Missing Dad 3

by J Ryan

  ‘And…did you know how dangerous?’

  Letting go of the wheel, I hold out my blotchy hands. ‘She poisoned me. Your dad saved my life. She’s poisoned many people who were close to him.’

  He looks at my hands, then back at me. The dark eyes blaze as his quick mind hits the mark like an arrow. ‘She killed my mother, didn’t she? Because she wanted him, all that time ago. I could see that she still does!’ He climbs onto the stern, screaming at the waves. ‘Bitch! I hope you’ve drowned! I hope…’ For a split-second he looks as if he’s going to throw himself into the water after his father.

  Skidding across the deck, I grab him round the waist and tear him off the side. We tumble together, as Becks grabs the wheel and the Lisette pitches into the next trough. Scrambling up, I pull him to his feet. ‘This won’t help us find him.’

  His shoulders shake with grief. ‘Why did he go after her? Don’t tell me it was for love!’

  Becks says gently, ‘It was for the love of you, Arnaud. He was trying to get the remote off her. He knew that, drowning or not, she’d press that button if she could.’

  He murmurs, ‘For me…?’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flicker of something red. With a cold dread, I whisper, ‘Don’t move!’

  ***

  Arnaud stares at the flashing red light. ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘Just stay exactly where you are!’ I take the torch from him as he sits down slowly. In my mind is a horrible image of her drowning hands clutching the remote, pale fingers twitching on the button. Taking a last, terrible revenge on Monsieur for not loving her. I shake off the nightmare.

  The helicopter rotors are above us. Its beams cut through the dark, heading on out to sea, as the Lisette bumps through the smaller waves outside the harbour. Becks swings the wheel right and left, keeping the yacht before the wind. I look at the red light. It’s steadily on now. ‘She is with us still.’ Arnaud’s face is exhausted. He’s seeing things that I refuse to see.

  ‘She can’t be with us now. But the remote could be.’ I shine the torch around the deck.

  ‘Joe, the harbour walls! You’ll have to steer us in!’

  I thrust the torch into her hands. ‘Keep looking, Becks. We MUST find it!’ She crawls around the deck, shining the torch into every nook and cranny, feeling carefully through the sea water that slops in the drainage gulleys.

  Arnaud stares at the black bracelet. ‘I can’t take this anymore. It has to come off!’

  Becks looks up. ‘Don’t even think about it. Both the remote and the bracelet have been soaked by the water. They must be really unstable by now.’

  His voice is thoughtful, the razor sharp brain disengaging from all that pain. ‘If it is radio waves, we can block the signal.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Aluminium foil will reflect it back. We have some in the galley. Wire clippers as well.’

  ‘So, we wrap the thing in foil and cut through it?’

  My gut lurches at their almost casual discussion. ‘What if it isn’t radio waves?’

  His voice is cold. ‘They are the most reliable method. She had a scientific approach to her poisoning, didn’t she?’

  I shiver, hearing her words…Injection directly into the bloodstream is far more effective. ‘How can we be sure that we’re not cutting straight through the poison device?’

  He looks closely at the black band. ‘This larger part that looks like a watch, where the red light is. It must contain the radio receiver and the injection mechanism.’

  ‘Are you sure there might not be parts of the mechanism in the strap?’

  His voice is on edge. ‘Of course I’m not sure! But there is no reason why she should have gone to such lengths even if she had the nanotechnology to do so. The bitch designed it so that it was impossible to remove without cutting through it.’

  My hands prickling, I stare at the deadly snake locked round his wrist. ‘It’s just the kind of thing she would do, if she could.’

  ‘What have I got to lose now that my father is gone?’ The despair in his voice is almost unbearable.

  ‘We don’t know he’s gone, Arnaud! Your dad’s a fighter.’

  ‘Then let’s just say it’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

  Torch blazing into the dark cabin, Becks disappears through the hatch. We’re passing the ramparts. On the harbour side, blue lights are flashing. I steer towards them. ‘Why don’t we wait until the ambulance crew, or the police…?’

  ‘They will have seen nothing like this device, you know that. I would rather trust my friends, Joe.’

  Becks emerges, holding a roll of foil and a small pair of wire clippers. She rips off a square of foil. ‘This should do it, shouldn’t it?’ The wind is veering in all directions again. I concentrate on weaving through the moored yachts. My hands itch and sting as they grasp the wheel. Her cold blue eyes dance in front of me with every gust that blows.

  ‘The red light’s still on. Keep your arm completely still.’

  A silver crackling. ‘It is well covered. Now, the clippers.’ A vicious blast of wind heels the Lisette right over. Sea water rushes across the deck from the gulleys. I stagger, my left foot landing on something hard.

  Becks’ voice is nervous. ‘Keep still!’

  ‘Just cut it through!’ A long cord that must be severed forever. Click! Just like that. I look round briefly. Arnaud’s clenched fist rises, his arm free, as the glittering, foil-covered bracelet tumbles through the air. With an accuracy that Beckham would envy, Becks kicks it straight into the water. ‘Yes!’

  Slowly, I pick up the thing that got trapped beneath my foot. The look of triumph on her face turns to shock. As Arnaud sees what it is, he silently covers his face with his hands. I slip the remote into my pocket. Wondering. If Monsieur had known, might some deep instinct still have driven him into the sea after her? Is a life worth saving, even if it wants to destroy everyone you love?

  Chapter 13

  A Leap in the Dark

  Hands reach out as I throw them the painter. It’s the couple who were eating breakfast on their yacht only this morning. Gently, they pull the Lisette onto the pontoon. They’re in heavy sailing gear now. Police and ambulance crews wait on the harbour side.

  The man has a brown, wind-weathered face and thick white hair. ‘You youngsters did well, getting back through that.’ Expecting a torrent of French instead of this earthy Yorkshire accent, I don’t know what to say. As soon as we touch shore, paramedics swarm onto the yacht and wrap us all in thick blankets. My jaw unclenches and my teeth start chattering.

  ‘Give me the remote, Joe!’ Arnaud almost drags it from my hand. With a furious energy he jumps off the yacht and runs towards the Marseille police. I wonder how much he’s going to tell them. How far back he can bear to go.

  Her hair tumbling in a grey, curly storm over her face, the woman thrusts a flask towards me. ‘Onion soup, love. It’ll keep out the cold. Pass it round.’

  ‘That’s really kind of you.’ I take a huge gulp and my insides start to glow. I pass it to Becks. Her cold fingers brush against mine as they wrap round the flask.

  She looks at Arnaud as he talks in rapid French with the police. ‘This must be so hard for him.’

  With a boom of powerful engines two motor launches tear past us, heading for the harbour mouth. Becks and I climb onto the pontoon to watch them. The woman’s eyes follow the leaping hulls. ‘They’re going out to the ferry. The coastguard sent out an appeal. They say she’s sinking.’

  ‘Are those boats equipped for this kind of weather?’

  ‘The wind’s dropping. They wouldn’t have asked otherwise. And those lads have done this before.’ She turns a tanned, friendly face to us, holding out a hand. ‘I’m Kathy, by the way. And that’s my husband Rob over there. He was a docto
r before he retired. I was a nurse.’

  We shake. ‘Joe.’

  ‘Becks. That’s Arnaud, our mate, talking to the police.’

  ‘Something bad has happened to you all, hasn’t it? And not just the storm.’ The kindness in her voice sends hot tears flooding down my face. Becks bows her head, biting her lip. As we watch the launches disappear in a cloud of flying spray, Kathy says quietly, ‘There was a gentleman with you on the Lisette, wasn’t there? He had cropped silver hair?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She pats my arm like Grandad does. ‘They’ll move heaven and earth to find him. Now, keep those blankets round you.’ She goes back to her husband as he chats with the paramedics.

  Glancing at the churning wake of the motor launches, Arnaud hurries over to us. His eyes are feverishly bright. ‘They are hunting her. They have been, for years…And now, they have proof. They said, she poisoned her chauffeur…’

  ‘Your dad found James. He gave him an antidote but James was very ill.’

  His voice falters, ‘How ill?’

  ‘I just don’t know, Arnaud…’

  Becks’ urgent voice jars him out of his darkness. ‘The coastguard, Arnaud! What are they doing for your dad?’

  He looks towards the waves beyond the harbour. ‘There is a massive rescue going on. But the police have told them they must also look for my father.’ His voice drops, full of a dull hatred. ‘They are looking for her, too.’

  We all jump with the roar from just below us. On the other side of the pontoon, the retired doctor is gunning the outboard of a grey reinforced inflatable. Kathy climbs down beside him. She gives us a wave. ‘They need more rescue craft. We’ll keep a look out for him, I promise.’ Before we can say a word, they’re jetting off towards the harbour mouth.

  Arnaud watches them go. ‘If we just had that boat!’

  We climb back onto the Lisette and sit on the deck, huddled in our blankets. Becks passes Arnaud the flask of soup. He shakes his head. ‘Have some! I’ve got this feeling we’ll need it.’

  He takes a mouthful, then another. ‘What gives you this feeling?’

  ‘Call it female intuition. Or just plain, boring old hope.’

  The ambulance crew sit in their white vans. Propped up on their squad cars, the police talk loudly into their two-way radios. The smoke from their Gitanes drifts towards us. The waiting begins.

  ***

  I wake with a start. This low rumble has been echoing through my dreams forever. Becks’ head stirs on my shoulder. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The lifeboat.’ Wordlessly, Arnaud scrambles up and jumps off the Lisette, running after the scurrying medics. Shedding our warm blankets, shivering in the sudden chill, we stumble after him. Dark day has turned into night. But the clouds have almost gone. Stars glitter above us, winking on tiny waves in the harbour. A crowd has gathered around the lifeboat as she moors on the pontoon. They talk in hushed whispers like people do in church. I glance at my watch. Eleven twenty five. We must have slept for hours. In that time, so many relatives and friends of the passengers on that sinking ship must have found out that the people they loved were not on a routine voyage anymore.

  At the back of the crowd, we strain to see the faces. Small children are wrapped in the arms of their mums and dads. Her eyes dazed, an old lady is carried down the gang plank by a burly crew member and rushed straight into an ambulance. A young girl with pale gleaming hair like Talia’s sobs into her boyfriend’s arms. From behind us, a woman in a glittering evening gown presses her way through the crowd to her two small sons and her husband. His face lights up as he sees her. One by one, all the passengers make their way off the lifeboat.

  Two ambulances remain with the police cars. Only three other watchers wait on the harbour side now. Arnaud’s searching eyes look beyond the lifeboat as one of the motor launches approaches, its engine drumming on tickover. The hull nudges the wood of the pontoon, gently rising and falling. A young guy jumps out and secures the painter. Then he climbs back down to a woman holding a crying baby, his voice comforting and calm. ‘Tout va bien, Madame. Voici, le secours!’

  Medics are at her side with blankets and first aid kits. One of the watchers hesitantly goes towards her. ‘Mimi?’ With the sudden relief, tears stream down her face. He holds out his arms and takes the baby.

  The second launch arrives, jostling the first. The passengers on this boat must have been left until after the others because they look much livelier. A young guy around my age bounds across both the boats onto the pontoon, followed by three of his mates. They’re all soaking wet, clothes clinging to them and dripping with water. They turn and hug their rescuers, who are barely older than they are. ‘À la prochaine, mon ami!’

  ‘Encore, les houragons, n’est-ce pas?’ The raucous camaraderie drifts past our ears as their friends embrace them.

  Now, everyone has gone except for one solitary ambulance and the police. And still, we three stare out across the harbour. After around twenty minutes, I think I can hear something. ‘Is that the helicopter?’ The thud of the rotors gets louder. But the copter just thunders overhead without slowing down.

  Arnaud’s voice shakes with anger. ‘They don’t care anymore! Not now that the police have their witness!’

  Becks says quietly, ‘We have to wait it out. Until the inflatable comes in. She said they’d look out for him.’ We sit down on the deck, huddling together in our blankets. One of the medics comes across. I think he’s asking us if we want to wait in the warmth of the ambulance. Arnaud shakes his head.

  Stinging with salt water, my eyes roam around the harbour across the hundreds of bobbing, tinkling masts. I stare up at the Lisette’s mast as it soars towards the stars. Becks whispers, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘If we could just…I hate being stuck here like this!’

  ‘Listen!’ In the distance is the steady rumble of a motor. Arnaud gets up and slides across the deck like a shadow. We creep after him. ‘It is them.’ He strains to see. ‘There are two passengers!’ As the inflatable comes closer, Becks and I peer cautiously through the deck rails. My heart sinks. The passengers are in dark uniforms. They must be officers from the ship. Arnaud’s voice is bitter. ‘We shouldn’t have hoped!’

  Becks touches his arm. ‘Don’t let them see us. Pretend to be asleep.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ We crawl back under the blankets as the boat chugs closer. The engine dies.

  ‘Merci, mes amis. Vous avez bien fait cette nuit.’

  ‘Any time.’ Rob sounds exhausted. Footsteps recede on the pontoon.

  ‘Those poor kids. How can we tell them?’

  ‘Leave it, Kathy. We’ve done all we can.’ He coughs, a hard, hacking cough.

  ‘Have you got the flashlight, Rob?’

  ‘We’ll sort it tomorrow. Now we owe ourselves a bit of sleep. We’re getting too old for this.’ He coughs again as they go below deck on their yacht.

  Arnaud whispers, ‘Wait until they have gone to bed.’

  ‘We’ll have to be quick or someone will try and stop us. The medics…’

  ‘Or the police!’

  The cabin lights go out. Silently, Arnaud slides into the inflatable. Becks and I drop down into it after him. He pulls the cord of the outboard. It roars into life. Behind us, we hear running feet. He takes the tiller and swings the boat away from the pontoon. A jet of water foams in our wake as we thunder out towards the sea. Two French cops shout at us from the pontoon. The cabin lights come on again. I grope for the flashlight and point it towards the harbour mouth. The beam shines on choppy waves. This little boat feels so tiny as she bumps across them, spray flaying our faces. ‘What d’you think, Arnaud?’

  ‘I had hoped that he might be able to swim for the lifeboat. But it must have been too far away. Or the waves were t
oo strong.’

  ‘So, where do we look for him?’

  ‘There is a group of islands not far offshore. The Frioul archipelago.’

  ‘He warned us about them. The rocks. On the wrong side of the lighthouse?’

  ‘Exactly that.’

  ‘We’re going towards the rocks?’

  ‘Becks, there’s a really good chance that Monsieur is on one of those islands.’

  ‘Suppose he’s still in the water?’

  Shining the bright light over the waves, I flick a glance back at her. ‘He’d still get blown towards the rocks…’

  ‘Because there are no tides in the Med…I’d forgotten.’

  ‘And we can land in this rib. We couldn’t do that in the Lisette.’

  ‘This is a rib?’

  ‘Reinforced Inflatable Boat. They used them for rescue when Grandad and I used to sail on the Severn. They’re tough stuff.’ A wave crashes over the prow, drenching us. Tough stuff or not, we’re an awful lot closer to the water than we were in Monsieur’s yacht.

  We pass the harbour walls. The waves are getting bigger. Each time we drop down into a trough, more water slops over the sides. The lighthouse is just ahead of us now. Its steady beam sweeps in five second bursts across the sea. I rack my brains about the course we should take. ‘Monsieur said to keep to Starboard of the lighthouse when we were going in.’

  Arnaud’s voice is calm, like he’s worked it all out. ‘If we wanted to avoid the islands going out, we would keep to Port. But we need to head straight for them. So, we go Starboard of the lighthouse.’ He swings the tiller. We bounce through the waves, hanging on to the slippery sides of the rib. The water in the boat is up to our ankles. But the storm has blown through and gone on its way. The wind is just a whisper now.

  After a few minutes a shape starts to loom ahead, reflecting the starlight with white, rocky walls. As we approach I can see a fortress on top, its pale stone gleaming in the night. I stare at this small island that is nothing but steep cliffs, the fortress above and waves crashing on rocks below. ‘Are you saying your dad could be here?’