Bernard Cornwell

by Wildtrack

  He shook his head. "I need your help, Captain. Why else do you think I brought you here?"

  "I…"

  He cut me off. "Bannister has asked you to navigate for him?"

  "I've refused him."

  Kassouli ignored the words. "I will pay you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Captain Sandman, if, on the return leg of the St Pierre, you navigate the Wildtrack on a course that I will provide you."

  Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The sum hung in the air like a monstrous temptation. It spelt freedom from everything; it would give Sycorax and me the chance to sail till the seas ran dry.

  Kassouli mistook my hesitation. "I do assure you, Captain, that your life, and the lives of the Wildtrack's crew, will be entirely safe."

  I did not doubt it, but I noted how one man's name was excepted from that promise of mercy; Bannister's. I'd known Kassouli was Bannister's enemy, now I saw that the American would not be content until his enemy was utterly and totally destroyed. Something primeval, almost tribal, was at work here. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, and now a life for a life.

  I still had not answered. Kassouli picked up the framed photograph and turned it so I could stare into the dead girl's face. "Can you imagine the pure terror of her last moments, Captain?" He paused, though no answer was needed, then he sighed. "Now Nadeznha is among the caballi."

  He had said the word very softly. I waited for an explanation, but none came. "The caballi?" I prompted him.

  "The souls of the young dead, the untimely dead." Kassouli's voice was very matter of fact, almost casual. "They roam the world, Captain, seeking the consolation of justice. Who, but their families, can provide such solace?"

  I said nothing. My father had often told me that the very rich, having conquered this world, set out to conquer the next, which was why spiritualist frauds so often found patrons among practical men and women whose dour talents had made vast fortunes. Kassouli, having failed to convince me with the science of meteorology and oceanography, had retreated to the claptrap of the ghost world.

  But neither ghosts, nor weather charts, nor even two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could make me accept. I needed the money, God knows how Sycorax and I needed the money, but there was an old-fashioned dream, as old as the dream that was carried in the Mayflower, and it was called honour. There was no proof that Bannister had done murder, and till that proof was found there could be no punishment. I shook my head. "I'm not your man, sir. I've already told Bannister I'm not sailing with him."

  "But that decision could be reversed?"

  I shrugged. "It won't be."

  He half smiled, as though he had expected the refusal, then carefully replaced the silver-framed family portrait. "You are a patriot, Captain?"

  The question surprised me. "Yes, sir."

  "Then you should know that I have given myself one year to avenge my daughter's death. So far, Captain, I have tried to achieve that satisfaction through conventional means. I pleaded with your government to re-open the inquest, I went on my knees to them! They have refused. Very well. What your government will not do, I will do. But I need the help of one Englishman, and that is you. Miss Kirov assures me you are a brave and resourceful young man."

  I looked at Jill-Beth, but she gave no sign of recognition. "But you have no proof," I protested to the father.

  Kassouli was long past that argument. "If no Englishman will help me, Captain, then I will wash my hands of your country. I don't flatter myself that I can bring Great Britain to its knees, as I went on my knees to Great Britain, but I will withdraw all my investments out of your country and I will use my influence, which is not negligible, to deter others from investing in your economy. Do you understand me?"

  I understood him. It was blackmail on an enormous scale; so enormous that it defied belief. My face must have reflected that incredulity, for Kassouli raised his voice. "Every cent of every investment I have in Britain will be withdrawn. I will become an enemy of your country, Captain Sandman. Whenever it will be in my power to do it harm, that harm will be done. And when I die, I will charge my son to continue the enmity."

  Charles Kassouli, under the thrall of his father's powerful voice, nodded.

  Kassouli smiled. "But this is a nonsense, Captain Sandman! Fate has sent you to me. Fate has put you into Anthony Bannister's confidence, and I do not believe that fate is so very capricious." He held up a hand to check my protest. "I understand, Captain, that I am asking you to take on trust that my daughter was murdered. You must reflect that not every course of action in this world is underpinned by cause and proof, by validation and reason, or by the natural justice of good sense and right feeling. Sometimes, Captain, we have to trust our God-given instincts and act!" The last word was stressed by a punch of his right fist into his left. "Did you?" he asked, "consider the sense and rationality of your actions when you assaulted the Argentinian positions on the night you won your medal?"

  "No," I said.

  "Then do not become a weak man now, Captain."

  "It isn't weakness..."

  "My daughter is dead!"

  I closed my eyes. "And you cannot prove it was not an accident." I opened my eyes to see that, surprisingly, Kassouli was smiling.

  "You have not disappointed me, Captain. I would have been shocked had you offered instant agreement. I like strong people. They are the only ones on whom I can rely. So, I wish you to do one thing for me." He held out a hand to indicate that I should accompany him to the door. As we walked he made one last effort to sway me. "I want you to consider everything I have said. I want you to consider the meteorological conditions, the sea conditions, and the experience of my daughter. I want you to weigh in the balance the value of her immortal soul against that of Anthony Bannister. I want you to search your conscience. I want you to consider the damage I can cause to your country. And when you have done all of those things, then I want you to inform me whether or not you will help me. Will you do that, Captain?"

  I glanced towards Jill-Beth, but she just smiled and lifted a hand in farewell.

  "Will you do that, Captain?" Kassouli insisted.

  "Yes, sir," I said lamely.

  He pressed a button beside the doorframe and the tall Scandinavian servant appeared instantly. Kassouli gripped my hand. "Goodnight, Captain. I will send for your answer in due time."

  The door closed on me. The Scandinavian asked whether I wanted to rejoin the party, but I shook my head. Instead I was shown to a limousine that took me back to my lavish hotel. I waited there half expecting a knock on the door or a telephone call, but none came.

  So I slept uneasily. And alone.

  In the morning I walked about the harbour and tried to persuade myself that Kassouli's threats had been nonsensical. I could not convince myself. I walked back to the hotel where I was informed that a car would be taking me to the airport that afternoon, and that Miss Kirov was waiting for me in the Lobsterman's Saloon.

  The saloon was decorated with old-fashioned lobster pots, nets and plastic crustaceans. I found Jill-Beth sitting alone at the polished bar. She smiled happily. "Hi, Nick! Irish whiskey?" Her ebullience was like a mockery of the evening before. "How did you sleep?" she asked.

  "Alone."

  "Me too." She shrugged, and I knew I had been brought to this town only to meet Kassouli. Jill-Beth had been nothing but the bait and, like a greedy mackerel snapping at a gaudy feather, I'd bitten. "So what did you make of Yassir?" she asked me.

  "Mad."

  She shook her head. "He's a grieving father, Nick. He lost a daughter and he wants to sleep better. It isn't madness. You want to eat lobster?"

  I took the menu out of her hands and laid it down. "He isn't talking about sabotaging Bannister's attempt at the St Pierre, Jill-Beth, he's talking about killing Bannister!"

  Her eyes widened in mock horror. "I didn't hear him say that!"

  "Not in so many words."

  She shook her head disapprovingly. "Then you're talkin
g out of turn, Nick. Maybe Yassir just wants to talk to Bannister? Maybe he wants a signed confession so the courts can take it over? Hell, he probably wants to save his insurance company paying out a million bucks! Maybe he just wants to put Bannister over his knee and tan his hide? I don't know what he wants, Nick."

  "He's mad! He can't declare economic war on a whole country!"

  "Sure he can! Hotels, chemical works, computers, investments, oil, shipping. I guess his companies employ thirty thousand people in Britain? I know that's not many, but there are subcontractors too. Still, why should you care about unemployment?"

  "For God's sake!" Her insouciance angered me.

  "Nick." She touched my hand. "He's a very, very angry man."

  "He hasn't got a shred of proof!"

  "There can't be proof of a perfect murder."

  I sipped the whiskey that was drowning in crushed ice. "Who was Nadeznha Bannister in love with?"

  "Goodness knows." Jill-Beth shrugged. "Charlie doesn't know, or won't say."

  "But that's part of Kassouli's evidence," I protested. "A love affair that no one even knows existed, a weather map that doesn't describe the sea conditions, and the probability that she'd have been wearing a safety harness. That's it, Jill-Beth! On that thin basis he's predicating murder!"

  "You got it, Nick."

  "You can't believe it," I challenged her.

  She stirred her drink with a lobster-shaped swizzle stick. "I work for Kassouli, so I guess I'm predisposed to believing what he wants me to believe. But if I weigh the evidence?" She stared up at the net-hung ceiling. "Yeah, I guess it was murder. I mean, who's to know? Bannister doesn't want a divorce, he's kicking around with that new blonde of his, he knows Nadeznha will give him grief with the taxman, so he pushes her over the edge five hundred miles out on the return leg? I'd call that the perfect murder."

  "It isn't me who lives in La-la land," I said bitterly. "Kassouli goes on about unquiet souls? About ghosts?"

  Jill-Beth smiled. "La-la land, my dear Nick, is where everything is simple, where the virtuous always triumph, and where honour rules. This isn't La-la land. You're dealing with a guy who's very angry, very frustrated, and who wants justice. He only has two children; one's crippled, one's dead, and he can't have any more."

  "Why can't he have any more?" I asked.

  Jill-Beth ordered herself another drink. "Dorothy's got cancer. Dying very slowly."

  "Jesus." I flinched.

  "Yassir loves her very much. He's given sixteen million to cancer research. Is that mad?"

  "No."

  "He built a whole research wing around her in Utah. He read somewhere that Utah has the lowest rate of cancer in America." She shrugged, as if to show that nothing Kassouli could do would save his wife. "Yassir isn't mad, Nick, but he's very, very determined. Hell, all he's got left now is his son, and you've seen him."

  "Surly," I commented.

  "Sky-high, you mean."

  It took me a second or two to realize what she implied. "Drugs?" I sounded astonished.

  "Drugs, though he hides it from his father." She stirred her drink. "People envy Kassouli. He's rich. But he's been dealt a bad hand with his family, and he wants to hit back."

  I looked at her, and I thought how very American Jill-Beth was; bright-eyed, firm-faced, shining hair, and it struck me how like Nadeznha she must be. Yet this lovely girl was condoning murder. She would deny it, but I was convinced that Kassouli planned murder. "Suppose I went to the police?" I said. "Suppose I tell them that you're trying to make me an accessory to piracy on the high seas? Or murder?"

  "Try it," she said cheerfully.

  "They'd have to believe me," I said, without too much conviction. "How many peasants like me get invited to Kassouli's house?"

  "Lots of people."

  "I can prove you flew me over here!"

  "Your ticket was paid for in cash. If necessary we'll say that you met me in Devon and followed me here because you were besotted by my beauty. You wouldn't be the first guy to bug me like that." She grinned. "I'm empowered to increase the offer to four hundred thousand dollars. One hundred thousand in cash when you agree, and the rest after completion. Payable in any tax haven and in any currency you like."

  "I'm not helping you. When I get back to England I'm moving Sycorax to a hiding place. Somewhere a long way from Bannister and a long way from you."

  She ignored me. "I'll be over in England soon, Nick. I'll get in touch, OK?"

  "You won't find me."

  She touched my forearm. "Don't be a pain, Nick. Chivalry died with Nadeznha. Stay with Bannister, say you'll navigate his boat, and buy yourself a calculator that goes up to four hundred big ones." She picked up the menu again. "You want to eat?"

  I shook my head.

  "OK." She slid off the stool, her new drink untouched. "I'll see you soon, Nick, and I'll have one hundred thousand dollars cash with me. If you're not there, then kiss a lot of British jobs goodbye. Safe home."

  I turned as she reached the door. "Why me, Jill-Beth?"

  She paused. "Because you're there, Nick. Because you're there." She smiled, blew me a kiss, and went.

  I felt like a frog that had sought out the princess, been kissed, but stayed a frog all the same. In short, I felt damned foolish. And up to my neck in trouble. The Honourable John Makyns, MP, pretended that he was not embarrassed by lunching with his wife's cast-off husband, but I noted how he had chosen one of the West End's less prestigious clubs for our meeting. "I thought you were a member of Whites?" I teased him.

  "The food can be better here," he lied smoothly, then waved his fish knife towards the trompe l'oeil ceiling. "And it's an amusing place, don't you think?"

  "Side-splitting. Is Melissa well?"

  "Very well, thank you." He paused. "I probably won't mention to her that we've lunched."

  "Don't worry, I won't either."

  He gave me a quick smile of thanks. "Not that she dislikes you, Nick. You mustn't think that."

  "But she might think we were swopping dirty secrets?"

  "Something like that, I suppose." He seemed rather sombre, but perhaps that was understandable. It isn't every day that you're telephoned from Heathrow to be told that a major foreign industrialist is declaring economic war against your country. The Honourable John broke off a piece of an over-baked bread roll that he thickly smeared with butter. "How was America?"

  "Hot, shining, busy."

  "Quite. It is like that, isn't it?" He fussed over the choice of wine and recommended the lamb to me. I ordered it, then listened as he told me a long and disjointed story about his mother's kitchen garden and the problems of finding craftsmen who could repair Tudor brickwork. He was avoiding the subject, which was Yassir Kassouli. He'd tried to ignore the subject on the telephone, but as soon as I threatened to call the Fleet Street newspapers he had hastened to suggest this luncheon. He was still evasive, though, asking about Devon, the weather in America, my health and my opinion of the lamb.

  "I've tasted better out of catfood tins."

  "They're rather proud of their lamb here." He was hurt.

  "Tell me about Kassouli." I decided to cut through to the reason for our meeting.

  "Ah." The Honourable John speared a piece of meat with his fork and energetically sawed at the gristle with his knife. "Kassouli did approach HMG. Not officially, of course. As a private citizen of a foreign state, Kassouli has no diplomatic standing, you understand?"

  "But he's rich, so Her Majesty's Government listened?"

  He frowned at my crudity, but nodded. "We like to be accommodating to influential foreigners. Why shouldn't we be?"

  "Indeed."

  He was still frowning. "But we really could not help him."

  "What did he want?"

  The Honourable John shrugged. "I think he wanted us to put Bannister on trial, but there really was no cause, nor justification, nor reason."

  "A dead girl?" I suggested.

  He shook his head. "An incid
ent happened on the high seas, beyond the limits of our or anyone else's sovereignty. Agreed that the boat is British registered, which is why there was a British inquest, but the coroner's findings were quite clear. It was an accident."

  "Couldn't you have given Kassouli another inquest? Just to satisfy him?"

  "There was no legal reason for doing so. There would have had to be fresh evidence, and there was none."

  "There was a rumour," I said, "that lies were told at the inquest. I hear Bannister was on deck when Nadeznha died, not Mulder."

  "As you say," John said delicately, "a rumour. Insufficient, alas, to initiate new proceedings."

  "But it was explored?" I persisted.

  "I really couldn't say."

  Which meant that the Government had toyed with the idea of reopening the inquest, but had sheered away for lack of real evidence. "So Kassouli's been threatening you?" I accused John.

  He gave a tiny and frosty smile. "One does not threaten HMG."

  "He told me he'd pull all his jobs out of Britain, then follow it with his investments, and then persuade all his rich pals to do the same thing. That won't look good on the unemployment figures."

  The Honourable John concentrated on chewing, but finally decided he would have to reveal something from his side of the table. "You aren't the first person to bring us this message, Nick. A Kassouli embargo on Britain?" He frowned as he drew from his meat a length of string which he fussily placed at the side of his plate. "I do trust, Nick, that you won't be telling any of this to the newspapers? HMG wouldn't like that."

  I ignored that. "Could Kassouli hurt us?"