The Pirate Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Richard?’

  Silence.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the psychologist.

  ‘Survivor.’ The word was slurred and hard to understand. Tom asked, ‘Who am I speaking to, please?’

  ‘Survivor,’ said the survivor of the Sulu Queen more distinctly.

  ‘Hello, Survivor. I have a simple instruction for you. Will you be able to remember it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the survivor.

  ‘What I want you to remember is this. When I clap my hands, you will wake up. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes. When you clap your hands I will wake up.’

  ‘Good. Now I’m going to start by asking you some questions. Is Richard there too?’

  ‘Richard hurts.’

  ‘But he is there?’

  ‘Yes. Richard is here. Richard hurts.’

  ‘I understand that. But can we speak to Richard?’

  ‘Richard hurts.’

  ‘Can we speak to him?’

  ‘Richard hurts too much.’

  ‘I see. Can you tell me this then. Why does Richard hurt?’

  ‘They shot him.’ The hands on the table jumped spastically and lurched up through the air towards the gauze-bound temples.

  ‘Where does Richard hurt?’

  ‘In the head.’

  ‘Why does Richard hurt in the head?’

  ‘They shot him in the head.’

  ‘Who shot Richard in the head?’

  ‘More pirates.’

  ‘Why did they shoot him?’

  ‘Pirates kill. That’s what pirates do. Rob and kill.’

  ‘Just rest there for a moment. Relax now. Is that correct, Dr Chu? Were Huuk and his men disguised as pirates when they went aboard?’

  ‘I have no idea. How should I know?’

  Tom’s eyes met Andrew’s. The solicitor gave a nod: he would find out.

  ‘Now then, Survivor, I would like you to take us back. Please do not move or gesture. That’s right, just rest your hands back on the table there, and relax. Now, I want you to describe what you can see. Start with the man who shot you.’

  ‘Pirate. Gun. Massive gun!’

  ‘So that’s all you really noticed about him? His gun? What are you doing, Survivor?’

  ‘Watching!’

  ‘What are you holding in your right hand?’

  The subject’s head moved, as though he would have looked down — had he not been forbidden to do so. His right hand, on the table, twitched. It was clawed round something only he could see. ‘A gun.’

  ‘What sort of gun?’

  ‘I don’t know. Big.’

  ‘Where did you get the gun?’

  ‘Took it. Took it!’

  ‘Who did you take it from?’

  ‘I took it from him!’

  ‘You took it from the pirate who shot you?’

  ‘No. Other! From him. Him!’

  ‘Him? Does he have a name?’

  ‘No. I don’t know.’

  ‘A member of the crew?’

  ‘No. Yes.’

  ‘Which is it?’

  ‘Yes. No.’

  ‘And what did he do when you took the gun?’

  ‘He screamed. He died. Richard hurts.’ The voice was shaking now.

  ‘He died?’

  ‘He died. Richard hurts.’ A break in the voice made it clear that the pain to Richard was real and extreme.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He died. Richard hurts too much!’ There was childlike simplicity, an absolute trust in the way in which these words were said. The pain was too much now and they had promised to stop it. She had promised.

  ‘You have to stop this,’ said Robin. She started to clap, as though applauding the show. The psychologist paid no attention to her. Neither did his subject.

  ‘How did he die?’ snapped Tom, his voice raised. After the quiet and calm so far it was as though he shouted, but he did not.

  ‘Richard …’ came the choking answer. The hands on the table were shaking now, the one holding the phantom gun jumping up and down convulsively, trying to reach the agonised head.

  ‘Stop!’ screamed Robin.

  ‘Richard killed him!’ grated the agonised survivor, his voice breaking as though the confession was being tortured out of him. ‘Richard killed him. Richard killed him. Oh Robin, it hurts. Make it stop, make it stop!’

  Robin was sobbing now, beating her hands agonisingly together and watching her poor lost darling with flooding eyes, rapidly going over the edge of her self-control into a pit of pure hysteria. But when Tom snapped ‘Stop!’ she obeyed.

  The instant that there was silence, Tom slapped his hands together once, and it was as though a switch had been thrown in Richard’s head. All the pain was gone in the instant. The survivor sat back smiling slightly, absolutely relaxed, once again at peace.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The new airport of Chek Lap Kok was open and accepting regular flights now, though there would be some weeks yet before they began the process of closing down Kai Tak. On the afternoon of Wednesday, 4 June 1997, the arrivals hall was bustling with a surge of last-minute tourists here to see Hong Kong in its last days as a Crown Colony. Among them was Andrew, growing more and more irritably impatient as he waited to meet this much-hyped, lucky-mascot London silk of Robin’s.

  The number of tourists was augmented by those brought in by the promise of a solid month of festivities from the middle of June to the middle of July. The festivities were going to be lavish and continuous. They were designed to emphasise the continuity of everything which was important in Hong Kong as it passed from being a Crown Colony of Great Britain to a Special Economic Zone of the People’s Republic of China. In spite of all the efforts made by the Chinese government, a lot of people were still pulling out and the trickle of migrating companies and individuals that had begun more than five years ago was something of a flood now. Andrew knew himself to be lucky. He wouldn’t find it too hard to get a job back home if things got too grim here. He was in contact with a firm of solicitors in the City of London who were interested in his particular areas of expertise. He had somewhere to go; and the right and ability to go there. There were millions and millions trapped here with nowhere to go at all. As he watched the bustle of people passing through the new airport, he found himself wondering how many of these arrivals were going to stay; and how many in the departure hall were going to come back.

  Where was this bloody woman? he wondered. What time was it now? Just after two. Ye gods! He had been hanging around here for the better part of an hour!

  Then he looked down from the clock and there she was: Magdalena DaSilva, in all her glory, striding out of the Customs hall like a tiger exploring new territory.

  It was as if he had been winded. He just stood there and gaped.

  She had no idea that he was there; she swept out of the Customs hall behind a glowing Chinese porter who was wheeling her luggage as though it was the Crown Jewels. Andrew noticed the porter with surprise; he had never seen a porter bother with only two cases — or a Chinese smile like that before. Behind Maggie, he later discovered, came Lata Patel with shoulder bag and briefcase. Maggie, too, was carrying her briefcase but he did not notice that.

  She was wearing her Burberry travelling coat open so that her simple black suit could be seen between check silk wings whenever she moved. Her blouse was white, with a high, plain collar and a profusion of ruffles dancing down across her bosom. High though the collar was, her neck rose enough to carry her chin far above it. She struck him as being taller than she really was, perhaps because the glorious ebony excess of her hair was mostly up on the top of her head. Her chin, nose and cheekbones were long, her lips were full and dark, and her forehead pale and high. It was all there to be remembered, except that the image was dulled, somehow; knocked out of focus by the power of her impact. But he never forgot the size, the colour, the honeyed depths of her eyes.

  ‘How will I know her?’ he had asked
Robin two hours earlier as he set off to meet her, almost like a sulky schoolboy, making it obvious that he didn’t really want to go at all.

  ‘You’ll know her,’ Robin had assured him cheerfully, refusing to notice his mood.

  And he did know her. There was never any doubt in his mind. Nor was there any of his usual shy hesitation in his approach of her, once he could get his legs to work again; though he felt like a bit of a clodhopper in her presence at first.

  He walked to the barrier and stopped, hoping to catch her eye as she approached. She looked at him, he caught his breath; she looked on past him and he wilted a little. ‘Hello?’ he said. She looked back at once. He pulled himself up again, living through his eyes. Tiny lines deepened at the comers of her eyes. He found that his mouth was watering, so he swallowed. ‘Ms DaSilva?’ he said. The deepening of the tiny lines became a smile. ‘I’m Andrew Balfour,’ he said. ‘Robin sent me to meet you.’ And the smile turned into a grin. He had never imagined that teeth could gleam so perfectly whitely.

  He stuck out his hand and she came up to the barrier, still grinning, to take it. Her eyes were all he could see. The contact between their fingers was like an electric shock and her grin flickered slightly as she felt it too. Andrew gasped and was introduced to the scent of Obsession.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Andrew,’ Maggie growled, shaking his hand, firmly, once, and letting it go. Immediately his hand felt cool, as though her flesh had somehow warmed it. ‘This is Lata Patel, my junior.’

  It had never occurred to him that a voice could embody the notion of smoke. And not just any smoke — the smoke of joss sticks, of burning sandalwood, dusky, distant, exotic.

  ‘How do you do, Ms Patel?’ He felt her take his hand and shake it but he did not look at her and would not have done so, in all probability, had Maggie not moved. She did so, however, and he found himself face to face with a serious-looking, studious-seeming young woman. Her face was devoid of make-up and her hair was swept back severely. He would have guessed her to be in her late teens, which gave him a twenty-year superiority over her, from the safety of which he observed that she seemed to have taken a dislike to him. This may have had something to do with the expression on his own face. He was conscious of trying to adjust his expression to his most irresistible twinkle as he walked beside them the few steps to the end of the barrier and relieved the porter of the baggage. He discovered then that the porter didn’t seem to like him either.

  ‘Now I love this!’ was Maggie’s reaction to the Aston Martin. He opened the passenger door and reached in to rock the seat forward.

  ‘Will you be comfortable on the back seat, Ms Patel?’ he asked, glowing with pride at Maggie’s throaty compliment. ‘Robin didn’t think there would be room in there for two, that’s why she didn’t come, but perhaps one — sideways?’

  Ms Patel said nothing. With her nose in the air she somehow still managed to stoop low enough to climb in. He went round to the back, opened the boot, and thanked God the two women were travelling light.

  ‘What is this beast?’ called Maggie as she pulled the passenger seat back into place and climbed aboard.

  Had anyone else called the Vantage a beast he would have been outraged. From Maggie it was a term of endearment.

  He closed the boot and went to the driver’s door. He told her what the car was as he climbed in beside her.

  ‘I love fast cars!’ she informed him, her voice loud, as though she knew how much noise the starter was going to make.

  ‘And what about you, Ms Patel?’ he asked, ever the gentleman, meeting her eyes, the colour of dark chocolate melting, in the rearview.

  The edges of the eyes crinkled. ‘I have never ridden in a really fast car,’ came the gentle voice from the rear seat.

  ‘Well,’ he said, to both of them, ‘this is an extremely fast car. But I won’t drive it too quickly, I promise.’ He engaged reverse and was actually very careful about his speed.

  ‘First things first,’ said Maggie as they pulled out onto the North Lantau Expressway. ‘How are Richard and Robin?’ Quickly and concisely, he brought her up to date on Richard’s current physical and mental state, and spent a moment or two describing yesterday’s experiment with hypnotism. ‘We’re taking him out to the ship itself tomorrow, to see if that triggers anything, but it’s hard. Hard on Richard, of course; I’ve never seen anything like the psychic pain he was in yesterday but Tom says we have to discount it and break though it if we’re going to get any further. It’s harder still on poor Robin, though.’

  ‘How is Robin?’

  ‘Exhausted, depressed; getting desperate. She’s increasingly trapped. Everyone knows she’s here now and the papers are after her all the time. She had a nasty experience in the Cat Street market ten days ago and since then she only pops out once in a while to pick up stuff for Richard. She goes to the Heritage Mariner office sometimes when she thinks the reporters won’t be waiting for her there, but the rest of the time she hides in my offices if she’s in Hong Kong or vegetates down in Repulse Bay. Just about the only relaxation she’s had was at the start of this — what she called “shopping as therapy”. She hasn’t even got that now. I really don’t know how she keeps going.’

  ‘Is there anywhere we can send her for a week or so? Anywhere distant but relevant?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Somewhere where she’s not so well known, somewhere she can get a bit of peace. If I know Robin, she won’t leave her Richard to our tender mercies unless she’s doing something important to help his defence along. Is there anywhere like that? Anywhere at all?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Should we try and talk her into going back to London?’

  ‘No, she’s got things well sewn up there, I understand and the twins are with Richard’s parents.’

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to do a little more thinking, that’s all. Now, talking of Richard’s defence …’

  All the way back into Hong Kong town and then out to his office, he was careful about the speed at which he drove, but even so he pushed at the upper edge of the limit while engaged in a lengthy legal discussion with his passengers. He updated them on everything that had happened so far and gave them the benefit of his experience and of the best of his guesses as to what might happen next

  ‘So,’ Maggie summed up as they came out of the tunnel and turned into the snarl-up heading east, ‘they have charged Richard with the murder of everyone else aboard the ship, but they have no confession. They believe he might have done it on his own and can prove that he was close to some of the victims when they died and that he handled all of the murder weapons at some time or other. But they have not yet actually proved that he fired the fatal shots or chopped the fatal chops, and they don’t know whether he did it all on his own or in confederacy with someone who has since disappeared. And they aren’t sure what to do with him next.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ Andrew admitted, impressed by her summation.

  ‘So their case really rests upon the fact that he was the only survivor of the incident and they have no other suspects.’

  ‘And his loss of memory.’

  ‘No, not really. The fact that he can’t remember anything seems to be incidental. If he was in perfect mental health and saying he was asleep when it all happened or was struck on the head at the outset and only woke up afterwards, then they would still be holding him and trying to prove that he was lying.’

  ‘It’s more complex than that, surely,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Well, perhaps. But I think that’s still the bottom line. He’s in the frame because he was in the picture. He was the only one in the picture, in fact. But what precisely is it a picture of? Is there anything else going on here? Anything political? If Richard didn’t kill all those people, who do you suppose did? And why?’

  ‘That’s a question we haven’t even begun to address,’ admitted Andrew. ‘We have absolutely nothing to go on, so we’ve concentrated on worki
ng with Richard himself. Except …’

  ‘Except?’ purred Maggie.

  ‘Do either of you know anything about computers?’ For some reason his eyes met Lata’s in the rearview as he asked this.

  And she answered for both of them. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Our first objective had been to find out what did actually happen. And our best source of information is Richard. We’re working on the assumption that he will prove to be innocent of all charges, though while under hypnosis he has apparently admitted to one slaying.’

  ‘I won’t ask about circumstances at this point, it would be a waste of time. We can’t deal with evidence gained under hypnosis, so the circumstances of the alleged slaying are irrelevant.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Tom said.’

  ‘Tom?’ she asked with a quickening of interest.

  ‘Tom Fowler, the psychologist,’ he said.

  ‘Ah yes, I’ve heard of Tom Fowler …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘The case of the suicidal Christian,’ prompted Lata.

  ‘What was his name? Perrott? And the plane full of explosives at Heathrow last Easter.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. So Robin’s got Tom Fowler out here.’ The purr of intrigue in her voice made Andrew unaccountably jealous.

  ‘She told us that. Didn’t I mention it to you?’ asked Lata gently.

  ‘Not that I remember,’ answered Maggie shortly.

  *

  Maggie’s arrival gave Robin a shot of badly-needed adrenaline. The brilliant barrister swept into the team mentally as well as physically and shook them all up with her electric energy. They had been feeling pretty glum, especially after the trauma of that interview with Richard — though Richard himself had no memory of the event at all — but Maggie assured them that even as they stood they had a strong case. Without any more ammunition at all, she reckoned she could blow enough holes in the prosecution’s case to give Richard a fighting chance. But, that being said, it was always better to be safe than sorry, so they were to keep working just as hard, and keep looking for that one vital clue. And that, of course, meant that they had to continue Tom’s exploration of Richard’s battered memory.