The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  They drank whisky and smoked in silence. It was Tom that asked the crucial question; like the others, he knew the answer but wanted to hear it said.

  "So, what are we going to do?"

  But before Freddie could answer, a strident voice came out of the shadows at the other end of the snug.

  "Slash his fucking throat, the slit-eyed bastard," Elsie said. Once again they had forgotten that she was there.

  *

  Spiers turned the handle and gently pushed the door. The door opened slowly and the dim light of the hallway pushed the darkness back to reveal the silhouette of a man lying on top of the bed. McMahon put his finger to his lips and stepped into the room; they could hear the Jap snoring softly. He had lain on top of the covers and was still fully dressed apart from his shoes. McMahon and Spiers stepped forward until they were either side of the sleeping man. McMahon slowly extended his palm towards the Jap's face. At that moment the small man's eyes snapped open. McMahon stifled the Oriental's cries with his massive hand. Spiers threw himself onto the struggling man's torso. The smaller man's legs kicked against the mattress and he arched his back convulsively despite Spiers weight on top of him.

  "Come on, for fuck's sake!" McMahon growled at the others and broke their reverie. Tom and Albert looked at each other with wide, frightened eyes. It was real now.

  "Grab his legs, grab his fucking legs!" Freddie March snapped at them from the doorway. The two men did as they were ordered. No going back now, Tom's mind reeled, no going back now, over and over. Christ the little Jap was strong. He bucked- almost throwing Johnny Spiers clear of the bed. That was when Mick McMahon drew back his heavy, bricklayer's fist and smashed it into the foreigner's jaw. Blood trickled from the unconscious man's mouth. Al Pinchin gaped at McMahon with comical amazement.

  "Where's the tape?" Spiers panted. Tom didn't like the excited tone to Spiers' voice; more than that, he did not like the excited adrenalin that coursed through his own veins either. March stepped forward and wrapped heavy industrial tape around the tourist's mouth.

  "Don't block his nostrils," McMahon warned, "let 'im breathe through his nose." Tom felt hysterical laughter bubbling at the back of his throat. Yes, he wanted to laugh, don't want to kill him now, do we? Then came the rope. They bound the unconscious form at the ankles, knees and wrists before wrapping the remainder around his midriff, binding his arms to his body just below the elbows. Dave St. John provided the cloth sacks; he had a whole pile of them down in the cellar. Two did the job: one slipped over the inert man's head and shoulders to below his ribs, the other over his stockinged feet and pulled up as far as his upper thighs. St. John cut a third sack at the seam so they could wrap it around the remaining exposed area. McMahon and Spiers rolled the man so that Al Pinchin could fasten the sacks tightly so that they would not slip off and reveal what they carried.

  "I'll get my car," St. John told them. "Meet me at the side entrance."

  Mick McMahon and Johnny Spiers took the bulk of the man's weight, the others trying to get a handful of sack cloth to alleviate the tension. On the stairs any help was futile.

  "How could such a little bastard be so 'eavy?" Spiers strained.

  "Dead weight," Freddie assured them and, once more, Tom felt that traitorous giggle threatening to escape. St. John had parked his Rover close the door at the side exit. He opened the door for McMahon and Spiers. The trunk was already open and the engine idled.

  McMahon and Spiers dropped the dead weight into the trunk and stepped back, breathing hard. "Fuckin' smokin'," Spiers gasped and coughed explosively. St. John slammed the trunk closed and they looked at each other in the moonlight. Tom Phillips did his jacket up as far as it would go. There was a chill in the air at last. It seemed that Don Graham's injun summer was over.

  "So where do we take 'im," Al Pinchin asked in a quivering voice. Alright, but we don't do it here, St. John had told them earlier. There are enough fuckin' ghosts here without adding another.

  "Down to the river," Freddie March told them, "where else?"

  *

  To Tom's mind, the river was the setting for the two defining moments in Freddie March's life. He pictured the sepia print, impossibly old-fashioned, hanging in the foyer of Measton's most illustrious building. He saw a younger Freddie March- always Mister March back then- caught forever in the pull stroke, the oars confidently held, dipping the blades into just enough water for maximum propulsion through the floodland that had been Riverside Street; he saw the pointing, laughing guests at the upper windows of the flooded hotel- all of the men sporting large moustaches, the women dressed in a way that- although only thirty years before- now seemed ridiculously formal; he saw the ripples widening in each gyre from that frozen stroke; most of all, he saw the beaming face of young Jimmy March, the centre of attention because of his dad's wonderful idea to take a boat ride down the street- even in that dark smudge of a face the pride was plain to see.

  And now this, Tom thought as he brought up the rear of their procession through Ross's towards the river, Freddie March leading the way. To their right the railway bridge loomed, charcoal against the blue-black night sky; the smell of raw sewage was strong as they passed the processing plant.

  "By the bridge," McMahon panted. "It's deep there."

  They laid the motionless form on the river bank and spoke in hushed tones, their whispers echoing under the bridge, through the labyrinthine walkways and struts that the children called the catwalk.

  "Look," Al Pinchin said. The sacked figure was beginning to stir, slowly at first but soon the cloaked head began thrashing violently, whipping from side-to-side.

  "If we're going to do it, we do it now!" Freddie said and took something out of his pocket. He held it to the moonlight in between his old man's grizzled thumb and forefinger. Click! Six inches of blade reflected the moonlight. They listened to the muted, desperate cries of the man in the sacks. Freddie looked from one to the other and nodded. They met his gaze with the exception of Tom Phillips who spat with distaste into the wild grass.

  "As we agreed then?" Freddie March said. His voice traveled across the river like the skimmers that they had all thrown as children.

  "Aye," Pinchin replied. "As we agreed."

  McMahon nodded, Spiers said aye and Paul Hart sighed before nodding once curtly.

  "Tommy Phillips?" March asked. "As we agreed?" Tom looked down at the struggling form, writhing in the dirt like a hooked fish at the water's edge. McMahon placed his massive boot on the man's chest. Tom looked away. "Yes," he whispered, "as we agreed."

  "Right then," March said with the air of a man about to spit on his hands before doing a necessary job. He went down on one knee and, with no wavering whatever, plunged the switchblade through the sackcloth into the prone man's stomach. A high-pitched eeee! was the instant response, the figure doubled up. March pulled the knife out, wiped it on the sack cloth in disgust and held it up to be taken. The other five did not move.

  "Well," March snapped, "who's going next?"

  There was a pause before Spiers stepped forward. "Me. I'll stab the little Jap bastard."

  Spiers was more deliberately brutal in his approach. He immediately took the knife in a stabbing grip. He brought the blade down with a slam into the struggling man's chest. The man's stifled scream was louder this time and accompanied by words; it was not necessary to speak the lingo to understand that the man was begging.

  McMahon went next, followed by Paul Hart, St. John and Albert Pinchin. Pinchin hesitated before mimicking Spiers' stabbing motion. Tom stood alone away from the group. The man on the riverbank lay still. Perhaps he was already dead, Tom thought. His heart thudded in his chest. This was wrong, wrong, wrong. The whimper that came from the sack dispelled his desperate hope. He clapped his hand across his mouth and shook his head.

  "Come on, Tommy," Paul Hart said and then in almost sympathetic tone: "Put 'im out of his misery."

  Tom fell to his knees next to the Jap and reached for the blade without
looking. He felt the handle slap against his palm; it was covered with warm stickiness. He wiped his eyes with his other hand and looked at the moaning pile of cloth before him.

  "Make sure, Tommy," the old man whispered, "make sure."

  Tom Phillips reached down to what he thought was the head. He felt the outline of nose, chin and the dip towards the man's neck. The little man whimpered again. Tom thrust the blade through sack cloth and into the Jap's throat. He got to his feet and turned to vomit in the grass.

  Despite the sound of his convulsive heaving, he could he hear the little man’s death rattle.

  Then it was over. The night was still once more.

  He felt the old man's gnarled hand on his back and shook it away. He stood up, wiping his mouth and realized that he still clutched the switchblade. He threw it out and above the river until it came down with a plop and sank to the river bed to where it could remain

  always

  for all eternity as far as he was concerned.

  Spiers and McMahon gathered bricks and rocks. Tom watched them pack the sacks with the heavy objects before Freddie taped the sacks firmly to the dead figure. How very fucking organized, Tom thought and felt the tears course down his cheeks.

  “You’ve done a man’s job today, Tommy Phillips,” Freddie said.

  We're not men, we're monsters, Tom thought.

  They rolled the weighted corpse into the water and watched it sink to the depths. Their experience of the river enabled them to be sure that the currents would soon contrive to lose the body in its waters. They knew that the river had its dark places and, as they marched single-file back up the track to Cornhill Road and beyond on to the continuing roads of their lives, each man realized in his own way that those dark places were to be found within them all.

  Always had been, would be always.

  *

  Chapter Nine

  Mary's wrists were on fire and they felt slick with sweat or blood, she couldn't be sure but she continued to work at the ropes, her teeth clenched against the pain. Insane hope accompanied the terror that she had initially felt when her Zippo had gone out. How long ago had that been? Half-an-hour? An hour? In this void, time seemed irrelevant. In the silence of the bunker, Mary heard a siren rounding The Lane and then another. Later she perceived a scream in the distance.

  What the hell was going on out there?

  The rain continued to tap at the roof of her prison; the occasional droplet of water, slapped onto her crown before running icily over her exposed neck.

  Something gave. Her wrists felt less constricted; she held her left hand still while wiggling the other in a snake-like motion. Not quite enough. She gasped at the fiery agony and continued with her repetitive twisting motion, the ropes grinding against her raw flesh.

  She perceived a slit of the outside world visible in the corner of the bunker where the two sides did not quite marry; the world outside was getting lighter. Could it be that late? Could it be that she had been trapped in this hole for several hours? Was it almost morning? She shook her head in the darkness and ground the ropes together harder. She had known Teddy all of her life. She always smiled and said hello when she saw him and he grinned his idiotic grin back at her but what was this all about?

  In the darkness, she imagined the dead woman sneering at her sarcastically.

  No. There was more to this alright. The corpse on the other side of the bunker bore testimony to that. Add this latest horror to the other things that had happened in the past two days- longer, if you began when Patsy had disappeared- and the pattern was unavoidable. There was a sickness at the heart of the town, a disease that seemed to be spreading, affecting the easily corruptible, those with darkness in their hearts. But wasn't that everyone? Even the most pure of heart had darkness tainting their souls or, at least, the capacity for committing dark acts, thinking dark thoughts. She remembered a line of a poem that she had read. A teenage girl had left her schoolbag in the shop and when trying to find a contact name, number or address she had taken out the girl's dog-eared textbooks. Intrigued she had studied them to see what Measton High was offering nowadays. How it had changed since the days of torment

  Gypo! Diddy-Coy! Cor, what's that smell?

  that she had experienced there? The poetry anthology had included a poem about vultures. At face value it described the strangely unexpected loving intimacy that a mating pair of the carrion-eating scavengers would share but then it became a kind of metaphor about the nature of Man. There had been a powerful line about how even a concentration camp commandant was capable of buying sweets for his child on the way home- the smell of roasted flesh still in his nostrils and another that had stayed with her. She had written it down and memorized it. It summed up so much of what bothered her as she saw the latest atrocities spread across each morning's sick headlines. She mouthed the words in the darkness straining her wrists into a contorted twist like a woman wringing out a cloth with all her might.

  There was another source of hope, too. Martha.

  If it was as late as she thought it was, Martha would be at the shop, as always, to help her prepare for the day. In her mind's eye she saw a silent movie Martha arrive at the shop and put her hands to her face in melodramatic parody of shock when she saw the broken glass and sign of struggle. Soon they would know that she had been taken. Mad hope spurred her on to greater efforts.

  Comeoncomeoncomeon-

  In her imagination the dead woman smirked at her.

  She felt something give in the fury of her chafed wrists and- with a final snap- her hands were free. She rocked back and forward, tears of pain coursing down her face, rubbing her ravaged wrists, wincing at the tacky texture circling each wrist. God knew what damage she had done to them. She located the knot at her ankles and began tugging at it with painful fingers- comeoncomeoncomeon- until that, too, began to loosen. She pulled the loop through and was free of the ferry boy's ropes.

  She reached above her head and placed her hands, palm up, against the lid of the bunker. She tried the weight. It did not budge. He had obviously piled something heavy up there. Okay, one more test, she told herself. You can do it. She scrambled onto her knees, her head only inches form the concrete lid. She got to her feet until her back and neck rested against the slab that stood between her and freedom. She reached up and- in the manner of a weightlifter- began to use her knees to lift off the lid. She pushed with her arms. She could feel the weight shifting until she had it. The dark blue light of pre-dawn surrounded her. Inspired, she thrust up with all of her strength. She felt a shifting weight and heard the breeze blocks topple off the bunker and on to the floor. The concrete lid flipped back grated against the bunker and onto the ground where it shattered against the bricks that had already landed there. She stood, liberated, her head, neck and chest out of the bunker. She put her palms on either side of the hole to hoist her legs out the darkness and away from the corpse below. Looking down briefly, she could see the poor old lady's leg- checked slipper and all- jutting out of the darkness.

  She began to push herself out of the hole and looked into the face of Teddy the Ferry Man.

  He opened his mouth and screamed into her face with many voices.

  Mary sank back into the dark.

  *

  Part Three

  Floodlands

  Chapter Ten

  1

  "So, you feel that there is some kind of connection between these- shall we call them visions?- and what has been happening in Measton, sir? Okay. Thank you for your ideas. We'll be sure to be in touch as soon as we- er- hear anything?" Heaney snapped his notepad closed and looked up at Weaver with poorly disguised amusement dancing at the corner of his, admittedly, exhausted eyes. The man obviously didn't believe a word that he had told him.

  "So that's it then?" Weaver could not hide his disgust and irritation; he had waited for three hours to speak to this man amidst scenes of madness the likes of which he could only associate with what he imagined war torn areas to be.
The police station was overrun with people wishing to lodge missing person complaints and to give their insight into what was taking place in their home town. It had been this way for the twenty-four hours since the night of the school fire and the Rennick riot, the numerous disappearances and, almost as though Nature wanted to mirror the chaos of Man, Measton was no longer a town with a river running through but a river with a town sinking in to its swirling depths. It was necessary now to reach the north end of town from Cornhill and vice versa by boat.

  Mild irritation flickered at Heaney's mouth.

  "Sir. With everything that's going on at present, we will take your theory in to consideration."

  Weaver felt his face flush with anger. "Consideration? Believe me. I know very well what's "going on" as you put it, Sergeant. Go and read the report on the suicide of Eric Callaghan, if you still doubt my involvement. Go and read up on the fact that both of his daughters had to be sedated and their mother released early from hospital out of worry for them despite the fact that I begged her to stay where she was after what her husband did to her- read that little incident report to add some depth to your understanding perhaps-"