by Oliver Tidy
I shuffled over on my backside, pulling myself forward with my legs and feet. When my feet were over the edge he hauled me up and showed me the blade again, in case I’d forgotten what it looked like. At least six inches of clean wide steel serrated on one edge and narrowing to the kind of point that would probably pierce sheet metal without much effort. If there was one thing that scared me more than a hunting knife it was a hunting knife in the hand of someone who was threatening me with it.
He gave me a gentle shove forwards and I heard the van door slide on its runners and thump home. A dim light burned on a pole almost above us. Its watery weakness cast malevolent shadows from the outlines of the armoured vehicles and assorted hardware that decorated the area.
We were back at the museum. But not the main building. The curved half-cylindrical outline of the roof arching in the darkness and the rain above us put me in mind of an old Nissen hut I used to play table tennis in.
I felt the hand in my back again and I was propelled towards a dark opening in a wall in front of me. As we approached, a light came on inside and it spilled out across the wet concrete, guiding me on.
I stepped over the raised threshold to find myself in what looked like some kind of repair shop; somewhere exhibits were first brought to be tarted-up, brought back to something of their former glory before going on display in the yard or the main building.
There was a long workbench stretching almost the length of the wall to my right. It was littered with bits and pieces of heavy-looking green-painted metal. Near it on the floor was what I thought was part of a gun carriage. The six foot cannon was suspended above the bare concrete floor a couple of feet by an assembly of chains and pulleys. The place smelt of damp and metalwork and oil and the past.
Jo was standing looking in my direction and one of the giant’s paws fidgeted on her shoulder like a small tame mammal. She was shivering, probably with the cold and probably with some form of delayed shock. But her face remained defiant, indignant and angry.
Behind me the little wooden door slammed shut.
***
46
The driver came up behind me. ‘First things first.’ He spoke into my ear. ‘Julien is slow – he has no English by the way – but he has a good memory for the faces. He says you are the one from Dymchurch. Is that so?’
I fell back on the only line of defence my terrified reptilian brain could come up with. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you have me confused with someone else. I’ve never been to Dymchurch. I’m only interested in researching my relative’s involvement with PLUTO.’
He continued like he hadn’t heard me. The smoke from a recently-lit cigarette drifted past my face. I recognised its fragrance. ‘The hood was on you by the time we first met – I was driving the van, you see? But I do remember Dennis saying he hit you hard over the head. We can easily check that.’
I flinched for the probing of his strong fingers in my still-sore scalp. Instead, he took a step back and swung a length of metal tubing into the back of my knees, sending me to the floor and making me cry out with the pain. Then I felt his fingers pulling at my scalp and feeling out the scab.
Satisfied, he told me to get up. I wasn’t sure I would be able to. He helped me to my feet and I was unsteady on them.
Jo said nothing. It seemed that the gravity of our situation had finally dawned on her. In the fluorescent overhead lighting her skin looked drawn tight over her good bones and she was pale. Julien just watched at her shoulder. I noticed his fingers playing absently with her hair. The doll image was back.
The driver walked around to face me. ‘So. All that concerns me for the moment is how you found us. You will tell me everything. How much you suffer for that information is for you to decide.’
He sounded reasonable and calm. But I had no doubt he would inflict whatever he felt was necessary in order to get the answers he wanted.
‘I will ask you one time without violence: how did you discover us?’
He had come to stand between Jo and me. He looked between us, deciding something. Then he reached under his jacket and slowly withdrew his hunting knife. It glinted and twinkled. It was clear he looked after it, felt something for it even. He looked at me and then turned to Jo. He placed the point of the knife up her left nostril, leaving little to the imagination about what he intended next. I’d seen Chinatown – Jack’s nose casually and horribly opened up by a similar sadist. But that was acting. This was real.
‘All right. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. You don’t have to hurt her.’ The words spluttered out of me like an open tap that’d just had the water supply turned back on.
He lowered the knife and looked at me without compassion. ‘Do not seek to fuck with me. You have been warned.’
Of course, he could have simply stuck the blade back up her nose and I’d have told him anything he wanted to know to save her disfigurement. But he was cleverer than that. And he looked pleased with what occurred to him. He also looked like he was enjoying himself and that gave me good cause to fear him.
‘I will tell you what we will do and you should both listen to me very carefully if you do not wish to become better acquainted with my steel. And please, for your sakes, try to understand I do not make idle threats. Julien will take your friend and see she is comfortable and unable to overhear us. You and I will have a little talk. When you have answered my questions, I will then ask the same of your friend.’ He was looking between us, making sure we were both paying attention, understanding him. ‘If your answers agree I promise you no unnecessary suffering. If your answers are not in accordance, or you fail to convince me of your reasons for being here, I assure you both the consequences will be most unpleasant. I won’t pretend I prefer the easy way. Life can get a little dull around here.’
He barked something in French to the giant albino and the big man lifted Jo off her feet and carried her effortlessly, like a window-dresser’s manikin, to the far end of the hut and through a door crudely cut into a makeshift partition. I had to watch her go and the terror in her eyes stayed with me long after her physical presence had faded.
He pulled up a battered bare wooden chair and a bar stool, the foam padding of which spewed out of the side of the seat. He indicated I should take the chair and he positioned the bar stool in front of me, giving him a lofty advantage in the psychological stakes. I was glad of the opportunity to sit. My legs where he had struck me were throbbing with the pain and I could feel the bruises blossoming. I was also utterly terrified. I believed I had glimpsed something unfathomably evil in the look he had given me just before Jo was removed. And I had no doubts regarding any of the threats he had made so far. He tapped the flat of his hunting knife on his knee and as I watched it bounce he began with the easy stuff.
‘What is your name?’
‘David Booker.’
‘What was your relationship to the bookshop people?’
‘Nephew.’
He smiled thinly at my abandoning of my façade and my total compliance.
‘You did not live with them?’
‘No. I live abroad. I came back to help them with an order of books.’
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘It’s the truth.’
‘And your great misfortune. Quite a coincidence, you turning up that particular night, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I can’t help that. Did you kill them?’
He was going to kill me. He knew it and I knew it. Perhaps that inclined him to provide me with some answers, a sort of last request – the executioner’s code.
He let a deep sigh escape him. ‘No. I did not. It was that idiot Flashman. If I had known what a liability he would prove to be I would never have considered working with him. He has spoilt everything.
‘He heard your old people on the gravel the other side of the concrete barrier and thought that they were spying on us. He was high as usual and as usual it affected his judgement. The drugs could make him
exceptionally paranoid.
‘He couldn’t just tell them to go away. No, he had to vault the fence to confront them. I believe there was some personal history between your relatives and Dennis, something that had been festering for a good while. There seemed more to his actions than was necessary. The fool landed on top of the woman, if you can believe it.’ The callous bastard actually chuckled at the memory. ‘I think she suffered a heart attack. Certainly it would have been frightening for her.
‘Your uncle started shouting, making a fuss. He attacked Dennis and Dennis knocked him down. It was all rather quick and unpleasant and certainly made things difficult. Snoopers will always come to such ends, eventually. Your relatives must shoulder some responsibility for their fates.’
Despite my probable best interests, my anger boiled over at him. ‘They were old people. They were good people. She wasn’t dead. He didn’t kill her. She died of drowning. Was it necessary to attach her frail old body to the railings of the sewer outfall? Was it necessary to keep my uncle bound and gagged in that fucking container for days? You tortured him. Why? Why was that necessary? What kind of monster are you?’
He remained outwardly calm. He shrugged. ‘She seemed dead to us. And your uncle was making such a noise. It is regrettable but it was done. There was no undoing it. Try to detach yourself emotionally from events and think about it objectively. Put yourself in our position. Dennis believed, we believed, he had killed the old woman. He had then assaulted the man. What would the police have made of that with their personal history and when they understood Dennis was under the influence of drugs? We had a choice to make and we chose to... well, that’s what we chose to do. We had a lot of time and borrowed money invested in our project. We could not risk police involvement and prosecution and the loss of all that. We needed Dennis free, not in prison. Is that really so hard for you to understand?’
‘Yes. It is. If it was an accident, why not deal with it like men?’
He didn’t like that but I was past caring.
‘I have just told you, to have let your uncle go would have brought trouble, which none of us could afford. You have seen Julien. He would not respond well to your police and I think your police would not respond well to Julien. While I understand your feelings they do not move me and they change nothing. With the old woman found dead in suspicious circumstances in the sea it would be confusing for the police if your uncle were unavailable to help them with their enquiries. It was a simple way out for us.’
‘Are you listening to yourself? Are you hearing what you’re saying? We are talking about human life, suffering and murder.’
He sounded a little tired of having to explain himself, like a teacher at the end of a long day with a particularly obtuse student. ‘No, Mr Booker. You are talking about those things. I’m talking about keeping out of trouble. Please, let’s move on. I am principally interested to know how you came to find out about PLUTO and its significance. What has led you to my door? What can lead others here? You will tell me now.’
I strongly sensed something of the emotional detachment of the sociopath about the man. That and cold sadistic tendencies. He seemed completely incapable of remorse for what he had been party to.
He allowed the blade to catch the dull, yellow light and reflect it into my eyes, for what it was worth.
‘Will you let her go?’
He feigned sadness. ‘After what I’ve just told you, what do you think?’
‘I think you won’t.’
He nodded, like that teacher whose student finally got it. ‘Of course, that is the correct answer.’ He spread his hands. ‘How could I? But I can promise you one thing – neither of you has to suffer. It can be quick and painless. But that depends on you. Now, I ask you for the last time: tell me about PLUTO.’
To delay, to obstruct, to play dumb would undoubtedly have just brought me extreme unpleasantness and the coward in me didn’t want it and didn’t see it as worth it.
The longer it went on the deeper it sank in that I was really going to die that night and I could not think of a single thing I could do to save my miserable skin. I could not have bought him; I could not have used reason to persuade him; I could not have pleaded successfully with him. All I could hope to do was to spare myself some of that extreme unpleasantness his blade was suggesting with every little twitch of his hand and pray to a God I didn’t believe in that someone would show up to save us.
‘Either my aunt or my uncle had recorded times and dates in a diary and written the word PLUTO underneath. The times were in the middle of the night. Clearly, something in what they witnessed roused their suspicions. I don’t know where they got the word from.’
He gave it a moment’s thought, like we were chatting out a solution to a little common puzzle. ‘It is possible they overheard it if they had been spying on us. Go on.’
‘I used their computer to look for a plumber. When I typed in the letters ‘plu’ a website suggestion came up. It was highlighted indicating that someone had already been looking at it on that computer. I clicked on it and for something to do I followed the trail to Dungeness. I saw the van parked outside the pumping station. I just put two and two together. When it was clear the place had been abandoned I thought I might try looking in France for some answers.’
With a wry smile at my logic, he gave me to understand he accepted this. ‘Who else knows?’ This was his sixty-four-thousand-dollar question and it showed on his face.
‘No one else knows. We were keeping it to ourselves until we had some evidence to back up the theory. What are you intending to use the pipeline for?’
‘Nothing now. We had to let our mechanical engineer go, as no doubt you are aware.’ I glimpsed his irritation at the way things had turned out.
‘Are you going to tell me what my relatives died for? Don’t you think you at least owe me an explanation?’
‘I owe you nothing.’ He was finished with me. He made to stand and then changed his mind, frowned at me and settled himself once more on the stool. He pointed the tip of his blade at me. ‘What do you think it was all about?’
I was eager to prolong my time with him and thereby my life. Every minute I could manufacture was a minute in which something could happen to extricate us from the madness. I sensed he saw an opportunity in this too; an opportunity to sound out an interested party regarding the way things had turned out. He could learn something to his advantage through my suspicions, perhaps. Something that might help him.
‘Drugs. There’s nothing else worth the financial and human cost.’
After a moment’s silent staring, he burst out laughing. Proper mirth. An uncontrolled reaction to something quite hilarious.
‘Drugs?’ He collapsed into his hysterics again. I had to wait and watch until he got himself under control. ‘How very funny. How very unoriginal. For someone who has worked out enough to get you here, I must say I’m a little disappointed. But then maybe it is more luck than judgement that has got you to the position you are in. Bad luck.’ He allowed himself a little extra laugh at his wit.
‘It’s not drugs?’ My confusion must have been writ large with every line and muscle in my face.
‘No, Mr Booker. It is not drugs.’
‘What then?’
He exuded the confidence of a man who knew there was no rush; he had all the time in the world to do what he was going to do to us. Maybe he just liked the sound of his own voice, or maybe he was just enjoying his position of dominance and superiority over me and wished to prolong it. Maybe he was just enjoying chatting in English. Whatever his reasons, I sensed he was going to indulge me with an explanation.
‘Where are we, Mr Booker?’
It was going to be like that – a game. Play along and live a little longer in the hope of someone showing up to save my skin, or tell him to go to hell and die quicker.
‘We’re in a workshop.’
‘Good. And where is the workshop?’
‘In a museum in France.’
‘Very good. A museum in France commemorating what?’
‘A museum commemorating the Second World War.’
‘Excellent. Now, what is there in Dungeness that has taken our interest?’
An idea was breaking out of its shell and I didn’t like how it looked. ‘A pump.’
‘Wrong.’ He looked disappointed. ‘For someone with a fertile imagination you are not thinking about the bigger picture. History, Mr Booker. Real, authentic, preserved history. A wonder of human thinking, invention, resourcefulness and achievement. Something that helped create the world we live in. It’s also an opportunity. PLUTO has been all but forgotten by an era that should be more grateful. We are going to bring it back to life. Or we were. We were going to recreate the brilliance and simplicity of the scheme.’
And I realised why he had taken the time and trouble to relate his plans to me. It was part of his sick idea of humour. He found it funny to see my reaction to the harmless backdrop behind the deaths of my aunt and uncle and ultimately Jo and me.
He was smiling at me and I felt freshly wretched and sick.
‘A museum piece? A tourist attraction? Three people are dead for a bit of forgotten history?’
He bristled at that. ‘So far, yes. By the morning there will be five. So what? Five people. Do you know how many people died in the Second World War, Mr Booker? Millions.’
Now he had confirmed it I was freshly incredulous. I stared at him, temporarily incapable of expressing my disbelief. ‘You’re mad. You’re fucking mad.’
Instead of taking offence he just looked suddenly bored. He looked like he’d heard enough.
‘So why all the secrecy? Why the night-time comings and goings in the yard?’
‘Julien is one of those albinos for whom daylight is a particular unpleasantness. It gives him the most terrible migraines. He also does not respond well to the attentions that his colouring and size inevitably bring. We have had... problems in the past. We didn’t want problems in the UK. He is essentially a creature of the night and weak artificial light. That’s all.’