The Colony Trilogy

by Cottam, F. G.

  Carter, the crew foreman, pushed him the furthest, probably on the basis of rank. ‘I mean Pretty Woman, Deggsy. Does it get any lower?’

  ‘She was spooked,’ Johnson said, regretting having mentioned his and Helena’s feel-good double-bill. ‘I mean Christ, Dave, I was spooked myself. A Freddie Krueger-fest wasn’t really on the cards.’

  ‘The thing is it does get lower. It gets down as far as Hugh Grant. I mean, Notting Hill, Jesus.’

  Johnson shrugged, ‘It could’ve been worse, it could’ve been Love Actually, Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon.’

  ‘Wasn’t Helena a bit put out by your Julia Roberts fixation?’

  ‘Julia Roberts is the wrong side of 50.’

  ‘Not in Pretty Woman, she’s not. Anyway, you like them mature. Helena Davenport’s got to be pushing 40.’

  Derek Johnson smiled despite himself. He didn’t mind a joke at his own expense and had actually though Helena a lovely woman, warm and genuine and brave. It was the brave bit that bothered him, the fact that the island had required such fortitude of her. He didn’t think that boded well for the future of the resort she’d helped create.

  And there was a matter of more immediate concern in the incisor surrounded by its circle of torn and putrefying gum she’d discovered in her bathroom sink and wasted no time in showing him. Johnson wasn’t a betting man, but he thought the odds on that belonging to anyone other than the late Greg Cody, very long indeed.

  Was there a connection between the cracked window glass and the discovery of the tooth? Probably there was and the tooth had been put there after the generator failure had released the locks securing the complex and so allowing an intruder in while they were out attempting to deal with it.

  Savagery and cunning were a potent combination, dangerous when you were ignorant of motive because it made your antagonist not just formidable and elusive but really quite impossible to predict. All you could do was hope to react quickly and decisively when the hostile attention was turned to you. Less and less was Derek Johnson convinced that they were being stalked and toyed with by something merely human. Greg Cody had never struck him as an easy man to spook, let alone terrify. But he remembered Cody’s last living sound and it had been that curdling scream.

  He’d had Dave Carter check out the delinquent generator that very afternoon and capable mechanic/engineer that Dave was, he’d found the plant to be in sound condition and running very sweetly. He’d said it might benefit from having to provide more power, much in the way that a car engine benefitted from a long run. But he seemed to think the idea of breakdown and failure as unlikely with such high-end engineering as to be almost inconceivable.

  ‘It’s state of the art,’ he said. Johnson couldn’t help glumly thinking that the same glib cliché had been employed to describe their mostly useless radio transmitter.

  Now they were at their barbecue, sipping from bottles of chilled beer, eating chicken drumsticks from foil plates, smelling lamb roasting sweetly on skewers slung above a charcoal pit. A sunset flushed the headland and the sea to the west in an orange and purple incandescence and the crofter’s cottage looked Tourist Board quaint and the sea behind it glimmered in green folds lapping demurely at the sand.

  And Dave gently took the piss, buoyant because Captain Sensible’s unscheduled departure had left him in charge of the maintenance crew and upped him a pay-grade automatically. And taking the piss was what anyone would do, probably slightly jealous of the cushy number Johnson had enjoyed over the weekend and possibly slightly suspicious that something might actually have gone on between the crisp Egyptian cotton sheets in a king-size bed up there at the complex.

  Johnson’s perspective was slightly different. The island had spooked everyone based there at least to some extent. Everyone had complained at some stage about their uncomfortable shared sense of being watched without being able to spot their sly observer. There was an ambient level of creepiness abroad on New Hope Island and gradually, they’d all got used to that. They’d accommodated the recent and inexplicable disappearance of one of their number. They’d had to do that. There’d been no alternative. But they hadn’t seen the tooth deliberately placed on the enamel of the sink in Helena’s suite and he had.

  He hadn’t mentioned it to any of his companions there. He’d said goodbye to their visiting architect on the quay in the morning and she’d opened her arms and embraced him, hugging him hard with tears bright in her eyes that testified to the trauma of the ordeal they’d shared. Then he’d watched her boat shrink towards the horizon from the suite she’d occupied until it disappeared. Then he examined the crack in the toughened glass of the panoramic window, aware its makers claimed heavy callibre bullets would only bounce off its surface harmlessly. Then he’d taken the tooth from the shelf where they’d put it, wrapped in a scrap of tinfoil.

  On the way back to their island camp, he’d halted the quad bike at a spot he knew he’d recognize again and he’d dug a small hole in the shallow ground and concealed the foil package, marking the spot with a bright blue pebble with vivid yellow veins he’d picked out specifically for the purpose. The tooth was evidence of something and maybe it was even proof; but it was a grim keepsake and he didn’t want it near him.

  After that he continued his journey to the camp, glad to be going back to their humble abodes of toughened fabric and steel that shrilled in the wind; gratefully looking forward to the company of the others, preoccupied by a mystery, determined for now to keep a secret, convinced that once it opened up to its visitors, the New Hope Experience was the last place on earth to which he would ever bring his own precious family.

  Now, he looked around. He wondered what capered out there, evading his vigilant, sober, tiny three-man patrols. They were great blokes, they were the best, his boys, but it was Johnson’s considered opinion that they were inadequate numerically to the task. Poor vanished Greg Cody had been the demonstrable proof of that. It wasn’t a question any longer of protecting infra-structure and securing valuable construction plant. There was an intruder on the island and they hadn’t the resources to find and confront whoever that was. Whoever that was, he seemed to have the beating of them.

  Beside him, Dave Carter banged his teeth against his bottle-lip tipsily with a clink, swallowing more beer. He said, ‘She’s voluptuous, that’s the word.’

  ‘No argument there,’ Johnson said.

  Cater belched, ‘Buxom,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Johnson said, ‘that makes her sound matronly, which is wide of the mark.’

  ‘Eager to please, in my experience, when they’re carrying a bit of heft.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call an ounce of what Ms. Davenport carries heft.’

  ‘Was she? Eager to please?’

  Johnson said, ‘Keep this above the waist, Dave.’

  ‘No problem, Deggsy,’ Carter said.

  The sun had gone down. They were in the dark, which was a fitting phrase, in the circumstances. Johnson suspected this was likely to be a lengthy night. He recalled the single note of terror that had been Cody’s scream, waking him in the early hours of the previous Saturday. So much for amenable company, he thought.

  Chapter Eight

  There was more character and expression in Felix Baxter’s face than he allowed of himself in photographs, which Edie Chambers thought interesting. Despite his hunger and talent for publicity, it suggested he didn’t really like to have his picture taken. Before he heard the shutter click, he shaped his features into that bland mask of neutrality ubiquitous in shots of him. It was interesting because she thought it probably the reflex of someone almost always with something serious and substantial to hide.

  His boardroom was opulent with a view, glittering in winter sunlight this Thursday morning, of the river. The coffee he had served her was excellent. There were buttery biscuits with a lumpy, artisan look she thought had probably come from Harrods Food Hall or Fortnum & Mason. She didn’t want a biscuit. She didn’t want to answer questions about New
Hope Island either, but found herself doing so. It was in a way the price of admission. He knew exactly who she was.

  ‘When I was 14, I was visited several times by the ghost of a sailor named Jacob Parr. He was first-mate aboard Seamus Ballantyne’s slave ship, Andromeda, though he didn’t tell me that, my mum found that out after I confessed about his visits to her.’

  ‘What did he tell you about Ballantyne?’

  ‘That Ballantyne had him flogged for drunkenness. He almost died afterwards of septic shock, but still bragged about that.’

  ‘Why did he visit you at all?’

  ‘He taught me a song, The Recruited Collier. And he said I had to find a journal written by the ship’s physician, Thomas Horan. By this time the expedition to find out what had happened to Ballantyne’s New Hope community was on the point of leaving for the island and Parr said it was urgent.’

  ‘Tall order.’

  ‘The Andromeda had been registered to Liverpool. I got in touch with Phil Fortescue, the Keeper of Artefacts at the maritime museum there and told him my story.

  ‘The Recruited Collier was doubly a clue. It’s a song sung by Kate Rusby, the Barnsley Nightingale. Phil traced Horan to Barnsley after he resigned his commission and he eventually found the journal hidden at a played-out pit shaft there where Horan had treated the miners for free.’

  ‘You did incredibly well as a 14 year old just to get through to Professor Fortescue, never mind to persuade him to help you. And he did unbelievably well to locate the journal,’ Baxter said.

  Edie sipped coffee and shrugged, looking out of the window at the silver sparkle of the river, remembering a grim and testing time, seeing the cat o’ nine wheals on his back Parr had proudly exposed to her in the dorm of her school at night.

  ‘Phil’s always thought of it as fate. He doesn’t think there was much back then in the way of self-determination New Hope-wise.’

  ‘And Horan’s journal told him what?’

  ‘There was a sorcerer in the slave hold of Ballantyne’s ship who demanded to be treated as the captain’s equal. Ballantyne had him tied to a chair on the deck and took off his hands with a cleaver in front of his jeering crew. The wounds became infected and he died.’

  ‘But he did something before he died?’

  ‘He said that Ballantyne’s daughter, not yet born, would die a child and come back to torment him. He said that he’d summoned something he called the Being that Hungers in the Darkness, which would eventually consume Ballantyne.’

  Baxter hadn’t sat down at his boardroom table. He listened to the answers to his questions pacing up and down the room with his arms folded tightly across his chest, occasionally lifting his right hand to stroke the goatee newly cultivated on his chin. It was grey, like his hair, but paradoxically, Edie thought had the effect of making him look more youthful.

  He said, ‘Do you think the Horan journal a reliable source?’

  ‘Ballantyne’s Kingdom of Belief thrived for more than a decade until the whole community vanished. In 1934 a would-be crofter named David Shanks caught the wraith of Rachel Ballantyne on cine-film before fleeing the island. By the time Phil went to New Hope to confront the thing consuming them, half of the expedition members and most of their support crew had disappeared.’

  ‘So you actually believe all this stuff,’ Baxter said.

  ‘Jacob Parr didn’t give me a choice.’

  Baxter smiled, but he looked suddenly quite pale. He said, ‘Tell me about Rachel Ballantyne.’

  ‘I’ve never seen her.’

  ‘But you know someone who has?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Can you tell me who that was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you trust their judgment.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll be aware that last week, my site-manager disappeared on New Hope?’

  ‘Yet there’s been nothing reported publically. I’d meant to ask you about that.’

  ‘It’s a mystery made the more so by the fact that Greg Cody wasn’t the most enigmatic of men. He was cautious and hardheaded and he wasn’t suicidal or even depressed. This is off the record, by the way. Officially his status is still missing, but only his widow believes that. The weather was calm. Foul play’s been ruled out. It’s baffling. What do you think?’

  ‘Why ask me?’

  ‘Because you’ve been there.’

  ‘New Hope is a hostile and dangerous place, or it can be.’

  Baxter said, ‘We’ve built a leisure complex there with the emphasis on ecological values and cultural tradition. We’ve built a beautiful sanctuary from the destructive distractions of the 21st century where discerning visitors can take blissful refuge. We’ve catered too to the white-knuckle ride passions of people who yearn for adventure. We’ve built all this infra-structure at a cost in excess of thirty million pounds and counting. And we’ve lost one man among a workforce at the height of construction numbering over 200, probably to the rogue wake of a supertanker changing course at speed closer than it should have been to the shoreline.’

  As prepared speeches went, it sounded both winningly spontaneous and reasonably convincing. Or it would have, had Edith not been to the island herself. It was an experience she’d barely survived.

  Baxter said, ‘We’re discussing a place characterized only by its vast potential. I intend to fulfill that potential and I’m too impatient to do it to stick to our original timetable. I’m bringing the schedule forward. That’s today’s little exclusive, yours with my compliments. The weather in the Hebrides can be unpredictable, but nothing, Ms. Chambers, is going to rain on my parade.’

  ‘Can I record this?’

  ‘I want to show you personally what we’ve achieved on the island. Are you up for that?’

  ‘When do we leave?’ she said, aware now the hollow dread was excavating in her stomach at the prospect.

  ‘The forecast for the weekend is good to fair. We depart at about lunchtime on Saturday and return on Sunday evening, assuming that suits you.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He sat down. He said, ‘Of course you can record this. And nothing you’re about to hear has yet been publically aired.’

  He began to speak. He outlined his plans, what he termed his vision. He peppered his sentences with buzzwords like legacy and uniqueness. He talked about global recognition and international impact. He referenced youth and tradition, imagination and opportunity. There was no talk of profit, room-rates or bottom-lines. Greg Cody’s name didn’t feature again. She couldn’t honestly work out whether Baxter was genuinely fired by his own idealism or simply full of shit.

  She knew she could write up and sell what he was telling her to a variety of news outlets. She’d make money out of it, which hadn’t been her main motivation in seeking the interview in the first place.

  What was his motivation, though, in giving a humble student this sort of access? That was obvious. He wanted the inside-line on the island’s dubious history. She thought that had become more pressing than it had been at the outset, with him. This made her wonder whether something had happened, whether he’d experienced something personally to make it a more urgent priority. She was alert and she was observant and she couldn’t help wondering about how pale he looked and how restless he seemed. It wasn’t Greg Cody doing this. Cody was an irritation, a distraction only. This was more.

  For a second time, he said, ‘Tell me about Rachel Ballantyne,’ more or less confirming her suspicions.

  ‘It’s a mistake to think of her as human,’ Edie said, ‘by which I mean she’s both more and less than that. She’s been around for the better part of 200 years and she’s tired of her existence. She’s angry and petulant and the anger’s prone to boil over and when it does she’s extremely bad news for anyone in her vicinity. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.’

  ‘Because you never encountered her yourself on the island.’

  ‘No Mr. Baxter, I never did.’
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  ‘It’s Felix, please.’

  ‘Felix, then.’

  He was silent for a moment, his mouth pursed behind the steeple of his fingers. Then he took his hands away from his face and said, ‘Can you tell me what she’s supposed to look like?’

  Edie closed her eyes, remembering, hoping her expression didn’t betray the fact. ‘She died at the age of ten. She’s a waif or urchin in appearance, wearing an old-fashioned nightdress. She’s frail looking, but the frailty is a lie. She’s incomplete, like a figure badly drawn or only vaguely remembered. Her features are just sort of hinted at under a scrappy halo of blonde hair.’

  ‘She sounds quite picturesque,’ Baxter said.

  ‘I’m reliably told she’s anything but,’ Edie said. ‘I recently heard Rachel described as an affront to the natural order. I think it’s fair to say she creates a bad atmosphere. Some of that’s deliberate. The rest I think she just can’t help.’

  ‘So she’s right out of a horror film,’ Baxter said.

  ‘Rachel earns her X-certificate and then some, Felix.’

  ‘Yet none of my people on site have seen her.’

  ‘She sings, apparently.’

  ‘None of them has heard her either.’

  ‘Maybe Greg Cody heard her. Maybe that’s what got him out of bed.’

  ‘We’ll never know,’ Baxter said.

  ‘Are you annoyed by that, by the loose end he represents?’

  ‘I’m philosophical, Edith. New Hope’s been a massive project. My strictly off-the-record opinion is that you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.’

  She thought that sounded callous. She said, ‘Nothing macabre, then, nothing ghostly or demonic?’

  Baxter smiled. The smile looked genuine but he was still pale and the restlessness gave his limbs a coiled, restricted look. To her he looked slightly trapped. He said, ‘We might both of us draw different conclusions after the weekend. Right now though, I’m inclined to think New Hope well named.’

  Ruthie sat in the dark and the rain at her table in her garden early on Friday morning, reading the news pages of The Chronicle on her phone, emptying her cafetière of coffee and smoking four cigarettes in succession, secure in the knowledge that no one was there to disapprove of her doing so because Phil was away on some consultancy job in Bristol and she wouldn’t see him until 7 o’clock that evening.