‘Sleep well. Don’t worry about it; just tell Freya what you saw.’
It took me a while to settle. I was too conscious of Gavin moving on one side, in the sick bay, and the silence from the other side. Mike’s cabin. Only two days ago, Agnetha had been there with him. Now she was walking the deck above my head, knowing that he was lying covered in the cold store. I wondered if they had told his wife yet. Probably. A Norwegian police officer would have gone to her door. At least the ship could spare her the grief of identifying him; Captain Gunnar could do the formal ID. I wondered if she’d fly over to meet us at Belfast, to take his body back to Kristiansand, or if he’d be buried in Cork. The old seamen used to wear gold rings in their ears to pay for their burial abroad …
Suddenly, in the stillness, I heard a hand brush over my door. I lifted my head, watching, as the brass handle dipped down and the door eased open. A dark shape stood in the dimly lit corridor, silhouetted by the light.
My first thought, with a surge of pleasure, was that it was Gavin; that wanting to be with me had won out over duty. But as he stood there, listening, as if he was checking that I was asleep, unease crept up my throat, followed by panic as he took a stealthy step into the room. I swung my legs down, took two steps to the wall, lifted my fist and hammered on it.
The shadow jerked back. My door was pulled closed. I leapt for it and yanked it open. Gavin was already in the corridor, dressed only in his kilt, torso and feet bare. ‘What’s up?’
‘Someone came into my room. You didn’t see anyone in the corridor?’
He shook his head. ‘Missed him.’ He drew me back into my room and glanced at the fastenings of my door. ‘Lock yourself in. Have a think about why anyone would want to threaten you. Maybe you saw something you didn’t realise you saw.’ His hand was warm on my shoulder. I wanted to ask him to stay, but I wasn’t going to let a faceless thug make me all clingy.
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Beanneachd leat.’
‘Night night tae dee.’ I locked the door behind him, and set myself to think, but nothing came to me. A person in a red jacket … had there been anything about the walk, the jacket, that I’d recognised? I did have a sense of familiarity, but then, if Bezrukov had picked up a jacket from the banjer, of course I’d have seen it before. No inspiration came, and it was three bells of the red watch before I finally fell asleep.
FIVE BELLS
The Atlantic: Cape Wrath to Tiree
Tuesday 30th June
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I was woken by Cat, mewing indignantly at the locked door. It took me a moment to surface, then it all came back: the stiff figure under the polished lid of the captain’s coffin, the men carrying their shrouded burden down the nav-shack stairs, Mike laid out in the cold store. The dark figure in the room, reaching out for me. Then being pregnant rushed in as well, almost as an afterthought that blotted everything else out again. I lay still for a moment, bracing myself against the day. It was all too much to cope with, but not coping wasn’t an option. Cat miaowed again. I yawned my way to the door and opened it, then reached for my watch. Ten to seven! I rushed for the shower and toilet, cursing. It was nearly twenty past before I got on deck, flushed and out of breath, but officer-neat, and with only a medium queasiness to remind me of my tiny passenger. It seemed the worst of the shock was over; the jolting I’m pregnant! that had dogged my mind yesterday had softened to surprised acceptance. A body can get used to anything, even hanging, as my Granny Bridget used to say. It wasn’t going to be easy, any of it, but I could do it. One step at a time. I’d tell Gavin first, then worry about Maman. All the same, I warned it silently, as I kept prudently by the rail until the nausea had passed, You needn’t think you’re going to keep this up. You’ll be growing up around boats, so get used to it.
It was a fine day. Cat had come up with me for his early-morning constitutional, and sat himself by the chart-plotter pedestal, where the sun was warming the decks. The mountains of Scotland were still on our port side, closer now but misty in the spray-laden air. Sunshine glinted on the water. Ahead, the sea was slashed with white crests from a stiff breeze. Great Atlantic breakers rolled along the ship’s sides, changing colour with each movement, pale green, grey, silver. My spirits rose at the sight of this gleaming wilderness.
Gavin was up already, talking to the foredeck lookout, his kilt fluttering in the breeze. The white watch was busy erasing the last remnants of Erik’s sail diagrams with brushes and the seawater hose. Up here on the aft deck, Nils was checking the plotter, ready for handover. I went over to join him, taking care not to cast a shadow over Cat. ‘A straight run towards Skye, Cass. We should be level with the north coast around 9.30. 230 degrees, to dodge the Shiants, then straight down the middle of the Little Minch.’
‘Tides?’ The Minch was notorious.
He gestured at the nav shack. ‘Your paper’s in there.’ There was something odd about his manner this morning, almost wary, with his narrow eyes looking sideways at me from behind the beaked nose. The policeman’s girlfriend … I went in to look, and he retreated quickly to talk to his helm.
I’d written it up in my best handwriting. The north-going stream began at HW Ullapool -3.45 and turned south at HW Ullapool +2.40, running at 2.5 knots each way, with the Skye side being slightly stronger. High water Ullapool, 6.34; low 12.57 and high 18.54. ETA for the narrowest piece was 14.00. I checked my arithmetic one more time. Yes, just as I’d planned, the tide would be with us from our first sight of Skye, sweeping us downwards, then we’d go through the narrows just as it slackened and get the last of it as the sea opened out before us again.
I cast a long look around the glinting, shifting sea, taking deep breaths of air. The sickness had steadied now. Mind over matter. I wasn’t having Gavin guessing and worrying before I got a chance to tell him properly. On the thought, he glanced at his watch and began making his way aft. I called Cat and joined him in the companionway door. ‘Halo leat.’
‘Madainn mhath.’ Good morning. He gave me a sharp look. ‘Ciamar a tha thu?’
I didn’t know the Gaelic for ‘slightly sick due to early pregnancy’, and it didn’t seem quite the way to break the news. I shrugged. ‘A bit short of sleep.’
‘No more disturbances?’
‘Only Cat being indignant at being shut out.’ The ship’s bell rang out above our heads, and I quickened my steps. Cat trotted in ahead of me and made himself at home on the red velvet settee. The seating around the table had been altered slightly; Henrik had been moved up to Mike’s place, with Anders on one side of him and Gavin on the other, which ranked him above us mere officers. There was something odd about the way Henrik was looking at me too, as if he was assessing my height, and Rolf’s manner was distant, preoccupied. No compromising suspects … but I’d been on the helm. Surely Mike’s death wasn’t going to be pinned on me. I remembered the captain catching me with Sean’s gun in the herring bucket, and felt another wave of sickness pass over me. I tightened my teeth and fought the mouthful of vomit back down. Bezrukov was still aboard. There was no need for us to suspect each other.
Captain Gunnar came in promptly on the seventh bell and said grace. I sipped my yoghurt cautiously, and noticed Gavin’s eyes on me. Damn. I threw caution to the wind, sent the ship’s newest crew member a stern motherly warning, and took a couple of slices of rye bread, some cheese and an apple. At least I’d have something to sick up, if that was going to be the way of it. The movement of the boat, engine against waves, gave me an excuse.
I escaped upwards as soon as I could, taking the apple with me, and stood on the aft deck, gulping long breaths of the sea air. The fresh breeze was livening everyone’s spirits. My watch lined up with ruddy cheeks and heads held high. ‘A general tidy up,’ I suggested to Erik, ‘and sail practice again, then how about splicing, since they did so well with knots yesterday?’
I watched from above as the physicals and galley duty were sent off. Rolf had been sent to oversee me this morning. He s
eemed slightly awkward, as if he just happened to be hanging about the aft deck, his eyes avoiding mine. When Captain Gunnar came up and nodded dismissal, he shot off down the stairs as if he’d heard an all-hands emergency call. I tried not to think about it, but the sting was cold in my breast.
Erik had just got them re-coiling ropes when Gavin appeared beside me. ‘Don’t forget Freya’s interviewing you straight after lunch. Try not to think about it. Just answer.’ His hand was light on my shoulder. ‘Make with the words.’
The pit of my stomach jolted again, but I wasn’t going to be nervous of Sergeant Peterson. ‘No time to think about it,’ I replied briskly. I didn’t look at Captain Gunnar, upright and dignified on his gold-footed cane as he talked to the trainees at the helm, but forward at the white prow plunging in the waves, the black ratlines against the shifting water, and squared my shoulders. ‘Right now she’s my ship.’
He stood for a moment watching me. ‘Don’t move. Keep looking up.’ He pulled out his phone and took a photo, then turned the phone to show it to me. ‘Cass, in the middle of the ocean.’
It wasn’t the face I saw in my mirror. This woman was smiling, head up. One strand of dark hair had tugged loose to make a crazy corkscrew on her flushed cheek, and her blue eyes shone. She wouldn’t want to call the king her cousin, Granny Bridget would have said. I looked at Gavin, wondering if that was how he always saw me, and couldn’t think of anything to say.
He put the phone away. ‘One o’clock, in the officers’ mess.’
‘OK.’
His hand touched mine on the rail. ‘Are you all right?’
I wasn’t going to spin an elaborate set of lies that I’d have to kick away later. We needed to trust each other. ‘Mostly. I’ll be fine.’ My fingers turned to curl round his. ‘Will we still get time together in Belfast?’
‘Hope so.’ He turned his back on the trainees and made a face, mouth turning downwards. ‘You know how it is. If we can clear this up.’ He smiled at me, then pushed away from the rail and balanced upright, swaying easily to the ship’s movements. ‘Where have we got to?’
‘Your own world.’ I gestured at the mountains spread along the horizon.
‘Quinag, Ben More Assynt, Canisp, Cùl Mòr, Suilven. Aye.’ He nodded at them as if they were old friends. ‘And a bonny fresh day too. I’m glad I don’t seem to have lost my sea legs.’
‘What will you do today?’
‘A watching brief as Freya interviews. I’ll write up my report on your chief officer and email it to the CC, if I can get a signal on the laptop. If not, I’ll have to use the captain’s satellite phone.’ He gave me a sideways look. ‘I’ve spotted your cousin Sean, in among the red watch.’
‘The tall Irishman,’ I agreed.
‘I’ll maybe have a chat with him about firearms.’
‘He’ll be happy to lead you as far astray as possible.’ On our returns from various exploits, Sean had been spokesman, as he was particularly good at telling the truth in a way that made it sound as if we’d been behaving like holy angels.
It was a quiet watch. Below me, my trainees went round the ship’s bulwarks, tightening and re-coiling each rope, and then did more sail-naming and racing for the ropes of specific sails. They were getting good. Bells rang, and the safety watch went round. Once we were past the top of Skye, we came into lobster-pot marker territory. I sent an extra watch forrard and the pair were kept busy from then on, ringing warnings for port, starboard, straight ahead, and indicating half-submerged plastic buoys trailing lengths of propeller-tangling rope.
Just at coffee time, a set of sails appeared on the horizon, a gaff-rigged ketch with tan sails and a long bowsprit, enjoying a rollercoaster ride through the waves. My watch lined up against the rails to take photos, then Mona got the rope bucket out again and the heads bent over the intricacies of the eye splice and monkey’s fist. My standby helm, Anna, already knew the eye splice, so I showed her the end splice, for finishing off a fraying piece of rope in the days before heat-sealed nylon.
All through it, Gavin’s photo stayed in my mind. It was strange to see myself looking the way I felt on board: at home, joyous. Even with Captain Gunnar watching me, this shifting, sparkling mass of water and the breeze tugging at my hair gave me that feeling: this is what I was made for. I was so fortunate that I had this. Some people never found their niche, but worked year after year in an office, enduring boredom for the sake of the pay packet and the weekend. I wondered how Captain Gunnar had felt, all those respectable years in the classroom, teaching the properties of light and growing beansprouts, and knowing that this was waiting for him. I took a deep breath of the salt air. ‘You’ll like it too, little crew member,’ I assured the tiny person within me. ‘A few years inshore, then we can go adventuring together.’
By eight bells I was my normal ravenous self, ready for anything Henrik was willing to offer. I dismissed my watch and headed below for two bowls of soup and three slices of rye bread, all good nutritious stuff. I’d have to find out about vitamins. The breeze had given everyone an appetite. Gavin tucked into his soup, chatting amiably to Henrik about fly fishing. Anders tore into rye bread and pickled herring. Only the captain was silent, picking at his food, his face drawn.
Once the galley girls had cleared away, Sergeant Peterson came back from her below-the-salt lunch and set up her laptop and notebook. Gavin came in silently behind her, and settled in a corner, just out of my direct line of vision. ‘Now then, Ms Lynch.’ She gave a smile that had all the warmth of a statue. ‘I need to take you through what exactly you saw on Sunday evening. I want you to tell me everything you can remember about that watch, in as much detail as you can. Don’t leave anything out, and don’t worry about boring me. Don’t try to think about what’s important and what’s not, just spill it all out, and we’ll sort the wheat from the chaff. What seems to you a piece of puzzle not worth mentioning may be the corroboration we need.’ She snicked a hand-sized recorder on, and gave her name, Gavin’s and mine, the date and time. ‘Now, Ms Lynch, just tell me all about it. Let’s start with the moment you noticed the dolphins. Close your eyes and imagine you’re there on deck. Where are you?’
Make with the words. I closed my eyes and felt the smooth rail under my hand. ‘At the front of the aft deck, looking forwards. The trainees were spread over, then someone – one of the sisters, I think – shouted “Delfiner!” All the trainees crowded to the rails to look, and people came up from the banjer as well, so that the rails were crammed all the way along from forrard of the mainmast. There were several up on the foredeck as well; I wasn’t so happy about that, as it’s lookout territory, but it wouldn’t be for long, and Erik went up there to keep an eye on them. I checked it was OK with the captain, then I went back and told Ellen and Ismail that they could go and look, I’d take the helm for a few minutes. It was about then that Nils came out of the nav shack, looked out forward, and went back downstairs. Then Mike came up, with someone in a red jacket, and they went out of sight, behind me. I don’t remember them coming down as I was helming. Then Ellen came back, and I gave her the helm and went forward again, into the nav shack, to log the dolphins.’
Sean had been on deck too, just below me, talking to Erik just before the dolphins came. I’d lost sight of him when I’d moved aft to take the helm. He’d been wearing a navy jacket then, but it was only ten steps to the banjer entrance, with the array of jackets hanging there. I shoved the thought away. It had been Bezrukov …
‘OK.’
I thought that was it, and half-rose, but she put out a hand to wave me down again. ‘Try to focus on Mike. When did he first come into view?’
‘As they came up the steps.’ Make with the words. ‘I saw Mike coming up first, with the other person behind him, in a red jacket.’ My mind caught a flash of reflector tape. ‘A sailing jacket, I think, with reflector bands on the sleeves. I couldn’t see his face, it was behind Mike’s back. Mike waited at the top of the stairs, and the other person came up
on the far side of me … Oh, he had a hat! A navy one, faded navy, with ear flaps and a velcro under-the-chin strap. They went behind me, and I just caught Mike gesturing out of the corner of my eye, as if he was pointing out where we were. You know, Shetland, Fair Isle, Orkney.’
‘Hold on to that image. Where was the other person then?’
I tried, but I could only see Mike’s navy-clad arm flung outwards. ‘Behind him, I think – I couldn’t see him.’
‘Try going backwards, as if you were back-reeling a film. Start with Mike gesturing.’
I tried. ‘The gesture caught my eye. Before that I was looking forward. There was a long, grey cloud with a back and snout like a crocodile that I was steering by. I’d just noticed it before they came up, and they walked in front of its snout. The man moved stiffly … he was clumsy on the steps, as if he hadn’t got his sea legs, but I didn’t worry about that, because Mike was looking after him.’
‘Can you see anything of his face?’
I shook my head. ‘His head was turned away from me, and the peak and flap of the cap came down.’
‘How about height?’
I tried to re-visualise the person walking behind Mike. Mike had waited at the top of the steps, and they’d walked aft together. ‘He or she was not quite as tall as Mike. It’s hard to say, with the hat, but three inches shorter, I’d think. The top of the hat was level with Mike’s eyebrows.’ I was swept by a sudden wash of relief. Sean was as tall as Mike. He was cleared of this, at least.
‘Good. That’s very helpful. You’re doing well, Ms Lynch.’
Keep encouraging the witness, I thought. Straight from the training manual. She glanced at her notes. ‘A scarlet sailing jacket and a faded navy hat. So far, you’ve only described Bezrukov in a dark jacket. Where might he get other clothes from?’
Olav had seen him in a sailing jacket and hat. ‘Oh, that’s easy. The trainees all hang their wet gear at the top of the banjer steps. He’d only need to reach in and pick something off a peg.’
Death in Shetland Waters Page 17