Death Ship

by Jim Kelly

  ‘NINETEEN, EIGHTEEN, SEVENTEEN …’

  Shaw was keen to interview Captain Ring about his father’s recollections of the night the Calabria sank. Coram’s version had seemed flat and self-serving. Ring was due back on the Telamon at any moment, having descended to the caisson to monitor the impact of the triple explosion, before sending down the first full shift to restart work on the pier footings.

  ‘TEN, NINE, EIGHT …’

  The sound of the crowd, which had dimmed with the tedium of the long countdown, now rose with each digit.

  ‘THREE, TWO, ONE!’

  Shaw felt his eardrum flutter in the second of silence before he saw the sand rise in a vertical plume. Then the distinctive double blast hit them, shaking the glasses and bottles behind the bar in Surf!, and setting off a hundred distant car alarms. Thousands of birds rose off the dunes and marshes like a visible shock wave. Then a new sound, a wave breaking, shimmered in the air like radio interference, before Shaw recognized it for what it was: applause.

  The second and third explosions followed, each one throwing up a shaft of sand into the sunlight. Louder cheers and applause swept along the shoreline. A band on the South Beach began to play the theme from The Dam Busters.

  ‘All we need now is the all-clear,’ said Shaw, setting off down the beach.

  An army Land Rover stood on the sand above the high water mark, its rear doors swung open, revealing an interior dominated by two banks of gauges and computer screens, a swivel chair between. Captain H. Wharram, bomb disposal expert, held one hand lightly to a set of earphones pressed to his ear.

  ‘Verdict?’ asked Shaw.

  ‘On the money – see?’ Swinging a monitor round, he showed Shaw a seismograph reading, a horizontal line suddenly forming three sets of double peaks, before returning to the horizontal.

  ‘The second peak is nearly five times the amplitude of the first in each case, which means that the detonators did their job. The size of the explosion ensures any fissile material has been burnt up. I’ve just signalled the all-clear to your people on the front.’

  The council, keen to enhance the wartime spirit, had announced that Hunstanton’s old police station still had a working air-raid siren. It would signal the success of the triple explosions, the first time it had been used for nearly thirty years to sound the all-clear.

  Standing, listening, Shaw heard a seagull call, a car alarm, and then, just on the edge of hearing, a low, dismal note. It began to waver, almost fading out, before gaining energy, winding itself up, in a series of cyclical, mournful notes. Shaw felt the hair on his neck bristle. The siren played for a minute, then died away.

  Valentine, who had been up on the dunes trying to pick up a decent mobile signal, came down the beach, holding out his phone for Shaw to see a fuzzy picture, which looked as if it had been lifted from CCTV footage.

  The image showed the cockpit of a skidoo at sea; the pilot was a woman in shorts, while the water canon off the prow was aimed by a tall man. Anna Roos and Joe Lester.

  ‘They clearly don’t mind breaking bail conditions,’ said Valentine. ‘Magistrate’ll throw the key away. Nobody likes being made a fool of, especially on prime-time TV.’

  ‘True,’ said Shaw. ‘Have to kind of admire their chutzpah. But ask yourself this, George: if they knew who’d killed Hartog, if they’d been behind the arson attack, and the rest, would they really be ready to see the inside of a cell so quickly? I’d say they were keen to end a campaign of protest on a high note. But my guess is that’s all it was.’

  The siren fell silent and then, out of the sky, they heard the approaching police helicopter, cleared to enter airspace over the beach, creating a choppy circle of water as it skimmed the sea. Looking west, Shaw’s eye was caught by something else: a single white dot, which appeared stationary, suspended over the distant horizon. At first he thought it might be a scrap of cloud, a flock of birds in tight formation, a single puff of smoke.

  Captain Wharram was out of his Land Rover, one of Lena’s cocktails in hand, face wreathed in smiles.

  ‘Can I?’ said Shaw, pointing at the binoculars round the captain’s thick neck.

  For a moment, Shaw’s single eye struggled to accommodate the focus, but then it was there, a single arresting image at x50 magnification: an airship, a miniature Zeppelin, a silver, pillowy cigar with a blue logo, en route for the beach and its historic fly-past over the crowds.

  FORTY-ONE

  Within the caisson, deep below the surface, few exterior sounds ever penetrated an almost primordial silence. Devoid of workmen, the open space projected a strange acoustic landscape in which any noise seemed simultaneously to be swallowed whole, as if wrapped in cotton wool, only to return within a heartbeat as a ping-like echo. The white noise of the air pump and the power supply lay like a blanket on the seabed.

  A small seismograph, beside the spiral staircase that led up to the manlock, had recorded the triple blast in slightly panic-stricken peaks. Captain Ring, despite complete confidence in the rigid strength of the caisson, had struggled to keep his heartbeat flat as the power cut out, the emergency lighting flickering on half-heartedly. Then he heard the Telamon’s generator powering itself back on line, and the floodlights had ignited, driving the shadows back into the concrete chamber’s deepest corners.

  Satisfied that the caisson had survived the impact of the triple explosion, Ring went to the control panel mounted at the foot of the mudlock stairs and switched on the twin hot-air blowers designed to moderate the ten-degree chill. Standing in the centre of the caisson, Ring discerned distinctly the rhythmic vibration of a ship’s screw and concluded it must be the Titan, the rig’s attendant tug, edging closer to the rig, perhaps to confront the protestors’ skidoo. Of the sea itself he could hear nothing, although he sensed its presence, massed beyond the concrete walls, responsible for the pressure that made his eardrums creak.

  Armed with a clipboard, he began a safety check, but less than a minute into the procedure he heard a distant, high-pitched hiss. He held his breath, tuning his ears to the sound, as if surfing some distant marine waveband, until he’d isolated it, set it aside, and confirmed its existence beyond imagination or fear: a whisper, no more, but unmistakably the sound of air escaping the pressurized, inverted hull of the caisson.

  Within thirty seconds, the rate of air loss indicated by the whisper doubled, then doubled again. The caisson had air vents in the north-east corner. These had been locked, on the outside, by Blue Square divers after the caisson had been lowered into position, flooded with seawater. Once closed, air was pumped in, driving out the sea. Upon the security of the vents rested the lives of those inside.

  Ring climbed an interior ladder to the vents. Up close, he could actually feel the buffeting air flow as it rushed from the caisson out through the filters, a gill-like structure of flutes, which buzzed slightly with the velocity of the gases seeping out into the sea. A gifted amateur marine engineer, as well as a qualified ship’s master, Ring could see in his mind’s eye what lay beyond the caisson’s three-foot-thick concrete shell: a diver, poised, turning the airlock spigot, the air escaping in gouts and bubbles, a shimmering, vertical silver river, twisting up to the surface.

  When he looked down from the top of the stairwell that led to the vents, he knew what he’d see, but its glistening, mirror-like surface nonetheless made his mouth go dry: a lake of water had seeped under the caisson wall along the western perimeter, to take the place of the escaping air. Nature, abhorring a vacuum, was trying to kill him.

  Escape was now his only priority. Returning to the seabed, he splashed through the fast-widening pool and climbed back to the manlock: the spiral staircase leading to a circular doorway, above his head, which was raised by an electric motor. Pushing a green-lit button marked Exit, he heard the sound of the motor firing, but the portal didn’t move, or rather it seemed to try to move, vibrating slightly at the edges. A slither of water seeped down the metalwork wall from one edge. It took him five se
conds to work out what that meant – that the thirty-five feet of tube above the doorway was probably full of water – so he hit the red button Lock, and the engine died.

  Looking down, he saw that the floor of the caisson was now a shallow lake, with its own wave pattern. A painted gauge on the concrete wall indicated that the depth was one foot eight inches at the eastern perimeter, although the rate at which the sea level was rising was visible. Ring, a scientist by nature as well as training, could not prevent his brain making a rough estimation of the time he had left: if the flow didn’t alter, he calculated he had approximately three minutes. If it did, it might be much less.

  Wading across the seabed, he went to the caisson office, a prefab box, and, lifting the landline, waited one buzz, two buzzes, three …

  ‘Captain?’ It was his second in command in the control room aloft, and he felt a small surge of hope, because of all the surface engineers this one had the sharpest brain.

  ‘Listen. Someone’s opened the air vents – from the outside. The water’s rising. The manlock won’t open. I think the tube’s flooded. Check it – now. If there’s any way of opening it, open it. I’ve got three minutes – less.’

  Two seconds of silence followed, and the second in command said, ‘Check the stores: the sink crew may have left suits. Oxygen – maybe.’

  Ring cut the line and headed out, the water at his waist now, towards the metal container that served as the caisson stores. The sink crew was the team that had been inside the caisson when it had been lowered to the seabed, before the water had been pumped out. Regulations stipulated that their diving gear be returned to the deckside stores. For once he hoped they’d been lazy, slipshod, or just forgetful.

  How long would the lights last? It had to be less than three minutes, because the wall-mounted lights were six feet below the ceiling. So he swam to the store, shuddering as the icy water percolated through his overalls. The store was a doorless metal box, so he floated into the interior, which was lit by a neon wall light, and executed a 360-degree pivot, surveying the scene.

  The relief at what he saw was like an injection of adrenaline. A bright orange dive suit hung from a hook; above it, on the shelf, was a single oxygen cylinder and mask. A foot away from getting his hand on the kit, he heard a buzz of short-circuiting; the neon blinked and cut out.

  If he panicked now, he’d die here. Outside in the caisson, the blue emergency lighting provided a ghostly glimmer.

  Floating, he kept his body rigid, flat in the water, his arms stretched forward until they made contact with the corrugated metal wall. Discarding a hard hat, a hand-drill, and a set of boots, his fingers clamped on the face mask, then the tank. A sixth sense, maybe survival, made him search one foot further along the shelf, and there it was: a diver’s torch – standard, waterproof. When he pressed the button, the full beam dazzled. He set it down for a moment, gathered his kit, and then fixed the torch to his belt, before swimming on his back out into the open caisson.

  Climbing aboard one of the earth-movers, he stood on the cab roof and stepped into the suit, strapping the tank to his back, clipping the mask and mouthpiece into position. How much air was in the tank? Was there any air in the tank? A brave man, he still couldn’t bring himself to test the valve.

  Climbing the spiral staircase to the manlock, he sat on the top step and waited. Nothing flashed before his eyes. His childhood, his family, his home, all seemed to inhabit the life of another. Instead, he watched the water rising, until it touched his toes. He zipped up the suit, pulling the fasteners tight at the throat, ankles, and wrists. If he was trapped in the manlock, if the manlock didn’t open, he’d need to survive, maybe for hours if the air lasted, so he had to keep his body heat close, warming his skin.

  Thirty seconds later the water lifted him off the seat, so that he floated beneath the manlock hatch. The exit and lock buttons were no longer lit, so he took hold of the circular hatch wheel and waited, waited, for the water to rise, rise, to the roof itself.

  The emergency lighting failed, the water rose past his chin, and at that moment he turned the valve on the oxygen tank and felt the glorious relief of the gas entering his lungs, inflating them, dousing the red panic that had been glowing, like an ember, behind his eyelids.

  It was black now, lightless, and he forced himself to wait one more ticking minute. Then he turned the hatch lock and it flipped open with breathtaking ease, the pressure pop audible. Kicking, he rose up the tubular stairwell, circling the lift, his neck back at a vicious angle, his eyes locked on what lay above: a circle of dim orange luminescence, which grew wider and larger, until – with his arms outstretched – he burst out into the neon-lit entry lobby to the decompression chamber. Arms reached forwards, faces crowding round, but he ignored them all and looked instead beyond to the circle of blue sky visible through the nearest porthole.

  FORTY-TWO

  PPC Jan Clay pulled the handbrake on the squad car, parking neatly in the forecourt of the Willows. The marsh, manicured here with clumps of cypress and willow, with cattle grazing, ran to the seawall, on top of which a single-file crowd faced out to sea, tracking the approach of the still-distant airship. A voice, amplified by the esplanade PA system, came to her on the breeze.

  Standing by the car, she filled her lungs with the salty air, the oxygen reinvigorating her blood. How had George described the spot? A windswept acre of damp grass. Which was a pity, because she’d liked the house, and they could have had a dog and walked it along the seawall. That morning, at ten, they’d had an appointment to view a property down by Shepherd’s Port, a ramshackle beachside township a further mile south. Clapboard, whitewashed, with a second-storey balcony, she’d been desperate to show George, because inside it had the snug, urban predictability of the house in Greenland Street, until you got to the first landing and the picture window opened out, revealing a world of mudflats and racing tides.

  But when she woke, she’d felt immediately the coldness on the left side of the bed. George Valentine still left notes, punctiliously avoiding the digital world, and this one had been pinioned under the kettle: Early start at beach. Sorry. X

  Straightening her blouse, pulling down the edge of the tunic, she gave the Willows a brief visual interrogation: eight bay windows reflected the lawns, the upper stories no doubt rewarded with a view of the seascape beyond the dyke. The house gave nothing away, so all she had to go on was the call, relayed through the St James’ control room, from Shaw’s landline at Surf!. Alice Banks, sister-in-law of Esther, wished to see DI Shaw and DS Valentine. Subject – unspecified. Status – urgent.

  Clay knew the case inside out, not because she’d been assigned to it, but because it had constituted what passed for pillow talk at 32 Greenland Street.

  Clay marched up to the front door and pressed a button, prompting a discrete buzz from within the bowels of the building. She checked her hair in the glass of the door, a mannerism she could never slough off, despite the fact that, neat and blonde, it had the happy knack of always falling into position. A buddleia bloomed over the doorway and a shower of butterflies, shed by her arrival, seemed to sprinkle her with a sickly, funereal scent.

  Three minutes later she was in Alice Banks’s ‘drawing room’, behind one of the bay windows, a bedroom glimpsed through a half-open door. Clay’s mother had spent two weeks in a private care home before she died, the bill neatly wiping out her entire estate. Clay always recalled her sitting in one of the wing-backed high chairs, her legs too short to reach the ground.

  Banks was in a wheelchair, but she didn’t offer Clay a seat.

  ‘This came in the post this morning. Frankly, the second-class stamp says it all. It’s from George, a posthumous epistle from the scribe of Empire Bank,’ she said, smirking at her own wit, until she saw that Jan’s face was a non-reflective mask of polite inquiry.

  Clay took the letter, flipping it over to check if it had been opened, which it had. ‘A précis?’ she asked.

  Banks retrieved a
handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan; it was a mannerism so suited to her surroundings that Clay suspected, for the first time, that the whole image was a façade, a carefully reprised role. She thought there was something inherently brittle in Banks’s cold, clipped style. She seemed to have shrugged off the death of her brother with indecent haste.

  ‘Well – it’s a confession. Yes. George laced the chocolates with rat poison and gave them to Esther, who unwittingly delivered them to the bus queue. She’s entirely innocent of the crimes. The poison’s hidden behind the electric fire, in the old flue. George stole a packet at a family party at Salt’s warehouse. It’s all there – dates and times. What do they say? It’ll stand up in court – that’s it.’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘Ah. How pedantic of you. George never really forgave the world for what happened, for what became his life. Esther is good, you see; George wants to be good. Vital difference. He doesn’t articulate a motive, I’m afraid – simply a desire to take revenge on the world before he leaves it. But he does mention the inherent poor manners of those in the queue – although that seems like a rather thin justification for murder. Overall, I’d say the tone was slightly unhinged and self-pitying.’

  A knock at the door brought coffee.

  ‘I didn’t order this,’ said Banks, examining a plate of biscuits with mild disgust. ‘Help yourself,’ she said, pouring a cup of black coffee for herself.

  Throwing open the balcony door, Clay went outside and read George Keeble’s last letter. His sister-in-law had gutted it for its factual content, but entirely deleted the note of emotional sadness. The detective in Clay thought there was something slick and superficial about the ‘confession’ – and she asked herself the pointed question: Why send it to his sister, and not his wife, as it was designed to secure her freedom?

  The last line, above a surprisingly forceful signature, read simply: In memory of the affection we once shared.