by Peter Tonkin
He wanted so much to believe what Tewfik’s familiar voice had promised over the radio link a couple of hours ago. He wanted to believe that they needed him back in spite of his unpopular beliefs, his unique points of view and his unwelcome advice. But he really believed that this was a trap. That there was someone out there across those silent, silver, moonbathed fields who was waiting to kill him. He would have to be extremely careful to make sure they did not kill Fatima and John as well.
The landing stage was ancient and rotten; a worm-eaten pier lost in tall rushes, three crumbling brick steps up to an overgrown path. They climbed like poachers over a crazy five-barred gate and followed the scar of the ancient pathway across a field full of sleeping cows. John looked ahead. Beyond the hedges defining another couple of fields was a clump of trees. The rendezvous was in whatever lay at the heart of those trees. He had promised Asha that he would just drop them off and come straight back to Napoli. ‘I’m only going because I know the way and so that I can bring the cutter back,’ he had told her. It had been the first conscious lie of their marriage.
The second hedge was actually a dilapidated estate wall overgrown with blackthorn and briars. They had to climb over it for the pathway led them to a great arched gateway with padlocked iron gates. ‘This is Blackwater Hall,’ breathed John as they clustered by the wall. ‘I came here as a child. I remember it now. It was closed during the troubles in the nineteen-twenties. I never dared go in—they say it’s haunted.’
Had the other two felt any inclination to laugh at his childish superstition, they lost it when they climbed down into the grounds. They found themselves in the feral remains of a formal garden. Rhododendrons run to seed loomed massively, concealing rotting moss-grown statuary. More than one marble nymph eternally contemplating her pale nudity in a long dry carp pond almost had her head blown off by Salah’s Beretta. Rose bushes, deformed by years of growing madly out of control, caught at them like caged monsters from the ruins of decorative arbours. The stench of rotting honeysuckle escaped from fragrant walks untrodden for seventy years and threatened to choke them whenever the wind fell. And when it was high, they were surrounded by the sounds of dead things moving and the skittering of live things running amok.
At the foot of a great stone staircase twenty feet wide they stopped. Some way above it, still cloaked in shadows, stood the house. Salah looked at the luminous dial of his watch. ‘We’re to be there at three or they go without us,’ he breathed.
‘Do we go on in together?’ whispered John in reply.
‘We go on together but I go in alone,’ ordered Salah and was off before Fatima could begin a debate.
They went up the staircase three abreast and across a rutted expanse of treacherous tufts which must once have been the croquet lawn. Then there was another, smaller, staircase which led up to an ornamental balustrade and, beyond it, the house.
Originally, Blackwater Hall must have stood five stories high. The bottom three remained in the centre, though the wings stood only two stories high. Above fat, ivy-cankered walls, skeletal chimney stacks clawed up through disintegrated attics and seemed to tremble in the wind. The glassless gape of the windows seemed to soak up the pale moonlight while the crazy pile of rotting masonry gave the wind a hundred new voices—and none of them sounded sane. In the centre of that frowning Gothic folly stood a pointed Norman arch where doors massive enough to grace a cathedral leaned crazily half open, mutely inviting them to enter.
John understood very clearly how superstition had been so quick to flourish around the place. When he was ten nothing on earth would have got him in through those doors. He had no intention of letting Salah go in now. ‘You’re not going in there,’ he said.
‘It’s where the rendezvous is, in five minutes’ time.’
‘Let’s just wait a bit and think this through.’
‘John’s right, Salah. Let’s wait a moment.’
They sank back down so that their heads were just level with the balustrade. From here they had a clear view of the whole front of the hall.
Salah asked, ‘What was the point of coming if we don’t go in?’
‘We can go in,’ answered Fatima. ‘We just don’t want to go rushing into a trap.’
‘That’s right,’ said John. ‘You don’t want a repeat of the Tunisian gunboat. If anyone shoots at you here they won’t be shooting blind.’
‘Our first objective is to stay alive,’ insisted Fatima.
‘And this is the IRA you’re dealing with’.
‘After twenty years of dealing with the PLO. If we are not there by three, Tewfik says they will go without us.’
‘If they really mean to help us they will wait.’
‘If there’s actually anyone there at all,’ said John. ‘The place is as quiet as the grave.’
And so they sat and watched the apparently deserted house, but all that happened was that time ticked by—five past the hour. Ten past. Then a flash of movement jerked them all to full alertness. But it was only a fox running in through the open door. ‘That’s it,’ hissed Salah, ‘I’m going in.’
And from deep within Blackwater Hall came a great flash of light followed immediately by a clap of earthbound thunder. The three watchers were hurled down the steps to lie in a bundle at the bottom while a great force swept by above them and bits of plant debris, rubble and smouldering wood rained down on them.
Then they ran in silence through the fire-bright garden and out across the scarred field milling with terrified cattle to the rushy landing place where Napoli’s cutter tugged at her line as keen to be gone down the river as they were. They checked it from stem to stern for bombs before they went aboard.
They got back to Napoli before four and John ordered a course full ahead for Liverpool, then Salah, Fatima and he accompanied Asha to their cabin. They sat in silence for a while, the three of them trying to come to terms with what had happened and what it meant and the fourth trying to come to terms with their silence. At last she could bear it no longer. ‘What happened?’ Asha asked.
Salah got up and walked to the door. Fatima rose and followed him. At the door itself, the tall Palestinian turned. ‘An old friend sent me a message; that’s what happened,’ he said. And he left John to explain what he meant.
*
No one saw anything much of any of them during the next day or night; even the usual radio traffic was suspended while they caught up on some much-needed sleep as Napoli crossed the Irish sea and Niccolo pushed her firmly back onto her schedule. Then John came up onto the bridge just before the first morning watch twenty-seven hours later as they ran along the north coast of Wales towards the mouth of the River Mersey.
Niccolo remained on the bridge at eight, with Ann content to stay sleepless too. Marco arrived right on time but even before he could sign on Asha had arrived as well. Within moments, Salah and Fatima, Cesar and Jesus had all arrived. They watched the late daybreak pull back the grey horizons until the land was revealed, a brown bulge ahead and to the starboard, which seemed to be leaking down into the brownish, dirty sea they were ploughing through. It was the outwash of the Mersey and it turned even the foam of her wake to the colour of old ivory.
When the helicopter dropped out of the overcast, it came as complete surprise. John swung round to see through the open door of the radio room that Jesus was fiddling with the tuning on the VHF.
‘Napoli…I say again, please respond…’
‘This is Napoli, helicopter, please repeat.’
‘I have orders to bring Captain Higgins ashore at once. Please contact Liverpool harbour master on…’
The radio relayed orders and frequencies. Nobody except Jesus paid any attention. All the others were looking at John. John himself seemed deep in thought. This was worryingly reminiscent of Naples, quite apart from possible repercussions of more recent adventures. His flesh crawled. Suddenly he regretted having stayed so much out of contact. But no. He gave himself a mental shake. If there had been anything i
mportant, Richard would have contacted him.
‘Right, Niccolo, you have her. We’re still a longish way out and I have no doubt I will be back before we actually get into the river. I expect you’ll be picking up the pilot soon, though, so you’ll be able to refer to him in any uncertainty. I expect we will be taken to the Seaforth container terminal, though we may have to wait for the tide. If any port authorities, Customs men and so forth come aboard before I get back, tell them they will have to wait for me before they can proceed.’
He swung round to look at Salah and Fatima. ‘I will make a phone call as soon as I get ashore and find out what Richard has in mind for you. He’ll have thought of something to get you off safely, I’m sure.’
He put his arm round Asha and pressed his first husbandly kiss against her cheek as though he was just off to the office. She hugged him and whispered, ‘Darling…’
There was nowhere for the helicopter to land; but it hovered and John climbed a Jacob’s ladder up to its silver side. As he climbed, he was forcefully reminded of his arrival, by the same means, on Napoli for the first time. It was typical, he thought wryly, the accommodation ladders were fixed and working perfectly now he had no need of them.
In the body of the helicopter was a crew of two. One to welcome him aboard and one to fly the machine. Neither of them had anything to tell him. He looked back for Napoli but she was already out of sight as they raced across West Kirby and the narrow Wirral peninsula to Birkenhead, then over the river to the port buildings on the north shore and the heliport behind them.
There was a car waiting but, again, the driver was unforthcoming. In silence he drove John back into the port itself, eventually dropping him outside one of Liverpool’s great container terminals.
A light flurry of rain dashed across the grey cobblestones and thundered into the thin walls of the huge, hangar-sized building. John was inside at a run. When he stopped and looked around, he noticed how quiet it was; he was utterly alone. The huge building was as darkly cavernous as Napoli’s holds, but seemingly infinitely larger. John’s footsteps echoed eerily and he was suddenly overcome by a crushing loneliness. Since the wedding he had been surrounded by people. He remembered how crowded the old freighter had seemed. He missed that feeling now. He thought how slow the Napoli had been, making her dogged way here. Well, now he was here and nothing was happening. There was a wrenching, painful feeling of anti-climax. He turned his head automatically, and realised with a shiver that he was looking for Asha. How much he had come to rely on her—and so quickly. And here he was, stuck in an empty container terminal like the last kid left in a boarding school on the final day of term.
Never one to stand and mope, he pushed the feeling down and went off to explore. He knew these gigantic port buildings well and he was certain that if he crossed to the far side, opposite the door he had entered by, he would find an exit to the quayside. And so it proved. Great hangar doors reached up to the roof far above him, far too massive to be opened by a mere mortal, but in one of them was a smaller, man-sized door. He opened this and stepped out. On either side, the tarmac stretched away, marked with the steel tracks of huge cargo-handling gantries, giant cousins of the gallows aft of Napoli’s bridgehouse. Beyond these structures rearing stark and silent against the sky stood cranes; more distant still were the great oyster-grabs which bit into cargoes of coal and the like. All of these iron monsters stood along the margin of the Mersey like dinosaurs frozen in time. They were absolutely silent. Utterly still.
John crossed to the railing and looked down into the wide, dark and dirty river. Its surface was marked with the rainbow-coloured slicks of oil and petrol, rippled by lines of wind, pocked and blistered by the increasingly heavy rain. Flotsam swirled idly in the brown grip of the current and swept past the vertical plunge of the quayside he was standing on, looking for a bank which would let it rest as jetsam. A gull screamed, loud enough to make him jump. He tried to count the number of times he had been here or nearby, offloading ships or catching the Isle of Man ferry. It seemed an alien place, lonely, vaguely threatening; nothing like home at all.
On the far side of the building, a car drew up. A door slammed. John turned and went back in. Distantly, a figure entered the terminal and hurried up the echoing football-pitch length of it towards him. John gasped with recognition. It was Richard Mariner. Already suspecting something was very wrong, John hurried forward towards his old friend. Richard’s face was drawn. He disregarded John’s outthrust hand.
‘Let’s move,’ he rasped without preamble. ‘The press’ll be here in a minute. We’ve got to get you away.’
John had no idea what his old friend was talking about. My God! he thought. Could it be what happened in Ireland? Was that it?
Richard wrestled a newspaper out of the pocket of his Burberry. ‘Didn’t you see the news last night?’
‘Not the English news, no.’ John’s took the paper and began to unfold it.
‘You mean you don’t even know?’
LIVERPOOL DOCKS CLOSE, said the headline on the top of the front page.
John felt a kind of relief wash over him. He looked up at Richard. ‘Damn! That means—’
‘Read on,’ Richard said.
John’s eyes followed the page down and widened with shock at what he saw: DOCK WORKERS VOTE TO STRIKE: ‘WE WILL NEVER HANDLE LEPER SHIP NAPOLI’S CARGO’.
18
There weren’t many places they could go in order to think; John had not passed through any of the official channels coming ashore and might technically be seen as an illegal immigrant. Further, the whole of the British press would be down on him like a ton of bricks once they knew he was here. And where the press went, the authorities might well follow. If anyone official went aboard Napoli before they had thought of some way of dealing with Salah and Fatima, there was a very real danger that the two PLO members would be arrested. That was in many ways Richard’s most agonising frustration. All his hard work and planning had borne fruit. He had made arrangements to smuggle Salah and Fatima ashore and then away into safety, plans which relied on Napoli docking quietly and unloading with no attention being paid to her. There was nothing he could do about getting them ashore now. Once again, they were doomed to remain aboard Napoli. John listened to his old friend, wondering when it would be best to mention Blackwater Hall—and the message the bomb there had sent to Salah.
The heliport had a small coffee bar; it was unnaturally quiet while the docks were closed, and it had a public telephone available. It would do well enough to work out their next move.
John bought a couple of coffees and some biscuits, glad to have something positive to do. Then he sat silently at a small, mock mahogany table. Richard went off with his company phone card to get in touch with Heritage Mariner’s main office.
‘So,’ said John when Richard returned. ‘Where do we stand?’
‘I’ve been on to Italy all morning, ever since the news first broke. I’m surprised no one’s been on to you. But I expect that’s because the man’s flying in himself. He should be here in twenty minutes. We’ve got time to make some plans.’
‘Ok,’ said John, ‘but first I’ve something I have to tell you…’
In fact it was nearly half an hour before Verdi arrived, fizzing with energy and wanting to get straight down to business.
‘CZP are happy that Disposoco’s chartering of Napoli should continue,’ he said.
‘At current rates?’ asked Richard. He wasn’t directly involved, of course, certainly not with that side of it. But the ship-owner in him couldn’t resist the question.
Verdi flashed the big Englishman a venomous look. ‘The rates will of course be open to negotiation when we know more.’
‘They will have to be,’ said John abruptly. ‘You got away with your performance in Naples by the skin of your teeth. If you wish to avoid an open mutiny when you break this news to your crew, you’ll have to offer them a great deal more money.’
Verdi was affronted.
‘Captain, it is hardly your place—’
‘He’s right, though,’ interrupted Richard. ‘And you’ll have to keep it in mind. What does Disposoco propose? Responsibility for Napoli’s cargo is theirs.’
‘Of course they are looking for somewhere to place this industrial waste. Mr Nero will be contacting me via Heritage Mariner at any moment. Thank you for facilitating this, Mr Mariner.’
‘Nigeria,’ murmured John wearily. It was not a suggestion; it was an accusation.
‘No!’ Verdi was stung. But not, perhaps, outraged. ‘There is no suggestion of dumping it in the Third World. We all wish to have it properly disposed of.’
‘Then your options are limited,’ said Richard.
‘Severely so,’ agreed Verdi. ‘I understand Disposoco were relying on the English, after the trouble in Italy.’
Richard nodded. Silence fell.
John looked at his friend over the rim of his coffee cup. They had discussed a wide breadth of plans and possibilities while waiting for the Italian. They were both men of action, used to thinking on their feet, but even so they had chosen to talk through a range of scenarios, variously contingent on what Nero in Italy arranged and what Verdi in Liverpool demanded. But they could hardly discuss these in front of the man from CZP.
‘How is Prometheus coming along?’ asked John, as much for something to say as from any immediate desire to know. He had spent a lot of time thinking about his command of the Heritage Mariner tanker. But not recently, he realised with a start. Recently he had become absolutely involved with his current command. He had stopped being a caretaker, a stand-in. He had become the captain of the Napoli. And he wanted to bring her safely to port.
‘Getting restless?’ asked Richard. ‘I don’t blame you.’
‘As a matter of fact, no. I just want to know how she’s getting through her refit.’