Death on the Rive Nord

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Rocco came to in total darkness. He was lying on his back, jammed against something hard. The air was icy and still, heavy with the smell of stale water. Something was dripping close by in a steady plunk-plunk rhythm, and he tried to process his scrambled thoughts through a pounding headache, to recognise the noise for what it was. The smell was oddly familiar but he couldn’t think why.

He tried to pull his hands together, but they had been wrenched behind his back and tied with rope. He sighed and slumped back. Don’t panic. Think it through.

He remembered being by the lock, facing Metz and Tourrain. Then Tourrain was running away and Metz came at him with his steel bar. Then the gun. Metz falling into the lock basin, a long way down and out of sight.

Then blackness.

He’d been suckered.

He wasted a few seconds in self-recrimination, cursing himself for walking into a trap. He’d been so centred on Metz and Tourrain, he hadn’t thought that Lambert would have sent backup. Probably the guard from the front gate.

Not that it mattered now. All that could wait. For now he had to get out of this place… wherever this place was.

He felt a tremor go through his hands where they were braced against the angle of the floor and a wall. A distant rumble sounded, like a motor behind a wall, muffled and indistinct. He moved his fingers, feeling the surface. Metal with a rough texture. Paint? No, not paint. Too rough for that. It felt flaky, loose. He sniffed, absorbing the smell.

Rust.

Was he in the rear of a truck somewhere, or a storage unit? A truck would explain the vibration, but why the plunk of dripping water? Then a faint movement came and he felt his weight shifting as the floor tilted slightly. He tried instinctively to lean away from the direction gravity was pulling him, but then the movement stopped. A spiralling noise came next, followed by another shift of the floor, and the musty smell in the air was suddenly stronger, invading his nose and mouth so powerfully he could taste it.

Suddenly Rocco knew where he was: he was on a boat. And very close by was another boat — the one which had just been manoeuvring and causing the vibration and movement of water.

He was on the canal.

He rolled over and scrambled to his knees, immediately bouncing his head painfully off a hard surface above him. He winced and sank down, fighting nausea. Not a good idea, he thought, when you’ve had one bang on the head, to go and give yourself another.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He was in total darkness, so he had to rely on his remaining senses to read his surroundings. Think. He could tell the space he was in was confined, both by the height and the absence of echo in the atmosphere. It could be a locker of some kind; most boats, where junk was dangerous to leave lying around, had them for stowage of equipment.

He flexed his hands. His fingers were going numb. He felt for the ropes binding him, trying to assess what his captors had used. He tried to concentrate on the shape and texture. Standard thick rope… hemp, he guessed, and slightly oily to the touch. Not new, then. Did that mean the boat was old? A working vessel? Or one moored on the canal for renovation work? Old meant weak points and a chance to break free. Whatever. He was a prisoner for as long as Lambert wanted him unless he could get out.

He sank back and used his hands to explore the floor. Metal — and flaky with rust, just as he’d thought. He scrabbled backwards until he fetched up against a wall. Also metal — and cold. So, an old vessel, not modern materials. He rolled over and scrabbled the other way, walking his fingers across the floor like twin spiders in a mating dance. Another wall. At a guess little more than his own body length from the first one.

He turned at what he judged to be ninety degrees and scrabbled again, pushing himself backwards until he met another upright surface. This one was wood, with a hollow resonance. He rolled over and scrabbled away from it. This time his feet hit one upright and his shoulders another. His hands felt empty space.

Rocco considered it. Instinct told him it couldn’t be a hole. Holes were wasteful on boats and served no useful purpose. He leant back and felt the upright against his shoulder, trying to picture the space where he might be lying. He inched up on to his knees and moved to where he could feel the upright with his hands. Metal. Cold and unforgiving, sloping away from him.

Then he had it; he was in the bow, right up against the sharp angle where the bulkheads came together. It meant the wooden wall he’d come into contact with across the other side was either a wall or a door. Or both. Either way, it was the only way out.

He shuffled back across the space until he felt himself against the wooden wall. Then he relaxed, thinking about what he could do. To kick through the wall might be possible — he had plenty to brace himself against. But it would be noisy. If any of Lambert’s men were around, they’d simply come back and knock him senseless. And with his hands tied he would be helpless to fend them off.

He shut out those thoughts and listened. The spiralling noise he’d heard earlier had changed. It was now deeper in tone, and more of a gurgle, like water on the move through a narrow space.

Then the floor shifted violently.

At first he thought it was his imagination, the mind playing tricks on a brain denied light, perspective or shape. Then it came again, and he felt his body weight move, dragging his centre of gravity to one side — towards one of the bulkheads.

Moments later it shifted back. Only now he felt as if the slope of the floor was going another way. Towards the front of the boat. With it came a louder gurgling noise.

The boat was sinking.

Rocco rolled onto his back and brought his knees up to his chest, bracing his hands on the floor. There was no time for niceties; if this boat was sinking, it was because someone had meant it to. Which meant there was unlikely to be anyone still on board. Just him.

He kicked out with both feet, slamming them into the wooden surface as hard as he could. But there was a dull echo, which told him it was solid. Too solid. He tried again, winding himself up and imagining a point beyond the wall, to a space he wanted his feet to reach. He kicked again, this time slightly to one side, and thought he heard a small creak in the wood. Another kick produced a sharp splitting sound.

He paused and gasped for air. The effort of using so much energy in a confined space was beginning to tell on him. He was cold and numb and his head was pounding through being hit and the lack of fresh air. But he had to carry on or die here.

The floor shifted again, and this time the noise was all around him, as if the boat was flexing itself, ready to die. Rocco’s hands and buttocks felt suddenly icy cold, as if exposed to a bitter wind. He shook his head, trying to make sense if it. How could wind get in here, when he couldn’t get out? It took a few moments for his numbed brain to realise what was happening. It wasn’t cold air he could feel gathering around him.

It was water. And it was coming in.