The Kill Call

away.
    ‘“Well, I’m on my own out here,” I said to myself. And then I shut the hatch. Just like that, without looking down again or saying another word. I just shut it, made sure it fit tight, and I put the padlock back on and shoved the keys in my pocket. And then I walked away.’
    ‘You left him down there. With no way of opening the hatch, and no hope of anyone coming along to let him out.’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘He had a mobile phone –’
    Massey shook his head. ‘Those things don’t work when you’re down inside a concrete bunker. A post like this was built to withstand the blast wave from a nuclear bomb.’
    Looking at the man, so calm and matter-of-fact, Cooper wondered for a moment whether they would actually find anyone in the abandoned ROC post, or if this was all just a figment of Massey’s imagination. Was he entirely sane? Had the old man gone quietly over the edge at some point in the last few years, and imagined the whole incident? Clay’s sudden appearance did have a suggestion of wishful thinking – the result of a decades-long desire for vengeance, a hatred so powerful that its object had materialized in the form of a vivid hallucination. They would only know for sure when that hatch was opened.
    ‘We need to get over there,’ said Cooper.
    ‘Where is it?’ asked Fry.
    Cooper pointed across the fields along the edge of the moor, to the raised area with its line of disused telephone poles. The Toyota’s four-wheel drive came in useful now as they drove round the edge of the empty field to reach the gateway above Badger’s Way.
    ‘It’s funny,’ said Massey, when he got out and stood by the site. ‘If only there’d been someone out on Black Harry Lane, walking their dog or something, it would never have happened. But I suppose the weather was too bad.’
    ‘Does this bunker flood?’ asked Cooper suddenly.
    ‘Oh, yes. It was always a very wet post. We had to pump it out all the time. Now it floods right up into the shaft in really bad weather.’
    Cooper wiped the rain from his face. ‘Like now, you mean?’
    Massey seemed to consider the rain, as if he hadn’t noticed the continuing deluge until now.
    ‘Aye. Could be.’
    With a sense of despair, Cooper looked at Fry, and she began making calls. While she did it, Massey stared at the sky, as if watching for better weather to come riding over the hills to the north.
    ‘I shut my memories away,’ he said. ‘They’re down there in the dark, with the hatch locked tight.’
    Then Cooper had a terrible thought. He’d been here at Rough Side Farm himself on Wednesday, around the same time that Michael Clay’s phone had gone off the network. While he’d been talking to Peter Massey that first time, he’d noticed the raised area of ground, but hadn’t recognized it for what it was. And he’d been here yesterday, too. Had Clay already been shut inside the flooding bunker then? Had he been calling for help, his shouts going completely unheard as Cooper stood around and chatted to Massey about horses and foxes?
    He seemed to hear his brother Matt’s voice again inside his head: ‘ I can tell you, Dad would never have done that. He would never have hung back if he thought he might save someone’s life .’
    Urgently, Cooper took hold of Massey’s arm.
    ‘Quick – have you got the key with you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Get that damned hatch open, then.’
    Cooper was pulling off his jacket, unlacing his boots, shivering in anticipation as the rain began to soak his shirt.
    ‘Ben, what on earth are you doing?’ said Fry in horror.
    ‘Going down.’
    ‘We have to wait. This is a specialist job.’
    ‘Saving a man’s life?’
    ‘We don’t know he’s still alive.’
    ‘We don’t know he’s dead, either. The water might not be up to the top yet. He could have found an air pocket. We can’t just stand here while he drowns.’
    When they pulled the hatch open, the water was halfway up the ladder. The stink of foul air and dank concrete rose to meet them – a true miasma, so thick that they could almost touch it and feel it. Rain splattered the surface of the water, shattering their own reflections as they stared down into the bunker. For a moment, Cooper experienced that curious illusion of looking at something twice as far away as it really was, because he was looking at his own reflection. And not just looking at himself, but at the grey sky far above his head. It was like staring into the infinite depths, dark clouds