Chapter 23: Panic Attack!
Tuesday Midday.
With the door closed, it was pitch black inside. Martin pulled out his mobile and checked for a signal. Penhale did the same. Nothing. Penhale checked his police radio, again nothing.
"We can't stay here, we have to get out before whoever that thing belongs to shows up," Martin said. He pulled on the door and found it wouldn't budge. After being exposed to the elements for so long the rusty iron hinges and heavy oak timbers seemed to have instantly sealed themselves into the rough door jamb. Penhale joined in and together they pulled and pulled, to no avail.
Penhale switched on his torch and put his phone away. "Brighter and saves the mobile battery power," he said. Martin grunted agreement and took out the little pen torch he always kept in his pocket.
"My brother and me used to explore old tin mines when we were kids, not that I condone trespassing in historic, dangerous spaces. This was an emergency situation that we faced," Penhale said. "Anyway, sometimes even small mines like this have shafts that lead to another way out." He swung the torch around to see what sort of space they were in. "Feels sort of cosy and safe, better than being all exposed out there."
"Hm." Martin wasn't sure he agreed with that.
"Haven't been in one of these in donkey's ears," Penhale said.
"You mean donkey's years."
"No, donkey's ears, Doc. Meaning time as long as a donkey's ears. A lot of years."
This exchange was giving Martin a headache. He began to think, with his office closed for another week and a half, it could in fact be a long time before anyone realized he was missing. Would Louisa even notice?
"Penhale, did you tell anyone we were coming out here?"
"No. I check in with my district chief inspector every morning, but I didn't think of making the drive till after that."
"So your boss is not expecting you to check in until tomorrow morning, and no one knows we're here."
"Looks that way, Doc. Nobody knows but whoever sent that drone. Speaking of donkey's ears, we could be stuck here for a long time."
"Hm. Let's get a move on then. I'll follow you since you have some familiarity with this sort of place." Martin switched off his pen torch to save the battery.
They started off to explore. It soon became apparent as the main tunnel sloped steadily downward it lead through chambers so large so large they couldn't feel the sides even with arms stretched out, and passages so closed in Martin kept his head ducked, fearing he would scrape the top of his head along the roof. In places the tunnel diverged into two and they had to choose one path over another, only to meander to a dead end and have to turn back to try the other path. Gradually, they made their stumbling way along, Martin numbly following Penhale and his torch. While the policeman babbled on about himself and his brother when they were young, Martin mutely chose each step carefully for fear at any moment the solid floor could give way to a bottomless pit.
Finally, the tunnel began to slope steadily upward and they reached the far end, where they encountered another door.
This one seemed to open outward. Martin eagerly pushed against it but it too wouldn't budge. They checked their mobiles, still no signal. Penhale turned off the torch to save power and they sat on the cold ground in frustration to rest in the tomb-like darkness.
After a moment, Penhale spoke again. "That was a highly illegal modification of a hobby drone, not to mention the illegal possession of an unauthorized handgun. I read about something like that happening in the States, but you wouldn't expect it here. And why shoot at us anyway? We must be on the trail of something that somebody doesn't want us to find."
"I think you may be right," Martin replied. He was silent for a moment, as they both sat in the darkness. Then he had to say something that had been on his mind during their trek through the underworld.
"Er, Penhale… thank you for pushing me out of the way back there. You may have saved my life."
"No problem, just doing my duty," Penhale replied, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Whoever was piloting that drone wasn't steady enough to have good aim. And I was just returning the favour, Doc. Back there when I was having a panic attack you saved my life, in a manner of speaking. We really are Portwenn's Dynamic Duo."
For once, Martin didn't mentally dismiss that statement. They sat quietly again, and he began to wonder how long they had been there, cut off from the sunlit world outside. He couldn't tell if it was a half hour or a half day. He didn't dare check his mobile again for fear of draining the power. The darkness felt oppressive, like a physical weight bearing down on him. Don't be ridiculous, he told himself, but he couldn't help it.
Sitting on the ground, his knees drawn up with arms wrapped around and head hunched low, he felt like a small boy again trapped in the dusty dark cupboard under the stairs. He had taken refuge there once to escape his mother's wrath and when she found him she had laughed, in her cold, mirthless way, and deliberately shut him in, whether for half an hour or half a day, he had no way of knowing back then. And thereafter, whenever she was angry or just found him to be a nuisance underfoot she would drag him by the hand or the ear and boot him into that dark place, where spiders and unknown terrors lurked. Now he felt the same panic he felt then, very different from the fight or flight adrenaline response when he was confronted with the drone. Fleeing was an option then. There was no option now, no fight or flight, no escape. He began to feel the air in this place being used up with every breath. He could hear Penhale's breathing and it was like the policeman was using up the oxygen even faster.
"We're OK here for now, as long as there's no rats. Nasty things. We could go back the way we came and try that door again," Penhale was saying. "Maybe the drone pilot gave up shooting by now."
Or maybe the pilot came back with a shotgun, Martin thought.
"Good thing these mines had adequate ventilation shafts," Penhale continued. He clicked on his torch and aimed it up at the ceiling. "Hmm, don't see any here. Maybe they got closed up over the years. Could be a danger of radar or silly… silly…"
"Radon or silicosis," Martin said. "Don't be ridiculous. It would take years of exposure to a mine environment to cause any problems like that."
Nonetheless, Martin's discomfort began to grow and he loosened his tie and top button. He felt the symptoms coming on and could identify each one – rapid heart rate, rapid breathing, chest tightening, hands shaking – but he was powerless to stop them.
The words of the mental patient Jonathan came back to haunt him:
"How 'bout you Doc? Do you ever feel helpless? Do you feel totally helpless, a little helpless, not helpless at all? Choose from the following statements the one which most applies to you…"
Helpless. Trapped. Abandoned.
Penhale started to say something else and stopped, shining his torch at Martin. "Doc, you're breathing a bit fast, you don't sound so good."
"It's just a bit of… of…" Martin was ashamed to say it. "Erm, claustrophobia."
"Nothing to be ashamed of, Doc. You know what to do, you helped me out there. Deep breaths, count to 10, exhale slowly. You know the drill. We really do make a good team. You're good in the great outdoors, me in charge in the great indoors."
Gawd, Martin thought, I've got to get out of here!
He pulled himself to his feet, and threw himself against the door again, and again, then felt it finally begin to push outward. A bright vertical edge of sunlight appeared along the jamb. Penhale joined in and the two of them were able to push it enough to see the door was held fast by a hasp secured with a padlock. The U-shaped shackle was long enough to allow some play in the door, and Martin squeezed his right hand out to explore it.
"Bloody hell!" Penhale exclaimed. "We're buggered!"
"Hm. Not necessarily."
Martin felt in his jacket pocket and came out with the tiny screwdriver he had been using on the clock that morning. He squeezed his hand out again and awkwardly felt around till he had the lock braced against the door, then he inserted the fine tip of the screwdriver into the slot and began carefully manipulating it. The task was made more difficult by the fact that he couldn't see what he was doing or fit his left hand out to hold the lock in place as he worked on it.
"You're picking the lock. You've got hidden talents." Penhale sounded quite impressed. "I'm mechanically illiterate myself."
It was really nothing, Martin thought. Compared to the skill needed to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm or reshape the cogs of a fine antique clock, picking a cheap padlock with a basic modular locking mechanism was elementary. Still, he focused on this simple task as if his life depended on it. All his skill in the surgical theatre or the horological workshop was for naught if he couldn't… manage to… shift the tumblers into position to… aha! He felt the tumblers click and the shackle sprang loose. He slipped it through the hasp and the door was open.
"You'd make a great master criminal, Doc."
Martin burst through and out into the light, as Penhale yelled behind him, "Not that I condone that sort of activity!"
Free! Martin ran down the slight hill, even faster than he had fled from the drone, leaving Penhale far behind, blindly heading toward a patch of golden vegetation. He half dove, half tripped head first into the flowers, and lay there prone, struggling to catch his breath and calm his racing heart. He slowly turned over onto his back and dreamily looked up at the yellow and black flowers. They were known as black-eyed susans, he recalled. They were curiously like miniature sunflowers but unlike their giant cousins they seemed to look down on him lying in their midst with nothing but friendly curiosity in their warm brown eyes. He felt like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, though not imprisoned by them but happily, joyfully free and welcome. And appropriately enough Gulliver was a surgeon, if he remembered correctly, smiling slightly at his fanciful thoughts. This was like his days as a boy, allowed to run free on his aunt's farm and enjoy some rare moments of whimsy and playfulness in his otherwise constrained childhood. He closed his eyes and simply enjoyed for a moment the warm sunlight and the sweet fresh air.
A shadow fell over him. He opened his eyes to see a figure standing above, blocking the light. "Excuse me," said a stern feminine voice. "What do you think you're doing? You've trampled down our rudbeckia hirta patch and it looks like you and your friend were trespassing in our historic tin mine."
Martin stood up and attempted to brush the pollen and dirt off his suit, embarrassed to have been caught lounging in a garden thinking silly thoughts. He did up his top button, tightened his tie, and drew himself up to regain some semblance of dignity. He looked around to see two large plastic geodesic domes some distance behind the woman.
"Er… sorry. I can pay for any damage. Where exactly is this place?"
The woman, who wore a sun hat and gardening gloves, looked at him. "This is the Nature Project," she said, in a tone of mixed stern authority and bemusement at his eccentric appearance. "You know, the environmental education botanical garden? Those are the greenhouse biomes there, for our tropical and Mediterranean plants. So what are you doing here in our temperate zone garden?"
"Erm… it's quite a story."
"Do I need to call the police?"
Martin looked up the hill where Penhale appeared to have lain down to practice his agoraphobia breathing exercises again. He sighed. "Yes, please do."
To be continued…
Note: I based The Nature Project loosely on the real life Eden Project, a popular attraction in Cornwall.
"Donkey's ears" versus "donkey's years," this expression could work either way but I think Martin's version is correct.