Offshore

by Lucy Pepperdine

  Chapter 40

  Euterich heard Eddie coming before he was through the bulkhead door, easily making out the distinctive rhythmic clatter of running boots against the deck plates.

  He cursed under his breath. He’d planned on Capstan giving him at least an hour before he realised his mistake. He could have done the deed with Lydia two or three times over in that time, and been on his way to wait out the time somewhere until either they caught him and killed him, or he got away.

  He had no preference. Once he had planted his seed in Lydia he would take whatever fate threw at him. But Capstan and his imminent arrival had stolen the time he needed. He had to get at least some of it back.

  Euterich bound the still dopey Lydia’s hands and mouth with strips of silver duct tape taken from her general purpose store, all the while keeping a keen ear out for the approaching Capstan. Close now.

  Only one flight of stairs and one more corridor away. With only seconds to spare, he bundled his captive into the dark recess beside the filing cabinet, took up the heavy based lamp from the worktop, put out the main lights and pressed himself against the wall behind the door, ready to spring his surprise.

  The running steps slowed to a walk, then stopped. The door eased open a touch. Fell closed.

  Opened again, and this time Eddie Capstan sidled through it, eyes front, focused on the modesty screen shifting in the waft of air from the wall heater.

  Euterich watched silently as Eddie made a grab for the fabric and paused, eyes screwed closed. When he pulled back the curtain, saw the empty space beyond and the swearing started, Euterich made his move.

  Chapter 41

  If Eddie had chanced to look behind him he would have seen the maniacal mask of Lawrence Brewer advancing on him, wielding the lamp base like a club.

  As it was, all he felt was a sickening thud as something hard and cold collided with the back of his head, showing him stars as it poleaxed him.

  His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor, cracking his chin on the edge of the couch on the way down, clacking his jaw hard closed, biting his tongue and loosening one of his teeth.

  He had no time to recover before the floor bucked beneath him, a series of savage kicks lifting and rolling him, each blow forcing from him a stifled grunt.

  Pain stabbed his back and his ribs, and when Brewer’s boot connected with his scarred stomach, liquid fire exploded in him.

  One more strike from the boot’s toe, full in the face, burst his lip and filled his mouth with blood. He slumped to the tiles, gasping, coughing, spitting blood, pain radiating throughout his entire body.

  Brewer then grabbed the back of his collar, pulling the fabric tight across his throat, choking him, hoisting and dragging him like a mop across the floor, slamming his head into the robust metal leg of Lydia’s desk, before dropping him to the floor, stunned and helpless and as limp as a wet rag.

  In an act of pure spite, Brewer then stamped on the fingers of Eddie’s right hand, crushing and grinding them with the heel of his boot, splitting the nails and cracking the small bones.

  Eddie made not a sound, but lay perfectly still with his left cheek and eye squashed against the tiles, blood leaking from his mouth, hardly daring to breathe, letting dimness creep in at the edge of his consciousness. He wanted it to come, to flow over him, to take the pain away, yet could not allow it.

  Don’t pass out. You can’t pass out. You’ve got to find Lydia.

  With gargantuan effort he focused his vision, and there she was, stuffed in the gap between the filing cabinet and the wall where Brewer had hidden her in the dark, hands bound at the wrist with silver duct tape, another strip across her mouth.

  For a split second their eyes met, his barely focused, hers saucer large and glassy above her gag.

  A shadow then passed between them, and she was gone.

  A dull thud followed by a harsh ziiiippppp.

  “I’m afraid your dear departed boyfriend won’t be bothering us any more, my sweet,” Brewer’s voice floated over to him. “He’s gone to a better place. It’s just you and me now. It’s going to be so sweet. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

  Green cotton overalls fell in a heap on the floor, and through the deafening roar in Eddie’s ears came the sound of Lydia’s T-shirt being sheared open from hem to neckband as if it were nothing more than rice paper, and with it came a surge of adrenaline and determination, infusing him with a second wind.

  His body felt as if it were made of marshmallow, and it took every ounce of effort to get as far as his knees, blood and saliva dribbling from his mouth and running down his chin.

  “Hoy! Brewer!”

  Euterich/Brewer wheeled from admiring the confused groggy Lydia in her fresh blue brassiere and panties, a fleeting astonishment on his face as he beheld the supposed dead man scrambling disjointedly to his feet and lurching towards him, his damaged hand hanging limp and disfigured by his side, his other pressed flat against his side, supporting battered ribs which allowed him no more than a choking wheeze.

  “Get - away - from her - you - fucking animal.” Cough. Spit. “Move away…’cos I’m going to - smash your fucking - head in.”

  Eddie sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and lunged at Euterich, who nimbly side-stepped him.

  Unable to stop his forward momentum Eddie crashed into the examination table, striking his scarred belly on the hard edge, re-igniting a fire which felled him onto all fours with a strangled outcry of agony.

  Euterich stamped on his back, knocking him flat and driving the last of his wind from him. “Is that so? And how, exactly, are you going to be doing that from down there?”

  He then reached down and grabbed a handful of Eddie’s hair, hoiking his head clear of the floor, and Eddie’s blurred vision fell upon the face of rage incarnate.

  “Lydia is mine now,” Euterich rumbled. “And nobody, especially a pathetic jumped up nobody like you, is going to take her away from me.”

  Eddie tried to speak, to protest, to fight for Lydia, but the words would not come.

  “Nothing to say, Mr Capstan? Just as well, because I’m not listening. Goodnight Mr Capstan. Have a nice death.”

  Eddie’s scalp burned as Euterich’s fingers entwined themselves in his hair, and when he slammed Eddie’s forehead against the tiles, although his lights didn’t go all the way out, they dimmed considerably. Eddie’s body curled itself into a protective foetal ball and lay paralysed, howling silent surrender as Euterich scooped up the bound and gagged Lydia and threw her over his shoulder like Santa Claus toting his sack of Christmas goodies.

  He strode off with his prize, but not before he landed a final ferocious kick to Eddie’s buttock, sending a bolt of electricity through his leg and into his back.

  Eddie made no sound. He had nothing left to make it with.

  Chapter 42

  Lydia and Euterich were gone, and Eddie knew not where.

  He also didn’t know how long he lay there on the floor, a throbbing, bleeding, moaning ball. He felt sick and dizzy as he fought against encroaching darkness, knowing if he gave into it, he would die, choked on his own blood and vomit.

  “Get up, man! Shift yer arse and get UP!” Would his shattered body appreciate the urgency and co-operate, or tell him to go fuck himself?

  He suspected he knew the answer, but put it to the test nonetheless.

  Slowly, tentatively, he uncurled himself from his protective shell, and almost managed to get upright before a wave of pain and nausea rose up and enveloped him.

  The last thing he remembered before darkness and silence descended was the ominous buzzing in his ears and throwing up over Lydia’s nice clean floor.

  “Guv, you there? Over.” A muffled voice, close by his left ear, yet a million miles away.

  “Guv! This is Cameron. Respond. Over.”

  The fogginess began to clear, in its place, hurt and the acidic metallic tastes of blood and vomit in Eddie’s mouth.

  “GUV! Respond!”


  The radio. Gingerly he sat up and spat out a viscous red gobbet of blood and saliva onto the lino. He pressed the button on radio’s casing. “Yeah.” It came out as no more than a hoarse croak.

  “Thank God! I’ve been calling you for ages. Where are you?”

  “Erm…” Where was he? “Thickbay,” he said, his tongue feeling too large for his mouth.

  “You okay, Guv. You sound–”

  “No.” Cough. “I’m not.”

  “Fuck! Stay where you are. Don’t move! We’re on our way!”

  Eddie had always planned for a useful life, working hard, paying his taxes, being good to his mother, to be rewarded at the end with a good death, at age 99 in his own bed, being serviced by a Thai whore sandwich, a treble measure of 35 year old whisky in one hand, a big fat cigar clamped between his teeth, his fuck you finger extended to whom it may concern.

  BEST SELLING AUTHOR GOES OUT IN STYLE - the Press and Journal headline would read.

  It was good to have plans, but it had been an ongoing struggle to get this far.

  Death had already tried more than once to clasp him to His dark eternal bosom – the stabbing on the dockside, a cardiac arrest on the operating table, and now a savage beating at the hands of a maniac - only for Life to step in at the last moment and give him another chance.

  What was he on now, his second?

  No, his third. Might be my last one. Better make the most of it. Do something useful…like killing Brewer and saving Lydia for a start. All I have to do is get up off this bloody floor.

  Making the first move was the worst part. Everything hurt and his legs didn’t want to support him. He swore at himself, cursing up a blue streak as he ordered his body to obey.

  Once on his feet, the pain didn’t seem so bad - if he didn’t try to breathe or blink. The kick to his side had cracked, maybe broken, a rib or two, possibly ruptured something inside too. If he pissed blood in the morning, he would know - if he lived that long.

  Holding onto whatever came to hand he staggered on wobbly legs to Lydia’s back office, reeled through it to the small lavatory cum washroom behind, ducking through the door, slamming and locking it behind him.

  It was nothing more than a plywood screen on hinges, and not much protection if Brewer decided to come back to finish him off. He filled the basin with warm water and plunged his head into it, blowing bubbles until he exhausted his lungs and needed to take a breath.

  He pulled his face out of the water, leaving behind a bowl of diluted scarlet, and inhaled knives.

  Small, puffed breaths eased the desire to cough somewhat.

  Dabbing gently at his battered face with a towel, he checked himself in the mirror. He looked like he’d been run over by a ten ton truck.

  His left eye was bloodshot and swollen almost shut, a blood blister had formed over the split in his lower lip, and a steady dribble of blood leaked from the right nostril of a nose a little bit misaligned.

  On his forehead, the round markings from the sickbay floor had been embossed in flesh, making him look like he’d been sleeping on a double six domino.

  He probed the loose tooth with his bitten tongue. It rocked slightly in its socket, but it didn’t hurt and it wasn’t bleeding. It could probably be saved. Thank God for small mercies. He had always been proud of his good teeth.

  “Holy crap, Capthstan! Wha’ a fucki’g meth.”

  His right hand, his writing hand, the one Brewer had stamped on, was also a mess, although Eddie didn’t think anything was broken.

  Two fingers had purple tips and split nails, and the little finger jutted out at an unnatural angle from its neighbour, dislocated at the second joint.

  He tried to make a fist. It went about halfway.

  Not totally trashed then. He could still use it if he didn’t need much grip. But that little finger was going to need some encouraging back into place.

  He grasped it firmly at the joint and pulled, gently and slowly until he reached the point when he thought the pain couldn’t get any worse.

  For a second it did, until the joint slid back into place with a gentle pop, and it was less. Eddie wiped sweat from his eyes. Not so bad after all.

  “Now, leth thee what else there is,” he said, unzipping his overalls and lifting his T shirt to see a mass of bruises and welts. He leaned to his left, testing his flexibility. It seemed okay.

  And then to his right. Definitely not okay. A bolt of agony shot from his ribs to his spine and back again, making him wince and arch his back as if electrocuted, a reflex action which made the suffering ten times worse, cramping his stomach.

  He barely managed to get the lid off the toilet bowl before he vomited again. No blood mercifully, only bright yellow-green bile. He’d already left his partially digested last meal on the sickbay floor.

  When the cramping and retching ceased, he rinsed the acid taste from his mouth with clean water, gargled to get the blood out of his throat, and spat it all out. As it drained away down the plughole, he slumped down onto the toilet seat to wait for the pain to step down to a dull ache.

  Cameron reached Sickbay first and yelled out for his superior.

  “Boss! Where are you? BOSS! You here?”

  Eddie, from his resting place on the toilet seat, unlocked the washroom door, opened it a fraction and called through it. “Here Cam!”

  Cameron rushed into the office, closely followed by a newly arrived Shaw. “Oh sorry, boss. You weren’t…?”

  “No. Just sitting.” Eddie hauled himself to his feet and stepped out into the office, into the full light.

  “Je-sus!” exclaimed Shaw when he saw Eddie’s battered features.

  “No, our friend Brewer,” said Eddie, his words made slurred and lispy by his fat lip and bitten tongue. “He’s surprisingly strong for a pen pusher.”

  “What happened?”

  “He thought he was being clever. He doubled back here after we’d searched, because he assumed we’d keep on looking and not bother going over old ground.”

  “So why did you come back?”

  “Because he thought wrong.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Eddie dabbed at his bleeding lip with the toilet paper. “I have no idea, but wherever it is, he still has Miss Ellis with him. You were right about the ether. He used it to … to quieten her down–”

  He swayed on his feet, overcome by a wave of vertigo. Being battered about the head had knocked him dizzy. Being sick and suddenly being upright again wasn’t helping.

  Cameron and Shaw each caught an elbow and helped him into a chair. Eddie waved them away. “I’m okay.” He paused and frowned. “It will be so sweet. I’ll be gentle, I promise,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “It’s what Brewer said to Lyd…Miss Ellis?”

  “Doesn’t sound much like he intends to hurt her,” said Shaw. “Sounds more like he’s going to… to make love to her.”

  Eddie cut him off with a glance as he got shakily to his feet. “He’s not going to do anything to her, Matt. You have my solemn promise on that, and so does she. Whatever it takes, we get her back … unharmed.” Resolute brown eyes flicked between Cameron and Shaw. “What happens to him, I don’t care. Do whatever you have to. Go get the bastard!”

  A unified, “Yes boss,” and the two men left to begin their search, leaving Eddie alone in the medical room to make a hunt of his own.

  His ribs, face and back hurt like the devil – hell everything hurt. If he was going to function at all, to be any use to anyone, to Lydia, he needed analgesia, and plenty of it. The powerful stuff would be secure in the controlled drugs locker, the key to which he did not have.

  He looked around for something to batter the door open with, finding only the angle poise lamp Euterich had used to try and brain him. He struck at the door several times. Not so much as a dent.

  Eddie raised the lamp to give the door one more clout when a thought came to him. Lydia would have her keys on her at all times … in her po
cket. But she’d been all but naked when Brewer took her. Where were her overalls? Tossed on the floor under the table.

  He rummaged through the pockets and came up with her key ring. Eureka! More than a dozen keys of all shapes and sizes, including one with a tiny red cross painted onto it.

  It took a while to manipulate the key in the lock with his throbbing uncooperative right hand, but eventually the cupboard stood open, its glowing red eye glaring at him, its entire contents spread out on the worktop, with him rifling through the various boxes and bottles.

  He picked up a black plastic pen-shaped article and read the label - morphine sulphate IM injection. Just the stuff.

  He skimmed the instructions: remove red safety cap, press yellow end against outer thigh, depress the black plunger.

  Simple. Injection by colour. He was a man. He could do that. Without bothering with the niceties of sterilising the injection site, he removed the red stopper, pressed the yellow end of the device against his leg and applied pressure to the black plunger with his thumb.

  With a barely audible psst, the incorporated gas capsule fired the needle through the fabric of his overall and a full inch into his leg, sending the measure of clear liquid on its way directly into his thigh muscle.

  It stung like a whole hive of bees and he rubbed the injection site vigourously as he swore away the pain.

  He then had a worrying thought. He had been so desperate for relief he hadn’t even checked the dosage. What if he’d given himself an overdose? It was too late now. He’d know soon enough.

  Eddie tossed the used device into the sharps box, and with a cold numbness spreading from his leg set off to find Lydia.

  Chapter 43

  She must have fainted. Why else would she be upside down with her panty covered arse in the air, legs gripped painfully behind the knees, stomach draped over a broad shoulder, and her arms and taped together hands flopping like a rag doll’s against navy cotton overall, and not know how she got there?