Death Down Below

By M.T. Bachcwm

The book is set in 1984. In living memory the United Kingdom had never been so divided, and was close to a general strike and civil war. On one side, the ultra-right wing governing party wanted to smash the unions and had orchestrated a plan to end their influence. On the other side agents provocateurs hid behind the petticoats of the unions and advocated class warfare.
A series of gruesome murders takes place at a colliery and Detective Sergeant Eirwen “I” Davies is tasked with solving the murders. “I”, an instinctive free thinker and elite athlete, gradually begins to realize that the murders are intertwined with the fabric of society and she fights the establishment, the union, sexism within the police force, and forces of darkness before the story reaches its explosive end.
Many thanks to the Welsh artist Jayne. M. Cushen for the original 1995 painting “Into the Light” that appears on the front cover of the book – it is truly inspirational.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.T. Bachcwm
• Release date: Oct 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370504138

M.T. Bachcwm

I used to play in a very good, original material rock band who were rated as the very best in my home town, the second best band have now sold 35 million albums and counting!, such is life. The dust has gathered on my songs and I am at an age where I can pursue and ignite the creative side of me once again. It feels good to share some of my quirky observations with you and I hope that you enjoy my work. In order to pay the bills I drifted about as far away from creativity as is possible in my early twenties and left my home to work as an Engineer and have lived in Blackwood, Leatherhead, Stafford, London and now Toronto. I am married with 3 children and two dogs. A heart felt thanks to all the people that have encouraged me and even bigger shout out to those people who have inspired me.

Book preview

D.S. I. DAVIES

DEATH DOWN BELOW

BY M.T. BACHCWM

Copyright © 2017 M.T.Bachcwm

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover original artwork by J.M. Cushen who is a constant source of inspiration

Cover formatting by Maxine Wright

This is a work of fiction and any similarity to any living or dead person, apart from those in the public domain, is coincidental and not intended.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

THRONEBOGCAN

HOPE AND HOPELESS

CONTENTS

1. 1984

2. SCABS

3. AN INPECTOR CALLS

4. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

5. NIGHT GAMES

6. THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

7. THE PREACHER’S PRAYER

8. INCANDESCENT

9. FROM AROUND THE WORLD

10. A BIG DECISION

11. RETURNING TO YOUR ROOTS

12. THE RALLYING CALL

13. A MARTYR FOR ALL SEASONS

14. SOFTLY, SOFTLY?

15. BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT

16. NEVERTHELESS

17. CONSEQUENCES

18. A GUILDED LILLY

19. A QUESTION OF TIME

20. VALEDICTION?

1. 1984

Dick Morris unpacked his newly laundered work clothes from a clear plastic bag and placed them onto the seat in front of his pit head baths clean side locker, he looked at his watch, it was nearly 10pm. He stripped naked and wrapped his bath towel around his waist and walked past the showers towards his dirty side locker. He put on his fresh underwear and matching grey vest, orange overalls and safety boots. The place was quiet - it had been since the start of the strike. Only a handful of colliery officials looked after the mothballed coal mine on a 24-hour basis and tonight it was his turn to walk the underground north side and for his colleague Bill Unsworth to look after the south side. The skeleton crew for this shift also included a few bath attendants who ensured that there would be hot water for the team at the end of the shift; old Nick in the battery room who looked after their Davey lamps, battery powered lights, emergency carbon monoxide belt respirator; a winding operator to operate the winch for the 2 mining shafts to nearly a mile below the surface; a banksman at the top of each shaft; a couple of on setters at the bottom of the shaft and some craftsmen.

They all reported to the diminutive night shift manager Tommy ‘Domino’ Davies, a man who made up for his small stature with a big personality, wiry frame and a nothing’s too hot handle attitude. They huddled around Oak’s south shaft and an open coal fire kept out the cold of a mid-March night in 1984 that felt more like early February. Tommy read out the orders for the night and the afternoon shift’s report, he reminded Dick and Bill that they should report in every hour and meet at the Rhas landing for lunch. He then patted each on the back and left for the relative comfort of the mine’s managers office located in a drab red brick two story building located between the two shafts.

He stopped after about twenty paces and shouted back in his lilting baritone voice

‘don’t worry boys the strike will be over in a few days and then we can go back to normal with all the boys back in and we can beat that record for yardage and coal produced, the place is just too quiet’

Dick and Bill had left school at 14 and had followed the path from trainee, to coal face worker to the management side of the mine, where in their present jobs their primary concern was safety. Both were approaching the end of their forty-year service and both had made their way through the strikes of the early 70’s, but the difference now was that they were company men, divided from the workforce by better pay and conditions and an easier way of life.

The banksmen lifted the cages’ gate and both stepped in, they were soon hurtling to the underground at forty foot a second, from the fresh air to the damp and humid dusty underbelly of the earth. Neither spoke, Bill chewed on his tobacco and occasionally spit out the remains onto the side of the carriage, there was no love between them. Bill, with his new-found wealth and authority, had no sympathy for the strikers and had no sympathy for they cause, Dick stared out of the cage as it slowed to a few feet a second in its last phase of the decent, he watched the dust particles in his lamp’s beam of light and then they disappeared as the pit bottom’s fluorescent lighting illuminated the area to a reasonable standard. They walked past the huge metallic storage bunkers that stored the coal when the mine was in production and then past the mighty coal crushers that smashed the coal to pieces so that it would fit into the winding skip.

‘See you at 3 a.m. Bill’

Bill wrapped his scarf around his face

‘aye, see you Dick’

And with that they separated.

D.S. ‘I’ Davies was preparing for bed, she needed her sleep and was usually in bed by 10:30. She looked in the bathroom mirror and combed her short black ‘page boy’ haircut and brushed her teeth after gargling with salty water. She put on her long white nightie and jumped into her bed and started reading one of her favorite books, 1984 by George Orwell, since the first time she had read it at school she had often re-read the text and had found many things to ponder. She particularly liked this dystopian fiction and had a soft spot for Syme and the thought police. After a few chapters, she turned off her bed side light and fell into a deep sleep.

She was woken from her sleep by the shrill ring of her bedside phone, she reached out and put her bedside lamp on and sat with her feet on the floor. She cleared her throat

‘hello’

There was a long silence and then the phone clicked

She looked at the phone and wondered, the phone rang again

She picked it up

‘I, here, be brave now, at least say something, or if you’re a heavy breather at least make it interesting, come on now get on with the dirty talk, you never know I might like it’ she continued ‘and for the record I sleep as naked as the day I was born’

‘DS Davies’ a gruff old voice said’

‘Yes’

‘Better get dressed and meet me at Oak colliery, there has been an incident’

‘Yes, Sergeant Lewis I will be there in 30 minutes’ she felt a little silly about the way she had answered but she wasn’t one to dwell on things.

She pulled her ankle length navy blue dress on over her night gown and reached for her nylon black tights, she lay back on the bed and wriggled into then, she then placed a jumper over her nightie and went downstairs, she put on her comfortable size 8 Doc Martin shoes and a 3/4 length coat and went out to her car. The windscreen was covered in a white layer of frost and she scraped it clean with her warrant card and jumped in the VW golf and after a few attempts the engine fired and she left for the colliery.

Bill had much the easier route to march, the south pit is where the air is sucked down into the mine, it is colder and less dusty than the deepest parts of the mine, he finished his first round and was sat in the bunker control cabin near pit bottom, he poured himself a drink from his thermos flask and was reading the Sun newspaper’s right wing and sensationalist editorial on the strike. He nodded his agreement with the inflammatory and over excited prose and occasionally tutted.

Dick had left the comfort of the artificial light and was now relying on his battery lamp to see him through. He followed the 42 conveyor belts, that in more normal times would have carried the coal, until he reached the steep rough up that took him down a one in four decent to the operational part of the mine. The air was humid and smelled musty, mushrooms grew in-between the iron rings that support and hold up the mother earth above. He had made good progress, he checked the barometer and the readings were stable and he knew from experience that the chances of an underground gas explosion were small when the barometer was stable. However, every half mile or so he checked for the presence of methane, carbon monoxide and dioxide with his trusty Davey lamp. After a good forty-five-minute walk, he sat at the White House’ haulage, he sat with his back against the mighty engine in the operator’s seat.

Usually when the mine was in production there would be laughter, profanity and storytelling and bursts of high energy activity. There would be clanging and banging and messages coming over the tannoy system interspersed with the occasional loud bang of explosives where the headings of the production face were dynamited to allow the coal cutter to move forward and claim another slice of the Black gold. However, since the strike started all there was, was silence, just an eerie silence that played on his mind. He was alone, no other living sole between him and Bill and a mile underground - he wished the strike was over, he hated confrontation.

‘I’s’ police radio occasionally sprang into life as she drove through the narrow backroads to the colliery, just the usual chatter - a drunk driver pulled over for a breathalyzer, a medical emergency, a few drunks involved scrap at the late-night Chinese restaurant. She wondered what was so important that she would be called to the pit. She reached the entrance and saw a panda car parked at the gates.

‘Thank you I, sorry to drag you from your lover’s arms’ said, Lewis in his flat deadpan neutral accent

I did not react her 10 years on the force had been full of such comments, she was almost impervious to it but after she had passed her Sergeants exams she did expect more respect so she retaliated

‘No problem, your wife’s a great lover’

He ignored this and carried on as if she had said nothing

‘Follow me lovely girl’

He ducked under the barrier that had been erected to keep the striking miners out and walked down the road to the pit head baths. They were met at the entrance by Domino

‘Thanks for coming, you won’t believe what some plank had done - absolutely unbelievable’ he said in his lilting Welsh accent, Eirwen noted his sharp eyes and greying goatee beard.

They followed Domino up the steps and past the canteen and then up another double flight of stairs to the changing lockers and showers. I smelt carbolic soap and disinfectant and some tar like smell and something else that she could not quite place. Then she got it the smell was old men, musky but somehow comforting, but there was also something else that was sickly sweet on her tongue.

Domino marched them to the clean side lockers and I identified the smell before she saw what it was, it was lacquer spray paint. Domino stopped at a locker, he pointed to the red paint and words blood money. Both the sergeants said nothing and just looked. Domino looked Lewis in the eye and said,

‘and there’s more, some plank has gone too far’

They marched in and out of the 1,000 or so lockers 7 had been targeted, I noted the numbers 7, 14. 700, 28, 224, 112, 56, she tried to make sense of the sequence

Domino then marched the pair through the 200 or so open shower cubicles to the dirty side lockers and the spray paint identified numbers:

7 - 1/7 - DBD

14 - 2/7 - DBI

700 - 3/7 - DBE

28 - 4/7 - DBS

224 - 5/7 - DBC

112 - 6/7 - DBA

56 - 7/7 - DBB

Lewis wrote down the numbers in his note book as well and scratched his head, his pencil was between his teeth when he had finished scribbling, he had never seen anything like it, he shook his head and sighed.

I introduced herself, she was used to men ignoring her and always speaking to a man rather than her

‘I am D.S. Davies’ she offered her hand

‘Davies, Tommy Davies night shift manager, call me Domino everybody else does’

He met her firm handshake with a firm grip and for the first time he looked into her piercing green eyes. He maintained eye contact with her and she stared back concentrating on his right steely blue eye. He broke the Mexican stare off with a smile.

‘Mr. Davies, I wonder if you could give me a list of the who uses the lockers and was there any sign of a break in?’

‘We never lock the building, well we never have, I guess we should now that there is a strike on’

‘We would also like to talk to the staff’

‘Sure, I will take you down to the canteen, you can sit there and I will round up the crew’

They went back down the stairs and Domino ushered them in to the canteen, they sat at one of the twenty or so red plastic tables. Lewis observed that the menu displayed on the wall had sausage rolls and pasties, he patted his tummy and wished they were open so that he could indulge.

‘Well I what do you think? probably some sort of warning, what do you think?’

‘Let’s see what the operators say before we dive in Lewis’ she had a theory but she did not want to jump to conclusions, what was occupying her mind was it must have taken some time to apply the paint it would be interesting to see what was said.

Domino returned and he led in his team

‘Sergeant Lewis please take their names’

Domino pointed to short bald man with grey hair: James Jones - lamp room, Bob Black - Boilers and maintenance, and Ray and Roy Williams - cleaning.

I looked at Bob, he was a bear of a man and was wearing industrial yellow and grey gloves, his greying red beard was wild and overgrown, his teeth yellow and his face ruddy. She then looked at the Williams boys, mid-thirties she thought, small but powerfully built, almost handsome if you liked olive skinned choir boys but both had wispy blonde mustaches which she thought was a little strange.

They looked at the floor as she asked

‘Did you see or hear anything?’

‘No’, they mumbled in unison without making eye contact

‘Would you boys mind coming down the station later so we can take some statements?’

She watched for a reaction and noticed that apart from shuffling of feet and rolling of eyes, she sensed that they would not say anything when the domineering Domino was in the room.

‘Thanks, she said, please come in this afternoon and Mr. Davies can you bring in a list of the locker occupiers that have been vandalized?’

Domino was not used to taking orders but he bit his lip, this task was way below his standing - he was, after all, king of the night shift

‘Sure’ he said

‘Thanks’

As the men turned to leave I spoke again

‘Mr. Jones, I wonder if you could take your gloves off?’

Jones looked at Domino and then he slowly removed his gloves, his hands were scared and burned

‘acid’ he said

Domino continued ‘dangerous job in the battery room, all the batteries have to be topped up with acid and charged each day

I said nothing but nodded

Domino walked them back up to the front entrance of the mine and thanked them for coming. When he had left, Lewis sat against the side of his panda car with his arms folded and waited for the young DS to speak, she did not for a while and then she said

‘I will write this up Lewis, leave it to the CID from here on in’

Lewis was relieved, he had heard the dawn chorus starting and the last thing he wanted at his age was a mound of paperwork before the end of the shift which was an hour or so away at