Offshore

by Lucy Pepperdine

  Eddie rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and puffed out a weary breath. “I’ll get onto Longdrift first thing in the morning. They’ll call the police and they’ll come out and investigate. Until they do though, I’m going to be keeping a very close eye on everyone. I don’t want to take the chance of anything like this happening again.”

  “And how are you going to do that? You can’t be in more than one place at a time and this place is huge?”

  “CCTV will help. Half of them are redundant because we haven’t needed them. I’ll switch ‘em all on now. I’ll have every corner covered. A mouse won’t be able to fart without me knowing about it.”

  Lydia sat up in her chair, eyeing him across the table. “Does that include sickbay?”

  “Of course.”

  She shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want you spying on me.”

  “I won’t be spying on you. I’ll be keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re safe.”

  “It won’t be just me though. What about patient confidentiality?”

  “What about it?”

  Would you be comfortable with somebody nebbing in with a camera while you had a medical consultation, particularly one of a delicate nature? I might not have MD after my name, but see this badge…” She tapped her shoulder flash and its embroidered Caduceus, two fierce looking serpents entwined around a winged staff, the international symbol for medic. “This makes me as good as a doctor while I’m here, and as such I have a duty of care to do my best by anyone who comes to me in my professional capacity, for whatever their reason, and even odious creeps like Daz Reynolds should expect to be guaranteed confidentiality.”

  “If I say you get one, you get one, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.”

  “Oh, really?” She leaned into him, eyes contracted to furious slits. “Well let me tell you this Mister Capstan, if you so much as think of putting one of your beady eye spies in my sickbay, I promise you now, I will tear it down, clart it in Fiery Jack, and shove it so far up your arse you’ll be able to see what you had for breakfast, from the inside. Got it?”

  She did not wait for his reply, already halfway to the exit. Only the tabletop heard him.

  “Got it.”

  Chapter 29

  First thing came and went, as did the rest of the morning. Eddie pored over the fire incident report and the photographs of Reynolds’ body.

  He visited the wreck of the welding hut again, looking for more clues. It didn’t help him much. In the afternoon he muddled through chores to distract his mind. No help there either.

  Eddie spent a night tormented by dreams of torched bodies, grinning blackened skulls and gulls with poached egg eyes hanging from their beaks, waking with a start from his grisly visions with a hammering heart and soaked in perspiration. He stripped off his T-shirt and shorts and plunged into the shower, soothing warm water flowing over him and slowly loosening his tightly wound coil. Dried and dressed, he sat at his desk, opened his pad, picked up his pen, and began to write.

  Five thousand words later, his fingers ached to the point of cramp and he could do no more. Everything he had seen, smelled, tasted, touched and thought about Reynolds’ death went down on the paper.

  The pen acted as a conduit, draining tension out of him and pouring it into his fictional character, alcoholic private detective Patrick ‘Paddy’ Knox to deal with.

  In contrast to Capstan’s disturbed night, Euterich slept like a stone, his dreams only of Lydia Ellis.

  The previous evening after dinner Eddie Capstan had asked her to accompany him to Reynolds’ cabin. “I want to have a quick look round before I make my final report,” he said. “Just to make sure I haven’t missed anything, then you can clear out his stuff. Get one of the others to give you a hand”

  “Do you think we should,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s a bit soon? He’s hardly –”

  She nearly said cold, but stopped herself.

  “Whatever you say,” she said.

  “I’ll do it,” volunteered Euterich. He had been hovering close by, feigning curiosity.

  Eddie went in first, put on the light and took a quick look round, saw nothing out of the ordinary, then called Lydia in. “Oh,” she declared. “It’s so … clean.” She pushed aside the bathroom door.

  “In fact, it’s spotless. I thought it would be more disorganised, cluttered, socks on the floor and such. It’s tidier than mine. Funny …”

  Her voice trailed off as she looked around, and Euterich felt a lurch of apprehension.

  “Lydia?” Eddie asked.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking about Lonny’s cabin and how it was just the same. As neat as a pin. Weird.”

  Euterich’s alarm stepped up a notch. He had slipped up. Got careless. Twice. He should have known. Before switching cabins, he should have remembered to leave them in the way others expected to find them, not the way he liked to keep them.

  Fool! Stupid, thoughtless fool!

  Eddie left them to get on with their task.

  “You don’t mind helping?” Lydia asked.

  “Not in the least,” said Euterich. It was the ideal opportunity for him to spend some time with her; get close to her.

  “I can’t find his bag,” Lydia said, searching under the bed. “Where’s his drop bag?”

  Another slip. Euterich had used Reynolds’ bag to dispose of Reynolds’ body. “Sorry, can’t help I’m afraid,” he said. “I’d lend you mine but I need it.”

  “Never mind. I have a box in sickbay we can use. Won’t be long.”

  She left him, and in her absence Euterich went over every inch of the cabin looking for clues that might point to his and not the real Reynolds’ former occupation of it. He found none.

  He vowed to be more careful with McAllister’s cabin and muss it up a little. A thought occurred and he looked up to the smoke detector.

  With only seconds to spare before Lydia came back, he detached the plastic bag and elastic band sealing in clean air, and stuffed them both in his pocket. He would need them later.

  It took very little time to pack away Reynolds’ clothes and other belongings into the plastic crate, to roll up his sleeping bag, and enclose his beloved guitar in her case.

  As they worked, Lydia and Euterich chatted.

  She did not give much away about herself, but Euterich spun her fine tales about his extensive travels to exotic places, impressing her with stories of the many and varied peoples he encountered, and a whole catalogue of adventures and misadventures, mingling some of his own stories with those he dragged out of McAllister’s memories.

  All the while she listened intently, urging him to tell more when he stalled. Their discourse continued en route to the shipping containers to store Reynolds’ stuff, ironically next to Lonny’s, and well into the evening.

  His plan seemed to be working, and when the time came to say goodnight, they had spent the best part of four and a half hours together, and he felt sure she would invite him into her cabin for a ‘nightcap’ to squarely round off the evening. Maybe offer something a little more …

  Disappointed to the point of grief when she did not, he retired instead to his own cabin to relive the short but oh so sweet time of their shared company.

  “Lydia. Lydia. Lydia.” Her name dripped from his tongue like honey, and he called up an image of her; her dimpled smile, her bright eyes, her girlish giggle and the way she blushed when he told her particularly raunchy stories.

  He lay on his bed and thought of Lydia and slipped into sleep, welcoming the darkness and the freedom his dreams brought.

  Freedom to do whatever he wanted, to whomever, without penalty; freedom for him and Lydia Ellis to be together.

  And together they were. In bed, on the beach, in the woods, indulging in session after session of glorious, euphoric, exhilarating sex. Time after time after time - here, there, everywhere, anywhere - employing a whole Karma S
utra of positions.

  As he passed into a post fantasy-sex stupor, his real sleep deepened and he woke next morning refreshed and joyful with realisation.

  No mere infatuation this; he was in love. It surged in him, making his head light, setting his heart aglow and driving blood into his cock.

  After a most satisfactory period of intense masturbation he treated himself to a roll up made from the cannabis/tobacco mixture liberated from Lonny Dick.

  It proved to be a little too heavy on the THC for McAllister’s body to cope with and soon there came upon him a sense of floating elation, a cheeriness unlike any he had experienced in a long time, and combined with his strength of feelings for Lydia it took away his inhibitions, and it made him reckless … yet somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

  He headed for the galley to find another stimulant with which to further enhance his blissful jubilation - caffeine.

  The cathartic exercise of writing himself to a standstill had the desired effect on Eddie too.

  He managed to snatch a few hours sleep and now, despite his stiff neck and painful fingers, he felt better in himself; looser, clearer in mind and ready to face what he had to do. First though, he put on clean socks and made for the galley. As it was Sunday and no work had been scheduled, the place was empty, everyone exploiting the free time to catch up on sleep.

  All it seemed, except McAllister.

  Up and about and surprisingly bright eyed and bushy tailed, he pottered about in the galley, nosing through the cupboards and lockers, flitting from one to the other with almost manic rapidity, all the while sucking on a cup of black coffee.

  “What can I get you, guv?” he said, when he saw Eddie.

  “Just looking for some coffee.”

  “Coming right up. Anything to eat?”

  “Er … no thanks.”

  “You do know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, don’t you? Got to get some fuel in the engine. How about a full Scottish? Sausage, bacon, black pudding? Get some meat on your bones. You’re looking a tad peaky if I might be so bold.”

  Bright eyes, pupils as wide as tunnel openings, gabbling like a Tommy gun, fidgety. And that smell? Faint, but familiarly pungent. Jesus! Nine thirty on a Sunday morning, and he’s stoned.

  “Mr Capstan?”

  Eddie realised he’d been staring. “Sorry, aye, I’ll just have some toast if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. Help yourself to coffee. It’s fresh made. Perk you right up.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying, you seem pretty perky yourself.”

  “Me? Yeah, well, a bright and sunny Sunday morning will do that, eh? I’ll bring your toast over when it’s done.” Whistling tunelessly, Euterich strode off to tend to Eddie’s request.

  As he made for a table, coffee mug in hand, Eddie glanced toward the open door to the lounge and the picture window beyond. Outside it was blowing a gale, battering sleet and rain so hard against the glass it turned it opaque. A bright and sunny Sunday morning? On what planet?

  He was going to have to have another quiet word with Mr McAllister.

  Eddie took his coffee and toast back to his cabin, leaving a hyperactive McAllister scurrying about the galley with a spray gun, letting loose a cloud of cleaning fluid and scrubbing down the already gleaming steel worktops with all the frenetic busyness of the Duracell bunny on a mission.

  He took his time eating his meagre breakfast, showered, dressed, and read through what he had written overnight. By the time he had procrastinated as long as he could, it was lunchtime. McAllister was nowhere to be seen, and if Eddie could employ x-ray vision and see through the cabin walls, he would have found his ROV operator face down, spark out on his bunk, his batteries gone flat.

  Eddie’s lunch consisted of a mug of tea and two digestive biscuits.

  Nerves had taken away his appetite. When he looked at the clock it was half past one. He’d fannied about long enough and had to make the call. He slouched his way to the control room, dropped into the chair and picked up the satellite phone handset with a trembling hand.

  “Get a grip man,” he admonished himself. “You’re tired. Overworked. Overwrought. Stressed to the point of a stroke. You’re fretting over nothing. Make the call. Get this over with.” He punched the number for Longdrift Headquarters, 250 miles away on a modern industrial estate on the outskirts of Aberdeen, where even on a Sunday, because the oil business was a 24/7, 365 days a year operation, there would be heating, hot coffee, Danish pastries, lights that worked and no dead bodies to clutter up their working day.

  If only he’d checked the calendar first.

  “Longdrift. Mike Chalmers speaking. What’s your pleasure?”

  Mike Chalmers, the standby operator?

  They only use him when the place is closed. Not today. Please!

  “Mike, this is Eddie Capstan out on Falcon Bravo–”

  “Aye aye loon. Long time, no hear from. Fit deein’ oot theer in the wild blue yonder?”

  “Tell you later. I need to speak to Mr Edgecombe. It’s a matter of utmost urgency.”

  “Not in.”

  “Mr Bellwood?”

  “Nope.”

  “Whitman then.”

  “Sorry.”

  “For Christ’s sake, who is there?”

  “Naeb’dy. Did ye ferget it’s a long weekend here? Theer all oot on the golf.”

  Shite!

  “There must be somebody on call I can talk to today. It can’t wait until Tuesday.”

  Chalmers chuckled. “Fit’s ma’er. Som’bdy else gone walkaboot?”

  Silence.

  “Oh Jesus, Eddie! Who?”

  “Daz Reynolds.”

  Silence.

  “You know him?”

  “Aye.”

  A longer silence.

  “Hoad oan a mintie while I put ye through.”

  The line went silent. Eddie waited, tapping the desktop with a pencil. A ‘mintie’ stretched into a full five minutes.

  “Mr Capstan. Mr Chalmers tells me you have yet another calamity on your hands.”

  The cold affected tones of Oliver Skeffington. Why, of all people, him?

  When it came to the scraping of barrel bottoms, they didn’t get any lower than Skeffington. Power hungry, with his sights set firmly on the vast corner office on the top floor of Longdrift’s headquarters, the man had all the stony presence of an Easter Island statue, with none of the charisma. What he lacked in personality he made up for with sheer back stabbing ambition.

  “Yes sir, I have,” said Eddie.

  “Better get on with it then.”

  Eddie relayed what he knew about Reynolds’ apparent suicide and the fire, although he made no mention of his doubts and suspicion of murder. Even to him it still sounded ludicrous.

  Skeffington listened in complete silence.

  “You still there Mr Skeffington?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “So what’s the plan? Will you send out a chopper to pick up the body? What about the polis? This is the second death in six weeks. They’ll want to investigate this time for sure.”

  Another drawn out pause. “I will inform the relevant authorities and take advice,” said Skeffington, oozing indifference, “… and either I, or preferably someone … better informed, will get back to you and give you your instructions.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as is practicable. As you are aware, it is a local holiday here, businesses are closed, staff are on leave, services are … limited.”

  “Bugger that! You don’t seem to understand, Mr Skeffington, I have a dead body on my hands–”

  “Stick it in the freezer–”

  “What? I can’t–?”

  “– and in the meantime, carry on and get the job done as best you can while you can. We’ve had some interest in Bravo and it looks promising, so your time for getting her spick and span is fast running out.”

  “As are my crew! There aren’t enough h
ands–”

  “You’ll manage. That is what we’re paying you for, isn’t it? To manage?”

  “Aye, but–”

  “So rearrange your schedule to pick up the slack by giving the hands who are left more work and less downtime.”

  “I can’t do that. They’re already working all God’s hours as it is. They’re tired and scared … and it’s not safe. If I push them harder, there’s going to be…”

  Mutiny? More deaths? My neck on the block?

  “…Please, Mr Skeffington, send the chopper and get us off here before someone else dies.”

  “Like I already said, I’ll take advice and get back to you soonest, so leave your little problem with me and get back to work. Okay? Good-bye, Mr Capstan.”

  Silence.

  “Mr Skeffington –?”

  Nothing.

  “SKEFFINGTON!” The line was dead.

  Skeffington had gone, leaving Eddie once more with his skelped arse hanging in the wind.

  “Sodding, fucking bastarding HELL!”

  He slammed the phone into its cradle, snatched up his mug and hurled it. It sailed across the room, coffee trailing behind it like a banner, to ping against the far wall, shattering into a dozen pieces.

  “Rancid goat buggering tosspot!”

  A swipe of Eddie’s arm across his desk, and all his carefully arranged paperwork took to the air, to flutter to the ground like so much confetti.

  “Skeffington, eh?”

  Eddie turned, and through eyes misted with rage, saw Shaw hovering in the doorway.

  “You know him?”

  “Only by reputation. I’ve heard he’s an utter bastard. A buck passing hand washer. A brown noser of the lowest order with one butt cheek already in the big chair.”

  “That’s him.”

  “That’s it then,” said Shaw. “If Skeffington’s on the case, we’re shafted. Let me guess what he said; Sort it out yourself. It’s not my problem?”

  “More or less. He said he’d inform the authorities, take ‘advice’, and get back to me. Precisely when, he didn’t specify.”

  “U-hu.” Shaw sniffed. “So what are you going to do?”

  Eddie closed his eyes and let his neck roll. “Apart from wait? Honestly, Matt, I haven’t got the first fucking clue.”