The officer who’d helped us on board nodded to me, threw a lifejacket to Joesbury and helped me pass one over my head and adjust the waist strap. Then he gestured for us to go inside the small, windowed cabin at the front of the boat.
‘Mark tells me you need to get your river legs back,’ he said to me, when he’d closed the door and the noise of the engine had faded a little.
‘Not sure I had any in the first place,’ I replied. The cabin was surprisingly plush, with padded seats, an instrument panel and a small kitchen area. It had a faint smell of plastic and diesel fuel.
The two men exchanged a glance, then Sergeant Wilson took a long look at my face. ‘From what I hear, you were about as lucky as they get,’ he said. ‘Well, should be a nice quiet trip,’ he went on. ‘We’re due to go down as far as the barrier, one or two stops on the way, should have you both back by ten. Are you OK if I get back to the flybridge?’
Wilson left the cabin and we heard him walk along the deck and climb the steps to join the other two above us in the cockpit.
‘Come on,’ said Joesbury, steering me forwards and using the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the condensation from the window, ‘you can’t beat the river at night.’ He glanced down, saw the look on my face. ‘Course, it does help to be on it rather than in it,’ he admitted.
We were almost at Southwark Bridge. I hadn’t seen it from the river before and had to admit – but only to myself – that Joesbury had a point. Hidden lights had turned the stone arches of the bridge turquoise, whilst the surrounding buildings, both old and new, glowed in warm shades of gold and honey. Behind the bridge, its lights gleaming like diamonds, rose the City of London.
‘Unce Fred?’ I queried.
‘Mum’s younger brother,’ said Joesbury. ‘Followed his father into the Marine Unit shortly after he joined the Met. Where do you stand on the Lloyd’s building, love it or hate it?’
Across the rooftops, an elongated, futuristic construction of steel and glass was radiating violet light into the sky. I’d seen few buildings more compelling. ‘Hate it,’ I lied.
‘My grandfather was still in the force when I was a kid,’ said Joesbury. ‘He used to take me and my brother out on patrol with him at weekends.’
The lights of the river were both reflected in the rainfall and distorted by the cabin’s windows. Deep azure blue shimmered around the top of the Nat West Tower and droplets of the same colour seemed to fall all around us. Along the embankment, lantern lights glowed like a chain of fire. I had a sense, for a moment, of being in an enchanted craft.
‘He liked to tell us stories about the river,’ Joesbury was saying. ‘Knew it better than anyone. When he retired he got a job as a guide on one of the pleasure boats.’
As Tower Bridge loomed ahead of us like a cold, grey fortress, I had a sudden picture in my mind of two little boys playing policemen on a river launch, and it occurred to me that twenty-four hours ago, it might have been quite nice to be spending time alone with Joesbury, hearing him talk about his family. A lot can change in twenty-four hours.
‘Look to your left,’ said Joesbury.
‘Wapping,’ I said, ‘Where Uncle Fred and his colleagues are based.’ Wapping police station was also where Samuel Cooper’s body had been taken after it had been lifted from the river. Where mine would have been.
‘Yeah,’ said Joesbury. ‘Also, the site of Execution Dock, where they used to hang murderers and pirates and other assorted villains. Pirates were hanged on short ropes so they suffocated slowly and then three tides had to wash over them before they pulled the bodies down. I tell you, police work’s not what it used to be.’
The river had changed. Beyond Tower Bridge it becomes commercial, the buildings, black as soot against the skyline, are functional rather than beautiful. As we travelled on, all the colour in the world seemed to be seeping away.
‘That’s a very sweet story,’ I said.
Joesbury gave a short laugh. ‘They had something called dirty money back in Grandad’s day.’
The embankment lights we were passing now were stronger and colder than the touristy ones we’d left behind. They cut through the dark water like needles. ‘You’re going to tell me what that is, whether I want to hear it or not, aren’t you?’ I said.
‘It was the bit of extra pay the river men would get for retrieving a body from the water,’ said Joesbury. ‘Made quite a difference to pay packets back then, so finding a floater was always a bit of an event.’
Not much more than a week ago, I’d come very close to being a floater. Was this about punishing me, as well as keeping me from running?
‘As you can imagine, it all got a bit competitive,’ Joesbury went on.‘And there was the added complication that if they found a body towards the end of the shift, they might not have time to get it all the way downriver to Wapping.’
‘I’m not going to ask,’ I said.
I didn’t need to. Joesbury was on a roll. ‘So rather than let the next shift get the extra cash, they’d hide it somewhere. Tie it up out of sight and then collect it next day.’
By this time, it felt like the boat was travelling through a black and white film. On the south bank, the lights were a cold white, their reach hardly penetrating the gloom around them, their reflections just teardrops on the black river.
‘I have heard few stories more gross than that,’ I said.
‘I think it just goes to prove that, given time, you’ll get used to anything. How are you feeling?’
‘Fine,’ I said automatically and, a second later, realized I was. I was absolutely fine. I still had a pressing need to get off the boat and head for the English Channel, but otherwise, being on the river hadn’t been nearly as bad as I’d expected.
Joesbury stepped away and faced me. ‘You look fine to me,’ he said, with a half-smile. ‘It takes a lot to throw you off kilter, doesn’t it?’
‘Yep,’ I said, turning back to the river, thinking the events of the past few hours might just qualify. ‘You could say that.’
Without warning, the engine fired up and the boat surged forward. Joesbury and I both staggered backwards before getting our balance. We looked at each other and he told me to stay put. Before he could reach the door, Uncle Fred poked his head inside.
‘We’ve just had a call about a small craft heading for the Royal Docks,’ he said. ‘Bloody suicide in these conditions. We’re picking up speed to try and find them. Now do I need to tell you two to stay in here and keep out of the way?’
‘No, sir,’ said Joesbury. I shook my head.
We were skimming along the water now, the searchlights on the front of the boat turned up to maximum, and I caught sight of Greenwich on the south bank. Joesbury moved behind me and opened one of the cupboards that ran along the back of the cabin. He took two coiled yellow straps from inside. Both had metal clips at either end. Lifelines.
‘I was a real pain in the arse as a kid,’ he said, unwrapping one and clipping the end of it to my lifejacket. ‘Never did what I was told.’ He passed the line over my head and then fastened the second clip to the first at my waist. He did the same on his own jacket and then reached for a pair of binoculars from the cabin wall.
‘Feel free to stay in here,’ he said, opening the door that led to the port deck. ‘In fact, I’m giving you a direct order to do exactly that.’
‘I was a pain in the arse as a kid too,’ I said, following him to the door.
‘Why am I not surprised,’ he replied. ‘As soon as we’re outside, find something solid and clip yourself to it.’
Leaving the warm, if diesel-rich air of the cabin was like getting out of a hot bath. Once on deck, the wind hit us full on. The rain had picked up in the short time we’d been on the river and was bouncing off the water like bullets. We were speeding against the tide and the double effect of tide and wind was creating angry waves all around us.
‘Who’d take a small boat out on a night like this?’ I shouted into Joesbury’s ear.
He had bi
noculars clamped to his eyes and was looking downstream. ‘Nobody up to any good,’ he said. ‘Smugglers of some sort, possibly. Although my guess would be illegal immigrants. Are you clipped on?’
‘To the rail,’ I said, glancing down to make sure. ‘Immigrants? Coming up the Thames?’
‘It’s not uncommon,’ he told me. ‘Container ships bring them across the North Sea. They get off a mile or so downriver, usually at Tilbury, and then head up in smaller crafts. Fred’s right though, it is bloody suicidal.’
‘We’ll be lucky to even see them in this weather,’ I said.
‘There they are,’ said Joesbury, reaching out and taking hold of my shoulder. ‘Ten o’clock. About two hundred metres away.’
He passed over the binoculars and guided them in the right direction. After a second or so, I could just about make out a medium-sized inflatable dinghy with a small outboard engine and no lights. Three people on board.
‘This is the Marine Policing Unit, switch off your engine and remain exactly where you are!’ Sergeant Wilson called out over the loudspeaker, making me jump. I handed the binoculars back to Joesbury. I didn’t have a good feeling about this and I really didn’t want to watch someone else go in the water. When Cooper and I had fallen in, the weather had been fine and the surface of the river smooth. In these conditions, it would be close to hopeless.
‘Shit,’ muttered Joesbury.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked.
‘They’re making a run for it,’ he replied.
The launch veered round in the direction of the north bank. We were flying across the water now. The small craft couldn’t hope to match the speed we were travelling at. Above my head I could hear someone on the radio. They’d be requesting back-up on the bank. Even if the dinghy made it the fifty metres or so to the side, there’d be police waiting for them. They were stupid to try to escape. But desperate people do stupid things, desperate people panic. I knew that better than anyone.
The launch veered round again and I half fell against Joesbury. ‘If I tell you to go back inside and get your head down, I expect you to do it,’ he said. ‘These twats could be armed.’
We were getting much closer now and our boat cut its speed. Joesbury lowered his binoculars and replaced them in the cabin just as our searchlight picked out the dinghy. Its occupants stared at us like startled wildlife.
We were less than forty metres away. Joesbury had positioned himself directly in front of me and I had to look round his shoulder. Two of the dinghy’s occupants were men. The other looked smaller and I could see hair blowing around a pale face.
The dinghy swerved to the left and I thought I heard someone crying out. Thirty metres away. When our searchlight found it again, I could see white hands clutching the rope that ran around the rim of the boat.
The dinghy swung round again as Fred repeated his warning. This time the small boat went head-on into a large wave. It seemed to hover on top of it for a second then went racing down the other side, just as a second line of wash hit it. When I saw it again, it looked lower in the water.
The sound of a second large engine told me another boat was heading towards us. Taking my eyes off the dinghy for a second, I spotted the flashing lights of another police launch just a short distance away. It cut its engines about thirty metres downstream of the dinghy. We were just upstream. Surely now they’d give up?
The people in the dinghy weren’t wearing lifejackets, I could see all three of them quite clearly now. They all looked soaked to the skin. The men had dark hair and heavy brows. The girl didn’t look much more than eighteen.
Then one of the men in the dinghy stood and raised his hands above his head, just as wash from both motor launches hit the small boat head on. It rocked one way, then the other, before tipping completely. Immediately, our boat went into reverse, backing away, positioning itself to be able to spot people in the water.
‘See anything?’ Joesbury yelled to me as the searchlights and powerful handheld torches from both police boats swept across the water.
I couldn’t. It was too dark, the water too choppy. Then the dinghy appeared, upside-down in the water, two large hands clinging to the rope that ran around its rim. The other police launch surged forward.
‘There’s another one,’ said Joesbury, just as our searchlight picked out the second of the two men in the water, swimming towards the bank. For a few seconds he made progress and then the tide took hold of him and he began to drift upstream and back towards the centre of the river. We gave chase.
It took just a few seconds to catch up with him, but by the time we did, he was visibly tiring. I glanced back to see that the other police boat had reached the upturned dinghy. The other man was probably safe.
On our boat, Fred and one of his constables were on the starboard deck trying to reach the swimmer. Joesbury unclipped his line and moved round the front of the boat to join them, leaving me alone on the port side. I could hear Fred and his colleague calling to the man in the water, telling him to catch hold of their hands. I turned back and began scanning the river again. There was no sign of the girl and it really wasn’t looking good for her.
Then I saw a white hand, not fifteen metres from the boat, moving quickly towards us. The tide had got her, would be taking her upstream, in just a second she’d be past us.
‘She’s here!’ I yelled. Her head surfaced and went down again. ‘I can see her!’
On the other side of the boat, I could hear cursing. Joesbury’s voice. Then more shouted instructions. The boat went into reverse and then moved sideways, further from the girl.
‘Sir! Sergeant Wilson! I can see her!’
Up in the cockpit, the driver seemed to glance at me, but keeping close enough to the man in the water needed his full attention.
The girl appeared again. She was trying to swim but she’d be tiring already. She’d have been cold and wet even before she went in. By now, her core organs would be drawing blood away from her arms and legs, making it harder for her to keep moving; she’d be dangerously close to giving up.
There was nothing I could do but keep her in sight. And hope she stayed on the surface for a minute or two longer. She went under again. Her small hand seemed to clutch at the air before it disappeared.
She was small and thin. She probably hadn’t eaten for a while. She’d be weak. And panic would make her too quick to suck in air. Even when her head was below the surface. One big gulp of river water and she’d go down.
There was nothing I could do. Even if I could bring myself to go into the river again, I’d never reach her and get her back to the boat.
Right next to where I’d been standing was a coiled metal wire, probably used for towing other craft or hauling heavy objects out of the water. On the loose end was a large steel clip. Without any real idea of what I was planning, I unclipped my lifeline from the boat rail and fastened it to the wire. Then I tugged the wire quickly so that around three metres of it was free. The rest should unravel.
Still with no plan whatsoever, I swung first one leg, then the other over the rail. A thin wooden ledge ran around the hull of the boat. Just wide enough for me to stand on.
The girl was level with me. I looked into eyes that seemed black as the water. I’d like to say I dived. To be honest, I think the boat swerved and I fell.
Got you, whispered the water rushing past my ears. For a split second I felt panic reaching up for me, like a huge, barnacle-encrusted hand from the river-bed. Then I was on the surface again.
Don’t think about the river, think about the girl. Where is she?
I’d fallen in ahead of her, she should have hit me full on by now. No sign. A small cry behind me. I kicked myself round. There she was, being carried by the tide, already in front of the boat. I probably had seconds before the wire anchoring me to the boat would reach its full length. I took a deep breath and started swimming.
Cracked ribs and swimming? Before I’d taken four strokes I knew I’d never keep it up for
long, but I’m a good, strong swimmer and, when I want to be, I’m fast. Four more strokes, she was almost close enough to touch. Two more. Her hand grasped my arm and slipped away. One last, huge effort and she was clinging to me and, tiny though she was, her weight was pulling me down. Both hands were on my head, as though she was trying to push me under. My life-jacket had inflated seconds after I’d hit the water but I wasn’t sure it was enough to keep us both afloat. Not with the almost demonical strength that people have when they’re fighting for their lives.
I was going to have to do the same thing myself.
For long seconds the girl and I struggled in the river. Several times I went under. Each time I managed to kick up to the surface again, but I could feel myself getting weaker and colder. She, though, still had the strength to yell. She was making terrified, animal-like cries that rang in my ears every time my head broke the surface.
‘Lacey!’
A different sound, directly above me. I blinked away river water and realized I was a metre away from a dull, white hull striped with blue. We were at the boat. They’d tugged us back in using the wire. The girl had seen the boat too and her panic had shifted its focus to the men above her. I felt her foot kick hard against me and then she was lifted up and pulled over the side. She disappeared.
‘Give me your hand, Lacey.’ I looked up to see Sergeant Wilson reaching down towards me and somehow managed to lift first one hand, then the other. A second later, I was dangling above the water and, no time after that, was back in the cabin wrapped in a silver, heat-retentive blanket. I was shaking like a jelly on a washing machine – and the inside of my mouth felt like I’d swallowed neat engine oil.
The two immigrants were across the cabin on another bench. Neither gave any reaction to being handcuffed and cautioned. When it was over, the three of us resembled nothing more than oven-ready turkeys and I felt a ludicrous urge to laugh. The door to the cabin opened and Joesbury came in. He ignored the others, looked only at me. I discovered I could smile.
‘Now can we go to the steam room?’ I said.
Now You See Me Page 21