The Raw Shark Texts (32 page)

The picture had changed.

Instead of the rocky, tan and olive island I remembered, the postcard now had a black and white picture of a small terraced house. The First Eric Sanderson’s house. My house, the place where I’d woken up on the bedroom floor and called Dr Randle and watched snooker and made the celebrity chef meals. The place I’d left behind to set out on this whole journey now printed here on this little square of card. I looked from the picture in my hand to the
island on the horizon.
The view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view.

I turned around to see Fidorous standing behind me. I held up the postcard for him to see. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, Eric.” The doctor said quietly. He had the dust jacket with the secret note I’d found in the First Eric Sanderson’s room in his hand. “I’m afraid, I really don’t know.”

“Guys,” Scout’s voice from inside the cabin. “You might want to come and look at this.” I tucked the postcard into my back pocket.

Back inside the cabin, Scout had managed to get the hatch open and was sitting on the edge, legs dangling down the hole

“How’s it looking?” I said.

Scout looked up. “Not too good.”

“Not too good as in–?”

“As in full of water.”

Fidorous kneeled down next to her, staring down. “The engine’s gone and the boat’s filling up faster than we can pump it out.” He stared up at us. “But this isn’t possible. It can’t happen.”

“What were you saying about the delicate nature of truth?” I said.

“Yes,” Fidorous flung his arm out at the hole. “But it shouldn’t–it
can’t
cause this.”

Scout’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully at me before turning back to the doctor. “So, what are you telling us? We’re sinking?”

He nodded, once. “Yes. We’re sinking. I just don’t–”

Scout stayed in professional mode. “How long do we have?”

“Maybe an hour.”

She nodded. “And then we’re in the water.”

“The Ludovician,” I said. “That’s why it led us out to sea and attacked the boat: to put us in the water.”

It looked as if Fidorous was about to give us his
stupid eating machine
speech again, but he didn’t. “There’s still time,” he said instead, “those
barrels
will
exhaust him. Nobody’s laptop is still working and still connected to Ward, so if Eric can hit him with the spear–”

“I don’t think he’ll give us the chance,” Scout said. “He’s put a couple of holes in the boat and now he’s gone away to wait for it to sink. I’m betting we’ll be swimming by the time he comes back.”

Fidorous stared down the hatch.

“Fine,” I said. “So we’ve failed. We give up. We go back.”

Fidorous shook his head. “It’s not a simple thing. If anything, it’s a more complicated process than getting here. It needs concentration and, even if we could concentrate–we don’t have the time.”

“So we’re stuck here?”

“Yes, I’m afraid we are.”

“There’s no place like home,” Scout said absently.

The doctor smiled a washed-out sort of smile.

“Okay, but I’m the only one the shark’s interested in, I’m the one it wants.” I dropped down onto the bed.

“Not anymore,” the doctor said. “We’re all mixed up together in this now.”

I realised it was probably true. Both of them, especially Scout, were so strongly connected to me here and like this, that the shark probably wouldn’t stop to think about the difference.

Ian climbed on my knee, nuzzling up. I put a protective arm around him.

“I’m sorry, guys.”

Scout smiled a small smile at me. “Don’t you be sorry. It was my plan, remember? You were the one who got conned into it.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, trying out a smile of my own.

All three of us were quiet.

“Right then.” Scout pushed her hair back and crossed her legs. “What we need is logical thinking. Where are we up to? We’ve lost the engine. The boat’s sinking. We still have the laptop and we still have the spear. Like the
doctor said, if Eric can spear the shark before the boat sinks, we still win.”

Fidorous nodded. “Very succinct.”

“Our one big problem,” Scout continued, “is getting the Ludovician to come in close enough and stay still enough to be speared before the boat goes under.” She did a
size-of-things
sigh. “Any ideas?”

“We could lure him in,” I said.

Both of them turned to me.

“Go on,” the doctor said.

“If I get into the water, he’ll come.”

“Eric, you’re not getting into the water.” Scout stared at me. “That’s crazy.”

“No, it isn’t,” Fidorous said, his face brightening up. “No, it isn’t, because we still have the Dictaphones. We have another conceptual loop.”

The Dictaphones. Like the
Orpheus
itself and so many other things on board, they’d become something else on the way here. In fact, they’d become what the First Eric Sanderson always said they were–a real, live shark cage.

Scout and I manoeuvred the parts of the cage out of the storage locker and onto the deck one at a time. Each of the four sides was solid and heavy, a tough frame striped with heavy black plastic bars. We held them in place as Fidorous bolted them together and to the cage base with a series of rubber plugs and bolts that might once have been
stop, play
and
record
buttons. When the thing was finished, the doctor went back down into the cabin to find the scuba equipment.

The two of us stood on the sloping deck, both looking at the cage.

“You can’t go into the water in that.”

“Why can’t I?” Scout said. “You were ready to go into the water with nothing.”

“Scout, it might as well be nothing.”

“It kept you safe all this time.”

“But things have changed. This boat is built on a conceptual loop ten times more powerful than the Dictaphones and the Ludovician still punched holes in it. He’ll rip this thing to pieces.”

“Three times more powerful.” She came over and put her hands against my arms, gave me a squeeze and a tight smile. “Believe me, if you’ve got something else in mind, I’d
really
love to hear it.”

There was nothing for me to say.

“See,” she said.

“I really don’t want you to do this.”

“I don’t want me to either, but you’re the only one who can spear the Ludovician and Fidorous is the only one who knows how to get us back. That means I’m the one who has to go down in the cage.”

I looked at her.

“Come here.” She wrapped her arms around me and I held her tight.

“Don’t,” I said.

“I’ve got to,” she said quietly against the side of my face. “This is how it goes, it’s what happens next.” She kissed my cheek. “This has to happen and we both know it.”

And the thing was, I
did
know it. The postcard, the island, Fidorous, Randle, even the Ludovician. Everything that had happened to me from the moment I woke up on the bedroom floor, in some way I couldn’t quite understand, was all a part of the same great big
something
, and Scout going down in the cage was part of it too. It
had
to happen. I just knew.

“Scout,” I said, “what’s going on?”

She let out a tiny breath. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

I nodded, pulling her tight against me.

A few moments later, Fidorous came up from the cabin with a scuba diver’s air cylinder and something like an inflatable life jacket squeezed under one arm.

“I’ve got something to say,” he said, after we’d helped him lay the cylinder down next to the cage. “I’m sorry, sorry to both of you. I let you down
once, Eric, and now I’ve done it again. I’ve let both of you down.” As he spoke, all the guards and masks and personas dropped away. Finally, here was the real Fidorous: a tired and apologetic old man stepping out from behind his grand curtain.

“There’s no need to–”

“No, Eric, please don’t make excuses for me. This is my fault. I’m a stupid, egotistical old fool who thought he could put everything right just like one of the old stories. But the truth is, I’m no Tekisui.”

“Hey, hang on a minute,” Scout said. “Don’t forget all of this was my idea and he was mad enough to go along with it. If anything,
we’re
sorry for dragging
you
into this whole mess.”

“Yeah,” I said.

The doctor looked at us for a moment then he nodded a small nod of thanks.

In the heat of the sun, I felt a sad wintry smile blowing over my face.

“Anyway,” Scout said, “what is that?”

Fidorous held out the thing he’d carried out of the cabin along with the air tank. I’d thought it was a life jacket but it wasn’t, it was a child’s inflatable dinghy.

“It’s the cat’s,” he said, “his carrier.”

And we laughed then, me and Scout holding each other and Fidorous holding the blow-up boat. We laughed the way people laugh on the edge of dark and dangerous times, like little sparklers out in the night.

The
Orpheus
was listing strongly now, the starboard side several feet nearer the water than the port and the mast pointing to five past the hour. It made matters worse that the winching arm was fixed to starboard and when we lowered the cage down over the side it added maybe another minute to the ticking-away mastclock.

Scout wore a wetsuit, a scuba tank and had her mask pulled up on top
of her head. She also had a couple of my T-shirts on to
lend her some extra Eric Sanderson
.

Scout was ready. The cage was ready. It was time.

“Okay, hero,” she said. “Shark comes at the cage, you stab shark with spear. Shark and Ward are connected. No more shark. No more Ward. Easy, right?”

“Easy,” I said, reaching out and taking hold of her hand.

Fidorous brought the spear over, trailing cable.

“Scout–” I started. “There are things I want to–”

“Don’t. Save it and tell me when I get back.”

“They say that in war films, bomber pilots usually.”

She laughed, “I can’t believe you just said that.” She put her arms around my waist and kissed me. When we broke apart she smiled. “You’re a bit of a geek sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Scout, please be careful.”

“I will.”

Walking across to sit on the edge of the boat, she wet her goggles and climbed down into the cage. We closed the top and the winch arm rattled and lowered it further into the water. I held up my hand in a low little wave. Scout did the same small wave back as she disappeared down into the blue.

For the next fifteen minutes there was only a still and tense nothing. Scout’s bubbles breaking the surface, Fidorous going from port to starboard, from stern to bow watching the water, Ian padding the deck and wanting to stand as near to me as he could, an occasional protesting creak of timbers, the mastclock counting away our time as the sinking
Orpheus
tipped further towards the sea. Me standing by the winch arm with the spear.

And then it happened.

It all happened very quickly.

A loud tub-thump-rumble beneath us–
it’s come up under the boat
–and then the cage swaying away–
thump
. Bubbles and spray. The
Orpheus
moaning, leaning further over.
Burr, burr
. Bubbles and spray and flashes of
a huge grey shape in white churning water. Me holding up the spear and not being able to see anything but the grey in the white water and me shouting something. Splashing, sheets hitting me and the deck, with something thrashing the calm sea into a foam and me shouting
get her up, pull, pull it up
and me shouting
I can’t see it properly
. The barrels throwing around in the foam and the winch squealing and the water and foam and the shape, a huge tail pounding out of the water. Fidorous, his mouth shouting something without words in the noise and the winch straining and me shouting something and the barrels and the tail and the thrashing the water. The
Orpheus
lowering towards the thrashing and the metal and me holding the spear and shouting. Fidorous saying
he’s tangled up
and
he’s tangled up in the cable
and the barrels and the spear and the foam and spray. The cage coming partway out of the water and being crushed and ripped open and empty and with one of the barrels on top–
burr burr
–and me screaming and holding the spear. The tail, the shark’s belly, a fin like a curved white knife. The
Orpheus
lowering into the water and the doctor shouting and me shouting at the empty cage and the doctor saying
dragging us under
and
cut it loose
and him with a knife, a machete. The boat creaking, lowering into the water, the doctor climbing over the railings with one foot on the empty chewed-up cage hacking at the cable. Foam and spray, the tail, the barrels bobbing and the tail smashing the water. Me shouting and holding up the spear and Fidorous hacking at the ropes tangled up in the cage. The Ludovician’s head like a great grey and white bullet anvil jumbo jet rising up out of the spray and me screaming and throwing the spear.

The spear in the air.

The spear in the air trailing cable.

The spear in the air. Too high. The spear over the shark’s head and hitting only the empty white water behind and sinking. The black cable unravelling on the deck. The boat creaking. Fidorous hacking at the ropes and the mangled cage and me diving for the cable unravelling on the deck and grabbing it, pulling on it. Pulling it back, reeling in the spear. Foam
and spray and sheets of water. A splitting crack. The winching arm ripping from the side of the boat and crashing down hard, Crashing down hard onto Dr Fidorous and both him and the arm crumpling into the cage and cables and rope and barrels and Fidorous crushed down there by the winching arm. Blood. Me shouting and grabbing the railing and reaching and the doctor in the tangle of metal and wood and ropes reaching and then everything–cage barrels winching arm tangle of cords and the doctor and his reaching reaching reaching arm dragged down and away into the sucking foam and the waves coming together over the top with a clap-crash. The boat tipping. The foam bubbles settling and popping and the water getting still. The spear’s cable unravelling fast on the deck and me grabbing for it and it jerking hard at my elbows and shoulder joints and burning my hands. Nobody’s laptop rattling across the sloping deck and me throwing my body down on the cable between the laptop and the side of the boat so the laptop hit my back hard and the cable ripped out of its socket and the jack sliced at my ribs and shot across the deck, over the railings and gone down into the sea.