Above and Beyond

Chapter 16

  They arrived in the Republic of the Maldives on a commercial flight, after staging through Singapore, with return tickets dated thirty days hence and a wallet full of US Dollars (both conditions of entry), and found a suitable hotel (‘suitable’ as in expensive, as they were on expenses) with adjacent rooms – David’s idea not Charlie’s – and set about trying to find a needle in a haystack. Our team of experts had been busy contacting every investigative service, marina, hotel and government agency that they could in the Maldivian yellow pages and on the WWW., following the conformation of Shaun and Franklins new Surnames at Dunkerque, and also Halcyon’s new name, Petra, but to no avail. They knew the date that the Petra and the pair had left Port Napoleon, but the search had then gone cold, any colder and they would have been in thermals, but they ‘kept the faith’ and headed for the Maldives, ‘they had acquired one set of forged papers’ Charlie said, ‘why not two’, ‘I have at least six’ he finished with. TMI we all told him.

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning’ David said, after they had settled in and met in the bar half an hour later, ‘where would they arrive, assuming they still had Halcyon?

  ‘At a marina?’ Charlie said stating the obvious.

  ‘Which one?’ David continued.

  ‘Don’t know’.

  ‘If you had unlimited funds and wanted to make an impression – after all I think that they intend to set up home here, they cannot afford to be seen as destitute or furtive’ David added, he had been ‘thinking’ on the plane, as Charlie had snored beside him.

  ‘The most expensive one’ he said, finally seeing where David was heading, so they went over to the reception desk and asked them where it was.

  The young lady pointed out of the glass doors and said ‘that one’, and across the road were hundreds of boats bobbing about in the sunshine.

  They looked at each other and thought, ‘this is to easy’ and they almost ran out of the hotel.

  It wasn’t, they asked everyone that they saw if there was a Folkboat in the marina, and the usual answer was either a blank look or ‘what’s a Folkboat’, then they asked them if they had seen a boat named Petra, again blank looks or ‘no’, so they took to walking the boards, and it was getting very hot.

  Just as they were getting close to collapse they spotted a clinker built boat, but both its hull and coach roof were painted white, and it had an aluminium mast and spar, but it did have a radome three quarters of the way up its mast. They looked at each other, as if to say ‘they could identify virtually any weapon at a hundred paces, but a Folkboat at one, not so sure? They peaked through a clear panel in the white spray dodger that enclosed the cockpit and spotted a myriad of gauges and dials, ‘it was getting better’ they both thought, and then Charlie went to its stern and said ‘what bloody stupid plonkers’.

  David went to see what had caused this unusual profanity to escape from Charlie’s mouth (they were usually unprintable) and there on the stern in beautifully hand painted gold lettering was HALCYON.

  After taking a series of photographs on their phones they sent them off to El Campo and then made their way to the Marina main office to enquire about the boats owners.

  ‘Mr Granger, lovely man – if you know what I mean (nod and a wink), and so’s his friend Frankie’.

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to give us an address or telephone number would you?’ David asked, but unfortunately it was against company policy – ‘more than his job was worth’, ‘but he often saw them coming out of that funny looking building over there’, and snatched the C-note ($100 note) out of David’s hand.

  It was indeed a funny looking building, they both agreed that the owner would have to pay them rent to move into it, but inside the entrance it wasn’t all that bad, ‘quite funky in its own way’, they agreed, although neither of them had any idea what a funky building looked like. They went up to a large polished board that displayed the names of the Companies that the owners had bribed to move in, and surprisingly there were quite a few, along with their floor and office numbers. Nothing caught their eye, no name or Company title gave them even the slightest hint of a connection to Shaun or Franklin, or even the mysterious Mr Granger, and just as they were about start digging deeper Charlie grabbed David’s arm and dragged him behind a potted plant: frantically hoping that David would not get the wrong idea.

  ‘What’s the matter’ David said.

  ‘It’s Shaun’ he whispered ‘he might see us’.

  David gave him one of his ‘dick head’ looks and said ‘he’s never met us, he wouldn’t recognise us if we jumped up and down in front of him’.

  As they watched Shaun escort a client (presumably) to the door, shake his hand and bid him fair-well they realised why the searches had not provided any recent hits, Shaun was now Shaun, short blonde hair and designer stubble and all.

  Shaun headed towards the lift so David followed him, and once inside Shaun pressed the third floor button and politely asked David ‘which floor?’

  Gambling that there was more than one company on the third floor David said ‘same as you’.

  ‘Oh you are coming to see us, are you a new client?’

  David calmly said ‘no, but a friend of mine might be interested, he asked me to call in, as I was in the area, and see if you have any literature about yourselves’, as his sphincter went into spasm.

  ‘Loads’ he said, as the doors glided open, ‘what section is he interested in?’

  ‘I’m not sure’ David said, deciding that saying as little as possible was now his best policy.

  Shaun then went around the rather grand reception area gathering up a small pile of glossy brochures and magazines, and reluctantly a rather crumpled business newspaper, and handed them to David and said ‘there’s a rather nice article about us on page two’.

  It was obviously the last copy that they had of that newspaper so David said ‘would you like me to drop it back when he’s read it?’

  They were now friends for life as Shaun blushed slightly and admitted that it was indeed their last copy, ‘would it be ungracious of me to have it photocopied for you’.

  ‘Not at all’ David said, and Shaun handed the paper to the ‘reception person’ and told him to make a copy of the article. The reception ‘person’ was the only thing slightly out of kilter since they had first seen him in the foyer, but any ‘normal’ visitor would most likely assume that the Company was just a very good ‘equal opportunities employer’.

  Shaun then collected two business cards from the counter, handed them to David and said ‘we usually drop into the Shamrock Bar for a quick snifter before we go home, usually between six and seven, most weekdays, you and your friend are always welcome to join us’ and David felt the kilter, kilt even more.

  When David arrived back in the foyer Charlie asked ‘get anything useful?’

  ‘Everything but his inside leg measurement’ David cheerfully replied, more than pleased with the outcome.

  ‘I think I’ll move rooms’ Charlie thought.

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