Driftwood

by Harper Fox

  To Tom’s surprise, his first emotion was not astonishment or disgust. Christ, that would do it, wouldn’t it? A couple of wrong-side runs like this, with his insider knowledge, would buy plenty of Mercedes trucks, and free exit forever from the Sankerris Bay estate. No, it was pity that went through Tom, a wave of compassion—as well as shame, because had he not too, from boyhood, contributed to the social pressures that would lead a man like this to… “Tremaine,” he whispered. “Are you mixed up in this? For God’s sake, let me help you.”

  The grey eyes remained wide and vacant, the profile impassive. Tom drew breath to try again—but the shrill of a flat-lining heart monitor cut through the air from the main ward, the one sound that could have distracted him, and he ran to answer Mike Findlay’s shout.

  When he got back, the bed was empty. Only rumpled sheets and oil stains. Tom shook his head. Had he been dreaming? On reflection, it seemed unlikely, didn’t it, Rob Tremaine brought in with a bunch of gun-runners. Still, whatever the situation, he’d lost a patient—his first tonight, somehow. Half-smiling at the idea of losing one like this, Tom checked the toilets at the end of the ward, then went into the corridor where the weary-looking police officers were still waiting. “You brought in six, didn’t you?” he asked.

  The Kevlar-clad armed-response captain stopped trying to extract a packet of crisps from the vending machine. “Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

  “I’m down to five. Anyone come past you this way?”

  “No. Which one’s gone?”

  “The head injury. He’s…” Abruptly Tom shut up. He saw again the raw-boned profile, half covered with hair and black grease. God, was he absolutely sure? If not, it was a hell of an accusation to make. It flickered through Tom’s mind that Tremaine might have been undercover, although he did not think Hawke would send one of its pilots on a job like this.

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s too sick to be running around. I’ll call security.”

  “Yeah,” said the officer, grimly, unhitching his radio. “Me too.”

  I promised him I wouldn’t turn up outside his barrack door. Tom sat behind the wheel of the Land Rover. His parking place commanded a view up and down the Breagh main street. It was just after three in the afternoon, the time when Flynn would come off a duty shift if he’d been on early. Tom knew he liked to get off the base for a couple of hours a day, and if he did, he had to drive through the village. If not, he thought, gripping the wheel painfully tight, it might come to a barrack-door encounter yet.

  Tom was not sure he would have bothered, had it just been drugs and guns. Just, he had said to himself mockingly, trying to get some sleep in that day’s bright dawn, back at the watchtower. But the truth was that he was not much concerned with issues of crime and punishment for their own sake. He was a doctor. His job began where those of the police and firearms units ended. Ultimately it wasn’t his business if Rob Tremaine or anyone else chose to make a few illicit quid by running with the moonrakers. And, as he had realised when talking to the police last night, he hadn’t been absolutely certain, not certain enough to shadow an innocent man’s career.

  He supposed he was slow on the uptake. At the best interpretation, he was these days an unsuspicious man, too occupied with getting through his own day-to-day to be curious about anyone else’s. It had taken hours for the fear to hit him. He had been opening up the surgery, had gone so cold that he had dropped the keys and almost set the pharmacy alarm off. Had conducted his appointments in a grey distraction, glad that nothing more complex than a grumbling appendix presented itself. He had listened, diagnosed, dispensed, sent the appendix down to Penzance for assessment, closed shop as soon as he could and driven over to Breagh.

  What the hell was he going to say?

  A throaty purring preceded the appearance of Flynn’s sea-green Mazda at the top of the high street. For a moment, Tom forgot everything. Flynn looked like a bloody advert—the convertible’s top was down, the sunny breeze catching his hair, glancing off his aviator sunglasses. Tom rolled down the Rover’s window and put out a hand to attract his attention, but there was no need—Flynn had seen him from a hundred yards away, the light show of his recognition once more dazzling to Tom, who could not get used to being greeted with such unhidden pleasure.

  Anxiety under it today. For all their short acquaintance, Tom had begun to be able to read him, even at a distance. It matched the dry clutch of fear in his own throat. Flynn pulled the Mazda into the car park outside the Fox, gesturing for Tom to follow him. Well, no help for it. Either Tom spoke to him about this now or not at all, and not at all was suddenly unbearable to him.

  They found a table in a quiet corner. The Fox was a different place during weekday work hours, Tom observed with relief, hearing the echo of roaring voices and feeling a sting in his healed-over knuckles. Flynn had met him with the reserved affection which was all he would ever be able to show in public, military man to village doctor, in such a community, and Tom found himself wishing them both a thousand miles away, stripped of rank, status, for preference every stitch of clothing, and alone. His heart was racing, his hands unsteady on the glass of orange juice Flynn had brought back from the bar. “Hiya,” Tom greeted him, as calmly as he could. “You all right?”

  Flynn sat down opposite him. When he looked up, there was such a mix of yearning and fear in his eyes that Tom almost blew it all by reaching for his hands across the table, under the attentive gaze of the bartender and the dozen or so RNAS regulars scattered around the room. “I’m fine,” he said. “Hear you were busy last night, though.”

  “Yes. Couple of boats rammed each other off Morvanna.” He smiled, desperately trying to keep it light. “Bodies all over the place. Police think… Police think it was a couple of rival drug warlords knocking heads.” Tom clenched his hands together on the table. He stared at his own white knuckles for almost ten seconds, then asked hoarsely, “Flynn, love. Is Robert all right?”

  “I… What? Yeah, he’s fine. Why would he not be? That is… I dunno. He’s on leave.”

  You’re a rotten liar, aren’t you? Tom thought, with a painful surge of affection. He had worked that much out back at the quoit, where Flynn had only got away with his declaration of freedom from Rob Tremaine because they had both so badly wanted it to be true. To have to probe at him, to question, was terrible. “You’ve heard from him?”

  “Yes. I mean… Oh Christ.” Flynn picked up his glass—he too was on the orange juice, a tactful gesture which, given his current levels of anxiety, Tom appreciated all the more—sent the top inch of its contents over the brim, and set it back down again. Tom shoved a napkin at him, and together they tried to mop up without attracting too much notice. “All right. He came home early this morning. I wasn’t expecting him. Why?”

  “And he was okay?”

  “No. He was tired. He looked…” Flynn ran a hand into his hair. “He looked the way you do now. Leave it to me, Tom. I’ll fuck everyone over, every time.”

  “Does he ever work undercover? Could you tell me if he did?”

  “What? No. I mean—I probably couldn’t, but he doesn’t. Please tell me why you’re asking.”

  “Because…” Because if it was just a fling from time to time, a run with the wolves, I might look away. Whatever that makes me. A sideline like that would keep a man in Mercedes trucks, for sure. But private psychiatry, legal fees—the price of a human soul, lock, stock and barrel—that takes more. “Because I need you to tell me what happened the night your helicopter went down off Portsmouth.”

  “I did tell you.” Flynn’s voice was strained, barely audible. Tears had sprung to his eyes. “I told you all I remember. Don’t do this. Please.”

  “I’d give anything not to have to. Flynn. How did Robert get out of that crash? How could he have?”

  Flynn’s chair scraped. Heads turned. Tom, opening up his hands to stare into their palms, did not watch his exit, which was quick and silent. He sat for as long as he could b
ear to, his drink untouched on the table. Then he got up, put his jacket over his arm, and just as quietly left the bar.

  How stupid. His vision was blurring, his chest tight. Pit of his stomach clenching, with grief and a kind of sick rage—if he had to lose this, lose Flynn, why had it had to be by his own hand? Realising that for the first time in his adult life he was on the verge of public tears, he backed up into a shadowy part of the corridor outside the bar. He tried a few deep breaths. Not once, not in all his battles, had he ever been brought this low. Shit, he thought, hot wet salt burning up his throat, and he made his way blindly across the corridor to the toilets.

  Empty, thank God. Shuddering, Tom jerked one of the basin’s cold taps onto full and leaned over, splashing handfuls of water into his face. When he straightened up, he could see again. The fittings in the room were basic, unchanged, he reckoned, since the pub first opened in the late seventies to cater to the airbase. In the single mirror screwed to the wall, his image stared back at him, an insignificant ghost—one of thousands that had stood here, drunk or sober, in the thick of life or beached and lost, or simply bored. All meaningless. Tom could hardly assign enough importance to the reflection to wonder at it. Pale skin, dark eyes. Wet fringe plastered down. The whole face a blank, the water on it now nothing worse than clean Cornish tap. Unreadable. He would be all right now, or at least he would be able to get back to the car.

  The door creaked. Tom turned from the mirror, ready to make his exit past a stranger, and found himself face-to-face with Flynn. “Oh,” he said, his own voice sounding odd to him, flat and detached. “I’m glad you came back. I—”

  “You shouldn’t be,” Flynn interrupted. He was a little out of breath, as if he had come running back from his car. He looked sick, almost ready to pass out. “You shouldn’t be glad to see me. Christ, Tom.” He closed the door behind him, gave the room a cursory glance to check that they were alone, and came up close. He scanned Tom’s face. “I made you cry.”

  “No,” Tom whispered. He couldn’t bear for him to think so. He wanted to resist Flynn’s hands on him—the unsteady caress down the side of his face, the touch to his arm—because whatever Flynn had come back to tell him, it wasn’t that he was there to stay. “Ah, Flynn. What is it? Please tell me.”

  “I will. That’s why I’m here. I fucked you around. I lied to you about me and Rob. We’re not over.”

  “I know.”

  “You… When? From the start?” Flynn asked. Tom nodded mutely, and Flynn closed his eyes for a second, losing even more colour. “Why did you let me…do what we did?”

  “Same reason you did. I wanted you more than anything. I still do.”

  “No. That’s just it. You don’t know me, Tom. You’re right—Rob came back in a fucking state last night. Like a hurricane. He’d been in a fight, and…” He ground to a halt, stripping off his jacket. Tom shuddered and tried to step back, but the marks on Flynn leapt out like a cry—fingerprint bruises up and down his arms, fresh, terrible, purple and dark blue against his tan. “I won’t show you the rest. He came back, and he took it all out on me, just like he stamped his bloody mark on me for a week when you first showed up, like he could read my bloody mind. He did it because he likes it, and because…” Flynn paused, sucked in a breath. “Because I need him to. You don’t understand, Tom. You’re too good, too clean, too decent, to get your head around the kind of sick fuck I am. He beats the crap out of me, screws me until I can’t walk, and sometimes—just sometimes, just for a little bit—I feel better about what I am. What… What I did.”

  “Oh, Flynn. Flynn, for God’s sake, listen to me.” Tom heard his voice crack. Flynn’s eyes were fixed on his, their gaze burning and blank and desperate. “You’re not sick. You’re just hurt. And I—I’m starting to think none of what happened that night was your fault.”

  “No. Shut up. Whatever you think about Rob, it’s not true. He roughs me up, but he’d never harm anyone else. Christ, he’d never kill anyone.”

  “All right. Okay, but just tell me… He’d been in a fight?”

  “Yes. He told me all about it. He had some kind of a bust-up with his family, so he came back early, and he got pissed down in Penzance and picked a scrap with a bunch of Royal Marines. Happens all the time—they think SAR is for pansies. He…”

  “Flynn.” Tom grabbed him by the arms. He had no interest whatsoever in the Navy’s internecine rivalries, and less in Rob Tremaine’s lies. He saw, with nausea, that his own thumbs fitted exactly into the place where Rob had left bruises, and he transferred his grip to Flynn’s shoulders, caressing. “Right. Listen. Did he have a head wound? Quite bad, at the back of his skull?”

  “Oh Christ!” Flynn tore away from him. He fell back a couple of steps, throwing out a hand to steady himself on the edge of a washbasin. “How the fuck should I know? It was dark, and he bust in before I was even awake. He had his cock up my arse before I could get my face out of the pillow. He…” Running out of breath, Flynn emitted a faint sound of pain and disgust, as if the reality of the scene he was describing had only then hit home. He swallowed audibly, a sickened small moan. “Oh. Tom…”

  “It’s all right. It’ll be all right, if you just let me help you. Where is he now?”

  “He’s on duty. Where else would he be? Tom, I can’t do this. And—I don’t know what you’re trying to do. Rob fucks me over, but I need him.” He went a shade paler and swung round to face the sink. “Has that occurred to you? I need him, even—even more than I need you.”

  Tom took a step towards him. Pain was lancing through him. He put a hand on Flynn’s shoulder, feeling it shudder with a hard-repressed dry heave. “Flynn. All right. Forget it. Just…how badly are you hurt? I can ignore everything else, but not that. I—I’m a doctor.”

  “I’ve got my own doctor!” It was a desperate snarl. Flynn straightened up violently, pushing him aside. “I’m not your responsibility. Not your business. Nor is Rob. For both our sakes…” he backed up unsteadily, and did not look at Tom again until he was at the door, “…leave me alone. It’s over. Let me go.”

  Tom left the pub calmly, dry-eyed. He got into the Rover and started her up with steady hands. Down the street, he could hear the roar of the little MX5, getting booted to high speeds as Flynn took her out of the 30 zone. Tom wanted to call him back, to tell him to be careful.

  He was careful himself, driving home. He had good reason. He was going to have to choose, very soon, between two distinct courses of action. He could walk into the Penzance police HQ, find the officer in charge of the boat-crash investigation and tell him that, on slender evidence, he thought their missing sixth man was Robert Tremaine—that, further, he believed Tremaine capable of deliberately downing an RNAS helicopter, capable of doing it again. If it had been Tremaine in the side ward last night, he would have a distinctive head injury. Tom could do this. He could probably throw enough suspicion on Tremaine to ground him at least.

  Ruin his career, and shatter Flynn, perhaps beyond healing. Tom’s other choice was to shut the fuck up and watch from a distance. If Tremaine hadn’t sabotaged the Portsmouth helicopter, he had seen its destruction, and Flynn’s, at close quarters. He was the only witness. He had seen to the repairs, put Flynn back together as nearly as he could in his own image. Right or wrong, Tom knew that, to all intents and purposes, Tremaine owned him. Loss of that ownership, that domination, might set Flynn free. Or cut through his strings like a scythe.

  Whichever Tom chose, it would wait until morning. It would have to. Beneath all this concern for the greater human good, his own grief and loss were yawning like a pit.

  When the hell had he fallen in love?

  Another vehicle was parked on the turf outside the watchtower. Tom watched it with a sinking sense of disbelief. Apart from Flynn—and, of course, Tremaine—he had received no social calls since moving in. It was not a place where people dropped by. He didn’t even recognise the rusty Ford hatchback. Didn’t much care. Whoever it was, to Tom,
they were simply an obstacle between him and the pit, where he did not want to fall but was losing the strength to hold on.

  He got out of the Rover, and Victor Travers unfolded his bulk from behind the wheel of the other car, waving. “Tom,” he called. “Sorry to disturb you out here. I know you don’t like visitors.”

  God, when had he given that impression? It was true enough—or had been—but how had he made his aversion so plain? A notice tin-tacked to the tree on Sankerris village green? He made his way over to Victor, out of habit running through the visual checks he would have begun had his old friend just entered the surgery. No tremor, no weight loss. In fact, he looked as if he’d glued a little on, his huge frame less gaunt in its flesh. His colour was good. Tom realised he did know the Ford estate, after all. Vic’s dad had driven it around Porth Harbour for years, usually with ladders and pots of creosote hanging out the back. It was just that he hadn’t seen it in three years. Because Vic, having had the living crap land-mined out of him twice behind the wheel of an armoured truck, had not been able to drive.

  Despite himself, Tom smiled. “Hi, Vic. You okay? Prescription run out?”

  A shadow touched Victor’s grin. “Don’t blame you for thinking that. Been a right millstone round your neck since we got home, haven’t I? No, I… The missus sent me out to see you were okay, actually. She said you looked like grim death this morning in surgery.”

  “In surgery? I don’t think I saw her.”

  “Maybe not. But you did a nice job of fixing her ingrown toenail anyway.”

  Tom shook his head. Yes. He remembered a human foot, some swelling, inflammation, the few strokes it took with a pair of nail shears to put it right. They didn’t have their own chiropodist in Sankerris—he got the odd job like that. A human foot attached to a leg, attached to a familiar woman in a bright floral dress, looking at him in concern. “Sorry. Yes, I did see her. I was miles away.”