by Tim Heald
Yet for Tudor it was not just a typical day at sea for he was all too aware of his bête noire’s presence, usurper of the Captain’s cabin, determined apparently to destroy his life but slowly, stealthily, twisting the knife gently. Carpenter was not interested in a quick kill. Tudor guessed that Ashley would like him arrested, maybe even tried, but would prefer to have him released so that he could resume the slow torture.
And yet was the whole elaborate scheme really just another piece of slowly savoured revenge? Sam Hardy must have been a willing thief motivated, surely, by greed, not any feelings towards Tudor. Relations between the two men had always been cordial. Or had they? And the Prince and his harem. And the Umlauts. Little Grim. Ambrose Perry the gentleman host. Mandy Goldslinger. Donaldson. He knew he was being paranoid and yet when did justified suspicion shade into neurosis?
Whenever he almost lost himself in food, drink, slumber, ambling or some spectator sport Tudor found himself shaken back into suspicion and fear. He should, by now, be relaxed and euphoric but instead he was a seething mess of worry and nerves. Every time he saw a woman in concealing robes he found himself shivering with apprehension. He flinched whenever there was a gastronomic combustion in the Chatsworth Restaurant. He searched for a hidden meaning whenever anyone addressed him, even if it was Waclav or Natalia asking if he would like the prawn cocktail or the chicken liver parfait. The pop of a champagne cork made him jump. He saw stalkers in the shadows on deck.
In bed, he slept but did not sleep. He tried reading and failed. He counted sheep and failed at that too. He played tic-tac-toe with Elizabeth but found it impossible to concentrate. He reviewed his life and his achievements, decided that he was an abject failure, that every crucial decision had been a wrong one, that he should never have been an academic, should never have specialized in Criminal Affairs and, perhaps most particularly, he should never have met Ashley Carpenter much less befriended him.
Not for the first time in the last few years and, he feared, not for the last, he cudgelled his mind for memories of Carpenter. Was it a girl? Was it something to do with rowing? Or their studies? Had something happened in a tutorial? Or was it life after university? Did this enmity hinge on later life? What was it? What possible slight or injustice could have triggered such an obsessive hatred? Or was he imagining the entire feud?
At last, alone, he turned out the light and saw that the sky had cleared and a full moon shone pale on an ink-black sea. There were no whitecaps – only a gentle roll and swell which made the old ship creak and sway. The rhythms and sounds usually soothed him to sleep, but tonight every movement and every noise triggered a nervy response, a sudden sitting-up in bed, a pad to the lavatory, a sip of water, a mop of brow, another fruitless attempt at memory.
Try as he might he slept only in fits and starts, woken even by his own soft snoring. He was a wreck.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He must have dozed off though he would later deny it. At first he thought his snoring had woken him again, but then he realized that the noise came from outside. Even through his waking wooziness he recognized it immediately: helicopter. He hurried to the porthole and stared out. The night was clear and away on the horizon he could see flickering lights which must have been on the shore. His stateroom was on the port-side. That could mean only one thing. He was right. Close to the ship the bulbous shape of a big whirly-bird hovered alongside. She looked like a Puma but in all honesty he knew very little about helicopters. He suspected she came from Culdrose near Helston in Cornwall, the biggest helicopter station in Europe. That was if his supposition was correct. In any event, if he was right, it was one of ours.
He glanced at his watch. It said 4 a.m. though they had been through so many time changes announced and unannounced that the information might have meant anything. The point was that it was still dark though there was just a hint of light at the edges of the picture before him.
Behind him the bedside phone shrilled. He picked it up and heard a clipped English voice say, ‘Dr Cornwall, sir. Captain Donaldson presents his compliments and would be pleased if you could present yourself as soon as possible at the helicopter landing pad on Boat Deck.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to reply ‘Aye, aye, sir’, but it was not in Tudor’s nature to be flippant, particularly at times like this which was not just the middle of the night but crucial in the unfolding of the convoluted drama of the past few days. Or so he assumed. The phone sounded again. This time it was Elizabeth.
‘Is that a helicopter?’ she asked fatuously. Tudor excused her on the grounds of her obvious sleepiness.
‘Landing imminent he said,’ he said. ‘Donaldson has been kind enough to invite me to help greet her despite his warning me off. I suggest you join us if you want a bit of excitement or interest at least.’
‘Is it American?’ she asked, not unreasonably.
‘I’d be very surprised,’ he said, ‘but I’ll see you up there and explain then.’ Saying which he replaced the receiver, pulled on a woollen rollneck, corduroy trousers and a pair of desert boots, ran a comb through his hair, grimaced at his pouchy eyes and designer stubble, put his room card key in his pocket and hurried out almost colliding with a be-jeaned and fleece-topped Elizabeth in the corridor outside.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘If I’m right,’ he said, as they waited for the elevator in the foyer by one of the endless gift shoppes on board, ‘we’re in British territorial waters and Detective Chief Superintendent Eddie Trythall of the Wessex Constabulary is about to take over the investigation.’
The lift-doors slid open, they got in and Tudor pressed the Boat Deck button.
‘But,’ she protested, ‘we should be taking on the New York pilot somewhere around the Nantucket light.’
‘Should doesn’t come into it,’ he said. ‘If I’m right Donaldson and his crew turned the ship round and hardly anyone noticed.’
‘Huh?’ she said, still drowsy. This information was clearly too much to assimilate.
‘In a few hours’ time, if I’m right, we’ll be tying up alongside the quay at Budmouth,’ he said, as the doors slid open on to the Boat Deck foyer.
‘What makes you think that?’ she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning.
‘The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, yes?’
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘Geography was never my strong point. Or is it astrology. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning; red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. That’s about as much as I can do on dawns and dusks.’
‘Trust me,’ said Tudor. ‘So when you came back down and said you’d just seen the most exquisite sunrise over the bows I put two and two together.’
They pushed through a heavy door out on to the open deck and heard the thudding metallic clatter of the chopper low overhead. The blades were creating a heavy down-draught like a mechanical whirlwind. A little knot of officers standing on the edge of the helipad was literally holding on to its collective hat. Donaldson was among them and seeing Tudor and the girl managed something almost resembling a smile.
‘Got your letter, Doctor,’ he shouted, over the wind and rattle of the helicopter, ‘and passed it on to my Board. They seem to take a more, shall we say, lateral view of procedures than I sometimes do myself. If I’m not much mistaken your man is on board.’
‘Good. Thank you,’ said Tudor, ‘and congratulations. It was clever to turn her round with no one noticing.’
‘Aye,’ said Donaldson, looking momentarily pleased with himself in a monosyllabic Fife fashion, ‘the weather was on our side. So overcast and grey you couldn’t make out any features at all. Could have been anywhere.’
‘Except for one dawn.’
‘Didn’t last long,’ said the acting Captain. ‘Long enough.’
‘Happen.’
‘She’s coming down, sir,’ said one of the younger officers whom Tudor had never seen before. He noticed Major Timbers in a dark-blue track suit.
He looked muscular and menacing in the gloom. Tudor doubted his mental capacity but not his combat skills. He looked as if he could kill with his bare hands – not something to which Tudor aspired.
The onlookers backed against the wall of what, in agreeable weather, did service as a Lido Bar, called, since this was, after all, the good ship Duchess, the Croquet Lawn. It did a good line in Pimms of various otherwise forgotten varieties. There was even an Imperial one using brandy and champagne. It seemed a long way away as the helicopter throbbed slowly deckward, swayed once or twice and then hit the surface, bounced almost imperceptibly and came to a halt. The pilot cut the engine and the blades turned slower and slower before eventually coming to a full stop. There was a short pause, then a door slid open and a burly figure in a belted trench coat and tweed cap stepped with surprising agility on the deck of the Duchess. Eddie Trythall of the Wessex Constabulary.
Donaldson went forward to greet him. ‘Chief Superintendent Trythall I presume,’ he said, and the two shook hands perfunctorily. Then, almost at once, the policeman spotted and recognized the academic, his lifelong sparring partner. The two had known each other almost as long as Ashley and Tudor. Their mutual respect might have been grudging but it was at least genuine. As was their affection.
‘Doctor!’ said Trythall. ‘Got your message. Let me deploy these men – with the permission and assistance of the Master, of course,’ he added, recognizing that proprieties had to be observed even though there was no technical need and even though he wanted to listen to what Tudor had to say far more than he wanted to have his ear bent by a Merchant Navy captain from Anstruther, no matter how seamanlike he might be.
For a few moments he and Donaldson engaged in an earnest confabulation. Then Major Timbers was summoned and evidently co-opted into some sort of liaison role involving Trythall’s policemen who, Tudor was impressed to see, appeared to be heavily armed, to be wearing flak jackets and to be accompanied by two enormous German Shepherd dogs. He almost felt sorry for the girl called Tipperary Tatler, for Professor Carpenter, the Prince and his harem, and anyone else who looked like getting in the way of the forces of conventional law and order.
Presently this conference was over; men were deployed; and the police gave every indication of behaving with their customary efficiency. It was not a pretty sight, nor marked by the sort of intellectual rigour Dr Cornwall prided himself on displaying on campus. Despite this – perhaps because of it – the effect was scary. You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of this lot.
‘Now,’ said Eddie, rubbing his hands and blowing into the cold night air. ‘Time for a nice hot cup of tea and a quiet chat.’ He stared meaningfully at Major Timbers, at Elizabeth, at Angus Donaldson, and added with quiet menace. ‘With my old friend Dr Cornwall. In private.’ There was a pause which might properly have been described as pregnant and even ugly but which flattened out into an almost deferential acquiescence. Donaldson instructed a Filipino steward to take the policeman and the detective down to the wardroom while everyone else peeled off.
This officers’ day-room which, thankfully, paid not even lip-service to the prevailing theme of ‘dead Duchess upstairs’ but was dominated by a large photograph of a youngish Queen Elizabeth II and several dozen shields presented by other ships from around the world as well as ports where the Duchess had at one time or another been made welcome. Inside, the Chief Superintendent removed his cap and coat, sat down heavily on a leatherette sofa and said, laughing, ‘Well this is a turn-up for the book, old son.’
‘You could say that,’ agreed Tudor. ‘It’s good to see you. They wouldn’t pay much attention to me even though I think I’ve got the whole thing more or less wrapped up. If there are any uncrossed ‘t’s’ or undotted ‘i’s’ I’m sure that between us we can do the necessary.’
Tea, hot, sweet, rough Indian and quite unlike the refined stuff served in the passenger areas, arrived in short order together with digestive biscuits. Trythall dunked one in his mug and said, ‘One stroke of luck was that we had a frigate in mid-Atlantic. HMS Truro. She happened to be passing when we had a mildly alarming message from our friend Rayner aboard the Star Clipper. As a result I’m happy to say that the not-so-good-ship Michael Collins was boarded by a party from the Special Boat Service and Captain Sam Hardy was discovered tied up and indubitably being held against his will. He was not a happy bunny. I have to say that the ship shows every sign of failing every known regulation regarding health and safety at sea. She’s being escorted to Falmouth by the Truro. Against all the rules, of course, but frankly there’s bugger all anyone can do about it.’
‘Captain Sam went aboard of his own accord,’ said Tudor. ‘He was hoping to make off with several million pounds worth of gold ingots.’
The Chief Superintendent dunked more biscuit.
‘I have a feeling that might complicate our case,’ he said. ‘I see no very good reason why Captain Sam shouldn’t have been abducted against his will by these obvious terrorists. It’s in everyone’s interests for him to look like a really good guy, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Certainly simpler,’ said Tudor.
‘Yes, well. That’s my news. What’s yours?’ So Tudor told him about the Irish take-over bid; how it was foiled; how Ashley Carpenter had come on board; how the Tipperary Tatler girl had disguised herself as one of the Prince’s brides and incinerated the Umlauts; how the Prince and the Umlauts were at daggers drawn in their ambitions to gain control of the ship albeit, as far as he could judge, by more or less legal boardroom means; how that old windbag Goronwy Watkyn had tried to get in on the act and that slimy little creep Freddie Grim, whom they both remembered from his days in the Met. And how he had serious reservations about a gentleman’s host called Ambrose Perry but suspected that he was guilty of nothing much worse than battening on elderly ladies who liked to believe that they were doing the rhumba with him. And how he had a soft spot for Mandy Goldslinger even though her infatuation with Captain Sam was remarkably silly. That, of course, didn’t make her a criminal. Far from it in fact. She was actually rather gullible and for all her Lauren Bacall affectations a bit of an ingénue.
Detective Chief Superintendent Trythall listened to this baroque tale with a half-smile playing around his tea-wettened, biscuit-crumbed lips and eventually said, ‘It looks as if your old mate Professor Carpenter has given himself enough rope to hang himself with. I don’t know what the rest of his gang will get. Time off for gullibility, I should think. But the case against Carpenter strikes me as cast-iron, watertight. We should be able to get him off your back for a good many years.’
‘You reckon?’ Tudor was dubious, ‘He’ll get the best possible defence lawyers if he doesn’t conduct his own case. Which would probably help us. He’s brilliant at wriggling out of impossible situations. He’s done it before and I have a horrible feeling he’ll do it again.’
‘Don’t see how he can manage it this time,’ said Trythall. ‘And if we go easy on everyone else we should be able to find plenty of witnesses to testify against him.’
He paused and drank some sweet tea. ‘Even so,’ he said, ‘I don’t fully understand this obsession. How come he hates you so much? It’s not rational.’
‘No,’ said Tudor, shaking his head with disbelief. ‘He used to be my best friend. At least I thought he was.’
‘That’s the problem then,’ said Eddie. ‘Like the marriage partner who thinks they’ve been wronged; you must have been too close.’
‘I suppose,’ said Tudor. ‘I hope we can have him sent down for a long spell in clink but I have an unpleasant feeling he’ll be back. He’s a man obsessed. A little thing like prison won’t put him off.’
With which thought they sat and contemplated the remains of their tea. Outside the wind started to sigh and the old ship pitched and rolled as if in one final dismissive nautical V-sign before reaching the haven of her home port.
* * *
A day after docking, Elizabeth and Tudor shared a bottle of vinta
ge Bitschwiller in Henchards wine bar and conducted a desultory post-mortem.
Donaldson’s role bothered him.
On the face of it he was dour, unimaginative and honest as the day was long. Tudor doubted whether he had the wit to be a real villain even if the temptation existed. The trouble was that here on board ship an investigator’s hands were tied in a way that they would not be on dry land. He was reminded of a famous radio interview involving the Glaswegian comic Billy Connolly. Before the interview Connolly had negotiated a deal in which no questions would be asked about his then girlfriend. However, the second the programme went live on-air the interviewer asked, ‘What about your girlfriend, Billy?’ Instead of responding angrily Connolly remained utterly silent and continued to do so in the face of every further question. The result of this tactic was that after a while the audience refused to believe that Connolly was in the studio. It was a stunning example of the efficacy of silence.
On dry land, Tudor’s friend Trythall would have the power to insist on a response. There were safeguards, of course: the presence of lawyers, the necessity of cautions but, essentially, someone like Trythall had the force of law on his side, and a powerful apparatus to enable him to determine what was true and what was false. And because Tudor had worked on his contacts and established confidence and trust, people like Trythall confided in him.
None of this applied on board ship. If, as he had done, Donaldson refused to accept Dr Cornwall’s status or even competence, he was perfectly able to do so. Tudor’s hands were effectively tied. He could not, for instance, believe that the changing of locks on the door of the Captain’s cabin would have been something Donaldson would have been ignorant of even if he had not initiated it. But if Donaldson said that, in effect, it was none of Tudor’s business then Tudor had, perforce to accept what Donaldson decreed. In the Master’s absence he, Donaldson, was in charge. Back in port it would be different. Donaldson would be questioned and he would answer. It was to his credit that he had voluntarily and possibly at some risk steered his ship back into an area of British jurisdiction. This would tell in his favour. But until then Tudor was an impotent innocent.