Afterlight (16 page)

Jenny found her own shoulders shaking. ‘God, too much detail!’ she snorted. ‘Were you always this candid with your customers?’

‘That’s
why
they came to my salon, girl - for a little dirty talk an’ a cup of tea.’

Jenny shared some of that infectious smile again. A raucous giggle with Martha every now and then was just about as good as any medicine Dr Gupta could hand out. She wondered whether she’d have gone mad years ago on these rigs if it weren’t for Martha.

‘Honestly, girl, if you’re not going to wiggle for him,’ Martha added, ‘then I gonna be the first one in the queue!’

Their shared mischievous witch’s cackle was brought up short by the sound of feet clanking up the steps towards Jenny’s cabin. Jenny looked at Martha’s face in the mirror.

It was Rebecca who stuck her head in. She looked pale.

‘It’s Hannah.’

 

 

 

J
enny felt her insides turn instantly to stone. ‘What’s happened?’

Rebecca’s mouth hung open, panting for a few seconds, gathering breath to speak, but also the words she should use. ‘She’s missing, Jenny. She’s missing. She never turned up for the start of Leona’s class.’

Jenny looked at the watch on her wrist; a clunky man’s watch with a winder and no need for batteries. It was 10.37 a.m.; classes began at ten.

‘Leona waited a while,’ Rebecca continued, ‘said Hannah woke up cranky this morning and was moaning about going to school today.’

Jenny nodded. She most definitely had awoken in a funny mood. Very quiet and sulky.

‘Where is Leona?’

‘I don’t know. She’s out looking for her. I don’t know where exactly.’

Missing. The word had a deadlier meaning out here on the rigs. ‘Get everyone looking,’ she said, getting up and pushing past Rebecca into the hallway, ‘everyone!’

Outside, on the top deck of the accommodation platform, she could already see the flitter of anxious movement, people leaning over rails and scanning the sea below.

Word was already spreading. She could hear distant voices calling her granddaughter’s name over and over. Martha, standing beside her, instinctively followed suit calling out for her.

Below, spreading out amongst the winding pipes, scaffolding and a mess of stacked Portakabins on the compression platform, she could see the children of both Leona’s and Rebecca’s classes crouching, ducking, calling, stretching, looking into every awkward recess for their missing classmate.

‘She knows to be sensible,’ whispered Jenny. ‘She
knows
not to play near the edges.’

‘Didn’t Lee say she could play on the tomato deck?’

Jenny turned round to look up at the overhanging helipad. She could see movement up there. Could hear someone calling Hannah’s name.

‘Oh, God, Martha,’ she whimpered, ‘what if she’s—’

Martha put an arm around her. ‘She’ll turn up, love. She just playin’ silly buggers.’

Jenny heard the bang of a doorway below and then Walter emerged from the canteen onto the gantry beneath them. He turned round to look up at her.

‘There you are! Someone said Hannah’s gone missing!’ he called out.

Jenny nodded, unable to speak for the moment.

‘I saw her earlier,’ he said quickly. ‘Not long after breakfast.’

‘Where?’

‘I saw her with Latoc.’

Their eyes met and wordlessly exchanged between them was every conversation ever had over a kitchen table on the subject of a missing child, taken . . . the type of monsters that prey on children and the punishment
creatures
like that deserved.

She felt her blood flush cold, her scalp prickle at the thought that she might have stupidly allowed a monster in amongst them; that Hannah . . . ?

‘No,’ she uttered. Her freshly cut hair suddenly felt like a badge of betrayal, a dunce-cap of stupidity. If she believed in such things, why not a punishment from God for allowing herself a foolish moment of vanity? Whilst she’d been preening, outside, somewhere, the man whose eye she’d been hoping to catch had been busy doing God-knows-what with her granddaughter.

‘Where is Latoc?’ she barked.

Walter shook his head. ‘I’ve not seen him since.’

Then she saw it, half a mile away, the white blob of a sail. She leaned forward over the rail and looked down at the davit winches on the neighbouring compression platform. The chains dangled and clinked idly against the spider deck: one of their two boats was gone.

She sheltered her eyes from the glare of sunlight and the glints on the sea, beautifully blue this morning and reflecting the azure sky. The boat was turning lazily, only the mainsail up, no jib. It seemed in no particular hurry to put distance between itself and the rigs.

A spark of hope ignited inside her. Perhaps Latoc had taken Hannah for a go on the boat? An innocent, but ill-judged kindness. That being the case, she decided she’d give him a very public bollocking for lowering the boat into the water without getting permission first. It wasn’t there for joyrides.

They watched in silence for a few moments as the vessel slowly came about, the boom gently swinging across. Jenny squinted, trying to make sense of the distant flicker of movement in the cockpit.

‘I think the boat’s comin’ back now,’ said Martha.

 

They were waiting down on the spider deck, perhaps a hundred of them, assembled like a lynch mob, many more lining the railing above, watching the boat peacefully carve a return passage across the docile tide, the mast tilted, the mainsail full.

Leona was shaking with rage beside Jenny. Rage, and anxiety.

‘Come on . . . come on,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘Hurry the fuck up.’

Jenny rested a hand on her arm. ‘I’ll deal with him, Leona. I won’t let this happen again.’

Her daughter stared at her silently. Jenny wondered if some of that anger was directed her way. ‘If he’s touched a hair on her—’

Jenny squeezed her arm. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she smiled. ‘I’ll let you deal with Hannah, though.’

The boat’s return was painfully slow. Although Jenny didn’t say anything, she was nervously wondering if the boat might suddenly swing about and head away as soon as Latoc spotted the reception awaiting him. But it didn’t.

As it entered the loom of shadow cast by the rigs, the mainsail dropped to the foredeck and the yacht slid slowly forward under its own momentum. William Laithwaite’s narrow frame stepped up from the cabin and into view. Eyebrows arched in surprise from behind his glasses as he finally noticed the sea of faces lining the safety railings.

‘What . . . uh . . . what’s the matter?’ he called out.

‘Hannah’s gone missing,’ shouted Jenny. ‘Is she with you?’

William shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Oh, God . . . Mum,’ whispered Leona beside her.

‘Why’d you take the boat out, Bill?’ asked Walter.

The boat softly nudged against one of the support-legs and Kevin emerged from the foredeck hatch, grabbing at the collapsed mainsail and pulling it down through the hatch to store it in the fore cabin.

‘I was changing over the sails, thought, uh . . . thought it would be a good opportunity to give young Kevin some practice. Also, Mr Latoc fancied a ride with—’

‘He’s on there with you?’

‘Yes! I am here!’ Valérie stood up awkwardly in the cockpit, leaning around the boom and the fluttering folds of sail.

‘What the fuck are you doing on there?’ snapped Walter.

Valérie recoiled guiltily. ‘I am sorry . . . I . . . thought it would be—’

Jenny waved impatiently for him to stop. ‘Mr Latoc, you spoke to Hannah last. You were seen—’

‘What has happened to the girl?’

‘She’s gone missing. Hannah’s gone missing,’ she replied. Next to her, she heard Leona’s breath hitch, followed by a quiet keening whimper.

‘You were seen talking with her last, Mr Latoc.’

‘What have you done with her?’ Leona suddenly screamed. ‘You fucking bastard . . . what’ve you—!’

Martha reached for Leona, and held her tightly as her cries diminished to a whimpering.

He shook his head. ‘Nothing. I spoke with her after breakfast, yes.’

‘We can’t find her anywhere,’ said Jenny, struggling to keep her own voice even. ‘She knows to be careful near the edges. There’s no sign of her on any of the—’

‘Did you try your generator room?’

Jenny looked around to her left and right. Heads were shaking. She certainly had not thought to look down there.

‘The generator room,’ continued Valérie, ‘your children showed me this the other day. They are very proud of it.’ He shrugged. ‘That is all I can suggest.’

‘She knows not to play down there on her own,’ Walter said defensively. ‘None of the little ones are allowed in there without me or Jenny with them.’

Leona shot an accusing glance at Walter then Jenny before hurriedly turning and pushing her way through the gathered crowd and up the steps. Jenny followed in her wake, wondering what accusation was wrapped up in that look.

 

‘Stay back!’ said Walter to the others outside the generator room. ‘Hannah!’ Walter called as he pushed the door wider and stepped in. His voice bounced back at him off the hard metal walls. The room’s pitch-black darkness was pierced by the fading beam from his hand-trigger flashlight. He pumped the trigger several times, setting the dynamo whirring, the beam brightening once more.

Behind him footsteps echoed noisily along the passageway outside and up the stairs at the end; a procession of the concerned.

Walter turned round and raised a hand. ‘Stop! I don’t want everyone stomping around in here,’ he said. ‘There’re cables, pipes, and all sorts. Not to mention a couple of gas tanks full of highly flammable methane!’

Jenny and the rest of the search party halted in the doorway.

Walter panned his torch around again. ‘Hannah! Hannah, love . . . are you hiding in here?’

It was completely silent.

‘I really don’t think she’s here,’ he said. ‘I’ll just take a quick look in the fermenting room. You lot stay there, please.’

He stepped across to the doorway leading to the next room. Jenny could hear Leona’s trembling breath. Knowing what she was thinking; they were wasting precious time down here, she could be anywhere on the rigs, perhaps having tripped over the lip of a bulkhead, or fallen off the edge of a Portakabin and broken a bone on the deck below. A myriad of unforgiving hard and rusty metal edges for a child to come to grief on.

Jenny didn’t want to even consider the most horrifying possibility; that she’d simply slipped over the side, despite the many railings and catch-nets and grids they’d built over the years for the benefit of the young ones; there were still gaps to be found.

Slipped over the side and gone for ever.
Jenny shuddered and could only hope her daughter was not entertaining the same possibility just yet.

Walter emerged from the fermenting room; a quick shake of his jowly face told Jenny there was no sign of her. Then he stopped in his tracks. He aimed the torch beam at the generator.

Jenny took an involuntary step forward into the room and out of the passageway. ‘What? Walter?’

He looked up at her, his face frozen.

‘Walter?’

‘Not another bloody step!’ he hissed.

Behind her Jenny heard Leona cry. ‘What is it?! Is she there? Hannah!’

Jenny ignored him and pushed forward through the doorway and into the generator room.

‘No!!’ Walter barked. ‘Out!! Everyone stay the fuck out!!’

‘Walter, is she there?’

‘Get out!! Get out!!’ he bellowed, stepping cautiously towards the doorway, plugged with Jenny’s form, Leona trying to push her way in behind, the others craning their necks in the passageway.

‘The feed pipe’s been detached! It’s on the floor!!’ He reached Jenny and pushed her roughly back. ‘Out, everyone out! No one goes in. I need to ventilate the room right now. There’s gas everywhere!’

‘But is she there?’ asked Jenny.

He looked at her quickly and nodded.

Leona spotted the subtle gesture, intended only for Jenny. She suddenly screamed and pushed her mother out of the way to get through the narrow door and into the room.

‘NO!’ Walter grabbed her arm and wrestled her back out through the door into the passage. ‘Somebody help me!’

Several pairs of hands restrained her as she struggled and screamed and kicked. ‘No!! Let me SEE HER!!’

‘Everyone get out! GET OUT!’ yelled Walter. ‘A spark could set the lot off!’ He flapped his hands furiously at them, ushering them back down the passage. He expected Jenny to fall in beside him and assist in urging them towards the stairs at the end. Instead she slipped past him, wrenched the flashlight out of his hand and stepped into the room.

‘Jenny! NO!’ he barked. ‘Get out!!’

She swung the light towards the generator and immediately spotted one of Hannah’s bare feet protruding from behind the metal casing; a single sandal on the floor a few inches away.

Instinct overcame her and she rushed forward into the darkness to retrieve her granddaughter, not for one moment considering the risk of a spark of static, or the potential sudden disaster of anything metal hitting or scraping anything else metal; nor for one moment considering the foolishness of pumping the trigger on her wind-up torch to see her way inside as the bulb finally began to fade.

A tiny glimmer from the hand-held dynamo; a glow of light from the bulb, just enough for her to see the glassy-eyed face of her granddaughter lying amidst the cables and pipes of the generator. And just enough time for Jenny to scream as she scooped up Hannah’s lifeless body, once more triggering the dynamo in her torch to look into the pale face for any possible sign of life.