Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  Time cleared Robin’s eyes a little more as the near-absolute darkness stretched her pupils to the uttermost limit, but there was never any chance of her seeing anything in detail. Wading up through the surf whose pebble-grating rumble echoed almost painfully, she could see nothing but the largest of nearby objects. And not their real shapes, just their silhouettes against the slightly more Stygian blackness beyond. Most of these shapes were natural, near-organic and rounded through centuries of erosion by the South China Sea. As she slopped unsteadily up the heaving, rolling beach, however, Robin began to discern less natural, more angular shapes. She stopped, staggering forward and backwards a little in the suck and wash of the surf, scarcely able to believe her all but blind eyes. There were boxes in here. No, not boxes — containers. She stood with the busy foam frothing in and out past her knees, looking at the square shadows of a whole series of ship’s containers standing along the shoreline.

  Able to do little more than stagger, Robin pulled herself up the treacherous slope towards the black-shadowed boxes. Concentrating on what she could see so absolutely that she hardly felt her shoes beginning to yield and slip on and off as she walked, she pulled herself into the restless cacophony of the shallows and went onto her hands and knees as the support of the water fell away. At the top of the pebble-beached slope was a tiny cliff before the shelf she had followed in here returned, wide enough for a series of containers to be perched like cardboard boxes in a kitchen cupboard. Too cold, too exhausted, too overwhelmed to think clearly, Robin hauled herself up beside the containers and sat on the edge of the rock shelf, shivering uncontrollably, with her feet dangling and her shoes half off.

  How long she sat there she did not know — or what she planned to do with what she had discovered, or how on earth she proposed to get herself safely back outside again. The first thing that forced itself past the chilled exhaustion of her brain was the increasingly insistent lapping of the wavelets on the back of the steadily rising tide at her dangling toes. It was that which made her glance up, unwrap her arms which she had thrown like a warm scarf round her trembling shoulders, and think about looking for some more secure position. As she felt the water rising, it came to her that she had no notion of how the tide stood, and no idea of how high within the cave it would come. Clearly it could not fill the cave to the roof, even at high tide, or the containers would have been washed away. But in the dark with nothing but chilled fingers to guide her, she found that it was impossible to estimate how far up the sides of the containers the cold wet tide had come.

  Stiffly, as though all her joints were rusting up, Robin forced herself to her feet and began to explore further like a woman struck stone blind. She was guided only by the vaguest of outlines between the restless shapes and the utter dark. She explored slowly and carefully through the placing of her dull fingers and her near-senseless hands, all too well aware of the damage which might be done by splinters, sharp points and razor edges to these precious, nerveless, extremities. And she was guided to a certain extent by her sense of smell, though her nostrils were already awash with the metallic stench of brackish weed and of well-washed stone, so that the odours of waterlogged ply and rusting metal were hardly distinguishable. Her ears were so full of the restless thrust and hiss of the water all around her that she might just as well have been deaf too.

  In the event it was her eyes that agonisingly told her of impending rescue. As she was hesitantly, painstakingly feeling her way along the rough and slimy side of the nearest of the great containers, a shadow — as of absolute, utter, interstellar darkness — swept through the place. It was there for a moment, making Robin catch her breath and choke on a fluttering scream. Then it was followed by the brightness of concentrated lightning. But instead of dying in a flash as lightning had always done in her past experience, this brightness persisted unbearably until it smote her to her knees with its torturing, incapacitating effulgence. And, out of the heart of it, Daniel Huuk’s voice quietly, calmly, said, ‘Please wait just where you are, Captain Mariner, and I will come ashore to get you.’

  ‘No! Wait!’

  ‘We have no time. The tide is rising rapidly.’

  ‘A moment. Just a moment!’ She almost broke her nose trying to dash the white-hot tears out of her eyes. ‘Look!’ she continued, almost mindlessly, unable to believe that the containers she had discovered were not an important clue. ‘Look what I’ve found! What are they?’

  ‘They are containers,’ Huuk’s calm voice admitted somewhat wryly. ‘Five ship’s containers.’

  ‘Do they have any distinguishing marks or numbers?’

  ‘None that I can see. Mr Balfour?’

  ‘None. They are all absolutely plain, Robin. I’m sorry.’

  Robin put her hands to her face and pressed her fingertips into the pits of her streaming eyes, trying to stem the flood of incapacitating tears. When she took her hands away from her blinking eyes, she could see the outlines of the great angular boxes. They stood two metres high by two metres wide by three metres deep. All of them were marked to almost half their depth by water. All of them stood open and empty. She plunged out of the brightness of the cutter’s searchlight into the shaded interior of one container after another. But there was nothing to be found.

  ‘Please be quick, Captain Mariner,’ called Huuk with increasing urgency. ‘If the tide gets any higher we’ll all be trapped in here.’

  Robin scrabbled on the floor of the last container, unable to believe that all this had been for nothing.

  ‘Captain Mariner!’

  Of course, she thought. There was no point in looking below the waterline. ‘You imbecile!’ she spat at herself and rose to her full height, looking up above her head. And, sure enough, the dampness of the atmosphere was causing some of the seams to swell and part. And in one of the swollen cracks was the tiniest strip of paper. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make her feel vindicated. She pulled it out with the utmost care, folded it and slipped it into the tiny key pocket at the waistline of her jeans.

  ‘Captain!’

  ‘Coming,’ she called and clambered out of the echoing box.

  At once she saw that Huuk’s concern had not been misplaced. The cutter was nudging against the ledge already so that she was able to scramble straight aboard without doing further damage to her already ruined shoes. Two strong pairs of hands caught her, Huuk’s lent extra impetus by his anger and Andrew’s by his lively sense of guilt. As Robin allowed herself to be bundled down the cutter’s little foredeck, the pitching vessel swung round and surged back out beneath the steadily falling guillotine blade of the cavern’s lintel.

  A couple of moments later she was down below the wheelhouse in the tiny twin-berthed cabin which lay under the two and a half metres of the foredeck. Here it was stuffy, cosy; blessedly warm.

  ‘Well?’ barked Huuk, sounding, for the first time in their acquaintance, very much like a captain. ‘Was it worth it?’

  Robin looked up a little guiltily from her place in the growing puddle on the cutter’s shallow port-side bunk. ‘No,’ she admitted sheepishly — it sounded more like ‘Doh’ to her — and she sneezed.

  ‘Did you find anything?’ he rasped.

  ‘Doh,’ she lied forlornly and, shivering convulsively, lay back on the pitching bunk.

  After a couple of minutes he eased the sopping shoes off her freezing feet and left her. When she was sure she was alone, she checked that her key pocket, and the precious piece of paper it contained, were dry. By something akin to a miracle they were, so she turned until the pocket was uppermost and curled her shivering body protectively round it.

  Half an hour later someone came into the tiny cabin and solicitously pulled out the damp blanket from beneath her. He then took a warm, dry blanket from the bunk on the opposite side and tenderly tucked it round her. ‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she said, almost sound asleep. She never knew which one of them it was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The ringing of the telephon
e insinuated itself insistently into Robin’s sleeping head but she simply would not wake up. It persisted, however; stridently, commandingly. Unavoidably. She groaned, rolled over reluctantly, and reached for it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Reception here, Captain Mariner. We have a Mr Balfour who insists upon speaking to you.’

  ‘OK, thanks, put him through … No wait. What time is it?’

  ‘Nine a.m., Captain. Shall I put him through now?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Robin? Robin? Are you there?’

  ‘Andrew, this had better be good. I’ve only had, what, six hours’ sleep.’

  ‘It’s good. You’ve got to move like lightning to get everything arranged as you want it. We’re on in two hours’ time, in front of old Morgan again. God alone knows how Commander Lee put it all together in the time. Oh, and it’s Friday. You’ve had nearly thirty hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ she yelled, coming out of the bed as though the duvet was on fire. Her wild movement jerked the phone off the bedside table and sent a silk-shaded lamp flying.

  ‘Robin!’ There was shock bordering on outrage in his tones — but that could have been to do with the volume, not the blasphemy.

  ‘What do I do first?’ She hopped naked around the room trailing the main part of the phone with her to the limit of its cord as she looked for clothes and necessities.

  ‘What we discussed on the way back in from Ping Chau.’

  ‘I know but what do I do first? Come on, Andrew I’ve only been awake five seconds, give me a break here.’

  ‘Get up to Cat Street and pick up the clothes you ordered on Tuesday. The police will allow you a short interview in the courthouse holding cell so that you can hand over his new clothes. Remember, don’t try to give him anything else, and no pointed conversations. They’ll be monitoring things pretty closely.’

  ‘Any recent news? God, Andrew how could you let me sleep a whole day?’

  ‘Nothing new. Calm down, for heaven’s sake. And anyway,’ he added rather huffily, ‘I tried to wake you several times but short of coming in and shaking you till your teeth rattled, I stood no chance. And of course Signor Borelli wasn’t going to let me anywhere near you without your express permission. In triplicate. Countersigned. In blood. My blood.’

  ‘All right, all right, I apologise. I’m sorry.’ She dumped herself on the bed as though her body was a sack of washing. Then she caught sight of what she looked like in the mirror and modified her posture somewhat. ‘So I pick up the clothes from Cat Street and go straight to the courthouse?’

  ‘Yes. Quickly.’

  ‘And they’ll let me in to see him? I won’t need you there?’

  ‘Should be fine. You won’t need me until he comes up into court. Well, not then, really. But we’d better be there. I’ve got Gerry geared up, and young Thong.’

  ‘Look, Andrew,’ she said, watching the whole pink and white expanse of her body tense as she said it, as though she had been suddenly douched with cold water, ‘is there any chance this whole case will just get chucked out of court at this stage? That the prosecution will fall at the first fence and Morgan will throw out the case and let me take Richard home?’

  ‘No,’ said Andrew. ‘There is no chance at all that that will happen. You’ve got more chance of winning the Lottery. Really. Truly. I kid you not. So put it right out of your head and get up to Cat Street.’

  *

  This time Robin did use a taxi, though it might have been just as quick to walk. The cabbie waited cheerfully as she rushed into the tailor’s shop where she had left Richard’s measurements, and then, laden, dashed into the nearby shoe shop where, miracle of miracles in this place, a pair of English size twelve black lace-up shoes awaited her. They were suede, but what did that matter now? Then the cabbie took her straight to the courthouse where she paid him off.

  Feeling out of place with her plastic bags full of shopping, she ran up the steps and into the great cool foyer. She crossed straight to the inquiries desk and crisply stated her business, oozing a confidence she was very far from feeling. An expressionless young police officer regarded her with long, dark eyes, picked up a phone, punched in an extension number and conducted a brief unexpectedly animated conversation, like a robot that had suddenly developed a fault. Then he hung up. ‘You wait a moment, please,’ he said. ‘One come soon.’

  Robin looked around for somewhere to sit but there was nowhere available. The clothes had been folded carefully into the bags and she was unwilling to put them down. She stood, feeling slightly foolish now, as well as out of place. The Chinese policeman looked her up and down, his face as expressionless as an ivory carving. She felt hot, frowsy and dumpy. Foolishly — comically — over-laden and almost slatternly. Apple-cheeked, frowsy and glowing with perspiration. She felt as though she should be blowing up at an errant curl out of the side of her mouth. Letting air out of herself like a slowly deflating balloon. She felt as though she should be adorning some thirties seaside postcard. ‘The Guest Who Omitted To Book Ahead.’ Yes. That was just about her speed today.

  ‘Captain Mariner?’ a soft voice just behind her said. Commander Lee had come himself. In full uniform, complete with swagger stick. There was an air about him of a man about to deal with the most important business imaginable. ‘May I assist?’ he enquired urbanely, the soul of Oriental charm and courtesy.

  ‘No,’ she said gracelessly and stupidly. ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled a minuscule smile and gestured with his left hand, almost — but not quite — bowing. They crossed to a door which led into a corridor not quite wide enough for them to walk down side by side. The door opened inwards and he managed to hold it for her and then to move away so smartly that he was still in the lead. Robin followed him, looking right and left at the series of open-barred doorways into old-fashioned holding cells which resembled something out of a cowboy film. Halfway down, however, there were full doors with sliding panels at eye level. At the first of these Lee stopped and rapped with the end of his swagger stick. The eye hole slammed open and then closed. There came a rattle of keys on the far side. The door opened and a young policeman stood at attention. Lee brushed in past him and Robin followed.

  Richard was sitting at a table, dressed in the ill-fitting clothes he had worn for his first court appearance four days ago. When he saw them, he stood up. In direct opposition to Lee’s almost fussily precise movements, his actions were a slow, almost lazy, unfolding limb by long limb.

  ‘Richard,’ said Robin, still so flustered that she almost forgot the position they were in. ‘I’ve moved heaven and earth to get you these. I hope to God they all fit.’

  She placed the bags on the table before him and he turned the piercing blue-white brightness of his eyes down towards them. How massive his hands were, she thought; but how gentle. He slid the charcoal suit out of its bright bag so gently the tissue paper didn’t even rustle. He lifted out the boat-sized black shoes, tutted quietly to himself and lifted the black cotton roll of the socks. He picked up the white silk of the shirt and shook it with one violent gesture, suddenly, like a bullfighter with a cape. Both Lee and his constable jumped at the movement and Robin suddenly realised how nervous of him they were.

  Naturally, she thought. They believed he had killed forty people late last week.

  ‘I don’t like these,’ said Richard, utterly unexpectedly. He was holding up silk boxer shorts.

  ‘I know, darling,’ answered Robin without thinking. ‘But they didn’t have any Y-fronts in your size.’

  ‘They’ll have to do then,’ he said with resignation.

  Then it hit her. They had just had a perfectly normal conversation. Domestic and personal, but all the more normal for that. ‘Richard,’ she squealed, leaning forward over the table. ‘Richard! It’s me. Robin.’

  With startling speed Commander Lee wrenched her back and she staggered until she collided with the constable by the door, her left hand smashing agonisingly aga
inst the butt of his holstered pistol.

  Everything stopped for a moment. Richard was frozen in place, holding the boxer shorts and staring at them with utter vacancy, his eyes as flat as glass, like doll’s eyes.

  ‘Captain Mariner,’ rasped Commander Lee, no longer quite so urbane.

  Robin looked at her burning hand. The knuckles were skinned and beginning to bleed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and brought the knuckles to her lips. She sucked at the blood thoughtlessly, like a schoolgirl. All of her attention was on Richard. ‘But I … he …’

  Then Richard was in motion again, putting the underwear beside the rest of the clothes and folding himself silently back into the chair.

  ‘I thought he was back. I am sorry. I couldn’t help it. I thought he was better.’

  Commander Lee nodded once. ‘He does that sometimes. Just for a second. Then he’s gone again. The psychiatrist says —’

  ‘He’s seeing a psychiatrist?’

  ‘Of course, Captain. What do you think? The man is unwell, he must be treated; we have a duty of care. And anyway, it is also in our interests that he should get his memory back.’

  ‘But what if he remembers that he had nothing to do with the deaths?’

  Again that minuscule smile. ‘In our experience, when the memory really returns, they all remember that they did the crimes of which they stand accused. That’s always what they were trying to forget, you see.’

  *

  The sole survivor of the stricken Sulu Queen stepped carefully into the silk boxer shorts, his face set like stone. He had forgotten that he did not like boxer shorts, but he was acutely aware that he hated performing intimate functions under the eyes of police guards. He settled the cool silk round his lean waist and crossed to the table, falling into one of those routines so old that it needed no conscious exercise of memory. He unrolled the socks and hopped like an ungainly stork on one leg and then the other as he put them on. The shirt was a joy, loose, billowing and the correct collar size. He would rather have had cotton than silk — now who would have bought him a silk shirt? Still, never mind. He shook out the trousers, stepped into them and pulled them up. He met his first problem as he did them up. They were a good deal too loose for him. He frowned. There were no braces. Now what … After a moment’s hesitation, he took the black tie from the ill-fitting outfit he had just removed and knotted it round his waist. He looked at the guard. ‘Needs must,’ he said. ‘But I look as though I’m off to play cricket.’