Last Out From Roaring Water Bay Read online

  Late in the afternoon the telephone rang. Before I’d the chance to lift the receiver it had stopped ringing and within seconds my mobile phone rang. My cheery, “hello”, was engulfed by a hype of hysteria that savaged my eardrum.

  “He’s dead, Shacks! He’s dead!”

  At first I struggled to distinguish the owner of the emotional voice before I clicked. “Tim! Is that you?”

  “Who the fuck do you think it is, Shacks?” There was a stifled sob mixed with his anger.

  “Tim, calm down. Take a deep breath and tell me again.”

  His intake of breath sounded as if he was sucking in air between his teeth. “It’s Uncle Tommy!”

  He was referring to Tommy Bickermass, the farmer where the Spitfire was found.

  “What about him?” I asked, feeling a sudden cold shiver bumping down my spine.

  “He-he’s dead.”

  Frigging hell! I thought. I felt my blood drain from me. My legs weakened as I stood there gripping the phone in shock. And then the invisible hand grabbed hold of my heart and ripped it clean from my chest. My voice stiffened. “Tommy…he’s dead? When was this?”

  I heard Tim suck in more breath. “He was found yesterday.”

  “What happened?”

  “His body was pulled from the slurry tank at the farm.”

  I had to think hard about what he had just said, trying to establish a mental picture of the farm. I said, “Let me get this right. Do you mean the large steel tank they fill with cow shit?”

  I assumed it was because Tim rambled on, not confirming my curiosity. “The police think it was a terrible accident. Reckoned he must have been stood on the gantry at the top of the tank; probably lost his footing and fell in. Reckoned for an old man it would have been like trying to swim through porridge; the quicksand effect; the more he struggled the more he sank. Christ Shacks! It’s too awful to think about.”

  “Tommy drowned in cow shit, is that what you’re saying?” I didn’t mean it to sound corny or in anyway disrespectful of the dead.

  “That’s what I’m saying, Shacks.”

  “Who found him?”

  The farm hand, poor sod.”

  “Benny, you mean?”

  “Yes Benny. Said he found Tommy’s cap at the foot of the tank ladder when he arrived early at the farm. He checked the top of the tank but there was no sign of Tommy. But he noticed the usually crusted topped slurry had been broken, like cracked ice, as he described it. Said he saw something half submerged and when he hooked it with a pole to find out what it was,”-I heard a faint sniffle-“well he pulled Uncle Tommy out as quick as he could, but...it was all too late.”

  “Frigging hell, Benny must have been heartbroken.”

  Another sniffle, “He had to be sedated when the paramedics arrived.”

  “I’m not surprised. Tommy was like a father to him.”

  “Benny had told the police that he was baffled as to how Tommy had climbed onto the tank gantry in the first place.”

  “Tommy was scared of heights?”

  “No. He suffered from a frozen knee. He couldn’t have climbed the vertical ladder even if he wanted to…well not without a struggle or help.”

  “Tommy could have climbed regardless…if he had to?”

  “I suppose so. But why should he want to? Benny said he never climbed the ladder at all. That was Benny’s job; always.”

  There was obviously a good reason why Tommy had decided to make the effort up onto the gantry, but I’d be guessing wildly for the answer. I said, “What’s happening at the farm now?”

  “The police are still investigating.”

  “So they’re not certain what happened to Tommy?”

  “I’m not sure what they think, Shacks…” I heard Tim sniffle. “It’s wrong…it’s wrong that a good man has to die horribly, alone; no one there to help him.”

  I couldn’t have agreed with him more. I could think of a number of people I’d rather see dead than poor Tommy Bickermass. How ironic I thought. The hero splashed across the news one minute, dead the next. There’s no justice in life and fate has such a pathetic way of running its business. As for the appropriate condolences I have to admit I’m useless in such delicate situations.

  “Is there anything you want me to do, Tim?”

  “No, nothing Shacks. Everything is being done and his immediate family are there now. I rang you because I knew you’d want to know about the tragedy before you heard it elsewhere.”

  “I appreciate that, Tim. I’d gotten quite attached to the old fellow recently.”

  “I’m going over later today. I’ll ring you when I know more.”

  “Okay, Tim. Take care.”

  “You’ll be at his funeral, won’t you Shacks? He’d want you there.”

  I hate funerals; they’re morbid, depressing and give a false image that there’s something to look forward to on the other side. “I’ll be there, Tim.”

  The call ended.

  I pressed the off button on my mobile. I realized I was still trembling slightly. I cured the hypertension with swift straight dark rum, gulped down in one, poured another and wandered aimlessly to the sofa where I slumped down and slouched back dejectedly. I stared blankly up at the ceiling, trawling the term tragic accident back and forth through my mind. My eyelids went heavy and weary. I closed them. I tried to blank Tommy’s death from my thoughts but I couldn’t. By the time I’d finished churning everything inside my head I was as far away from Tommy’s death being an accident as I could ever be. Tommy didn’t strike me as being that stupid to have fallen in a tank of shit. He always had a careful aptitude when running his farm; a stickler towards safe farming; everything fenced off properly; things in their rightful places. I saw all that for myself firsthand. And Benny, well he’d confirmed that Tommy never scaled the slurry tank because of his bad knee. That knowledge in itself made the theory of an accident vulnerably weak.

  I sighed. Tommy would be sadly missed. I finished the second rum and found myself twirling the glass through my fingers, thinking how Tommy could have climbed onto the gantry in the first place? What had attracted him to make the mammoth effort? Those were the questions the police should be asking, not skulking around with their heads stuck up their arses taking the easy option of an accident. The police should be listening to the people who knew Tommy instead of relying totally on their professional opinions which most of the time is guesswork and probably nowhere near the truth.

  The insides of my stomach knotted the more I delved into his death. I’m not psychic, nor do I ever pretend to be, but I had this awful feeling that somewhere, other developments were mounting. There’s a saying: things happen in three’s. That worried me immensely. I was suddenly connecting the events at the farm with other imaginable contenders.

  The two men from the MDP, who had pestered me earlier making idle threats, were back in contention. Perhaps I’d misjudged their seriousness. I wondered how much they knew about Tommy’s death because I’d gotten the impression they’d been at the farm to question Tommy about the plane wreck. And what an idiot I’d been. I had failed to double check or verify their credentials before allowing them access. Come to think of it, Scar-face didn’t even show any credentials and neither did he reveal his name. Perhaps they had contributed to Tommy’s fall into the slurry tank? There was only Tommy who knew I’d been at the farm. Perhaps they threatened him into revealing the location of the reconnaissance camera after dragging him up onto the gantry to scare him? Perhaps a titanic struggle had occurred and Tommy had struggled too much and had fallen in. Or maybe the MDP officers had pushed him? Or was I perhaps searching for truths that weren’t there to be found. It wasn’t exactly difficult to concoct a number of storylines to fit my inquisitive questions. I was desperate for any excuse.

  What I could confidently conclude was the two ministry policemen knew the reconnaissance camera had gone from the wreck. So what importance did the camera have that it was the sole subject of conversation with
me? Historic military archives came to mind, exactly what I thought when I pinched the frigging thing. Yet if they were genuine MDP eager to retrieve government property, and they were confident that I had it, then why did they leave me alone so easily without making more of a fuss? They could have called the local constabulary and had me arrested on suspicion of theft, but they didn’t.

  I was just getting more and more confused and giving myself an almighty headache. And then to my horror it clicked. Why indeed did they leave so easily? Because…?

  I sat upright and opened my eyes in sheer terror. My eyes flicked in the direction of the study. I remembered Scar-face was messing around with my belongings, being too nosey. It was shortly after that when they left in a hurry and without a threatening word from either.

  I jumped up from the sofa, put the glass down on the coffee table and dashed to the study where I ran a careful eye over everything that Scar-face had mooched through or displaced. I checked the moveable items and various papers that he had disturbed. I checked the bureau and scanned the book shelves. I did notice he had shifted the telephone to a different angle.

  The telephone!

  I realized there was something missing that I’d left next to the telephone.

  The sad bastard had stolen my pad of telephone numbers and addresses.

  Why bother?

  To check names and addresses obviously…names and addresses? I suddenly had visions of the photography shop where I’d left the camera. My heart raced as I thought of the dreadful possibility that I may have put Lens’s life in jeopardy. I snatched the phone from its cradle and pressed in a set of numbers; waited impatiently as the ringing tone searched for a connection. I suddenly became clammy. I’d palpitations.

  My anxiety eased when Lens finally raised the receiver and went through the motions of announcing the name of his business in his laid back Barbadian voice.

  “Larry’s photographic agency-”

  I burst into his rehearsed announcement before he had time to finish and asked him if he was alright. My enquiry must have confused him because it’s not something I would normally ask him. For an eerie few seconds he didn’t answer. I could hear him breathing down the line. My anxiety was back again.

  His reluctance to speak angered me. Lens was about to witness a different side of me. “Frigging hell, speak to me you dumb bastard!”

  “Hey Shacks, man!” his voice finally drifted through. “Stay cool. Hard to take in, man, cos I didn’t realize you’d a heart.”

  I pushed on. “Listen to me! Has anyone come asking about the camera I gave you?”

  Another pause didn’t help matters though I imagined his wide eyes rolling in their sockets in sheer panic. He didn’t care for dishonest activities, especially mine.

  “Shacks, is the damn thing hot?”

  “No! If you remember I told you I dug it from the ground.”

  “Yeah, man, but whose ground? No, don’t say, man, I’d only have bad illusions of being thrown in piss smelling prison, served sloppy dinners and have nasty shit stabbers molesting my cute arse.”

  “Lens, you’re avoiding my question! Has anybody asked about the camera? Think Lens. It’s important!”

  “Nobody asked. Why?”

  “You’re sure? No phone calls or anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure, man; you’re the only one asking.”

  I puffed out my cheeks, the weight of anxiety lifting from my shoulders knowing Lens was safe.

  Lens said, “By the way, Shacks. This lump of rust you brought in is a complete bag of mutilated crap.”

  “I wasn’t considering displaying the thing, Lens. Did you manage to retrieve anything worthwhile from it or not?”

  “Scrap, that’s what I got. In a thousand twisted pieces now. I had to go in with the surgical expertise of a brain surgeon to remove the film. Rubber gloves, dissecting tool, pliers, the works, man!”

  “Stop pissing around, Lens!”

  “Okay man!” he finally conceded and raced through his findings. “Found four pictures which I masterly extracted. Damned lucky I got that many. The rest of the film roll, I’m afraid, is a complete waste of my effort; the film’s watermarked beyond recognition.”

  “Lens, I’m amazed you found any at all.”

  “Shacks, you know me and the miracles I can do. I’ve put the pictures and negatives in the post this morning. What do you want me to do with the scrap pieces and watermarked negatives that are left?”

  “Dump them, Lens.” It was pointless keeping hold of the evidence.”

  “Consider it done, Shacks.”

  “What do I owe you?”

  “The usual fee, Shacks: a Chinese meal and plenty of beer to swill down the food. Throw in a few loose woman and we’ll call it straight.”

  “Don’t want much then,” I quipped.

  “I’m a healthy guy, Shacks. Oh! Did I mention a night in the West End too; with spending money?” he added cheekily. “There’s a new nightclub I’d like to boogie on down to and strut my stuff.”

  He always reminded me of a jelly man when he danced, he was that flexible.

  I’d began to open my mouth and ready to give him a slice of verbal abuse concerning his exuberant fee when I heard something else echo in the receiver that took me a moment to register what it was. What I’d clearly heard was the chink of the photography shop doorbell interfering with Len’s voice. Then Lens hurriedly said, “Got to go, Shacks, paying customers,” and after a low whistle, he added, “Hell man, what a couple of weirdoes. Last time I saw a pair like these I was watching wild life in Africa and they were devouring the carcass of some half eaten Lion spoils.”

  I then heard him speak to whoever had entered the shop before his voice faded away from the receiver.

  At first I wondered what the frigging hell Lens meant when he mentioned Africa and Lion spoils, until my brain registered. By then Lens had already replaced his receiver and I was shouting into a tunnel of emptiness. “Lens, Lens! Get out of there!”

  I pressed the shop’s telephone numbers into the handset frantically. It rang a few times and then I was cut off. My heart rate accelerated. I pressed the same numbers again, whispering the words, “pick up the phone, Lens, pick up the phone!”, as I waited. All I received was the tinny echo of a discontinued line.

  I threw the receiver down and sprinted for my car keys and was out of the house. I roared the Roadster into life and began driving hard and furious, breaking every road rule in the book. I didn’t frigging care how dangerous I drove. I just hoped no police car would try to halt my progress because I was in no mood to stop.

  I slammed down the accelerator pedal to the floor, the engine growling as I crashed through the gears. I tore down street after street, road after road, dangerously overtaking, tyres screeching as I negotiated tight bends, ignoring blaring car-horns and the probable and deserved fingered gestures. But I wasn’t looking who I passed on the road. I was too focused driving like a man possessed to save a friends life.

  On reaching Lambeth Road I maddened because the traffic was at a standstill. I could see a police roadblock ahead. In the distance I saw the large plume of black smoke rising above the buildings. Fire engines had just arrived at the scene and were in immediate action; more fire engines were on the way with a police escort to get the engines through the traffic. I pulled the Roadster into the side of the road, got out and began running between vehicles in the direction of the fire. My frantic running had me gasping for breath. My lungs hurt and the taste of acrid smoke tainted my mouth. When I neared the row of shops and my final destination my stride stiffened and I grinded to a halt, in disbelief. It was Lens’s photography shop that was on fire.

  The initial shock had me gob smacked. I could only stare at the spectacle I was witnessing and my mouth was dry as if it had been swabbed with blotting paper. I mustered enough spit and shouted out, “Lens!”, and then I continued running towards the building and slap bang into a policeman’s huge hand in
my chest that brought my progress to an abrupt halt.

  “Sorry sir! He advised me assertively. “You must step back. There’s danger of an explosion ahead.”

  His prediction came true and a muffled bang blew out one of the photography shop windows. Shattered glass forced the fire-fighters to cower as they aimed their hoses into the flames and the mushroom of orange and black smoke whooshing into the air. The policeman and I ducked instinctively, even though the debris never reached us. The flames were horrendously hot even at the proposed safe distance. And I noticed that the westerly breeze was spreading the flames to other premises along the road.

  The explosion only served to make me fearless and more determined to push on towards the building. I had to find Lens. I made another attempt to pass my holder and get closer to the burning premises. The policeman held me back, almost wrestling me to the ground. I was shouting out Lens’s name. Two, three times I called, still grappling with the policeman. I never went to ground. Some inner strength kept me on my feet as I pushed hard, struggling for freedom from the policeman’s powerful grip.

  The policeman suddenly had his face in front of mine. “Is there someone still inside the building?” he quickly asked, shaking me to get me focused on what he was asking, staring into my eyes for a definite answer. “Listen to me, please sir! Is there still someone inside?”

  “Larry Lazerow, the proprietor. It’s his shop on fire! He got out, didn’t he? He’s a coloured guy, medium height. Tell me he’s okay?”

  My heart sank somewhere inside my bowel as I watched the policeman’s expression of uncertainty before he confirmed the inevitable. “We-I-er-thought everybody was accounted for, sir. Are you sure he was still inside the shop?”

  “I spoke to him not twenty minutes ago on the telephone,” I said frantically. “The line went dead. I thought something was wrong, so I came straight here. You must have seen him?”