It was indescribably filthy. A one-time boiler room, now with the boilers removed, it was little more than a brick-lined hole under the ground, the rusted, broken piping suspended along its ceiling dangling with cobwebs and stuffed with rats’ nests, the walls caked with a black, greasy clag, a residue of the unimaginably disgusting process now employed there.
The air was so rank, so thick with fumes that it was toxic, so much so that the two people down there needed to wear full biohazard masks complete with panoramic visors and dual filters on their respirators, plus heavy-duty, plastic-based protective gauntlets and coveralls, just to be able to stand it for a few minutes.
One of the pair, whose suit was white, was seated on an old school-chair near the door, focusing through the mask’s polycarbonate visor on an iPad, where a game of Bejeweled was in progress.
The other, whose suit was yellow, stumped around the room with what a casual observer might consider a surly attitude, heading first to the corner, where a human form was slumped against the wall, swathed in brown paper and bound with long strips of duct tape. Such secure packaging didn’t offer much of a handhold, of course, so Yellow Suit had to crouch, wrap the figure in a kind of bear-hug and lug it across the room with back bent.
Who would have thought that a woman as trim and fit as Lorna Cunningham could be so heavy? When they’d first started watching her, it hadn’t looked as if there was an inch of fat on her. But then Yellow Suit remembered from studying human physiology that body-fat was lighter than muscle and bone. With many a grunt and gasp, the inert form was dragged across the cellar room in just under three minutes. But from here, it would get really difficult.
Two four-foot-tall plastic drums stood against the wall, both open to the air, but black and crusty with soot, and streaked down their sides with vile stains. The one on the left was filled almost to its brim with an odious brownish stew, but the other was only half-full, a transparent greenish liquid sloshing when Yellow Suit nudged it. The corpse was left lying while a plan was devised. Eventually, Yellow Suit squatted, reached underneath the parcelled figure, secured it around the hips and then, pushing upward from the thigh, levered the former athlete upright until she was half-standing but had flopped forward over one yellow-clad shoulder. With another grunt, Yellow Suit then raised the lifeless form in a classic fireman’s lift. White Suit glanced up from the iPad to watch as, slowly and warily, Lorna Cunningham was lowered feet first into the greenish fluid.
Immediately, it began fizzling and bubbling, which was only natural given that it was pure fluorosulfuric acid, the surface of which ascended rapidly as flesh and bone was fed downward into it. But they’d made the necessary calculations when filling the drum in the first place, and the girl was fully submerged before the acid reached its rim. Yellow Suit stepped back as the fumes began to thicken.
Satisfied, White Suit returned to the game.
Yellow Suit collected a thick plastic rod leaning against the brickwork in the opposite corner, and then turned back to the foetal figure in the drum. Though already unrecognisable as human, there must be air trapped inside it, because it was proving buoyant, semi-melted parts of it having broken back through the frothing surface. Yellow Suit applied the rod, shoving everything back out of sight into the hellish, seething soup.
A couple of minutes later, the rod was dipped into the first of three buckets of cold water, swished about and then replaced in the corner.
Yellow Suit stood back, hands on hips, seemingly pleased.
‘Haven’t you got more work to do?’ White Suit wondered through the microphone link connecting their two masks.
Yellow Suit glanced around, puzzled. ‘Nothing else I can do now.’
‘Mr Hopkins, idiot.’
‘What?’ Yellow Suit sounded outraged. ‘I’ve got to do that on my own too?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘I’ve already had to do the respray on my own.’
White Suit went back to the game. ‘It’s the price of stupidity.’
‘There was nothing stupid about what happened back there. My foot slipped, that’s all. That’s why she was able to get the better of me.’
‘I seem to remember we’ve already had this conversation.’
Grumbling bitterly, Yellow Suit moved three paces to the right of the two drums, tested one of the flagstones with a cautious foot and, when it rocked, squatted down, fitted gloved fingertips into the crack and, with muscles straining, lifted. The flag was heavy but had been chosen deliberately because it was slightly too small for the square hole they’d originally slotted it into, so it didn’t need to be worked loose. When it was upright, Yellow Suit walked it away on its corners and rested it against the wall. Underneath, there was a circular grid made of chunky steel. It was badly corroded, but it still felt as though it weighed a tonne as Yellow Suit crouched again, reached between the bars and, with teeth gritted, lifted it free. This, at least, could be rolled out of the way.
Below that, a cylindrical rock shaft fell four feet into rushing water. Sidling around the edge of it, Yellow Suit moved back to the second drum. ‘Come on … at least give me a hand with this. It’s dangerous.’
White Suit didn’t move, other than to throw a nod at the small video camera mounted on the dusty stone shelf nearby, between a set of false teeth and an old military medal, a tiny point of green light indicated that it was active. ‘He said you have to do it on your own. And he’s filming us. Just to make sure you do as you’re told.’
Yellow Suit turned back to the drum. ‘If I get burned, it’s your fault.’
‘Nope. It’s your fault.’
Being more careful now than at any stage so far, checking first the seals between gauntlets and sleeves, Yellow Suit slid around to the back of the drum on the left, and gingerly reached out to the facing edges of its rim, taking a firm grip, and then slowly rotating it and shuffling it forward. It was hugely heavy, and its dark contents, slopping from side to side, constantly threatened to overbalance it. Thankfully, the distance to the sewer shaft was no more than a yard. And Yellow Suit didn’t even have to go that far, before halting, with both hands now tight on the closest section of rim. As cautiously as possible, body braced backward to ensure that it didn’t get away, the drum was gradually allowed to tilt forward.
With heavy glops, gurgles and thick, steamy emissions, the sludgy brown contents began disgorging, dripping slowly but steadily down the hole. When the drum had lightened sufficiently, Yellow Suit brought it back upright and drew it backward a foot, then tilted it forward again, this time to the horizontal. A vomit-like stream spilled downward. It contained various shapeless solids, and whenever globules of it spattered the rock at the rim of the pipe or down the inside, it hissed violently, issuing oily, greasy smoke – but the vast bulk of it vanished into the subterranean stream, all that remained of the late Harry Hopkins fastidiously flushed away.
‘You know, this stuff doesn’t get rid of everything,’ Yellow Suit said, when the job was done, shoving the empty drum back into place. ‘If they ever decide they want to use this building—’
‘We block that sewer with cement before we scarper,’ White Suit cut in. ‘As planned.’
Yellow Suit brought the first bucket of water over and sloshed it down the pipe. Then grabbed the second and doused the one or two smouldering spots on the flagstones surrounding the aperture. ‘You don’t think they’d find that a bit unusual?’
‘Probably no more unusual than the fact this place has stood empty for as long as it has,’ White Suit said. ‘Anyway, it’ll just be some bunch of navvies … so it’s possible you’re overestimating both their curiosity and their intellect. They’ll do what they usually do. Smash through the ground with diggers and JCBs. All they’ll ever see is clumps of soil and rubble, and when they find the underground stream … so what, it’s a stream?’
Yellow Suit considered this. ‘I’m pissed off, you know. That plan for Cunningham … it should have worked. It could have worked.’
‘Well, he said he thought it was complex,’ White Suit replied. ‘And now he’ll be able to say he told us so.’
‘He still gave us the go-ahead.’
‘He said he thought it was complex. Not too complex. Anyway, we pulled it off.’ White Suit closed the iPad down. ‘The bit we fucked up … or rather, the bit you fucked up … that should’ve been the easy part.’
Yellow Suit stood over the first drum and peered down. It already looked like boiling stew, though sections of a vaguely humanoid outline were occasionally, fleetingly visible. ‘I reckon they’ll really start looking for this one.’
‘That’s the name of the game.’ White Suit came forward. ‘But, being professionals, we shouldn’t have to worry about that, should we? That’s why you got bollocked. That’s why even the slightest fuck-up, even a fuck-up that occurs in private, where no one else knows about it, is unacceptable.’
Yellow Suit nodded, acknowledging the situation.
It wasn’t like there was a point in arguing.
There was never any arguing with him.