Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

‘We need to go,’ he called.

‘There’s something here you should see,’ I shouted back. There was a groan of dry hinges behind me. Glancing round, I saw Rachel struggling to swing open the heavy door.

Lundy’s voice echoed up to me again. ‘It’ll have to wait. Something’s come up. I need to get back.’

Whatever it was, it must be serious. The DI looked shocked, I realized, looking down at where he stood on the lower platform. No, not shocked. Stunned.

‘OK,’ I called, and turned back to Rachel. ‘Come on, we’d better—’

The doorway was empty.

Shit. I ran up the steps. The heavy steel door stood open, revealing a dark corridor with flaking metal walls. It disappeared into shadow, but there was no sign of Rachel.

‘What’s going on?’ Lundy’s voice sounded annoyed as it bounced off the metal roof.

I turned my head to shout. ‘Rachel’s gone inside.’

The DI’s muttered ‘Jesus wept’ carried up to me, then I heard his footsteps ringing on the ladder. I stepped through the doorway, unable to see far in the dark interior.

‘Rachel?’ I yelled. ‘Rachel, we need to go!’

There was a muffled response from somewhere deep inside the tower, but it was too distorted to make out. I swore, torn between going after her and waiting for Lundy. But from the laboured pace of his footsteps on the ladder, it would take the DI longer than us to reach the top. Swearing, I went further inside.

It was cold in the tower. The air was clammy, with a peppery smell of mould and rust. Once in the corridor I found it wasn’t as dark as it seemed from outside. Dirty light fell through small, rectangular windows, the glass brown with filth. Bright squares of daylight spilled through broken panes, revealing an antiquated generator standing like a sentinel at the foot of a flight of steps. More rooms were visible beyond it, but they were only hinted at in the gloom. Every surface was crusted with muck and salt, while corrosion lent a ruddy tint to the flaking metal walls and floor. It was like a sepia photograph brought to life.

Fragments of rust and old paint crunched underfoot as I went past the generator to the stairs.

‘Rachel?’

‘Up here.’

Her voice echoed down the steps from the floor above. I started to go up, but a clattering from outside announced that Lundy had reached the gantry. A moment later the DI appeared in the open doorway, red-faced and out of breath.

‘Where the hell is she?’

‘The next floor. The door was padlocked but her sister had a key.’

‘Bloody hell!’ He shook his head, his breathing laboured. ‘We’ve had this all wrong. All of it.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, but he waved it away.

‘Later. Let’s go and find her.’

I paused to jam the heavy steel door back against the wall, testing it to make sure it wasn’t going to swing shut, and then hurried after him. Our footsteps rang on the metal steps as we climbed to the next level. At the top was another corridor, branching off to one side as well as straight ahead. Open doors gave glimpses of ruin. The rooms had been stripped except for empty metal shelves, upended bedsteads and broken chairs. A faded pin-up of a smiling young woman in a swimming costume was still fixed to one wall, winking at the camera. Looking up I saw the steps continued to the roof, but the door leading out to it was closed.

‘Rachel? Where are you?’

‘In here.’ Her voice came from a room at the far end of the corridor, where a steel door stood ajar. ‘You need to see this.’

Lundy’s usually placid expression had been replaced by a tight-lipped anger as he marched in front of me down the corridor.

Whatever he’d been told over the phone, it had seriously rattled him.

‘That was bloody stupid!’ he declared, pushing open the door and going in. ‘I told you not to...’

He stopped.

After the dark squalor of the rest of the tower, the room was a surprise. Daylight flooded through its windows, and apart from empty metal brackets still fixed to the floor there was nothing left of its military origins. A glass booth had been built against one wall, where a peeling poster advertised a long-forgotten concert by The Kinks. Inside the booth two antiquated turntables sat on a desk, along with an empty microphone stand.

I’d known the fort had been a pirate radio station during the 1960s, but someone had been using it much more recently than that. The room had been decked out like a studio flat. The cold metal floor had been covered by a Turkish rug, and a folding table and chairs stood in front of a portable gas heater. There was a stainless-steel camping stove as well, while an improvised futon had been made by laying an inflatable double mattress on wooden pallets. There were other domestic touches: battery-powered lanterns had been covered with colourful pieces of cloth, and dog-eared paperbacks and empty wine bottles stood on a bookshelf made from house bricks and planks of wood. Fixed above the bed, a computer-printed sign in crimson text declared, If you’re not living your life, you’re already dead.

But the room still had a sense of abandonment. The damp salt air had curled the book covers, and a black rash of mildew spotted the rumpled duvet on the bed. The mattress had partly deflated, most of the air seeping out so it sagged limply over the pallets.

‘Home sweet home,’ Rachel said, in a small voice.

Lundy was looking around, taking everything in. ‘Have you touched anything?’

She shook her head, hands pushed deep in her pockets. ‘No. Take a look through the window.’

The rain made a tinny sound on the metal walls, and I thought I could feel the tower sway in the wind as Lundy and I went to the window. The glass was much cleaner than the others I’d seen, but it was already hazed by a new accumulation of salt. Though not enough to obscure the view of Leo Villiers’ house, facing us across the open sea.

‘This is where Emma took the photographs,’ Rachel said.

Without answering, Lundy went to where the deflated mattress drooped forlornly on the pallets. He scanned the mildewed duvet before sniffing at the crushed roll-ups discarded in a saucer on the makeshift bookshelf.

‘Did your sister smoke dope?’

‘No, she didn’t smoke anything. She hated cigarettes.’

Lundy straightened. ‘Well, someone here liked a joint.’

‘That’d be Mark Chapel. Emma told me he used dope.’ Rachel shook her head angrily. ‘This whole place is just... him . Camping out somewhere like this, in an old pirate radio station. And that stupid sign! God, I can almost hear him saying it!’

She gestured angrily at the printed slogan taped above the bed. But Lundy’s attention was on something else. His knees cracked as he bent to examine something on the floor.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Looks like a lens cap,’ he said without touching it. ‘Says “Olympus”.’

‘That’s the same make as Emma’s camera,’ Rachel said. ‘Christ, I could bloody shake her! What was she thinking ?’

The DI had started to get up, but then seemed to notice something else. I followed his gaze and saw dried splashes on the floor. Against the rusty metal they weren’t immediately obvious, and at first glance could have been wine or coffee.

But I could see from Lundy’s face that they weren’t.

‘Oh God, is that blood?’ Rachel asked.

Lundy climbed stiffly to his feet as another gust of wind thrashed against the tower. ‘We’re done here. Let’s go before—’

A sudden clang rang through the tower. It came from below us, somewhere on the lower level. We froze as it resonated through the steel structure and slowly died away.