A Gathering of Twine Read online

  Cullum hoped that Amanda would not cry too much. She was still young enough to move on, although no doubt at the time it would not feel like it.

  He felt a wet creaking within his chest. Another rib was going to go. Too late he tried and failed to shift what he could of his weight.

  Cullum gurgled and then coughed. The other lung was filling up with liquid. His air of serenity began to evaporate and was replaced by a rising tide of fear and panic.

  He was going to die here. He was going to drown in the fluid of his own lungs, as he was crushed from behind. Before, this had somehow seemed slightly humorous. Now? Now it felt very unfunny. Now it felt like a very bad joke indeed. There was a sense of ignominy.

  He was Andrew Cullum. He was a doctor. He helped people. He was not a bad guy. Ok, he had done some things that, looking back on them, he was not proud of, but such had been the enthusiasm of youth.

  He did not deserve this.

  This was a death that should be reserved for paedophiles and murderers. Not for him.

  He choked again, and he felt something come up. It was too dark to see what colour it was. But it did not smell good. He felt another gurgle inside himself. He spluttered, desperately trying to keep his airway clear. It felt like the pressure had grown, and he could feel the full force of the object on top of him bearing down on his head and back. Like a giant trying to pop a spot.

  Another cough and splutter. More fluid this time. A lot more.

  Something slid past his head. He instinctively tried to crane his neck to see, forgetting that he could not move. The thing slid back into his limited field of vision.

  Black. Covered in dirt and dust. He squinted. It was a boot. A second later a face appeared. It was in a full gas mask, and the torchlight on the helmet made him squint. It was a fireman. Definitely a fireman. The torch beam swung through the dusty air, illuminating him.

  Cullum heard a sound. With the ringing in his ears he could not make it out but he surmised that the fireman was talking to him. He made thumbs up. Sign of life.

  The face disappeared. The fireman had seen it, right? He had seen him move his hand. He could not have missed it. Cullum felt a panic begin to rise up inside of him.

  A scraping sound punctured through the ringing in his ears, and a black metal object slid towards him. A similar sound from behind him. A second one.

  Another face came into view. This was a medic. Also in a full gas mask. The dust was stinging Cullum’s eyes and he badly wanted to cough again. He saw a green tunic and white helmet, but could not make out if it was a doctor or a first responder. Either way, he guessed that this Major Event was not limited to himself.

  The medic was saying something to him, but he could not make it out. Thumbs up again.

  The face disappeared. The jacks began their slow work. The face reappeared. An arm reached through and held his hand. Not pulling him. Just holding him. I am here. You’re not alone. We’ll get you out. Hang on.

  Cullum felt tears well up inside him. The hand gripped him, and he squeezed gently back. I’m still here. I’m still alive. Thank you thank you thank you.

  The jacks creaked and crunched up. First just a little, taking the weight of whatever was on top of him. The mass could only have moved a fraction, but Cullum already found it easier to breathe. He tried to scramble towards the medic.

  “NO!” The voice was clear and punctured through the ringing. Cullum froze. “DON’T MOVE!”

  The jacks cranked up further. An inch. Maybe an inch and a half. The medic slid a thin piece of orange plastic along the floor to where Cullum was. It was just about as wide as he was.

  “GET ON!”

  Thumbs up. Cullum gingerly slid himself onto the sheet.

  Very slowly it was pulled toward the medic. Cullum saw a second figure behind the first. And then a third. A fourth. All in gas masks. Air tanks on their backs. The place was swarming with them. He saw stretchers going past him. The emergency lights casting everyone into eerie silhouettes. Finally, he was clear of the mass that had pinned him. His eyes rolled to take it in. A length of wall. A very large, very heavy length of wall.

  Cullum tried to get up, but the medic was already on top of him, gently holding him down. He felt a neck brace being applied. He was transferred onto a spinal board. He felt himself beginning to move. He was being carried.

  His eyes followed the ceiling. Towards reception. I’m getting out. I’m going to make it. Relief swept through him like a dam breaking.

  The cold night air slapped him hard in the face. There were fire trucks. A lot of fire trucks. Cullum counted six units. He had taken some residents on a day out a few years ago to visit the Hillingdon Fire Service. They did not have this many units. Extras must have been called for. Slough. Pinner. Staines maybe.

  As he passed through what was left of the main entrance, he saw that most of the front of the ground floor had been blown in. All the windows had gone, leaving gaping holes, like some unknown soldier caught in the crossfire and sagging. The brickwork bulged inwardly, and in places it had already collapsed. Firefighters were trying to prop what exposed lintels were left with long metal scaffolding-type jacks, in a desperate bid to stop the upper floors coming down and pancaking the building.

  Cullum remembered the footage of the twin towers coming down. This was not on that scale, but he still shuddered. He felt himself being put onto a trolley. Rain drops fell slowly from the sky. A few touched his parched lips. He felt like a child again, being blessed at Communion.

  As he was manoeuvred down the driveway, towards an ambulance, he began to see what remained of the old building in profile. The upper floors appeared to be sagging dangerously forward, like some ancient drunk on a final and catastrophic souse. It was only from this angle that he appreciated how much of the ground floor had really gone.

  In his daze, his eyes were drawn back to the night sky. He frowned. High above him, he fancied he could see a distant light, alternating slowly between white and purple, crackling and then fading, only to reappear a few seconds later. An aircraft? No. A helicopter maybe. With those heat cameras.

  A medic leaned over him. No gas mask this time. “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT. LOOK AT ME. CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

  Cullum tried to nod, forgetting his collar. He realised that he was strapped down, and was utterly immobile. With his hand, he made the thumbs up.

  The medic spoke again. An unintelligible noise came through.

  Cullum pointed upwards from his restrained wrist. SPEAK UP!

  “CAN YOU MOVE YOUR TOES?”

  Cullum waggled his toes and realised that he was shoeless. When did that happen?

  “FINGERS?”

  Cullum gave his best playing-the-piano.

  A light shone in one eye, then the other. “NAME?”

  Cullum tried to speak, but coughed and spluttered. “Doctor Andrew Ross Cullum,” he eventually croaked.

  Another spinal board was carried past him and his eyes followed it until it was put on a trolley not far from him. Kandian. Utterly lifeless.

  “BREATHE IN FOR ME.”

  He felt the cool metal of a stethoscope on his chest. He sucked air in, and felt the dull pain, clawing away on the inside.

  “OUT... IN... OUT... AGAIN”. The medic did this another three or four times, and Cullum felt himself beginning to relax.

  A loud braying, like an excited donkey, broke through his too brief reverie. His eyes flicked left. George Tate sat on the back of an open-doored ambulance, laughing maniacally. A blanket was draped over his shoulders, and as he threw his head back to laugh again, it slipped off.

  Although dusty, there was not a mark on him. Not a bruise or cut or even an abrasion.

  Two men flanked him. He recognised one of them immediately. The son. Devon. That was it. And the other? The face seemed familiar, but the name would not come, instead lingering at the bottom of his memory like a weighted corpse. He had seen him before. Not as often as the son. Or the nephew. But... the nephew!
<
br />   Cullum knew that he probably would not have got out in time.

  “George!” he said hoarsely. He spluttered, dribbling down his own chin.

  Tate looked around wildly for a moment. The son pointed his attention toward Cullum.

  “Andrew!” The old man beamed widely.

  Cullum’s throat was parched. “Your nephew?”

  George Tate’s expression darkened and the son looked at his father and then back to the prone doctor.

  “He doesn’t have a nephew,” the son said.

  Before he could say anything, Cullum felt his trolley moving and was loaded into an ambulance.

  “I NEED TO GET YOUR CHEST X-RAYED.”

  *

  “I don’t get it,” Danielle said.

  “Don’t you?” Freeman replied, smiling thinly.

  “No. What blew up the nursing home?”

  “Officially? Gas explosion from the derelict flats opposite. They were due to be demolished, and it looks like either kids or squatters got in... and well, boom.”

  “And unofficially?”

  “Cause unexplained.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Freeman shrugged. “There was an explosion either within or just outside those derelict flats. But there is no explanation how or why it happened. George Tate was the only one to come out completely unharmed. There were twelve fatalities, and nearly a hundred seriously injured. Houses in the immediate surrounding were completely destroyed.”

  “But I don’t really understand how this links to anything. George Tate got lucky.”

  “Did he?”

  “Well the evidence speaks for itself... doesn’t it?”

  “You tell me. George Tate is the only resident of Paternoster House to walk away without any injury. Not even a scratch. He was visited immediately before by a man who claimed to be his nephew, even though he has none.”

  “So who was he?”

  Freeman touched his Plex-Pad, and a grainy CCTV photograph loaded onto the screen.

  Danielle narrowed her eyes. “From the nursing home reception? This is the nephew?”

  Freeman nodded. “A contact at the Justice got me a copy.”

  “So?”

  Freeman touched the Plex-Pad again. Another photo appeared.

  “That is from the Maiden Castle dig, nineteen-seventy-five. Back row. Second from the left.”

  Danielle paused. “Good grief!” she said, looking up. “It’s the same man. He’s not aged a day. Who is he?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Celus Tuther?”

  Freeman nodded again. “Probably.”

  “Was he in the explosion?”

  “If he was, they never found his body.”

  Danielle sat back in his chair. “Well, this is the first piece of evidence I’ll really accept. But on its own, it’s not much. People will just say that it is a look-a-like. A coincidence. And George just got lucky.”

  “Maybe. But we also have Eric Kandian’s visions.”

  Danielle was not sympathetic. “Visions? Really? That is going a bit far. The man was clearly delusional. Your witness as good as said that he had advanced dementia.”

  “Maybe. But how did he know about Doctor Cullum’s new love interest? Or the mother?”

  Danielle was not budging. “Like he said, maybe he overheard him. It’s pretty flimsy to call it a vision.”

  Freeman paused. “What is your first memory, Danielle? I don’t mean a birthday party or playing somewhere, but the first time you remember something outside of yourself. A news story. Something big.”

  Danielle thought for a moment. “Probably two-thousand-and-three. The shuttle disaster. What was it? Columbia that was it. I watched that with my dad. I was three.”

  “So the Paternoster explosion would have been when you were six?”

  Danielle nodded.

  “Do you remember it? Do you remember the story being reported?”

  Danielle thought again and shook her head. “No. I don’t.”

  “That’s because it only made the newspapers. And there were no pictures. It never got broadcast on any of the news channels. Don’t you find that a bit odd?”

  “Maybe a little. But is it that they just couldn’t release the footage? A D-Notice maybe?”

  “For a residential gas explosion? No. And don’t forget, the papers reported it.” He pressed the Plex-Pad, and several clippings from various newspapers appeared. Danielle felt her interest being piqued.

  “Even today, you still cannot record or broadcast from the site,” Freeman continued. “After that explosion, not a single piece of recording equipment would work within fifty yards of that blast crater. Not the police, not the fire service and not the journalists. And I know why.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Hunnin 1:4-18

  The Darkness comprehended not Creation and reached for the Kingdom of God

  Through the windows of sleep and death.

  And Creation, in its innocence, reached for the Darkness with the promise of light.

  God beheld the corruption that would be wrought and decreed that this shall not be.

  He commanded that we servants of the sky bind the eyes of Creation,

  That they shall not see nor reach nor touch the Darkness.

  And their eyes were bound, that in death Creation would see and dream no more.

  My name is John Lennox. I am a local and national reporter for the BBC News network.

  Monday 4th December 2006

  John knew it was early. Too early. His phone buzzed again. He rolled over. The red LED of his alarm clock mockingly informed him it was a little after five. It was still dark outside, with no hint of a sunrise.

  The phone cut off. A few seconds later it started buzzing again.

  In the morning gloom, he fumbled to his bedside cabinet, reached for his phone, and snapped it open.

  “Yeah?” This had better be good, his tone said.

  “It’s Murph.” Murphy King had been his camera operator last night.

  “Murph.” John’s mind was still struggling to get into second gear. “Yeah. What?” he said eventually.

  “I... your...”

  John wanted to tell him to get on with it, but it was too much effort at the moment.

  “The footage is... your report is knackered.”

  John’s mind kicked up the revs and went into second gear.

  “What?”

  “The camera is bust. Everything is scrambled.”

  Third gear. The revs were climbing faster now.

  “How much of it?”

  “Everything. Everything is gone.”

  Fourth. Needle in the red. Sleep was a long way behind him already, and he was sitting up in bed, very very awake.

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “Does Will know?” Will Pitman was their producer.

  “Uh huh.”

  Damn! Damn! DAMN!

  “Where are you?”

  “TVC.” Television Centre.

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I’ve been here all night. Trying to recover your footage.”

  “And?”

  “Like I said. Nothing. It’s all gone.”

  And there it was. His mind slipped into overdrive and carried on climbing.

  They had been at the site of the Milton Road gas explosion for nearly six hours last night. He had got some great interviews. Some teary old ladies. A few scared kiddies. The sombre Police Commander. Shots of body bags coming out. It was not award winning, but it was pretty good all the same.

  “What happened?”

  “No idea. I watched the VT back in the van and it was fine. It was when I came to upload it all at the studio… all I got was static. I’ve had the techs look at it. They can’t explain it. They just said it must be a faulty unit.”

  “What does Will want us to do?”

  “What does Will always want?”

  John sighed, sitting on the edge
of his bed now. All Will ever wanted was the report. On time.

  “ITN owe me a favour. Will he accept licensed pictures?”

  “Dunno. Maybe. Are you going to come in?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m on my way. Maybe an hour or.” He looked at the sleeping form next to him, and his cock twitched. “Make it ninety minutes.”

  “Ok. See you then.” The line went dead.

  John went to put his phone down but noticed a text message. It was from Julie, his wife.

  Cairo is lovely. Wish you were here.

  The stab of guilt was enough to subside his stiffening.

  He prodded the girl next to him.

  “Hey. I got to go to work.” She was one of his regulars. Pretty good most of the time. The ache in his balls reminded him that she had been on form last night.

  The girl stirred.

  “Hmm...?” her hair was a tousled mess, and slightly matted. They had really worked up a sweat, John thought rather proudly. The stiffening returned.

  “I’ve got to go in.”

  “Ok.” She still was not awake.

  He slipped a hand under the sheets, over her tight belly, skimming her shaved pubis, and lightly touched between her folds.

  I know how to wake you up.

  She was still damp. His cock was now at full attention, straining against his own skin, trying to break free. The girl moaned a little. She was more awake than she had pretended. Sensing what was about to happen, she kicked the duvet off, opened her legs, and began playing with her already erect nipples. Her other hand reached for his cock.

  John hated it when she did that. She was trying to tug him off rather than take him in.

  Julie doesn’t do that... but then Julie spits. And that is just rude.

  He made a mental note to see if the agency had any new girls on their books. Someone absolutely filthy.

  He took a step back, out of her reach, and grabbed a condom and rolled it on, grunting at the feel of the cool latex against his manhood. He felt a little precum on his engorged head.

  Oh well. Still, she is bought and paid for. A quickie then.

  Bending over the girl’s prone form, he placed one hand on her shoulder, and the other cupped a buttock.

  But damn she smells good.