Dead Man's Grip

107

Tyler heard a loud, metallic clang. Then a sound like footsteps. For an instant his hopes rose.

Footsteps getting nearer. Then the smell of cigarette smoke. He heard a familiar voice.

‘Enjoying the view, kid?’

Tooth switched on the flashlight, untied the rope from the balcony and began lowering the boy further, carefully paying the rope through his gloved hands. He could feel the boy bumping into the sides, then the rope went slack.

Good. The boy had landed on the first of the three rest platforms, spaced at fifty-foot intervals.

With his rucksack on his back and the light on, Tooth began to descend the ladder, using just one hand and taking up the slack of the rope as he went with the other. When he reached the platform, he repeated the procedure, then again, until the boy landed face down on the floor of the shaft. Tooth clambered down the last flight and joined him, then pulled a small lamp from his rucksack, switched it on and set it down.

Ahead was a tunnel that went beneath the harbour. Tooth had discovered it from an archive search during the planning for his previous visit. Before it had been replaced because of its dangerous condition, this tunnel carried the electricity lines from the old power station. The tunnel had been replaced, and decommissioned, at the same time as the new power station had been built and a new tunnel bored.

It was like looking along the insides of a rusted, never-ending steel barrel that faded away into darkness. The tunnel was lined on both sides with large metal asbestos-covered pipes, containing the old cables. The flooring was a rotted-looking wooden walkway, with pools of water along it. Massive livid blotches of rust coated the insides of the riveted plates, and all along were spiky cream-coloured stalactites and stalagmites, like partially melted candles.

But it was something else entirely that Tooth was staring at. The human skull, a short distance along the tunnel, greeting him with its rictus grin. Tooth stared back at it with some satisfaction. The twelve rats he had bought from pet shops around Sussex, then starved for five days, had done a good job.

The Estonian Merchant Navy captain’s uniform and his peaked, braided cap had gone, along with all of his flesh and almost all of the sinews and his hair. They’d even had a go at his sea boots. Most of his bones had fallen in on each other, or on to the floor, except for one set of arm bones and an intact skeletal hand, which hung from a metal pipe above him, held in place by a padlocked chain. Tooth hadn’t wanted to risk the rats eating through his bindings and allowing the man to escape.

Tooth turned and helped the boy to sit upright, with his back propped against the wall, and a view ahead of him along the tunnel and of the bones and the skull. The boy was blinking and something looked different about him. Then Tooth realized what that was. His glasses were missing. He shone his flashlight around, saw them and replaced them on the boy’s face.

The boy stared at him. Then flinched at the skeletal remains, his eyes registering horror and deepening fear as Tooth held the beam on it.

Tooth knelt and ripped the duct tape from the boy’s mouth.

‘You all right, kid?’

‘Not really. Actually, no. I want to go home. I want my mum. I’m so thirsty. Who are you? What do you want?’

‘You’re very demanding,’ Tooth said.

Tyler looked at the sight.

‘He doesn’t look too healthy to me. What do you think, kid?’

‘Male, between fifty and sixty years old. Eastern European.’

Tooth frowned. ‘You want to tell me how you know that?’

‘I study archaeology and anthropology. Can I have some water now please – and I’m hungry.’

‘You’re a goddamn smartass, right?’

‘I’m just thirsty,’ Tyler said. ‘Why have you brought me here? Who are you?’

‘That guy,’ Tooth said, pointing at the skeleton, ‘he’s been here for six years. No one knows about this place. No one’s been here in six years. How would you feel about spending six years down here?’

‘I wouldn’t feel good about that,’ Tyler said.

‘I bet you wouldn’t. I mean, who would, right?’

Tyler nodded in agreement. This guy seemed a little crazy, he thought. Crazy but maybe OK. Not a lot crazier than some of his teachers.

‘What had that man done?’

‘He ripped someone off,’ Tooth said. ‘OK?’

Tyler shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said, his voice coming out as a parched, frightened croak.

‘I’ll get you sorted, kid. You have to hang on. You and me, we have a big problem. It’s to do with the tides, right?’

Tyler stared at him. Then he stared at the remains, shaking. Was this going to be him in six years?

‘Tides?’ he said.

The man pulled a folded sheet of printout from his rucksack, then opened it up.

‘You understand these things, kid?’

He held the paper in front of Tyler’s face, keeping his flashlight trained on it. The boy looked at it, then shot a glance at the man’s wristwatch.

‘Big ships can’t come into this harbour two hours either side of low tide,’ Tooth said.

He stared at the boxes, each of which had a time written inside it, below the letters LW or HW. Alongside was written Predicted heights are in metres above Chart Datum.

‘This is not easy to figure out. Seems like low tide was 11.31 p.m. here, but I’m not sure I’ve got that right. That would mean ships start coming in and out again after 1.31 a.m.’

‘You’re not looking at today’s date,’ Tyler said. ‘Today it will be 2.06 a.m. Are you taking me on a boat?’

Tooth did not reply.