CHAPTER 43
10 years AC
‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea
Walter stared at the scorched interior of the generator room. The rubber pipes had ignited in the blast, then burned and melted. So had the digesters, leaving pools of hardened plastic on the ground. The generator itself was largely undamaged but it had been knocked off its mounting by the blast and the casing was dented in several places.
It had taken him a couple of years of tinkering, foraging and learning to build them a methane-fuelled generator. All that could be done again. At least he’d know better what he was doing second time around. Jenny said she wanted them to have power again. Said it was a beacon of hope for the people; a sign of progress. Something they really needed to see.
He surveyed the mess around him. It was going to take quite some time to get things fixed up again. He needed to find another small brewery with similar sized incubators or . . . he scratched his beard in thought, or he could link up a series of smaller beer-brewing bins, each feeding into the methane tanks independently. Either way, there was a lot of foraging work that needed to be done, a lot of back-and-forth between the rigs and shore. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of leaving Jenny alone so much. She was still weak and vulnerable and although she could get about a bit, shuffling painfully as her mending skin stretched and pulled uncomfortably, she wasn’t strong enough to get much further than the stairs down to the mess room.
Down there she had a chance to chat with people as they came in for breakfast and evening meals, and she was determined to do that; to show her face, to show everyone it was going to be business as usual.
But it’s not, is it?
That bastard Latoc was slowly pulling more and more people across to his platform to listen to his bloody sermons. He watched them traipsing across the walkway towards the drilling platform four or five times a day. Women mostly, some of them taking their children with them.
He wondered what Latoc’s appeal was. Is it his accent? Is it his looks?
The man was slender and his lean face chiselled in a way that made him look both enigmatic and a little vulnerable. He imagined the older ladies wanted to mother him, the younger ones to bed him. But there were also some of the men amongst his followers; David Cudmore, Ronnie, Howard and one or two others. Whatever Latoc’s phony spiritual message, it seemed to have got through to them as well.
Idiots.
He cursed himself for not having the balls to throw the foreign bastard off the rigs the first time he’d caught him offering prayers in the mess.
Jenny’s support from those not yet under Latoc’s spell was ambivalent at best. They were happy to go along with the routines as they stood: after all, everyone needed to eat. But there were many amongst them who longed for the community to relocate ashore. Others who just wanted to have a greater say in how things were run. They may not have been buying into Latoc’s bullshit, but they certainly didn’t seem to want to loyally rally around Jenny.
Ungrateful bastards.
After all she’d done. The least they could do was show a little support now she needed them.
As he surveyed the burned-out room, muttering his thoughts and grumbles aloud, he heard, through the metal ceiling, the scrape of feet entering the chicken deck above. Feeding time.
The muted murmur of the hens’ stupid cooing rose in pitch and persistence as they realised food was coming their way. The ceiling clicked with the sound of scurrying claws across the floor above as the birds scrambled to get close to those feeding them.
Several feathers and flakes of rust floated down from the ceiling, disturbed by the fluster of hungry birds. There were holes here and there; small ones. Patches of rust pecked at and worked on by the birds. Nothing so big that one of them could escape through, though. Not yet, anyway.
He returned his mind to the task of cataloguing the things he was going to need to acquire from shore. Trips he could try and combine with shore runs for fresh water and the periodical ‘shopping trip’ in order to conserve the marina’s dwindling store of diesel.
We really can’t stay on these platforms for ever.
As if in answer to his thoughts, another few flakes of dark rust and some more feathers fluttered down.
He heard one of the people above talking; recognised her voice. It was Alice Harton. She had the kind of voice that always seemed to carry. Before the crash she was a manager in a retirement home, which seemed to fit. Walter could imagine the hard-faced cow doing the rounds through a crowded day room, queen of all she surveyed, speaking deliberately loudly, patronisingly slowly, as if talking to a room full of children.
A loud, piercing voice.
Someone else answered, much quieter, murmuring something he couldn’t quite make out.
‘That’s what she said,’ replied Alice. ‘And when I think about it . . . he was quite creepy with them all. Always hanging around them. Not just Jenny, but Leona . . . and Hannah.’
The mousy voice had something to say, again too soft to discern. Walter found himself stepping lightly across the floor, careful not to kick any of the snaking cables. He looked up through a narrow triangular crack, framed by the serrated edges of the rusting floor. Light flickered as someone stepped over him and a feather fluttered down onto his forehead.
‘Well he did, though, didn’t he? Do you remember? He told everyone not to go and look down there for her, didn’t he? Said he’d go look for her himself.’
The softer voice replied with something.
‘Oh, I dunno. I always thought he was a creepy old bastard myself. Hangin’ round the Sutherlands like a fly on a dog turd. Knocking on their quarters at all times. I bet you he was just trying to catch a glimpse of them. Of Hannah.’
Walter’s jaw sagged open with disbelief.
The other woman said something.
‘Oh, yeah, dirty kiddy-fiddler. But he was always all over her, wasn’t he? Holding her hand, hugging her and stuff. It’s not like he was her dad. I’m sorry, but that’s just creepy.’
The quieter woman spoke again.
‘Well that’s what we all thought, wasn’t it? That he was just soppy over Jenny. But now I think about it, I reckon he was just using her and Leona to get closer to the poor little girl, wasn’t he? It all makes sense when you think about it.’
Walter felt his blood run cold. He was half tempted to shout up through the crack that he’d heard what Alice had just said. That she was a dirty-minded bitch and he was coming up there to tell her as much to her face.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Alice in response to the other woman. ‘Oh, yeah, more I think about it, yeah. It’s possible, isn’t it? He took her down there and maybe this time he did something to her she didn’t like. He went too far. So he panicked and killed her. So, then when the search party came down to the generator room and Jenny found her, he just flipped, didn’t he? Made the generator blow up to cover his tracks.’
The other woman spoke.
‘Or that, yes. Maybe he did pull it off and was waiting for it to blow. All I know is that he was acting very odd about the whole thing.’
Walter felt his heart pounding in his chest. He felt light-headed with panic.
Oh, Christ, is that what people are thinking?
The light through the crack flickered and reappeared as the two women above moved slowly across the floor amidst the chickens.
‘Oooh, that’s a really big egg, look,’ said Alice. ‘Anyway,’ she continued a moment later. ‘If I had kids, I certainly wouldn’t let the dirty bastard near my little ones. No way.’
The other woman said something about Jenny.
‘Well that’s right. Someone should. But she’s such a stubborn bitch. She probably give you a bollocking and throw you off the rigs for spreading rumours. Bloody Jenny’s Law,’ said Alice sarcastically. ‘Bloody Jenny’s Law. Who does she think she is, anyway?’
The other woman stepped across the deck as she spoke quietly.
‘True,’ Alice replied. ‘Maybe he will. He should be in charge. I never really did the church thing before, but you know what he says seems to make so much sense. When I think about it, it was all so messed up . . . and . . . and, wrong. You know? I could imagine God was furious with us. Why not? Why not wipe the slate clean and start again?’
The other woman chuckled as she said something.
‘Oh, but, he is, isn’t he? I think if I was just a little younger . . .’
The two women giggled like schoolgirls as they finally finished feeding the chickens. He heard the wire mesh door to the chicken deck grate across the crap-covered floor and rattle shut behind them.
Walter felt a cold twist in his chest as he imagined others all over the platforms having this kind of conversation. He replayed in his mind every exchange he’d heard this morning, doing the rounds for Jenny, issuing the work tasks. All of sudden every reply, every half-smile offered to him, seemed to be tainted with the slightest hint of distaste.
Is that it? Is everyone saying that I’m a pervert?
But worse than that, if Alice was to be believed. Far worse than that.
Saying I killed Hannah?