathised, falsely.
“Aye, ye can say that agin. Next thing the Boss Man will hae me scraping barnacles off the legs. Still, if that’s what they want tae pay me for, that’s their loss. Giz a shout when the food’s ready.”
“Will do.”
Presented with a plate loaded with tender chunks of meat in a delicious rich gravy, topped off with a golden flaky pastry crust, nobody seemed the least bit concerned at McAllister’s absence from the feast.
None but Eddie.
His nerves, already strained as the twenty-four hour deadline came and went without resolution, were stretched ever tauter by the vacant seat.
Ever since Reynolds’ death, having anyone out of sight or communication for more than a few minutes instilled a feeling of dread in him. He pushed his barely touched plate away.
“Don’t you like the pie, Mr Capstan?” asked Euterich in Brewer’s usual polite and courteous manner.
“Sorry, doc,” Eddie said. “No slur on your cooking, I’m sure it’s delicious and I appreciate you’ve gone to a lot of trouble, but I just don’t have any appetite. I have too much on my mind.”
“Including Mr McAllister not joining us tonight?”
“Among other things.”
“I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure he’s fine. Don’t you think it understandable, considering recent events and how tense things have been around here lately, that he’s found the need to take some time out alone. I’ve been tempted to do so myself. I’m sure he hasn’t gone far.”
Actually, he’s closer than you think.
“He could have told us he didn’t want any dinner instead of just not turning up,” said Eddie. “The way things have been…”
A murmur of concern circulated the table.
“We could organise search parties to be on the safe side,” said Shaw. “There’s enough of us to go in three separate pairs.”
“There’s no harm in looking,” said Cameron. “The worst that could happen is we get an earful from Jock for butting into his private time.”
McDougal stabbed at a chunk of meat. “After dinner though, eh?”
They found not the slightest sign of Jock McAllister aboard Falcon Bravo.
Neither his cabin, far too clean and tidy for Eddie’s liking, nor his workplace cum hideout in the ROV shack, gave any clues as to his whereabouts. He had, to all intents and purposes, simply vanished into thin air.
Chapter 32
At the prospect of having to report the loss of yet another crew member the steel band tightened around Eddie Capstan’s chest, the woolly mitten stuffed itself into his mouth, and his entire body, its blood vessels already vibrating, felt as if it were filled with grasshoppers.
The room began to spin around him, and Matt Shaw watched in helpless terror as his boss hyperventilated himself into a full blown panic attack right there on the control room floor. In response to his anxious call, Lydia burst through the door to attend her first proper medical emergency.
A curiously concerned McDougal and
Cameron followed close behind. Euterich ambled along at the rear, watching everything with detached interest.
“Where is he?” she said.
Shaw stood back to allow her access to her red suited patient sitting in the middle of the floor, forehead resting on fiercely hugged knees, shoulders heaving, back straining as he struggled for breath.
“He was about to use the phone to report Jock missing when he started clutching at his chest and breathing funny, and then he went really white and sank to the floor and he –”
She put her hand on Shaw’s arm, stilling his gabbling. “It’s okay Matt. Calm down. Everything is going to be okay.”
Lydia knelt down beside Eddie, pulled the zipper of his overalls away from his throat, and laid a cool hand against the back of his hot neck.
“You’re okay, Eddie. You’re going to be fine. Don’t worry. I’m here to help you. Try and relax.”
“What’s wrong with him? Is he having a heart attack?”
“No Matt. He’s just a little tense and finding it hard to breathe.” From her bag she pulled out a small black and white canister, and attached a clear plastic tube and face mask. “Put this on Eddie, it will help you breathe,” she said, fitting the mask over Eddie’s mouth and nose, keeping her voice low and gentle as she spoke. “Easy does it. Take long, slow breaths, in and out, take control, slow… easy.”
She turned to the rest of the little audience. “It’s okay guys. He’s going to be alright. If you can give us a little privacy, I’d appreciate it.”
“Can I possibly be of any help?” asked Euterich. “I do have a little first aid training.”
Lydia looked up into Brewer’s benevolent countenance. “No thank you, Lawrence. What he needs most is quiet and… a cup of tea, perhaps?”
“The cure to all woes? Of course. I’ll see to it myself.”
“Thank you. Thank you guys.”
Dismissed with courtesy, all four men filed from the room and Eddie and Lydia were left alone.
As Eddie breathed in the gas, Lydia moved her hand in soothing comforting strokes over his back and shoulders. Gradually his breathing eased and he released the hug on his knees. She took his wrist to measure his pulse. “Better?”
“Much. Thanks.”
“Scary isn’t it?”
He nodded silently.
“Happen a lot?”
He took off the mask. “Not for a while, not since the–” He touched his stomach. “It started then. I thought I’d got over it.”
“But this trip, with everything that’s been going on, the tremendous strain you’ve been under, it’s been slowly building?”
Eddie coughed, to shift both the hoarseness from his voice and the dryness from his mouth. “Aye.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner? Talk to me? We could have done something to nip it in the bud and stop it before it got this bad.”
“Because I didn’t want anyone to know–”
“That you’re under stress? Aren’t we all?”
“I’m supposed to be above it all though,” Eddie said. “To keep a cool calm head on my shoulders at all times, but I can’t –” He lifted the mask and took a quick whiff of the cool gas. “I’m in over my head, Lydia. I’ve no business being here. I’m not up to the job. People are dying and it’s my fault –”
“Don’t be silly.”
“And I know exactly what they’re thinking back at HQ. Good old Capstan - can’t organise a piss up in a brewery, but he’s really good at killing off his crew. What is it now? Three in eight weeks, must be a new record –”
The short sharp breaths began again and Lydia clamped her hands around his face, holding him steady, her eyes inches from his own, her voice a low even drone. “You’re getting hysterical Eddie, so put the mask back on and take a deep breath in for me, and stop talking this total and utter bullshit, okay?”
It did the trick. Taken aback by the force of her hold, the strength of her words and the intensity of her gaze, not to mention her use of bad language, he placed the mask to his face and sucked in a lung-full of oxygen, held it, and let it out in a slow controlled breath. She made him do it twice more for good measure.
“Sorry,” he said on his final exhalation. “I got a bit carried away.”
She let go of his face. “That’s okay.”
He rubbed his hand over his brow and made to get up. “I’m okay now. I’ve got work to do.”
She pulled him back down. “Not yet. Sit a while. We need to talk about this.”
He sucked in another deep breath, once again filling his lungs to capacity, and blew it out to the last puff. “I don’t have time. I have another call to make. Another nail to hammer into the coffin of my career.”
I want to go home.
Lydia held onto his sleeve, holding him down. “There’s plenty of time. Tell me … how many times have you changed your socks today, Eddie?”
He stared at her, then swallowed. “What gave it away?”
She laughed lightly. “I’ve done my turn in the laundry remember, and I’ve never seen one man be in possession of so many socks; all exactly the same, all hardly worn. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but in light of what’s just happened, it’s obvious. So … how many times?”
Eddie drew out the pause until, like a piece of overstretched elastic, it snapped. “Three, so far,” he admitted.
“A safety valve? Using the time it takes to change them to calm down, to regroup your thoughts, to paint on your mask of control?”
“Aye.”
“And this is what happens when you run out?”
He raised a weak smile, embarrassed at his shortcomings laid bare. “Apparently so.”
“I think we need to find you another coping mechanism, don’t you?” She took his large hand in hers, small and birdlike and as gentle as a flower, and they sat in silence together on the floor until he felt ready to take command once again.
He made the call to Longdrift reporting Jock McAllister missing, to find that Oliver Skeffington, for whatever reason, had ‘forgotten’ to inform them of Reynolds’ death.
They promised to scramble a helicopter and evacuate the platform … just as soon as the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions improved.
Chapter 33
Two more days passed with no sign of Jock McAllister, dead or alive, and no sign of evacuation either.
Longdrift continued to blame the unseasonably bad weather for closing the harbour and grounding all the helicopters for the foreseeable future.
There was nothing anyone could do and they promised faithfully they would get to him just as soon as they practically and safely could. A fob off if every he heard one. Desperate and frantic, Eddie once more gave serious consideration to bypassing Longdrift altogether and calling out the Coastguard, or the Lifeboat.
Would they come? Yes, of course.
But was it fair to put those brave men’s lives at risk to save his motley crew who were, if he were honest with himself, safe enough where they were at the moment?
His reluctant answer was, no. In all conscience, he would not, could not, call on their services. The storm raged on, teasing them with spells of calm, sometimes with a shaft of sunshine and a lessening in the swell of the water, before the skies once more darkened and the water built to a savage roiling, dashing hopes of an early release.
By day four everyone’s nerves were stretched almost to breaking point. The foul weather meant they had to work indoors where they could, although little meaningful work got done.
Cooped up like battery chickens, always in sight of one another, unwilling to be separated lest they too disappear, nobody slept or ate properly, and tempers frayed and occasionally snapped, resulting in frequent arguments and occasional fights.
The only one unaffected by the claustrophobic conditions and growing anxiety levels was Brewer, maintaining a presence of eerie calm as he made copious notes in his book.
Eddie paced the floor of the control room a
waiting news, stopping occasionally to stare out of the window. Now and then spume from the waves breaking against Bravo’s legs would rise above the safety rails, spray the deck with salt water and patter against the window, and he sent up a silent prayer for those poor souls on the ships out there who had no choice but to ride out the weather.
At least he and the crew were relatively dry and warm indoors, and so far still numbered six.
As if to remind him of their vulnerability the wind grabbed at the unlocked exterior door and ripped it open, slamming it against the safety rail at the head of the steps - metal on wet metal - and like a gladiator spoiling for a fight howled its way indoors, stirring up papers, ripping the white board from the wall, and twisting the window blind into a tangled wreck.
Eddie raced to the gap. Hanging onto the door-frame for dear life and blinded by salt water blown into his eyes, he wrestled the door back into place and locked it closed, properly this time.
The wind screamed its protest and Eddie, rubbing at his salt burned eyes, lost his patience and yelled at the tempest. “Come on then, you bitch! What are you waiting for? We’ve given you the highest point for miles around. We’re nothing more than a gigantic lightning conductor, so do your worst. Strike it. Kill us all why don’t you. I dare you. In fact, I double fucking dare you!”
A disrespected Mother Nature accepted the childish challenge and took all of five seconds to deal out her punishment.
The noise was deafening, the glare blinding as a charge of static electricity surged through the structure, making every hair on Eddie’s body stand on end, the fillings in his teeth grew hot and his nose filled with the rank stench of ozone.
For a moment he thought his heart had stopped.
“Jesus Christ,” he murmured, pressing the tips of his fingers to his neck to check for a pulse. And then, through the veil of water running down the window, he saw the true extent of her wrath.
The red warning light on the tip of the derrick had gone blind and the cluster of dishes carrying the satellite signals for the telephone, the internet and the television, for communication with the outside world, had been left hanging from their moorings by a single frazzled wire.
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