Читать книгу The Devil's Whelp - Vin Hammond Jackson - Страница 18

"This is ridiculous!" A frustrated Jack Pierce walked around in a small circle. He didn't need the exercise and as an aid to solving his latest problem, the action was as much a waste of time as coming to Les Meyer in the first place. He raked an agitated hand through his thinning grey hair. "I gave you my resignation. Why can't you just accept it?"

Meyer was apparently enjoying himself while trying not to show it too much. "I have, Jack. The Company has. It's not a question of refusal."

"Then, what is it? Why can't I go? I've agreed to work out my shift...."

"Which would be quite acceptable under normal circumstances," interrupted Meyer. "But Merv Bryant's come down with a virus and as we haven't managed to find a replacement for you yet, you'll have to hang on till we do, or until Merv's well enough to come back to work."

"A virus!" Pierce couldn't believe that something invisible to the naked eye could be jeopardising his sanity. "When did a damned cold ever stop a man from doing his job?"

"Since medical science categorised it as a communicable disease! I can't drag a bloke out of his sick bed and risk three quarters of my crew going down with the flu just because you don't fancy pulling some extra time. Be reasonable, Jack. It'll be a week or a fortnight at most. You can wait that long, surely? What difference is a couple of weeks going to make?"

A lot of difference, thought Jack. He could be stark staring mad by then. There had to be another way! "What about Bill Rose? He's an experienced diver. He could handle it."

"But he's not a supervisor, Jack," drawled Meyer condescendingly. "You know Company policy."

"Stuff the Company, and its policies! I won't stand still for this, Les! One way or another, I'm getting off this rig!" He spun on his heel and stormed towards the door.

"Where are you going now?" Meyer couldn't decide whether to maintain his air of quiet indifference, or to leap from the chair and stop Pierce. It depended really what the man had in mind. He shifted his weight further forward in readiness. "There's nothing you can do."

Pierce clutched at the door frame. His knuckles turned white as he inflicted his anger on it. "I'm going to Doug Bromley, then we'll see who can do what!"

Meyer relaxed and eased back in the chair once more. "Forget it, Jack. Bromley's going out on today's chopper. He's leaving - he transferred." He allowed the smile that he had been suppressing to break and spread across his smug face. "We did manage to get a replacement for him."

As the colour drained from his cheeks, Pierce looked suddenly very old and tired, beaten in fact. Bromley had been his last hope. If he was flying out today, he wouldn't give two hoots about the rig, or Jack, especially not when he had transferred off Olympian and wouldn't be coming back. And it would be no good badgering the new man who probably knew nothing of the recent catastrophic events. Pierce had another awful thought - what if he was an apathetic bastard like Meyer? No way could he cope with two of them. He sighed deeply. "Who?" Meyer's eyebrows arched. The mongrel wanted to play the question-and-answer game - direct answers to specific questions. Pierce was definitely not in the mood. "Who is the new toolpusher?"

"Presswood. Derek Presswood, Del to his friends." Les noticed the jolt. It was only minor, but Pierce was shaken nevertheless and he failed to recover from the setback. Meyer decided it might be worth another prod. "Do you know him?"

Pierce worked his lips. They were as dry as his mouth had become. "I've heard of him." Had he ever! Eddie had talked about Presswood as if he were an older brother. They had been friends, and friends stuck together. It couldn't be coincidence. Presswood was coming out to investigate his friend's death. And that meant only one thing - he was coming after Jack!

Pierce left Meyer's office feeling like an unwanted tom-cat which had been dumped from a car. He didn't want to be there, would have done anything to find a way out of this blind alley he'd scuttled into. Now there were more dangers than hiding places. He was exhausted yet all he could do was keep on the move because the Ranger was closing in. He's gonna get you, Jack, his conscience taunted. He's gonna get you in the end. You can run. You can try to hide, but he'll find you.

He wandered the ship aimlessly for a while, finally gravitating to the moon pool area. Why he was there was a mystery, unless this was where diving supervisors always ended up after swimming round and round in ever-decreasing circles. It was really where it had started, where all his troubles had begun. He walked over to the ladder, the same one Eddie had descended on his way to meet his doom, the one Jack had forced him down. His hand went to the rail, touching it as Eddie would have that fateful morning. "You shouldn't have gone, son," he whispered. "You shouldn't have listened to me. You should have said: 'No, Uncle Jack, I'm no gonnay die!' Damn it, little Eddie!" he whispered, "Why didn't we fly to the moon instead?"

He walked away and was trudging up the ladder at the far end of the pool area when he heard a sound that caused him to interrupt his climb. At first it was just a hesitant rustle in the wind, then it got clearer as it approached. The chattering of distant rotor blades was unmistakable. Jack caught his breath and felt his heart miss a beat - Presswood's here!!

A voice said: "Hey, Jack, you coming, going, or you gonna hang around on that ladder all day?"

His head and shoulders were just protruding through the hole in the deck. He was staring at a grubby pair of jeans. He followed them up. The voice belonged to one of the roustabouts. "Sorry," Pierce mumbled and climbed the last few steps.

Pierce stood aside from the companion-way to let the man go down. Eric wasn't far behind his mate. He hurried to the stairs and after extending the diving super a curt nod and a smile, began his descent. He reached the bottom and broke into a shuffling trot along the catwalk. "Mike!" he called out. "Wait up!"

Mike glanced back and sighed - fucking Sutcliffe was just what he didn't need right now! He stopped beside the ladder which led into the moon pool and waited. A disturbance in the water caught his eye. He leaned over the guard rail to get a better look. There were just a few ripples on the surface which dissipated almost immediately. Mike straightened up and resumed walking.

"What did you see?" asked Sutcliffe, falling into step alongside.

Mike shrugged. "Dunno. A fish, maybe."

"No fish in there," declared the other man with conviction.

"What would you know Fuckwit? It's the sea ain't it? There's fish in the sea."

"I suppose." They were nearing the end of the catwalk when Sutcliffe asked: "Aren't you gonna watch the chopper land?"

"I'm on my break and I'm starving. Fuck the chopper!"

"But the new toolpusher's supposed to be coming in," insisted Sutcliffe.

Mike pulled up sharply and turned. "So? You want to kiss his arse, go ahead. The amount of shit comes out of your mouth already, nobody'll notice. You comin' or not?" Mike started walking again.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"What kind, d'you reckon?"

"What?"

"Fish - what kind of fish d'you reckon you saw?"

"How the fuck do I know? Maybe it was the big bastard that swallowed that diver, MacFarlane!"

"D'you reckon?" enquired the other man, glancing nervously through the rail at the water below.

Mike groaned. "You're a fuckin' idiot, Sutcliffe, d'you know that?"

"Nah!" Sutcliffe wasn't referring to Mike's comment which he had apparently missed, but was deciding for himself on the question of the fish. "Couldn't be the same one. Must be big, but." He appeared to think for a moment, then said: "You go on Mike. I'll see you later."

"Where you goin'?"

"Aw, nowhere," lied Sutcliffe unconvincingly.

"Suit yourself." Mike quickened his pace. Positive he could hear heavy footsteps thudding on the steel grating behind him, he turned in time to see Sutcliffe running back the way they had come. "Dickhead!" mumbled Mike as he left the area.

A dark shape moved below the waterline at the base of the ladder. It looked like a head. Something smaller rose beside it. The glassy surface trembled as the second object reached up and latched onto the rail of the ladder. It was definitely a hand and would have appeared human but for the green/brown colour and puss-like texture which were disgustingly vile. As it slid up the rail a few inches, an area of slimy tissue caught on a rung and fell away to reveal a patch of raw, weeping pulp beneath.

Another hand reached up to catch the rail on the left side. Still submerged, the head tipped back and twin ellipses of violet light shone out from cavernous eye sockets. They moved from side to side, looking up through the water and beyond the surface, searching for signs of life which it wasn't quite ready to contact - nay fer a while. Cannay give the game away yet.

All seemed quiet. It started to move slowly up the ladder. The head and shoulders heaved and broke the surface. As it continued to climb, water ran in streams from the pustular flesh, clouding the immediate vicinity at the base of the ladder with oily excreta. Each time the left hand contacted the metal of the rail, there was a click which echoed faintly around the moon pool area. The source of that small noise was a gold band encircling one of the digits of the hand. And on the widest part of the band, engraved with precision was the letter 'E'.

It heard something! The shape that used to be Eddie MacFarlane paused. The presence within it listened.

Eric 'Fuckwit' Sutcliffe hurried back along the catwalk, chuckling and talking to himself. The sound of his own voice and movement came back to him as an echo. "Sshh!" He giggled like a naughty child and continued on, treading more quietly.

Standing motionless on the ladder, the thing that was no longer Eddie waited. Globules of the muddy puss dripped from the putrefying cadaver and plopped noisily into the water. The approaching human might hear and that wouldn't do because it would spoil the surprise. Carefully, silently, it lowered the body of its host back into the pool.

Sutcliffe reached the ladder and knelt on the steel floor beside it. He glanced out at the moon pool and spoke to the fish he was now positive was down there, somewhere: "I'm gonna get you, you big fat bastard!" Then he chuckled as he set to work with clumsy fingers, rigging and baiting his hand line. "I hope you like steak," he muttered and chewed on his protruding tongue to aid concentration while he drove a 9/0 Mustad hook through a lump of meat as big as his fist.

His preparations completed, he stood up and positioned himself. He swung the weight on the end of the line a few times like a pendulum, then heaved it towards the centre of the pool. It went in with a splash and he watched the ripples extending out across the shiny surface.

The line tightened and the sinker drew the bait down until it finally settled almost directly below him. "I wonder how deep you are?" He re-wound a metre or so of line onto the plastic spool. "Let's try that for starters."

Eric settled himself with his legs dangling over the side of the pool, then leaned across to the ladder. He whipped a few turns of line around the hand-rail and tied it securely. "Mike'd go spacko if he saw me. 'Don't tie it off, you fuckin' moron,'" He mimicked with a chuckle. "'What you gonna do if it runs?'" He beamed. "Ain't gonna run Mike, not 'less it takes the fuckin' ladder with it."

He pulled the line up and down a few times to excite the bait then held it still with the nylon draped over his crooked index finger. "Come on, you big sod. Let's show Mike how a fuckwit can catch fish."