by Paul Watson
Roberts took his knife out of his pocket, using his free hand, and folded out the big blade by biting into the indent with his canine teeth. Easy enough on the ground, but the jolting and swinging meant Roberts nicked his tongue during the process.
Cutting the lace would be easy enough; he’d fall to the deck though, while the bag would continue its ascent towards the winch. The lace bit deep into his wrist; he suspected that it had cut through the skin. Roberts couldn’t bend the fingers in his right hand; the blood had drained, and the lace had prevented the return supply.
Roberts cut into the rucksack’s loop but it was tough leather with a steel chord inside, he would not make it through before he was up to the winch.
‘Let me help you with that,’ said the winch operator, who came into view as Roberts’s head emerged over the parapet: Andy Teague.
Teague reached out and cut the section of lace between Roberts’s hand and the rucksack, and Roberts began his rapid descent. He landed on his feet and rolled; he knocked his shoulder.
No sign of Teague. Roberts scanned the line of the gangway which ran under the lifeboat winches, all the way to the steps that joined to the main deck. Teague had no time to get down the steps; he must be still up on the gangway.
Roberts scaled the stairs, using his hands on the handrails. He noticed the swaying hook, now back in position next to its winch.
The stairs provided the only way in or out of the walkway; it was a dead end. Two lifeboats hung from their hooks to his left; there was a bulkhead to his right, and upwards only the night sky.
The cover was missing from one lifeboat; the other one appeared secure. Roberts approached the loose tarpaulin, and pulled it back, but then heard a rustle as Teague burst from the other boat. Roberts followed him and got the hook square in the face as Teague swung it at him. A deep cut opened above Roberts’s eye and clouded his vision, but through the red tint he spotted Teague land on the bottom step.
Roberts sucked in air and rubbed his hand over his eye. The cut impaired him; blood streamed down his face, making it difficult to see. Roberts took off his shirt, tied it tight over his head and fastened a reef knot over the wound.
Roberts traced Teague’s path along the upper walkway, entered a door, and arrived on the main deck. There were carpets and upholstery. Fake gold leaf covered the pillars; a dance floor stood empty. Roberts stood on the polished parquet and studied the aisles that fanned off in four directions. The walls and ceiling looked just like the stars; studs of light blinked from them.
Four young men sat in a booth near the dance floor. They drank beer.
‘So did you go for a tight brown?’ said one of the group.
‘No, just an easy pink,’ said another one.
They all laughed; the guy had told that one before, but it always amused.
Blood dripped through the bandage on Roberts’s head, ran down his neck and dripped onto his chest.
The group of lads saw Roberts and stopped laughing. ‘That man’s fucked.’
Roberts approached them.
‘I’m looking for a man, taller than me with scruffy hair. He’s got a rucksack with him.’
‘Oh yes, that tosser walked down there,’ said one of the group and pointed down one aisle.
‘No, I think you mean, down that one there, don’t you?’ said another, pointing the other way.
‘Now I understand you’re all pissed,’ said Roberts, ‘And I respect you’re minding your own business here and not bothering other people. I’ll ask you again; think for a second before you answer this time.’ Roberts pulled out his knife, and stabbed it between the fingers of one of the young men, and into the table.
‘The guy went down there, about a minute before you got here,’ said the youth that had given the first directions.
‘He did,’ they all agreed. Their sombre faces convinced Roberts that it was the truth.
‘Thanks.’ Roberts stepped off the parquet and onto the carpet.
There were windows on the left and a wall to the right, and a continuous upholstered bench ran the length of the corridor under the windows.
Few people remained this close to the bar. Perhaps those without cabins thought areas away from the bar might be the best bet for sleep. Roberts noticed his neighbour, the woman with a sick husband; she fussed with her kids at one table. The ten-year-old was on her phone, and the little one was asleep on the bench; the mother drank gin.
Andy stood at the end of the corridor, fiddling with the lock on the door to the sun terrace. Andy made eye contact with Roberts.
The slumbering folk on the bench and those crowded around the golden tables watched Roberts on his slow walk. The lady in the small concession, selling perfume, spotted him and winced. Bartenders wearing white shirts and black waistcoats took a break to watch Roberts progress along the red carpet towards Teague.
Two men playing pool stopped as Roberts passed, not because they saw him, but because Roberts took their cue. The pool player turned to complain and thought again.
Roberts cornered Andy; there was no give in the door lock. Roberts took his time; Teague was an amateur, but dangerous. Roberts wouldn’t rush him, just in case he got another surprise; the pool cue gave him range.
Roberts held the cue at the tip end with two hands and jolted forward into Andy; he jabbed him in the gut. The blow knocked Andy back against the wall; Andy had Roberts’s rucksack over one shoulder, and it cushioned him from the impact against the fish tank behind him.
A steel clip, attached to the sack, caused a crack in the fish tank which emptied its contents on Andy’s head, as he slumped on the floor, doubled in pain from the cue to the stomach. A clown fish slid down Andy’s chest and landed in the pocket of his shirt.
‘I should have killed you back in Sligo,’ Roberts said. ‘Respect to you though, few men have made me look this bad.’
‘What are you going to do with my son?’
‘I think he will be ok, if I can get this package across to the UK. They will let him go. But I’ve got to be honest I don’t trust my new boss; I’ll do what I can for her though.’
Roberts took the backpack from Andy, picked up the fire extinguisher fixed to the wall next to the fish tank, and threw it through the window onto the sun deck. He used the pool cue to clean off jags of glass around the sides of the open window.
Roberts then picked up Andy in a Fireman’s lift, walked up to the side of the ship and threw Andy over the railing of the sun deck, and into the sea.
Andy was not a great swimmer; he’d finished his lessons when he was five and couldn’t tread water. He’d spent thousands of pounds on Max and Sam’s swimming lessons, and they both put him to shame in the pool.
One thing Andy had learned from the radio, and from the sticker that Max had fitted to his rear windscreen, was that he should resist the urge to swim; that was the easy part. The next instruction: to float, proved not so easy. Andy thrashed for a few minutes before sinking. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness, was a clown fish swimming away into the Irish sea.
FORTY-ONE
The first thing Andy saw when he regained consciousness was black curly hair; Andy regurgitated water onto the deck of the rib.
‘You gave me the shits there mate, my cousin said you were paying well, now I’m not so sure about this,’ said the owner of the hair.
Andy took a minute to get his breathing under control. The other man rummaged under a seat up front. The guy came back with a towel and a jumpsuit. ‘You’d better get dry and get this on.’
The pain in Andy’s gut had eased, and he dried himself and put on the jumpsuit. He spotted the ferry about a hundred metres in the distance chugging away from them.
‘How did that go for you?’ Higgins’s cousin (also called Higgins) said.
‘Better than expected.’ Andy pulled out a clear zip-lock bag from his jacket pocket that lay dripping on the deck. Inside the bag was an egg, about the size of the medium variety at Easter. Next to the egg
was a cricket ball. ‘Always useful to get a few of these bags from the airport security.’
Higgins took off his lifejacket, which had inflated when he’d jumped into the water to save Andy. Higgins took two deflated jackets, put one on and threw the other to Andy. The rib rocked on the ferry’s bow wave.
Higgins sat at the wheel at the rear of the craft. ‘We were close to seventy knots all the way from Cork. What do you reckon to the racing props, did you feel the difference?’
‘Awesome.’ The waves in the open sea on the journey from Cork, had given Andy far more thrills than the increase in top speed. The biggest adrenalin rush, had come from climbing the cable ladder, that Higgins had launched over the side of the ferry.
‘900 horsepower drinks the diesel,’ Higgins said. He pointed to the three outboards at the back, each with 300 written on the sides in white lettering. ‘We could cruise at twenty knots for an hour to get us in, but we’ll get nowhere near Liverpool. I’ll try Conwy. You’ll struggle to get a ride out of town until morning though.’
‘We’ll figure that one out when we get there.’
‘It seems to have worked for you so far.’
Andy sat on a seat at the back of the boat. He would have chosen the front seats, if Max and Sam were with him, but there was less spray at the wheel end.
Higgins hit the throttle, and the rib glided away. He turned to starboard, and after about ten minutes the coast of Anglesey appeared. The sun peeped over the horizon, and the pinkish light reflected from ripples, as the rib bobbed through the water. Cargo ships, moored a few miles off the coast, blinked their lights.
‘Waiting for their berth in Liverpool,’ said Higgins.
They passed a little island on the right; it had a cylindrical stone tower with a conical top. Andy saw a black shape bobbing up near the shore of the island but couldn’t make it out. There was sand exposed with seaweed, but it was rocky and looked uninhabited.
Andy turned around to talk to Higgins. ‘Do you know what the tower is?’ Even at twenty knots it was difficult to speak on the rib.
Higgins shouted back, ‘It’s a rescue tower, they used to store food in it for shipwrecked seamen. We should be ok today though, shouldn’t need to use it.’
A few beaches emerged amongst the rocks; the sun reflected golden from the grains. Andy saw the black shape bob again. Not a dolphin.
‘Almost there, another few minutes.’
And then the black shape appeared before Andy, right next to the rib. It swam alongside and then broke the surface. With the sun higher now, Andy could see that the shape was grey, not black. Its face had a few white whiskers. The seal had a little gash above its eye, a wound from stealing fish from fishermen’s lines.
Andy clapped the seal; it did a little dive for him.
Then another shape approached, orange this time.
‘Looks like the inshore lifeboat,’ said Higgins. They must have been out on a shout; it’s early though, for someone to be in trouble. The orange shape got bigger as it approached them. It stopped in front and blocked their progress. ‘Looks like they want to talk to us.’
‘A good idea to get ashore. They’d radio you if they wanted to speak.’
‘Good point, I’ll go past them.’ Higgins wore a helmet with a visor. Andy pictured him in the army.
The Irishman pulled the rib to port to get around the orange boat. ‘It’s not the inshore boat; this one has a roof, and it’s too small for the Tamar class; it looks like a lifeboat from the ferry.’
And it was. Roberts steered his craft into the path of the rib; he had nothing like the rib’s power at his disposal.
‘I’ve got a feeling I know who’s in that boat,’ said Andy. ‘We don’t want to meet him out here.’
‘We’re on fumes now. I dare not go over twenty knots, or we’ll be a sitting duck. I’ll try to avoid him as best we can.’
The orange lifeboat rammed into the rib; Roberts was out on the deck. His boat had bounced off after the impact and he was too far away to board them. Roberts returned behind the wheel, ready for another attack.
‘We won’t make it to Conwy. He’ll board us soon.’
‘What about that beach over there?’ Andy pointed to the coast; a length of sand ran along for a mile. Above the dunes, caravans sat on a grassy hill. ‘Could we land there, on the beach?’
The lifeboat rammed them again. Roberts brought it alongside and got out onto the deck ready to board them. Higgins pushed the throttle forward and took the revs halfway; the rib shot away from the lifeboat. When the water flowed over the props at forty knots, Higgins pushed it all the way, up to seventy and left Roberts behind in the lifeboat. The tide was in halfway, and a hundred metres of wet sand flats stretched between the sea and the dunes. The motors cut two seconds before the rib hit the flats and acted as brakes as the rib bumped along for fifty metres before it stopped.
‘I’ll get that sorted for you.’
‘You already bought it, according to my cousin.’
Roberts approached in his slower vessel. Andy jumped down onto the sand and sprinted; the ground was firm, but the sand ripples slowed his progress. Andy stumbled over a rock and twisted his ankle. Higgins pulled him up, and they ran on towards the dunes.
Roberts was out of the lifeboat and onto the flats, in pursuit, about thirty metres behind them. Andy, with the twisted ankle, slowed Higgins down, but the Irishman hauled him forwards.
Roberts reached them as they’d cleared the rocks, on a sandbank in front of the dunes. It would soon be an island as the tide returned. Andy hit the sand as Roberts’s shoulder collided with his thigh. Roberts then used Andy’s head as leverage to get himself to his feet. Higgins still wore the helmet from the rib, so Roberts kicked towards his nuts. Higgins dropped two fists down and blocked him; a little faster and Higgins would have caught the leg and put Roberts in trouble.
Andy scrambled up to his knees, grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in Roberts’s face. Higgins regained his balance and hit Roberts with a straight right, dispatching him to the ground. While lying on the beach, Roberts kicked his left shin across the front of Higgins, brought his right calf behind Higgins’s ankles and locked his feet in a scissor. Roberts then rolled, like a kid tumbling down a hill on his side. There was nowhere for Higgins to go, but down into the sand. Roberts ended the roll on his knees and chopped his hand down into the Irishman’s neck.
Roberts turned his attention to Andy, but too late. As Roberts turned, Andy splodged a Jellyfish into the hitman’s face. Roberts didn’t see much of it, just a hint of red before things went dark. Andy held the back of Roberts’s head and rubbed the Jellyfish into his eyes. Roberts’s hands clasped his face, and Andy smashed him with a rock.
FORTY-TWO
Failing health compelled Janet to rest.
‘You’re a superstar,’ Amy said. ‘Are you ok to get home?’
‘I’ll be OK and looks like you’ll be ok too. I’ll see you around.’ Janet pulled away in the Fiat.
Rob drove Amy back to the police station; Amy sat in the front seat this time and fizzed with energy.
‘Make sure you let him speak during the interview,’ Rob said.
Sergeant Thomas operated the custody desk. ‘Only one in tonight, we were feeling lonely.’ Thomas spoke to Amy. She noticed a difference; he would usually speak to Rob and ignore her as though she was an oxygen thief. ‘Gave no name when we booked him in and no ID on him. Fingerprint results came back, Josiah Elias Taylor Jnr, arrested twenty years ago. I’ll get you some tea, while you wait for his solicitor.’ Thomas returned with two mugs and sat on the bench.
Amy hesitated, but then saw he was offering her the tea, and she sat next to Thomas on the bench. Rob and the others watched a video on Tim’s phone and laughed.
‘Good work tonight Amy, nobody else looked at that CCTV. Mike Baker’s been asking me for more bodies, I would send him Jamie, but do you fancy it?’
‘Can I get back to you on it Sarge?’
Amy burst with pride.
The door between the custody suite and the station office opened; a man in his late fifties walked in. He wore a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie. He was greying and a little overweight but strode with energy up to the desk, familiar with his surroundings.
‘It’s a little late for you, and on a Sunday Trevor,’ said Thomas. ‘We were expecting one of your youngsters.’
‘They’re all on holiday. Too much time and too much money. You ready for me?’
Thomas went behind the custody desk and beckoned Amy over. ‘Go through the initial disclosure please Amy.’
Amy left her tea with Rob and stood in front of Thomas. ‘I arrested the suspect for encouraging a robbery, nothing else to disclose.’
The duty solicitor regarded Thomas, ‘How am I supposed to give my client a proper defence with no disclosure?’ His voice sounded strained, he didn’t want his client getting charged, which would result from the now obligatory no comment interview.
Thomas replied, ‘The investigating officer has fulfilled her legal obligations.’
The solicitor walked into the interview room and returned about five minutes later.
‘Ok let’s get this done then.’
Amy prepared the room, started the tape and cautioned Taylor. Rob sat in silence beside Amy.
The solicitor spoke, ‘My client will answer no comment to all your questions, because of insufficient disclosure of the case against him.’
Amy spoke, ‘Please tell me in your own words what you were doing between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday 29th June.’
‘No comment,’ Taylor said; he was about forty years old, clean shaven, slim, grey coiffed hair, smart jeans, blue eyes.