Bernard Cornwell

by Wildtrack

  "But Jill-Beth brought it with her!" I protested. "I saw it. A hundred thousand dollars."

  "Which Mulder would have taken from you as proof that you were betraying Bannister." My father spoke gently. "Why do you think he followed you in the boat that night? He probably thought you had the hundred grand in Sycorax. My dear Nick, they were stitching you up. Kassouli probably hoped you might help him by being a back-up to Mulder, which is why he laid it all out for you in America, but once he saw you were going to be boring and honourable he danced you like a puppet to distract Bannister." He saw my face. "Don't blame yourself, Nick. Kassouli's played for higher stakes than this and against some of the slimiest creatures that capitalism ever spawned. You musn't feel bad at being beaten by one of the best."

  But I did feel bad. I'd never been clever, not as my father and brother and sister were clever. When we'd been growing up they had always competed to win the word games, while I would sit silent and lost. I lack subtlety. Only a bloody fool would have charged straight up that damned hill when there was another company working their hard way round the flank. Still, I'd saved that company from some casualties. "Damn it," I said now. My father did not reply, and I tried one last and despairing protest. "But Kassouli doesn't even know if his daughter was murdered!"

  "Perhaps he does. Perhaps Mulder has the proof. Perhaps Mulder has been blackmailing Bannister and taking money off Kassouli. Whatever"—my father shrugged—"Yassir Kassouli will get his perfect revenge. You can kiss Bannister goodbye."

  "At sea," I said bitterly.

  "Far from any jurisdiction," my father agreed. "There'll be no messy body, no police dogs, no forensic scientists, no murder weapon, no witnesses who aren't Kassouli's men, nothing."

  "But I'll know about it," I said stubbornly.

  "And who would believe you? And if you made a fuss, Nick, just how long do you think Yassir Kassouli would tolerate you?" He touched my arm. "No, Nick. It's over now as far as you're concerned."

  I stared at the cricket, but saw nothing. So the night that Jill-Beth had screamed, and I had thought Mulder was raping her, had all been a part of the careful construction to trap me? And I, believing myself to be full of honour, had fallen for it. I swore softly. I knew my father was right. He'd always been so good at explaining things. The truth had been there for me to see, but I'd been blind to it. Now, according to the yachting magazines, Fanny Mulder was to be the navigator on Bannister's boat. Bannister himself would skipper Wildtrack, but Mulder would be the boat's tactician and navigator. From Kassouli's point of view it was perfect, just as it was always meant to be; perfect.

  "What time's your bus?" my father asked.

  "Five."

  We strolled slowly round the boundary together. "The world's a tough place," my father said softly. "It isn't moved by honesty and justice and love, Nick. That's just the pabulum that the rulers feed the people to keep them quiet. The world is run by very ruthless men who know that the cake is very small and the number of hungry mouths is growing all the time. If you want to stop the revolution then you have to feed those mouths, and you do it by being very tough with the cake. Kassouli means jobs and investment."

  "And Bannister?"

  "He married the wrong woman, and he carelessly lost her. At the very least he'll be sacrificed for carelessness. You think that's unfair?"

  "Of course it is."

  "Good old Nick." He rested a hand on my shoulder for an instant. "Seen your brother or sister lately?"

  "No."

  He smiled. "I can't blame you. They're not very nice, are they? I made life too easy for them."

  "You made life too easy for me as well."

  "But you're different, Nick. You believed all that claptrap they fed you in the Sea Scouts, didn't you? You still do, probably." He said it affectionately. "So what, my favourite son, will you do about Angela?"

  "There's nothing to do. They get married on Monday."

  "There's everything to do!" my father said energetically. "I'd start by buying every orchid in Paris and drenching them with the most expensive perfume, then laying them at her feet. Like all beautiful women, Nick, she is there for the taking, so take her."

  "I've got Sycorax. I'm sailing south."

  He shrugged. "Will Angela sail on the St Pierre?"

  I shook my head. "She gets seasick."

  "If I were you, then, I'd wait till she's a rich widow, which can't take very long, then marry her." He was being quite serious.

  I laughed. That was vintage Tommy Sandman.

  "Why ever not?" he asked, offended.

  "I'm sailing south," I said stubbornly. "I want to get to New Zealand."

  "What about Piers and Amanda?"

  We stopped at the prison entrance. There were no guards, not even a locked gate, but only a long drive that stretched between pea fields. "I'll fly back and see them," I said.

  "That takes money, Nick."

  I held up my hands that were calloused again from the weeks of good work. "I can earn a living."

  "I've got some cash. The buggers didn't get it all." "I never thought they did."

  "If you're ever in trouble, Nick..."

  "No." I said it too hastily. "If I've learned one thing these last months, it's to pay my own way in life."

  "That's a mistake." He smiled. "With full remission, Nick, I'll be out in a year. You'll let me know where you are?"

  "Of course."

  "Perhaps I'll come and see you. We can sail warm seas together?"

  "I'd like that." I could see the bus coming up the long drive. Dust plumed from its wheels on to the pea plants. I fished in my pocket and brought out the flat box. "I thought you might like to keep this for me," I said awkwardly. I told myself that the gesture was spontaneous, but I knew it wasn't because I'd taken the trouble to bring the box with me. I might not have brought my father cigars or wine, but I had fetched him the one thing I knew would give him the most pleasure.

  He opened it and I saw the tears come to his eyes. He was holding my medal. He smoothed the claret ribbon on his palm. "Are you sure?"

  "I'll probably lose it." I tried to avert any expressions of emotion. "Things get lost on small boats."

  "They do, yes."

  "Look after it for me, will you?" I asked, trying to make it a casual request.

  "I will." He turned it over and saw my name engraved in the dull bronze. "I'll have it put in the governor's safe."

  "The bronze is supposed to come from Russian cannons we captured at Sevastopol," I said.

  "I think I read that somewhere." He blinked the tears away and put the medal into his pocket. The bus turned in the wide circle in front of the gate, then stopped in a shuddering haze of diesel fumes.

  "I'll see you, Dad," I said.

  "Sure, Nick."

  There was a hesitation, then we embraced. It felt awkward and lumpy. I walked to the bus, paid my fare, and sat at the back. My father stood beneath the window. A few more returning visitors climbed in, then the door hissed shut and the bus lurched forward. My father walked alongside for a few paces. "Nick!" I could just hear him over the engine's noise. "Nick! Paris! Orchids! Scent! Seduction! Who dares wins!"

  The bus pulled away. He waved. The gears clashed as we accelerated, and then I lost him in the cloud of dust.

  Duty was done.

  I insisted on two bilge pumps, both manual. One was worked from the cockpit, the other from inside the cabin. George grumbled, but provided them. "Tommy shouldn't have told you about the Dawsons," he said.

  I wondered why such a small crime worried him, but later realized it was because the London police were still searching for the forger. George would not have cared about the local force, for he had his understanding with them, but he was leery of London.

  There was a letter from London waiting for me on Rita's desk. I eagerly tore it open, half expecting it to be from Angela, but of course she was in Paris. The letter was from Micky Harding. He was recovering. He apologized for messing up. He was sorr
y that the story had died. There was no evidence to support it, and such a story couldn't run without proof. He'd floated the Kassouli withdrawal rumour to a city editor of another paper, but I'd probably seen how that story had rolled over and died. If I was ever in London, he said, I should call on him. I owed him a pint or two.

  On Tuesday The Times had a photograph of Bannister's Paris wedding. The bride wore oyster-coloured silk and had flowers in her hair. Her Baptist minister father had pronounced a blessing over the happy couple. Angela was smiling. I cut the photograph out, kept it for an hour, then screwed it up and tossed it into the dock.

  I spent the next few days finishing Sycorax. I installed extra water tanks, two bunk mattresses and electric cabin lights. I also had oil-lamps, which I preferred using, just as I had oil navigation lights as well as electric ones. George found me a short-wave radio which I installed on the shelves above the starboard bunk. I screwed a barometer to the bulkhead over the chart table and bought a second-hand clockwork chronometer that went alongside it. I began stowing spare gear and equipment in the lockers, and took pride in buying a brand new Red Ensign that would fray on my jackstaff in faraway oceans. I found an old solid-fuel stove to heat the cabin. There had been a time when every cruising yacht carried such a stove, and Sycorax had always been so equipped, and I took a peculiar delight in installing the cast-iron monster. I caulked and capped the chimney in seething rain. The hot weather had gone. Cyclones were bringing squalls and cold air that made the channel choppy and promised a tumultuous wind in the far north Atlantic.

  The first hopefuls set off from Cherbourg to take advantage of the Atlantic gales. An Italian crew went first and made an astonishing time to the Grand Banks, but their boat was rolled over somewhere east of Cape Race and lost its mast. Two French boats followed. I read that Bannister was honeymooning in Cherbourg while he waited for even stronger winds.

  It was the wrong weather for compass-swinging, which demanded smooth water so that the delicate measurements were not joggled, but I took advantage of one sullen, drizzly day to sail between carefully plotted buoys and landmarks in Plymouth Sound. I had roughly compensated the compasses with tiny magnets that corrected the attraction of the metal in the engine and stove, but I still needed to know what other errors the needles contained, so I sailed Sycorax north and south, east and west, and courses in between, noting the compass variations on each heading. Some were big enough to demand more fiddly work with the tiny magnetic shims, which then meant that every course had to be sailed again, but I finished the job by sundown and pinned a clingfilm-wrapped correction card over my navigation table. That night I took my dirty washing to a launderette and reflected that, with a little luck, my next wash would be on shipboard where I'd use a garbage bag filled with two quarts of water and washing powder. It works as well as any electric machine.

  I went to London the next day and took the children to Holland Park where we played hide and seek among the wet bushes. Afterwards I insisted on seeing Melissa. "They're going to kill Bannister," I told her.

  "I'm sure that's not true, Nick."

  "He won't listen to me," I said.

  "It's hardly surprising, is it? I gather you declared war on him! Are you sure you're recovered from the Falklands? One keeps reading these tedious stories about Vietnam veterans who seem to be perfectly normal until they open fire in a crowded supermarket. I do hope you won't go berserk in the frozen-food section, Nick. It would be jolly hard for Mands and Pip to have a mass-murderer for a father."

  "Wouldn't it," I agreed. "But would you phone Bannister? He'll listen to you. Tell him he mustn't trust Mulder. Just convince him of that. I've written to him, but..." I shrugged. I'd broken my promise to Abbott by writing to Bannister. I'd written to his Richmond house, the television studios, and to the offices of his production company. I'd written because there was no proof that he was guilty of the crime for which, I was certain, he was about to be punished. Doubtless my letters had been categorized with all the other nutcase letters that a man like Bannister attracted.

  Melissa ran a finger round the rim of her wine glass. "Tony won't listen to me now, Nick. He's married that ghastly television creature. She's certainly done well for herself, hasn't she? And I'm quite sure Tony's in that post-marital bliss thing. You know, when you swear you'll never be unfaithful?" She laughed.

  "I'm serious, Melissa."

  "I'm sure you are, Nicholas, but if you think I'm going to make a fool of myself by telling Tony to give up his little boat race, you're wrong. Anyway, he wouldn't believe me! Fanny Mulder may not be everyone's cup of tea, but he's completely loyal to Tony." I'd told Melissa everything, including my new certainty that Mulder was Kassouli's man and would navigate Wildtrack to a death.

  "Phone him!" I said.

  "Don't be nasty, Nick."

  "For God's sake, Melissa!" I closed my eyes for a second. "I'm not mad, Melissa, I'm not shell-shocked and I'm not having bad dreams. I don't even like Bannister. Would you believe it, my love, if I was to tell you that it could suit me hideously well if he were to die? But I just cannot stomach the thought of murder! Especially when it's in my power to prevent it." I shook my head. "I'm not being noble, I'm not being honourable, I just want to be able to sleep at nights."

  "I do hate it when you get into a Galahad mood. I remember how it used to make me miserable when we were married."

  "So phone him," I urged her. "You can find out which hotel he's in, can't you?"

  She lit a cigarette. "His secretary might tell me," she allowed cautiously.

  "Then phone him and say that you think it's all nonsense. Blame me, if you like. Say I'm mad. But say you promised to pass on the message. The message is that Mulder is Kassouli's man and always has been."

  "I won't speak to that little television upstart."

  "You want Bannister to die?"

  She looked me up and down, noting my dirty trousers and creased shirt. "You're being very dramatic, Nick."

  "I know. But please, my love, please?"

  She havered, but plumped for safety. "I'm not going to make a fool of myself."

  "You want me to tell the Hon-John about you and Bannister?"

  "Nick!"

  "I'll do it!"

  She considered me for a few seconds. "If you withdraw that very ungentlemanly threat," she said acidly, "then I will consider telephoning Tony for you. I won't promise it." She frowned. "On the other hand, it would be decent to congratulate him on his wedding, would it not? Even if it was to that vulgar little gold-digger."

  I knew I would get no more from her. "I withdraw the threat," I said, "and I apologize for making it."

  "Thank you, Nick. And I will promise to consider talking to Tony." She looked pleased with her tactical victory. "So what are you going to do now?"

  "I've got a job," I said, "working in the boat trade." I had no intention of telling Melissa that I was leaving England. If I had, then her lawyers would have been round my stern like sharks smelling blood. I fabricated my casual work for George Cullen into a fantasy of yacht-broking, which mildly pleased her.

  "So you're not sailing into the sunset?"

  "No," I said. "I'm not sure I'm physically up to it, you see."

  "Quite right. So have you got a proper address now?"

  I invented an address in Plymouth, which satisfied her. By the time she discovered there was no such place as 17b Institute Road, I would be long gone. I reckoned I would be ready in three or four days, after which I would slip my warps and head out past Drake Island, past the Breakwater, and thus into the Western Approaches. I would pass Ushant on the French coast, then go to the great emptiness.

  I made Melissa promise once more that she would try to phone Bannister, or at least think about it, then I took the bus back to Plymouth. Buses were cheaper than trains, and I had no Angela now to tempt me into high-speed but expensive travel. Another bus took me to George's boatyard.

  George, his workers gone for the weekend, was peering down at Sycorax
. I saw he'd moored the fishing-boat outside Sycorax again. "You're not going this weekend, are you?" he asked me.

  "Monday or Tuesday."

  "I'll be glad to have the dock back," he said as though there were yachts lining up in the Hamoaze for his skilled attentions. "So you've got everything you need, Nick?"

  "I still need fenders, a Dan buoy, jackstays, a rigid tender"—my old dinghy was still at Bannister's house, and somehow I did not think I would see her again—"fuel filters, radar-reflector, sail needles, courtesy flags, a couple of spare impellers, medicines..."

  "All right!" He checked the flow. "I'm going home. Look after the yard."

  It began to rain. I went into Sycorax's cabin and made myself a cup of tea. I screwed a framed photograph of Piers and Amanda over the navigation table and tried not to think of how many months it would be before I saw them again. Instead I wondered whether Melissa would telephone Bannister, and decided she probably wouldn't.

  Yet I had done all I could to preserve his life, save going to France and confronting him. Yet confrontation would do no good, for Bannister undoubtedly would not believe me. He doubtless would not believe Melissa either, but I had tried. Kassouli would win.

  I told myself I had behaved decently in trying to save Bannister. Melissa had asked me why, and I'd given her the answers of truth and justice which she believed, for she knew how important those things were to me, yet the real truth was both simpler and far less noble. The real truth was that I cared very little whether Bannister lived or died, or whether he deserved punishment for his wife's death; the truth, however ignoble it might be, was that I had struggled to warn Bannister because that was my only way of staying in touch with Angela.

  I had done it all for Angela. Each attempt to reach Bannister was a way of reminding Angela that I lived and loved. Each high-minded attempt to save his life was a pathetic protestation of my love. That was why I had tried so hard. It was unsubtle and demeaning, but also irresistible, for Angela had lodged in my desire, and life without her seemed flat.

  I needed to go to sea. I needed winds and waves to blow that flatness clean away. I sipped my tea and jotted down what few items of equipment I still needed. I started a list of perishable supplies; the very last things I'd buy before I turned Sycorax towards the earth's end.