Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher (23 page)

Harp gazed across the sea as the
Alchemist
skimmed along into the blue expanse. Nothing but limitless water and limitless sky was before him, a stark but pure natural wilderness, with a force that man could never harness, and a depth of mystery that he could never fully unveil. The spirited captain took on a new tone of voice, one that Devlan had never heard before.

‘For a whole week I never spoke to a soul. Just me it was. And you know what? For the first time I realised I actually liked my own company. I felt peaceful, like everything I ever needed… I had already. Out here, on these waters. Pondering the depths beneath me during the day as I swayed on the waves, and pondering the heights above me as I looked up into the star-filled skies. From being all heartbroken, I’d then had the most blissful time of my life.

‘It started to feel like I was in a dream world, likes I had been hypnotised. That’s my only explanation as to the strange sight I saw one night. Coming out of the evening mist I saw her. She glided along so silently, but solid like this here deck I’m standing on now. She sailed right on past and as I looked at her stern I could see her name. And as silently as she appeared, then she was swallowed by the mist again.

‘But all night, I heard things that kept me wide awake. There I lay in my cabin, just wanting the noises to go away. All that screaming. I’ll never forget that. Poor souls. I heard them all drowning.’

Harp fell silent. Devlan took in a big breath of spicy sea air, and then released.

Realising the tale was over, Floyd turned to Devlan and quietly muttered: ‘You know I’m really going to have to shut that bastard up in a minute.’

There was nothing in sight when Captain Harp killed the
Alchemist
engines, nothing except a glimmering blue landscape and a serrated line on the horizon that was the now distant town of Dark Harbour. It was a naked patch of sea, free from fishing vessels or pleasure boats out spotting seals. Perhaps the spot on the sea’s blanket was like a Devil’s Triangle vortex and would swallow anything that sailed over it. But, right now, if someone was to scream in calamitous panic at the top of their voice, not a soul would hear them.

With both his hands still stuffed inside his trench coat pockets, Floyd glanced over the three divers with a bit more scrutiny as they waited for Harp to clamber down from the bridge. Devlan had informed Floyd of their names but he’d forgotten them all immediately afterwards. They were just a trio of nonentities. Drip One, Drip Two, and Drip Three were the names that Floyd had mentally assigned them.

The whole trip out there they’d been quietly talking to each other at an inaudible level and Floyd imagined they were talking about their favourite face moisturiser or what colour silk boxer shorts they liked to wear. They looked like they were three pretty boys out of some teeny bopping boy band, all dressed up in diving gear to film the video for their latest hit,
Underwater Love
, or maybe
Cry Me an Ocean
, or
Swimming Without Fins
.

What a bunch of tossers. And as for Captain ‘Harp-oon Me Quick, Someone’, he was just an annoying twat.

Floyd couldn’t deny how well they’d done to find the
Tatterdemalion
though. They’d achieved what no one had managed to do before so there had to be something to this unlikely band of explorers that Devlan had dug up. They were still twats though.

‘Okay, tw… guys,’ Floyd began, ‘I wanted a little word with you before I send you off down there. We’ve done something really fantastic here. I heard only yesterday that we weren’t the only ones to go looking for this
Tatterdemalion
ship. There’s one or two chaps that’ll be really pissed with us. The thing is, I’ve only just realised how important this discovery is. It’s a lot more significant than any one of us would have known.’

At that point, Floyd turned to Devlan. ‘Devlan, can you make a note of the GPS co-ordinates for me?’

‘Why?’ Devlan replied.

‘Just do it.’

‘Sure, Mr Floyd,’ Harp interjected as he walked towards the cabin. ‘We’ll go get that for you.’

Devlan walked reluctantly after him.

‘Now, my friends,’ Floyd went on as he faced the Grammy Award winning Three Drips. ‘It’s essential that no one else learns this information. And, I’m afraid, there’s only one way I can make sure of that.’

Floyd’s hands flew out of his pockets. In each one he held a .45 calibre Glock 21. He pointed them at the heads of Drip One and Drip Two. A head shot at this close a range was more than sufficient, and as Floyd pulled the trigger, and fragments of brain and skull shattered across the deck, the two drips dropped dead.

Anticipating that Drip Three would frantically flip out on him, Floyd immediately re-aimed his left Glock at him in a continuous movement. He fired once but uncharacteristically missed his target.

Drip Three managed to scramble over the side of the boat and fall into the water. He quickly flapped around for his mouthpiece.

At that moment, Floyd suddenly remembered a scene from a film. Recalling how the killer shark met his doom in the waters of Amity Island, Floyd aimed his gun at the aluminium oxygen pack on Drip Three’s back. What a great myth-busting opportunity to see if fiction lived up to reality.

Upon saying: ‘Smile, you son of a bitch,’ Floyd then pulled the trigger, precisely on the word ‘bitch’ in shameless emulation of Chief Brody. To emphasise his drama further, he lamely attempted the line in an American accent.

Rather disappointingly, Drip Three didn’t explode in a mass of blood and flesh and rain back down again on the sea. Instead, the bullet just ruptured a hole in the oxygen tank, which then acted as a rocket as it hurtled Drip Three along the surface. Floyd laughed to himself as the diver screamed and flailed around.

He could have carried on watching him suffer but then he remembered that Harp and Devlan still needed seeing to. He didn’t have time to stand and be entertained by Ronan Keating here and his annoyingly shrill vocals. As the oxygen tank propelled him back towards the boat again, Floyd fired a bullet at his head and blew it fatally apart.

Floyd turned towards the cabin. There stood Captain Harp looking very numb, his face as white as the collecting clouds in the sky.

‘Please, Mr Floyd, I…’

There was no point listening to any pleas so with both Glocks he fired them repetitively at Harp’s head. One bullet would have been enough to extinguish his life, but the agent of destruction fired half a dozen. Harp’s body hit the cabin door and then slowly slid to the deck.

‘That fucking shut you up, didn’t it?’

He looked to see what a glorious mess he’d made of him. Harp was unrecognisable, his entire skull cap having opened up, his annoying brain that was full of all those stupid stories now lying next to him. Strangely it still looked to be intact. A part of his face hung off his neck like a torn Halloween mask, and thick crimson blood soaked his woollen sweater. Floyd had to fight hard to stop himself firing even more bullets in his head and destroying it further, even though Harp was as dead as the
Tatterdemalion
pirates who’d haunted him in his youth.

Next he had to find Devlan. Where was he? Floyd looked through the cabin window. No sign of him.

‘Looking for me?’

Floyd whipped round so quickly that he lost his balance and toppled over. How did he get round like that? As he kicked his legs against the deck to move away from his dreadful friend, he frantically held both arms up, pointing the guns at him. Why the hell did he have to remove his shades? Despite having a gun in each hand, looking at his eyes wasn’t any more easier.

‘Floyd, what in God’s name was all that about?’ Devlan calmly asked him, as if he was a psychiatrist talking to a hissy-fitting patient lying on the couch.

‘Stay back!’

‘Or what? You’re going to shoot me?’

‘Where are those co-ordinates?’

‘I just tore them up and threw them in the sea.’

‘What?’

‘Here, have a look,’ Devlan replied as he pointed behind himself.

Still holding the guns on him, Floyd steadily got up, not taking his eyes off him for one second. He edged towards the back of the boat until, in the corner of his eye, he saw the bits of paper floating on the waves.

‘Now, are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on? Either that or just get on with it and shoot me.’

‘You think I would do that?’ Floyd protested, as if he was offended by the suggestion.

‘Says he with two guns pointed at me.’

Floyd warily lowered his arms. When it appeared that Devlan wasn’t going to pounce at him, he eventually returned the guns to his trench coat pockets.

‘The situation’s changed.’

‘You don’t say. I take it from this gesture that you no longer want me to search for the Akasa Stone.’

‘No.’

Devlan’s eyes suddenly swelled blazingly wide like supernovae and with extraordinary swiftness he leapt at Floyd, pushing him onto the deck as he held him like a lion pinning down a gazelle.

‘Then why the hell did you kill all my friends?’ he roared at Floyd, his forehead pressed firmly against his.

Floyd couldn’t find any words to reply, only whimpering groans. Locked beneath this creature, he feared he was about to black out.

‘Why, you bastard?’ Devlan continued to growl.

The son of a bitch had removed his gloves too. Floyd felt a searing pain in his shoulders, like razorblades were slicing apart his flesh. Just as he was about to cry out, Devlan got off him, allowing Floyd to collect himself.

‘It’s not down there,’ Floyd eventually panted.

‘Then what the hell are you trying to protect?’ Devlan responded, the anger threatening to get out of control again.

‘More than you would know.’

‘Tell me!’

‘That ship was cursed. Needed to be left alone. There’s bad things down there, and they need to be left where they are.’

‘Who told you this shit?’

‘The Harbour Master.’

Devlan sighed and closed his eyes. He turned from Floyd and stood by Harp’s body. It wasn’t any pirate ship that was cursed. If anything, it was Devlan himself. Everything he did in life had darkness and tragedy written all over it.

Harp’s blood glistened in the crisp midmorning sun. Stuck to Devlan’s boots as he stood in the crimson puddle, he wondered how many more friends he would see die in this prolonged lifetime of his. So many had left him, passing on to a destination that Devlan was the furthest soul from. Not that he assumed that his soul was even of the same kind as theirs.

‘Cursed?’ Devlan began. ‘Why on Earth would you…?’ He stopped himself. He only had to look at the situation he was in to realise that his argument didn’t stand up that well.

‘Had to be done. Had to protect the town,’ Floyd said, still lying flat on his back.

‘You’re a superhero now?’

‘I do what I’m told. The Harbour Master knows.’

‘
He
tell you to kill me as well?’

‘Have the legendary Devlan killed? I think The Harbour Master would rather have you working for
him
.’

‘No matter how long I’m here for, that’ll never happen.’

‘You work for me, you’re working for
him
,’ Floyd said as he dragged himself up.

‘What happens now, Floyd?’

Floyd got to his feet and straightened his coat. ‘This heap of shit have a lifeboat?’

‘There’s one somewhere.’

‘Go sort it.’

While Devlan searched out the inflatable dinghy, Floyd went below deck and saw to the scuttling of the
Alchemist
by firing a couple of bullets into the hull. While there was still time, he then took a brief look at the GPS machine but found that it was no longer working. Devlan had killed it. The co-ordinates weren’t important anyway. All that mattered was that the resting place of the
Tatterdemalion
was no longer known to anyone. That’s what The Harbour Master wanted.

Floyd realised that there was still something of a loose end in Devlan, who possibly hadn’t memorised the co-ordinates, but who’d still been trailing out to this spot each day and might be able to find it again by memory. He couldn’t worry about that now though. Now this operation was over it was time for him to be getting on with the next one.

‘Don’t look on this as a failure, my friend,’ Floyd said as Devlan struck up the zodiac’s engine. ‘I’ve achieved exactly what I wanted to do.’

‘Where is it? Who’s got it?’ Devlan asked. The zodiac sparked into life and they began stuttering away from the listing
Alchemist
which was already making its way towards the ancient graveyard for doomed vessels.

‘The Harbour Master has it.’

‘I see.’

‘We’ll get our hands on it. We just have more work to do.’

Devlan nodded as though he was agreeing with him, but really he was just thinking of how he’d be walking away from Floyd once they reached the shore. It was time for him to wash his hands of him and to slink away once more, back to the abandoned factory and his rodent friends.