Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘No problem, Sergeant. Good night.’

‘Good night.’

Nathan heard the sudden growling of engines as the patrol boat swung away. He listened to the growling turn to purring and then nothing. The police had been tamed.

‘You’ve got the fairy dust, Creed,’ came Angelo’s voice. ‘You’ve got the fairy dust all right.’

‘Those water cops,’ Creed said. ‘You could tell them it’s Tuesday, they’d believe you.’

Then Angelo’s voice. ‘It is Tuesday.’

And Creed’s laughter.

The cabin door opened and Creed looked in. ‘Dress him, Skull,’ he said, ‘then bring him out.’

The Skull hauled Nathan to his feet, then he pulled up Nathan’s pants. ‘You don’t smell too good.’

He brought Nathan to within two inches of his face. Nathan could see himself twice in the mirrors of the Skull’s eyes, he could smell the Skull’s bitter breath. He saw one corner of the Skull’s mouth lift, as if the Skull had been hooked, as if someone was pulling on a line. Then he was pushed through the cabin door and up the stairs and out on deck.

They were already in the harbour, no more than a couple of hundred yards offshore. He tried to get his bearings. A passing sign said VENUS ENGINEERING. It must be Venus Bay then. One of the remote backwaters. Angelo steered into the flat black water of a boatyard and threw the engines into reverse to bring the port side flush with the quay. The Skull jumped ashore. Once he’d secured the ropes, Creed and Nathan followed.

They walked down the quay and out into a parking-lot. Creed’s black car waited by a high, wire-mesh fence. The Skull tossed a set of keys to Angelo, who bounced them on his palm. Angelo walked to the car on feet that seemed alert. Angelo would be the one to follow through a minefield; he’d always find the magic route. Nathan watched him unlock the car and climb inside. The engine crackled and spat, the headlamps lifted like eyes and lit the gravel. Nathan thought of Jed’s bad skin.

Creed put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to find your own way back.’

‘So you’re not going to kill me?’

Creed smiled. ‘You’ll keep your mouth shut. You’ve seen what happens to people who don’t.’

The car drew alongside. The tail-lights turned their faces red. For the first time Nathan noticed the numberplate:

3UR 1AL

Creed saw where he was looking. ‘You like it?’

Nathan didn’t answer.

‘Numberplates,’ Creed said. ‘It’s a little hobby of mine. Maybe you should come and see my collection some time.’

Nathan took a step backwards.

Creed laughed, slid into the car. The door clicked shut. The car trickled over the gravel to the gate.

‘What about my hands?’ Nathan shouted.

The car turned left on to the road and vanished behind a warehouse wall. The sound of the engine faded.

He walked to the gate. On the other side of the road there was a small park with trees and benches. That would do. All he could think of now was sleep. He crossed the road and lay down on the first bench he came to. The world went black, the stars shrank and vanished, his heart blew through his body like a bomb, again, again, again. He heard the shrapnel land on the ground around him, it came showering down like rain. He was so cold inside, and burning too. But he was feeling less and less. His eyelids closing, it was like dust settling, soon there was nothing.

He woke, and it was light. He sat up. He wanted to rub his eyes, but he didn’t have any hands. He looked up and saw a policeman standing in front of him. A big solid policeman.

‘What’s the time?’ he asked the policeman.

The policeman was wearing a big solid watch to go with the rest of him. ‘It’s seven-thirty.’ He seemed slightly annoyed Nathan had asked the first question. Policemen are supposed to do that. He had to be satisfied with the second question. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was just waiting till daylight,’ Nathan said. ‘Then I was going to hitch a lift home.’ Though how would he hitch, he wondered, with no thumbs?

‘Couldn’t you get home last night or what?’

‘No money.’ Nathan wanted to spread his hands in the air. Couldn’t, of course. All he could manage was a kind of shrug, a kind of grin.

The policeman slowly leaned sideways, like a falling tree. ‘Something wrong with your hands?’

‘You guessed it.’ Nathan couldn’t help sounding smart. It was just to keep his head above water. If he didn’t say stuff, if he stopped and looked at his boots, he’d sink for sure. ‘I’m all tied up.’ He turned round, showed the policeman his hands.

‘How do you explain that?’ the policeman asked.

‘It was a joke,’ Nathan said. ‘Some friends of mine.’

‘Nice friends,’ the policeman said and, walking round behind Nathan, he began to untie the belt.

He woke up and he was drowning. It was as if he’d been born blind into a world where the only element was water. He struck out with his hands and kicked with his feet, but the water wrapped all his movements up, stole all their strength. He struck out, kicked again. Rose to the surface. Drank the black air down. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist. Now he could see. Black trees crowding over him. The night sky, one shade lighter, just behind. He turned in the water. A glimmer of white. Windows hooded like the eyes of owls. The house. He swam to the side of the pool and hauled himself out. He crouched, his head between his knees, retching.

When the water had finished spilling from his nose and mouth, he huddled at the end of the pool, his toes hooked over the edge. A warm wind blew across his shoulders, drying him. He could only think of one explanation. He must’ve been walking in his sleep. He must’ve walked right into the deep end.

Ever since that night on the boat he’d been buying the Moon Beach papers every day, scouring their pages for some mention of the name Jed Morgan. He wasn’t expecting front-page news. He knew Creed well enough to realise there’d be no mistakes, no clues. That was why Jed had been dumped in Angel Meadows and not some stagnant harbour bay. When those deep waters took you they took you for ever. But there had to be a paragraph somewhere, even if it was only six lines tucked away at the bottom of a page: MAN, 27, MISSING. Something like that. Surely someone would report him missing. He felt he needed evidence of what had happened. Some kind of proof. But almost a month had passed, and there’d been nothing.

And now he was walking in his sleep again, for the first time in almost fifteen years. He remembered the rumours it had spread about him, the tall tales it had told. And yet he’d never said anything about it. That was the way he’d been brought up. You kept all your worries locked inside, in some attic in your head, like mad relations. Sometimes you met people who could hear the screams. You tried to cover up. Scream? you said. I didn’t hear a scream. Must’ve been the wind. Sometimes he thought that all his pain had come from biting his tongue, all his pain had come from silence. And silence, once established, bred a new pain of its own.

He remembered how Georgia had appeared behind the reinforced glass of the police-station window. Her face still smeared with sleep, it had been so early. Her eyes moving from his torn and filthy clothes to his scorched wrists.

‘Nathan,’ she said, ‘what happened?’

It was in his head to say, ‘I’m all right, don’t worry, I’m all right, really,’ but that was what he’d been taught, white lies and twisted courage. There were no apologies to give her, no reassurances. Not this time.

Her eyes silvered over with tears. ‘But,’ and she didn’t know quite how to put it, ‘but it’s me who’s supposed to do things like this.’