Poppet

Elf’s Grotto

THE MENDIPS IS a range of limestone hills, running east to west, about twenty miles south of Bristol. The hills have been mined for two thousand years, until the late nineteenth century, mostly on a small scale. Less than a fifth of the original sites are still quarried and many of the abandoned workings, now flooded, shelve steeply twenty metres from water’s edge to clifftop, and up to sixty metres more below the teal-blue surface of the water. One string of quarries is connected via underground channels to a network of natural caves known as the Elf’s Grotto, featuring pillars and curves and twisted ceilings – like the catacombs of an ancient cathedral – carved not by man but by the water that floods the entire system.

Quarry number eight sits at the end of the chain of quarries. Situated deep in the woods, it is largely forgotten and rarely visited. There is no public road leading down here – only a rutted and potholed limestone track so seldom used that wildlife have adopted it as their own. Tonight, however, they scurry into the shadows as a car appears, its headlights bumping and flashing off the undersides of the overhanging trees. It’s a small car – a Renault Clio – a city runabout, designed for metalled roads and tight parking spaces, not for off-roading. The branches squeal as they scrape over its roof. It jerks out of the lane and on to the track that circles the quarry. Near the base of a towering mound of hewn rock cubes – abandoned here for so long that trees are growing in their crevices – the car stops. The engine dies. The headlights dwindle to twin glow-worms reflected in the water.

Flea Marley opens a window and sticks her head out – listening for any sign of movement: a cough, a shuffle of feet, a tell-tale patter of stones tumbling from the rock face. The quarry is silent. It’s bitterly cold out here – freezing. She uses her binoculars to scan the horseshoe-shaped amphitheatre of rock. At the distant end of the quarry mounds of powdered limestone seem to give off their own faint glow. The stars and the clouds reflect in the motionless water.

Over forty-five metres below this surface – an unimaginable depth, equivalent to a twelve-storey tower block – in the lightless, frozen water, there exists an unmarked and unrecorded hole in the cliff face. It does not feature on any of the quarry schematics; this opening can be found by memory and blind instinct alone. Once entered, it leads to a passage that travels three metres into the sheer rock then dog-legs back upwards – a natural, water-filled bore hole. One metre wide, the tube ascends forty-six metres vertically – opening into caves that cannot be accessed any other way. Part natural, part burrowed into by ancient Roman workings, the caves are unstable and impenetrable – except by this one clandestine entry route. For a diver inside the rock chimney there are only two directions to go – up or down. It’s too narrow to change your mind and jack-knife back – once you’ve decided to go you’re committed. With the immense water pressure, you have to be extremely skilled to ascend safely.

Caffery can’t dive. And he hasn’t got Flea’s connections. All he knows is that Misty is somewhere here. He’s been patient so far, but he’s a determined bastard when he gets the bit between his teeth, and it’s not beyond him to mount some insane diving job – maybe privately, maybe with a unit from another force. He’s senior enough to be able to work it if he wanted – he’d only have to come up with the flimsiest of pretexts. Flea can’t afford to take that chance.

She wears an ordinary fleece on her upper half; on her lower half is a dry suit – rolled down to her waist. She gets out now, drags her kitbag from the back seat and closes the door gently. The click, which in most settings would be virtually inaudible, seems to echo like a gunshot over the silent water. She unzips the bag and begins to dress. This is the part she hates. In the water she’s fine – it doesn’t matter how big or small she is – but out of the water she is at a disadvantage. She struggles to carry all the equipment – the cylinders, the weight belt.

At the edge of the quarry she sits and pulls on her fins. From this point a rusted ladder leads into the water which she scans again, looking for some ripple or change in the mirrored surface. There is only one other person in the world who knows about this place – only one person skilled enough to enter, and he is long gone, Flea has no idea where. He won’t give the secret away – she can be sure of that. He was one of the shadow people – on the wrong side of this country – and it’s no surprise he didn’t stick around. Maybe he’s dead. She’s been back several times to check; the place has been deserted for months. She is on her own.

She makes her final checks. Weights, releases, air. That jaw-aching bite of rubber as the regulator goes in her mouth – the sudden Darth Vader suck and whistle of breath. The entrance to the cave is far beyond the safe fifty metres authorized by British diving safety associations. It’s not something to be attempted on compressed air – let alone by a diver who’s yet to be signed off as fit by the barotrauma experts. Flea’s ear is the weak point – her left ear. The signs she’s got to look out for are nausea and a pain that radiates across the side of the face. Vertigo and confusion can come at around the time the eardrum shatters. She can’t afford for that to happen. If she bursts the eardrum again, this will be her last dive. Ever.

She places one hand flat against the regulator to pin it to her face for the descent, in the other she holds the inflator tube for her buoyancy vest. Then she plops, straight into the water, dropping through the dark.