The Dead & The Drowning Read online

  The Dead

  &

  The Drowning

  A white knuckle Adventure with a dark heart

  Cameron Bell

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. For the sake of authenticity some addresses, locales and organizations are real; however, any association with them, or representation of them are entirely fictitious.

  Text copyright ©2019 Cameron Bell all rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published 2019 Big Dune Books.

  Cover Art Carl Greaves Extendedimagery.com

  A big thank you to those that encouraged and helped me, you know who you are.

  Contents

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 1

  9:07 pm Friday November 4th, 2017

  Leaning against the bar I drain a fourth pint of Gull and feel like another. Booze always demanded more booze, and after a taste I am usually off to a decent swig. Drinking in downtown Reykjavik however, is not for the frugal or broke, and I had taken to a remedy. I had enjoyed an ample glass of the good stuff before leaving the hotel, then slammed the happy hour at the Gaukurinn. Tonight, it isn’t enough, and having a mixture of feelings I can’t settle - I drink on.

  There is a music festival in the city and a three-piece indie band in ripped black clothing are on the stage playing hard and heavy. I had liked that type of music when I was young, music that drove you on, and over the years my taste had not really changed. They play to a throbbing crowd under a pitched roof of strobing red and blue lights; that flash me back to an earlier time of carefree gigs.

  I work slowly on my beer and fight against a creeping melancholy that has dogged me for days. I had long wanted to travel to Iceland albeit not like this - not on my own. We were meant to go together but kept putting it on the back burner for the sake of home improvements and child-friendly holidays. When it had been our time it had been too late. She suffered a massive dead on the spot stroke. It was as sudden and violent as a blindside collision. It left me reeling in grief and I have yet to find my feet.

  My experience of grief is that it is a desolate, withering place where good feelings shrivel like a slug in the midday sun. I have stayed here too long my outlook has darkened. I have stripped life down to its cruel element: to one without god, without karma, without justice, to one that spat in your face when you dared to have plans. I subtly shake my head, and my body heaves a subdued and sickened laugh at it all.

  My awful reverie is broken by a woman smiling at me. There had been a healthy gap between me and the next guy, who is hunched over the bar immersed in his phone; now with my broadness, it is tight and touching. She has Kronas in her hand so wants to be served, but she is looking at me – not the best way to get a drink I muse.

  “They’re not bad, are they?” she says cocking her head in the band’s direction.

  American, Canadian perhaps?

  “Yes … remind me a little of The Strokes.”

  She smiled again, a wide attractive smile, crooked at the right showing uniform white teeth. I straighten up from a slouch, and she is just a smidge shorter than my five feet nine.

  “I like your accent … is it Welsh?”

  I return a little closed lip smile and reply,

  “Yes, it is … I don't think most people outside of the UK would have got that.”

  “I suppose I’m not most people,” is her answer.

  This could have come off cocky, but a depreciating flick of her eyebrows told me she isn’t full of herself. She stops smiling and looks over her shoulder.

  “Now I’ll show my ignorance and admit that I can’t say whether you are American or Canadian.”

  “I’m from New Zealand,” she replies straight-faced.

  I screw my face quizzically.

  “No, just messing with you … I’m from Buffalo in New York State … so really not that far from being Canadian.” She laughs and sweeps her hand through thick, collar length black hair, that has a section buzz cut on the right side above the ear.

  “Yes, I know of it, the Buffalo Bills Football Team yeah … and you used to have a prominent Mafia Family,” I say awkwardly not really thinking about what I was saying.

  She pauses for a moment presumably to edit the nonsense I had just spouted and then carries on.

  “You like football? I grew up watching the Bills with my dad and I try to catch all their games.”

  “I follow The NFL Show, and If I am able to I’ll stay up and watch the Super Bowl.”

  “Do you want a beer? it’s all right I’m an heiress and can afford it.”

  I find myself smiling, enjoying the diversion but then a wave of guilt washes over it. Is this harmless holiday chit-chat or is it leading to something? because at nine quid a throw buying a beer for someone meant something here.

  “No, keep hold of your fortune I’m calling it a night,” I reply meekly.

  Without any effort, she catches the bartender’s attention and calls for two Gulls.

  “You wouldn’t let a girl drink on her own, would you?”

  The smile coquettish, powerful, like a hot dryer blasting ice – this woman has confidence.

  “No, the gentleman in me couldn’t allow such a terrible thing,” I say with fake gallantry.

  She hands me a beer and I glimpse part of a tattoo peeking out of the right sleeve of her jacket. I can’t make out what it is, but it isn’t a small cutesy design. The colours are bold against the paleness of her inner forearm and I imagine it stretches back to her elbow.

  I neck the remainder of my beer and make a start on the one just bought. I am now well lubricated and a couple or so more would see me drunk. Her eyes did a fast sweep of the bar and then return to me.

  “So! doing the tourist thing or are you here for work?” I ask.

  “Vacation … booked a couple of hotels, hopped on a plane, hired a car … and just explored. How about you?”

  “Needed to get away, though pretty much the same except for the car. I like organized adventure.”

  She laughs,

  “Isn’t that a kind of an oxymoron like virtually spotless?”

  “It is,” I agreed, smiling freely.

  “I’m William by the way.”

  “Toni with an I.”

  We talk, and the beer goes down.

  “One for the road,” I exclaim in a theatrical voice, the Kronas out and waving. I get my round in and blank out what it costs.

  “Where are you staying?” she asks.

  “The Storm Hotel.”

  “I’m near there; you can be a gentleman and walk me
some of the way,” she suggests persuasively.

  She didn’t strike me the type that wanted looking after, and I didn’t feel ready for anything else, but walking her back to her hotel couldn’t do any harm.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  We talk some more, and I learn that she is a tattoo artist and owns her own parlour in a small city outside of Buffalo. She then politely asks me what I do, and not wanting to talk about it I lie.

  ◆◆◆

  We step outside, and Toni looks behind her towards the door.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No … no, nothing,” nonchalant, but not quite.

  She seemed alternatively uber together and a little skittish, a peculiar blend that has me intrigued. I decide to let it lie, denying a habit of sniffing around for dirt in the dark corners of people’s lives - no, not tonight.

  The night air is crisp and sobering, the moon an opaque disc behind the clouds. It is a Friday night in early November, and it is strange as a Brit not to see or hear fireworks. We head up onto Laugavegur: clots of revellers hunch against the cold smoking cigarettes between bars, while coaches clog the streets picking up tourists to see the Northern Lights. The city is lively but not as busy as the few other capitals I had visited; it is instead quirky and charming, and I find myself liking it.

  We get close to my hotel.

  “Well, I’m almost home, where are you?”

  “Here will do,” she said looking down a long, narrow cut through between two tall, grey buildings.

  I am a bit drunk and my tongue is loose and careless.

  “Well it has been a treat meeting you Toni, perhaps our paths will cross again … in a bar in Iceland.”

  Toni broke that wide grin and replied,

  “Who knows … maybe, never, certain.”

  A good line to depart on I thought and walk on.

  I had taken a few steps when I remember that I hadn’t phoned my daughter like I was supposed to. I fish out my phone and then pat around my clothing for my glasses. It isn’t too late to phone, though having said that I am too pissed to speak to someone who is probably sober, so a short text would be better. I am in on the contact when I hear a shout, and then a shriek, a pause then a scream. The phone goes back in the pocket and I run back to the cut through.

  She is on her back with one man clamping her legs, and another crouching over her head fighting her arms - she is wriggling like a mad woman and turning the air blue.

  “Hand it over!” I hear one of them demand.

  “Go fuck yourself!” is her fiery reply.

  It never pays to announce yourself, so I don’t. I dash forward and cover the yards, stuttering my stride like a bowler for the last few, and blast the crouching fella behind the ear with a cheap shot right cross that reverberates up my arm. He drops like a slaughterhouse cow and lays crumpled in an untidy, motionless heap.

  I reset and turn on the other guy. He springs to his feet and a right and left I have planned for him swipe air as he adeptly slips back and slides right. On his toes bouncing, wide stance, left arm out, right hand at the waist – a Karate fighter. He is rangy and bad boy handsome with short, harsh bottle blonde hair, and a large throat tattoo. He is in his mid to late thirties, around six feet tall, a slender V-shape with slim legs in tight-fit jeans. He shrugs the dark, shiny ribbed jacket he is wearing and beckons me with his lead hand. In a gravelly voice, he says,

  “Come on let's dance.”

  I almost laugh at the cheesy bravado and unimpressed I charge, but I am stopped in my tracks with a stabbing front kick to the guts. I double over and fight against spewing and dropping to the ground. I straighten up and I am met with a blitzing attack of straight punches. I duck and crab up in a cross-guard shell and weave. A punch scuffs along my scalp and the others are blocked and slipped.

  Then from low I whip upward from my socks a leaping left hook that Joe Frazier would have been proud of. He anticipates and pulls back, but not enough, and my fist wallops the point of his jaw violently tilting his head to turn him off. His ass hits the concrete and the force ripples through his upper body leaving him straining upwards, glassy-eyed and out of it. I am admiring my handiwork when Toni stomps him in the head and makes him go limp.

  There is a lot to say but not here. I grab her arm and command,

  “Come with me!”

  She does, and we run out into the street and around the corner to The Storm. Inside I acknowledge the greeting of the receptionist and open the fire door to access the stairway. My room is on the second floor. I get the key card out ready and in we go.

  I turn to Toni,

  “You okay?”

  “I think so … I mean yeah … thank you for jumping in like that.”

  “It was the right thing to do, so I did it,” I said as plainly as I could.

  She appeared a little shaken, though less than you would expect.

  “Still, you could have got hurt … thanks.”

  I give a settling smile,

  “Well thankfully on this occasion it’s the scumbags left with the sore heads.”

  “Yeah, you really gave it to them.”

  “I’ve had some practice.”

  She is about to say something else, but I cut across her,

  “Well, do you mind telling me what happened there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean why did those two men attack you?”

  “I don’t know … rape, robbery … why do men attack women?” she replies in narky tone.

  “I don’t buy it, this is Reykjavik, not Mexico City; I think you were expecting trouble.”

  A bad play made too soon, tact had taken a back seat, and bluntness is drunk at the wheel.

  “I don’t need this right now … I think I ought to go to the police.”

  Toni takes a short step to the door, though keeps her eyes on me – if I had a barcode, she would be reading it.

  “Let’s keep them out of it.”

  “Why?”

  It was my turn to feel on the spot.

  “Because I don’t need the hassle … I’m here to blow off some steam, see some sights … and the police station isn’t one of them.”

  She goes to the door and grips the handle, pauses, and then releases it. She looks at me, or more accurately she scrutinizes me like I am an unknown factor in an equation.

  “Okay … cards on the table. The second guy you flattened, he is my Ex. Marcus. We split up a few weeks ago … and he is … a completely vile, jealous, possessive asshole. I saw him earlier in another bar … wasn’t sure if he saw me or not … though he must have.”

  Toni finishes with her palms open like a magician performing a trick.

  “And you picked me to be your guard dog?”

  “Yes, though you are marginally better looking than a guard dog.” She expresses this with a smirk and a shrug of the eyebrows, and it lessens the sting.

  “Charming,” I say in mock offense.

  “Well! if it nurses your fragile male ego, I chose you because you are pretty solid looking, you know big back and shoulders, head like a bucket, good for graft as my grandmother would say.”

  Toni spreads her hands, and with an expression of appreciation pretends to hold something substantial and meaty.

  Chuckling, I put my palms up in surrender,

  “All right all right, I think I prefer being compared to a guard dog. Okay, so who then is the other bloke … I mean guy?”

  “Adam Kucera, Marcus’s cousin; they grew up in each other’s pockets. If Marcus had ever killed me and there were times when he came close, Adam would have gladly helped him dig the hole.”

  “Touching.”

  “He's a real piece of work, done time for hanging a dog.”

  “Hanging a dog,” I echo.

  “Yeah, when he was eighteen he hung his neighbour's dog from a tree because the dude told him to stop parking in front of his driveway.”

  I point to her and say with amusement,

>   “He's what you call a douche bag right?”

  “You know your American insults.”

  “I like American crime movies: Goodfellas, Carlito's Way, Heat. I sometimes think I know as much about American culture as my own.”

  My part had been explained, and at this point I didn’t need to know any more, though I suspected there was a lot more to it all than she was letting on. The men wanted something she has, and she doesn’t want to tell me what that is. Toni is trouble, and in my room; the wise move is to cut her loose and carry on with the sight-seeing. But the juices are flowing, and the heartbeat drums a dangerous rhythm – I want to play.

  “You used me, and I’m fine with that. You needed to do what you needed to do,” I state sympathetically.

  “That’s cool of you to say that.”

  Her mind whirs for a few seconds, her tongue coiled against her teeth.

  “Would you help me again?”

  “I might, but I’m not digging any holes,” I respond with a grin.

  “I’ll save that for our second date,” she quips back.

  I'm getting to like this woman, she's as sharp as a cut-throat razor.

  Chapter 2

  09:11am Wednesday March 29th, 2017.

  I saw the call before it was put out over the air. I had emptied the sector inbox for the second time that morning and switched applications to check on the live incidents. It appeared on the screen in red, which meant it was still being processed – a sudden death. I clicked on it and read the text: a man had been found hanging from a tree on a hillside overlooking Blaencwm - a little dead-end village off the main-line of the Rhondda Fawr Valley. I would be required to go, but first I needed to allocate a unit to attend. I checked availability, Foxtrot Echo 44 and 46 were free. I went over the air and asked the control room to attach them to the call, and to also inform the Bronze Inspector. I attached myself to the incident, picked up the Kuga keys off the board and left the office.

  It was off the beaten track; a B road led to a country lane, which turned into a pitted track and ended at a farm. Not being in the division that long I had gone off course, and had to be guided in by the sat nav. I left the Kuga in the farmyard, negotiated a gate and crossed a dewy field on foot. Thankfully the ground was firm, and the field was full of sheep and not cows. I kept my eyes low to avoid the copious amounts of sheep shit, and the boots got wet and not filthy. I reached the end and scaled another gate, my weight heavy on the fall, cuffs clattering on the belt, slight twinge in my ankle – age did not come alone.