The Pirate Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘He is learning something at this moment.’

  ‘Then surely he will wish to return to Hong Kong as soon as possible.’

  ‘Conceivably.’

  ‘Would we be willing to restrain him? How could we then continue to negotiate with him?’

  ‘There will be no need to run the risk. We will anticipate his wish and meet him halfway.’

  ‘Halfway?’

  ‘More than halfway. Inform my office that we are going south. All of us.’

  ‘Of course, sir. May I enquire where in the south your destination is?’

  ‘Guangzhou.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Robin was sitting in Andrew’s swivel chair with her feet resting on a couple of law books up on his desk, to all intents and purposes sound asleep. She was not quite the same build as her solicitor and what with one angle and another, all that kept her decent was the fact that she was wearing jeans. Andrew looked down at her pale, dark-ringed face and up again at the chart on the wall opposite.

  The chart was on white paper more than a metre square. It had been broken into four sections by two slashes of a red marker. Each section represented a week to the trial date. Each had days and dates marked in columns down one side and each of them was full of different people’s handwriting in various coloured inks.

  The writing in each of the four sections represented a set of targets to be achieved. These included obvious things like ‘Clear desk’ in Andrew’s own handwriting, ‘Mine too’ in Gerry’s and ‘Settle Mandarin & find me a service flat ASAP’ in Robin’s. They also included running directives, like ‘Visit Richard’ which was repeated and repeated, except that, from tomorrow’s section, a note was added to ‘See Richard with Tom Fowler’. Finally, there were one or two more cryptic directives like ‘Get Maggie and ‘Call Helen’.

  They were all aware, however, that there existed in Robin’s head a list of targets which could never be written on the wall open to public view. This list included such things as ‘Find some way to contact Twelvetoes’ and ‘Get back to Ping Chau’ and, urgently, ‘Break into the computer disk’. ‘Test the Ping Chau paper’ was one of a number of targets that had been met already. The paper was utterly unremarkable. It betrayed nothing unusual at all and was currently wedged into the corner of the mirror in Robin’s new bedroom. Most of the targets on the first section of the chart were in fact crossed out because they had been met — indeed, the whole week was crossed out because it was long gone — but a couple had yet to be achieved and had been carried forward into the second section, with asterisks marking them as being increasingly urgent. It was a messy system but it was effective. It allowed them to keep track of what was going on, to see the patterns in what needed to be done, to make more assured plans and to use the increasingly short time to maximum effect.

  Down the whole side of the second section, in Gerry’s square script, was ‘Go through prosecution with Thong’s people’; Gerry was currently cross-checking every fact that had been alleged by Mr Po, Lee, Huuk and the rest with a young man from Edward Thong’s office. They knew that Maggie DaSilva would be out to join the team soon and Thong was happy to prepare the ground for her and to assist her in court.

  In Andrew’s handwriting this section also said ‘Go over S.Q. with Robin’, and that was what he wanted to do next. As soon, in fact, as Robin had met her own deadline of ‘Press conference’ which she was due to hold immediately after lunch. This would bring them almost up-to-date, except that, in Robin’s beautiful, rounded hand, beside urgent asterisks, it still said, ‘Contact Charles’, ‘Do disk’ and, perhaps most disturbingly, ‘Find Wally Gough’.

  ‘Well, Robin,’ Andrew said gently, ‘we’ve done an enormous amount and it seems to me that once you get the news conference over we can take the computer disk out to the Sulu Queen and slip it back into their system while we’re going over everything else.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said without opening her eyes. ‘It’s our best shot. Two birds with one stone. And, after I’ve gone over it, then our own experts come in and doublecheck the evidence in the same way as Gerry’s doublechecking the facts.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘It’s going to be another busy week.’

  ‘A mistress of understatement. Look, do you want to grab forty winks? You look all in.’

  ‘Mister Charm!’

  ‘I wouldn’t mention it, but you want to look good for the press, don’t you?’

  ‘Innocent boy,’ she said with a dry laugh. ‘Why do you think I brought my overnight bag up from my flat in Repulse Bay? When I’m finished I’ll have a make-up job that’ll still look good on camera after I’ve been dead for six months.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t want to sleep, why don’t you eat something? No matter how good you look, it’ll be fatal if you pass out on us.’

  ‘Sure as hell didn’t do President Bush any good. Pity; I liked him.’

  ‘That’s right’ He forced himself to be brutal. ‘And look what happened when your father had his seizure on television.’

  But she was not to be drawn. Surprisingly, she gave a wicked little chuckle. ‘Maggie DaSilva gave him the kiss of life and knocked twenty years off his age.’

  ‘She must be quite something.’

  ‘Brother, you have no idea.’

  It was a completely different Robin who sat beside Andrew two hours later. Her make-up was a little heavy for his taste but it transformed her from the wan figure in his office to the powerful chief executive who had almost got in to see Richard on her first night here. She was back in the sloppy top and jeans, however, for they were coming away from the news conference and heading up towards Kwai Chung.

  ‘I think that went quite well, don’t you, Andrew?’

  ‘Very well. You managed to cast doubt on the prosecution, their case, their leanings and their preferences. You threw into very grave doubt the Crown Colony, its police force and its naval complement. I think some of what you actually said may be libellous, but it was certainly effective.’

  ‘Helen DuFour will report in later this evening about how it went down in the City on the lunchtime news. It’s such a relief to have her back in Heritage House. And I have friends in New York who will check in when it comes out there,’ said Robin.

  Helen had been back in London for two days now and was overseeing the extra work arising from the tragic events and liaising with the authorities who were supporting the families of the dead and missing, including Brian Jordan’s young wife and two daughters, Charles Macallan’s aged mother and an extremely worried Phylidda Gough in Budleigh Salterton. Robin had asked her about the disk and the China Queens network word processing function — but the senior executive had been unable to help. The inquiry which Helen had instituted on Robin’s insistence had established only that the information needed was probably somewhere in the China Queens office in Singapore. Sir William had come back down to London and the twins, in seventh heaven, were with Richard’s parents in their house called Summersend on the edge of the Lincolnshire fens, overlooking the sea. It was a good arrangement, for Richard’s mother, tied to her wheelchair, needed his father’s assistance at all times and so neither of them could come out to the colony; and there was nothing for them to do but sit at home helplessly and worry. The grandchildren were a distraction which was more than welcome.

  Andrew already knew about Robin’s friends and family. Messages of sympathy and support, offers of advice and help had come in from all over the world during the last ten days. Every day had been like Christmas as far as the post had been concerned, and there would be another pile waiting for them when they got back from the container terminal. Each call, message, fax, E-mail message, card and letter had been filed for immediate or eventual response. Robin had done it all herself, on top of everything else, including getting herself moved down to the leave flat he had found for her at the bottom of his hill in Repulse Bay and getting settled in there. He had never seen anything
like it.

  ‘And Maggie will be here for the next one.’ There was a great deal of contentment in her voice as she made this observation.

  ‘Is that so important? You handled them like a seasoned pro. Some of them had tears in their eyes towards the end.’

  ‘Crocodile tears!’

  ‘No. You were open, honest, impressive; noble, almost.’ He hesitated, embarrassed at having gone too far. But she knew that the best way to take a compliment is in companionable silence. ‘I just don’t see,’ he said emphatically, ‘how she could do it any better.’

  ‘Once she’s here I can focus properly, Andrew. I won’t have to be looking over my shoulder all the time and measuring my words. Maggie will run interference for me until I’m all but invisible. And she’ll present a cracker of a case.’

  ‘She’ll present the case we give her,’ he said with some asperity.

  Robin chuckled. ‘She will take whatever we give her and she will transmute it into legal gold.’

  ‘Well, I’m not convinced.’ He had an attack of gallantry. ‘And I don’t think anyone could make you seem invisible.’

  ‘You wait. You’ll see. I’ll be able to forget about the cursed make-up bag. I could go onto camera stark naked beside her and nobody would notice a thing.’

  Andrew gave a bark of laughter and shook his head. He had supposed that women were jealous of other women more lovely than themselves, but not Robin, apparently. Probably not any women, actually. That was a piece of wisdom he had gleaned from books and bar talk, he realised with a flash of dangerous insight. He did not, he realised a little sadly, know a hell of a lot about actual women at all. He put the Vantage into top and took her screaming over the speed limit to compensate.

  *

  Sitting at the foot of Sulu Queen’s gangway was a silver Honda Accord. ‘Huuk’s aboard,’ warned Robin as soon as she saw it.

  ‘Will that be a problem?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘Might be. I don’t know. I’m not allowed to hit him, am I?’ Robin had not seen Huuk since Richard’s transfer and felt she had something of a score to settle with him. Andrew laughed, thinking she was joking, but in fact there was so much rage and frustration building up inside her that she genuinely had no idea what she would do when she next saw Huuk; hitting him seemed the least violent of the preferred alternatives. Andrew parked the Vantage beside the Accord because there was nowhere else available near the ship. Every space nearby was occupied, and there were even a couple of coaches parked among the cars.

  When the Chinese officer met them at the top of the gangway, Andrew was suddenly suspicious that Robin might not have been joking after all when she threatened to assault him. The big solicitor abruptly felt an urgent need to step between them, such was the hostility crackling in the atmosphere. He was acutely aware that Huuk was backed up by two guards, both fully armed, and he had a feeling that Robin did not give a damn about the fact.

  She managed to hold herself in check. Huuk himself hid behind a mask of Oriental inscrutability and from his demeanour during most of their visit aboard, it would have been hard to guess that he had ever met either of them before. Except for one brief instant right after they arrived on board. One of the guards said several words sotto voce to the captain; all Andrew heard clearly was the phrase ‘body search’ and he tensed, ready to protest. But Huuk spat a negative. Just for an instant, however, his long eyes dwelt on Robin’s body and Andrew was not a little disturbed by what he thought he saw in them. And then the shutters came down.

  ‘I have been ordered to give you full access to all areas, all equipment, and all existing records,’ Huuk said as he led them up the empty deck towards the bridgehouse. His voice was tranquil, distant. Andrew filed what he thought he had seen in a compartment of his memory. He would examine it and test it later on. But it would be interesting, he thought, if the prosecution’s chief witness had developed a romantic inclination for the mainspring of the defence.

  ‘All existing records?’ queried Robin at once.

  ‘There were no official logs, movement books, lading books or ship’s records found on the bridge,’ Huuk explained. ‘And, although an extensive set of records was kept in the ship’s computer network, a flaw seems to have developed in the system and we cannot retrieve all the files.’

  Robin’s hand surreptitiously brushed the pocket containing the little disk. Her step lightened a little at the thought of breaking into it at last.

  ‘Of course,’ continued Huuk, apparently unaware, ‘we have computer experts working on the system now so we may be able to give you more information in due course.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Andrew, as though he was grateful.

  They spent the next two hours going through the bridgehouse, with Robin making careful, knowledgeable observations and Andrew recording them. The process was detailed — they were not likely to have the time or the opportunity to do this again — but it was also oddly noncommittal because Huuk accompanied them every step of the way.

  In fact, the ship was so busy that he need hardly have bothered. The whole vessel was one massive crime scene and although it was now more than two weeks since the crime itself had been committed, experts of all sorts were still checking and double-checking, testing, taping, taking, bagging, measuring and photographing. So busy were some sections of the bridgehouse that both Robin and Andrew began to wonder whether much of the activity was actually being staged for their benefit, to emphasise the range of dedicated expertise standing against them and to undermine their confidence. If this was the intention, it failed signally.

  At the end of two hours, at half past five, the visiting experts all came to the end of their working hours. With much cheerful badinage they packed up and went ashore, some swiftly, some slowly; some laden, some empty-handed; just like a shift clocking off at a factory, they all began to go their separate ways. This was a crime scene to dream about, huge, complex, challenging; and absolutely secure.

  Robin watched them from the bridge wing, deep in thought. Most of all, at that moment, she thanked God that Mr Feng and John Shaw had managed to make alternative arrangements for the shipping of the cargo — as soon as it was released from bond. The cargo — which Andrew and she would go over tomorrow — would not be held right up to the trial date. The ship certainly would. And then, of course, she would need to be completely re-crewed before she would sail.

  Still, if the worst came to the worst, the Seram Queen was due in Hong Kong in a month’s time. She could take on anything still outstanding — if that rude bastard Captain Sin consented to take an order, for a change. And thinking of Sin and his rudeness brought the computer disk back to the forefront of her mind. It looked as though the computer experts were leaving with the rest Robin had been keeping a covert eye on them and was not really convinced that they were doing any serious work on the network. She was almost certain that, even if nobody else was, they were window-dressing put there to deny her access to the system. But now they were gone. She might get a chance to try it after all. If only she could think of a really good excuse to go back to the first officer’s cabin. If only she could get rid of Huuk for a while.

  The first challenge proved all too easy. She had seen a fair number of computer monitors around the bridge, but only one printer. The one in the first officer’s cabin. ‘You promised us some records,’ she said to Huuk. She had not hit him; she had not been courteous to him either.

  ‘Yes, we did. They were printed out earlier. I believe they are still by the printer in the first officer’s cabin.’

  ‘Good. I’ll go down and start looking through them.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Andrew was standing on the navigation bridge looking at the watchkeeper’s chair with a slightly sickened expression. As they went past him, Robin, who had been saving this suggestion for just this moment, said to him, ‘Andrew, would you mind looking over the radio room for me? I know the communication logs are missing but I never met a sparks in the commercial se
rvice who didn’t keep his own private record.’

  She swept on across the navigation bridge as though unaware that Huuk was hesitating. In the Navy they never allowed radio officers to keep independent records — and they did not, in fact, usually allow them to do so on Heritage Mariner ships either; but Huuk did not know that, and Robin’s request sounded reasonable. The captain’s defences were split. Which should he oversee? The woman who was going through records that he knew all about or the man checking for something whose existence he had never suspected until now? Robin didn’t think she was taking too much of a gamble.

  ‘Right-ho,’ said Andrew amiably and turned towards the cluttered little room. Robin did not deign to look back but she knew Huuk was following him, not her.

  With excitement bubbling in her, Robin ran down the stairs towards the first officer’s cabin. Still she would not allow herself to touch the little disk in her pocket — just in case. The cabin was just as she remembered it. She had been worried that they might have removed all of the furnishings, the books and the computer itself for testing, but no. It was all still there, except for the file of little disks. They were safely under lock and key somewhere until the computer network was up and running — always supposing it had really crashed in the first place, as Huuk had said.

  Robin settled in front of the machine. There were several things she had to be certain of before she proceeded. To begin with, she had to be certain that when she used this machine, the rest of the other machines did not light up as well, as they had the last time. Secondly, she had also to be certain that the machine was not, in fact, faulty. If Huuk was telling the truth and if she put the precious disk into it, she ran the risk of wiping it clean and of losing all the information it contained.

  At least the power was still running and the machine was on. By the look of things the computer was loaded up and was holding the directions from the network in its standalone memory. It was certainly a much more powerful machine than any of the others on the network. Holding her breath, she pulled the network circuit plug from the back. Sitting down again, she was relieved to see that the screen was still alight and asking for directions.