‘Plenty else to do aboard,’ I said. We’d need to see how many of my youngsters were climbers, but at least we’d have a good deck team.
I left Mona to do the hammock demo. Up on deck, Jen was tidying away the passports into her box. The UK customs would want everyone on board in a neat, alphabetical line, and this way we’d just line ourselves up, then Jenn would come along and dole out the passports. She lifted her head as I came up. ‘Fantastic news of Johanna. It was her appendix, and they operated straight away. She’ll be fine.’
I took the other end of her green tablecloth and helped her fold it. ‘Oh, that’s great! How long will they keep her in?’
‘Only a couple of days. I spoke to her father, and she’s going home to Oslo to convalesce. He said he’d see how she was after a week, so she’ll maybe join us in Belfast.’ Jenn dropped the cloth into her bag and we began unclicking the table legs.
A screech of brakes on the dock called our attention downwards. Only a taxi stopped like that, and a taxi it was indeed, with Anders’ fair head beside the driver. He jumped out and began retrieving his kitbag and an armful of scarlet oilskins from the boot, along with Rat’s cage. I hurried down the gangplank. ‘That was quick.’
‘I was lucky with the flights.’ He gave me a hug, and Rat took the opportunity to slip from Anders’ shoulder to mine. He was a large beast, not much smaller than Cat, with patches of glossy black on an immaculate white coat, long transparent toes and an agile, curving tail. He whiffled in my ear by way of greeting, and curled round my neck like a live stole.
‘Cat will be pleased to see you,’ I told him.
I took the oilskins and Anders hefted his kitbag. He wasn’t tall, but compactly built, with strong shoulders. His hair was silver-gilt fair, his eyes the blue of a summer fjord, and he had a neat seaman’s beard like an Elizabethan explorer. Looking at him, remembering living aboard my Khalida together, and feeling that sense of my mate, I tucked my arm into his. ‘I’m glad you could make it.’
‘My father is not completely happy, but I reminded him that Johanna and I were talking of giving the engine an overhaul, and it would look good on the yard’s CV. What is the news of her?’
‘Good.’ I repeated what Jenn had told me. ‘You don’t need to join the watch introduction, so you would have time to nip up to the hospital. If you do, can you get her flowers from all of us?’
‘They don’t allow flowers in hospitals these days.’
Oh, he’d checked, had he? My hopes of a romance rose. ‘Just dump your stuff in my cabin for the moment – I’m not sure where Captain Gunnar wants to put you.’ Cat looked up as we entered, then rose, seeing Rat; Rat swarmed down my front and leapt for the bed, and there was thirty seconds of mutual whisker sniffing, then Rat leapt for the back of the berth and Cat followed him. I drew the curtain on the scampering noises and occasional soft thud of the Cat/Rat version of don’t-touch-the-floor, and took Anders along to Captain Gunnar’s quarters. ‘See you later. We have the induction session.’
Not that I was allowed to join in, of course. The trainees were all called together from their exploration of the ship, and lined up in watches by the watch leader and ABs for each team, with a bit of shuffling about to get them in two straight lines and not leaning on the conveniently placed ship’s rail, while we officers stood in a row in front of the mainmast, shoulders back, hands behind our backs. Once we’d got lines we could live with, Rolf took a photo of each watch and Jenn handed out the rota sheets. Only then did Captain Gunnar come out to greet them formally, imposing in his gold-braided jacket (I’d never seen him in sailing overalls) and leaning slightly on the polished walking stick that I suspected was more affectation than need.
As well as Olav and Ellen, my watch included the two brothers I’d noticed, the sporty Norwegian sisters, the blonde Danish girl (who looked miserably unsure of herself in this strange set-up), the quiet Greek girl and one of the Greek boys, masking his nervousness under constant movement and an echoing catchphrase of ‘All right, all right, all right!’ One of the African boys didn’t seem to speak English, for when I looked around for who was persistently talking over the crew instructions, it turned out to be a tall, red-headed boy translating into Norwegian for him. He had the white skin of a true ginger; I hoped he’d brought sun lotion. We had three of the Middle Eastern boys, one dark and alert, the second already being heart-warmingly deferential to Ellen, who was standing squarely between them in her scarlet jacket and white knitted hat, and the third leaning back sullenly on the rail with his back-to-front baseball cap pulled down on his brow.
I cast a quick look down the names on the list Jenn had just given me and the photo Rolf had just pressed into my hand, still warm from the printer, and scribbled the names as Erik went through them. Olav, at the front, watching everything that was going on. The brothers were Ludwig and Ben, the sporty sisters Anna and Nora, and the blonde girl Nine. Maria and Dimitris. Ismail, and the Norwegian boy translating for him was Sindre. Samir, Naseem with Ellen, and Gabriel hiding under his cap. We also had Johan, already eyeing up the masts, and the massive fisherman Jan-Ole and his friend Aage. It was the makings of a good team.
We always did rig training before setting sail. Petter gave them a lecture on safety aloft (it boiled down to ‘Hold on, and don’t mess about’), and then everyone who wanted to go up the rigging was asked to hang by the arms from the bars above the main deck. Dimitris went first, and had no difficulty raising himself up from deck level; he obviously worked out on wall bars in a gym. Johan, after him, made it look easy. The Norwegian sisters bounced up like basketball players, swung, crooked their arms and made a controlled descent. Maria followed them; Nine shook her head and backed away. Olav looked up, then shook his head, and joined Aage, Jan-Ole and Ellen at the rail. The tall brother, Ludwig, could reach the bar without needing to jump; his younger image tried, and made a face. Sindre shook his head too, and Gabriel; Samir pulled himself up easily and went grinning to start fitting his harness. Naseem and Ismail lifted, swung, and joined Samir. Nine climbers was good, plus the three crew members; a fair number for working the sails. Petter and Mona made sure the climbing harnesses were fitted and secure, then Erik began to climb up the main mast, slowly, while the ABs helped the trainees safely onto the ratlines below him.
It was sensible to be afraid. Sørlandet’s ratlines, those segments of spider’s web running diagonally up the mast, were more solid than many, with wire uprights braced apart by wooden footplates, but you were still climbing eleven metres up above the wooden deck just to reach the first platform. Erik led, and the first four followed him, climbing steadily up the swaying wires.
Dimitris was first to reach the platform. There was a triumphant grin on his face as he hooked an elbow around the ratline leading up to the second platform, and looked round at the air world of a tall ship: the heavy, horizontal spars, the tied canvas, the tracery of ropes and the wide sky behind. ‘All right, all right, all right!’
Samir followed him, then Naseem, then Anna, scrambling up like a monkey, turning her size into an advantage by wedging her feet and hands into tiny spaces. Erik let them savour their triumph for a moment, then watched them cross the platform and descend on the dock side of the ship. His words floated down: ‘Remember, you’re not safe till both feet are on deck.’
Petter and Johan took the second group: Ludwig, Ismail, Nora and Maria. At the last moment Ben put on a harness and followed them. Having seen the others climb up there had given them confidence: they went up, slowly, steadily, dark figures against the blue sky, across the platform and down the other side. That was enough for one day; the harnesses clunked back into their nylon mesh laundry basket, and the whole watch headed forrard to begin their deck inspection: the foredeck and lookout area, the under-deck showers and heads, the bosun’s stairs, the washing line for wet towels. In half an hour they’d made it back to me and were clumping up the aft steps to inspect the nav shack, the deckhouse where the navigation instruments w
ere kept. Behind it were the metre-wide ship’s wheel and the ‘captain’s coffin’, the polished wood case which covered the steering mechanism. Then they headed below to the banjer, where Jenn explained mealtimes, gave them the lecture about not leaving their stuff lying about, showed them the lost property cupboard where they’d find it when they did, and released them to relax.
That all took until four o’clock. Three o’clock in Scotland. Gavin might be having his tea break. I felt tired, tired … I went across the gangplank, along to the peace of the grass in front of one of the posh hotels, and called him.
I was in luck. He answered at the second ring. I could imagine him at his desk or perhaps standing out by the river, taking a breather from the office, russet head tilted towards the phone, a curve to his mouth and warmth in his grey eyes as if I was there with him. ‘Coffee break?’
‘Nearly,’ he said. ‘I’ll just get away from my desk.’ I heard a door squeak open and close again, then the wind on the phone. ‘How’s it going? Do you have your trainees?’
‘Millions of them. The ship is disappearing under a wash of teenage testosterone.’
‘What watch are you on this time?’
‘Blue.’ It was the most difficult one for phoning each other; when I got up at 6.30, it was only 5.30 in Scotland, and then he was working all afternoon while I was free. As a recently appointed DI to the mobile serious crimes squad of Police Scotland, his life was busier than it had been in Inverness. ‘I’ll phone while there’s still a signal.’
‘Yes, please. So, any extra excitement?’
There was no reason why I should feel awkward about telling him; Anders and I were just mates. ‘We’ve got Anders aboard, as chief engineer.’ I explained about Johanna, then went on, in a more natural tone, ‘And my cousin Sean’s aboard too – gave me the shock of my life to see him. He’s my dad’s sister’s son, one of twins, two years older than me. We all used to stay with Granny Bridget in Dublin for Christmas, and the trouble the pair of them led me into!’
‘That sounds like what your Granny said.’ I could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘You’d be able to match them, even as a teenager.’
‘Different league,’ I said briskly. ‘My only ever cigarette … my first pint of Guinness …’
‘Shocking. Are you all set to sail?’
‘17.00.’ He felt so remote, with the trainees aboard and the sea road beckoning. I made an effort. ‘What’s the news at home?’
‘Oh, quiet, except that there’s another litter of kittens in the byre, all striped. Mother was threatening them with drowning, but I talked her out of it. You can never have too many cats around a farm. Kenny’s at his wits’ end over when to cut the hay, with this constant rain, and the grass has grown so fast that Luchag, you remember, the dun pony you rode, has had to be put on a tether to stop her getting too fat for the stalking.’
It was a different world, his farm at the end of a remote loch, steep and wooded like a Norwegian fjord, with waterfalls threading the hills. His brother Kenny was the full-time farmer. Gavin had a flat in Inverness, two hours’ drive away, and he went home every free weekend. I tried to imagine myself turning hay or tending a litter of half-wild striped kittens, with a baby on my hip and a toddler at my heels. Maybe sometime …
‘Poor Luchag. She won’t like that.’ The one thing I did know about horses was that they believed they were permanently starving. ‘How about your suspected people smugglers?’
He went cagey, as if he was worried someone might be hacking in. ‘Developments. It’s nasty. I’ll tell you the whole story when I see you.’ He paused for a moment, then said, ‘You don’t sound as happy as you should with your ship ready to sail.’
I made a face at the hotel’s immaculate lawns. ‘It’s nothing. Just one of those stupid feelings. A cloud hanging over me.’ The wind spread the Norwegian flag at Sørlandet’s mizzen mast and the long banner at the top of the mainmast. I could feel her calling. ‘I have to go. I just wanted to say hello before we cast off. I’ll phone later. Would you still be awake at eleven, when I come off watch?’
‘I will be.’ He was laughing at me now. ‘Go on, my Cass, get back to your ship, before she leaves without you.’ Go back to your other woman, Mike’s wife had gestured. But there was no resentment in Gavin’s voice. ‘You’ve only got an hour, and I’d guess a full hundred metres to walk, at most.’
I admitted it. ‘Half a street.’
‘My phone may go straight to voicemail. If it does, don’t wait up for me to call back.’
That sounded like a stake-out on some damp piece of coast. ‘I won’t.’ Won’t be able to, I could have added, after a watch at sea. ‘Good luck with it.’
‘Tapadh leat.’ Thanks. ‘Beannachd leat, mo chridhe.’
‘Speak tae dee later.’ Beannachd leat meant goodbye, a blessing on you, but I hadn’t yet dared to ask the meaning of the soft phrase that came after it. Sometime, when we were alone, in bed …
I put the phone away, and walked straight into Micaela, Erik’s wife, and their two children, there to see Daddy off.
Micaela was South American, and beautiful, with huge dark eyes in an oval face and a ripple of shining hair that she usually pinned up. Loose, it reached to below her waist. Their pre-children photos showed her as slim and lithe as a swimming fish, but two children and a love of cooking had thickened her slender arms, plumped out her cheeks and turned her life, it seemed, into a perpetual fight against becoming fat. Only fat-free items were permitted in her fridge, and she’d try one diet after another, being meat-free one week, then drinking only juiced vegetables the next. Erik remonstrated with her about it, and she just shook her head at him and went on to the next one.
‘It’s anxiety,’ he’d told me, one night on a quiet watch, where the trainees were dozing on the benches, and the ship was forging steadily on across the water. ‘She came from a repressive regime over there. She still expects a sudden knock on the door, and armed men bursting in. I don’t know what I can do about it.’ He’d looked anxious himself, talking about it, as if he was beginning to share her nightmare. ‘Nothing, I suppose. My great-grandmother, she was here during the war. She never spoke about it, but I had always to call out who I was as I went into the house.’
Today, the skin around Micaela’s mouth was drawn tight as she tucked her arm inside Erik’s. ‘I have brought you a cake, a verdens beste.’ ‘World’s best’ was a buttery cake layered with meringue, sliced almonds and cream, and scattered with berries. Micaela made it beautifully. My stomach paid attention; I reminded it that the cake was destined for the other ranks’ mess. ‘Here, remember now to put it in the fridge. What else? Oh, yes.’ She fished out a bulging paper bag. ‘Some rolls, with brunost.’
Brunost was sweet brown cheese. It was a credit to Erik’s metabolism that he’d kept that tall, rangy Norwegian build.
‘I helped make the cake, Papa,’ his daughter Elena told him. She was just six, and would be heading for school in the autumn. She hadn’t gone to nursery, for Micaela insisted on keeping her babies with her, but she was quick and bright, and thanks to Micaela she already knew all the basics like numbers, colours and her alphabet in both Norwegian and English. The four-year-old boy, Alexander, clung to Erik’s leg. ‘I put the cheese on the rolls, Papa.’
Erik put his arm round Micaela. ‘I’ll be glad of these at ten o’clock tonight.’ I came forward to have Micaela wish me a good voyage and touch me with her cherished medallion of the Virgin of Sorrows, then I went back up to the aft deck and left them to say goodbye.
I was just relaxing on the bench beside the captain’s coffin when Mona came to me and plumped herself down. ‘I think we have rats in the sail locker. Can I see if Cat wants to go down, or would a rat be too dangerous for him to tackle?’
My thoughts went straight to Rat. ‘Did you see it? Because Anders has come aboard. My friend who was on one of the weekend trips, remember, with his pet rat. Rat and Cat may well be charging round the ship tog
ether.’
Mona shook her head. ‘I didn’t see it. I just heard something moving in the sail locker as I put the suitcases away. I called, thinking it might be Cat gone down there while the trap was open, but he didn’t come.’
‘He might not have.’ As the hatch was generally kept closed, he would have been reluctant to be thrown out by authority before he’d sniffed round every corner.
‘I could feel I was being watched.’ She shuddered. ‘Petter said I was talking nonsense, but maybe we need a trap, so long as we made sure Cat didn’t get caught in it.’
‘Let’s just check on him first,’ I suggested. I led the way down the aft steps and to my cabin. There was a knot of fur on my berth, Cat’s grey curled round Rat’s black and white, with one striped paw round Rat’s plush middle. Two heads lifted as we came in, both sets of whiskers radiating suspicious innocence. They could have been there half an hour or just two minutes. ‘I’ll go and check it out.’
The sail locker was forrard, at the bottom of the steep stairs leading down to the carpenter’s workshop and two crew cabins, Erik and Petter on one side and the ABs from the red watch on the other. Mona had left the floor hatch open, so Cat and Rat could easily have scampered out again while we’d been talking.
I clattered down the ladder. It was a trapezoid space, framed by broad shelves that were filled with white canvas, a spare for every one of the ship’s twenty-two sails. Half a dozen suitcases had been squeezed on top of the lowest shelf. Down here, the noises of the ship filtered away to a stuffy wood-smelling silence.
Of course, any sensible rat would have made itself scarce by now, which had been my intention. I paused in the middle of the room and waited. Nothing; but there was an alertness to the nothing that made me uneasy. I waited, counting up to a hundred in my head and feeling eyes on me all the time, yet there was still silence, not a rustle of canvas nor creak of wood to betray the presence of anything else in the locker with me. I tried to remember what was behind the shelves of canvas. Forrard, there was the well where the anchor chain was stored. There would be no exit there. To each side there was an under-decks corridor running the length of the ship, so if a rat had got aboard, and had gnawed or wriggled its way through into the locker, it could easily come and go. Maybe I should bring Cat down later.
Death in Shetland Waters Page 3