by Bill Knox
‘Well, mister? You took long enough. Over.’
Carrick gave him a quick, factual rundown on the situation, then waited, the murmur of the sea a background to the soft crackle of static from the hand-set.
‘Right.’ Shannon came back again. ‘Care to guess when it happened?’
‘Probably during the night, sir.’ Carrick had a hazy recollection that a body usually began stiffening after ten or twelve hours. ‘It looks that way.’
‘I’ll ask the coastguards to check with Portcoig that the damned fool did go out on his own,’ said Shannon brusquely. ‘But meantime we’ll take him aboard. Don’t worry about his boat – nobody’s going to sail her anywhere for a spell. Out, mister.’
The static took over again.
As soon as Roberts had joined them they made a crude stretcher from a grating, loaded the dead man on to it, then made the difficult journey back over the rocks to the Z-boat. The blanket-covered shape lying at the bow, they got the outboard motor going, and headed back across the water towards the waiting Fishery cruiser.
They were almost there, near enough to identify the crewmen waiting in a little group just below the bridge, when Roberts gave a mutter of surprise and pointed further out.
‘Look, sir.’
Carrick looked in the direction the deckhand indicated. The small, dark shape of another fishing boat was plugging towards Moorach Island at a steady pace. The silhouette of the harpoon gun at the bow made her easy enough to identify. Dave Rother and his Seapearl were going to be with them in a matter of minutes.
‘Now there’s a coincidence,’ muttered Clapper Bell with an unusual edge.
‘He probably tuned to the Fishery Protection frequency, heard some of the talk, and got interested,’ answered Carrick. Plenty of boats did the same when a Protection cruiser was around. He glanced again at the approaching shark-catcher, then concentrated on bringing the Z-boat round in a slow curve which would bring her alongside Marlin. ‘We’ll find out soon enough. Anyway, they’re from the same village.’
‘But Rother’s a sharkman,’ grunted Bell.
‘Meaning?’
The bo’sun shook his head and didn’t elaborate. As they eased in beside the Fishery cruiser’s hull, Roberts tossed a line to the men above. It was secured, they worked their way along to a lowered ladder, and Carrick clambered up. Reaching the deck, he almost collided with a thin, sour-faced figure.
‘What’s the rush?’ demanded Pettigrew, Marlin’s junior second mate.
Carrick took it with a smile. He made allowances for Pettigrew most of the time. It made life easier. By far the oldest of the ship’s three watchkeeping officers even though he ranked as junior, Pettigrew was a surly character in his fifties who had come back to sea for reasons he kept to himself. When he wasn’t on watch he spent most of his time in his cabin, sleeping or reading.
‘I missed your friendly face,’ said Carrick cheerfully. ‘Any more word from the coastguards?’
‘Who’d tell me?’ shrugged Pettigrew. He looked down at the Z-boat with distaste. ‘Well, at least we’re not chasing after that oil-slick. I’ll take over here. The Old Man wants you.’
Carrick headed for the bridge. Captain Shannon greeted him with a nod then thumbed in the direction of the approaching Seapearl.
‘Seen him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Shannon shrugged. ‘Well, he’s your friend, not mine. I’ve heard too many stories about how he operates. You can talk to him.’ The bearded moon-face scowled a little. ‘Then we’ll head for Portcoig and land that fisherman. Your guess was right, mister. The damned fool sailed from there late last night alone, and with his gut awash in beer. The coastguard say he’d some kind of problem gathering his usual crew.’
Carrick nodded his understanding and saw Jumbo Wills’ overalled figure heading along the deck towards the bow.
‘What about that oil-slick, sir?’
‘If there was one, it must have broken up. Department say they’ve spoken to two lobster boats who should have been right in the middle of it – we’ve to forget about the thing meantime. Which should relieve some people.’
‘Sir?’ Carrick could almost sense it coming.
‘Mister, I’ve seen that broken spray-boom,’ said Shannon softly. ‘A captain is supposed to know what’s going on aboard his ship. If we’d found that slick what were we supposed to do? Try scooping it up with damned soup spoons?’ He snorted, a glint of icy warning in his eyes. ‘Well, I’ve already dealt with that young fool Wills, and this time I’ll leave it at that. But it doesn’t happen again. Understood?’
Carrick nodded, wondering how badly Jumbo Wills had been blistered. ‘I’m having the boom fixed, sir.’
‘Between you, you’d better,’ said Shannon bleakly, turning away and reaching for the bridge intercom phone. ‘Don’t waste time over that damned sharkman, either. They’ll be waiting for us at Portcoig.
Nobody could have described the Seapearl as beautiful. Her original lines had been hacked away to allow for the harpoon gun’s platform, the wheelhouse was a strange, elevated structure, and the big deckhouse added aft looked like the work of a do-it-yourself weekend – which it had been. As she stopped and rolled gently in the swell within hailing distance of the Fishery cruiser, her dark, paint-blistered hull showed green with weed along the waterline.
There were crewmen on her deck. But the hail from the shark-catcher came from a lean, fair-haired man in khaki shirt and slacks who emerged from the tall, platform-like wheelhouse.
‘Ahoy, Marlin,’ – he bellowed across the gap, not bothering about any kind of megaphone – ‘anything we can do?’
‘About what, Dave?’ Out on the bridge wing, Carrick saved his lungpower and used a battery loud-hailer.
Dave Rother stared then waved a greeting. ‘Come off it, Webb. That Portcoig boat all the fuss is on about. Can we help?’
‘No. Only one man aboard, dead. Somebody called John MacBean,’ answered Carrick. ‘Know him?’
The metallic echo of the loud-hailer faded and for a long moment there was no reply.
‘I know him,’ shouted Rother at last. ‘What happened?’
An impatient rumble came from Shannon in the command chair. Carrick looked round, nodded, and raised the loud-hailer again.
‘Tell you when you get back to Portcoig. Where’s that shark you were chasing?’
‘Lost it,’ answered Rother ruefully. ‘You know the story – there’s no luck fishing with a woman aboard.’
Carrick blinked, forgot Shannon’s impatience and demanded, ‘What woman?’
‘The new nurse at Portcoig. Showing her how sharkers live.’ He turned, said something, and a girl emerged from the wheelhouse. She was tall, slim and a redhead, wearing a white sweater and black trousers. Rother cupped his hands again. ‘We chased here in case she could help. But if he’s dead and we can’t – well, that’s that. See you later.’
Rother took the girl’s arm and they went back into the wheelhouse. A moment later the shark-catcher’s propeller began to churn and she swung away, engine thudding.
Carrick laid down the loud-hailer and looked round. The helmsman was stony-faced but had a twinkle in his eyes. Shannon showed a thundercloud impatience.
‘If you’re finished, mister, we’ll get back to work,’ he said curtly, reaching for the intercom phone.
Taking his chance, the helmsman caught Carrick’s eye and winked.
Once under way, Marlin swung on a north-easterly course for Portcoig. Her twin 2,000-horsepower diesels gulping air with a steady roar, she built up speed and the white wash gradually thickened at her square-cut stern.
A routine weather report reached the bridge from the radio room. Conditions would be unchanged for the next twenty-four hours. The helmsman was relieved, Captain Shannon disappeared to his day-cabin, and soon afterwards Pettigrew arrived to take over the watch. Carrick handed over then went below to the little wardroom aft. The steward was working in his shirt-sleeves,
cleaning up, but he had some coffee warming in the galley and brought a filled mug.
Carrick took the mug along to his cabin, peeled off his uniform jacket, kicked out of his thick-soled seaboots, then sprawled back on his bunk with the coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
They would be at Portcoig in about an hour. By the time the dead fisherman had been taken ashore and the inevitable formalities and reports completed he’d a feeling Marlin would stay there at least overnight.
Though, like everything else, that all depended on Captain Shannon. Shannon was rated as a superintendent of fisheries, which made him answerable only to the Department’s top brass. Shannon had spent a lifetime in Fishery Protection, and fairly soon would be compulsorily retired with a Civil Service pension and maybe a medal buried deep in the small print of some Honours List.
But until that happened his powers were impressive, his task that of keeping the peace and maintaining the law in the multi-million-pound Scottish fishing industry – an industry where life could be dangerously harsh and tempers often flared violently. There was a multiplicity of rules and regulations to enforce, covering everything from nets and gear to seasonal bans and operating lights. There were territorial boundaries to enforce, with fishing craft from a dozen European nations sniffing around the fringe all the way from small Dutch herring boats to big electronics-crammed Russian trawlers.
And the fisherman you arrested one day could be the same man you tried to save from drowning the next. Carrick grinned slightly at the thought. That had happened more than once. And having saved the man, they’d more than once had to arrest him again.
Most things came Marlin’s way, Like the rest of the Protection flotilla, she logged an average of 17,000 sea miles a year on her West Coast beat.
A lot of that distance meant the Hebridean chain: five hundred islands, from uninhabited pimples of rock onward, scattered in a great 130-mile off-shore chain. People romanced about the Hebrides. To the watchdog Fishery cruisers they meant dangerous shoals, treacherous, narrow channels and giant tidal rips, all exposed to the worst of Atlantic weather.
While the average fisherman and islander used the term ‘Fishery snoop’ as close to a curse and regarded a Fishery cruiser as a form of grey-painted plague.
But Marlin and her kind still patrolled regardless. She had no deck guns. Her authority was her thirty-knot speed, her Blue Ensign with the Fishery crest, and, above all, Shannon, with his right to be prosecutor, judge and jury when the occasion demanded.
Yawning, Carrick finished the last of the coffee, took another long draw on his cigarette, stubbed it out, and was thinking again about the dead fisherman when there was a knock at the cabin door. It opened and Clapper Bell looked round.
‘Got a moment, sir?’ asked the bo’sun cheerfully.
‘Yes.’ Carrick eyed the big Glasgow-Irishman with a suspicion born of experience. Bell came in, closed the door, and beamed at him.
‘The word is we’ll be staying overnight at Portcoig, sir,’ began Bell. He rubbed a massive paw of a hand warily along his chin. ‘At least, so I’ve heard …’
‘From a reliable source.’ Carrick finished it for him. ‘Don’t ask me, Clapper. I don’t know.’
‘We will,’ said Bell confidently. ‘The Old Man told Cookie to draw up a galley stores list. And he asked the engine room how much fuel the tanks could take.’
Carrick sighed. ‘So?’
‘So probably we’ll be goin’ ashore tonight.’ Bell eyed him innocently. ‘Except that I’ve hardly the price o’ a decent drink till next pay-day. And – uh …’
‘And there’s a barmaid at Portcoig with starving children to support,’ said Carrick wearily. He swung himself up from the bunk, reached for his jacket, and found his wallet. ‘How much?’
‘Two quid – uh …’ Bell grinned, palmed the notes and began to ease back towards the door. ‘Thanks.’
‘Hold on.’ Carrick beckoned him back. ‘Now it’s your turn. You mumbled something about Dave Rother being a sharkman. I’ve had the same thing from the Old Man, but they just don’t get on, never have. Rother pulled a fast one on him years ago. But what about you?’
Bell shrugged, the grin fading into a reluctant frown. ‘He’s a pal o’ yours.’
‘We’ve had a few drinks together,’ corrected Carrick. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘I thought you’d know.’ Bell sucked his teeth unhappily. ‘Skua’s bo’sun told me what happened.’
Carrick raised an eyebrow. Skua was their sister ship; they’d relieved her at the start of the patrol.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Rother’s base is at Portcoig, right? An’ his boys used to get on fine wi’ the locals …’
‘Used to?’
Bell nodded. ‘Not any more they don’t. There’s the next best thing to open bloody war goin’ on now. The locals want the sharkmen out. In fact, they tried to burn them out so I was told. An’ Rother’s played rough too.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’ Bell grimaced. ‘But,’ – he glanced down at his hand – ‘well, I’ll bet you this two quid we soon find out.’
Carrick quickly shook his head. Marlin’s bo’sun seldom took chances where money was concerned.
Chapter Two
Marlin reached Skye and the mile-wide curve of Camsha Bay at 4 p.m., her speed coming down to a four-knot crawl as she came through the buoyed entrance channel that led to Portcoig.
‘It all looks peaceful enough,’ said Jumbo Wills hopefully. He was leaning beside Carrick on the boat-deck rail, still in overalls, ready to disappear again at the first sign of Shannon. ‘But if Clapper is right …’
‘He’s always right,’ said Carrick resignedly. ‘That’s why I told him to pass the word around the crew. Then they can at least try to keep out of trouble ashore.’
Silently, they watched the Fishery cruiser’s slow, curving approach towards Portcoig. The tiny harbour made an ideal base for small craft. Even the shoal rocks which lurked outside played their part in offering shelter from the Atlantic and once inside the bay there was a gentle, grassy foreshore where sheep were grazing.
Beyond that, heather-clad slopes began a rapid rise towards the shadowed, jagged peaks of the Cuillin hills. There were no trees. Instead, a line of sun-bleached telephone poles followed the narrow, single-track road which snaked into the hills from Portcoig’s scatter of houses.
Carrick glanced round. Half a mile across the bay was Camsha Island, where Dave Rother had his shark-catching base. A low-lying blob of land, separated from the north shore by a stretch of tidal sand and shingle, people could walk out to it from the other side of the bay when the tide was right. Maybe base was too impressive a description. It amounted to a long concrete slipway and a collection of huts, the largest hut a processing factory and the others used as living quarters for his men or to hold supplies for the three boats he operated.
‘Webb.’ Jumbo Wills nudged him and nodded towards Portcoig pier, a long, stone structure ending in a T-shaped wooden head. Several small seine-net boats were tied along it and a group of men were waiting near the end. ‘We’ve got a welcoming committee.’
‘Including the local law.’ One of the men wore police uniform. Then he smiled slightly, spotting a small red and white motor-launch which had rounded the pier with a solitary figure in its open cockpit. ‘There’s something that hasn’t changed. Aunt Maggie is still in business.’
Coming in smartly, the little launch slipped neatly between two of the fishing boats and tied up. Most people who came to Portcoig met Maggie MacKenzie. A widow, she wasn’t young any more and nobody knew who’d first given her the nickname Aunt Maggie. But it fitted. She and her boat constituted the ferry service which linked Portcoig with half a dozen little crofting communities scattered around the local coast.
That could mean carrying children to school, sheep to market or tourists round the bay – anything, in fact, that needed a boat for hire.
‘I’d call her indestructible,’ mused Wills. ‘She even had a glint in her eye about Pettigrew last trip.’
‘Once she discovered he wasn’t married – and on the Old Man before that, till she discovered he was,’ grinned Carrick. The grin faded as he remembered why they’d come. ‘Better get to that bow-line – unless you want another roasting.’
The Fishery cruiser was still slowly, barely moving as she edged in towards a vacant berth. Wills didn’t need a second telling. Nodding, he started off at a trot.
Three of the reception committee came aboard as soon as Marlin’s gangway was positioned. Led by the police officer, two sober-faced men in Sunday-best suits came across it and were met by Captain Shannon. One of the men had a black tie in mourning and Shannon took all three straight to his day-cabin.
After a spell they reappeared and went aft to the deck-house being used as a temporary mortuary. When they returned to the day-cabin Carrick was summoned to join them.
When he entered he found Shannon and his visitors seated round the table in the small, sparsely furnished cabin. A bottle of Shannon’s prized single-malt whisky was on the table and each man had a filled glass.
‘My chief officer,’ said Shannon shortly. ‘He found the body.’
‘And cut the scarf?’ The police officer, a sergeant, nursed his whisky glass with a frown shaping on his beefy face.
‘Would you expect him to bring the blasted winch back?’ asked Shannon icily. He glanced at Carrick. ‘This is Sergeant Fraser from Carbost, the nearest police station. Then Alec MacBean, the dead man’s brother’ – the man in the black tie, thin and middle-aged, nodded – ‘and Harry Graham, who was half-owner with John MacBean of the Harvest Lass.’
Graham, a tall man, grey-haired and the oldest of the trio, cleared his throat. ‘We hear the boat is badly damaged. Eh … how bad?’ He blinked quickly at his companions. ‘It can wait, of course. But I might as well know now.’