Murder in the Dark, page 5
‘He isn’t just falling,’ said Robert. ‘He’s moving too quickly for that.’
‘And the speed is increasing,’ I said.
‘You can’t tell that just from looking!’ said Mike.
‘Listen to the cable and the drum,’ I said.
The taut cable thrummed as it shot into the dark surface of the hole, while the engine on the drum made loud sounds of strain. Penny and the Professor joined us, breathing hard from the climb. The Professor struggled to get words out.
‘The radio … Terry said he’d take … a radio in with him.’
Robert reached inside his jacket and brought out a military item. ‘Terry, this is Robert. Can you hear me? Talk to me, Terry.’
We all waited, but there was no response. I looked at the Professor.
‘Stop the cable. Have the drum’s engine pull him out of there.’
She nodded quickly to Paul. ‘Do it. Bring the young fool back.’
‘The cable’s moving at too great a speed,’ said Paul. ‘If I just hit the brakes, the cable could snap. It’s broken before inside the hole.’
‘It didn’t break, it was torn,’ said Mike.
‘Not now, Mike!’ said Ellie. ‘We have to get Terry back.’
‘If the cable snaps, we could lose him,’ said Robert.
I grabbed hold of the steel cable with both hands and clamped down hard. The racing steel rasped loudly against my bare flesh, but I could feel the cable slowing. I piled on the pressure, and the cable ground to a halt. I looked at Paul.
‘Stop the engine. Pull him back.’
‘Do it!’ said the Professor.
Paul ran down the hill to the drum, while I kept up the pressure on the cable, clamping my hands down hard. Paul hit the brake and then sent the engine into reverse, and the cable slowly began to emerge from the hole. I let go, and stepped back. Penny grabbed my hands, and made me show her my palms. They weren’t even reddened from the friction.
‘That’s not possible!’ said Robert. ‘The strain should have torn your skin apart …’
‘I’m a trained field agent,’ I said.
I’ve used that line before when people catch me doing things people shouldn’t be able to do. It doesn’t actually mean anything, but it seems to satisfy people. Everyone stopped looking at me, and went back to watching the steel cable as it slowly reappeared from the hole’s darkness. Winding itself back on to the drum, foot by foot. There was no sense of resistance from the other end. I leaned in close to study the cable, but the steel seemed entirely unaffected by its time inside the hole. Robert was still trying to reach Terry on his radio. There was no answer.
‘There’s no guarantee Terry is still on the other end,’ said Mike.
‘Shut up, Mike!’ said Ellie. ‘Just for once, shut up. You’re not helping.’
When the last of the cable emerged from the dark surface of the hole, Terry was still attached. Ellie started to cry out his name, and then broke off as Terry dropped to the ground. The cable dragged his limp body across the grass, bumping and jerking, until Paul shut down the engine. Terry lay still. I knelt down beside him and tried for a pulse, even though I knew I wouldn’t find one. Ellie started forward, and the Professor grabbed her arm.
‘Ellie, don’t.’
‘Help him!’ Ellie said loudly. ‘We have to help him!’
‘I’m sorry, Ellie,’ said Robert. ‘He’s beyond helping.’
‘He’s dead,’ I said.
The Professor glared at me. ‘I told you something like this would happen!’
I rolled Terry over on to his back. There were no obvious wounds or injuries, or any clear cause of death. But his face was contorted into an expression of utter horror.
TWO
Something in the Dark
It’s never easy when someone you know dies.
You feel like something hit you hard, knocking all the strength out of you. All the scientists wanted to do was stand there and look, hoping that if they just gave the world enough time it would realize this was wrong and put things right. Which is why it helps to have someone like me around, who’s seen more than their fair share of dead bodies and is ready to make all the necessary decisions for you.
‘The hole is now officially off limits to everyone,’ I said. ‘At least until we have some idea of what happened here.’ I turned to the Professor and said her name loudly until she looked at me. ‘What do you want me to do with the body, Professor Bellman?’
She looked at me blankly. ‘What?’
‘Terry’s body,’ I said patiently. ‘We can’t just leave him lying here.’
‘Why not?’ said Mike. ‘Isn’t this a crime scene? You’re not supposed to interfere with a crime scene.’
‘This is a secured area,’ I said patiently. ‘Which means normal rules don’t apply. We can’t call the police, because they’re not supposed to know things like the hole even exist. I’m not even sure a crime has been committed. Terry took it on himself to jump into the hole without telling anyone. But we do need to put his body somewhere secure until I can contact someone higher up for instructions.’
I looked at the hole, and the dark circle stared back like a great unblinking eye. It had to have taken a lot of courage for Terry to go into the dark on his own. Unless something in the hole called to him, overwhelming his common sense. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that there had to be a lot more to the hole than met the eye. I realized the others were looking at me, and quickly took up my train of thought again.
‘Technically, Terry didn’t actually die here, but inside the hole. So there is no crime scene. I’ll settle for preserving whatever evidence there may be on the body. Professor, where do you want me to put Terry?’
She didn’t seem to know what to say. She just looked from the corpse to the hole and back again, as though hoping one of them might provide an answer. I looked at the scientists, standing huddled together like sheep in a storm. None of them seemed in any condition to make a decision.
‘There are always the tents,’ said Penny.
I nodded to her thankfully. I can always rely on Penny to be practical when things get emotionally complicated.
‘I’ll put Terry in one of the tents,’ I said. ‘And then that will be off limits as well. Would any of you like to help? He was your friend.’
No one volunteered. Ellie turned her head away, as though she couldn’t stand to look at the body any more. The Professor extended a comforting hand to her, but Ellie turned to Robert, who put an arm around her shoulders. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the body. Mike looked at Ellie and Robert, but said nothing. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with Terry’s death. Paul looked lost: like he wasn’t sure what he should be feeling or doing. Robert suddenly realized he was still holding his radio. He looked at it, as though wondering whether he might still hear something from Terry, and then put the radio away.
I knelt down, took a firm hold of Terry, and then straightened up again. The dead always seem to weigh a lot more than the living, but I’m stronger than I look. Penny stepped forward and carefully removed the steel cable still attached to Terry’s back. Luckily it was just a simple clamp, snapped on to the back of Terry’s belt. It was a good thing the belt hadn’t snapped when he was hauled back so abruptly. If it had, he would have been lost in the dark for ever and we would never have known what happened to him.
Like the archaeologist who disappeared into the hole.
Terry hadn’t thought nearly enough about safety precautions before he made his great jump into the unknown, but that seemed typical of the man. Sudden enthusiasms, that was what the others said. And this one got him killed. I headed down the hill to the tents on the far side of the site. Penny walked beside me, and the others trailed along behind. None of the scientists had anything to say, which struck me as a little odd. By now shock should have started giving way to tears, hysteria, fond memories of the man. Anything that offered the promise of comfort. But instead they just trudged silently along in the rear, as though they were part of a formal procession. The scientific mind, I supposed. Think now, feel later. Penny moved in beside me.
‘So what do we think? Did Terry jump, or was he pushed?’ she said quietly. ‘Was this suicide, death by misadventure, or murder?’
‘Depends whether anyone else was involved,’ I said, just as quietly. I wasn’t concerned the others might overhear us: we’ve spent so much time working together we can understand murmurs no one else could. ‘You yourself saw … No wounds on the body, no obvious cause of death. It could be that conditions at the bottom of the hole were simply too extreme for his mind to cope with. That would explain the look on his face.’
Penny shuddered briefly. ‘What could he have seen that was so bad it scared him to death? We didn’t see anything.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Perhaps whatever lies at the bottom of the hole is beyond human understanding. Or endurance.’
‘I can’t believe Terry would do something so stupid,’ said Penny.
‘I’ve been wondering whether someone else encouraged him,’ I said. ‘For reasons of their own.’
‘Or pushed him in when his nerve failed,’ said Penny. ‘And now they’re afraid to admit it.’
‘Or maybe this was just cold-blooded murder,’ I said. ‘Someone struck Terry down, attached the cable, and threw him in. Taking advantage of Terry’s previous enthusiasm to muddy the waters.’
‘Who’d want Terry dead?’ said Penny.
‘If we knew why, we’d probably know who,’ I said. ‘All we really know about these scientists is what they’ve chosen to show us. There could be all kinds of emotional entanglements we know nothing about.’
‘All of the scientists were working together in the equipment centre,’ said Penny. ‘Wouldn’t they have noticed if another person went out, as well as Terry?’
‘Would they?’ I said. ‘Apparently no one noticed Terry sneaking around in the background.’
‘So what do you think really happened?’ said Penny.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
We finally reached the cluster of little tents. I stopped in front of the nearest one, and Penny undid the flaps for me.
‘Hey!’ Robert said suddenly. ‘That’s my tent!’
‘He’s got to go somewhere,’ said the Professor.
‘But … it’s my tent,’ said Robert.
I looked back at him. ‘Anything in there you don’t want me to see?’
Robert shook his head. He still had an arm around Ellie, but only in an absent-minded way. He wasn’t even looking at her any more. I carried Terry into the tent, while Penny stayed outside, guarding the entrance. There was nothing inside apart from a brand-new sleeping bag, left half-open to air. It didn’t look like anyone had used it yet. I laid Terry down beside the bag, unzipped it all the way, and then manhandled the body into the bag with as much dignity as possible, under the circumstances. I tucked Terry in neatly, and then zipped the sleeping bag all the way up to his chin, so only his head was left showing. Partly to help preserve any evidence there might be on his body, and partly to discourage the body from getting up and walking about. I’ve seen stranger things, and I had to wonder whether the Terry who’d come out of the hole was the same Terry who’d gone in … I stood over him for a long moment, trying to understand the look on his twisted face. Fear, horror, revulsion … What could he have seen in the hole, or beyond it? What could he have found, deep in the darkness, that just the sight of it was too much for him to bear?
I looked around the tent. Only a little of the evening light made its way through the open flaps, but I could see clearly enough in the gloom to be sure there were no personal belongings and no luggage. Nothing for me to search or examine. So I left the tent, closed the flaps, and turned to confront the waiting scientists.
Penny was still standing guard, carefully positioned between the scientists and the tent. They were huddled closely together, comforting each other with their presence. Reminding themselves that at least they weren’t alone in this. Robert and Ellie were holding hands now, like lost children. Mike stood on Ellie’s other side, as close as he could get. She didn’t seem to notice. Paul was staring at the tent, but I doubted that was what he was seeing in his mind’s eye. The Professor seemed lost in her own thoughts. I cleared my throat to draw the scientists’ attention, and everyone’s gaze jumped to me, desperate for answers or guidance I didn’t have. So I just stared back at them.
‘We need to follow protocol on this,’ said Penny, to fill what was threatening to become an awkward silence. ‘Professor, you need to contact whoever is supervising this investigation and tell them to send more people to secure the area.’
‘And that they need to take away the body and arrange for an autopsy,’ I said. ‘Give us a better idea of exactly what happened to Terry.’
‘We’re not allowed to call out,’ said the Professor. ‘For security reasons. They confiscated all our mobile phones before they put us in the cars that brought us here.’
Penny looked at Robert. ‘But you have radios. You used one to try to reach out to Terry …’
‘They’re only for on-site use,’ said the Professor. ‘If you try to call out, the frequency is blocked.’
‘Same with the laptops they provided,’ said Robert. ‘We can only access information on agreed sites. And no email.’
‘Then how are you supposed to tell anyone that you have an emergency and need assistance?’ I said.
‘I asked the Colonel that,’ said the Professor. ‘He said “Don’t have an emergency!”.’
I nodded. That sounded like the Colonel.
Penny frowned. ‘But there must be a Government contact, as well as the Colonel …’
‘Black Heir is in charge of site security,’ said the Professor.
She stopped for a moment, as she saw me react to the name. I knew Black Heir, and not in a good way. I nodded for the Professor to continue.
‘We’re only allowed to talk to Black Heir. The Colonel said he would be too busy dealing with the bigger picture.’
‘Whatever that means!’ said Mike. He looked at me challengingly. ‘Do you know what that means?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The Colonel doesn’t talk to me about things like that.’
I turned to Penny. ‘He doesn’t normally work alongside Black Heir … They’re supposed to cover an entirely different territory from the Organization.’
‘What do you mean, different territory?’ Mike said suspiciously. ‘And what kind of a name for a Government department is Black Heir? I never heard of them. What’s their purpose, their remit, their authority?’
‘I asked the Colonel that,’ said the Professor.
‘And?’ said Robert.
‘I was told “Don’t ask!”,’ said the Professor.
‘Oh …’ said Mike. ‘One of those departments.’ He seemed strangely satisfied to have his suspicions confirmed.
‘If Black Heir is involved, there’s more to this situation than we’re being told,’ said Penny.
‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ I said. I turned back to the Professor. ‘Who do you talk to at Black Heir?’
‘A Mr Carroll,’ she said. ‘I don’t know him.’
She looked at the scientists, but they all shook their heads.
‘Who actually assembled this team?’ I said. ‘Carroll or the Colonel?’
‘I did,’ said the Professor. ‘According to the Colonel’s specifications. I was told to put forward the names of suitable people, based on their published work.’
‘But you must have some way to contact this Carroll when you have important results to report,’ said Penny.
‘He calls us once a day, at eight a.m.,’ said the Professor. ‘He isn’t due to talk to us until tomorrow morning. You’re the security expert, Ishmael. You must understand how these things work.’
I just nodded, not committing myself. One of the reasons I prefer working for the Organization is that they usually keep this kind of bullshit to a minimum. Departments like Black Heir are never really happy unless they’re overcomplicating the situation.
‘Why are we being kept so isolated?’ said Mike. ‘Don’t they trust us?’
‘It was made very clear to me that I shouldn’t ask awkward questions,’ said the Professor. ‘And when it came to Black Heir, I got a definite feeling I was better off not knowing.’
There was general nodding among the scientists. They were still too shaken to get properly angry.
‘Terry and his tent are off limits to everyone,’ I said. ‘So please give it plenty of room.’
‘What if we want to pay our respects?’ said Ellie.
‘Terry will understand if you leave that till later,’ I said.
‘Why are you so determined to keep us away?’ said Mike, scowling. ‘What are you afraid we might do if we did have access to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘And I have no intention of finding out the hard way. There’s nothing any of you can do to help Terry except leave him in peace.’
Robert looked at what used to be his tent. ‘Where am I going to sleep now?’
‘You can sleep with me,’ said Ellie.
‘You were going to anyway,’ said Mike. He glared round at the others, as they looked at him. ‘What? It’s not like I’m telling tales out of school. We all know those two are together.’
Ellie didn’t even look at him. She was staring at the tent like a child confronted with a house that might be haunted.
‘What if … What if Terry gets up and starts walking about?’
I looked at her curiously. ‘You think that’s something he’s likely to do?’
‘I don’t know!’ said Ellie. ‘You saw his face … Who knows what he found or what found him on the other side of the hole … What he was exposed to in there, or what it might have done to him.’ Her shoulders slumped suddenly, and all the fire went out of her. ‘I wish I’d never heard of the hole. I wish I’d never come here.’
