“So,” Steel replied. “What about what you’re doing here? What’s so special about this ship?”
Steel had an idea that given enough information he might be able to fill in the blanks.
Grant shot him a suspicious look. “So, Mr Black, why are you here?”
All along, Steel had had the feeling that Jonathan Grant was a newspaper reporter, and his reaction had just confirmed his suspicions.
“Like I said at the dinner last night, I’m just a guy travelling through life,” Steel assured him. “Honestly, there’s really not much to tell.”
The reporter then stood up, realising that he had said too much to a complete stranger, who for all he knew was working for the people he was pursuing. “I will see you around, Mr Black, you can be sure of that.” Grant then used the first two fingers of his right hand to make the ‘I am watching you’ symbol and, as he left, he kept on pointing.
SIX
Below, deep in the bowls of the Neptune ship’s hull, long passageways gave way to the crew’s quarters, storage compartments and, of course, the beating heart of the leviathan, the engine room.
Down below the steady thump thump of the engine echoed down the long white corridors as the monstrous engines powered the turbines. Apart from a couple of engineers heading to and from their shifts, no one was around.
The newest addition to the engineering crew was young Walter Norris, a tall black-haired boy of twenty, wearing a baseball cap sporting the ship’s name on the front. He had started as part of an apprenticeship arranged by the company a couple of months back, and a guy called Jim Dockett had taken him under his wing. Jim was an old-school sailor and ship’s engineer who had been on ships all his life, a man with a white raggedy beard and a round face, whose average height was compensated for by his notably broad shoulders.
Walter was keen and passionate about his work, which was what old Jim loved about him. Every time Jim looked at the lad’s smiling face he could see himself thirty years ago. Jim’s aim was to teach Walter as much as he could about the old seagoing ways, delighted to have the chance to pass on the information, so as to keep the old traditions alive.
Jim’s large frame entered the room the crew used for relaxation, and sat down on one of the chairs beside the small square table. “Come here, boy,” he yelled at Walter, who was busy putting some cups away. The younger man came over and sat down, evidently pleased to see his mentor.
As Jim sat down, the old sailor pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it: it was a diagram of various knots made from ropes. “Right then, boy, let’s see how many of these you can get, shall we?” The old sailor’s face was full of pride, as he knew that this test would be no problem for the young lad.
Just they were just starting the lesson, a tall, thin, sickly looking man approached, his blond hair thick with gel. “Oh goody, it’s grandpa hour!” the newcomer declared, his voice sickly sweet and tinged with mockery. The two men looked up at the man and shivered at the sight of him. Walter could not take his eyes of the man’s unpleasant features: his face was long with a wide grinning mouth, and the dark rings round his red-rimmed eyes enhanced their pale blue colour.
“Now,” the strange man continued. “I need you to take something to the captain, okay?”
At first Walter did not answer, utterly transfixed as he was by the man’s hypnotic eeriness.
The man looked at them for a moment then quickly shot forwards, shouting, “Boo!”
Walter jumped up in revulsion, causing the sinister character to clap his hands together and cover up his giggling mouth. Then he stopped smiling. He drew closer to Walter’s face until they were almost nose-to-nose. “See boy, I want you to take something to the captain, Okay? Capisce? Comprende?”
Walter nodded slowly, clearly terrified.
The man moved back to his former position, the sickly grin back on his face as though nothing had happened. “Good, here you go.” He presented Walter with a small black box around six inches square, its sides smooth and with no visible signs of how it should be opened. Walter grasped the object but the man held it fast with one hand; Walter was shocked to discover just how much strength this spindly man possessed. The man’s grin became a scowl. “You will go directly to the captain and return back here. You will not go anywhere else, just there and back again, do you understand?”
Walter nodded slowly.
“You will not open this box and you will not speak to anyone, I don’t care if you see your grandmother, you will not speak to anyone, understand?”
Again Walter nodded, beads of sweet cascading down his brow. Then without a word the man released his grip and gave his sickening grin once more. “Oh good, right then, off you pop.”
Walter could not get away fast enough, and was keen to get to the upper decks simply to get away from the revolting man. As he made his way past the white walls and heavy-looking doors of the lower deck, he had noticed that one storage room had a sign fixed on it. The square notice was around eighteen inches in diameter and red letters proclaimed from a white background: “KEEP OUT, NO ADMITTANCE.”
Walter stood for a moment and wondered when that notice was put on—it had not been there when they had arrived in Southampton. But fearing the dreadful man was behind him he thought nothing more of it, and just ran.
The cabin of Captain Tobias Long was on the eighteenth deck so that he could be close to the bridge. The room had dark wooden floorboards and Edwardian furniture, making it appear more like a museum than a cabin. Tobias Long sat at the dark wooden desk as he filled the brandy glass; his red leather-bound captain’s chair creaked as he changed position to lean over the desk. Reaching over he picked up a picture of a woman, a photograph that had been taken within the last couple of years. The woman, who was almost certainly his wife, was in her late fifties, and her short hair was brown with hints of grey. Behind her was a park or a garden. Tobias Long reached forwards with a shaky hand and gently picked up the silver-framed photograph.
A smile came to his brandy-moist lips. Raising his glass he saluted the woman and downed its contents, saying, “To you, my love.”
Three knocks on his door made him turn; a look of fear twisted his features as his eyes glared across the cabin.
“Y....yes? Who is it?” His hand gripped his glass so tightly that it broke.
“Crewman Walter Norris, sir.”
The captain’s eyes burned as his heart-rate calmed. He didn’t look down at the piece of broken glass on the floor, his gaze too intent on his unexpected visitor.
“What do you want, crewman?” His voice sounded exhausted but there was relief in its tones, and the tension had gone from his expression as he looked down.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I was told to bring you—erm—something.”
Tobias’s eyes crept up from the floor and the fear came back as his eyes locked onto the peephole, the hole in the cabin door.
“What kind of something? Answer me, boy!” The captain’s fear had returned, and was being masked by his display of anger, an anger that was directed at Walter.
The young crewman was terrified, thinking, Don’t shoot the messenger!
Then Walter nearly jumped out of his skin as the door was suddenly yanked open, and the red-faced captain stood in the doorway, his eyes opened wide, his chest heaving, as though he had just been for a run round the decks. In his left hand, he held a photograph in a silver frame and his right hand was hidden from view. “What do you have for me, son?” he demanded. His voice was calmer now that he was confronted by the cowering boy; Tobias smiled, and Walter began to relax.
“A man gave me this for you.” Walter held up the box in both hands. The captain looked at the strange gift and sighed like a man who was so far gone that nothing mattered anymore.
“Okay, son, that will be all.” Tobias spoke as if he was exhausted as he took the box from Walter’s hands. The door closed slowly, and as it shut Walter heard the sound of the deadbolt been act
ivated.
With his task done, Walter’s journey back was somewhat slower, as he was in no rush to see the creepy man again. Climbing into the elevator he pressed the button for the third floor and waited for the doors to close.
Down in the depths of the ship Walter made his way back to the relaxation room to inform the man that his task was complete. In the distance he saw someone trying to get into one of the rooms. Walter yelled after them, causing the stranger to run off, with Walter in pursuit. After a while he gave up, stopping and resting his hands on his knees for support. His first thought was how unfit this job had made him, but, as he stood upright, something to his left caught his eye. Turning slowly, he noticed that the door with the new sign was slightly open. Every instinct told him not to go into that room. However, then he heard the low moan of someone who sounded as if they were injured. Without hesitation he entered the room cautiously. “Hello?” he whispered. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Silence was the only response. The room was in darkness, and as he opened the door fully there was enough light to see the mass of container boxes and crates piled upon one another. As he moved further on past the wall, he stopped. In a far corner a red glow lit up the joining walls behind whatever was being concealed under a tarpaulin. Reaching down he lifted the covering slightly but immediately dropped the canvas and backed away slowly. The pulsing red light illuminated his look of utter fear.
His gaze did not leave the corner until he backed into something. At first he thought it was the wall until, as he turned, he looked straight into the mad eyes of the strange man he’d encountered earlier. Walter yelped and jumped backwards, falling to the ground.
“Oh dear!” The tall thin man closed the door behind them and the light was extinguished. Until sudden illumination caused Walter to shade his eyes as the man switched on the room’s lights.
“Well, you know what curiosity killed, don’t you?” The man was walking from left to right, not looking at the scared boy on the floor.
“Th... The cat, sir.”
The man spun round and clapped as a look of utter delight came over his face. “Oh goodie, yes you’ve got it.” He reached down, and, grabbing the boy’s hand, he helped him to his feet. Walter froze as the man did not release his grip but pulled him closer. “But unfortunately in this case curiosity killed the—” His grin changed from happy to a callous mask of pure evil. “The kid!”
As he finished the sentence, his voice dropped to a baritone. Walter had a mini-second of fear before the man stuck the taser into his neck and activated it. They both moved about as the current passed through him. The man relaxed the on switch and Walter fell to the ground, motionless. The man danced around, madly singing and waving his arms, then he stopped and walked back to the unconscious boy. “I don’t know what the problem was really,” he said, circling the boy like a vulture in search of a meal. “Don’t go anywhere, I said. Come straight back, I said.” He was now shouting at the boy. “Simple, I thought! But no, you had to make it difficult.”
He reached down and stuck the taser into the boy’s neck once more. His lifeless body convulsed as the volts coursed through him, smashing his head against one of the crates.
“Oops, mind you don’t bump your head!” The thin man laughed, his hideous cackles echoing through the steel corridors of the lower decks.
The Majors’ home was in a nice neighbourhood, and the buildings were clean and free of graffiti. McCall and Thompson walked up to a door that displayed a large wooden plaque on the wall. The plaque was a section cut from a medium-sized tree and displayed the rings of its life through the lacquer seal. The inscription was simple: The Majors. McCall stopped and touched the plaque with her gloved hand and smiled, thinking how much this reminded her of her home before her dad’s murder.
“Are you okay?” asked Jenny, somewhat puzzled by her boss’s unexpected display of emotion.
McCall looked over to the other woman, serious once more. “Yes, fine, okay, let’s do this.” She reached out and pressed the polished brass doorbell, and the two female detectives heard the familiar ding-dong chime resounding through the house. They waited for a moment, listening for any indications that someone was at home, but heard none. As they turned to leave, the door opened a fraction of an inch. The women stopped and turned back to see a girl no more than five years old peering out through the gap.
Sam McCall smiled and knelt down in front of the child. “Hi. My name is Samantha, and I am a police officer.”
The door was slammed shut and the sound of tiny feet running on a wooden floor echoed through the hallway. McCall stood up and looked at Thompson, who just shrugged and raised her hands as if to say, ‘Don’t ask me’.
Slowly the door opened fully and a woman stood before them. She was average in height and build, with long scraggy mousey hair. Her eyes were red from too many tears and her nose looked raw from rubbing against too many tissues. Sam had seen this kind of grieving too many times, the first time was when her mom was affected that way.
“Hi, Ma’am, I am Detective McCall and this is Detective Thompson.”
The woman did not respond, just hung onto the door and stared as if they were not even there.
“Are you Mrs. Erin Major?” the senior detective asked.
The woman’s eyes met McCall’s, and she just nodded.
“We are investigating your husband’s death. Can we come in?”
Stephanie Major said nothing, just walked away from the door and headed for the kitchen, and Thompson closed the door behind her as she followed McCall in. There was a large floor space that opened up to the sitting room to their right and a set of stairs on the left-hand wall leading to the bedrooms. Beyond the sitting room there was a door next to a breakfast bar. Following Stephanie Major’s lead, they followed towards the kitchen. The sitting room was quite large with a sofa in the middle of the room and a flat screen TV on the wall above a brick fireplace.
The house was modest and cheerful, and pictures hung on the walls of what appeared to have been a happy family. On entering the kitchen, they found Stephanie starting to make three coffees, as if her intrinsic good manners couldn’t allow her to be an ungracious hostess. As she poured the coffee into the mugs, her hands shook, presumably as a result of shock.
“Here, I’ll do that for you,” Sam McCall said, taking the clear glass coffee pot from Mrs Major.
Stephanie Major smiled and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her bathrobe. “Do you mind if we sit down somewhere? It might be easier.”
As they went into the sitting room, Stephanie made a hand motion for them to take a seat on the long sofa while she took a place on an armchair that was opposite.
“I don’t understand, Detective,” Stephanie Major began. “I already spoke to the other officers about it.”
McCall smiled sympathetically. “I know. Thing is, sometimes things get missed or left out by mistake. We have to find out what happened to your husband.”
Stephanie Major took a sip from the coffee mug and stared at the chair opposite.
“Okay, Detective. What do you want to know?” Stephanie took a deep breath and composed herself.
McCall reached into her pocket, took out a small Dictaphone, and placed it on to the table. (McCall always carried one: she found it easier and quicker than taking notes, plus she could listen to nuances and aspects of people’s answers long after the fact.)
“Just start from the beginning,” Sam coaxed gently. “Tell me how the day started.” She noticed some of the tension ebb from Stephanie’s face as the beginnings of a smile formed.
“I don’t know. We all had breakfast, I had to get Jilly.” She turned and pointed to the small girl who was cowering round the corner of the sitting room, holding a stuffed rabbit doll. “As I said, I had to get Jilly ready for kindergarten. It was just a normal day. My husband had finished a big job a couple of weeks before and he had a new one in the city. That’s all I know really.”
“Who did your husband wo
rk for?” McCall sat back into the sofa as she listened intently.
“He was an electrician, he worked for Ultra-tronics, they are a specialist firm, and he did alarm systems, fitting cameras and sensors, things like that. All sorts of high tech stuff.”
McCall took out her notebook and took down the name of the firm.
“Did he seem preoccupied or nervous at any time? As if he was not himself?”
Stephanie shook her head. “No, he was his normal happy self.” Stephanie couldn’t go on for a moment, as if she wanted to weep again, but was all cried out.
“This big job you mentioned. What was it?” the senior detective asked.
Stephanie shrugged. “Don’t really know. It’s about the only job he didn’t talk about, but I know it lasted for around two months.”
McCall looked puzzled. “What do you it was mean the only job he didn’t talk about?”
Stephanie took another sip from the coffee; her eyes began to clear slightly from the red haze. “It’s just he normally bored us to death about how he had done this job and that one, but this one, well it was if he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. I sure wish he had now.”
Stephanie Major looked into McCall’s eyes, picking up on an expression she was familiar with. “Have you ever lost someone, Detective?”
McCall nodded. “Yes, my dad. He was killed in the line of duty.”
Stephanie nodded sympathetically, thankful for a kindred spirit. “He had finished the big job and this smaller one came up, the one in the store. They said it was bad wiring or something that caused the accident but it was nothing he did wrong—he was too much of a professional to make dangerous mistakes.”
Operation:UNITY (John Steel series Book 2) Page 6