Take Your Last Breath

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‘Do you think the strange ocean activity is linked to something else – some dark plot I mean – or do you think it’s all just a consequence of some natural event throwing things off course?’

The question came from Agent Blacker, a dishevelled-looking man in a crumpled jacket – an agent Ruby had a lot of time for. They had worked together on the Jade Buddha case and he was not only a smart person, he was a nice guy. He had a laid-back manner, but was as sharp as a pin tack.

‘There is nothing to suggest that Trilby was the victim of foul play if that’s what you’re getting at,’ replied LB. ‘However, I am interested in his findings in the context of other unusual activity – some of you will have been party to the ongoing investigation into the missing or scrambled coastguard signals and reports of disruption with shipping vessels; cargo going awry, turning up in the wrong place.’

She listed the coastguard reports – and the list was long. Trainers, coffee, corncobs, bananas, you name it, it seemed to have ended up in the wrong port.

‘Even a six-ton elephant on its way to Baltimore has gone astray,’ concluded LB.

Ruby made a mental note to apologise to Del Lasco: give or take a few elephants, she had actually been telling the truth.

LB wound up her talk and removed her glasses, hooking them onto her shirt. ‘To be honest with you,’ she said, ‘we really have no idea what might be going on. To date we are not investigating any criminal activity. All we know is that Agent Trilby was monitoring unusual events at sea and regrettably died. If it wasn’t for the coastguard reports, we would continue monitoring marine life and not look any further.’

Blacker raised his hand again.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘So you are looking to make a link?’ said Blacker.

‘Either that or to establish that there isn’t one – it could all be a coincidence,’ she replied.

‘But link or no link, you’ll be wanting me to plot through Trilby’s findings and see where they take us?’ said Blacker.

‘Correct. Meanwhile, I understand that Agent Kekoa from Sea Division will take over Trilby’s ocean research. She is intending to make sound recordings – this way we hope to learn just what is causing the marine disturbance. If the strange sealife occurrences are just a series of natural blips and shifts, then so much the better; the information will be passed onto those who deal with such things and we will concentrate on the shipping alone.’

LB stepped to one side and Agent Kekoa walked to the front – Ruby’s dive instructor looked shorter out of the water and less assertive. You could tell she wasn’t particularly comfortable standing there talking. She clearly wasn’t really comfortable out of her wetsuit in fact – clothes made her look strangely out of her depth.

‘There have been reports of a sound, a whispering sound,’ said Kekoa. She clicked the clicker and up popped a slide showing a kid of about seventeen, his photo alongside a map of the Twinford coast, and an arrow pointing to the sea beyond Little Bay.

‘Tommy Elson was swimming out past Little Bay and reported a whispering sound coming from under the water.’

Click: Slide of a young couple in beach gear – the map showed that they were in a sailboat far out at Rock Point.

‘Same story with Hallie Grier and Lyle Greene.’

Click: One of those freckly kids with a couple of missing teeth. She was smiling and shielding her eyes from the sun.

‘Billie-May Vaughn was surfing with her dog and heard a noise which she described as someone calling, but calling in a whisper; she dove under the water but could see nothing to explain it. She claimed her dog reacted to the sound too.’

There was some sniggering in the audience that could have come from Agent Froghorn, but Kekoa took no notice.

‘The girl alerted the lifeguard, who swam out but found nothing to substantiate what Billie-May had told him.’

Kekoa clicked through some more pictures that showed various fresh-faced-looking people and the location references.

‘The sounds have generally been heard when people are swimming a mile or so from shore, or on boats further out to sea. One person, Danny Fink Junior, heard the sound when fishing on a rock which juts out into the ocean, almost an island, but that’s the only example of anyone hearing the sound on dry land.’

‘Have you heard it?’ asked one of the agents.

‘No,’ said Kekoa.

‘And how many years have you been diving in those waters?’ asked another.

‘Seven,’ said Kekoa. ‘But I’ve been in Hawaii the last couple of months.’

‘Yet you yourself have heard nothing?’ said the first agent. ‘Even since you got back?’

‘No,’ said Kekoa.

A rippled whisper went through the audience.

‘So have you considered that these accounts could all be bogus? I mean some of the people who reported it are just little kids,’ continued the first agent.

‘Yes,’ said Kekoa. ‘But I consider it unwise to disregard them just because I, just because you, have no personal experience of them.’

Ruby couldn’t agree more strongly with this statement. There were people who made wild claims about spotting aliens and spacecraft, and there were other people who claimed that this was nonsense and aliens and spacecraft didn’t exist, but either way what you had to accept was that these people had seen something. RULE 5: REMEMBER, THERE IS MORE TO LEARN THAN YOU CAN EVER KNOW.

‘In conclusion,’ said LB, stepping back in front of the screen so the smiling face of Danny Fink Junior was projected across her white suit, ‘I want this case wrapped up all neat and tidy AS…’ she rapped the perspex file with her fountain pen, ‘AP.’ She couldn’t have looked more serious.

‘One of our agents is dead. Spectrum need to know if it was foul play or just plain bad luck. The coastguard need to know if all this disruption to the cargo shipping is incompetence or something a lot more serious. The fishing industry need to know where all the fish have gone. I want to know if I have a team smart enough to give me some answers. I don’t get the right ones and I’m not happy; I’m not happy and some of you are going to have to take a walk.’

‘Yikes,’ whispered Ruby. ‘What’s LB like when she’s unhappy, I mean really unhappy?’

‘You don’t want to see it,’ said Hitch.

Ruby was glad she had taken Hitch’s advice and zipped her jacket up. LB was in one very bad mood.

THE SUN WAS ALREADY COMING UP by the time Hitch and Ruby turned the corner into Cedarwood Drive.

The discussion had gone on well into the early hours, and it was almost time for Ruby to be up and ready for school. The two of them sat at the table and, over eggs and toast and maple syrup, discussed the Spectrum briefing.

‘So what thoughts are jangling in that teenage mind of yours kid?’ asked Hitch, pouring coffee, his fifth of the day.

Ruby sucked hard on the curly straw that stuck out of her peach and cranberry juice blend. When the glass was emptied and the straw had begun to make an ill-mannered gurgling sound, she looked up.

‘Huh? You say something?’

‘You clean your ears out lately kid? I was saying, do you believe Trilby’s death was accidental?’

‘Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t,’ said Ruby. ‘The question is, do I think the marine activity and the confused shipping are connected to his death?’

‘That’s the question?’ said Hitch.

‘Yes. I think it could be a mistake to assume that they are, but on the other hand one thing could be triggering the other. What if there is one thing going on, which is man-made, and another that is a consequence of the man-made?’

‘So… connected but not intentionally?’ said Hitch.

‘Yeah, let’s say someone is interfering with the shipping radar and signals somehow, perhaps with a low-frequency signal, a sound to block sound. The idea being to disrupt the shipping, I guess, but I don’t know why. Anyway, this in turn is sending the sealife crazy, which results in Trilby getting killed, for example by some electric eel thing. The seagulls coming inland en masse, dolphins swimming into the harbour – all because of sound.’

Hitch nodded. ‘It’s certainly a theory. I have no idea if it’s a good one, but it’s a theory.’

‘It could mean that Trilby’s death, though accidental, was actually the consequence of something bigger,’ said Ruby. ‘Something sinister. So I guess what I am suggesting is, yes, in a way his death could be an accident, nothing sinister. But in a way it perhaps wasn’t and is.’

Hitch raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m barely following.’

Ruby looked at him like he was a few blocks short of a load.

‘Maybe you need another cup of coffee or three,’ she said.

‘Maybe.’ He took another slurp. ‘And the whispering?’

‘I don’t know.’ She was thinking, trying to tunnel down to some lost thought, but whatever it was, was lurking deep in the furthest depths of her mind and she could not reach it so she just said, ‘Could be entirely imagined of course.’

‘Yes,’ said Hitch. ‘One person says they’ve heard something – then a whole lot more people imagine that they’ve heard the same thing.’

‘Yeah, happens all the time,’ said Ruby, nodding. ‘People are very suggestible.’

‘It’s true,’ said Hitch. ‘I mean if I start mentioning the words jelly and donut, do you find yourself kind of yearning for one?’

Ruby gave him a look. ‘You got one?’

He shook his head. ‘So what do you think – did those people hear the whispering or not?’ asked Hitch. ‘That little Redfort brain must be thinking something. You have any kind of gut feeling on this?’

Ruby looked at him, straight in the eye. ‘My brain is telling me I should be asleep, but my stomach is telling me that I sure could do with a jelly donut and a glass of banana milk.’

‘Well, let’s make it happen kid.’

Mrs Gruemeister’s dog

Pookie was barking…

In fact he had been barking for quite some time, but everyone aboard had chosen to ignore him, it being 5.46am.

‘Probably seagulls,’ murmured Mr Gruemeister, pulling the blankets over his head. ‘That dog will bark at any little thing.’

‘I’ve tried my darnedest to train him,’ sighed Mrs Gruemeister. ‘Only bark at intruders, that’s what I taught him, but he doesn’t listen.’

In cabin 4A, Brant Redfort sat up in bed, yawned and rubbed his eyes. He switched on the radio, but to his great disappointment the only station he could get any reception on was one playing the most awful music. In fact he wondered to himself if it was music at all.

‘What is that dreadful noise?’ moaned Sabina. ‘Sounds like violins having the most vivid of disagreements.’

Brant switched it off in disgust. He had been looking for a pleasant sound to block out the barking dog, but it wasn’t going to happen.

‘I can’t take much more of this yapping,’ he said. ‘How about an early breakfast up on deck honey?’

‘Good idea Brant. That bow-wow is beginning to give me the most dreadful headache. Honestly, you’d think they would have raised him better. Can you imagine if Ruby yelped like that?’

‘Well, no honey, but then she isn’t a dog.’

‘But you know what I mean Brant.’

‘Sure I do honey; Ruby is a far better daughter than Pookie would ever be.’