Death in Shetland Waters

by Marsali Taylor

  Now the land world was closing around us. There were other ships around: cargo ships, yachts coming to join the fun and two tall ships behind us on the shining sea, masts just visible on the horizon. I clicked on their dots on the chart plotter: Christian Radich, the largest of our Norwegian fleet, and the Polish Mir.

  It would take a while to get into Belfast. All the pilotage was within my watch, so I’d read up as carefully as I could and studied the harbour on the chart plotter. The actual berthing wasn’t my problem, as the pilot and tug would do that between them, and as Belfast was a wide shipping channel, there was no difficulty from the nav point of view.

  Eight bells. The four physicals were sent off to their duties, and Nils handed over to me. We had an hour to go before our turn into Belfast Lough, so there was plenty of time for mast-climbing. I watched from above as Anna and Nora lugged out the harness basket, and everyone began strapping themselves up. Petter was talking to Ellen, who hadn’t climbed yet because of her replaced hip; she looked up and nodded, and soon he was helping her into the harness. Erik checked each person’s straps were tight enough, then they set off upwards, spiders climbing up their webs, black against the glowing sky.

  I could imagine the view they were having at each platform. First, the deck falling away, with the people on it turned to dots of shoulders and head-tops. Now Mona and the leading trainees were in a world of spars and grey canvas, the heavy, dark wood arms stretching round them like a playground climbing frame. At the next platform the spars were lighter, with the sky filling the spaces, and then, as they came to the top, where the ratlines were only just wide enough to squeeze a sideways-turned foot into, the spars were all below you, and you were suspended in the air, poised between sea and sky.

  Samir made it first, and patted the top of the mast with a triumphant shout. Anna was after him, then Nora. Gradually the whole watch ended up in the rig, spread out along the yards or sitting on one of the platforms, drinking in the evening and watching the land coming towards us, with the non-climbers swapping with climbing physicals to let them go up, and only Erik keeping a watch on them from deck level. Ellen made it too, Petter behind her; she didn’t risk the swing-up-and-over at the first platform, but remained just below it, looking out, flushed and triumphant.

  At two bells, Captain Gunnar took over the navigation. Mona took the wheel from the trainees and sent them back to the main deck. Slowly, Belfast came into view, the rows of houses an alien mass after so long at sea. The lamp posts were flicking on ashore, spoiling the soft evening light. As we came around the last point, the bay stretched round in a glitter of lights, like arms pulling us in. Involuntarily, I shuddered, and caught Gavin’s quick glance at me.

  ‘Land,’ he said softly.

  I didn’t want it. The jumble of shore colours, the noise of the cargo ships passing, the crowds of people come to look at the tall ships, all the jostle and blare of a fairground … a whole five days of it before we could put to sea again, and be lost in the blue-grey silence of the Atlantic.

  We’d radioed the pilot boat, but the man-overboard boat was on the side it would come in at, so I recalled my watch from the air and set them to shifting it. Once they’d done that, they set up the flight of steps amidships and rigged fenders to keep the black-hulled pilot boat off our white sides. Anders came up to take his station at the engine, hands steady on the gear lever. A crackle of the radio, and the pilot boat announced they were coming out. Erik and Rolf took up their stations by the steps, and we watched, trainee phones flashing, as the red and black boat roared up to us, stopped dead ten metres away, then glided forwards. The pilot stepped aboard, with Erik and Rolf standing smartly at ease, and was ushered up to join Captain Gunnar on the monkey deck, the rail-enclosed roof of the nav shack. He looked down at Anders and I, ready on station. ‘Now, Chief,’ he said to Anders, ‘just take her steady as she goes. Three knots is plenty. Navigator, you sing out the course and speed every five minutes.’

  The engine rumble became a purr. My world shrank to the numbers on the screen. Though I had no time to look at them I could feel the lights drawing us closer, until we were in the channel, with the neon orange stifling us. The daylight had dimmed now, the water darkened to coal-black. We passed under great four-legged cranes with reared necks like metal-boned horses, then by a dock where piled-high containers were being swung onto a freight ship. The garish colours and dancing lights shouted at me. In and in, with the land arms closing.

  We paused to pick up a tug at the harbour mouth and proceeded through the dark bulk of container piles and industrial sheds looming over us. We were to moor in the northernmost of the docks. We inched onwards towards booming music, coming from a square tower outlined by a string of white lights. Past it was a jostling of coloured-light-outlined stalls with an entrance in the form of a spindly-legged pirate, legs white, head bent forwards, sporting a red kerchief.

  As we came closer, the tower resolved itself into Guyas, with lights strung from bow to mast tops and down to the stern. A calypso band was giving it laldy on the aft deck. Beyond her were white marquees, an orange-canvassed bar area with tables and a string of little stalls with neon-lit names. It was empty of people now, but it would be heaving all weekend. Still, I hoped to be out of it with Gavin for part of the time.

  The channel had become a dead end. The ABs and Rolf were standing by with the shore lines. Slowly, carefully, the tug and her own engines manoeuvred Sørlandet alongside.

  It took fifteen minutes to get her bound to the dock with a network of plaited hawsers. The trainees were jumping with impatience to get ashore. Captain Gunnar and the pilot disappeared below for the traditional dram, sweeping Anders with them. Gavin was busy talking on the phone, presumably to Belfast police. Rolf and Erik got the gangplank ready. Jenn went off to talk to the immigration official waiting by the door of our fenced-off area, and the trainees swarmed after her to photograph each other setting foot on our permitted ten metres of British soil. An anonymous white van pulled up ten yards from the gangplank, and Gavin went to confer with the people in it, then they unpacked a rigid orange stretcher from the back and headed down the banjer steps with it. Mike. The Belfast authorities would be keen to get him ashore with the least possible fuss, so as not to spoil the party.

  I was the only one on deck looking away from the shore, that garish mass of earth-fastened canvas and waving feather banners. Across the dock from us there was a schooner like a pirate ship, yellow and black, with a carved figurehead. I was just trying to read her name when a series of ripples stole across the water. I looked aft. A dark inflatable was creeping alongside Guyas. It dodged into the shadows of the space between us, then disappeared under our bow. Curious, I moved to get a better look. It came up alongside us, and stilled. The men aboard were wearing black clothes, made of fleece that didn’t reflect any light. If I hadn’t seen the ripples, I’d never have spotted them.

  Of course, I recognised the tall figure standing ready at the forrard steps, dressed in equally dark clothing. My cousin Sean wasn’t waiting to talk to immigration, or take part in any police investigation over Mike’s death. He leant forward to catch a rope thrown upwards, flung it around the rail, shinned down and was in the boat before I could even think about stopping him. The music blaring from Guyas drowned the roar of the engine as it pushed off, bows in the air, and sped away.

  My first impulse was to phone Gavin. I was reaching for my phone when I realised there would be no signal down below the banjer, and definitely not one in the cold store, with its tin walls. Besides, he – they – were gone. Unless the police were very quick with a launch they’d not catch them now. Professionals. Let them go.

  I was tired, with a heavy feeling at my heart. We’d been a bird skimming the waves, a cloud catching the wind, out in the beautiful bareness of the sea, and now we were tied to this noisy land, with the beat from Guyas thumping through the hull. If I’d had a child, I’d be forced away from this life I loved – but my child had gone
back to God. The grief would subside. Life would be normal again.

  They would be bringing Mike out soon. I went over to Agnetha and slipped my arm through hers. We stood together in silence as they brought him up the banjer steps. There was nothing to see, just the shrouded figure strapped on the orange stretcher. Gavin and Sergeant Peterson followed, heads down. The bearers snicked down the wheels, rolled him rapidly around the corner and onto the gangplank. Agnetha’s hand tightened on mine. The doors of the van were flung open. They wheeled him in, the doors closed, and the van took off, turning quickly round on the quay then heading towards the city.

  I brought my arm up to Agnetha’s shoulders, rigid under my touch. ‘Tea?’

  She shook her head, then turned to me, eyes bleak with tears. ‘The last time we spoke, we quarrelled. I wish …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  She sighed. ‘Midnight. I’ll try and sleep.’

  ‘Five nights of normal sleep patterns,’ I reminded her. Night watches were suspended when we were in port.

  ‘Yes. Night, Cass.’ She slipped away. I waited there for Gavin to come back from the quay and join me. He looked around, spotted me and came aft.

  ‘I’ll need to spend tomorrow morning with the Belfast police, filling them in on all that’s gone on.’

  I leant my shoulder against his. ‘I’ll be busy on board. The ship has to look her best for visitors.’

  ‘Are you off duty now?’

  I nodded. ‘Gone midnight. Ship secured. Sleep.’ I yawned, and remembered what I had to tell him. ‘Listen, Sean’s left the ship. A rubber boat came for him.’ I described what I’d seen, and he nodded.

  ‘Dodging the customs.’

  ‘Why?’

  Gavin spread his hands. ‘I can tell you this much: he’s not known to be a member of the paramilitary, on either side. Other than that, they drew a blank on him.’ His arm came up in a brief hug. ‘Listen, you get to bed.’ He nodded at the nav shack. ‘I’ll be in there, phone in hand, waiting for Bezrukov to leave. I warned Anders not to go down again once we were berthed.’ He hesitated. ‘I’d feel happier if Sergeant Peterson came into your cabin until I can join you.’

  I made a face, but didn’t demur. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Don’t worry. My job is simply to phone the word the minute he shows his face.’

  I headed below. Anders must be still in the captain’s mess, for Rat and Cat were curled together on my bunk. I turfed them both off and changed quickly into the thermals that did duty as pyjamas before Sergeant Peterson appeared. To do her justice, she wasn’t obtrusive. She brought her laptop and installed herself in the chair while I brushed my teeth and clambered into bed. Cat came to curl in his usual place, in the angle between my neck and shoulder. I felt as though I ought to stay awake, sharing Gavin’s vigil above-decks, but I was just too tired. I closed my eyes against the glow from Sergeant Peterson’s screen and let sleep take me.

  I felt as though I’d been fathoms deep when a noise like firecrackers from the dock awoke me. For a moment I didn’t know where I was. The chair scraped as Sergeant Peterson sprang up. Cat dived down the back of the berth. I shot up, reaching automatically for my black jacket. Footsteps ran above my head and clattered down the steps. The sound came again, a series of bangs then a single sharp crack, then another. By then I was on my feet, pulling my jeans on. Instead of leaping upwards to see what was happening, Sergeant Peterson stayed put, blocking the doorway. She held back a ‘stop’ hand, fingers spread. ‘We stay put here. DI Macrae’s orders.’

  ‘That was gunfire!’

  ‘All the more reason to obey orders.’

  The only way she was going to let me past would be if I wrestled her physically. I hung my jacket back up, put on a jumper instead and sat on the bunk. Cat reappeared from below and slid onto my lap. I stroked him mechanically, listening. Silence, until a couple of cars parked somewhere among the cluster of stalls on the pier started up and drove off. Then I heard footsteps in the corridor, and a knock at the door. Gavin called softly, ‘Cass? Freya?’

  Sergeant Peterson stepped back to let him in. ‘Sir.’

  ‘We lost him.’ Gavin shook his head in frustration. ‘As soon as it was quiet he came up on deck and jumped down onto the dock. I phoned the Belfast officers, but there was just too much cover for him, with all the sideshows. Then someone started shooting.’ He frowned. ‘Men dressed in black, who arrived from nowhere in a black car.’

  Men dressed in black … I remembered the rubber boat that had taken Sean off.

  ‘My cousin Sean?’ I asked.

  Gavin shrugged. ‘A reception committee. They might have winged him, but the Belfast officer I spoke to thinks he got away. They have men sweeping the place now – they’re armed here – but I don’t think they’ll find him. Or get him if they do.’ He made a face at me. ‘It’s not like in the movies, Cass, where the crack shot hits a moving target, just like that. Anything over ten metres is sheer luck.’ He hung his tweed jacket over my black one. ‘Thanks, Freya. No bother here?’

  ‘None.’ She lifted her laptop and headed for the door. ‘Goodnight.’

  The door closed behind her. ‘Bed.’ Gavin held out his arms. ‘Don’t spoil it by telling me breakfast is still at seven.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said, and didn’t.

  SEVEN BELLS

  Belfast

  Thursday 2nd July

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I woke to greyness filtering in through the porthole. We had sailed out of our clear northern light. Gavin was still asleep, his breath warm on my cheekbone.

  The sharp grief had subsided to an ache, and smouldering anger. I hadn’t wanted a child, but we’d created one, Gavin and me, and it should have had a chance to live. We’d have worked out something, somehow. It shouldn’t have been killed by a fall down a flight of steps. I gritted my teeth. I was going to help Gavin find out who, and why, and make sure they were held responsible.

  Something had changed in me too. For those hours I’d known about the child, I’d had to confront where Gavin and I were going. Just drifting, meeting up when we could, wasn’t enough for a relationship. If we were to become a couple, the time would come when I’d have to make the choice: the sea, or a family. Deep inside me, I’d wanted that child. I wanted there to be others, Gavin’s children, with russet heads, dressed in miniature kilts; not immediately, but not too far in the future either.

  I felt his arm tighten around me. A kiss on the back of my neck, then he reached over me for his watch. ‘Creator Lord, is that the time?’ A hug, then he rolled out of bed, and buckled his kilt around him in one swift movement. ‘I must shower.’

  I followed him into the shower, grateful not to feel sick any more, and managed a proper breakfast. The same feeling of relief that had hovered over the trainees was here in the officers’ mess too. Bezrukov was gone from the ship, and Mike’s body was in the hands of the land police. It wasn’t our problem any more.

  There was a whole-ship muster at eight, the last for the trainees who were leaving today. Jenn reminded everyone who was going on what activities, and explained which bus each group would get. Then it was customs time. Captain Gunnar welcomed the three officials on board, and a fourth stood guard over the re-lowered gangplank. I thought of Sean’s exit down the ship’s side, and Bezrukov’s jump to the dock, and grimaced to myself as we all lined up alphabetically, crew and trainees in one long snake round the deck.

  That over with, we set to work on our beautiful ship so that she would be immaculate for visitors. The yards had to be squared, and I was just starting our work party on the aft mast when a van arrived with a team of SCOs and forensic officers, all set to go over the steering gear and inside of the captain’s coffin. Naturally, our trainees were far too busy gawking at them brushing for fingerprints and picking hairs off with tweezers to pay proper attention to the line of the yards, but we managed to get it done not too horribly behind the speed of the other two watches.
I’d clean and grease the steering gear later.

  After that, all the watches tidied up the spaghetti of ropes they’d left behind them, and departed for their individual scrubbing duties: the decks, the heads, the banjer. By the time they’d finished that it was lunchtime, and they departed like bairns released from school towards the city tour of Belfast, laser quest, paintball or generally hanging about the town centre and checking out the shops. There was no sign yet of Gavin returning. Our tour of the museum started at half past two, and I hoped we’d make it.

  On my way to lunch, just out of interest, I stopped at Jenn’s room and logged on to the ship’s computer. She should have a list of all the trainees and crew, the one she’d given to the customs officers. Belfast arrival.doc looked likely. I opened it and scanned down the list. Fredriksen, Hansen, Iversen, Lynch, Kristoffersen. My eye jumped over it, and back. Lynch, Cassandre. I was the only Lynch on board. I closed the file, frowning, and opened Watch lists Krist Belf.doc. There he was, large as life, in the middle of the red watch: Lynch, Sean.

  I closed the machine down. It would have been child’s play to sneak in here and delete a name from the customs list. It was a gamble, of course; Jenn might have been so efficient that she’d printed them out before the ship sailed. But then, so what? Sean’s name was on it, but he’d been long gone by the time customs arrived. The passports were kept in a locked drawer, but he’d managed to get his gun back from one, so I didn’t see that as a problem.

  So what had he been doing on board? Setting aside political involvement, I thought it had to be Bezrukov. What had Gavin said, the police computer had drawn a blank on him? Well, if he was MI5 or MI6 or whatever real James Bonds were, ‘they’ wouldn’t say, would they? Suppose he’d been chasing Bezrukov. He’d found out he was going to be on board, maybe even seen him slip on board, and booked his passage. I heard his voice, airily, I went down to the office and signed on this very morning. Maybe his orders were to watch him, not to interfere. Follow him onto Belfast soil, and dispose of him there.