Purdue was not satisfied being left unsatisfied, so to speak. There had to be some explanation as to the desiccation of the bodies, aside from resorting to the absurdity of old mariners’ tales and man-witches.
“You do know that most legends and myths, no matter how far-fetched, have some sort of root based in reality,” Nina reminded Purdue. The tall billionaire was running his hands through his white hair, glaring intensely at the body on the slab, the sixth one that could deliver no better explanation than those before it. “Purdue, we don’t know what kind of substances were on that ship back then. I mean, Jesus, people used to use cocaine for toothache and had cupboards full of poisons. Who knows what they could have taken! It has been so many decades that all evidence to their fate has to have been destroyed anyway.”
“I get that, my dear Nina,” he replied, still in deep thought. “What I do not believe, as an avid follower of the scientific principle, is that these men could have been subjected to mass hysteria. I refuse to embrace any theory that a ship full of able officers and soldiers could fall victim to some…some spell!”
“Look, is there any way to prove that they could have starved to death anyway?” Sam asked, looking mostly at Harris. The man who looked like a Stormtrooper shrugged, “I doubt it. After so much time in that submarine environment, salt erosion and decomposition would probably not leave us any clues.”
“What about submitting the more substantial tissue to a more specialized lab?” Nina suggested. “I mean, the skin is like animal hide by now, but what if we search the intracranial areas for a bit more…”
“Meat?” Sam jested.
Nina winced. “Aye, kind of. Maybe we will find toxins or drugs in tissue that was not exposed to the outside elements during decay. Just be aware that I am talking through my ass right now,” she sighed. “I am just grasping at straws in a scenario where straws are pretty damn meager.”
Harris looked at his employer. “Could work, sir. Shall I tell Sharon that we are hitting overtime tonight?”
Purdue had new hope between the dedicated freelance forensic experts and Nina’s ass-talking. It was a viable hypothesis, he reckoned, and one worth pursuing, as a last resort. After this, if nothing came up, he would have no choice but to conclude the case and live with the mystery. Purdue could not help, even after all he had seen, but to rebuke lazy suppositions basted in the esoteric.
“Alright,” he smiled with a clasping of hands, “let’s do that then. How soon can we submit the samples?”
“If we work on gathering material through the night, I’d say…,” he sang as he measured out his time frame, “we can have it tested within the next two days. I will make sure the lads at the big lab at St. Petra make it priority.”
“Good man,” Purdue said affirmatively. He looked at Sam, and walked out of the room with his arm around the journalist’s shoulder. They spoke in hushed tones as they disappeared down the hallway toward the flight of stairs that led up to the main entrance hall. “Have we anything to send to Spain about the dive yet, Sam? Have you managed to compile footage from that collar mounted camera of yours?”
“Aye, I have edited a special edition for the world to see, omitting the small detail of, you know, us being there at all,” Sam replied with his trademark cocky charm.
“Good, good,” Purdue said, happy with the necessary deceit. “We don’t need our contribution to clash with the story we told the authorities.”
“We can trust Capt. Sanchez, boys,” Nina assured them. She had been trailing them since they left the lab downstairs.
“Good God, Nina! You’ll give me a heart attack,” Sam gasped. “I’m going to have to put a bell around your pretty neck. Just like a cat,”
Purdue and Nina cackled at Sam’s fragile fright reflex. “Oh,” he added quickly, “Purdue, I hope you don’t mind that I had Bruich brought over. I fear the neighbors had quite enough of playing babysitter by now.”
“No, it is fine. Where is the old devil?” Purdue asked.
“On his way, I hope,” Nina smiled.
“Aye, as we speak,” Sam affirmed. The petite historian had a soft spot for Sam’s large, lazy pet, aptly named Bruichladdich. The ginger feline had kept her company in her lonely historical house in Oban many a time before, and she missed his overweight body on her lap during cold nights.
“I must tell you, I am too hyper to sleep,” Purdue admitted, to no-one’s surprise.
“I am not,” Nina shrugged. “I am turning in, alright?”
“Shall I send Bruich up to your chambers, my lady?” Sam joked, but Purdue could see the bitterness in his dark eyes. He missed being Nina’s lover. Although it seemed like eons ago, Purdue lamented the same loss. She had become successfully untied from romantic notions about either of them. Even though it was generally accepted to be a thing of the past, Sam and Purdue were still, in essence, jostling for her affection. Even if they, themselves, had not noticed, the savage practice made civilized by camaraderie, would never cease.
“Aye, Sam, send him up to keep me warm, will you?” she teased, and without another word, she ascended the first lavish staircase to the first floor of the ancient manor. The two men looked at each other. Purdue curled his bottom lip in a devil-may-care way.
“Billiards?” he asked Sam.
“Single malt?” Sam checked. Purdue nodded, and the two men sauntered into the bar room with its profoundly high ceiling for a bit of inebriate ball and stick.
The next morning, Purdue woke up on the sofa in the grand old bar room. Through sandy, thick eyelids, he regarded the room in search of his drinking partner. In the hearth, the last embers of the fire still hissed. Upon sitting up with hefty labor, Purdue found Sam. Dark, wild tresses hid the journalist’s attractive features, but every drag of air that thundered in a snore lifted his hair like a flap from his face. Sprawled across the thick goat fur carpet, Sam lay flat on his back. To his side, one arm was outstretched, still clutching his tumbler. The other arm rested comfortably on his stomach, tucked in under the huge napping cat that settled on Sam’s gut during the night.
“Sir,” Purdue heard. Carefully, Harris peeked around the corner. “Sir?”
“Morning Harris,” Purdue smiled, trying in vain to compose himself enough to look civilized. It turned out that he was rather more exhausted than he had realized, and it took only half a bottle of whisky and three games of snooker to punch him in the head.
“Morning sir,” the thirty-something scientist replied, clearing his throat. “Just coming to say that we harvested as much tissue as we could find,” he paused uncomfortably, “which was actually not much in the end, sir.”
Purdue nodded. “I understand. I did not expect you to deliver a healthy spleen in a Ziploc bag, you know?”
Their chuckling shook Sam out of his slumber and his eyes sprung open. It was highly amusing to behold, how the hungover Sam Cleave tried to identify the object weighing him down. Pulling a hideous face in his hazy state of consciousness, he peered down at the source of the hot patch on his belly. “Bruich?” Sam asked, and a little smile crept onto his face. “Hey, lad! When did you get h—,” he started, but instantly changed expression. “Christ! My skull is broken.”
“And you are out 200 quid, old boy,” Purdue added insult to injury. He turned to Harris to resume the discussion. “So, did you find enough to analyze, though? I have to have these specimens back inside a week, you know?”
“I know, sir,” the tired Harris nodded obediently. “I will submit the samples to the lab for examination on my way home. They will call you directly when the results are ready.”
“Excellent,” Purdue replied. “Thank you so much for the extra effort, Harris. Where is Sharon?”
“She is in the kitchen with your cook, having some espresso,” Harris reported. “Shall I call her?”
“No, oh no, please, let Lance drive you back to the lab and take both of you home. You cannot drive like this. Go take some rest. I will remunerate you both for the overt
ime, of course, as soon as my assistant arrives.”
“Thank you, Mr. Purdue,” Harris said. “Good day, Mr. Cleave…and good luck!”
“Ta!” was all Sam could call out that did not assault his brain with a dull stabbing shudder when he spoke.
“Is Nina up yet?” Sam asked.
“Probably,” Purdue guessed. “It is 12:30, did you know?”
“Geez, the whole morning missing, and I can feel it,” Sam remarked, petting Bruich, who was not keen on being lifted off his master’s warm belly. He let out a loud, drawling meow to voice his discontent, but it did not serve him well to get his way. Sam carried him with when he and Purdue ventured in the same direction until they split up.
“Aren’t you getting some tea?” Purdue asked. “Nina is in the kitchen.”
“I have an unholy leak to deal with first,” Sam relayed. “Keep the pot on for me. I’ll be right there.” Bruich took off from Sam’s arms, but his tall, rugged master was too preoccupied to collect him from the floor. Besides, Sam knew that Bruich and Nina got along for one distinct reason – both were equally headstrong. He let the cat run his way and jogged for the downstairs bathroom Purdue reserved for visitors.
Behind him, he could hear Nina’s fresh tone greeting Purdue, and the forensic people leaving through the kitchen’s second door with a jovial din.
4
Padlocked Gates and Dead Roads
When Cecil Harding arrived at the gateposts of his father’s farm, his stomach churned a little. His father did not approve of his choice of vocation and he was preparing himself mentally for another verbal bout about not casting his lot with the family to continue in the livestock business – like being a veterinarian was not close enough. At just before 8pm, he pulled his rental up to where his GPS told him the farm was. Even though his father knew he would be arriving sometime between 6pm and 9pm, as discussed during their last phone call, a chain was locked around the frame.
“Typical,” he scoffed, stretching his fingers in two fans of tension on the wheel. “Jesus, I don’t believe this!” Infuriated after his long journey, he was not in the mood for any more hold-ups. He had been awake since he came by ferry over the Cook Strait, and with driving the rental from Picton on the north shore of the South Island all the way down here was five hours of hell.
Roadworks along Highway 7 had delayed him considerably, not to mention ate a lot of extra fuel. By the time he reached Ahaura, he could not stand the hunger anymore. However, upon arriving at a local bar, Cecil found that the kitchen closes at 5pm, a mere eight minutes before he arrived. Bearing onwards to hopefully make it to a hot meal at his destination, he pushed on through the meandering roads of Arnold Valley with a little less enthusiasm than before.
And now this. His cell phone delivered only a weak signal. Only the third attempt to get in touch with his father yielded a ring tone at all, but even that was left unanswered. Cecil had his father’s temper, not a man of great virtue in patience, and like his brother, he had a healthy appetite. Between his rumbling stomach and his refusal at the gates, he was stewing by 10pm, when he was still not able to gain entry to the gate of Nekenhalle Farm.
Against his better judgement, Cecil drove to the nearest gate on the small bush road, hoping that he could find out what was going on from a neighbor. It was unlike his father to have relinquished control to anyone else, but anything unforeseen could have happened while he was en route. The horizon seemed to be divided between the black tree line of the hills and the growing dark blue of the clear sky that was falling to night. Upon the road in front of him, the illumination of his car’s headlights did little to break the darkness. He could barely see more than a few meters ahead, having to go at a slow speed for the sake of wild life. The last thing he needed was to hit an animal and lose his deposit.
Dust danced in the lights, drifting eerily through the beams of his rental car. Cecil was driving in the opposite direction from where he had come, so the road was completely unfamiliar. Although he grew up on the western part of South Island, Cecil found that a lot had changed since he left to pursue his veterinary studies.
Now he was 34 years old, physically chubby, and still single. His brother was afforded pardon for the latter, for now, while he was young. But Cecil had to hear it every time he saw his family and he still had not the heart to tell them that he was gay. While he was already steaming for the inconvenience of being locked out, thinking of the inevitable conversations with his father about his future only put a worse taste in his mouth.
As he travelled along the godforsaken road, he had to really strain his eyes to find concealed entrances, often taking his eyes off the immediately road to read signs. Twice, Cecil thought he had found a neighboring farm, but realized that the signs read as distance markers and served as local demarcation beacons.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” he exclaimed aloud in the dark car. The green lights of the dashboard accentuated his deep frown as he searched the sides of the road. Listening to the radio served no point, even where there was sufficient reception. Right now, just about everything irritated him.
At once, a man appeared in his headlights, crouched over something big and white that almost stretched the width of the road. The rented Hyundai SUV Cecil drove, screamed to a halt as his feet slammed on the brakes.
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted as his heart thundered in his ears. The seatbelt cut into his chest as his neck whipped forward, clobbering the back of his skull against the headrest in recoil. “What the fuck is this?” Cecil shrieked. In his blood a mixed cocktail of rage and fright jolted him up a notch, but just as he was about to hook his fingers around the door handle, he realized that the man had disappeared. As angry as Cecil was, a rush of unknown terror seized him, and instead, he locked the doors.
In the road he could see a torn sheep, its entrails traversing the entire span of the backroad. “Fresh kill,” he murmured as he surveyed the situation. The innards of the animal were still steaming; evidence of a recent slaughter, but there was more. Behind the animal, in the shadow made my Cecil’s high beams, another sheep was lying dead and stiff.
All around the SUV the darkness closed in, and Cecil felt like a stranger in the alien landscape of his home island. A plethora of synopses from various horror films darted through his mind, unwelcome as they were at the worst times. The silence of the night terrified him most. Such absence of movement in the grasses somehow implied a lack of breath that made his lungs feel thick just considering it. It was an uncomfortable peace that he was suddenly jerked from by a loud thump against his window that made him jump.
“Oi! You!” the man from the road exclaimed angrily. “What do you know about this?”
Cecil frowned in befuddlement. “What do you mean?”
The old man, scrawny and wide-eyed, just stared at him, waiting for an answer.
“What do you mean?” Cecil repeated.
The old man shook his head under his narrow-brim leather hat. “I can’t hear a bloody word you are saying. Get out of your goddamn car, boy!”
“No fucking way!” Cecil retorted, adamant that the old man meant him harm.
“Did you do this?” the old man shouted, hammering on his doorframe with the side of his fisted hand. “Did you kill my sheep? You fucking city people. What are you? A tourist?”
“Hey, piss off, you grumpy old bastard!” Cecil growled at his window. His breath blossomed out on the glass. When it faded, he noticed the old man’s twelve gauge yawning at him. “Christ! Are you crazy?” he screeched, throwing up his hands in surrender and falling back toward the passenger seat.
“Get out!” the old man ordered.
“Why?” Cecil wailed.
“If you don’t get out, I will blow out your tires, boy!” came the answer with a series of sharp taps of iron on glass from the barrel. “You can’t go any further anyway, until my animals are out of the road.”
Cecil was not about to push his luck with the frenzied old man. “Alright, okay!”
he shouted, still holding his hands in full view when he could. The door opened and Cecil dreaded the cold air that came with its liberation, but he had to deal with this now. He did not want to die hungry.
“I did not run your animals over,” he promptly told his accuser. Pointing to his grill, “Don’t you think my car would have been full of blood and shit if I had killed your sheep?”
The tiny old man, no taller than five feet and weighing less than a wet poodle, leered at the fancy stranger through sunken eyes. For a moment he was pondering on the theory, studying the front bumper and plates with his eyes.
From where Cecil stood, the old man’s face looked like a skull. His gaunt features of deep ocular cavities and protruding cheekbones aged him considerably, but in the slight light of the beams, the shadows only emphasized how underweight he was. His neck, especially, was stringy, covered in stretched skin.
‘He looks like a living mummy,’ Cecil reckoned in thought. ‘Doubt he ever eats his own sheep.’
“I suppose you are right,” he told Cecil reluctantly, lowering his gun. “Like I don’t already have just enough livestock to make the year. My God, I am losing so much money here.”
Cecil knew he was not going to get anywhere with his father’s gate and he was not going any further up the road. He figured it best to stick with the old man for now and at least get some information; maybe even something to eat.
“I tell you what,” he offered, “I can help you ate least get them out of the road.”
The old man shrugged. “What is the use? It will just clear the road for you to leave. And I’ll never know who killed my animals. I keep them inside the fence, you know, penned up. I do my best, but I am just one man tending to all my livestock and sometimes,” he sighed, “they just wander off.”
By the old man’s pitiful tone and body language, it was hard even for Cecil not to feel sorry for him. “Listen…uh, sir…I am a veterinarian by trade. Let me help you get them off the road and then I’ll have a look for you, you know, see what killed them.”
Order of the Black Sun Box Set 7 Page 41