Gay Longworth - The Unquiet Dead

A murky image appeared on the screen: DO NOT ENTER. The cameraman ignored the sign and went in. Jessie found herself transported to the bottom of the Atlantic. In the pale light the ancient redundant machinery reminded her of a documentary about the Titanic . She’d been inside the engine room via a submersible eye. She was inside it again. Placed between a grid of square wooden pillars that looked like the underside of a disused pier were four huge round boilers, each covered in a thick skin of rust. She could see the breath of the men, huddled in a pack at the edge of the room. It was cold down there. Something was making the policemen wrinkle their faces and grimace. Jessie hoped it was the musty odour of age, not death.

In front of each tank was a rill. The first two disappeared into black holes; the two furthest away from the door ended at what looked like a large manhole cover. Beyond them were brick archways that led to recesses in the back wall. Above them was a series of steel girders held up by wooden beams. Rotten wooden beams.

‘Careful,’ said Jessie, but the men on the screen couldn’t hear her.

‘What are those?’ Mark asked. Jessie couldn’t see what he was pointing to.

‘Coal was used to fire ’em up.’ The caretaker patted the belly of the boiler affectionately. ‘Men would shovel it out of the coal stores to the bottom of the Archimedes screw. That way the fires were always stoked.’ Four steel posts rose up from the ground. ‘’Course, the screws have long gone. Nicked and picked at over the years, like everything else. Got no respect.’

‘Yes, but what are those?’

Jessie knew Mark was talking about the two open pits in the ground. It would have been the first place she would have looked, too. The man with the moustache hadn’t let go of the boiler, and it occurred to Jessie that he was hanging on to it.

‘The ash would fall out the bottom and be taken away by running water, along these narrow channels into the pits to cool.’ The camera pointed down into the pit.

‘Where do they go?’

‘Hell,’ said the caretaker.

‘What?’ said Mark and Jessie in unison.

‘Smell,’ he said. ‘Then tell me where you think they go?’

‘Sewers,’ replied Jessie to the electronic image. That was why all the men were pulling faces.

‘Get the torches down there!’ shouted Mark.

‘Careful, the ground isn’t stable,’ said the caretaker.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You don’t know when the ground is going to give way and swallow you up.’

Jessie felt a chill up the back of her neck. This guy was freaking her out. She watched as four police officers pointed torches into the pupil of the pit. One of them beckoned for the boat hook and a few seconds later he fished out a shoe.

‘They should all have been covered,’ said the caretaker.

The old shoe was discarded. They moved on to the next pit, wading through filth. Once again the search was fruitless.

‘What about the other two?’

‘There’s nothing down there.’

‘Get those lids up,’ shouted Mark. His voice trembled as much as the caretaker’s, whether with excitement or fear, Jessie couldn’t tell.

The elderly man was still hanging on to the boiler when the crowbar arrived. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ he said.

Jessie didn’t want to know why not.

They prised open the first lid. The camera gave her a bird’s-eye view of a dry, lead-lined pit with a grate at the bottom. It was empty. One more to go.

‘Mind your heads, boys, the ceiling gets lower.’

Jessie was out of her seat and pacing. The crowbar was inserted into the dusty ground. The men heaved with exertion. A corner came up.

She heard a voice. The caretaker’s voice: ‘We shouldn’t really be down here. They don’t like it when people come down here.’

The screen started to flicker like mad.

Jessie could make out Mark as he knelt down and stuck a torch into the gap.

The screen went fuzzy. And then nothing. Jessie hit the television screen. The radio clicked.

‘I can see someone!’ shouted Mark.

‘Alive?’

‘Can’t tell – they’re not moving!’

There was a terrible crack.

‘Move!’ shouted a voice over the rumble of falling masonry. The radio clicked again and Jessie lost contact with the boiler room.

For a few seconds Jessie continued to stare at the blank screen. Then she pulled on her leather jacket and ran down the stairs to the exit. Outside, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Her bike was parked in its normal place; it only took a minute before she was in her helmet and off the stand. It wouldn’t have taken long to walk to Marshall Street, but she didn’t want to waste any time. Something serious had happened in that boiler room. Why did she feel as if she had known it would?

Up ahead she saw the blue-and-white police tape spinning in the wind. The search crew were just beginning to spill out of the monolithic building as she pulled up. She dismounted, flashed her badge and joined the constable on guard.

‘What happened?’

‘Roof caved in. One man down. They’re bringing him out now.’

‘Came from nowhere,’ said a young man covered in dust.

‘I knew something was up with that place,’ said another. ‘You could just feel it.’

Jessie followed paramedics through the labyrinth that was the underbelly of the baths until she reached the cement corridor. The clattering wheels of the medics’ trolley stopped; they snapped up the undercarriage, lifted it and carried it down the flight of steeply cut steps. DCI Moore was standing at the bottom. She looked Jessie up and down but said nothing. Jessie’s high-heeled boots and trouser suit looked ridiculous now.

‘Is is Anna Maria?’

‘Too early to say,’ said the DCI. ‘A beam came down on the lid, sealing it shut. Now the fucking structural engineers won’t let anyone in until they’ve given us the all clear. Meanwhile, she may be down there, suffocating, and we’ve got an officer with serious concussion after being hit by a falling brick.’

‘Where’s Mark?’

‘They’re patching him up. He nearly had his arm sliced off by that lid.’

‘Four people and they still couldn’t lift it,’ said Jessie.

‘What’s your point?’

‘I don’t know. Pulling something like this off would have taken planning, people.’

‘Maybe all that was required was a victim.’ DCI Moore suddenly pushed herself away from the wall. ‘I can’t just wait around gossiping. I’m going to talk to that bloody engineer again. Call me if anything happens.’

Jessie felt the insult keenly, but did not respond. She sat on the bottom step and waited, her bad mood deepening with every minute she sat there. How could she have been so stupid as to bet on something as unpredictable as other people’s lives? The paramedics returned with their trolley. The injured officer’s head and neck were encased in a thick padded yellow brace. He was fastened to the stretcher. What they couldn’t strap down were his eyes, which were rolling in his head like a mad mare’s. He was singing nursery rhymes. When he passed Jessie, his eyes fixed on her for a long moment that left her feeling as if she’d just seen something she shouldn’t.

‘Go away,’ he said. Then his eyes started rolling again.

The medic made a sign and the trolley was again lifted into the air and Jessie was alone once more. Soon the damp had seeped through her trousers, leaving her skin cold and itchy. Men with measuring instruments came and went; she took no notice of them. The cold air chilled her to the bone, but she did not leave. The voice behind her made her jump.

‘I was thinking Reading – lots of petty crime that creates an avalanche of paperwork and no results,’ he said, walking heavy-footed down the steps towards her. ‘Or maybe Birmingham, where the men really know how to treat a woman.’ In the poorest areas of Birmingham rates of domestic violence were extremely high. ‘And don’t get on your high horse, Driver. You know they often ask for it.’