by Heide Goody
Hilde shouted out her clearest instructions and oars were lowered into the water. She was doubtful they could catch the motor boat. If her family could get this vessel going without clouting each other around their heads with their oars, that would be victory of a sort.
86
Strawb brought a thick waterproof coat out for Polly and, once it was on, passed her a life jacket.
Polly kept focus on the tallest of the rides at Fantasy Island as they rapidly diminished. The coast was fading into the grey sky and sea. Ahead, the only visible landmarks were the giant posts and whirling blades of the wind farms. In other circumstances it might be pleasant to be on a boat like this, but the freezing Boxing Day wind, and the fact she was now a wanted murderess on the run, kind of took the shine off things.
“You okay, love?” said Strawb and pressed a dry kiss to her cold cheek.
She turned and looked at the man she had thrown her lot in with. His eyes met hers. He was smiling. Despite all the craziness and the horror, Strawb was smiling at her. But it was a handsome, roguish smile and – Christ! – it had been years since a man had looked at her like that.
A new sensation crept over her, like the cold winter chill and the warm winter coat, hot and cold all at once. It was a new sensation, and a new realisation. She had killed her niece, her thieving, swindling, loveless niece. She had fought back against the woman who had oppressed and abused her for too long, and now she was on the run with a man who she maybe – no, definitely – definitely had fallen in love with.
She glanced at the DefCon4 woman, Sam, strapped helplessly in the deckchair, huffing and swallowing as the blood from her broken nose trickled over her lips and chin.
“We’re like Bonnie and Clyde,” said Polly. “From the movies.”
“I’m no Warren Beatty,” said Strawb. “And you’re far more beautiful than whatserface.”
“Faye Dunaway. I saw that with my sister at the Tower Ballroom. My twenty-first birthday, I think. And you’re a liar.”
He winced and sucked hard through his teeth. He raised his hand. His knuckles were red and swollen from when he’d punched the DefCon4 woman.
“You might have broken it,” she said.
“That would be a bladdy foolish thing to have done,” he said.
“Let Nurse Polly find a first aid kit.”
The cabin cruiser Calypso had a split level cabin. Down below was the tiny accommodation. Margaret did something to the controls and came away, down the short steps to the deck level.
“You’re not steering?” said Polly.
“Autopilot,” said Margaret.
“I thought that was just planes.”
Strawb laughed.
“Course set in for the marina in Ijmuiden,” said Margaret.
“Holland?” Polly hazarded.
“And is that it?” said Sam from her seat. “You’re going to push me overboard and sail across the North Sea to the Netherlands?”
Margaret moved so Sam could see her. “That is more or less the plan, yes. The details do not concern you. Your part in this requires very little planning.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Thorough. I even chose my least favourite deckchair to fasten you to.”
“People are looking for me.”
Margaret gave a hollow laugh. “Were you about to add that we’ll never get away with it? We’ve been getting away with things for a long time. We’re careful in our planning, and using this boat as an escape route was always a part of that plan. Jacob has even got a little house rented for us on Saturnusstraat.”
“Ja. Oost West thuis best,” said Jacob coming up from below.
“We have taken into account every eventuality,” said Margaret primly. “Polly, see to Strawb’s hand. Jacob, it might be time to make some sandwiches. Sea travel always makes me hungry.”
* * *
Hilde looked out across the rows of oars with some pride. There was a rhythm emerging and the ship was surging through the waves. The keel kept the ship steady and there was sufficient off-shore wind that she was tempted to raise the sail. Ragnar stood at the prow, calling out every poetic phrase that occurred to him for the saga, but Gunnolf couldn’t hear him. As they rowed, the family shouted the lines back along the ship in a relay, although they were definitely getting muddled, because slightly deaf Uncle Bjorn was sitting nearby.
“The gulls and gannets soared overhead!” said Ragnar, an arm pointing dramatically at the sky.
“The gulls and gannets sawed off a head!” said Bjorn.
“The girl sawed off her own head!” said Kalf further back, his voice hushed slightly at the news.
Hilde scanned the water. Nothing was in sight apart from the wind farm dominating the shore off Skegness. The cabin cruiser had temporarily gone from sight. Not knowing where it was heading was a problem. There was a lot of sea out there.
“I see the boat!” yelled Ragnar. He had his folding brass telescope with him and was squinting through it now. Hilde looked to see where he was pointing. She saw something smudging the horizon. She indicated to Hermod who was operating the steerboard at the back of the ship and he adjusted the course.
“We have sighted our enemy!” declared Ragnar.
“We have signs for Outer Hebrides!” Bjorn reported.
“Hey, we’re in Scotland already!”
A cheer went up, and Hilde shook her head. Perhaps she should move Bjorn.
She made her way towards the mast and gestured for Torsten and Yngve to step up and help raise the sail. She hoped she had the measurements right. With a square sailed ship, she’d read, if the sail was too wide or too narrow it would be near impossible to sail.
“Bring me up to date with what tha mission is, renegade priest,” Gunnolf said to the Saxon detective behind Hilde.
“You know I’m not actually a renegade priest,” said Camara, puffing with exertion. “I’m not a priest at all, I’m a policeman.”
“Yes, I know that. But I’ve got to add this extra plot line into t’ saga, so I best have a bit of an idea what’s going on, don’t tha reckon?”
“The current hypothesis is—” the DC started.
“Hold up. I’m not right sure a saga can have fancy words like hypothesis.”
“Fine. The idea we’re looking at right now is that a bunch of senior citizens have committed a number of murders.”
“Oh aye? People they didn’t like?”
“Apparently they blew a woman’s head off. So they abducted the witness on a boat and that’s where we’re going.”
“Oh aye? Exploding heads I can work with. Did anything else explode?” Gunnolf looked hopeful.
Camara sighed and shook his head as he rowed. “No, not yet. It’s early days though, right?”
“Yeah!” said Gunnolf, oblivious to sarcasm.
* * *
Sam worked her wrists back and forth on the deckchair to see whether it would loosen, but so far it wasn’t budging. Her captors weren’t paying her a great deal of attention. Margaret and Jacob were up at the controls, apparently in discussion over the weather, or the course. Strawb and Polly, the runaway lovers, were below deck and seemed to be in no hurry to re-emerge.
Sam flexed her wrists and was heartened by the small amount of movement she’d created. A few more minutes and she might have some space. Although there was no sign the tape would tear or stretch, it was simply bunching up.
A movement in the distance caught her eye. She strained to sit as upright as she could to see better. It was a boat. Its hull was a barely visible smudge against the sea, but it had raised a dark red sail and it stood out against the muted palette of landscape like a drop of blood on a tissue.
It appeared to be coming towards them on an interception course.
“Hey, what’s that?” Strawb had appeared on the stairs, fastening a coat as he came. Margaret came down to look with him. Sam sat still and tried not to remind them she existed.
“Well it’s definitely a boat, but
it’s a funny-looking one,” said Polly, taking Strawb’s arm.
With the four of them looking over the rear rail, Sam used the opportunity to wrestle more forcefully against her hand restraints. She managed to get the tape scrunched up into a single loose bracelet on each arm. Sadly, it was still fastened to the chair beneath her, so she wasn’t free yet.
“It’s the fackin’ Vikings!” said Strawb.
“Pardon?” said Margaret.
“Ragnar and his kin. It’s gotta be a wind-up!”
“Well, I’m not laughing,” said Jacob.
“It is what it is,” said Margaret. “Do we think this boat is coming after us?”
Sam was unable to read their expressions, but their body language was clear. None of them wanted to be the one to say yes, the peculiar wooden Viking ship was coming after them.
It was Polly who spoke first. “Whether it’s following us or not. It’s powered with a sail and oars. If it doesn’t have an engine then surely we can easily outrun it?”
She was right. If this was any sort of rescue mission, then it was a rescue mission without an internal combustion engine.
Sam wondered if she folded the chair she was strapped to, she could move about. She inched her bum forward in the seat, her wrists still fastened to the arms. She needed to tip her weight onto her feet, so she could stand up. She managed it, with only the smallest of grunts, although it didn’t feel like an improvement in her current situation. She was standing in a painful crouch, with the edge of the seat digging into the backs of her legs, and her arms pinned uselessly at her sides, straining at tape bracelets which showed no sign of giving way. She thought carefully about her next move. What she couldn’t afford to do was fall into the usual trap of not remembering exactly which way to fold a deckchair. She peered behind (which was easier than usual, given her position) and saw this was the kind of chair where the back and the seat came together and the legs took care of themselves. She could use her legs to push the edge of the seat, but what about the back?
She crabbed across the tiny deck, praying the others would not turn around. The boat pitched and rocked in the increasingly choppy waters. They couldn’t have been more than a few miles out and the waves were slapping the boat about. At least the sounds of the wind and the swell managed to mask the noises she made. She felt the back of the deckchair hit the cabin wall and she wriggled into position, pushing her legs back against the seat and hoping her bottom wouldn’t prevent the seat from closing. It took more wriggling, but luckily the slack she’d created around her wrists meant she could shuffle things into place. The chair snapped shut with a light thunk.
87
Aboard the Sandraker, Hilde could see that the life of a seafaring Viking was working out better for some than for others. Astrid walked between the benches, passing goblets of water wherever she detected a queasy face. Several of Hilde’s cousins had a greenish shine to their complexion. They kept glancing around at each other, determined not to be the first to complain or to vomit. The music blaring from the speakers wasn’t helping. It was highly likely everyone on board already had a headache, if not permanent hearing loss. The Meat-Heads tracks had come to an end and it seemed the source of the music had gone onto a shuffle setting. They approached the enemy vessel with the terrifying sound of Chariots of Fire by Vangelis.
Hilde didn’t have time to attend to the music, but she was delighted with the ship’s performance and seaworthiness. They had made astonishing progress across the sea, closing the distance between themselves and their target. She approached the Saxon policeman. He was not suffering as badly from seasickness as some of the others, but he swayed slightly as the ship raced across the waves.
“What’s your plan when we reach the boat?” she asked.
He looked up. “Are we actually closing in on it?”
Hilde nodded. “Should be there in a few minutes.”
The Saxon looked around him. “It’s a remarkable vessel.”
“Aye. My design.”
He nodded, impressed. “I don’t have a plan. We have reason to believe the people on that boat intend to harm Sam, but if we show them they have no chance of escape, then they won’t want to compound their crimes. Possibly.”
“Right. Then tha’d best come and have a look then. We’re almost there.”
Camara and Hilde moved up through the rows of Odinsons. Sea spray splashed them with rhythmic regularity. The Sandraker was a knife on the sea, cutting through waves as much as riding over them. Camara was clinging to the gunnel rail by the time he reached Ragnar in the prow.
Ragnar stared fiercely ahead. Saltwater shone in his beard and he had a grin on his face like a man reborn. Hilde could not think of a time when she’d seem him look happier.
“I can’t believe how quickly we’ve covered the distance,” Camara said to Ragnar.
“Aye. That’ll go down in’t saga, that will,” he said and began to sing. “We are raiding, we are raiding!”
In truth it wasn’t so much singing as bellowing raspily into the wind, an old man pitting himself, voice and soul, against the elements.
“He does love to sing,” Hilde said to Camara, mildly embarrassed.
“I think he might have borrowed the tune from Rod Stewart,” said Camara. The Saxon name meant nothing to Hilde.
“We are raiding, chasing pirates. To be Vikings, to be free!” Ragnar was definitely enjoying himself.
* * *
Polly found herself utterly absorbed with the weird pirate ship, which was now quite close. She could see someone at the prow of the ship wearing long robes.
“That’s gotta be Ragnar there,” said Strawb. “And who’s that long streak of nothing next to him?”
“Detective Constable Camara,” said Margaret.
“Police on a sailing boat?” said Polly. “Incredible. But can they do anything, once we’re in international waters?”
“We’ve got to get three miles out,” said Strawb.
“Twelve,” said Jacob. “The wind turbines there are about— Hey!” He’d looked back down the boat as he pointed at the line of wind turbines.
Polly looked. Sam stood upright with a folded deckchair suspended from her wrists, like a really inconvenient pair of handcuffs. She’d managed to step through the chair and bring it in front of her without catching it and tipping herself completely over.
“What the fack is she trying to do?” said Strawb, fumbling in his pockets for the pistol he’d put somewhere.
Sam moved quickly. She stumbled up the steps to the tiny cockpit, the chair held high, and smashed it down onto the controls. She smashed again and again. Polly realised if the interfering woman could stall the cruiser, then the sailing boat (and police helicopter and coastguard!) would be upon them before they got anywhere near international waters. Her life on the run with Strawb would be over before it had begun.
Something sparked on the dashboard and the deckchair split apart in Sam’s hands. Seeming to think her sabotage job was done, Sam forced herself through the upper side window to reach the front deck.
“I’ll get her!” said Strawb and moved along the narrow bit of deck skirting the cabin. Polly watched him gripping the cabin rail against the tossing of the boat in the waves.
“Be careful!” she shouted.
Margaret and Jacob hurried to the controls.
“Leave her!” snapped Margaret. “It’s not as if she can go anywhere, is it? What damage do we have? Steering will be challenging but not impossible. Jacob, you’ll need to try to mend that display. Without maps—”
“I don’t know anything about these things—”
“I know you’re a fast learner Jacob. Needs must.”
88
“Trouble brewing on t’ship,” said Ragnar as they neared.
“Time for the grappling irons,” said Hilde.
“Grappling irons?” said Camara.
“I designed a system to fire grappling irons using compressed air. Farsa! The guns!”
/> Sigurd reached under his seat and brought out something that looked very much like a metal tube bound to a gas cannister.
“Pneumatic-powered grappling irons?” Camara said. “I’m struggling to imagine a use for that sort of set-up that’s sensible or even legal.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” said Hilde.
* * *
Sam wormed her way onto the front deck and stood on the prow of the cruiser. She worked to get the remains of the deckchair off her. It had come apart when she made her attack on the controls, now she was able to rip the remainder away from her sticky tape bracelets. As a bonus, she had an aluminium leg with a jagged end as a weapon. Although in an actual fight it was not going to get her very far.
She could see two figures in the spray-misted cockpit and could hear someone else making a big deal of coming round the side of the cabin. She crept around the opposite side of the cabin, without any real hope of staying hidden from the others. The boat was a very small place, and she had to tread carefully to avoid being pitched into the sea.
She had never been more conscious in her life of how valuable a life jacket could be. Images from the ditched helicopter training video flashed unhelpfully before her. How long could an unprotected person survive in the North Sea? Was it five minutes? Two?
She glanced over at the wooden ship. It was now quite close and she could hear loud music coming from it, some cheesy instrumental song. She risked a brief wave at Camara – not a jaunty ‘Hello’ wave, more a definite ‘I am here, come get me’ wave – and hoped he had a good plan. On the face of it, he was a passenger on a weird Viking longship that had to belong to the Odinsons, so perhaps his plan was not all that sound.