Knife Edge (2004)

by Reeman, Douglas

  He tried again. There was something hanging below the poop, reaching down into the water, fabric, but loose, not sailcloth or a displaced awning. And it was moving, lengthening, tugging in the backwash from one of the screws.

  He felt the helm going over, knew the Chief was saying something to one of the hands. But he could not move. For just a few seconds there was enough light left for him to see that the trailing thing was coloured, shining on and below the choppy water like blood.

  “Chief! Belay that order! Put her alongside the junk!”

  The Chief was beside him now, and he heard Boyes exclaim, “Must be some of ’is cargo, sir! Some tailor’s going to be cheesed off about this!”

  Ross unclenched his fists, slowly, his eyes never leaving the other vessel’s fading shadow.

  “Go alongside, Chief. Now.” He moved across the grating, holding on to the image in his mind.

  The Chief had said something about R/T contact with the harbour police. It meant nothing.

  “Do you have any weapons aboard?”

  Feet thudded on the deck planking, voices hissed orders and silenced questions. The Chief said, “I’ve a Smith and Wesson in the cabin, sir.”

  “Get it.” He looked at Boyes’ figure, pale against the dark backdrop.

  The Chief was back, handing his revolver to Boyes without a word.

  Ross said, “When you’re ready, Chief.” He gripped the handrail. So tightly that he felt as if he might never let go. What was it? Instinct, fear, or some unspoken warning?

  It was now.

  “Hard a-starboard! Fenders out port side! Hold on, lads!”

  The old launch seemed to come alive across the narrowing arrowhead of surging, trapped water. Small, blurred pictures stood out in the enclosing darkness. Seamen clinging to anything that was fixed down, one man seizing a boathook and pointing it at the looming shape as the boat squealed alongside, the motor tyres taking the full impact even as the engines went full astern, and then stopped.

  It was as if all other sounds had been blotted out, the harbour and its lights beyond reach, meaningless.

  Ross jumped from the launch and found himself clinging to wire rigging, broken strands tearing his skin, one of his feet kicking out to avoid being crushed as the two hulls sidled and groaned together again.

  He heard the sudden roar of high-powered engines, felt the junk shudder to the burst of power, and knew that another craft had been tied alongside, biding its time, invisible to the launch . . . until what?

  But all he could hear was the scream. Close enough to feel it. Like a tortured animal caught in a trap.

  It stopped just as abruptly. But he could still hear it.

  He was on the deck, unfamiliar objects catching his feet. There was the compass light, the tiller moving aimlessly, abandoned. His chest was aching, as if his lungs would burst, and he could feel blood on his hands, and on his face where he had tried to push the hair out of his eyes.

  He heard the clink of metal and Boyes’ hard breathing close beside him, his voice harsh but steady.

  “I’ll cover you, sir! I think the bastards have done a runner!”

  The deck lurched again as the two hulls came together in a deep trough. But others were following, and a grapnel clattered over the junk’s bulwark before gripping and taking the strain. A light flashed from a low door beneath the poop as it swung open and shut to the sickening movement.

  He knew some one had grabbed the tiller, and that the junk’s engines had taken on an even beat. He heard the Chief shouting to his men; the sound of the high-powered boat had gone, as if he had imagined it. But the scream still scraped at his mind, like a memory. A threat.

  He reached the door even as it swung open again. A heavy torch was rolling from side to side with the motion, its beam picking out items of scattered clothing, and a splash of scarlet where the inboard end of the material had snared on the edge of a square port.

  The torch rolled across the deck again and Ross swung on his heel, his arms outstretched like a wrestler caught off balance.

  Only seconds, but it was as if time had lost all meaning. Like the scream. A pair of eyes were fixed and staring directly at him, into his face, until the beam swung over again, cutting off the stare. The door creaked again and he tried to lick his lips, to recover his wits, yell out to Ted Boyes.

  But he could not move. Not shock, not fear. Like something in the past. The instructor’s voice on a battle course he had done. Even that would not register, only the voice. Not the time to relax and pat yourself on the back, Mister Blackwood! It’s now!

  He sensed it, and his body braced, poised for the blow, the agonizing thrust of a blade. Even as he turned he felt the arm around his head, rough clothing scraping his skin, his throat. He let his knee take the strain, then as he swung round he drove his elbow into the other man’s belly. They were on the deck, the flashlight’s beam following them like a spectator as he found a wrist and twisted it with all his strength, turning his attacker on to his face, sitting astride him, hearing him gasp with pain as his arm almost broke under the pressure.

  That same voice from the past. Like a madness. Remember, Mister Blackwood, it’s him or you! Give it all you’ve got!

  He heard the knife bounce across the deck, saw it reflecting the flashlight’s beam. But the light was steady now, gripped in somebody’s hand.

  He saw the pistol cocked and steady as Boyes pressed it into the man’s skull.

  “Just move, matey, and they’ll have to scrape your brains off the carpet!”

  The small cabin space was suddenly full of people. The man who had tried to knife him was being dragged away, with a few blows and kicks as he was moved. The Chief was here too, watching Boyes help Ross to a chair. It could have been anything.

  “You took a bit of a chance just then.” He beckoned to one of his men. “Sir?”

  Ross touched his face and neck. Feeling the grip, the pure hate. Some one was covering up the corpse, hiding the staring, accusing eyes. The one who had risked everything to warn them, and had paid for it in that last scream.

  The Chief said, “That’s Johnny Cheung’s son. He was training him to take over the business one day.”

  He reached out to take a mug from the hovering seaman. “Drink this.”

  It was not Tiger beer, and Ross thought of Houston’s casual warnings. The unseen dangers.

  He heard the whine of sirens. The harbour police were here; routine would take over now.

  Boyes also had a mug in his hand. In the other he was still holding the Chief’s Smith and Wesson, dangling it by its trigger guard like a toy.

  He raised his mug.

  “’Ere we go then, sir! Kung Hei Fat Choy!”

  Happy New Year.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “This is a bloody cheerful spot to be spending the New Year, I don’t think!”

  Ross Blackwood glanced at his companion and smiled. Acting-Captain John Irwin had never been slow to speak his mind. And he was no longer ‘acting’; his promotion had just been confirmed in orders. It was almost impossible to guess his feelings. Alert, restless, hardly ever still, except when the situation demanded it. A man who had been taught the hard way how to survive, how to win.

  When they had been on a training course together, a refresher, the brass termed it, he had got to know Irwin reasonably well. Better than most, it seemed. He had been in the Royal Marines since boyhood. His mother had been killed during one of the last hit-and-run air raids in the war, and his father had moved to Deal to become a school caretaker. A day hardly passed there when you did not see the Royals, recruits as well as old sweats, parading or drilling for one ceremony or another. Coming up through the ranks was a rough passage at the best of times, and Irwin had made it. At the spearhead of the Port Said invasion, and in the thick of the bloody fighting in Borneo and Malaya, he had earned his third pip the hardest way imaginable.

  In his thirties, lean and straight-backed, as if everything superfluous in body
and manner had been honed away, he was old for his rank, and often abrupt, even impatient, with subordinates. A man you would follow to hell and back.

  But know him? That was something else.

  Ross looked around the box-like room, everything brilliant white and antiseptically new. It was a miniature medical clinic adjoining the naval sick quarters, but so isolated that it could have been part of a prison. An orderly had accompanied them from the main reception centre, saying nothing until they had reached the door to this room.

  Irwin had remarked, “He’d look more at home with a bunch of keys at his belt!”

  He touched the bandage and dressing around his right hand. Even that was like part of a dream. He winced. Nightmare, more like. He must have been asked the same things over and over again. Shown pencilled diagrams, photographs, while in his mind he had held the unreal memory of the staring, accusing eyes in the flashlight’s glare, the feel and smell of his attacker. The pain. Houston had been at every interview, interrogation would be a better description, but he had said surprisingly little, except to fire a brief question or jot down a note. The police had been there, and Ross had made a full statement to one senior officer who had asked several questions about the actual boarding of the junk, the state of the cargo, if any, and the man who had died trying to signal for help.

  And the New Year celebrations continued. A part of life. The grand fireworks display, dragon dancers, jugglers, and flowers everywhere. He would have to stop making comparisons with England in winter. Or Hawks Hill . . .

  “Must be off, old chap.” Irwin was looking at the door. “You’ve got the doctor coming to see you. Then a senior copper to bring your statement. Otherwise . . .”

  Otherwise. That said it all. Irwin was not one to celebrate his confirmed promotion, probably his last in the Corps, with others still in the mess because of duty, or merely because they were broke. He would do it alone. Or with some one who would never become too close.

  He said, “You’ve bloody earned it, John.” He thrust out his hand. Tomorrow it would be sir. This was now.

  Irwin grinned. “Other hand, Ross.” They both looked at the bandages.

  One policeman had commented that it was probably just some private feud. All blow over before you know it. Another had said, “There are more we never hear of until they’re washed up with their throats cut.” And so on.

  The door closed. He sat on one of the hard, white-painted chairs and loosened his shirt in the air conditioning.

  He felt his back rub against the other dressing. Always a reminder, if he needed it. All blow over before you know it. It must have happened in those few seconds of desperate madness, the knife twisting from his attacker’s hand, glinting briefly in the beam of the flashlight. And he had felt nothing. He recalled the bearded chief petty officer opening a first aid box and saying, “’Nother inch, sir, and you’d have known all about it!”

  Sergeant Ted Boyes, who had been interrogated separately, had exploded, “I should’ve given the little bastard the one up the spout at the time!”

  He did not hear the door open or close, and looked up, half startled. Like guilt.

  She was tall, and, like the room, all in white. It was not a uniform but an open-necked shirt or blouse, and white slacks. Her face and arms were so deeply tanned that for a moment he thought she was a local woman; in the overhead lights her hair was almost black.

  She held out one hand.

  “Don’t get up, please. I’m sorry I’m a bit late. You know how it is.”

  Ross was already on his feet. Beautiful, striking, with high cheekbones, and level dark eyes meeting his.

  She smiled.

  “You’ll know me if we meet again, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m sorry. I was expecting . . .”

  “I know. It happens. Especially in this place.”

  Something in her voice. Not so much an accent as a lilt. Like one of Sue’s friends. Welsh, he thought.

  She was saying, “I help out here sometimes. Keeps me occupied. I used to be a nurse.” The smile was warm, unaffected. “Bit like being a copper, isn’t it? You never really stop being one.”

  They both turned as a telephone jangled noisily.

  She said, “Bloody hell,” then tugged open a drawer to reveal the instrument.

  Ross watched her, as if she were another part of this feverish dream.

  She said, “No, I can’t. I told you.”

  He could just hear the other voice, male, insistent. Perhaps she was going to a party, too. With a table light behind her, he could see the outline of her body, her breast beneath the shirt as she laughed shortly at something the caller had said.

  “Oh, all right. But only a minute. I mean it!”

  She looked at him across the room. “Won’t be long. Get your shirt off. Toilet’s through there if you need it.”

  He sat down again and obediently began to unbutton his shirt. Matter of fact. In charge. He saw his reflection in a mirror and smiled. What had he expected?

  He heard her voice, then that of a man. The caller.

  She was laughing, then she said, “That’s enough, Andy. You know what I told you.”

  Ross felt the air conditioning like cool breath on his bare shoulders, and saw the door swing inward a few inches under the sudden pressure. She stood with her back turned in the outer room, which was more of a hanging space for hospital clothing. It was enough to reveal that the caller was a naval officer, a lieutenant-commander, the red cloth between his gold rings showing him to be a doctor, probably a surgeon, with that rank.

  “You’ve had too much to drink, Andy. That’s you all over, isn’t it?” Very calm. Unworried.

  Ross saw the man’s hand circle her waist, and in the corridor light the gap between her shirt and slacks, the tanned skin shining.

  She said, “All right, for New Year, then.” They were kissing, and the hand was now hidden under the white shirt.

  Ross stood up and collided with the chair, and swore.

  The door clicked shut and she stood looking at him, her face composed, the suggestion of a smile on her lips. Her shirt was back in position, but her breathing was a little less than calm.

  “Coming to my rescue, Lieutenant? No need. New Year is an excuse for anything, as you’ll discover if you stay here long enough.” She was taking out a pair of surgical gloves. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I saw it in your face just now. It’s rare enough these days. I was touched.”

  He could not see the expression in her eyes as she gripped his hand and held it under the light. “That was the first thing I learned in hospital. If they know you’re a nurse, they think you’re anybody’s.” The scissors clipped away at the dressing, her fingers very steady, and strong.

  He heard himself ask, “What hospital?”

  “Eventually, Homerton.” The eyes flicked up. “I see you’ve no idea where that is.” She laid a piece of stained dressing on the tray. “It’s in London. The East End.”

  She moved behind him, one hand on his shoulder, and he felt her hair brush his skin.

  “This will sting a little.”

  The plaster tugged for a second and he knew she was dusting the long, fine wound with something on a wad of cotton.

  “You can put your shirt back on now. You’ve got a visitor coming soon . . . You must be fed up with it, after all you’ve had to go through.”

  Snap, snap. The two gloves were in a bin. The moment was over.

  He saw her fingers buttoning his shirt.

  “Here. Let me.”

  She stood back and unfastened the top of her shirt, and he saw the fine chain around her neck. On it was suspended a plain gold ring.

  She said, “Gets in the way sometimes in this job.” She moved her head slightly. “That’s the lift coming up. Your next visitor.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Thank you for what you tried to do, for what you thought. It was only New Year, you see.” And smiled. “I know your name.” She looked at
the door. “Mine’s Glynis.” Then she faced him again, her eyes very steady. “New Year, Ross. Remember?”

  He did not recall moving. It seemed so natural, so right. As if there was no control.

  She was tall; their mouths were almost level.

  He kissed her, and could feel her body against his.

  She twisted her face round, her lips parted. “No, Ross, a proper kiss!”

  There was a tap at the door; the same orderly was there, and this time he was actually carrying some keys.

  She turned away from the cupboard, although Ross had not felt her move. In his mind she was still pressed against him, her tongue seeking his.

  She was saying, “Here he is, Lieutenant.”

  One of the faces he had seen at the meetings. A senior police officer. The questions . . .

  “I don’t have to introduce you, do I? This is Chief Inspector Diamond. My husband.”

  Major Keith Houston was warming to his subject.

  “The results have been far better than I dared to hope.” He put a paperweight on one corner of a map as the overhead fan suddenly speeded up and scattered some of his papers. “Thanks to you and your swift, if unorthodox, handling of the situation.” He looked directly at Ross. “And how are the cuts and bruises? All fixed?”

  He did not wait for an answer; he rarely seemed to. “The Big White Chief is pleased. ‘Operation Ratcatcher’, he’s christened it!”

  Ross tried to relax. It was the same spacious office, with its maps and files full of signals. The same wide window, the midday sun on the harbour gleaming like copper. Alive and full of movement: coasters and ancient tramp steamers, a small cruise ship moored on the Kowloon side, vessels loading and unloading. As he had first seen it, and yet so different. Now.

  Captain John Irwin sat in another chair, engrossed in some notes, and comparing them with something he had just written.

  No sign of fatigue or excitement. Yesterday had been his big night out. How could he switch off so easily?

  Houston was saying, “The chap you caught, Ross, was known to the police both here and in Singapore. A link they’ve been looking for. I expect Chief Inspector Diamond told you.” And smiled, almost triumphantly. “I can see from your face, he did not. A close one, is Jock Diamond!”