The Abigail Affair (16 page)

Toby’s resolve faltered several times as the hours passed, but he did hold out. However, by sunset he was feeling very low. He had managed to fashion a fishing line, but had enjoyed no luck yet in catching anything.

He had willed himself to wait until the huge orb of the setting sun had completely disappeared. Then he had reached for the water bottle and taken three small sips.

The water dampened his lips, but did little to slake his powerful thirst. He could feel the headache coming back, from the heat and associated dehydration. His injuries throbbed and every movement was now painful.

He had tried the phone several times. Once more, he pulled it out and turned it on. Once more, the same infuriating “No Service” message flashed up. He turned the phone off. Best to conserve the battery.

It got dark surprisingly fast. One moment, the sky was an angry red. The next moment, the colour had leached away to be replaced first by navy blue, then grey, then black. A planet shone out from the south. Venus? Saturn? He had paid scant attention during the Introduction to Celestial Navigation. Not that it would have helped him much.

Toby’s bottom ached from the hard wooden seat. He should have made up some sort of sleeping arrangement before dark. It would be harder now.

At least it was cooler.

He groped around and cleared an area in the bottom of the boat as best he could. He shoved aside the plastic bottles and other garbage and balled up some smelly scraps of fishing net to act as a pillow.

He lay down, stretched out gingerly to avoid stubbing his toe again, and amazingly, he was asleep almost immediately.

On the
Surrey,
Captain Gill Boyd took the report. It was a printout from the comms room, time-stamped a few minutes earlier, containing a two-column spreadsheet full of acronyms and numbers, some of them in hexadecimal computer code.

“Cell phone?” Boyd asked.

“Yes, sir. Just over four miles, bearing one-one-five degrees, a very small vessel judging by the reflection, a yacht or fishing boat, no AIS signal obviously, not making way. No lights visible as yet. We only got the phone signal for a moment. Do you think it’s anything to do with the report of the explosion?”

“No. It was a bigger yacht that called that in. This is probably just some fisherman trying to call home, or some solo yachtie after a chat line to while away the dog watch. Although, whoever it is should know he’s well out of cell phone range here. And if he was in distress, surely he’d use his VHF, and we’ve heard nothing on that.”

“I agree, sir. It’s probably nothing. It’s just that with His Royal Highness aboard, I thought you should know.”

He looked Boyd in the eye.

Gill Boyd inclined his head almost imperceptibly to show he understood.

“Want me to run the IMEI?” the shorter officer continued. “Plus, we can watch if he turns it on again, and if so, send him our handshake and chat to him.”

“No to both. The trace takes too long. And if we talk to him and he’s any sort of bad guy, we’ve blown our cover. I agree with you—it’s unusual enough that we should be cautious. Let’s drop a boat and go pay our mystery cell phone owner a surprise visit. Just watch in the meantime. And listen.”

Toby woke from a dreamless sleep feeling stiff and surprisingly chilly. It was still dark. No—wait—there was light in the sky. Had he managed to sleep for twelve hours? He shifted awkwardly and brought his wristwatch up to his face, extricated his other hand from beneath him, and pressed the backlight button.

It read 7:25pm.

That didn’t seem likely either—that meant only an hour or so had elapsed. It wouldn’t be getting light. Maybe the gleam was the remnants of the sunset, refracted from under the horizon in some way. No—that was nonsense and even Toby knew it.

He struggled to a sitting position in the bottom of the boat. It was perfectly calm—he might have been on a boating lake. The sky had clouded over since he fell asleep and there was no moonlight, yet light glinted off the surface of the sea.

Instantly fully awake, he twisted his head around. Behind him was a small spark of light, near the water. He watched. It disappeared, and then reappeared in a different spot in the ocean. A light, on a vessel of some sort.

A small one, to judge from its speed. A fishing boat, most likely.

They wouldn’t see him!

Toby cursed himself for not having rigged up the radar reflector before collapsing into sleep. Now it would be very difficult and probably too late, even if the little boat out there had radar.

He looked all around, and with a start, saw that there was a much larger ship also visible. Two masthead lights … and a green light … the colours were quite clear and the three lights were quite distinct, so that meant the ship was no more than a mile or two away. And that one had to have a big radar! It was huge!

Toby’s heart started to thump. He was about to be rescued. Maybe the small light was a search tender from the larger ship!

He jumped up and winced as his toe caught a rib in the bottom of the boat. He raised his arms high above his head and shouted: “Here! Help! Over here!” in the general direction of the small light. It might not make any difference, but it made him feel better.

As if to confirm this, he noticed the flashing light appear to come closer to him once more. Yes—surely—the searchlight or whatever was now visible for most of the time, not disappearing behind waves.

The light grew in intensity until it was a sharp pinprick heading his way. In another moment, he heard a vibration, then a hum. The sound gradually coalesced into an engine note.

Toby waved again. The searchlight approached. The engine note grew to a buzz.

Then things started to happen quite quickly.

A dark shape appeared underneath the light, which grew ever brighter and now dazzled Toby if he looked directly at it.

It was a fast tender. A minute later, and with a roar of its outboard engine, it was alongside Toby’s boat.

“Hello mate! Speak English?” A cheery East London Cockney voice.

“Yes—I’m English—thank God you found me!” The owner of the voice wore a short-sleeved blue shirt with epaulettes and a hard hat like a motor biker’s. The two other men in the tender were similarly kitted out. One sat at the wheel, and one manned the searchlight, mounted on a gantry. All three had automatic weapons slung from their shoulders.

The Cockney said, “Just when you need them—the bleedin’ Royal Navy!”

Toby gasped with relief. “You’re Navy? And that’s your ship over there?”

“Right on both counts, laddie. And who might you be, and what are you doing out here? A spot of night fishing?”

“I’m Toby Robinson. Can I have some water, please? I’m parched,” Toby said.

“Raise your hands, please.”

Toby complied.

The man leaned over and quickly frisked Toby. He found the cell phone and took it. “I’ll look after this wee phone for a while. Date of birth?”

Toby reeled off his date of birth. He felt suddenly naked without his loan phone, even though he had yet to make any use of it. Seemingly satisfied, the Cockney reached down, came up with a chilled litre bottle of mineral water and handed it over the gunwhale.

Toby cracked open the screw top and glugged gratefully. He had never tasted a better drink in his life.

“Steady on, laddie, don’t choke yourself,” the Cockney said. “That’s enough for now.”

Behind the seaman, the pilot of the tender was talking on the VHF to the ship. “Yes, Captain, we have a local fishing boat with a white youth in it. British he says. Alone and unarmed. Gives the name of Toby Robinson. Date of birth …”

While the man on the wheel talked, the Cockney seaman produced a rope and quickly tied the two boats together, winding his line around the crude rowlock sticks on Toby’s boat. Now the two boats wouldn’t drift apart.

Cockney then clambered over into Toby’s boat. The man on the searchlight angled his beam down into the boat and swept the light from end to end of the pirogue.

“This your boat?” asked the seaman.

“No,” Toby said.

“What are you doing in it, then?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You’d better save it for the captain.”

Cockney began a methodical search. He rooted around in the garbage, and shoved bits of gear aside.

“Looks clean, George,” he called to the boat pilot. “Chuck us the Coke-ometer and let’s be sure.”

The boat’s pilot passed over an aluminium box with handles. Cockney put the box on the seat, opened it, took out some latex gloves, and put them on. Then he produced what looked like a hand-held car vacuum cleaner, but with a long, narrow nozzle similar to a tyre-inflation compressor. He turned the device on and passed it around the pirogue. The thing produced a low-pitched tone.

Cockney scrambled to the stern end and continued his sweep. “Detects one molecule, this baby does,” he said to Toby.

Seemingly satisfied, he called to the boat pilot over the burbling noise of the idling outboard. “Boat still seems clean, George.”

“Try the boy,” George said.

“Hands up in front of you, please, Toby,” Cockney said. Again, Toby complied.

The man produced a cotton wool pad and a pair of tweezers. He rubbed the cotton wool over the back of Toby’s hands, then his face and neck. He tweezered the pad into a little compartment on the top of his device and punched buttons.

Immediately, the tone on the device changed and rose in pitch to an angry whine.

“What’s that mean?” Toby asked.

“Well, if we don’t have some kisses and hugs here. Arms down and behind your back, laddie. That’s a good boy. Bloody hell, I knew you was fishy in some way. Now they’re sending posh English boys out to do their stuff. Who’d believe it?” Before Toby could even open his mouth to protest, the seaman produced a pair of handcuffs from somewhere in his uniform trousers. He reached down behind Toby’s back, seized his wrists and slapped on the cuffs.

“What’s happening?” Toby cried. “I’m not a criminal. I’ve been abandoned. What are you talking about—kisses and hugs?”

“Kisses and hugs. Persian rugs. Spark plugs. Drugs. What did you do—try to keep a few baggies for yourself? Then they cast you adrift?”

“No. What are you talking about?”

“You’ve got cocaine traces on the skin around your neck. You’re under arrest on suspicion of drug trafficking. We’re taking you back to the ship. You’re in big trouble.”

Chapter 15

Toby couldn’t believe it. “Cocaine? That’s impossible. I don’t use the stuff.” But the moment he spoke these words, he realised what had happened. The coke he had found and opened in the cool room aboard the
Amelia
that morning had got on to his skin in enough quantity to trigger the sensitive detector.

“Hold on—I know what happened!” he cried. “Let me explain!”

“Got your memory back? You’ll have all the time in the world to explain once you’re on board,” Cockney said. “Now sit down there where I can see you.”

With a heavy heart, Toby sat down again. The pilot put his engine into gear and the two boats began to move, lashed side by side.

They headed slowly towards the lights of the big ship.

“Can you just call my parents and tell them I’m OK?” Toby said to his captor.

“Shut it,” Cockney said.

The youthful-looking captain got up from his seat, paced around the room and returned to the table. He leaned over and put his face up close to Toby’s, so close that Toby went cross-eyed trying to keep him in focus. In a quiet, refined voice, the captain said, “You’re not making any sense. Start from the beginning, tell me who you are, what you were doing alone at night in a local fishing boat, and why you have cocaine on your skin. You’re not going anywhere until you’ve told me the truth. I have all the rest of the night and tomorrow, too, if necessary. When you’ve told me everything nice and simply so I can understand it in my little captain’s bird brain, I will get you a hot cup of coffee and something to eat. Fair deal?”

They were aboard the
Surrey
in a cabin that served as an interview room and holding cell. Fluorescent strip lights glared from overhead. The only furniture was a metal cupboard, a metal table bolted to the floor and two folding chairs.

It had taken maybe fifteen minutes to get back to the main ship with the pirogue alongside in tow. They had taken Toby’s handcuffs off just long enough for him to climb barefoot up a perilous ladder from the sea to the deck of the destroyer. Once on board, they had slapped the handcuffs back on him and frogmarched him to this room. There they had left him, cooling his heels for four long anxious hours, while they “ran checks on him,” as they had put it.

“I told you everything I know already,” Toby said. “I demand a lawyer.”

“No lawyer on the crew, I’m afraid. Not even a full-time chaplain. Defence cuts, you know,” Captain Gill Boyd said. To Toby’s eye, the captain’s uniform was surprisingly casual for the commanding officer of such a large ship. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, open at the neck, with captain’s shoulder insignia. And he seemed so young, too—apparently not much older than Toby.

But his manner was anything but casual.

This was a mega interrogation.

“I know you told me, but do it again. And try to be consistent this time. If you tell the truth, that will help, because you won’t have to remember the lies you told me last time.”

“I’m not a liar and I’m not a druggie,” Toby said. “This is how it was. I am a deckhand on a Russian-owned mega yacht.”

“The
Amelia V
,” said Captain Boyd. “You entered St Helen’s, joined the ship as crew, and it set sail yesterday.”

“I was trying to find the laundry when I discovered the galley cold room door open. I went in to see what was happening.”

“Was that your duty?”

“Well, strictly, I was on cleaning turn, but I had been warned to keep a look-out for intruders on the yacht when I was on watch, so it seemed sensible to check that no one had got on board and stowed away. In any event, the door should not have been open, so I needed to close it to keep the cold in. And I wanted to check that no one was inside.”