Gone

66

Bang. The barge shuddered. The squeal of rusting metal echoed in the tunnel. Bang.

Prody wasn’t in the water any more. He had crawled up on to the deck of the barge and was rocking the windlass, trying to dislodge it from the hatch. Three feet beneath him Flea stared up at the hatch. Every time he moved, the stripes of moonlight that criss-crossed their way through the dark were blotted out. She closed her eyes. There was a hard knot in her stomach – a hard knot from thinking about Martha’s shoe. About her grave and about the angle grinder, the way the motor had seized. Because of what? Because it had already been used to chew through meat and bone? And what had been in that sandwich? There was nothing she would put past Prody. Nothing.

She opened her eyes, twisted her head back and looked at the bulkhead hatch, then up at the rope locker. There wasn’t time to just sit here. She had to—

Above her Prody stopped rocking the windlass.

Silence. She stared clear-eyed at the outline of the hatch, holding her breath. There was a long pause, then he fell heavily on the deck, blocking the moonlight outline. He was lying directly above her. Inches away on the other side of the hull. She could hear his breathing. She could hear the shush-shush of his nylon jacket. She was surprised she couldn’t hear his heart pounding.

‘Oh, look! I can see your head.’

She flinched. Pulled herself back as tight into the hull as she could.

‘I can see you. What’s the matter? You’re very quiet all of a sudden.’

She put her fingers to her forehead, felt the pulse there, screwed up her face and tried to put all this insanity into place. When she didn’t answer he shifted so his mouth was to the crack in the hatch. His breathing changed, became spasmodic. He was masturbating – or pretending to. The knot in her belly tightened – thinking about a little girl who probably didn’t even know what sex was, let alone why a grown man would want to do it to a small child. A little girl, or what was left of her, lying in a grave less than fifty yards away. Overhead Prody was sniffing, making a noise as if he was sucking the insides of his cheeks. Something – a drop of moisture – leaked through the gap and hung on the underside of the deck. A tear or saliva, she wasn’t sure which. It trembled in the moonlight, then broke off and fell with a tiny plink into the barge.

She lowered her hand and gazed coldly at the hatch. The drop had been liquid but it hadn’t been semen. Yet she’d been meant to think it was. He was tormenting her. But why bother? Why not just get it over and done with? Her eyes went to the place where moonlight sliced into the hull through the scar he’d made with the angle grinder. She thought she understood why. He was doing it because he knew he couldn’t get to her.

Energy flowed back into her body. She pushed herself away from the wall.

‘What are you doing now? Bitch?’

She breathed in and out slowly through her mouth, moving quietly to the rucksack.

‘Bitch.’

He hammered on the deck again – bang bang bang – but she didn’t flinch. She was right. He couldn’t get to her. He really couldn’t get to her. She began taking things out. The calcium carbide, the parachute line and the cigarette lighters. She put them all on the ledge just under the rope locker. The trick was going to be to seal the hole that went from the locker up to the deck. She could do it with her bloodied T-shirt – but she’d have to wait for him to get off the deck. The time would come. She was sure of it. He wasn’t going to stay up there for ever. She found the empty bottle he’d given her, uncapped it and submerged it in the water, squeezing it gently until it was full. Reaching above her head she squirted it into the locker, refilled it and repeated the process.

‘What’re you doing, bitch?’ He shifted around on the hatch. She could feel him above her, moving like an awful giant spider, trying to see what she was up to. ‘Tell me or I’ll come in there and find out.’

She swallowed. With about a litre of water in the rope locker she shook the bottle and placed it, neck down, in the webbing of the rucksack to dry out. Working in the moonlight, she found the chisel and the six-inch nail she’d been using with the acrow prop. She took her time, lining up the nail, and popping the plastic casing of the lighters with a neat tap of the chisel. Prody was listening to everything, his breathing right over her head. She could almost feel his cold eye swivelling to follow her as she bent and carefully tipped the contents of each lighter into the water bottle.

She straightened and gave the bottle a shake, watched the contents swishing around. The lighters had been full but there wasn’t much fluid – under a hundred millitres. It would be enough to soak part of the para line and make a wick of sorts that would reach into the next compartment. The rest she’d have to sacrifice to the rope locker to give the acetylene the extra explosive jolt it needed.

‘Tell me what you’re fucking doing or I’m coming in.’

She swallowed. She put her thumb and forefinger on her throat and pressed lightly. Tried to stop her voice shaking as she said, ‘Go on then. Come in and see.’

There was a pause. As if he couldn’t believe what she’d said. Then he began to claw and hammer and tear at the hatch, shouting and swearing and kicking. She raised her eyes to it. He can’t get in, she told herself. He cannot get in. Eyes locked on the hatch, she began searching through the rucksack, trying to find something she could put the lighter fuel in to protect it from the water in the rope locker. Prody stopped screaming at her. Breathing hard, he slithered to the edge of the deck and dropped off into the canal. She could hear him walking around the barge, pacing, trying to find a way in. He wouldn’t. Unless he got the angle grinder started again, or unless he climbed back up the hole and somehow found himself another power tool, he wouldn’t get back in. She was going to beat him at his own game.

She found the plastic tray that had contained batteries for her torch. She took it to the ledge and had turned for the bottle of lighter fuel when a long wave of nausea and weakness came over her.

Immediately she set the bottle on the ledge and sat down, breathing hard to steady herself. She opened her mouth and sucked in air, but her body was at the end of its resilience. The fumes of the lighter fuel, the stench of rot and fear overwhelmed her. She just had time to tip herself down on to the ledge when a dense and bitter pull rose up through her chest and neck and dragged her feet first downwards until everything, every thought, every impulse, was reduced to nothing more than a tiny red point of electrical activity at the pulpy centre of her brain.