Wildtrack

  Angela was pouring herself some Perrier water. For a second I thought she was going to answer, then she gave me a very cold look. "We are, naturally."

  My ribs hurt beneath the bandages. "We?"

  "It's a television production, Mr Sandman. If the programme wants to film the boat's restoration then the programme budget will have to find the funds."

  So Bannister wasn't even paying for Sycorax? He'd towed her ashore, then allowed his Boer brute to strip her of valuables, and the TV company would now pay to put it back together? It was astonishing. It was a venality that even my father would have admired, but not me. "No," I said. "No way."

  "No?" Angela enquired delicately.

  "Bannister wrecked my boat. Bannister can put it back together. Why the hell should I make a spectacle of myself for something he did?"

  "You drink whisky, don't you, Nick?" Angela asked.

  I ignored her attempt at conciliation. "I've spent the last two years running away from publicity. Can you understand that? I don't want to spend the rest of my life being a man who won a medal. I've got other things to do and I want to be left alone. I am not a hero, I'm just a damn fool who got shot. I don't want to be made into something I'm not, I don't want to make money out of something that I didn't deserve, and I'm not doing your film. So take the wretched thing back to London and tell Bannister to send me a big cheque."

  There was silence for a few seconds, then Angela stood and walked to the window. "Look at it this way, love." Her voice dropped nastily on the last word. "You accepted Tony's hospitality. Your boat's on his lawn. The first ten minutes of the film are already shot. Do you think any law court in the land will think you didn't agree to all of that? Or to all of this?" She waved at the lavish room with its sunken pool and electronic gadgets and raised fireplace. "Of course you can fight the case, Mr Sandman. You can claim that you always planned to sue Tony, but that you first decided to rip off his hospitality." She mocked me with a smile. "Do you think you'll win?"

  "He wrecked my boat!"

  "Don't be tedious! He was assured that it was abandoned!" I was beginning to see that this slender and beautiful creature had the sting of a scorpion. She looked at me with derision. "Your wife assured Tony it was abandoned. She assured him personally. Very personally."

  Sod you too, I thought, but didn't say it. I wondered how Melissa and Bannister had met, then supposed it must have been when Bannister wanted to rent the wharf. And how Melissa would have loved to add a celebrity like Bannister to her conquests.

  "Well?" Angela asked coldly.

  "Well what?"

  "What's your answer, Nick?" She used my first name, not in friendliness, but with condescension. When I didn't answer she went back to the table and took a cigarette from Matthew's packet. He lit it for her, and she blew smoke towards me. "We want to make a film, Nick. It will be a very truthful and very meaningful film. It will tell the story of a man who achieved something quite remarkable. It will also tell of triumph over pain, of ambition over despair. It will give new hope to other people who are suffering." Her voice was now sweet reason itself. "At the same time it will give you a peaceful convalescence and a beautifully rebuilt boat. I assume you do want Sycorax rebuilt?"

  "You know damn well I do."

  "Then you should understand that none of the necessary materials for the repair will be delivered until you sign the contract." She stared at me in cool challenge.

  "And we'll pay you an appearance fee," Matthew said encouragingly.

  "Shut up, Matthew." Angela kept her eyes on me.

  I turned and looked at Sycorax. I hated to see her out of the water. "Let me get this straight," I said. "Bannister took my boat out of the water because he thought it was abandoned?"

  "He was told it was abandoned, yes," Angela said.

  "And Melissa rented him the wharf, even though it wasn't hers to rent?"

  "So you say." Angela was guarded.

  "And it was Bannister's thug who beat the crap out of me."

  "That was not on Tony's orders. Fanny believed you were stealing the powerboat, but we agree that he over-reacted."

  "I'd call two fractured ribs an over-reaction, too." My irony was lost on her. "And where is Mulder, anyway?"

  "We really don't know," Angela said. Bannister had promised me he would try and find Mulder, then persuade the South African to return the medal, but there had been no news. Bannister had also tried to persuade me to drop my charges against Mulder, arguing that Fanny would be more likely to reappear if no legal threat loomed, but I had refused. Mulder had wounded Sycorax and myself, and I wanted him nailed.

  But nailing Mulder was a separate business from restoring Sycorax and it seemed, whether I liked it or not, that the only way to achieve that was to co-operate with Angela's bloody film. I said as much, which irritated Angela. "I wouldn't describe it as a bloody film," she said tartly. "It will be a very truthful and very moving human story."

  "What control do I have?"

  She frowned. "Control?"

  "Over untruths. I can't have you saying that I want to go back to the Falklands. It's not that I'm frightened of going, it just doesn't happen to be one of my ambitions. I want to sail to New Zealand."

  "You mean editorial control?" Angela said calmly. "Let me explain. You were clearly a very good soldier, Nick, but you're hardly a trained television producer. You'll have to understand that our skill lies in the shaping and transmission of information. We're very good at it, and we don't surrender the control of those skills to anyone. If we did, then we'd be forced to bend to the whim of any politician or public-relations man who wanted to conceal the truth. And that's what we tell, the truth. So you get no editorial control. You tell us your truth, and we tell it to the world."

  There did not seem to be much to say to that. "I see."

  Angela stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. "So perhaps you'll sign the contracts?" She opened her bag and took out a thick wad of documents. "Head contract." She separated and dropped three copies of each document on to the table as she spoke. "The subcontract with Bannister Productions Ltd, who will actually make the film. An insurance indemnity form. Your undertaking not to talk with any other television company or newspaper while the film's being made. And a medical form." She dropped the last pieces of paper, then held a pen towards me. "Sign wherever I've pencilled a cross, then please initial every separate page of the two contracts."

  I took the pen and sat. I tried to follow the good advice to read whatever I was signing, but the contracts were dense with subparagraphs about syndication rights and credits.

  "They're standard contracts." Angela seemed frustrated by my hesitation. "And I'll leave you copies."

  "Of course," I said. The truth is that I've always found it embarrassing to keep people waiting while I read the small print. It seems so untrusting, and I never understand the legal language anyway. I signed in triplicate, then scribbled my initials on all the separate pages. "Now do I get the timber for Sycorax 's hull?"

  "It will come next week." Angela pushed the documents to Matthew, who witnessed them. "Your first call," she said to me, "is next Tuesday, mid-day. The location will be the town marina. Do you know it?"

  "I grew up in it."

  "And you do understand what you've signed, Captain Sandman?"

  "To make your film," I said.

  "To make yourself available and co-operative for the successful completion of the film." She separated my copies of the documents and handed them to me. "That means I'd appreciate it if you were to always let me know where you are."

  "I'll be in London tomorrow," I said, "to see my children. Is that permitted, ma'am?"

  She ignored my clumsy sarcasm. "I'll see you on Tuesday," she said instead, "when we'll be going to sea. Do you need us to provide waterproofs?"

  "I have my own."

  "I hope our co-operation will be very constructive," she said coldly, "and might I recommend that you watch Tony's show tonight? Matthew and I will see our
selves out. Till Tuesday, Captain Sandman."

  "It's Mister," I said. "I left the Army."

  She paused. Her blue eyes appraised me for a second and did not seem to like what they saw. "Till Tuesday, Nick. Are you ready, Matthew?"

  They left, and I began to understand how General Menendez must have felt in Port Stanley; slashed to bloody ribbons and with nowhere to turn.

  And it was all my own fault.

  I watched The Tony Bannister Show that night. I was hurting. For some reason the pain in my back had decided to tighten and flare, while my right leg, which I kept telling myself was almost healed, felt numb and flaccid. Alone in the lavish house, I felt the temptation of despair; of accepting that I would never walk properly. I swallowed four aspirins that I helped down with two large glasses of Irish whiskey, none of which helped, then I diverted my self-pity by switching on Bannister's programme.

  It was a nightly programme, shown from autumn until spring, and transmitted after the late news. I'd watched more than a few of the programmes since I'd been a guest in Bannister's house, and I hadn't much enjoyed them.

  That night's show was the final programme in the present series. It kept to Bannister's usual formula: a handful of celebrity guests, a rock group and an excited audience. I watched the programme in Bannister's big living-room where I lay on a sofa trying to persuade myself that the weakness of my right leg was only imaginary. I'd left the windows open to air the room of the lingering smell of cigarettes.

  Bannister's first guest was an American actress, then there was a British politician who seemed wittier than most practitioners of the evil trade. I turned the sound down while a rock group caterwauled, then turned it up again for a comedian who rattled off jokes at the speed of a light machine-gun.

  It was a standard kind of television chat show, even an average show, yet there was one very special ingredient—Tony Bannister himself. I didn't need to be an addict of the television to understand that he was very good indeed at his job. He had a natural and immediate charm, a quicksilver wit, and a very reassuring presence that made him an ideal intermediary between the audience and the gilt-edged celebrities that were his guests. He seemed so very trustworthy, which made Angela Westmacott's prickly-sour attitude so puzzling. I warmed to Bannister as I watched him, and was proud that I'd met him. Damn it, I liked him. I noticed how much younger he looked on television. When I'd met him in hospital I'd thought him in his mid-forties, while tonight he looked no older than thirty.

  At the show's end Bannister talked about the films he would be making during the coming summer months. I'd been told he always made films in the warm months, and nearly all the films contributed to his tough-but-tender image. They showed Bannister climbing mountains, or diving to wrecks, or training with the Foreign Legion. This year's films, all of the same ilk, would be dominated by an account of his assault on the St Pierre. He spoke with real dignity of his dead wife, recalling her loss, but promising that this year he would sail Wildtrack to victory in her memory. The screen showed a film of Wildtrack as he spoke. She was a Farley 64, a British-made racing cruiser that appealed to wealthy customers about the world. I'd often sailed by the Farley yard and seen their sleek products being sea-tested. The 64-footer, Farley's largest production model, was a typical modern boat; wedge-shaped, flat-arsed, and with a stabbing fin keel. They were undoubtedly quick, but I wouldn't want to be in one when a real Atlantic storm struck. Give me a deep, heavy boat like Sycorax any day. Sycorax might not be fast, but she was built for the bad seas.

  The picture cut back to Bannister in the studio. "And I'll be making another, and very special, film this summer," he was saying, "a film about bravery and recovery. A film about a man who has modestly refused to make any profit from his hard-won fame." I knew now why Angela had told me to watch this show, and I cringed back in the sofa. "Indeed," Bannister continued, "a man who has so far shunned the limelight, but who has finally agreed to tell his story as an encouragement to anyone else who finds themselves in adversity." The screen showed a photograph of me. I was in uniform, sitting in a wheelchair, and it must have been taken on the day I received the medal. "In the autumn we'll be bringing you the true story of Britain's most reluctant Falklands hero, Captain Nicholas Sandman, VC." The audience applauded.

  Pain scoured my back as I wrenched myself off the sofa to turn the television off. I gasped from the vivid agony, then sat back in sullen silence. God damn it, but why had I agreed to their damned film? Only for Sycorax, of course, but I felt a fool; a damned, damned fool. I could hear the halliards slapping at the masts on the river, and the sound made me fretful and lonely. God damn it, God damn it. I unscrewed the cap of the whiskey bottle.

  The telephone rang suddenly, forcing me to abandon the whiskey to pick up the handset.

  "So that's why you did it?" It was Inspector Harry Abbott chuckling at me.

  I closed my eyes against the sullen and insistent throb of pain in my spine. "Why I did what, Harry?"

  "I told you Bannister looked after his friends, and I suppose you're a friend of the great man's now. Going to be a telly star, are you? But remember what they say about supping with the devil, Nick."

  "What have I done, Harry?"

  He paused, evidently to gauge the innocence of my question. "You've withdrawn your charges against Fanny Mulder, Nick, that's what you've done."

  "I have not!"

  "Then how come that a television company's lawyer has been on the telephone to our office?"

  "Saying what?"

  "Saying you've withdrawn your charges, of course. He's sending the paperwork down to us. He claims he's got your signature, but are you telling me you don't know anything about it?"

  "Bloody hell," I said softly, remembering all the pages I'd signed and initialled, but hadn't read. "I know about it."

  "Long spoon, lad, long spoon." Harry sighed. "Still got your gong, has he?"

  "Yes."

  "If it's any interest to you, Nick, the bugger's staying at Bannister's London house. We think he's been there ever since he raked you over."

  "If you knew that," I said irritably, "why hasn't someone gone to arrest the bastard?"

  Abbott paused. "I told you, Nick, I'm not crime anymore."

  "What are you, Harry?"

  "Goodnight, Nick."

  I put the phone down, then found my copies of the contract documents and, sure enough, there was a clause which said that I unreservedly relinquished any legal claims, actions, or proceedings that might be pending against any member of the production company. I turned yet more pages to find that Francis Mulder was named as boatmaster for the production; responsible for the supply and safe handling of all vessels needed for the filming.

  And all the time Bannister had sworn he did not know where Mulder was. All the time.

  I limped to the window, lurching my weight on to my right leg in an attempt to convince myself that it would not buckle and that I was strong enough to sail alone into emptiness. Once at the window I stared into the night and reflected on the art of committing a reluctant enemy to battle. You sucker them in, offering an easy victory, then you clobber them with all the nasties that you've kept well hidden.

  And I'd just been clobbered. It was easy to find Bannister's London address by going through the papers in his study. I thought of phoning him, but an enemy warned was an enemy prepared.

  Next morning I caught the first London train, but still did not reach Richmond Green until nearly eleven o'clock. I was supposed to collect my children from the tradesmen's entrance of Melissa's Kensington house at mid-day, so I was in a hurry. My back was hurting, but not so badly as on the previous night.

  Perhaps it was the weather that made me feel better, for it was a lovely spring morning, warm and fragrant with blossom. A cherry tree shed petals in the front garden of Bannister's house, which was expensive, and flamboyantly marked as such by the burglar alarm fitted high on its imposing facade. The downstairs windows were all barred and shuttered.

>   I climbed his steps and rang the bell. The milk and newspapers were still on the top step. I rang the bell again, this time holding my finger on the button so that the bell rang insistently.

  I took my finger off when I heard the rattle of bolts and chains. A thin, balding man in black trousers and waistcoat opened the door. He was evidently offended by my behaviour, but I gave him no time to protest. "Is Mr Bannister at home?" I demanded.

  He looked me up and down before answering. I did not look very impressive; I was dressed in old jeans, torn deck-shoes and a frayed shooting jacket. "Mr Bannister is not yet up, sir." He spoke with the haughty reserve of a trained servant and, though he called me 'sir', I saw his hand go towards the alarm system's hidden panic button that would alert the police station that an intruder had bluffed his way past the front door.

  "My name is Captain Nicholas Sandman, VC." I used the full rigmarole and my crispest accent to reassure him, and it must have worked for he took his finger away from the button. "I really came to see Fanny Mulder."

  "Mr Mulder has a private entrance by the garage, sir."

  "I've arrived by this one now," I said, "so send him up to me. Is there somewhere I can wait?"

  "Indeed, sir." He showed me into a lovely high-ceilinged room where he drew back the curtains and unfolded the shutters to let the morning sun stream on to an expensive pale carpet. "I believe Mr Mulder is also still sleeping, sir. Would you like some coffee while you wait?"

  "A large pot of it, please. Milk, no sugar."

  "I shall inform Mr Mulder that you're here, sir." He gave a hint of a bow, and left.

  I waited. The room was beautifully furnished, with a fine Impressionist painting over the mantelpiece and a profusion of watercolour landscapes on the opposite wall. A lovely photograph of Nadeznha Bannister stood on a side table. Behind it, and echoing the array in Bannister's Devon house, was a bank of electronic equipment. In front of the fireplace was an expensive glass-topped coffee table at least twelve feet square. Its smoked glass had prettily bevelled edges. The previous day's paper lay there and I idly read it while I waited for the coffee. The miners' strike was a month old and police and pitmen were fighting pitched battles outside coke depots and coalmines.