A Gathering of Twine

by Martin Adil-Smith

  Ryan watched as girders were brought in to line the walls and then brace against each other.

  Kiwi stood next to him. “That’s a lot of metal going in there,” he said, pulling out the plans.

  Ryan looked cursorily at the drawings and then back to the operation unfolding before him. He was learning that silence was golden when dealing with his wife or Kethron, and the lesson was spilling over into other relationships. Just shut up and get on.

  It had been nearly a fortnight since Anna had last struck him. He wondered how long he could make this run last.

  Kiwi turned the paper around again, closely examining the proposed design. “You could build a skyscraper with what they’re putting in there,” he said to no-one in particular.

  Ryan’s eye was drawn back to the plans.

  “What are all these?” he asked, unable to help himself, pointing to a small protrusion on the page.

  “New vents we’re going to sink in for each cell. In case there is a build-up of gas. The concrete will expand, and push it out. Without it... well, there could be a bang.”

  “An explosion?”

  “It’d be underground. Probably. But yeah.”

  “What are they doing about the Northern Shafts?” Ryan asked, trying to sound casual. He knew that there was substantially less metal going into the Northern Cells, and the mines were more extensive there. Less support meant an increased risk of a wall or ceiling slipping. Or worse, caving in completely.

  Kiwi unfolded the page and looked at the area Ryan had asked about. “Similar design,” he said. “But not to take as much weight. The shafts there haven’t got aircraft stands over them. Just the grass. And the Cat Stane.”

  Ryan knew that was not right. There was something wrong about all of this. The job. The airport. The Cat Stane. And it was bigger than Kethron and Anna.

  *

  It was a few weeks later, and Kethron was standing too close to Ryan, making him feel uncomfortable. They were getting ready to fill the mine under the cargo stands, and it was one of the few occasions that the weather was on their side.

  “Ok. Start it up,” the radio squawked. Rooksby was down at the shaft bottom watching the first layer going in.

  Ryan looked to Kethron who nodded and brought both levers down.

  The pressure and flow dials jumped for a moment and then settled in the green. The sound of the compressor told them that they were up and running.

  “Looks good,” the radio called again.

  Fifteen minutes passed. Thirty. And then an hour.

  Ryan looked to Kethron. They were not meant to be putting this amount of concrete in. And where was Rooksby? He had known the radio to be silent for anything up to half an hour, but never this long. Even the men at the batching plant were getting nervous, and they were Kethron’s own.

  “Kill it,” Kethron said darkly.

  Ryan brought both levers up.

  “Rooksby?” Kethron was on the radio now.

  “Aye? I’ve lost flow. What are you doing?”

  “Taking a breather. You ok?”

  “Aye.”

  “Have we got much more?”

  “Dunno. Nothing has come forward yet.”

  The pipe had been laid to the back of the shaft. The intention was to fill to the forward stop, and pull the pipe through before the concrete set, effectively creating a single slab that the second and third layers could be applied to.

  “Go and check it out,” Kethron growled.

  “Ok.”

  The mine had not been as Ryan had imagined. In his mind, he had pictured the high vaulted tunnels that he had often seen on television. Whilst this was true of the majority of modern mines, those from the eighteenth century were little more than man-made rabbit warrens.

  Ryan was five foot six inches tall and had to hunch himself nearly all the way over when he had gone down with Tom. There had been any number of forks and blind alleys which were a lot smaller and could only have been made by made by children on their hands and knees. Ryan remembered reading about the working conditions of the eighteenth century, how often there was no light, no health and safety, and little in the way of ventilation. Accidents were an all too common occurrence, and the lucky ones were just badly maimed.

  Ryan did not envy Rooksby as he imagined him making his way along, bent double against the roof of the tunnel.

  “We got a problem,” the radio crackled a few minutes later.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Looks like... I dunno. We’ve got a hole. Looks like a well or something.”

  “How wide?” Kethron barked, his demeanour was darkening noticeably, and suddenly Ryan wanted to be very far away indeed.

  “Ten, maybe twelve foot. And it’s deep.”

  “How deep?”

  “My torchlight isn’t hitting the bottom. But I can hear running water. Like a river or something.”

  Kethron was silent for a moment, thinking what to do next. “Ok,” he said eventually, “come back up.”

  “Aye.”

  “And you, Wino,” Kethron had turned to Ryan, “go and get me a set of those mine drawings.”

  *

  It was later in the afternoon that they all sat around a table in the airport’s main Administration Building.

  Built in the late seventies, it was another example of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. Despite housing the Managing Director and various commercial departments, little had been spent on it in the intervening years. The two-storey brick building had a flat roof and the smell of damp only seemed to underline the already tense atmosphere.

  The Development Director sat next to Kethron, and Kiwi came in shortly after and positioned himself on the other side.

  “And it wasn’t there before?” the Development Director said. Ryan had forgotten his name.

  “Can’t have been. The men wouldn’t have been able to lay the pipe to the end of the section. It takes up the whole width of the tunnel,” Kethron replied.

  “Do we know where it goes?” Kiwi asked.

  Kethron brought out the plan of the mine workings. “I’ve got three thoughts,” he said, fingering the area where the hole had opened. “First is that it’s a subterranean river. Second, is that it is another deeper mine that runs in parallel with the one on top, and we did not know about it because it’s not shown on the plan. Or third is that it is something archaeological.”

  “Something archaeological? That’s pretty broad.” the Development Director said. “What do you think?”

  “It could be anything,” shrugged Kethron. “With that standing stone... well the whole area is full of Neolithic artefacts...”

  “Don’t say it,” the Development Director snapped. “If Historic Scotland gets involved we’ll lose years. Do you know any tame archaeologists? They can say it is a plague pit and we can just fill it in.”

  Kethron shrugged again. “We need to know how much we’re filling in. It could be nothing more than a small depression. Or it could be a waterway that runs for hundreds of miles. I’m trying to source a camera now. We’ll rig something up so that we can send a man down.” Kethron looked at Ryan.

  Ryan shifted his gaze to the table. He really did not want to go down there.

  “What about if we put some dye in?” Kiwi asked. “If it is a waterway, we might be able to trace its path if we can find where it comes out.”

  Kethron nodded. “Could do. You’d be hoping it comes out somewhere local. Best case is that it comes out in the Almond, before Crammond. But it might discharge anywhere. We don’t even know which way it’s flowing.”

  The Development Director sat back. “Could we put some of the girders over the hole, and just carrying on infilling? Like a plug?”

  “I’d be against that. Whatever this second network is, we need to make sure that it is not undermining anything else. If it is, then there is no telling if or when it might collapse.”

  “The airport has been here ninety years. If it was going to collapse into a hole it would
have done so already,” the Development Director said.

  Kethron shook his head. “It could be eroding your main runway right now, and you wouldn’t even know until one of those big heavy commercial liners landed heavily. The strength of the runway might hold, but if the ground underneath goes, and then your plane could cartwheel.”

  The Development Director did not need further convincing. He had seen a Cessna go tail over once, breaking its back. The sound had been sickening. He did not dare to think what would happen if a fully laden 747 went that way.

  “What about the other cells?” the Director asked. “Can you continue those?”

  “I’m not keen. I’d rather find out how big this thing is and where it goes before we carry on. You wouldn’t want us back in a couple of years doing the whole thing over from scratch because of a shaft collapse.”

  *

  That night Ryan told Anna about the events of the day, and in a rare move, she showed an interest, wanting to know what was at the bottom of the newly discovered duct. Ryan gave the sketchy details as best he could, but when he said that he thought that Kethron had him in mind for the survey her countenance changed.

  “I don’t think so,” she said enigmatically.

  “I don’t want to do it either, but the way he looked at me...”

  “I’ll speak to him,” she continued as if she had not heard his bleating. “You’re not ready yet.”

  Later that night, despite the alcohol in his system, sleep did not come easily to Ryan. What had Anna meant, not ready... yet?

  Like there would ever be a time when he would be ready. Once again, Ryan had the sense of things moving behind the scenes.

  *

  The next morning Kethron picked him up as usual. Readying himself for the customary silence, Ryan was surprised when Kethron addressed him.

  “Don’t worry Wino. It won’t be you,” he half-smiled, before crunching the van into gear and setting off.

  Ryan made no reply but was silently grateful that Anna had come through for him. In that instant, he felt his emotions conflict. At one level he had grown to hate Anna in a slow burning resentful way. She had deprived him of friends, means, and confidence. But she had got him this job when it was painfully obvious that he was drinking instead of writing, and now she was protecting him from Kethron.

  Of course, she was his wife, and the mother of his child, but Ryan felt detached from all of that as if it had happened to someone else. He pondered the dichotomy and wondered if Anna was re-moulding him. Making him as she would wish. It would explain the recent cessation of beatings. No doubt he would do something to warrant their reintroduction. But had he changed?

  He looked at himself in the passenger mirror and realised how haggard his looked. Puffy sacks hung under his eyes like deployed airbags, and the whites of his eyes had long turned yellow. Where had once been laughter lines, now there were deep crevices of worry and his three-day old stubble was heavily flecked with gray.

  “Yeah yeah, Wino, you look beautiful this morning,” laughed Kethron.

  Ryan looked at him but said nothing.

  He returned to thinking about Anna, and the ghost of the abducted girls rose before him. Like so many other things in his life, it was still unresolved. The case had quickly gone cold and had been replaced completely in the news when Madeleine McCann had disappeared five months later. She had been missing nearly a year now, but Ryan often thought about the other girls. The Enfield Eleven.

  Anna had never mentioned them, and if a news story or documentary was on the television which in any way referenced them, she turned the channel over. And yet still they haunted him. In particular, the one they had followed. He occasionally dreamt of her, looking up at him from an open grave that was filling with water. Except in the next instance, it would not be water, but blood. And she would just stare at him, soundlessly, until she was covered. Then would come a movement in the liquid filled grave, like some huge beast from the depths had risen too close the surface, sending forth a pulse from the deep.

  As they approached a junction, Kethron uncharacteristically waved a silver Nissan in front of him. The driver flashed his lights and sped on.

  “Friend of yours?”

  Kethron smiled. “New airport managing director.”

  “Mr Johnson is leaving?”

  “The parent company has picked him up. He’s moving down to Heathrow to do something with marketing or purchasing or something.”

  Ryan was disappointed. He had only met Mr Johnson once, but he was well regarded and had made Ryan feel like what he did matter.

  “So who’s the new guy?”

  “Glasgow’s MD.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “I only met him once. Last year, before you joined, there was a terrorist bomb. Blew up part of their terminal.”

  Ryan’s recollection was hazy, but he distantly remembered something about a 4x4 being driven into the terminal building before exploding up.

  “Mr Johnson called all the contractors,” Kethron continued, “and got them over there to help sort it out. We had the terminal open again within twenty-four hours. Glasgow’s MD was new - only one week into the job.”

  Ryan whistled. “Trial by fire.”

  “You’re telling me Wino. He was there the whole time. Never went home. Worked on the floor with the rest of us. He made a lot of friends that day.”

  Ryan realised that this was probably the longest conversation he had ever had with Kethron. “Does he know about our job?”

  “I’ve got to give him a briefing this afternoon.”

  “Do you want any help? I don’t mind coming along.”

  Kethron looked at him incredulously, broke into a toothy grin, and chuckled to himself. “Help? Not from you Wino, not from you.”

  *

  Ryan hit the green button and the lift mechanism began to whine, bringing Rooksby up to the surface.

  “So?” Kethron said.

  Rooksby handed the video camera to Kethron and began to peel himself out of his safety harness. “It’s a cave.”

  “How big?”

  “Difficult to stay. The winch ran out before I got to the bottom, but I’d guess a couple of hundred feet across. Maybe sixty or seventy high.”

  “The water?”

  “Not as bad as it could have been. It’s more of a trickle, but the cave is causing the sound to echo. It drains out in a small hole at the bottom.”

  “Did you see any of the dye?”

  They had put some soluble dye in the Gogar Burn to determine if it was the origin point for the water they had heard the day before.

  “Aye. A little. Not much.”

  “Can we patch and fix it?”

  “Yeah. It’s too big to fill with concrete. We’d spend months if not years on it. Plus the water would just eat through it. I’d say girder it – make sure the walls and roof aren’t going to shift. Then whack a plug where we broke through.”

  Kethron grunted an agreement.

  Ryan was not an expert, but the idea of sealing a previously unknown cave on the basis of a single inspection did not sound right to him.

  *

  By all accounts, Kethron’s meeting with the new Managing Director went well, and the budget to stabilise and seal the cave was approved. It was late September by the time work recommenced on the previous cells.

  “Flowing well,” the radio crackled.

  Ryan was back at the cargo stands, seeing the cell taking its first layer of concrete.

  Rooksby was down in the shaft but had been on extended leave over the summer. Ryan had asked him if everything was alright, but the man had just nodded, and it did not seem right to push the subject.

  “Check your pressure,” the radio said again.

  “Green on forty,” Ryan replied.

  “I’ve got build up here.”

  “What are you on?” Ryan asked. There was a second meter at the end of the pipe that measured the pressure in the immediate environment.
r />   “Just hit fifty.” The difference in pressure between the two gauges suggested that gas was building up somewhere.

  Ryan brought his levers up.

  “I’ve shut it down.”

  “I’m still climbing. Fifty-four. Can you vent?”

  Ryan signalled to the crew by the batching plant who activated the vent. The sound of the turbine powering up, sucking the air out of the mine filled the surrounding with a dull thudding.

  Thoc-thoc-thoc

  This was the third time that day that they had to break to clear the mine of gas. The concrete needed to go down as smoothly as possible, preferably in one application, and the constant need to stop and then restart was beginning to put a strain on the work crew.

  “What are you at?” Ryan asked.

  “It’s coming down. Give it another minute or so.”

  Progress was slow and when the Christmas shutdown came, Kethron guessed that they were three to four months behind schedule. Ryan did not need telling how much this displeased the man. Kethron wore an almost permanent scowl.

  The snows were not as bad as they had been the previous year, but Ryan thought it was icier. Little had changed at home, other than Christopher had got bigger and was relishing starting primary school in September.

  By May all the cells - except the one underneath the Cat Stane - had received their first layers, and some their second. But the team was tense. There were increasingly frequent pockets of gas that needed to be vented and, whilst no-one admitted it, there was growing sense that there must be movement in the earth for there to be this much gas escaping.

  It was August and the team was preparing the Cat Stane cell for its first layer. Looking up, Ryan sighted a figure in the regulation high-visibility jacket, similar to those he and the team wore, moving in and out of the old RAF buildings, near to the batching plant.

  “New boy?” Ryan asked. He was sitting on the grass with Rooksby, eating his sandwiches, and watching the planes take off and land. After nearly two years on the job, he still found them fascinating to watch.