The Dead & The Drowning Read online

  It is a short punch that travels no more than nine inches. The leverage learnt through ten or even perhaps twenty thousand repetitions on the heavy bag. A snap of the hips creates the torque that revs up through the torso, shoulder and finally the arm to the fist. The uppercut plunges into his solar plexus like a spade deep into soft soil. It feels that if I'd been able to hit him any harder I would have reached his spine. I let the shot sit for a second and I hear him emit something between a retch and a squeal. I pull back and his legs sag, and as he is going down I finish him with a short, bludgeoning right hook that smacks him flush on the nose. The back of his head bounces off the door of the RAV and he falls to prayer on his hands and knees.

  Suddenly spooked by the realization that I could be blindsided by a bat, I do a three sixty and see that I am safe for the moment. I then do something that I had never done before; I take measure and deliver a hard soccer kick to the side of the man's head. His arms give way and he is out, face down in the mud and grass.

  ◆◆◆

  Rivulets of blood and water roll into my eyes and the rain seeps into my clothes. I feel strangely ebullient - a feeling derived from coming out on top of something that should have had me beat; but I am not out of the woods yet, the job is only half done.

  I pick up the bat and go after Toni. The going on the boggy ground is difficult, with energy dissipating in slips and saves. Toni has got further than I thought. She has run to the end of the field where there is a gentle rise leading to a flat area of stone and short grass. The area is enclosed on the left by a bank of steep, slabbed rock, and sharply dropped away on the other side into a gorge.

  Marcus is gripping Toni by the scruff of the hair with his left hand and holding the bat midway along the length with the right. His scarf is loose from his face and dangling from his shoulders to his thighs. Marcus is dragging her in the direction of the Defender, and Toni fighting his hand with hers is digging in her heels and pushing back. Marcus is looking back talking to her. I can’t hear what he is saying, though I figure he is tearing strips off her with foul, excoriating words. He then leans his weight forward and pulls her along a few feet before she digs her heels in again and they stop. Marcus viciously pokes her hard in the stomach with the end of the bat, and Toni doubles over and drops to her knees.

  Under the radar, I draw near and hear him scold her as he kicks her in the back of the legs.

  “You're a cheating, lying, thieving whore. You're not running out on me again. We were in this together. Greedy fucking bitch wanting it all. You're getting nothing, but I might just let you live if you play your part.”

  Marcus shoots into a Karate stance and kicks Toni in the ribs,

  “keeeaaahhh!”

  Toni rolls onto her side into a foetal position and squirms in the mud, dry-retching pain.

  Marcus prances in a half-circle with the end of the bat cockily resting across his shoulder. When he comes about he sees me slogging up the rise. He skips back, the sadistic smirk still on his face. He throws his scarf off and warms up the bat, and says contemptuously,

  “To the rescue hey. Is she paying you, or is she fucking you? I bet she's fucking you, hot between the sheets isn't she?” he smacked his lips. “What you don't yet realize is you dumb fuck, is she is … fucking you!”

  Marcus slowed and emphasized the last part of the sentence by breaking the word down into its syllables, and by grossly exaggerating his mouth.

  “When she's got no further use for you, she'll dump you like garbage. That's what the bitch did to me. She told you lies, she told you why we're here, did she offer to cut you in? What line of bullshit have you fed him Toni? … it doesn't matter, your fucking meddling ends here.”

  I wipe the blood from my eyes and settle my breathing. I had listened to what he said, much of it was vitriol, yet in there, there are probably grains of truth too. I could have done talking with the asshole for longer, but I didn't see it working out that way. We are going to fight, and it is likely to be for keeps, at least on his side. I would do enough; I had no doubt he would put me in a wheelchair or worse.

  A grenade of adrenaline goes off in my gut and I feel its shivering tremors; and despite the pending violence, I appreciated the beauty of the spot where we are going to try to cave each other's heads in. I could hear the wash of a waterfall below and see the misty spray rising above. I take a deep breath,

  “You are a prize cock. I've dealt with hundreds, and you're making your way into my top ten. Do you want to dance again?”

  I let the words linger, I want him to lose his composure and rush. He doesn't bite, he chuckles and says haughtily,

  “The fucktard speaks. You got lucky, you won't be lucky twice. Have you fought with swords before? I have, you're in for a treat.”

  Though it may have been bravado, a chill ran down my spine and a crack of doubt appeared. With the background in karate it is possible that he had practised with a Katana, or even done Kendo. I shut it out. So what, we are where we are and there was no opting out or going back. I know my way around a baton, understood leverage, and I know violence - let the dice roll.

  I hold the bat in traditional slugger style and with a bladed stance edge forward. Marcus adopts a samurai's pose and holding the bat out in front of his lean six foot frame moves obliquely. The bat bobs, blood drips over my brow - both of us manoeuvring into the point of ignition.

  Marcus lunges flexing his wrists, and the bat strikes out like a snake clonking against my forehead. I buzz and reel, I swing for the stands, if I would have hit I would have killed, but I do not. Marcus at angles, bending away from the blow, not in front of me, now at sixty degrees off the centre line. I go forward with the momentum of the swing, turn around and jump back to face him, and our positions are reversed. There is a wobble in my legs, and my head is fuzzy and hurts like a bastard.

  He doesn't let me off the hook and comes in again. I let fly with a back swing to smash him on the way in, yet this time it is a feint. He is not there. He has aborted mid-attack and opened me up for a counter-strike. He springs forward, and the bat moves minimally from in front of his head into mine with alarming speed. With sickening impact, the hollow metal bat clunks off the left side of my head, and a curtain of night descends. I stagger back and the curtain recedes - and my senses are scrambled all to hell. I try to restore my balance, however my foal like legs disobey and I stumble and sway like a boxer about to be finished.

  Through pixelated vision I see Marcus raise the bat above his head. I turn away and bend, shielding my head behind my left shoulder, and with a harsh Japanese cry, a powerful, diagonal blow thuds into the meat of it. Pain radiates along my arm and I am knocked and spun. I trip and topple over, put my hand out to break my fall, and continue falling.

  Chapter 9

  I half open an eye and close it. I slowly open it again and blink. I can see green lines, vertical and slanting underneath an off-white vagueness. At this moment I am no more than an eye attached to a muddled brain. I feel stone cold like part of the earth with no general sense of self. Pieces gradually come together, and I feel my form numb against the earth. I recognize the shapes to be grass and sky, and I am face down, spread in the position that I smacked the sodden, green ground.

  I marshal my thoughts and command myself to move. The body is reluctant to respond, and I consider that perhaps I am unable to move, that I am trapped, or my spine is severed. I begin to panic, and the grid turns on throwing everything into gear.

  Sluggishly, I peel my head from the cold, squelching mud and push myself up onto my knees. The bat is next to me and I use it to get to my feet. I have a headache, a sore shoulder and some cuts and bruises. I am colder that I have ever been. Then I think how easily Marcus did a number on me, how I failed Toni and I manage to pour salt on my own wounds.

  It is still day, and the rain has eased to a light drizzle. I take in my surroundings: I am on a ledge about twelve feet each way, encroached on three sides by slabs of craggy, moss covered rock
. In front of the ledge there is a twenty foot drop into a deeper part of the gorge. The waterfall gushes from my right at the higher point of the gorge, which is level to where I am standing. Looking up I have fallen roughly fifteen feet and will need to climb back up to get off the ledge.

  Tapping my Fitbit, it reads 2:47; I have a couple of hours of light to get to the road and flag a driver down. I get my phone out from my front trouser pocket - it is undamaged, has a signal, though only has a twelve percent charge. In my other trouser pocket, I have my wallet containing a bank and credit card, ninety=four thousand Krona and my slightly bent specs. Everything else is in the bags.

  I look for an easy route - I will need one; I am scared of heights and my hands feel like dead fish. There is a line that has some decent holds, it veers left midway and then straightens up. I bounce some of the stiffness out of my joints and breathe some heat into my hands and give it a try. The holds are slimy cold sucking out of my hands any restored warmth leaving them as articulate as claws. I am at pains to obtain an adequate grip, and to add to my woes my boots are too cumbersome for the smaller edges, and I struggle to get purchase on the rock. I get half way up and a rock comes loose, my foot slips, I drop and fall off the face. I land on my feet, compress, knee myself in the chin and finish on my ass.

  I am sitting on soggy ground in already wet jeans and I am shivering. The soft-shell fleece I am wearing is water resistant, however the resistance has gone allowing the jumper to become wet in most places, and long-sleeved top underneath to become damp. My teeth chatter and I shiver uncontrollably. I realize that the situation is more serious than I first thought; that I am going downhill from hypothermia and could die here. The thought dwells and does not fill me with horror. From what I have read there are far more unpleasant ways to meet an end. There is a painless confusion as the body shuts down and an overwhelming desire to drift off to sleep. Instead of shitting the bed in a nursing home I would go out on my shield – like a Viking, a modern day one with a baseball bat instead of an axe. The thought amuses me, and I giggle a little. Of the two hundred and fifty or so deaths I had attended I had never been to one caused by exposure - I could be my first.

  The headache I have from the bat is being replaced by one caused from the cold; like when you gobble ice cream too quickly - except it is a whole lot worse, and it isn't going to go away - well it will if I die. I laugh again, it would be so easy to just lay back and let it happen. I would only have to not do anything and stress, grief, loneliness and all the other shittiness of existing would vanish. There are the children though, and they had been through enough grief. It would be selfish to lumber them with a frozen dead father in Iceland.

  I haul myself up and get out the phone, and with my spatula hands I find my location on Google maps. I then open up a browser, and with difficulty and error search for and phone the Icelandic emergency number 112. An operator with near accent less English answers, and I follow her script providing her with my personal details and contact number. I describe my location using the RAV4 and waterfall as pinpoint flags. I then explain to her what has occurred and my current predicament. She informs me to keep moving, that help is on its way from Buoardular and to not make any further attempts at climbing.

  I check the time, 2:59. What time did they shift change here? back home it would be 3 pm and no one would be in a rush to leave the briefing room and a nice brew. The other thing is who is going to respond to the call? – that is a lottery. I hoped it would be the keen, conscientious officer or medic that would keep looking, and not the lazy good for nothing uniform carrier clearing the call after mere minutes with, “Area search negative.”

  I pace back and fore vainly kicking and clapping the cold from dead disconnected limbs, feeling stiff like many of the rigored bodies I've rolled over. I think about trying to climb out again; that it would perhaps be a good idea to cover the bases. Just in case this area is waterfall city and they go to the wrong one. The drizzle ceases and I take some heart from it, though it is still gloomy with the sun buried behind the clouds. I conclude that it is probably worth giving it a go, and if I fall again I am unlikely to be hurt that badly.

  Taking the same route, I gingerly fix onto the holds willing myself to stay on. I get to the point where I fell before and dig a boot into the hole left by the dislodged stone. I can barely feel my hands and my whole body complains from the effort, still I push, pull and grunt my way up to the top. At the edge on my knees I want to collapse, yet I raise myself knowing that if I stop I'm done.

  I cross the arena of my defeat and allow the slope to motor weary legs. I flounder a bit on the soggy grass, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other and make progress. The RAV is still stuck on the tump and I dodder towards it.

  On reaching it I get in and find the keys still in the ignition. With a clenched fist I say a silent yes and get the engine running. I turn up the heater to maximum and then reach behind for the goody bag. I grab a coke, and for the first time I don't mind it being warm. I pop the top and draw long, messy gulps. This is followed by a peanut butter chocolate bar which I have to open with my teeth. As the car heats up I shiver more but I am not worried because I have heat, food and a change of clothes. I thaw my hands enough to take off my jacket and jumper, then I warm awhile.

  I think about what Toni and Marcus said and add it to what I know. Her father was a navy airman stationed here. He was into Viking history and metal detecting. He met an Icelander named Ron … Arnasson or something who liked the same stuff, and they became lifelong pen pals. Marcus and Toni were in on something together and she bailed out on him. This something has got to do with this Ron fella and Isa … Ina … shit. My memory is like Swiss cheese and I fall back on my phone to figure it out. Into Google maps, type Iceland Isa and the top suggestion is Isafjordur - yes that is what she said. I press it and the screen zooms in far north west on the map – bingo, that was where we were heading, and that is where they are heading now.

  With some warmth restored I alight from the RAV and go to open the boot. The back bumper is dented and the casings for both brake lights are smashed. The door is stiff to open but gives with a hard yank. Toni's case is gone, and mine has been left. From it I pick a pair of pants, socks, black jeans, t-shirt, turtle-neck jumper, Helly Hansen coat and grey Sketchers. I undress and sit on the sill of the boot to change. I tread carefully to the passenger side selecting stones and clumps of grass to step on. My rucksack is still there, and I retrieve it and get back into the RAV from the passenger side. I open my bag and find that my passport and airline ticket are still in the travel wallet that Beth had bought for our holidays.

  I have what I need to get home. Just tell the local police about the kidnapping, bumble around Reykjavik for a day or so, take a trip south to Vick to see the black beach, and then jet back to the U.K. I nod to myself to signal agreement with this plan. I'd put myself on the line and did all that I could to help her. The sensible option is to now walk away and let the police deal with it. She had led me down the garden path, albeit with my knowledge, but all the same there was deceit. In her defence, could she really have been honest? perhaps not. In any case I knew I was playing a dangerous game, and that was the reason I played it – there was nothing new there.

  I have a look at the damage, and it makes me smile. My reflection in the visor mirror is a sorry sight. Half a face caked in dried blood and mud, the other side smeared with blood; hair dirt matted and brown and clotted with blood from the splits beneath. There is a haematoma on my forehead the size of a golf ball – fair play, it looks like I've been thrown through an assault course. The Instagram selfies will have to be put on hold - as if!

  The opening sequence of the original Get Carter plays, and I answer the call.

  “William Cutter,” I enunciate in as clear English as my working-class Welsh roots will permit.

  “William Cutter,” the male Icelandic voice echoed.

  “Yes, I am William Cutter.”

  “Good, I
am Sergeant Magnus Sigurdsson of the National Police. I am twenty-five kilometres out of Buoardular and should be with you briefly. Can you say the bend that you drive off is about forty kilometres out of Borgarnes?”

  “Yes, yes, a long bend with a decline ... downward slope the other side. I am back in the car at the bottom.”

  Good, I thought he wants to confirm information and be precise.

  “In the car, is that right, no longer over the cliff?” he enquires.

  “Yes, in the car.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Nothing much, lumps and cuts.”

  “Okay, and your girlfriend … Tonya ... she is missing?”

  “Kidnapped … taken.”

  “Yes, okay, we'll be there in five minutes.”

  I had thought about standing on the bend and making it easier for them to find me, but I am too damn cold. I wait in the car with the heater blasting and doze off. And in this altered state between the conscious and unconscious reality blurs. Beth is walking away, and I am behind her. Astonished and overjoyed, I quicken my pace and she does not, yet she remains out of reach. I call out to her. She glances over her shoulder with an expression of indifference and continues walking. I run at full pelt, but it is as if I'm running underwater and Beth fades into the distance, into the murky beyond.

  Chapter 10

  I rouse with a start. There is tapping at the window, and a pleasant looking man in black fatigues is peering in.

  “Mr. Cutter, it is Sergeant Sigurdsson.”

  I open the door and he wisely steps back further than he needs to. I climb out cautiously and keep my hands in view.

  “I am glad to see you, I've been having a bad day.”

  “Yes, it looks that way,” he replies in a kind, dulcet voice.

  Sigurdsson is just shy of six feet tall and has narrow rounded shoulders, and the accentuated lower body of a dedicated cyclist. He is in his early thirties and has bright, inquisitive eyes. His fine brown hair is cut close at the sides, is longer and tousled on top and it flutters in the breeze. He is kitted out very similar to how I would be. He is wearing body armour with the word Logreglan in yellow on his right breast and the word police in yellow on his left. The epaulettes have yellow bars, though no shoulder number, and there is a round yellow insignia on each upper arm. He wears an utility belt carrying an extendable baton, an incapacitant spray of some kind, handcuffs, radio, and pouches maybe for a torch, Leatherman tool, pocket resuscitation mask etc., and like the British Bobby he does not routinely carry a firearm. The boots are tactical, and trousers are of the combat variety with large thigh pockets and two reflective silver bands around the calves.