A Gathering of Twine

by Martin Adil-Smith

  Rooksby laughed and released Ryan’s arm.

  “I don’t think so. Anna is not through with you yet my little monkey.”

  He stared at Rooksby. Ryan had taken a leaf from Kethron’s book, and since Tom had died he had not discussed his family with anyone. He had come to work, done the job and that was it. No small talk. No banter. No “how was your weekend?”

  So how did Rooksby know his wife’s name?

  “How... how do I know I can trust you?”

  Rooksby laughed. “You have two choices. You either do as you’re told or...” Rooksby pulled something from behind him and began to absently toss it in front of him, catching it before gently throwing it up again. In the half light, it looked to Ryan to be some sort of dagger. The blade was dark, almost black, and the grip looked to be twisted and distorted. Ryan was in no doubt that the man was able to use it very effectively.

  “We could find out,” Rooksby continued, “if your screams can be heard above all that traffic.” He pointed the blade upwards, indicating towards the constant movement of aircraft above.

  Ryan turned, and from where he stood, he could see a skeleton less than two feet from the tunnel entrance, and despite the fist-sized lumps of dirt surrounding it, he could clearly make out the worn leather thread of something around its neck. He turned back to Rooksby.

  “I get them, and then we both get out?”

  Rooksby nodded. “And you never have to see me again.”

  Ryan looked into the tunnel again. His eyes had grown used to the gloom, and he could make out the shapes better. His mind was reeling. So much of this did not make sense. Why could Rooksby not get the pendants? Or Kethron? Why this huge saga just to get him here? He was in no doubt that the partial collapse of the tunnel had been engineered. Tom had warned Kethron about the wall, Ryan was sure of it.

  The face of the little blonde girl he had followed that cold December day rose again in his mind.

  Join us.

  He turned back to Rooksby. “They’re the girls,” he said indicating to the skeletons, “aren’t they? They’re the girls you kidnapped from London.”

  Rooksby frowned.

  “The Enfield Eleven. Anna had them taken, didn’t she?”

  Rooksby laughed again and shook his head. “Stars! You monkeys. Always trying to find patterns where there are none. Look how far down we are. Why would anyone bury eleven school girls down here just to have some wino dig them up two years later?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Rooksby stopped laughing and was suddenly glaring at Ryan. “If it makes you feel better, no. They are not those girls. Now get in there.”

  Rooksby jabbed his blade first towards Ryan and then the tunnel entrance.

  “I dropped the box,” Ryan said. “The one Kethron gave me.”

  Rooksby looked across the shaft floor, saw the box, and indicated to Ryan to take it. Ryan had hoped that he would pick it up to toss it him so that he could get a jump on him, but Rooksby was better than that, and he knew it.

  Ryan picked the box up and made his way to the partially collapsed tunnel entrance. Looking at it, he realised that he was probably going to have to crawl on his belly. Clambering in, he could hear the distant sound of the extraction turbine still working away.

  Thoc-thoc-thoc

  That was something at least.

  He felt the earth beneath his chest, soft and wet. The first skeleton was easy to get to, and he quickly found the pendant around its neck. It was about the size of an old fifty pence piece, but in the gloom, he could not make out any details. It felt hard, like a stone, but also slightly warm.

  Ryan put it in the box and worked his way to the second skeleton. Again he found the pendant, and again he put in the box. The third was nearly ten feet from the tunnel entrance, and had more earth on top of it than the others, and despite sweeping away what he could, there was no pendant.

  “It’s not here,” he called back to Rooksby. He could see that the man had sat down on the earthen floor.

  “It is,” Rooksby said absently, still tossing his knife, and not looking up. “Try harder.”

  Ryan swept some more earth away. “I’m telling you, it’s not here.”

  Rooksby sighed. “Move on to the next one. You can look for that one on your way back.”

  Ryan moved on and found the remaining pendants. Most were still around their owners’ necks, but some had become detached and were in the earth filled chest cavities. He was soaking wet and chilled to his core when began to make his way back some forty minutes later. His hi-vis jacket had done little to keep the water out, and he could not tell if he was shaking from the cold or from withdrawal.

  As he returned to the third skeleton he started to dig around again. His hands were frozen, despite the warmth of the tunnels, and he was able to make little more than claws with them. Even though the turbine continued to whirr, the air still tasted stale and fetid, and Ryan had to stop more than once to dry-retch.

  He dug around the skeleton, and then into the chest cavity. There was no pendant.

  “I’m telling you,” he called to Rooksby, “it’s not here!” He was tired, frustrated and still very, very scared.

  Rooksby had been watching him intently since he had begun his return journey, like a buzzard perched on a fence, watching its prey in the field.

  “Keep looking. It’ll be there.”

  A sound came from behind Ryan. A skittering clicking almost clacking. Ryan turned over in a panic, desperately trying to focus on the source of the sound that had come from the ventilation shaft behind him.

  “There’s something in here!” Panic was in his voice. “There’s something in here with me!”

  Ryan began to scrabble towards the lift. In an instant Rooksby was on his feet and at the tunnel entrance, his dagger drawn and pointed straight at Ryan.

  “Get the pendant!”

  The clacking came again, distinct above the sound of the turbine.

  Thoc-thoc-thoc

  “But there’s something in here!”

  “There’s something out here too monkey child!” Rooksby was almost spitting. “Turn the skeleton over.”

  Ryan paused, desperate to get out.

  “DO IT!”

  Ryan scuttled backward and hauled the skeleton over. The pendant was directly behind the spinal column, which came apart in his hands like old wet cardboard.

  Grabbing it and throwing it into the box, he thrust himself forward as fast as he could and lay panting on the lift shaft floor.

  “Good monkey.” Rooksby was standing over him.

  Ryan was cold, exhausted, and trembling all over. He did not care if Rooksby killed him now. He would be happy just to end this nightmare.

  He held the box up to Rooksby. “Take it.”

  Rooksby recoiled and took a step back. “That’s not for me. Get on,” he said, indicating to the lift platform. “Time to go home.”

  Home. Ryan laughed to himself. He was lost and damned and who knew what else. Wherever his home was, it was very far from this place, and he had neither the energy nor the will to find it.

  Ryan climbed onto the platform. Rooksby pressed his radio. “Bring him up.”

  No response came, but the lift began to rise. Ryan tilted his head back, watching the daylight grow ever closer, and feeling the warmth of the spring day reaching down to caress his tired worn face. Already the events of the last hour seemed somehow distant and surreal as if they had happened to someone else, and he had just watched a video of it. But the waiting figures of Kethron and his men at the shaft head told him it was not over yet.

  As soon as his head and shoulders had crested the lip of the lift shaft, Kethron’s men grabbed, him, hoisted him clear, and held him tightly.

  Kethron looked at Ryan and then to the box.

  “You want it?” Ryan asked. “Take it.” He offered the box to Kethron who, like Rooksby, recoiled, but made no reply.

  A few minutes later the lift pl
atform returned with Rooksby.

  “Take him landside,” Kethron said to Rooksby. “We’ll get this lot finished up.”

  Ryan got into the waiting van, and Rooksby climbed in.

  “Told you we weren’t going to kill you,” he said, smiling.

  Ryan felt numb. “What are these?” He shook the box and the stone pendants rattled inside.

  Rooksby looked at him, and then out through the windscreen. “Here’s how this is going to work monkey-man,” Rooksby said, ignoring his question. “I’m going to take you back landside. We will go and get lunch like we normally do. If you make a scene or try to escape, I will hurt you. I may even kill you. If you make a scene in public, well I just might have to kill all the witnesses as well.”

  The airport handled around twenty thousand people a day. Around fifteen hundred an hour. There were always people around. Ryan knew that Rooksby was fast, but he was not that fast… was he? Still, he had no desire to put the man’s claim to the test.

  “Kethron will be back between three and four. He will take you home like he normally does. You will hold onto that box like your life depends on it, because it does. You will not try to talk to anyone. You will not try to divert my attention. And most of all, you will not speak to me unless I tell you to. Are we clear?”

  Ryan nodded but said nothing. His body was beginning to ache from the physical exertions of the last hour. Hunger pangs reminded him that, despite his recent ordeal, it had been a long time since he had eaten, and he felt himself shaking again.

  “Good monkey. When you get home, you will give that box to your wife’s friend, Irene, and no-one else. Understand?” Rooksby said. Sliding the van into gear, Rooksby gunned the engine and followed the airside road to the control post.

  The guard waved them through, and it occurred to Ryan that Rooksby had snuck the knife through the metal detector. That meant it either was not metal, or he had someone landside toss it to him over the fence. There was no CCTV along the boundary, and there had been numerous attempted breaches over the years, mostly by environmental protestors who had simply used bolt cutters but had then been caught when the roving patrol had spotted them.

  But there had been more suspicious episodes, where holes in the fence were discovered, but no culprit or group was ever identified. The grass was always kept short, and Ryan suspected that this was as much about discouraging birds as it was ensuring that intruders had no place to hide. Despite this, there were plenty of nooks and crannies on the airfield where a holdall could easily be stashed.

  Rooksby raised his hand in thanks to the guard and drove towards the Contractors Compound.

  *

  It was nearly two o’clock when Rooksby and Ryan sat down in the landside Wetherspoons. Rooksby had cleaned his captive as best he could by spraying him down with the water-jets from the carwash and had given him fresh overalls.

  But Ryan still looked as he felt. Bedraggled, cold, and tired. And very, very afraid.

  He had already guessed that Anna and her friend would be waiting for him when he got home. And then what? He had no idea and felt adrift on a sea of confusion.

  “What do you want?” Rooksby asked, handing him a menu.

  Ryan looked at it and pointed to the burger.

  “Drink?”

  Ryan pointed to the whisky and held three fingers up.

  “Don’t push it monkey.”

  Ryan lowered one finger.

  “Well, I suppose you’ve earned it today.” Rooksby signalled to the waitress who took their order and returned shortly with their drinks. A double for Ryan and water for Rooksby.

  He’s keeping a clear head, Ryan thought. Looking around him, he could see the passengers milling around. Families getting to ready to go through security. Loved ones saying goodbye to each other. Business men and women returning from Edinburgh City, boarding their plane back to wherever.

  They and the rest of humanity may as well have been a million miles away for all the help they could offer.

  Ryan saw the waitress returning with their food, and he downed his drink, savouring the sweet burning.

  “Can I get you gents anything else?” the chirpy blonde said.

  Ryan did not feel chirpy. Ryan felt anti-chirpy. The complete opposite of this youthful, enthusiastic, pert...

  He tapped his tumbler and held it to the waitress without looking up. He could feel Rooksby’s eyes burning into him, but he did not care.

  “Same again? I’ll be right back.”

  Ryan could see clouds were building up, threatening rain. He ate his burger. The meat was dry and tasteless, the salad limp, and the chips were more fat than they were potato. He ate it all regardless.

  Rooksby chewed away in silence, never once taking his eyes from his charge.

  If your last meal summed up your life... he mused. That would have been a great concept for a book, but Ryan felt that it was probably too late for that now.

  He felt the alcohol begin its work, and a low level numbing began to take hold, dulling the edges of his vision. It did not make him feel any better. It never did. It just made him feel... less. But all those minutes of frozen feeling, of holding the world way, well they had to melt, and clarity would come rushing back eventually.

  Rooksby’s mobile buzzed. The outsized man picked it up, grunted an acknowledgement, and hung up.

  “Time to go. Kethron is waiting for you outside.”

  Ryan stood with his eyes cast to the ground.

  “Got the box?”

  He raised his hand and shook the box unenthusiastically. He was being handed over to Kethron, and then to Anna. And then what? He did not care anymore. He just wanted whatever this was to end. He did not want to be constantly guessing how he should be, what strange machinery was working away in his life, or what new fear would be lurking at the threshold of his vision tomorrow.

  Rooksby took him by the arm, and began marching him towards the escalators that would take him down to arrivals, and then out onto the airport road where he would be put into a van.

  Except that did not happen.

  As they approached the escalator, for a brief moment the cloud broke, and the spring sun shone through, bright and majestic, catching the pepper-pot shape of the new control tower, and reflecting in a thousand directions, illuminating the terminal building, and bathing him in purifying white fire.

  He paused just momentarily, as the warm sun caressed his faced, like a parent’s forgotten touch. Somewhere deep inside him, something broke, and he knew he was going to die. And it would be soon and it would be painful. Tears welled up, as Rooksby dragged him bodily towards the escalator.

  And as he went with his captor, he saw a figure cresting the opposite escalator. It was a face he had never seen, but it spoke directly to him.

  I’ve seen what you’ve seen. I’ve been where you’ve been. I’ve done what you have done... you are forgiven.

  Ryan took a step out of Rooksby’s intended path, meeting the stranger’s eye, reaching for him.

  A wave crossed the stranger's face, akin to recognition, and he too took a step forward.

  “No, you don’t!” Rooksby barked and went to grab Ryan, missing as his charge took another step forward.

  Rooksby slid the knife out, and someone screamed.

  The stranger saw the downward arc, and rushed forward, first hugging the now freely crying Ryan, and then sending him sprawling to the floor.

  The knife grazed his cheek but carried on its sweep missing the target’s kill spot.

  Someone else screamed and an alarm sounded. The passengers stood frozen, staring at the unfolding scene.

  Ryan registered the sound of pounding feet as uniformed bodies raced from the security area to the source of the commotion. But he was away, floating, and safe.

  Rooksby knew he had a second at most to react. He could not handle the box, so it was kill the monkey or escape. From his vantage point, he could see across the airport forecourt to where Kethron was waiting with the eng
ine running.

  Pushing the passengers in front of him out of the way he left Ryan, bounded down the escalator and out to where the white van was, noting the rapidly approaching blue lights from the onsite police station.

  Ryan heard the squeal of wheels but no longer cared.

  The stranger raised himself from Ryan’s body. “Are you ok?”

  Ryan nodded. Tears streaking his face. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  The stranger held out his hand and pulled him up, and then embraced him.

  “It’s ok,” he whispered in Ryan’s ear. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

  *

  Danielle looked at Freeman slack-jawed. “So what happened next?”

  “That’s it. Ryan Hyde’s account.”

  Danielle struggled to know where to begin. “I thought you promised me no stoners or dropouts.”

  “Come on, he was an alcoholic, and when I interviewed him seven or so years ago he had been sober fifteen years. I still hear from him from time to time. And he’s still clean.”

  Danielle still did not like it. “How much of it can be verified?”

  Freeman smiled. “Anna Hyde did quit her I.T. job. And she did work in a minicab firm in Enfield. You’ll remember the Enfield Eleven case. Edinburgh Airport really does have mine workings running underneath it, and they really were filled in by Corax, which is a subsidiary of Corvus. There really is a Cat Stane standing stone that marks an ancient graveyard, next to the main runway. And Tom Cullum really did die in the way Ryan described.”

  “Tom Cullum? Andrew’s brother… from Paternoster?”

  Freeman smiled. “Funny the way these circles move. There is always… a ripple effect. Things get caught in the wake.”

  “What about the cave?”

  “That I cannot prove. There is no record of it. But the cargo development never happened. The cave would have been right under those old RAF buildings. Maybe it put paid to the development. The airport operator really did hire a development specialist, but they laid him off in two thousand and eleven when the airport was being sold.”

  “Did you track him down?”

  “Yes and no. It seems that he got an extraordinary windfall a few months after he left the airport. He bought an island in the Pacific and retired there with his family. He won’t return my phone calls.”