Dark Tide

  “Are you kidding? If you know of Fitz, then you know these people aren’t going to lay off just because some nice guy calls them and asks them to.”

  “Yeah, all right!” he said, affronted. “I’m not a complete moron. I just meant—you know—I could do some digging for you.”

  “I somehow doubt that’s going to help,” I said. “But thanks anyway. They might just get bored.”

  “Or they might come along tonight and kill you.”

  “If they were going to do that, they would’ve done it by now,” I said.

  “Yeah, you say that. But they never got their hands on that package of yours, did they?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’d better go,” he said, heading for the steps. “You just shout for me if you need anything.”

  “Are we still going to move the boat?” I said. “How about tomorrow?”

  “Sure, yeah,” he said. He was already at the door, and moments later he’d waved goodbye and disappeared.

  I looked at my phone and thought about calling Jim. I sat in front of the stove for a while, allowing the warmth from it to take the chill out of my bones. I couldn’t stop thinking about Caddy. I kept coming back to Caddy’s last moments, how she must have felt. Had it hurt? Had she had time to feel pain, fear? Had she known she was about to die? And all the time I was so close by—and I’d had no idea she was even there.

  I got to my feet and stretched. Everything felt achy, my neck so stiff I could hardly turn my head. I turned off the lights and locked the wheelhouse door and went to bed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I woke up early and lay still in the graying light from the skylight, wondering what had woken me. And then the scrabble on the deck above, and the cry of a gull, fading as it took off. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t, and the boat felt too quiet to be lying still, waiting for morning.

  I got up, dressed, and lit the woodstove while I was waiting for the kettle to boil, the crackling of the logs keeping me company while I made coffee. I looked for something to eat for breakfast and made a piece of toast with the last of the bread that was on the verge of being stale. I definitely needed to go shopping later.

  I wondered if there was anything I could do to the boat that didn’t involve power tools this early in the morning, and I thought about the black plastic bag full of fabric I’d thrown into the storage compartment when I was tidying up for the party. Maybe I could make some curtains for the portholes, something to cover over those black circles that had never bothered me much before.

  When I finished my coffee, I put the mug in the sink and went to retrieve the bag of fabric. I opened the hatch and in the darkness crawled down the three steps, along the pallets to the bow, until I was sitting next to the box. I pushed the box with my finger. It moved. I pushed it again, and it tilted.

  No, no! That wasn’t right at all.

  Without a second’s thought I grabbed hold of the box and tipped it upside down, the contents spilling all over my lap, over the pallet, some falling through the gap into the smooth curved space of the hull.

  The false bottom of the box came away, and with it—nothing.

  It was gone. The package was gone.

  I pushed the empty box to one side and sat there in the semidarkness, trying to think. My brain felt fried with exhaustion, fear making me irrational. Who had been in here? I tried to think when I’d last checked the hatch before Saturday night—whether I’d actually felt the box or just seen it, like last time when Jim was here, and thought it was fine. It was Thursday, I was pretty sure, and today was Monday, so it might have been empty for several days. Could it have been the police? If they’d found it, why the hell hadn’t they arrested me?

  I crawled out of the bow again and shut the door firmly behind me. I went back to the main cabin, found Dylan’s phone and dialed the number. I didn’t expect it to ring, and I got the same voice telling me that the phone was off. Damn him!

  I paced up and down in the cabin, waiting for dawn, wondering what to do next. Dylan had given me the package to look after, and it was gone. Someone had taken it. Someone had come onto the boat, maybe when I’d been at the police station, or maybe last night when I’d been sleeping, and taken it. I’d let Dylan down. It was all a mess, a complete hideous mess.

  I thought again about phoning Jim, but what would that achieve? I couldn’t tell him the package was missing, because to do so would be to admit to its existence, to implicate myself in whatever it contained.

  I wanted to get off the boat. It was daylight now. I needed fresh air, to be outside in the real world where shitty things like missing packages full of cocaine did not exist. It would be a good idea to go shopping and get some food. I couldn’t live on stale bread forever. Anyway, there was nothing left on the boat that needed my protection.

  I took my jacket and hat and went up to the parking lot. Cameron came out of the office. I didn’t want to talk to him but he waved to me and shouted hello. “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Not bad,” he said. “What’s this Malc was telling me about you going for a trip?”

  “Yeah. I just thought I’d try taking the boat out for a bit.”

  He stood there, a full head taller than me, kicking at a tuft of grass that was growing up through the asphalt. “Just be careful out there, won’t you?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. Malcolm’s going to help me. I wouldn’t go out on my own.”

  “Technically you can’t take the boat out without a license. It’s really easy to run aground,” he said, “especially if the tide’s on the way out. And it’s not easy steering a boat the size of yours. I know Malcolm thinks he knows what he’s doing, but your boat’s fifteen feet longer than his.”

  “Malcolm’s licensed, isn’t he? And he’s taken the Scarisbrick Jean out for trips?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” I said with a smile.

  “No, no,” he said. He looked shifty. “I just—I think you need to be careful, that’s all.”

  “Of Malcolm?”

  Cameron’s cheeks were coloring. “No, Malc’s all right, you know that. He just . . . sometimes he does things without thinking through the consequences. You get my drift?”

  “Would you help me move the boat, then?”

  “If you really wanted to, sure. But I don’t see why you need to go anywhere.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “Really, it’s just because—I don’t know—it seems a bit silly having a boat and never going out on the river. And I want to have a look upstream before the winter comes. That’s why.”

  “Have the police been hassling you?”

  The dramatic change of topic was unsettling. He was standing there with his back to the office door, arms folded across his chest. I wondered what this was leading to.

  “No, not really. Why?”

  “I saw them come to see you, day before yesterday. Those two from London.”

  “Do you know them, then?”

  “No, they called at the office. They were asking after you.”

  I looked at my feet. “They were okay. That body I found—turns out she was from London. They’re doing the investigation.”

  “Right.”

  “Look,” I said, “I’m going to go shopping. Want me to get anything for you?”

  “Just that there’s been a lot of strange things happening since then, hasn’t there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like the cable to the light being cut.”

  I stared at him for a moment. I couldn’t think what to say, and the conversation was taking an awkward turn.

  “Just saying,” he said. “Thanks. Don’t need anything.” He turned and went back into the office.

  I got my bike out of the storage room and pedaled forcefully out of the gate and up the hill.

  The supermarket was just opening, a small crowd of early birds gathered around the entrance, waiting for the shu
tters to rise. I wandered up and down the aisles distractedly, bought the bare minimum of provisions and stuffed my purchases into my backpack.

  When I got back to the marina, it was deserted. The office was closed; even the door to the laundry room, usually hanging ajar, was firmly shut.

  I stepped aboard the Aunty Jean to see if Malcolm and Josie were home, but their hatch was locked. The tide was going out, a dark tide, the brown, silty water caressing the hulls of our boats.

  That was it, then, I was all on my own. I went back to the Revenge of the Tide and stoked the remains of the fire that was smoldering in the stove. While I waited for it to warm up I looked once more for the package. I started in the storage space, with my flashlight this time, opening boxes and moving them methodically from one side to the other, lifting things out of the way, taking it slowly, to make sure—of what? That I hadn’t accidentally misplaced it, that I hadn’t absentmindedly moved it myself?

  It was pointless. The package was gone.

  Nevertheless I kept looking, organizing as I did so, putting things into some kind of order so that when I next came in here I could find what I was looking for. The bag of fabric and the cans of paint near the door mocked me and I decided that it would be better if I just kept busy. My hands were trembling slightly. Not good for sewing: painting was a much better option.

  By the time I’d emerged again, the boat was sitting on the mud. I went to look at the spare room. It was just as I’d left it: two coats of paint. The walls looked pale and almost transparent in the gray afternoon light.

  I got the paint and brushes out of the hatch and levered the lid off the can of paint with my gooey screwdriver. There wasn’t a lot of paint left. Even if the cans claimed to be the same color, on wooden siding like this the slightest variation in shade would show. I would start with the berth; that way if I ran out of paint I could always do the final coat of the walls with a different can and it wouldn’t look as odd as if one wall were a slightly different shade.

  The rest of the can just about lasted for the berth. By the time I’d finished I was wiping the inside of the can with my brush, dragging every last drip of paint from the sides.

  When I was washing the brushes in the galley sink, I heard noises outside. I went up the steps and opened the wheelhouse door. Malcolm was on the deck of the Scarisbrick Jean. He saw me and ducked out of sight. I didn’t have to ask where he’d been. He looked as though he’d had an argument with a lawn mower, his scalp showing pink through the short gray spikes.

  “Malcolm!” I shouted. “I like your hair.”

  His face popped up again and looked so depressed I thought he might actually cry. “Never again,” he said.

  I went down the gangplank and over to the Scarisbrick Jean so I wouldn’t have to shout. He stayed where he was, one foot on the step down into the cabin, right hand on the roof.

  “Is this Josie’s revenge for the fact that you didn’t notice her hair the other day?”

  “Let’s not mention that,” he said. He was gripping the roof of the cabin so hard that his knuckles were white.

  “How is Josie?” I asked. “Does she have a hangover?”

  “Yeah. She’s having a nap.”

  “Oh,” I said. Then I added, “Is everything all right, Malcolm?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  I didn’t believe him.

  “Sounds like you’re a bit busy today, then . . .”

  “I am a bit, yeah.”

  “Maybe we could move the boat tomorrow?”

  “Maybe, yeah.”

  I tried not to look disappointed, but lack of sleep and general misery at the situation was starting to get to me. Malcolm was watching me intently, his body blocking the doorway, his whole bony posture rigid.

  “All right, then,” I said. “Tell Josie I said hi.”

  I left him and went back up the gangplank to the Revenge. When I turned to shut the wheelhouse door, he was still standing exactly as I’d left him, fixed and motionless, staring straight ahead.

  The boat was quiet, and still.

  I went back to washing the brushes, and when they were clean, I stood them on their ends in an empty jam jar to dry. I should really go back to bed, I thought, try to sleep for a little while. I felt numb and empty. I felt as if I were waiting.

  The sound of the cell phone ringing, loud and discordant, made me jump. The phone was on the shelf behind the dinette, under some papers. It took me two rings to find it.

  GARLAND.

  “Hello?”

  “Genevieve?”

  The relief, at hearing his voice. “Yes! Dylan?”

  “Yeah. You need to get out, now. Right now.”

  “What?”

  “Get off the boat. Take your phone. Call Jim—understand?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve been watching you. But they’ve gone, I don’t know how long for. Fitz is on his way to meet them. Get off the boat. NOW!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I grabbed my fleece, the keys, and my two phones. Jumped up the steps to the wheelhouse, locked the door behind me, as if that was going to stop anyone who wanted to get in. I ran across the dock to the storage room and unlocked my bike.

  Pulling it from the rack, I heard sounds from outside. I stopped what I was doing. I hid behind the door of the storage room in case someone was coming inside. Snatches of conversation. Through the crack in the hinge I could see two men standing at the closed door of the office. One of them had a cell phone in his hand.

  I didn’t recognize either of them. They were both wearing jeans, one with a gray sweater, the other with a black leather jacket. Both of them were over six foot and quite wide, with standard “enforcer” haircuts. They were engaged in some fervent conversation that I couldn’t make out. The bigger one, with the leather jacket, seemed to be giving the one in the gray sweater a telling off. In between the verbal assaults and finger-pointing, he would rock back on his heels slightly so he could see around the corner of the office—down toward the water. Toward the Revenge.

  I didn’t hear the phone ring but just then the bigger man held the phone to his ear, ordering the other into silence with a raised finger.

  I held my breath. I still couldn’t hear what he was saying, just the tone of it. Urgent. Angry.

  He ended the call, shaking his head with frustration. The gray sweater was asking him something. More head-shaking.

  Without any further discussion they turned and started to walk away from the office. I shrank back against the wall of the storage room, into the shadows, hoping that they would not hear my breathing, my heart thumping.

  As they passed, I heard one of them say, “He needs to fucking decide, that’s all. I’ve fucking had it with being pissed about . . .”

  And, getting softer as they walked around the side of the building, the other: “. . . been here for days already . . .”

  I stood there for a moment. My legs were shaking, and my hands. I looked around the storage room, which was just as it always was—boxes that belonged to Roger and Sally, a chest freezer, an old tent packed into canvas bags that had been here so long nobody really knew who owned it, and, in the corner, Cameron’s ancient Triumph motorbike—he was supposed to be fixing it, but none of us had ever seen him go near it.

  The familiarity of it all brought reassurance and my legs were starting to feel steadier. I peered through the gap in the hinge of the door—nobody in sight. I couldn’t hear anything other than the distant traffic. I moved to the doorway, then out onto the rough path outside. No one there. The door at the bottom was shut, the office in darkness. Beyond, the boats lay silent, sleeping on their muddy beds.

  The men had gone to the left. I followed them, crept around the corner of the building in case they were just on the other side. Nothing. I went to the corner. The parking lot was empty.

  They had gone.

  I went back to the storage room and got my bike. For a moment it crossed my mind that I could go
back to the boat, collect some clothes and a few other things that I might need. Get off the boat, he’d said. NOW!

  I biked up the hill toward the main road, looking out all the while for the men, for parked cars. But until I got to the road there was nothing, no one.

  I got as far as the castle, the outer wall clad in fiery Virginia creeper like lava pouring from the battlements. I carried my bike up the steps and into the castle grounds, and found a bench. Took both phones out of my pocket. I wanted to call Dylan again, but something told me that his phone would be turned off. Instead, on my phone, I called Jim.

  It took him awhile to answer.

  “Hello, Genevieve.”

  “Hi.” He sounded as if he was still angry with me.

  “Dylan called me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me to get off the boat. He said they were watching me, and that I should get off the boat and call you. So, I’m calling you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Rochester Castle. I’ve got my bike. Can I . . . can I meet you somewhere?”

  There was a pause, a muffled noise as though he was holding the phone against his shoulder.

  “Gen, I’m working; it’s going to be difficult to get away. Are you safe right now? Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

  “I didn’t see anyone. There’s nobody here. Nobody suspicious, anyway,” I said, looking out at the couple walking across the green, pushing a stroller. By the steps to the castle, an elderly couple sitting on a bench. The woman was laughing, clutching her chest. A few students with matching backpacks were sprawled on the grass. I could hear faintly the tinny noise of music, played through a cell phone.

  “I’m going to send someone to get you, all right?”

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m all right here, there’s loads of people,” I said. “Jim, what the fuck’s going on?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Just keep your head down, I’ll get to you as soon as I can. Keep your phone with you. Stay where you can see other people, and, if you need to, call 999. All right?”