Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher (31 page)

The last time Michael had been there was when he was at primary school during his bird watching phase. Other than being a good place for spotting little egrets and black-headed gulls, Michael also vaguely remembered being told about the beauty spot’s mystical reputation. The place was supposed to be haunted. Perhaps it wasn’t famous enough for Derek Acorah and Yvette Fielding to have traipsed down there, but the odd story of the ghostly spirits within the cove had surfaced throughout the years. Michael also seemed to remember that people communed with the spirits there. Or something. He’d never really paid much attention to this superstitious hokum.

The sky was full of activity this afternoon as layers of clouds bustled over one another. With a mixture of grey rain clouds and white fluffy billows, it was as though some mischievous imps had been let loose in a giant cloud factory and spewed vapour out all over the sky. There was a panorama of drama, as their ever continuing movement formed different shapes that blended from one into the other: wizards with long beards, horses galloping across the heavens, snow covered mountains from a fantasy wilderness.

After walking along the meadowland, Michael set eyes upon the magic of the real world beneath the melodrama of the sky, Moonlight Cove. Descending the cliff face where once the boy’s satchel and torch had been thrown, Michael slowly clambered down to the sodden sands.

Where would the young child have gone next? Why did he even come here in the first place? Why would he go to a place that was haunted? To find the spirit of his murdered brother, perhaps?

The crescent of looming cliffs around the cove stood like the wall of a fortress. A lone tree could be seen at the top of the rocks watching over like a sentinel. It swayed back and forth in the wind, pointing its branches towards the sands as if to encourage people to remain within this retreat rather than go back to the frenzy and frustration of town life. The rocks looked a lot more difficult to climb than they were to descend.

It was very tempting to stay within this peaceful place, to sit on the sands and forget the trivialities that weighed on one’s mind. Nothing seemed to matter here.

After feeling a momentary balancing of the scales, Michael’s persevering mind went back to the issue of a certain missing boy. A journalist first had to experience and then put himself one step removed from the story. He couldn’t allow Moonlight Cove to beguile him to the point of distraction.

So where did Jeremy go next?

He wouldn’t have clambered down the cliff just to clamber out again. There didn’t appear to be any caves anywhere in which he could hide. The beach didn’t expand up the coastline. There was only the crescent-shaped sands and the waves that lapped at their edge.

Michael strolled towards the sea. He could imagine small imprints on the sand, washed away soon after by the soothing tide. Jeremy must have walked over to the water because there was no other place he could have gone.

But where
then
? Would he have carried on, walking into his grave? Would a six-year-old boy even have a concept of suicide at that age?

Following the trail of those ghostly footsteps, Michael soon arrived at the edge of the shore, which was hugging the cove closely this afternoon, hiding many of the rocks that were scattered out into the sea. The tips of some of them could just about be seen, small islands that would not provide any lasting habitation for anyone; perhaps just the occasional mermaid might sit on them to comb its hair in the light of the silvery moon.

This was where Jeremy’s journey must have ended. He doubted that he would have swum out to any of the rocks. At that age he probably wasn’t even able to swim.

The mystery churned over and over in his mind. The Rubik’s Cube would start to form a collection of colours on one face, only for Michael to turn it over and see a mosaic of reds, greens, blues, and yellows randomly assembled on the opposite face. He had the pieces of the mystery but they would not come together in a way that even began to make any sense.

A boy goes to a secluded cove. He walks over to the waves because he has nowhere else to go. Where does he go next? What does he find here?
Who
does he find here? Why would he come here if he was looking for the Halo of Fires organisation?

Where? What? Who? Why?

Michael could sense that the answer was right in front of his nose but he could not see it, like he was looking for his glasses when he was already wearing them.

Where does he go next? Where, where, where?

‘Lovely little boy he was. Never met a boy quite like him before. And not since. He had these eyes, such absorbing eyes. So clear that you could see yourself in them.’

Michael felt a spot of rain. He knew what that meant. It told him where
he
should go next - back to the flat. Unfortunately, it was time that he should concede defeat and abandon the mystery until another day.

As a wave of disappointment passed through him, Michael turned from the waters and started walking back across the sands towards the cliff face.

He wondered if the footsteps were ever to have been found going back to the rocks. Is that how the Jeremy story continued? If so, why had he even come here in the first place? There had to have been some point to this story.

As he was alone, and as the mystery had tantalised him so much, Michael stopped walking, turned back to the necromantic waves and said: ‘Where is he? Where on Earth is he?’

The surf continued to roll and froth at the shoreline. A few seagulls swooped from the sky to attack a crab that had scampered up from the waters. The rain continued to fall from the sky in ever bigger droplets.

No spirits appeared. No ghosts or banshees or wraiths or anything manifested from the ether to answer Michael’s question. It was just Michael and an attractive section of coastline that inspired the imagination.

He turned away. The rain was pattering against his white jacket and soaking into his blue jeans. Michael stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. No answers today, but he would get there eventually.

On the plus side, Michael had now found his favourite silver pen for there it was in one of his pockets. All that hunting and suspecting and it had never gone anywhere.

‘When will you ever learn, Dorothy?’ he said to himself. ‘And damn it, I’m glad Larry wasn’t here to hear me call myself Dorothy.’

He held out the pen and stared at it. He stopped walking too.

Feeling a slight flutter in his stomach, as though a whisper of inspiration had suddenly swept through him to help guide his thoughts, Michael quickly whipped round to look back at the sea. He didn’t know whether he was expecting to see something there or what, but for some reason he felt as if he’d suddenly hit on something. All of a sudden, a quick turn of the Rubik’s Cube and the tiles had gone from a random mess to a perfect alignment.

All because of his silver pen. An innocuous little object. His favourite weapon. A faithful writing implement that hadn’t disappeared from him as he’d thought.

He could now use that same pen to write about the flash of inspiration that it had caused, the sense of synchronicity that he was now experiencing.

Judging by the strength of the vibration he was feeling in his stomach, it had to mean that he’d solved the mystery.

Part 11: Dead Ends

Chapter 11.1

As the doors to Saint Anthony of Padua’s were left unlocked all night, it was a suitable location for the midnight meeting. The gold hands on the church clock reached the top and the nervy Seraph began walking through the oak doors. Henry had been waiting outside for five minutes. Navarro must have been early.

The church was cold and deathly quiet inside. Apart from the dull orange glow of streetlights that filtered through the stained glass windows that filled the east wing, the only other light within the church came from the candles that burned in front of the devotional altar.

Sitting on the front row was a bearded man wearing a baggy white collarless shirt, Stanley Navarro. He looked to be alone, something which surprised Henry. He was propping his walking stick in front of himself, strange that he even had it as he never seemed to have any sort of limp in his gait.

Navarro was the right hand man of The Harbour Master,
his
chief messenger, problem fixer, and shoelace tier. There was a rather old conspiracy theory that Navarro was just a decoy, that he was actually The Harbour Master himself but Henry knew that Stanley Navarro was the real deal. He didn’t actually look anything like
him
for one thing. Although Henry had met
him
only the once, he would still be able to produce a reasonably accurate E-fit. A meeting with
him
was not something you easily forgot.

Hearing Henry’s footsteps reverberating around the stone hall, Navarro said: ‘Maristow.’

His voice was whispery and without inflection. There was never any emotion in his speech, always a monotonous drawl that gave away nothing more behind the words he spoke. Henry often wondered whether a surgeon would find only wires and diodes on opening up Navarro’s head. The way he’d spoken was not really to say hello, but more as if his cybernetic systems had detected Henry and was merely registering his presence.

‘Navarro,’ Henry replied.

He took a seat on the other side of the aisle. A giant crucifix of a dying Christ hung over their heads.

‘Still a soldier of God?’ Henry asked, peering above.

‘We are all soldiers. Have you lost your belief, Maristow?’

‘Can’t lose what we’ve never found.’

‘But I know you search. You at least know there’s something to be found.’

Henry rubbed his eyes and then crossed his legs. ‘Where’s the boss tonight? Will
he
be joining us?’

Navarro didn’t reply. He just turned his head towards Henry. Whatever expression he had on his face was lost in his thick beard. Henry suddenly had an eerie feeling that Navarro’s head was being controlled by The Harbour Master like a remote controlled puppet and
he
was able to look on Henry through eye-like cameras.

‘Why don’t you ask me about what we really came here for tonight?’ Navarro eventually said.

Feeling restless, Henry nodded. ‘Okay, hit me.’

Navarro put down his tall walking stick and reached next to himself. He picked up a black leather briefcase, placed it down and kicked it across the floor towards Henry. The sharp sound of leather scuffing against stone filled the church for a short moment before a void of silence fell upon them.

Henry knew what was inside it. He leaned forward in the pew, peering on the briefcase like a child about to open a Christmas present. With his hands clasped together and pinned between his knees, he could easily have been mistaken for a man begging to Christ for salvation.

If a twist to this tail was going to come then it would materialise in the next few seconds. Perhaps the moment that Henry stood up, a couple of goons with machine guns would crash through the windows and spray him with bullets.

Or perhaps Henry’s pessimism would finally, for the first time in his life, escape him. Perhaps if he were to get out of his seat right now and go and open that briefcase he would find the very thing that he had been searching for all these years.

‘Don’t open it,’ Navarro said. Every word was ice cold.

‘Why?’

‘Henry Maristow, why do you always set yourself the impossible? Why did you think you could find release from your past? Think you could find a cause to believe in, as long as someone could provide it for you? Even though you’ve been carrying Hammond’s torch and holding it as your own all these years.’

Henry wasn’t able to think quickly enough to defend himself. It felt like his mind was scattered across the entire universe and Navarro was slicing him in the guts in the mental attenuation.

His
messenger went on: ‘You thought the Fires was some noble crusade you could go on to make up for your service in the Network. You thought if you could deliver punishment to everyone else, it would eventually erase your own guilt. Help those visions to fade away. Floyd running around like some monster, while you just stood back and let him get on with it. I bet you must feel like a total shit for not doing anything, don’t you? No wonder you felt that you had to somehow cleanse your soul.’

Henry blinked hard and cleared his throat. ‘Didn’t realise it was as easy as a Hail Mary.’

He got up from the pew and stood over the case.

‘The end is always another step away, Maristow.’

Henry crouched down. He slid the buttons and the catches sprung free. He grabbed the lid of the case and opened it.

Inside was the indigo gemstone held by the wooden cord that Vladimir had taken from the assassinated David Tyler, the same one that was then snatched from them by The Reaper. Two small blotches of Tyler’s blood were still speckled on the wooden beads.

Henry’s trembling hand reached forward and he stroked the stone. Taking hold of the cord, he stood up tall, feeling strong. The treasure dangled in front of his face and Henry closed his eyes; he had to prevent the tears from streaming down his face.

At first he felt elated, as though a healer had placed his hands on Henry’s head and centred his strained energies. He expected to hear a choir of angels as the winged messengers that adorned the stained glass windows would come to life and fly throughout the nave. He could imagine Christ above him opening his eyes and his bleeding crown dripping onto him. He waited for the church to illuminate with heavenly light.

However calming it felt to hold this stone, it didn’t feel that unusual, only like waking from a deep and refreshing sleep.

‘It’s fake,’ Navarro said to him.

Henry opened his dewy eyes. ‘Yeah.’

He sat back down. The abject despair brought a peculiar calm, the knots in his neurones untying, the clouds in his brain dissipating. Releasing hope was bringing him salvation, all thanks to this imitation.

He wished that he’d listened to Vladimir. The kid was always right. Always, always.

‘Why?’ Henry asked, hoping for any sort of answer that Navarro might give him. Or perhaps he was talking to the saviour above. Nevertheless, Navarro had an answer for him.

‘All this time we thought the stone had survived the sinking of the
Tatterdemalion
, but we’ve just been hunting that fake. Something that came out of a Christmas cracker.’

‘It’s not still down there,’ Henry said. ‘It can’t be. We’re chasing our tails here! The thing doesn’t exist!’

‘There’s that lack of belief again, Maristow.’

‘If the legend of the Akasa Stone sank before it started, then why do we even know about it? How do we even know that Silas had the stone on board if he didn’t even survive to tell anyone he had it?’

‘I thought you would have spent more time researching the story.’

‘I’m not searching the sea for it. I leave that to the idiots like Floyd.’

‘Yes. Floyd. The Harbour Master has underestimated him. Did you know that he found the wreck, Maristow? Something that even
he
never managed to achieve?’

‘I knew he was closing in on it. Or rather Devlan was. Let’s not give Floyd too much credit.’

‘But Floyd is tenacious. And it’s something that has made The Harbour Master most perturbed.’

Henry stood as he held up the indigo stone once more. He shook it in his fist. ‘You killed Tyler for this?’

He looked towards the empty chancel and was about to toss the necklace away so that some random member of the church choir might find it.

But just as he was about to do so, he paused.

‘Not going to throw it away then, Maristow?’

‘I think I’ll keep it,’ Henry replied, beginning to realise the power that even the fake Akasa Stone held.

‘Yes, we think it would be a good idea if you did that. So long as Floyd believes you have the stone then he will end his quest. It’ll just be you and The Harbour Master in the search once more.’

‘No. Just you. I’m out of it,’ Henry said. ‘Good evening, Navarro,’ he added before walking away.

‘Maristow.’

Chapter 11.2

At twelve minutes to one that following morning, Vladimir and Jake were attending to some private business. They hovered in the beer garden of the Rose and Crown, which was deserted by the time that Tuesday night had turned into Wednesday morning. This shit hole was a pub for skanks, for weasel-faced dope heads with greasy hair, for job seekers spending their allowance on expensive beer.

It was also the pub frequented by the burly thug with the ripped jeans and the muscle-hugging shirt, the same man who was currently curled up in a ball while Jake kicked his spine.

At first the guy thought that Jake and Vladimir were there to have a friendly beer with him. A warm smile from the one in black, a lewd quip from the other one about how big the barmaid’s breasts were, and then it all flipped into a distinctly unfriendly drink.

Vladimir had shot him such a heavy stare that he thought the legs on his stool would break. He threw some sloppy, beer fuzzed punches at Jake, tickled him pretty good. And then he was dragged outside.

He wouldn’t feel his bruises until tomorrow afternoon when sobriety seeped in. Maybe he’d forget how he’d got them too. Eleven beers and half a dozen shots made effective body armour. It was funny. They were really beating him to shit and he couldn’t feel a thing!

Jake was putting the pieces together as they went along. Vladimir’s words shot like atom bombs. There was a holocaust through his eyes. It gave it all away. He was oozing the heat from a tremendous rage. Jake knew what all that was about.

The guy writhed on the cold ground as he spat out a mouthful of blood. His pale fingers picked out a tooth from the goo.

‘A tooth! For the tooth fairy! When she comes, I’ll kidnap her and steal her magic wand!’

‘What now?’ Jake asked Vladimir.

‘Make him take his shirt off.’

The guy had propped himself up against a table and was singing some sort of nursery rhyme to himself, laughing like a lunatic. He was blitzed.

‘The tooth fairy was you! Yes, it was you!’ He looked up at Jake and Vladimir floating above him like two risen demons who’d found a fallen angel. ‘What did I do occifer? I coulda swored I only had a shouple of candies.’

Jake crouched and grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling it from him like it was paper.

‘Hey!’ the drunk wailed. ‘I hope you’re gonna pay for that. When I get her magic wand I’m gonna come back and turn you into a frog and sell you to a Frenchman. And your friend there, I’ll turn him into a dildo and shove him up my arse!’

Rotating his fist, the guy started practising his wand waving. ‘Dildous rectumus!’ he chanted his spell at Vladimir.

Vladimir stepped closer. ‘Stand up.’

The drunk looked up at him with his crimson grin and just laughed, a laugh that soon turned maniacal, as the fallen angel transformed into a demon.

‘You can’t make me do anything. I have the magic wand and I have all power over you. You shall both be my slaves!’

‘Get up!’ Vladimir cried.

Jake grabbed the guy by the throat and lifted him to his feet. The half-naked drunk slumped back against the table.

‘All right, all right! I’m standing. Now what do you want with me?’

‘Turn around,’ Vladimir told him.

‘Yeah? How about I pull my trousers down and you suck me off?’

‘Turn the fuck around you demented sack of shit!’

Vladimir’s words felt like an explosion in his face. He reached a hand backwards but missed the table and fell to the ground. As he crawled onto his knees he wondered what they would do to him next, whether he should make a run for it.

But he knew the drink had depleted his co-ordination and so all he could do was turn his whole body away so that they would not see him crying.

Nothing happened.

He raised two invisible wands into the night air and cried: ‘I don’t have a fucking chance!’

He sobbed to himself, but when he eventually turned around again he realised he was alone.

Vladimir and Jake stood back out on the vomit-stained high street, watching as a couple of other dedicated drinkers had decided they’d had enough boozing for a Tuesday night. A couple of chavettes stood near to them trying to spark up a cigarette lighter.