Nailed by the Heart (2 page)

Someone's
playing tricks, thought Chris. He glanced along the beach.

No
one.

Maybe
some kids messing around in the sea?

Unlikely.

Without
a wet suit this time of year you would be half dead of exposure
within minutes.

He
looked at his son. The expression told him David was not telling
tales.

Then
again, Chris told himself, David Alistair Stainforth had an uncanny
knack of seeing people who were not there.

The
River Troll Mark 3, he thought, remembering the time when David had
been seeing 'things' in the river that ran near their old house.

Taking
his shoulders, he turned David gently away from the sea. His son was
shaking slightly. "It might have been gulls in the water or--"

"Dad,
there really was--"

"Or
a seal."

"A
seal?" David looked puzzled.

Chris
saw the solution and grabbed it. "Yes, seals. You've seen them
on telly. They look a bit like dogs, but with flippers and no fur.
And--" Inspiration flashed. "And when they bob up and down
in the sea they look like people with funny faces. Come on, it's time
we saw that man about the caravan."

After
ineffectually brushing the sand from his Superman costume, David
pushed his fist into Chris's hand. Chris gave the hand a squeeze. It
felt hot and gritty.

Hand
in hand, father and son walked up the beach to the dunes, which they
climbed together. They paused to look back. To Chris this view was
nothing less than magic. To his right, the skeleton of a fishing boat
lay half buried in the sand, the sun and salt-bleached spars looking
like the bones of a long-dead sea monster left high and dry by the
tide.

Chris
breathed deeply. Jesus, this air made your skin tingle.

Along
the beach to his left, the quickly rising tide had almost surrounded
the seafort. Already the beach on its flanks was submerged and the
first waves were washing over the raised causeway that linked it with
dry land. In ten minutes that too would be covered, and for a few
hours the seafort would be an island.

As
he let his gaze run over curling twists of foam which gleamed in the
sunshine, his stomach became suddenly tense.

He
screwed up his eyes against the dazzling brightness.

What
had he seen?

Raising
his hand to shield his eyes, he looked hard at an area of sea not far
from the seafort.

Maybe
there really were seals along this stretch of coastline after all.
God knows it was remote enough. Yet, just for a moment, he had
seen-no, thought he had seen-rising from the deeper water beyond the
surf, the dark head and shoulders of a man.

And
it seemed, for a second or two, that the man had stared intently
back. There had been a sense of intelligence and purpose in that
unwavering stare. Inexplicably it had made him feel uneasy.

He
looked hard at the area of seawater until his eyes watered, then
shrugged. It had gone.

A
seal, he told himself. It had to be a seal. Only a lunatic would be
swimming in the North Sea so early in the year. He smiled to himself.
After living in a town all his life, he would have to get used to all
this flora and fauna.

"Come
on, David," he said, squeezing his son's hand. "Time to
go."

After
being locked in the ocean freighter's laundry store for three hours,
the engineer gave a deep groan and died.

The
sixteen-year-old cabin boy sat crouched in a corner, arms tightly
wrapped around his knees, his frightened eyes unnaturally wide.

This
was hell.

This
was pure hell.

Locked
in a tiny room with a dead man, his mouth gaping wide where he had
tried to chew in his last lungful of air.

His
face.

The
boy buried his head in his arms and rocked.

Why
had they done this?

He
had never harmed anyone before in his life.

Everything
had been going so well. His first Atlantic crossing from New York had
been a cinch. The crew, all American, apart from the Filipino cook,
had been like one big matey family. Everyone on first-name terms,
apart from the Skipper of course. Well, someone had to be the boss.
Just last night he and Tubbs had played checkers while listening to
Christmas carols on the radio. They had been able to pick up the
American forces radio based in Germany. Even when the DJ played
requests from folks back home for the GI Joes stationed in Europe he
hadn't felt homesick. Mark Faust had his new family right here on the
big freighter, the Mary-Anne, shipping frozen beef to Norway.

Tubbs
had given him his first beer. First swallow, it tasted like something
scraped off the bilges-after the second it hadn't tasted so bad. And
everyone in the mess had laughed and slapped him good-naturedly on
the back. By the time he'd finished the beer he felt great, all warm
inside even though the beer was ice cold.

Mark
Faust wondered what his ma and pa would say if they knew. Only at
Christmas was wine allowed into the house, and then only sherry in
order for the solemn toast to be taken. You just sipped it-you
weren't supposed to actually enjoy it.

Not
like this. Boy, was this great! Sitting laughing and drinking in the
mess, the radio blowing out "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"
until the speaker made the bottles vibrate, and then--... and then it
all went bad.

The
door opened as if it had been kicked.

In
came half a dozen men carrying submachine-guns and shotguns. Tommo
Greene had jumped up only to have half his face blown from his skull
by a spray of bird-shot.

That's
when Christmas became hell.

The
attackers seemed physically huge, near-giants, with dark, tanned
faces. But their eyes ...

Their
eyes glittered with such cruelty and hate. It was as if fires had
been lit behind them. For Mark, their eyes were more terrifying than
the weapons they carried in their massive fists. You actually
recoiled when they looked at you.

If
they had said they were demons from hell he would have believed them.

Within
moments he had been thrust into the linen store with Tubbs. The shock
had split the fat man's heart.

The
Mary-Anne rolled gently on the tide. They were at anchor in one of
the hundreds of fiords that cut inlets deep into the Norwegian
mainland.

He
slowly raised his head. Light from the dim bulb reflected from the
dead man's dentures. They had slipped halfway from his mouth. One of
the teeth was missing. A fight in some port, maybe, or perhaps Tubbs
had simply walked into a telegraph pole after one rum too many. Tubbs
himself sort of sat, leaning back against the iron wall.

Mark
found his gaze pulled to the dead man's face. Eyes closed, the face
had turned white as the blood drained from the upper parts of his
body to settle in the lower half, turning his hands blue. Then the
dead man urinated. Wetness seeped through the denim boiler-suit to
roll across the metal floor in a trickle the color of orange pop.

Something
cracked in Mark's head. He was on his feet pounding at the door,
screaming to be let out.

He
seemed to be screaming for hours before the door opened. A huge
figure, as big as a grizzly bear, loomed through the doorway. One
look from those eyes silenced Mark.

"He's
dead, he's dead," muttered Mark, only half coherently. "He's
dead. I-I want to come out. I want... He's dead. You see, he's dead."

The
man put his fingers to his lips in a shushing gesture, then calmly
balled his fist and rammed it forward into Mark's face, knocking him
backwards across the dead fat man and into the shelves, scattering
sheets and pillowcases in a white avalanche.

Without
a word the man removed the light-bulb from the socket and stepped out
of the laundry store, locking the door behind him.

Inside,
the darkness was absolute. It seemed to creep close.

And
softly touch him. A cold, cold touch. As cold as the finger of a dead
man.

"Please
don't leave me ... Please ... Please ... Please. Don't leave me alone
..."

Mark
Faust's voice fell on dead ears.

"David.
Stop it. You'll lose your fingers."

"I'm
not doing anything."

"You're
picking your nose again." Ruth opened the back door of the car
to let him out.

She
had brought them to visit the closest thing to civilization near the
seafort. The tiny coastal village of Out Butterwick.

Confidently,
David headed off by himself toward OutButterwick's one and only
shop-which was little more than a large, rambling hut of white
timbers. He charged through the door as if he were taking part in a
police raid and disappeared inside. Chris waited for his wife to lock
the doors of the car.

After
all those years of running old bangers that broke down with
monotonous regularity, this car, a Ford Sierra, was something special
to them.

One
night he had pulled off the main road onto a farm track. There Chris
had made love to Ruth in the back seat of their new car.

They'd
not done that since their courting days. And it didn't make Chris
regret that those so-called golden days were long gone. It was
cramped, uncomfortable; repeatedly they banged naked parts of their
bodies on cold plastic.

Any
minute someone might have walked by. The astonished pedestrian would
have seen a bare backside heaving away in the moonlight.

Afterwards,
they had sat in the back seat, their jeans around their ankles,
shaking with laughter.

"And
what are you smirking at, Mr Stainforth?" asked Ruth, linking
arms with him.

"Oh,
nothing much. I was just imagining how you'd look after six months
mixing cement and humping bricks."

She
laughed. "We'll have bodies like Arnold Schwarzenegger and swear
like how's-your-father."

"You've
no second thoughts?"

She
looked back at him, her shoulder-length dark hair fanned across her
face by the breeze. "Any second thoughts?" She pulled the
hair away with her fingers. "Hundreds. And you?"

"Thousands."
When he looked down at her he couldn't help smiling. Not only did she
have the same snub nose and freckles as David, she also possessed the
same mischievous glint in her eye.

"Come
on," she said, "let's see what son of Superman is up to."

When
they entered the shop, Chris gazed about the place in wonder. It was
one of those places that seemed bigger on the inside than the
outside. Shelves lined the walls from ceiling to floor. Hung from the
ceiling were string bags full of blue and yellow footballs, fold-away
canvas chairs, wax jackets, Strings of gloves--a gloriously chaotic
mix. The whole place smelled of creosote and oranges.

Chris
spotted David. He was talking to a large man who leaned forward
across the counter, resting his weight on his elbows. The man,
mid-forties, had a head of thick back-combed hair that ran in
corrugated waves. Chris noticed that the man's nose had been broken
at some time. The bone hadn't been properly set, giving his face an
odd, lopsided look. The man appeared to be enjoying David's company;
he was listening intently to what David was saying and nodding every
so often.

Chris
tried to see where, in this stock-taker's vision of hell, light-bulbs
were concealed.

David
skipped down the aisle toward them.

Ruth
asked, "Have you been talking nicely to the man?"

"Sure
have," answered David in one of his suddenly loud voices. "But
he's got a funny voice. Like from a film."

"Shh
..." hissed Ruth under her breath. "You don't say things
like that."

"I
only said he talked funny," protested David equally loudly.

The
big man behind the counter light-heartedly waved David's lack of tact
away with a huge paddle of a hand. "Don't be mad at him, folks.
The accent throws everybody. They don't expect it in a place like
this."