The Depths of Solitude

by Jo Bannister

  Daniel rinsed it out as best he could, and blew through it until a steady stream of bubbles was emerging at the other end. “All right,” he said shakily, “this will work.”

  It was clear to Brodie what he intended. He thought it would make a snorkel: when the water closed over her head she could breathe through it. It was dirty and heaven knew what diseases she could contract from putting it in her mouth, but she’d live long enough to get them treated. And she’d still have her hand.

  If it worked. If it didn’t clog. If she could go on breathing steadily through it as the water kept rising, up her face and over her head and on up the pipe, and she didn’t panic and thrash about and lose it. If the water stopped rising before it reached the top of the pipe.

  So Brodie knew, and she guessed that Daniel knew too, there were no guarantees. It might save her. It might only come close to saving her. But it was a chance. She nodded. “All right. Now we wait for Jack.”

  28

  Deacon wouldn’t believe it till he’d tried. He knotted both hands on the drunken hand-crank and wrenched at it. It moved half a turn before seizing solid. No human endeavour would have shifted it. It needed removing with an angle-grinder and a new piece welding on.

  It wasn’t rocket-science, Deacon could have done it himself given an hour. If he’d had an angle-grinder with him. If he’d had his welder. If he’d had a suitable bit of iron for the graft, and if he’d had an hour. What he in fact had was a wrench and no time at all. Even with willing hands to help he saw no way to close the sluice.

  With a JCB and five minutes he’d have dammed it. A few bucket-loads of earth dumped in the channel would have held back the lagoon as effectively as thirty years’ worth of silt. But he didn’t have a JCB either, and fetching one would take time he also didn’t have. He toyed briefly with the idea of driving his car over the edge, and would have done if he’d thought it would help. But he didn’t.

  With this many people around him, all of them strong and fit (except Sergeant Cobbitt), stout of heart and used to doing what he told them (except Constable Huxley), he couldn’t believe there was no way to stop the water flowing. But French had been a step ahead of him all the way. What he needed was a bit of unconventional engineering to do what the twisted gear could not. A bit of lateral thinking.

  He studied the problem. The sluice was accessible from downstream but the force of the water would carry away anything he tried to cover it with. Conversely, if he could manoeuvre a cover over the sluice from upstream, the pressure would hold it in place – but it would be all but impossible to do in ten feet of water. Because that was what he was dealing with. From the leat side he could see that the sluice-gate, little more than a metre wide, was three metres high, with slats ranged one above another like a heavy-duty Venetian blind.

  As he wrestled with the problem, his clarity of thought in no way aided by the pressure of time or the cost of failure, an image behind his eyes kept getting in the way. Himself and Daniel forcing their way into the mill, stumbling over the accumulated rubbish. He dashed it away with an impatient flick of his head that puzzled the on-lookers. He supposed he was having regrets – he didn’t have many so it was hard to be sure – about letting Daniel go into the bowels of the drowning mill. If he hadn’t, Hood would be here now and might have seen how the damaged sluice could be shut. But if he’d been up here he wouldn’t have been down there, and if Brodie was still alive Daniel might be the only reason.

  The mental merry-go-round left him dizzy. He tried to disengage from it, to concentrate on the problem at hand and not on something he no longer had the power to influence. Daniel was where he was, doing the best he could; so was Deacon. Both of them had known that if it wasn’t good enough lives would be lost. He doubted if Daniel was cursing him for the fact that the water was still rising, so why was he flaying himself?

  Suddenly he understood. It wasn’t Daniel his mind was trying to draw his attention to but something else in the picture. But what? – there was only him and Daniel. And the rubbish Daniel was falling over …

  Then he was running, back the way he’d come, back to the mill, trailing the startled looks of his colleagues like a cloak. “Don’t look at me like that,” he yelled over his shoulder, “come and help me!”

  Alone he’d have wasted vital time digging it free. But Huxley took one corner, Deacon gripped the other, and when they pulled together four metres of galvanised metal roofing slid screeching out of the pile.

  “Yes!” exclaimed Jill Meadows; and then everybody had a hand on it and they were belting back down the water-meadow like a crew of world-class optimists entering a raft-race.

  Deacon climbed onto the sluice-gate, his legs chilled and bludgeoned by the pouring water, to manoeuvre it into place. In fact it wasn’t difficult. They slid the corrugated sheet down the upstream face of the sluice and the water fixed it there. The jets pouring out of the lagoon fell in an instant to a trickle.

  It wasn’t a perfect fit. Water could still get through gaps on either side. But not enough to fill the leat: the water level dropped in seconds. In a few more seconds, Deacon knew, it would drop at the mill, and then what had found its way into the cellars would start finding its way out.

  “Stay here,” he ordered Huxley. “If it shifts, put it back. If you can’t put it back, damn well get in there and block it yourself. Everyone else, with me.”

  By the time they reached the mill the great wheel had stopped turning.

  There was cutting equipment in the area car. Even so, getting the padlock off the grille took ten minutes. When it finally parted Deacon threw the iron grid out of his way as if it had been chicken-wire and hurried down the stone stairway, pausing momentarily on the meal-floor to locate the steps down to the cellar.

  By now only the top three were dry. But the water-level had dropped to about a metre now and he was able to wade thigh-deep through the floating refuse in the pit of the mill. He shone his torch around, looking for signs of life, and found brick walls.

  Other feet splashed, other torches joined his. At his elbow Jill Meadows said quietly, “Shout, sir. Call their names.”

  Deacon was afraid to – afraid of hearing no reply.

  The young woman seemed to understand. She raised her own voice in a clear hail. “Mr Hood? Mrs Farrell! Can you hear me?”

  Deacon stopped breathing. As the silent seconds piled up his heart turned to stone and sank.

  Meadows tried again. “Where are you? We’re right here – just tell us where you are.”

  Everyone stood still so no sound of splashing would drown a reply. If any reply came. If there was anyone still alive down here.

  Finally a reed of a voice reached them along the surface of the water. “Here. We’re here.” It was so thin and frail that neither Deacon nor those with him could be sure if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s.

  They were in the last bay, against the far wall of the mill. Deacon broke into a run, pushing a bow-wave ahead of him. He turned the brick wall and the beam of his torch found them in the corner. Daniel was on his feet, just about, dragged down by the sodden weight of the woman clamped against him. The only way he could keep Brodie’s face out of the water was with his arms under hers and his hands knotted across her chest. Her eyes were blank, the pupils rolled back, and her face was fish-belly white.

  “Take her,” whispered Daniel. “Take her.” When Deacon did, hauling her as far clear of the water as her shackled wrist would allow, Daniel slipped exhausted to his hands and knees.

  When the buffalo ruled the plains of North America, the men who lived there too could feel the herd coming before they could hear it, and hear it before they could see it. Deacon’s progress through Battle Alley Police Station was somewhat similar. The towering fury of his stride shook the floors and set the glass rattling in the windows.

  None of those with him thought it was a good idea for him to resume interviewing Michael French right now. Some had suggested as much: they were the ones now
trailing at the back of the group with glazed expressions, waiting for the other half of the sky to fall.

  Only WPC Meadows stayed with him, matching his driven stride with two of her own, ignoring his savage dismissals and repeating as calmly as she could that she had a duty to protect the suspect from abuse, although she was actually more concerned about protecting Deacon from himself.

  Afterwards, strong and sturdy men who had scuttled from Deacon’s rage like schoolgirls told one another that it was all right for Meadows, she knew Deacon wouldn’t deck her. In fact, in the heat of the moment, Meadows had no such confidence. All she knew was that, if he’d been here, Charlie Voss wouldn’t have let his chief run riot and suffer the consequences, and since he wasn’t he needed someone else to do the job for him. If she was doomed to fail, at least she’d have a black eye as evidence that she tried.

  French was back in Interview Room 1 with Superintendent Fuller. He wasn’t talking, but Fuller couldn’t let events take their course without trying to get some sense out of the man.

  There’s a formal procedure for entering an interview room while an interview is in progress. Deacon ignored it. He flung the door wide and stormed inside without a word for Fuller or the tape; and French, though this was the moment he’d been waiting for, the nexus to which all his planning had brought him, couldn’t watch him come with equanimity, making no move. He was on his feet and backed up against the far wall before the order to hold their ground got through to his limbs.

  Fuller was on his feet too, ready to intervene but hoping like hell he wouldn’t have to. One blow and Deacon’s career would be over. “Jack …”

  Like a charging buffalo, like a rising tide, Deacon was unstoppable. He may not even have heard Fuller’s warning. He crossed the room in three giant strides, and by then his powerful body was between Michael French and any help he could look to, from Superintendent Fuller or WPC Meadows or anyone else.

  By now French had his reactions under control. He didn’t care if Deacon hit him; he didn’t actually care if Deacon killed him. That look on Deacon’s face made everything he’d done worthwhile. Now he knew what pain was, what loss was. The emptiness. The crushing hopelessness. The raging futility. Now he too had suffered the crucifying helplessness of having the most important thing in his life taken away, wantonly, not for a cause but carelessly, almost by default, because it would have put someone to a bit of trouble to prevent it. Michael French believed in poetic justice. The only currency capable of paying for his agony was Deacon’s.

  “Yes?” he asked softly. “Now do you know? Do you understand now what I was talking about? Do you understand what you did?”

  Deacon’s voice was thick. His hands were fisted at his sides as if he was afraid what they might do. “I know what you did. You terrorised a woman who never did you any harm, and you left her to die in the dark because you were angry with someone else. An honourable man would have come after me.”

  French looked him up and down. Something like a smile touched his lips. “What would that have proved? That you’re big enough to knock me through doors without opening them first? Like I needed to risk my neck and liberty to establish that!

  “Superintendent, this isn’t about who’s the stronger man. It isn’t even about who’s the better man. It’s about the fact that my wife died because she came to you for help and you treated her like trash. Like nothing. As if she had no rights and no feelings. Her death was your responsibility. Her blood is on your hands.

  “And even that didn’t mean anything to you, did it? The only way you were going to know what it meant was for you to live it. To see someone you cared about hurt the way you hurt Millie. To stand by helplessly and watch someone you loved destroyed, and to know who was doing it and how it was going to end and yet be powerless to stop it. I wanted to see you walk a mile in my shoes, Superintendent Deacon. I thought it might do you good – teach you a little about people, a little about power. But even if it didn’t” – he looked away, dismissively – “I knew it would do me good.”

  Deacon might have hit him then. Fuller was a policeman too: he’d heard what Deacon had heard, and he knew what Deacon had been through, and the big man might have gambled that Fuller wouldn’t even try to move fast enough to stop him getting in one good thump. He wouldn’t ask, and Fuller wouldn’t offer, but Deacon thought there was a chance. He might have taken it, and whatever consequences arose, if he could have been sure of stopping at just one thump. He couldn’t be sure. He thought, if he hit French at all he’d go on hitting him until he was a bloody pulp on the lino.

  He sucked in a deep unsteady breath. His fists, twitching slightly, stayed at his sides. “There are two things you need to know, Mr French. One is that I am deeply sorry about what happened to your wife. I know you blame me. I hope – I believe – you’re wrong, but I know I could have done better by the pair of you. I could have made a difficult period of your lives a little easier, and I’m sorry I didn’t make the time to do so. Maybe Millie would be alive today if I had. Maybe she wouldn’t, but at least my failure wouldn’t have tormented you for the last five years. I owe you an apology.

  “And the other is: Michael French, I am arresting you for the attempted murder of Elspeth Brodie Farrell. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be taken down.”

  The silence in the room was palpable. As an understanding of what he was hearing grew in French the last vestiges of colour drained from his face and all the strength from his muscles, so that his body slumped against the wall. His chin dropped on his chest and his eyes closed. He’d known loss – God knew he’d known loss. He had not, before this, known defeat.

  Peter Fuller, on the other hand, was strung like a bow with hope stretched to breaking point. He knew what Deacon had said, could only read one meaning into it, but didn’t dare believe it until he could get it in words of one syllable. “She’s alive?”

  Deacon nodded, his head suddenly heavy. “She’s alive. They’re keeping her in hospital for a couple of days but she’ll be fine. Thanks to Daniel.”

  Now French wanted a solicitor. While they waited Superintendent Fuller took Deacon to his office, sat him down with a cup of tea in a strong mug and got the details from him.

  “Thanks to Daniel,” he agreed when the story was told, “and to you. She’s a lucky woman. She has some good friends.”

  Deacon scowled into his tea. “Her friendship with me damn near cost her her life.”

  Like a housewife in a crisis, Fuller pressed him to another biscuit. “You can’t legislate for people like French. All you can do is deal with them when you meet them. None of this was your fault. Not what happened to Mrs Farrell, and not what happened to Millie French.”

  Deacon’s heart swelled with gratitude in a most unexpected way. There was possibly no one else he would have believed. But Fuller was an experienced police officer, and wouldn’t have lied about that even to make him feel better. “Thank you.”

  Deacon finished his tea and headed for the door. With his hand on it, however, he paused and turned back. “I need to borrow some kit out of stores. I left most of mine scattered round the mill and I’m not going back hunting for it tonight.”

  “What do you need?”

  “A torch. And a nice big wrench.”

  There was something in the way he said it that piqued Superintendent Fuller’s curiosity and made one eyebrow climb. “What do you need a wrench for? At this time of night?”

  Deacon considered. “You know that motorbike that Charlie Voss fell off?”

  Fuller nodded, uncomprehending.

  Deacon smiled nastily. “I’m going to take it apart.”

  The author of over twenty acclaimed novels, Jo Bannister started her career as a journalist after leaving school at sixteen to work on a local weekly newspaper. Shortlisted for several prestigious awards, she was Editor of the County Down Spectato
r for some years before leaving to pursue her writing full-time. She lives in Northern Ireland and is currently working on her next novel. The Depths of Solitude is the fourth book in a series featuring Brodie Farrell, Daniel Hood and Jack Deacon.

  Other titles in the Brodie Farrell series:

  Echoes of Lies

  True Witness

  Reflections

  THE DEPTHS OF SOLITUDE. Copyright @ 2004 by Jo Bannister. All rights reserved. . No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  eISBN 9781466808300

  First eBook Edition : January 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bannister, Jo.

  The depths of solitude : a Brodie Farrell mystery / Jo Bannister.—1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-33712-4

  EAN 978-0312-33712-4

  1. Farrell, Brodie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private investigators—England—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6052.A497D46 2004

  823’_.914—dc22

  2004051052

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited

  First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: December 2004