Revenge of the Tide

  ‘No. He’s been fine, Malcolm, honest.’

  ‘Maybe you should go and stay with him for a bit, then, till it all quietens down again.’

  ‘I’m not leaving the boat.’

  ‘No one else been around – you know, like before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve not seen anybody,’ he said, quickly.

  I looked at him then, turned my head slowly. He was sitting on the edge of my sofa, hands hanging between his knees. He looked wired. His left knee was jiggling up and down.

  ‘Malcolm?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ He looked almost afraid, just for a moment.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  He looked back at me. There was something in his expression; I should have been able to tell what it was. But I was too tired and too numb to think hard enough about it.

  ‘I just wanted to say thanks, for helping with everything.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  We stood awkwardly in the cabin, Malcolm shifting his weight from one leg to the other. ‘You know I used to live in London,’ he said at last.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.

  ‘Before I met Josie. I lived all over, but for a while I lived in Leytonstone. In a squat. Well, digs. I guess it was a kind of a squat, anyway, since we didn’t pay anyone any rent. But still.’

  ‘What were you doing in London?’ I asked, wondering where this was going.

  ‘Oh, this and that, you know – a bit of construction work, a bit of plastering sometimes when someone would take me on. Just earning enough for beer really. It was alright.’

  He looked at me sideways.

  ‘What is it, Malcolm? What are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, I knew of this Fitz. The one who was your boss at that club.’

  ‘You knew Fitz?’

  ‘I never said that. I said I knew of him. Some blokes I knew from the pub, they was talking about stuff one night, where to score drugs mostly, and they was complaining about the quality of the gear on the streets at the moment, and they said it was because Fitz had moved on to something else.’

  ‘Something else?’

  ‘Like he wasn’t supplying any more. Or he’d moved on to supplying different gear.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, sitting back. ‘Doesn’t mean it was the same Fitz, though.’

  ‘He used to hang around with this guy, Ian Gray. He was a hard bloke, like his protection, you know, his muscle.’

  ‘Gray?’

  ‘Big bloke, tattoo on his neck. He was missing half his earlobe.’

  That was Gray, alright. No wonder Malcolm had been so interested in hearing about life at the Barclay.

  ‘I should have said something earlier,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, you should,’ I said.

  ‘I was thinking – you know – I might be able to call a few people, find out who it is who’s putting the pressure on you. Tell them to lay off.’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding? If you know of Fitz then you know these people aren’t going to lay off just because some nice bloke rings them up and asks them not to.’

  ‘Yeah, all right!’ he said, affronted. ‘I’m not a complete fuckwit. 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 parcel of yours, did they?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said, heading for the steps. ‘You just shout 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 ringing 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.

  Thirty-five

  I woke up early and lay still in the greying 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 woodburner while I was waiting for the kettle to boil, the crackling of the logs keeping me company while I made coffee. I looked doubtfully 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 do some 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 fabrics 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 which 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. KITCHEN STUFF.

  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 bits 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 parcel was gone.

  I pushed the empty box to one side and sat there in the semi-darkness, trying to think. My brain felt fried by all this, 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 saloon, found Dylan’s phone and dialled the number. I didn’t expect it to ring, and I got the same voice telling me that the phone was switched off. Damn him!

  I paced up and down in the cabin, waiting for dawn, wondering what to do next. Dylan had given me the parcel to look after, and it was gone. Someone had taken it. Someone had come on to the boat, maybe when I’d been at the police station, or maybe last night when I’d been hiding, 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 parcel 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, then. It was daylight now. I needed fresh air, to be outside in the real world where shitty things like missing parcels full of cocaine did not exist. It would be a good idea to go shopping and get some food. I couldn’t live off stale bread forever. And there was nothing left on the boat that needed my protection.

  I took my jacket and hat and locked up the boat behind me. When I got to the car park Camero
n came out of the office. I didn’t want to talk to him but he waved at 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 tarmac. ‘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 licence. 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 colouring. ‘No, Malc’s alright, 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 bothered me. 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 get some shopping in. Want me to get anything for you?’

  ‘Just that there’s been a lot of strange things happening since then, haven’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 pedalled 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 shutters to rise. I wandered up and down the aisles distractedly, bought the bare minimum of provisions and stuffed the shopping into my rucksack.

  When I got back to the marina it was deserted. The office was closed; even the door to the laundry, 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, the brown, silty water caressing the hulls of our boats.

  Nothing for 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 smouldering in the woodburner. While I waited for it to warm up I looked for the parcel. I started in the storage space, with my torch 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 – what? That I’d not accidentally misplaced it, that I’d not absent-mindedly moved it myself?

  It was pointless. The parcel was gone.

  Nevertheless I carried on, checking everything and sorting things out 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 tins of paint near the door mocked me and I decided that it would be better if I just got on with things, 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 grey afternoon light.

  I got the paint and brushes out of the hatch and levered the lid off the tin of paint with my gooey screwdriver. There wasn’t a lot of paint left. Even if the tins claimed to be the same colour, on wooden cladding like this the slightest variation in shade would show up. 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 tin and it wouldn’t look as odd as if one wall were a slightly different shade.

  The rest of the tin just about lasted for the berth. By the time I’d finished I was wiping the inside of the tin 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 strimmer, his scalp showing pink through the short grey 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 didn’t need 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. ‘Has she got a hangover?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s having a kip.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Then I added, ‘Is everything alright, 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.

  ‘Alright, 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 was waiting.

  The sound of the mobile 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. Ring 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!’

  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 pontoon 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 mobile phone in his hand.

  I didn’t recognise either of them. They were both wearing jeans, one with a grey fleece, the other with a black leather jacket. Both of them were over six foot, and almost as wide; 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 grey fleece 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 towards the water. Towards 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 grey fleece 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 renovating it, but none of us had ever seen him go near it.