The Last Murder at the end of the World

SIXTY-FOUR

Emory’s peering through a crack in the shutters, watching the exercise yard for any sign of Adil, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

‘He’s not coming,’ she says, trying to stifle her frustration. ‘Why wouldn’t he be coming? What time is it, Abi?’

‘10:42 p.m.,’ I reply.

She sees a lantern bobbing through the gate, moving hurriedly in the rain. It’s much too dark to make out who’s holding it, but they’re heading in the direction of the farms.

She departs the dorm running.

Soaking wet and panting, Emory holds her lantern in the air, trying to find a way forward.

Occasionally, she’ll catch glimpses of the flame she’s been following far in the distance, but the rain’s coming hard, pouring in sheets down her face.

She hasn’t taken a rest since she marched out of the village, and spares only the briefest of glances for the shack on her left, and the broken-down cart on her right. It feels like a lifetime ago that she followed its tracks out here, finding Clara’s carved bird in the back.

Niema sent Seth, Emory and Clara out here the night she was killed. She must have given them the key to get inside Blackheath, but how did it end up in Adil’s possession? More importantly, why would Niema reveal her deepest secret to the three of them?

Emory wades across the stream without slowing down, losing a sandal to a slippery rock. She should have changed into her boots before she left, but she was too afraid of losing sight of the light.

Cursing, she snatches her sandal out of the water and limps around the weathered olive tree on the hill, a tattered moon hanging from its branches.

The door to Blackheath is open, a square of fluorescent light cut into the darkness.

Her pulse quickening, she walks through it into a long tunnel that descends deep underground, having to fight the impulse to call out for Jack.

She’s never seen anything like this. The walls are curved and perfectly smooth. The floor is made from concrete, with strip lights overhead. She can’t imagine the technology required to carve this out of the earth, or why they’d bother. Who’d need this much space so far from sunlight?

It’s a long walk to the end of the tunnel, and the door she entered through is just a pinprick of darkness by the time she reaches a junction, which is almost blocked by the missing stores. Crates of vegetables are piled high, sacks of seeds and a few boxes of tools.

She runs her eye across it.

There’s a lot more than they found in the cable-car station yesterday, but why would it be here at all? Niema managed to dictate a diagram to Seth while she lay dying, so perhaps she organised the evacuation at the same time. If she knew they wouldn’t all fit in the cauldron garden, perhaps she decided to move half the village down here. But, if that was the case, why were there so few supplies at the summit of the volcano? They wouldn’t have lasted half the village more than a month.

Tunnels stretch away to her left and right, a cleaning cart abandoned a few paces away, bottles dissolved into mush.

She walks a little way along the passages nervously, her movement activating the lights overhead. The tunnel to the left is already lit up, so that’s the way the person with the lantern must have gone.

She’s nervous, and she walks slowly, hugging herself against the chill. It’s horribly cold, and the air’s thin, scrubbed clean. There’s none of the reassuring island smells. No pine, or magnolia. No thyme. No sea spray. No sweat, or mustiness.

Some of the ceiling lights are flickering on and off, the air-filtration units shrieking and abruptly stopping. She feels like she’s in the belly of some dying beast.

Offices appear on either side of her, their knocked-over chairs and spilled screens a testament to how quickly this place was abandoned. A few mugs are still sitting on coasters, while families stare out of photo frames at long-empty rooms.

She wonders how people could stand working down here. It’s so bleak, she can feel her soul changing colour to mirror it.

Turning the corner of another junction, she discovers a large metal map of the facility has been drilled into the wall. Hundreds of miles of tunnels riddle the eastern half of the island, running from this spot all the way to the lighthouse. She’s surprised there’s any dirt left for the volcano to sit on.

There are over a dozen entrances scattered across the island with this one listed as being door eight. There’s even one in the lighthouse itself, connected by a lift. That must have been the locked door she found in Niema’s sitting room. Any hope she had of finding Jack quickly evaporates. The entire village would need a week to search these tunnels.

Snatches of conversation drift towards her, a few words not mangled by the shrieking air filters.

Peering around the corner, she sees Adil talking with Thea at the end of a long corridor. The elder is dripping wet, and still holding the lantern Emory followed. She strains her ears, trying to catch what they’re saying, but there’s too much background noise.

Whatever they’re discussing, it seems cordial enough. How can that be? In their brief conversation, Adil gave every indication of hating the elders. He threatened to kill them if he had the chance. Why would he suddenly be working with Thea?

A moment later, the two of them walk in opposite directions.

Needing the key to bargain with Hephaestus, Emory skulks after Adil on near silent feet, arriving in a ruined corridor.

Parts of the ceiling have collapsed and the walls have crumbled, revealing the earth beneath. Thorny roots twist in and out of the floor, foliage hanging from the ceiling vents, surrounded by hovering birds with long beaks. Nine deer are grazing on weeds growing along the walls. They’re paler than any deer she’s ever seen on the surface, and much smaller. Normally these animals would be asleep, but they appear to have evolved their habits for some reason.

Jack would love to see this, she thinks. He’d be fascinated.

They look up as Adil passes, their ears twitching, but he keeps his eyes forward, taking a right at the junction.

Emory stays a corridor behind him, moving through junction after junction, the lab going on and on. Behind glass walls she sees labs filled with miracles; scientific instruments designed to peel back the corners of the universe, to pull it apart, and rewrite it.

‘That one’s a nano-particular converter,’ I explain. ‘That’s a quantum net. That’s a portable particle collider next to an element generators.’

I stop my description, realising she isn’t listening any longer. In the middle of the floor, placed so it will be seen, is one of Clara’s carved birds.

Emory picks it up, seeing another one at the end of the corridor. Clara clearly intended them to be followed.

Adil’s footsteps are growing distant, but suddenly this seems more important. These birds might explain why they came here the night Niema died.

Emory collects the second bird, looking left and right for the next. The corridors are so long, she has to walk a little up each one before she sees the bird.

More junctions follow. More carved birds. More labs, and offices. A gym, filled with exercise equipment she can’t make head or tail of.

Finally, she hears the whir of a drill, and the crunching of metal.

She goes towards it, passing more birds.

The sounds are coming from a small room that was obviously once used for storage. The boxes have been moved outside, and she has to turn sideways to squeeze past them.

Peering through the door, she sees five villagers trying to dig through the rocky earth, using drills, hammers and axes. They must have had to go through the concrete first, because rubble covers the floor and their faces are coated in dust.

As with the villagers in the cauldron garden, their eyes are closed. They’re obviously sleeping.

‘Arthur!’ she exclaims.

Arthur was one of the apprentices who supposedly drowned when Jack’s boat went down. Her heart leaps in her chest, hope barging away every rational thought.

She darts from face to face, finding Tasmin and Kiko, Reiko and—

‘Jack!’ she exclaims, flinging her arms around him in joy.

Her husband doesn’t react. He’s stiff as a statue, holding a whirring drill to the wall, which is spitting dirt and sharp rocks back at him. He’s much thinner than she remembers, his arms reduced to sinew and bone. His face is gaunt, his hair greying.

‘Let him go, Abi!’ she demands, turning the drill off, only for Jack to immediately turn it back on.

‘I cannot. Niema’s instructions were clear.’

‘Niema’s dead,’ says Emory, staring at her husband helplessly. ‘You don’t have to do this any more.’

‘She never told me to stop,’ I say. ‘I’m obliged to fulfil any orders she gave me, until she instructs me otherwise.’

‘Are you telling me he’s trapped down here forever?’

‘I’m afraid so, Emory.’