Blind Needle (34 page)

‘They can't – can't have seen …' Gasping for breath, Diane Locke ran out of words with the sentence unfinished. Her eyes, luminous with fear, stared out at me from the deep shadow of the hood. She hadn't truly believed, until tonight, how casually and dispassionately violence can be inflicted upon others; that to those of a certain mentality it is nothing more nor less than a natural form of self-expression.

Something clicked in my head when I saw the look in her eyes. A memory swam up to the surface of Diane Locke in the cold bare back bedroom, my hands around her throat. Had I killed her then, as the voice insisted, half-convinced me, I had killed Susan? Obviously not. She was here, palpably alive and scared stiff. If Diane Locke was alive, maybe Susan was alive too. Maybe.

‘They must have found her by now,' Diane Locke said, picking up the thread of my unspoken thought. ‘You didn't hurt the woman, did you? I can't believe you did. The only thing they want from you is that damn tape. Forget all the rest.'

This was a feeble attempt at reason and logic, trying to impose sensible middle-class order on the world's crazy chaos. A few soothing words in the right quarter, a polite explanation here and there, and you could avert World War III.

‘Why didn't you give it back to them when they asked for it? What the hell does it matter? You hid it away in the house somewhere, didn't you? Can't you remember where?'

Was she really so naïve as to believe that if I handed over the tape, everything would be forgiven and forgotten?

‘Here.' I fumbled in my pocket for the folded torn-out page and my fingers touched something smooth and round. I gave her the paper.
‘In the bookcase in the front room. I don't really care what you do with it.'

I put my hand in my pocket and the smooth hard shape was still there. I took it out and held it up in the brilliant light so that we could both see, Diane Locke and me, that it was still loaded with its pretty rose-coloured cocktail.

She gave a thin smile. ‘Dr Morduch would be proud of you.'

I flung the syringe away with all the strength I had left.

From above our heads came a clanking and grinding, followed by the rattle of chain links taking up slack. The iron bucket shuddered, groaned, and a shock-wave ran down the sides and into our spines as the bucket was sucked free and began to move, swaying ponderously like a giant cradle. The rattling increased in tempo, and we felt ourselves lifted up, higher and yet higher, towards the harbour mouth. It struck me that Benson was economical with his ideas: he had got rid of the toxic sludge by dumping it, so why not dispose of one more tiresome problem in the same way? And who could say he was wrong? Out there was a liquid sea of mud, deep as the harbour bottom. Dropped from this height we would plunge into its depths and find ourselves (as in a dreamscape of exquisite horror) swimming in slow-motion through icy black treacle.

I didn't honestly know, couldn't decide, whether this was to be feared or welcomed. Blackness everywhere, total as blindness, followed by a slow, lingering subsiding as the senses dulled, and finally death. It might even be peaceful. I knew someone who had died like that, and she had died peacefully – so I believed, hoped and prayed. Above our heads the chain clanked and rattled, tautening as it tilted the iron bucket; Diane Locke grabbed for me and hung on as we slithered down the sides to the open mouth.

The fall seemed to take forever. I had oceans of never-ending time in which to see the harbour and its fleet of wrecks, the encircling arms of Victorian stone jetties, and the smooth inky surface of the vast dark pool which sucked in the blaze of floodlights and swallowed it without
a single reflecting gleam. Each detail was sharp and exact, down to the knot of figures beneath one of the gantries on the harbour wall, clustered next to the signboard which said: ‘Site Acquired for Benson Developments (Holdings) Plc' – everything laid out as clear as day under the curtain of light.

But – where was Diane Locke? I couldn't even see her. She had slipped from my grasp and disappeared, as if she had ceased to exist, or had never existed and I had invented her.

The fall lasted a lifetime and was over in seconds. The daylight brightness was extinguished and the world turned into blackest night. I had anticipated the blackness and the cold, had prepared myself, but not the intense pressure, which wrapped itself around me in a tight clammy compress, squeezing my head in a freezing vice and crushing my chest with a weight like lead. My eardrums felt as if they were about to implode.

Worst of all, my body didn't rise, as it would have done in a watery medium, it stayed motionless, held in viscous suspension. I realised with dread that I might swim with all my strength, and yet be swimming deeper towards the bottom instead of up to the surface, and never realise my mistake. I just had to hope and pray that blind instinct would guide me upwards. There was a burning sensation in my lungs, my chest heaved, and it took all the willpower I had left to resist opening my mouth and gulping in great draughts of cold liquid mud as if it was fresh air.

I struck out – upwards, sideways or downwards I didn't know – with the last few shreds of strength I possessed, the oxygen in my lungs nearly exhausted, clawing towards what I thought was the light.

I was wrong. But it wasn't the mud, it wasn't the light, it was the darkness that deceived me. I had been clawing towards the light, and when no light appeared I continued to thrash about, even when my hands encountered no resistance, not realising that in order to conceal his murderous act under the cloak of darkness, Benson had turned off the lights. Through the drumbeat of blood pounding in my ears I could hear hushed, angry voices, arguing over the exact spot where the bodies had disappeared under the featureless black crust between the stone jetties. When I cleared my eyes I saw the beams of flashlights raking the harbour mouth.

More than anything I wanted to rest and ease the burning pain in
my lungs, but I had to keep moving to stop myself sinking. In an awkward half-swimming, half-crawling fashion I dragged myself towards the harbour wall, and reaching out I recoiled with disgust as my groping hand touched human flesh. It had the consistency of cold, stiff putty. The body lay on its side, one arm carelessly flung out, its face half-submerged, the nostrils clogged. It could only be Diane Locke. I was convinced it must be her until I realised by its rigidity that rigor mortis had set in, which meant that it had been there for twelve hours at least. The corpse was Trafford's. It was a grisly coincidence and the kind of ironic twist he would have appreciated, that Trafford, who had first shown me the body in the mud, should have ended up the same way, as if he had foreseen the predestined manner of his own death.

The harbour wall was close enough for me to hear them talking, even to discern the nervous tremor in Benson's voice as he directed the beams of flashlights. Possibly he would be happy if the black basin of mud lay undisturbed and unbroken, happier still if he could spy a body, and he got his wish. Somebody called out as the beams skimmed the surface, and they converged in a glowing cone of light on the half-submerged body resting on its side, an arm flung stiffly out in a gesture of appeal.

‘That's him,' I heard Wayne say, with gloating satisfaction. ‘That bastard won't bother you no more. He's a stiff ‘un.'

‘What if he – doesn't sink?' asked Benson agitatedly, almost pitifully.

It was the woman who answered, still doing his thinking for him. ‘So what?' she said calmly. ‘There's another load due at seven this morning, and that's as good a place as any to dump it.'

I held on with frozen fingers to a corroding iron ring, listening to the scuffle of footsteps on stone as they departed. The beams of the flashlights swung away and the harbour with its derelict fleet of mud-bound hulks was returned to the night. I waited until all was silent, my head aching from the cold, needles of ice piercing the soft tissue of my brain, and tried to haul myself up. I hadn't the strength. I tried again and my dead fingers slipped from the iron ring. How many more corpses would the mud finally conceal, along with mine and Trafford's? At least one, unless Diane Locke had the strength and the will to live, and the amazing good luck to survive. I lay on my back and drifted a little way with my eyes open until at last I went under.

Graham Locke came into the kitchen and dropped the mid-week edition of the
Cumbrian Courier
on the table. At the top a small heading, ‘EC Decision “Any Day Now” predicts Councillor,' preceded the main headline: ‘MARINA GETS GREEN LIGHT.' There was a photograph showing spidery gantry towers against a skyline, with the caption ‘Before', and an artist's impression of the finished marina – ‘After'.

‘That's the last time I do Edinburgh,' Graham Locke said, putting the kettle on the gas-flame and reaching for the tea caddy. ‘I stayed with Michael, which saved on hotel bills, but I'm still out of pocket, what with petrol and meals.'

‘Why, didn't you sell much?'

‘About two hundred quids' worth,' he said gloomily. ‘Which works out at less than seventy clear profit for three days' work.'

He craned his head round to read the title of the book next to his daughter's coffee cup.
‘Flight to Arras
. Is that one of ours?'

‘It was on the shelf in the living-room.'

‘Don't think I've read it. Any good?'

‘I haven't started it yet,' Diane Locke said, finishing her coffee and getting up from the table.

Her father poured hot water into the teapot, scratching the back of his head at the same time, making tufts of white hair stand awry. He glanced towards the kitchen window, boarded up with plywood. ‘Must get that fixed today, and put a new catch on,' he said, nodding sternly as if to remind himself. He brought the teapot to the table. ‘Though what they expected to find is beyond me. Nothing's safe nowadays, is it? Lucky you were here at the time.'

‘Yes, I suppose it was. Very lucky.'

‘Driving into Granthelme, are you?'

‘To the post office,' she said, picking up the book and the tiny cassette tape. ‘Anything to post?'

‘No thanks. I'll see you at lunch?'

‘Yes. I shan't be more than an hour.'

Diane Locke went through into the hallway and came back a minute later wearing a long tweed double-breasted coat, arranging a pale blue chiffon scarf at her throat. She smiled and said, ‘Right. See you later then.'

‘Did you find that address?' he asked her.

‘Yes, it was in the phone book, as you said. Potter J. W. Those are the right initials, aren't they?'

Her father nodded. ‘Councillor James Walter Potter. I've sold him one or two books on industrial archaeology. Cantankerous old cove.'

Diane Locke kissed her father and ruffled his hair, and went out into the crisp bright day, which seemed to promise the first touch of spring. She got into the car and drove off down the muddy lane.