Turning Blue

by Benjamin Myers

  It spatters it disturbs it rearranges. It pools then runs then it pools some more.

  Dubs of dirty water gather in the farm yard and diesel and petrol that was spilled long ago and held in the grit now rises to the surface to create a film across the puddles.

  He slaughters the occasional remaining undernourished chicken. He boils them up until they fall apart then he scoops up the wet mess with bread. Then he boils it the next day and the day after until the bones are reduced down to a thin watery stock with an oil-slick surface. He drinks it down. It is his sole sustenance.

  The dogs are agitated. Neglected. With ribs showing and ears down they whine in unison.

  And it keeps coming. The rain. Like bullets from the sky. Machine-gun deluges. It rattles the asbestos roof of the wood store and teems down through the barn. Where there are cracked roof slates the water seeps into the house and streaks the nicotine walls a darker shade. The puddles spread and join together to turn the farmyard into a blackened morass. He watches from the window smoking. Hears it come rattling down the dale like sheets of metal stacked up one behind the other.

  There is lightning. He feels it first charging the air around him then he sees the flash: a brief white shuttering of the sky. He sees an upper stretch of the stream swelling into a river already. Down in the hamlet the puddles are turning into a pond that will inch its way up to sand-bagged doorsteps if the rain continues.

  Then comes the thunder. A greedy sky-gulp of it.

  He thinks of rain on the reservoir. The sound it makes and the way it hits the surface. He thinks of the rising water and the engineering that went into making it technically impossible for the reservoir to overflow.

  He thinks of –

  The storm drains.

  He thinks of –

  The portals. He thinks of –

  He pictures the reservoir rising rushing surging gushing. Underwater underground. Unseen. Through tunnels and runnels and channels and fissures. Running and spurting and flowing and flushing. Down the hidden concrete conduits through the earth and out the storm-drain exit points. He sees streams swelling into rivers that flow down the flanks and into the valley. Down the dale.

  Panic –

  He sees the face of the girl rising to the surface as her body is battered by nature’s flotsam. He sees the branches and bones and algae and plastic and all that has been held in the reservoir’s freezing murky depths encircling her. He sees the water pushing past her bobbing trunk and through the locked grate; her swollen face pressed up against it her mouth gaping her lungs full and weighted her hands bound her flesh loose and puffy from a season suspended in water.

  Panic as the flood-warning siren groans into life. A long moan down the funnel of the valley.

  Panic because floods bring people bring trouble bring logjams and cracked pipes and blocked drains and news crews. Obstructions. Floods bring sandbags and council men and engineers and surveyors and TV crews. Intrusions. Even here. Especially here. Up top in the rain-battered rural outback.

  Panic –

  As he sees her half-dressed and rising like an underwater angel.

  Panic as he sees tomorrow today: the men in their luminous coats and waders trudging through new streams and slipping over rock-falls as they climb the dale to the storm drains whose grates need lifting unblocking unclogging disentangling.

  He sees: a work crew of men with hard hats and torches and draining rods. He hears voices and the crackle of walkie-talkies. He sees them splinter off as some of them are given the short straw of checking the furthest drains. Miles away they are. Over the ridge and around the water and down the other side.

  And he sees keys. He sees keys in hands.

  He sees padlocks and puzzled looks.

  Tomorrow today.

  And down the valley – down the dale just past the hamlet – the flood-warning siren wails like a clarion call announcing the end of the world.

  I’VE PUT IT all together says Mace.

  They are in his flat. Mace has brought the detective here and now he clears space on the sofa for Brindle to sit. He moves clothes and newspapers. An empty pizza box that rattles with stale crusts. The detective brushes the sofa with his hand and then picks something off the upholstery.

  Don’t worry says Mace. You won’t catch anything.

  That remains to be seen.

  It’s all here says Mace as he holds up a file. Or what little I’ve been able to find anyway.

  Which is?

  That Rutter’s a weasel. He’s gone unnoticed for years.

  Mace tells Brindle what he has heard. About the backpacker and the campsite. About twenty years ago. About the close proximity of Rutter. About her vanishing without trace. Brindle listens without saying anything. He takes in the information and then he says where are you getting all this information?

  A source. Various sources.

  Who?

  Some guy.

  And you trust this source?

  No I don’t trust him. I don’t even know him. Drunken information imparted in a pub can only ever be a starting point. I work too you know.

  Right says Brindle.

  Are you aware of microfiche?

  Of course. I’m also aware of disco music and fondue parties. All are relics.

  Maybe to you but here in the hills we still use the tried-and-tested methods says Mace. Not all of us are blessed with fancy multi-million-pound new-build premises and all the technology that goes with it. I’ve been sifting. I’ve been sifting for fucking hours and hours actually. Doing what you do: digging and rooting.

  Brindle takes out his laptop and turns it on. He finally – reluctantly – sits and then taps at the keys. Taps for five minutes.

  There’s nothing online about any of this. Did you get a name – of the other girl I mean?

  Mace sits. He puts the file down on the coffee table in front of them and ignores the detective’s question. He is relishing having the upper hand. The extra insight.

  OK so in the new year I called a journalistic contact at the Yorkshire Post in Leeds he continues. I didn’t tell him what it was about only that I was working on something minor. Something boring. He invited me in for a day. They’ve got the archives there you see – all the pre-internet stuff is on microfilm. Microfiche.

  I know. I know all of this.

  Right. So. It goes back decades. There is reams of the stuff. You could spend months going through all the stories and still never find it.

  But says the detective. I sense there is a but.

  I only had a rough date to go on. Twenty years ago. Summertime he said. But by lunchtime time I had found it. A two-inch press cutting.

  Mace opens the file and rifles through papers to pull out a photocopied story. He hands it to the detective.

  Look he says.

  STUDENT CAMPER MISSING

  Police are conducting enquiries in the search for a student who has been reported missing on the Coast-to-Coast walk.

  Margaret Faulks, 19, had last been seen walking in the heart of the North Yorkshire Dales where she was due to meet her boyfriend, Ian Rogerson, also 19.

  Faulks, a second-year medical student at Keele and a keen walker, had completed approximately half of the 192-mile walk by herself and was last seen leaving a campsite in one of the most remote parts of the famous route, which attracts hundreds of walkers per year. Rogerson raised the alarm after Faulks failed to meet him. Police have now expanded their search up to the open moorlands.

  Rutter says Mace. His stink is all over this. Don’t you think?

  Brindle re-reads it.

  Possibly. Do we even know Rutter was around then?

  I’ve checked it all out. He’s never left the place. He will have been about the girl’s age then too. Maybe a year or two older. A desperate farm boy. Horny. Barely socialised.

  What else? says Brindle. What else do we know?

  We? You mean I.

  What else do you know?

  I know he and his moth
er Aggie Rutter were questioned as part of the routine enquiries – as was everyone around the area. And I know the search was discontinued due to the lack of any substantial evidence or leads. Case unsolved. She was never found. One for your predecessors no doubt. How long has Cold Storage been operational?

  Brindle ignores the question.

  The boyfriend he says looking at the paper. Rogerson?

  The boyfriend was questioned but had a watertight alibi says Mace. She simply vanished. A healthy happy girl with bright prospects and no known enemies – gone. No debts no drugs; none of that. No baggage. Just gone. Over.

  He finds a map of the Coast-to-Coast route and hands it to Brindle.

  He has marked the area of her last sighting. Muncy’s campsite. He has also marked Rutter’s house and highlighted the abandoned overgrown quarries and the reservoir and a gorge with a river running through it. He follows the Coast-to-Coast pathways with his finger; he traces west then east then west again.

  And then there’s this.

  Mace produces a chit from the campsite – a simple raffle ticket. On it written in shaky faded biro is FAULKS. PITCH 17. 1 NIGHT. £3.

  And on the reverse there is an ink stamp.

  It says KELLERHOPE CAMPING.

  From Muncy’s says Brindle.

  Mace hands him a glossy but faded leaflet. A brochure. It is for the site.

  The front shows pictures of a field and a farm by a river. Happy campers sitting around. Tents and bikes and gas bottles.

  Brindle opens it and phrases jump out at him:

  A lively lovely working farm.

  Long established stopover on the Coast-to-Coast.

  The heart of the Dales.

  Unspoilt and beautiful views.

  Walkers and cyclists welcome.

  Basic amenities. Barbecues allowed.

  Family-run.

  Contact June Muncy.

  So says Brindle.

  So says Mace. So we have confirmation that a girl went missing from right under Steven Rutter’s nose. So I did more digging. I put in more calls. Tracked down the boyfriend.

  Really?

  Brindle is surprised.

  Yes really. It’s what we trained journalists do. He wasn’t hard to find. He’s married now. Has two kids. Lives in Kent. Travels a lot for his job. He likes sailing on a weekend. He brews real ale was a contestant on Who Wants To Be Millionaire? Apparently he won thirty-two grand – not bad. Anyway I spoke to him and he confirmed what I suspected: she vanished into thin air. He suspected foul play but was helpless to do anything. He was just a kid with no say. He reckons the local dibble fucked it up. Inept fucking hillbillies was the phrase I believe he used. He had nightmares for months. Years. Her family hired a private detective but got nowhere. Hired another one – same thing. Nothing. Gone. Ghosted. He says he still fears her returning. He says that’s what scares him the most – not that she might be dead but that she might return. That’s weird isn’t it?

  It’s a natural reaction says Brindle. Does your editor know about this?

  Grogan? No.

  Why not?

  Mace pauses. He runs a hand over his stubble.

  I don’t know he says. I guess I didn’t want anyone else but you and me to get their hands on it.

  Why not?

  Because the hills have eyes and the walls have ears and careless talk costs lives. Now we just need to prove Rutter did both. And then—

  And then I think what you’re saying is that you want to play the hero.

  Maybe says Mace. Maybe it’s that. Or maybe it’s more.

  Brindle shakes his head.

  There are no heroes in this business. Only resolutions. No one wins when there are dead girls being unearthed. Of course I’ll need to speak to Muncy again. And there’s the whole Lister thing.

  Mace stands and takes a cigarette from a box on top of his television then lights it.

  Muncy – why?

  Because he’s the girl’s father says Brindle. And he told you about the connection between Pinder and Lovely Larry. And because I think she was pregnant.

  Melanie?

  Maybe. I found a pregnancy-testing kit.

  Mace inhales and holds it then exhales. He taps ash into an empty beer can and then places it on the coffee table.

  Then I’ll come with you.

  The detective waves the smoke away.

  It’s not procedure he says. I can’t.

  Can’t or won’t?

  Both says Brindle.

  So – what? You’re going to take this away from me?

  When the detective doesn’t reply Mace speaks quietly.

  You asked for my help.

  Brindle stands.

  And I’m grateful for it says the detective.

  Brindle holds the file. Flaps it.

  I’ll need this.

  Fuck you Brindle.

  BIBLICAL RAIN FALLS as he slips and struggles through mud. He takes no torch. His feet know the way. He wears his mother’s old long waxed mac. The one with the cape on the shoulders. It is the only outer layer he has that is waterproof.

  On her it came down to her shins and even now it still carries her stains. The faint scent of her. Even now. Three or four years down the line – or however long it has been. He has never been good with time.

  And still he is soaked within minutes as the long grass swipes across his jeans and sticks them to him; soaks his skin soaks his underwear soaks through his boots.

  All around him he hears the sound of running water. Water finding a way – a way across the earth and down the hills and through the soil. Water dampening down the bracken; water settling and sitting on the bog. Bubbling there. Water carving up the landscape – always sculpting and remoulding the shape of things. Creating gullies and grooves and gorges as it gouges soil and lifts stones and sets them a mile down the dale. Water at work – always.

  Water muting the turn of the turbines for once. Silenced by the sputter of rain.

  Water waiting for him ahead too. Up the hill and down the hole.

  She has been with him in every waking moment since he put her down there just before Christmas gone; sometimes in dreams and often in nightmares. Trapped between two worlds she has hung suspended.

  Certainly she has haunted his heart.

  Once twice three times that first night he had stopped to lay in the frozen heather with her. He heard her body creak and groan and crack and snap beneath him as he held her one last time then one last time more. Hugging the bundled tarp sheet. He couldn’t let go. Hours it had taken him. Hours of sweat and tension and muscle-strain.

  He had been lucky. He knew that there was a risk of getting caught and then what? Then everything – decades of secrets – would unravel.

  He enters the storm drain again. He descends the steps in the murky darkness. The floor once dry is now knee-deep in water and the dislodged flotsam of flood water bobs on its surface: pieces of wood and a plastic bottle. A tangle of wire lurking beneath.

  He has a bag with his bits in. Tools and a torch. Crowbar. Extra rope.

  He leaves the bag by the entrance where the water has not yet reached.

  He turns on the torch and treads carefully over the uneven floor. The water is tinged umber and carmine from the peat and as he walks through it it slaps against the tunnel wall.

  From somewhere deep below he can hear the run and rumble of underground channels and above him the slow drip of droplets running down mineral deposits before falling to the overflow. She is close.

  If it keeps raining this heavily the water will rise up the steps and out the entrance in only a matter of hours. He has to do this and he has to do this now. He has to do this tonight.

  Because floods bring people. Floods bring the authorities and men sniffing about with rods and head torches and blueprints and –

  He goes deeper into the hillside and takes the right turn of the reservoir’s run-off into utter darkness. The torch between his teeth.

  He comes t
o a dead end and the drain grill underfoot. The water is rising up through it. Bubbling. She is down there. She is below him.

  He needs to smoke. He has a craving for it greater than any he has ever known. He takes out a tailor-made and wedges the torch into his armpit while he lights his cigarette with a shaking hand. He inhales deeply. He holds it there. Lets it calm him. He smokes some more until water drips from the stalactite ceiling and extinguishes the cigarette for him.

  He pauses then stoops with the torch and retrieves the wet butt-end and puts it into his pocket.

  Rutter bends to the grill. It is hidden beneath the murk and swirl. And beneath that an abyss. He rolls up his sleeves but they don’t go far enough and the water is too deep as he reaches down to feel with his fingers. It is very cold. Straight away his jacket is soaked.

  His fingers find the grill and then walk their way to the top-knot of the rope he tied on. He remembers which side the hinge is on.

  This will not be easy. All that water to pull against and the breeze block he added to weigh it down.

  He bends his knees and curls his fingers around the metal bars of the grill and he lifts. It gives a little.

  He walks back to the entrance and he takes the crowbar from his bag and then he wades back through the water and round the corner and reaches down again. Past his elbows and up to his shoulders. He slots the bevelled end into a gap and then he jemmies it. He pulls and hefts and manages to open the grill but only by inches. The weight of the load that hangs from it is too much.

  He lets the grill fall back into place and then he stands. His back aches. He splashes back to the entrance of the portal and feels around in the water. His hands settle on something solid. Another breeze block. He hefts it up onto his shoulder and then carries it around the dank corridor to the grill. He takes the crowbar and bends and jemmies again. He levers the grill and then slides the breeze block into the gap to wedge it open.

  All underwater. Everything done by touch.

  He catches his breath and then crouches so that the water soaks his trousers and waist and he gets one shoulder under the grill and he slowly rises. It gives. It opens. With his free hand he hooks the crowbar around the rope and pulls it to him to alleviate some of the strain.