There weren't many there - it was too early - so he had no difficulty in locating Andy 'Mac' MacIntosh. The burly Scot was hunched over the table around which his group sat, no doubt delivering some choice words of wisdom. Mac was full of them. He knew the law of the workplace, what a man could and couldn't get away with and how to get the most out of the job for the least effort. He was just a roughneck like Charlie, but Mac maintained it was all he wanted to be: "When you become a boss, you sell oot yer mates. You cannay run wi' the hare and the hoonds." Charlie wasn't sure what 'hoonds' were, or what they had to do with hair, but Mac was smart, so it must mean something pretty significant.
Charlie dragged a chair from an adjacent table and tried to shuffle his way in beside Mac. Johnno Carter glared at him. Charlie averted his eyes and sat just behind Mac, waiting patiently, listening.
"Makes me wonder what's doon in that fuckin' moon pool," grated Mac in a sinister tone, his dark, beady eyes, moving back and forth across the faces before him. "Must be somethin' big fer them tay kill two men tay cover it up."
Len Avery, the floor man, had been taking Mac's subversive rambling with a pinch of salt up until then. Now he sat back and let out a snort. "You don't know what you're talking about, Mac. Eddie died from the bends."
"Is that right?" Mac never took kindly to being doubted. "How d'yer know what they did tay him? He could 'ave bin poisoned or drugged! An' you're forgettin' Sutcliffe. That was nay accidental. You cannay mean to tell me he carved that on himsel' - he needed a dictionary tay read Noddy. He was fuckin' illiterate!"
"Okay," conceded Avery. "Sutcliffe might have been killed, but there's no way you can connect his death to Eddie MacFarlane's."
"The moon pool, you dill!" blasted Mac in frustration. "You cannay see it, can you?"
"No, Mac," Len admitted, "And neither can you. Sutcliffe's was probably a grudge killing. Maybe he'd done the dirty on someone."
"The police are comin'," put in Charlie.
Mac frowned. "What're you sayin', Charlie? What would you know?"
"I heard Jonesy tell Meyer over the intercom. He said some police Inspector wanted to talk to Presswood on the radio."
"Who the fuck's Presswood?" Mac was often confused by Charlie's jumbling of the facts. He tolerated the little shit because he was a good ferret and if you could take time to sift out the garbage, a lot of what he said was useful.
"Presswood's the new toolpusher," said Avery.
"They had a blue," added Charlie beaming.
"What?"
"A blue - a fight."
"I know what a fuckin' blue is, yer wee turd! Who had a blue? What aboot?"
"All of 'em - Meyer, Presswood and Pierce. Goin' at it like shearers on a weekend piss-up. Meyer said Pierce killed MacFarlane on purpose, then all hell broke loose."
"There!" Mac hissed with satisfaction. "Was I right, or was I right?"
"You've only got Charlie's word for it, Mac," said Wayne Cox, "And we all know how 'reliable' Charlie is."
Mac was across the table in a flash, his clenched fist waving in the speaker's face. "Watch yer mouth, Cox, or I'll fill it in fer ye! Ye're talkin' aboot mah mate." He eased back and put an arm round Charlie. "What else happened, Charlie?"
Charlie rambled. Mac listened, his face changing as each new piece of information was absorbed, rearranged and slotted into the place that best suited Mac's cause. Like Charlie, the Scot was also predictable. Three of the men at the table, including Wayne, decided that a timely return to work was the best way to avoid becoming involved in whatever aggro Mac was planning. He sneered at their backs as they left, but said nothing because he already knew what he was going to do and he wouldn't need an army to do it.
Charlie finished. He sat next to Mac smiling, a dog who had performed his tricks and now waited for his reward. Mac stood up, pushing the chair back noisily. "Where we goin', Mac?" asked Charlie eagerly.
"Tay find oot who killed Sutcliffe."
Charlie scratched his head. "How we gonna do that, Mac?"
Mac tutted. "If someone had it in fer him, who would know?"
"Eh?"
"Who was Fuckwit's mate, yer daft prick?"
"Mike," Charlie answered, but still couldn't fathom Mac's reasoning. "Why?"
"Jesus!" Mac rolled his eyes. "Mike would know if Sutcliffe had enemies." Another idea struck Mac. "Maybe he did it! Maybe it was Mike." His face clouded. "An' he said he was Fuckwit's mate, too! The Bastard! Come on!"
Avery was now truly concerned. "Hang on, Mac. I think you ought to leave this to the police."
"Tay Hell wi' the pigs! Are ye comin', or not?"
"I reckon I'll pass on this one, Mac."
Mac gave the floor man the finger. "Then up you too, Avery!"
Len had half a mind to follow, while the other half was on letting Presswood know what MacIntosh was aiming to do. But he was no snitch, so he compromised and did neither. As it turned out, Mac's posse of two - himself and his grovelling mate, Charlie - came up empty handed. They couldn't find Mike, an eventuality which soured Mac's mood even further.
Once word got round, as was inevitable, others became curious regarding Mike's whereabouts. As soon as the dilemma came to Presswood's attention, an organised search of the vessel was instituted with the same result - no Mike!
If there was one detail common to all three of the recent mysteries, it was a particular location. Somehow, the moon pool featured in the deaths of Eddie and Fuckwit, and that was also the last place anyone had seen Mike.
There was one other oddity connected with Mike and his mate - the peculiar, vile-smelling slime which had been all-too obvious on and around the moon pool ladder after Sutcliffe had died, and the stuff seemed to have increased in both volume and intensity with the advent of Mike's disappearance. Presswood was crouching on the catwalk, sniffing at his fingers which were smeared with the obnoxious substance. He frowned up at Jack Pierce who had accompanied him in the search. "What the hell is it, Jack?"
Pierce had no idea and said so. What he omitted to confide was the nagging suspicion in the back of his mind which related this revolting slime to the phosphorus that had surrounded Eddie at the time when the young diver had gone crazy. Jack had a feeling - just a feeling, mind - that, as well as being present at the point of Sutcliffe's murder and Mike's disappearance, the stuff on Del's fingers had also played a part in Eddie's death.
Del stood up and wiped his hands on a rag. A man was approaching with a mop. Presswood stopped him. "Don't clean it up, just leave it."
"Leave it?"
"That's what I said. And don't let anyone else mess with it either, not until the medic's checked it out."
The man looked puzzled. "So, what do you want me to do, stay here and guard this shit?"
"You've got it in one," said Del.
"You
