Under Suspicion (23 page)

The huge orange ball of the setting sun hesitated on the horizon as if reluctant to slide into the dark waters on the edge of the world. In the Alhambra’s Café Bar Oasis, the curved glass of the cupola flamed a molten copper, antiquing the fronds of the palms a dull mud-green. From the songbirds’ gilded cage burst a crescendo of twittering, strident above the murmur of conversation and slow tinkling notes of the piano. In a quiet corner, Victoria Knight pensively turned the fragile stem of the sherry glass in her plump fingers.

From behind the sharply pleated blue-green fronds of a particularly fine dwarf fan palm, Charlie watched her once again raise the glass to her lips, once again
hesitate and set the drink down untouched. Charlie’s eyes narrowed. Never ignore placid middle-aged ladies behaving abnormally. Great oaks from little acorns grow. She owed her impressive record to picking up on little things like that. As if coming to a decision, Victoria reached down for her handbag and moved purposefully towards the foyer. Seconds later Charlie followed…

Two men and a woman in evening dress were standing near the lifts. An English voice, arrogantly self-assured trumpeted, ‘All set then?’

‘Fiona’s just coming. You know her. Takes a bloody hour to fix her hair.’ A loud braying laugh. ‘We’ll be up the creek if the show starts on time.’

Victoria Knight was standing beside the desk in the Exclusive pavilion tent, tugging at the locked drawer. Thwarted, her hand fell away. She straightened, looking around helplessly.

Get the approach right, Charlie thought, as she dodged round the southern counties threesome.

‘Mrs Knight, isn’t it?’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m a colleague of Deborah’s. We work together at Extreme Travel. Waiting for her, are you?’

‘That’s just it. She
should
be here. I’ve been looking out for her for two hours.’ Her fingers plucked anxiously at the buttons of her cardigan. ‘That’s why I thought if I could get hold of her travel agency’s phone number…find out if she’d been held up there…’ Her eyes scanned the foyer. ‘You see, today’s Farewell
Outing was a trip on
Samarkand Princess
. When she missed lunch, I asked where she was, and Mr Vanheusen said she had decided to windsurf back… and…and…’ Her voice tailed off. ‘I’m
so
worried. You see, she’d
never
have gone off like that, without a word to Herbie and me.’

Alarm bells rang. ‘Let me get this straight. Deborah went off windsurfing, abandoning you and – er, Herbie, on Vanheusen’s yacht? Can you go over exactly what happened?’

Her plump fingers plucked at the soft wool of the cashmere cardigan. ‘Now, let’s see. I was in the Grecian Temple Spa, trying out of one those state-of-the-art Jacuzzis with different programmes – just like a fancy washing machine. You get a wonderful view of the waves, you know, through these huge windows, but they must take an awful lot of cleaning. Of course, I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on outside, but I do seem to remember seeing two sails dashing about.’

‘
Two
sails?’

‘Yes, Deborah and Mr Vanheusen. Now let me get it right…’ Victoria closed her eyes for a moment in concentration. ‘She didn’t turn up for lunch, as I said. And when I asked where she was, he said they’d gone out together windsurfing, and she’d been enjoying herself so much that she’d decided to sail – I think that’s the right word – all the way back to Los Cristianos. I assumed she’d be joining up with
us again at the harbour, didn’t think anything of it, until we arrived back, and she wasn’t there to meet us. I said to Mr Vanheusen, “Oh dear, perhaps she’s had an accident”, but he only laughed and said, “No, no, of course not. With that wind behind her, she’ll have got in hours ago, while we were still having lunch. Be back home now with her feet up. Anyway, she’s wearing a transponder” – he explained it’s a sort of radio device that sends out a distress signal – and
Samarkand Princess
would have picked it up if anything had happened.’

Nice one, Ambrose. Charlie could recognise a tall story even in fancy packaging. She fished in her pocket for her mobile phone.

Victoria Knight dropped her voice still further. ‘Keep it between ourselves, dear, but Herbie’s a touch self-centred. He moaned on about being left in the lurch, and hoping it wouldn’t be the same dereliction of duty tomorrow when she was due to take him to the airport. And Mr Vanheusen clapped him on the shoulder and said not to worry, that Monique would be taking him.’

Tying the bow on the fancy package, eh, Ambrose? It didn’t look good for DJ. Charlie’s fingers closed round the phone in her pocket.

‘Well, that satisfied Herbie. But I know Deborah would never let him leave without a word. She’d be here by now to say goodbye. And then…and then… just a few minutes ago, I had this
awful
thought.’
Victoria subsided suddenly into the carved wooden chair. ‘
Clothes
.’

‘Clothes?’ Charlie frowned. Her fingers relaxed their grip and the phone slid back into her pocket. The woman had seemed rational, but…

As if sensing that Charlie was measuring her for a straitjacket, Victoria leant forward, her words tumbling over each other in an effort to convince. ‘She wouldn’t have been windsurfing in that nice little outfit she was wearing, would she? She’d be wearing a swimming cozzie or one of these black rubbery suits. And she wouldn’t go off home in
that
. She’d want to change back into her own clothes, so she’d have had to wait for us.’ Victoria put her hand on Charlie’s arm, eyes pleading. ‘You do see what I mean, don’t you, dear?’

Indeed Charlie did. She pulled the phone from her pocket. ‘I think you’re right. But I’ll try giving her a ring at home, just in case…’

She punched in the number… ‘No reply.’ She gnawed thoughtfully at her lip. ‘I’ll try Extreme Travel… Hi, Jayne, it’s Charlie. I’m at the Alhambra. Deborah’s not called in, has she? Hmm…I’ve a Mrs Knight here. She’s been trying to get hold of Deborah for a couple of hours. They’ve been at a do on Vanheusen’s yacht and she’s a bit concerned. Seems Deborah went windsurfing with the boss man and hasn’t come back… Apparently, the wind was so good that she decided to give the rest of the party
a miss and return under her own steam… Mmm, I think so too. OK, see you.’

She slipped the phone back into pocket. ‘Well, she’s not at the office. They’re a bit concerned too now, so they’re going to alert the coastguard. They’ll keep in touch and let me know as soon as there’s any news.’ For Victoria’s benefit she summoned up a reassuring smile. ‘Let’s slope off to the Café Bar Oasis and fill in the time with a coffee – or something stronger – and you can tell me all about that yacht. I’ve heard it’s absolutely fantastic inside…’

…I’d lost track of time. Trough, crest, trough, crest. Quite a soothing rhythm. From the top of the rollers land was visible, now purpled by dusk. The wind was less strong, the waves perceptibly smaller, but still too much for me to handle in my present state. Nothing else to do but lie here clutching the board and for the umpteenth time rerun that race with Vanheusen. Let’s see…I’d been concentrating on keeping distance between us. Then rig and board had gone into that sudden uncontrollable spin. Had the board’s long fin perhaps collided with a semi-submerged object? No…I’d have felt the shock.

Gradually I came round to the idea that it had all been planned. But how? The board had been sailing hard, zipping through the waves, with the fin under a lot of pressure… The fin, he’d sabotaged the fin. If it broke, there’d be an uncontrollable sideways swerve.
And that’s
exactly
what had happened.

But
had
the fin broken? To find out one way or the other, I’d only have to reach down into the water. Keeping an arm in one of the foot-straps, I slid my fingers along the underside of the board. Instead of the long smooth profile of the fin, I felt a ragged, rough-edged stump. Stress failure or—? Numb fingertips aren’t the most sensitive of instruments. I stuck my fingers in my mouth for a couple of minutes to warm them up, and tried again. One edge was jaggedly uneven, the other rough but straight. Evidence that the fin had been sawn part-way through, just enough to weaken it if it came under stress – and Vanheusen’s macho challenge had made sure of that.

What an idiot I’d been! All the while I was congratulating myself on how clever
I
had been spiriting away G, Vanheusen had been nurturing his own little scheme. Once he’d got his hands on Gorgonzola, he wouldn’t want me around. Of course I’d have to be removed.

And slowly but surely, he’d nudged me into making the decisions he’d wanted. ‘You mentioned you were into water sports… How about working up a little appetite before lunch…? That board suit you, Deborah…? We’ve got a rescue boat, so do you want to bother with a buoyancy aid? Slows you down…’ Thank God I hadn’t fallen for that one. But I had for the one that mattered – I’d surrendered to the exhilaration of speed, powered the board, stressed
that fin. Bugger, bugger,
bugger
. It had taken a long time for the penny to drop.

Against the dark sky, the land was a denser black sprinkled with pinpricks of light. With the fin a stump, the board couldn’t be sailed, even if I’d had the strength. I’d got rid of the mast-and-sail sea-anchor, hoping to accelerate my landward drift, but those shore lights were still a long way off. Overhead, a particularly bright star winked enigmatically as the moon glided from behind a bank of dark cloud, sending a silver pathway across the black water. So beautiful. The stimulus for another attempt at silver lining thoughts… He hadn’t finished me off – yet. And the wind
was
still edging me in the right direction.

It was difficult to have silver lining thoughts, though. I’d just have to wait it out… So sleepy… Must stay awake, though, or I’d roll off the board. I slid my arms through the foot-straps, forcing them up past my elbows. I’d rest my head, just for a minute…

When I opened my eyes, it was to bitter disappointment. The shore lights seemed as far away as ever. Through lowering clouds, the moon was still cutting that bright narrow path across the water. I’d stopped shivering now, felt quite warm – one of the classic symptoms of hypothermia. That should have bothered me, but it didn’t.

At one point as a wave carried me to its crest I heard the
putt-putt-putt
of an engine, saw a swaying mast light bobbing in and out of sight. A fishing boat
was passing within a few hundred metres of me. I pulled my arms free of the foot-straps, struggled into a kneeling position, and screamed and waved frantically. Useless, of course. I hadn’t a hope of being seen in the darkness, and the noisy beat of the diesel drowned my cries. But I continued to shout long after the engine’s thrumming had died to a whisper, and it was the rawness of my throat rather than common sense that forced me to abandon that nonsense. I slumped face down on the board, the will to fight almost gone, draining away to a flicker…

I can’t say how long I drifted after that. It could have been minutes, or hours… Gradually a new sound percolated, a regular muffled thud, as of waves pounding against rocks. I levered myself up on my elbows to peer ahead.

Without warning the board gathered itself, then hurtled forward and up, like a steeplechaser in the Grand National clearing one of those fearsome birch-twig fences. Crouched like a jockey on the horse’s neck, I clung desperately to the foot-straps.
Crack
. The board smashed against a submerged rock. There was a moment of stillness before a powerful undertow sucked the board back, twisting, rotating. Ahead I glimpsed white water cascading off jagged black rock, heard the boom of waves. No time to work out survival strategies. The spinning board slammed viciously against another rock and split in two. A huge wave swept me forward. Fingers locked
round the foot-straps and legs trailing, as if cruising the rollers on a Cornish beach, I careered shoreward on my apology for a boogie-board.

Whumhsss
. The wave broke, collapsed, crashing down in a thunderous welter of spray. A maelstrom of water flooded eyes, ears, lungs, totally disorientating me, making me fight for breath. Wrenched from the foot-straps, my fingers clutched gritty sand. Water frothed, surged past my face, receded. Another breaker smashed down. My fingers scrabbled for purchase. Limbs flopping like a rag doll, I tumbled and rolled in the back surge. Tumbling…tumbling… gulping air when I could…

A wave more powerful than the rest, that seventh wave phenomenon, flung me some way up the steeply shelving beach.
Whumhsss
. The next wave thundered down. I dug in fingers, elbows, knees, toes…dragged myself forward. Muscles protested, rebelled, weakened, but centimetre by centimetre I hauled myself a little further out of range. At last the waves plucked half-heartedly at my knees, as if acknowledging they had been cheated of their prey. With a final convulsive he-e-ave, I dragged my feet clear of the water and collapsed. Jiggered, knackered, pooped, bushed, whacked, shattered – put it any way you like, I was all of these and more. All in.

When I next opened my eyes, it was no longer dark. Slowly, painfully, I levered myself up on my elbows and
took stock of my surroundings. It wasn’t encouraging. The flat grey light between dawn and sunrise revealed that the ‘beach’ was, in fact, merely a narrow wedge of sand fringing the foot of ragged basalt cliffs. In my present condition, in any condition, impossible to climb. Out of the frying pan into the fire…

At first I barely registered the muffled
thud, thud
,
thud
of a pile-driver excavating foundations for yet another new hotel.
THUD, THUD, THUD
. I stirred and opened my eyes.
THUD, THUD, THUD
. Crossly, I covered my ears with my hands. Sunrise was flushing the sand, the cliffs, the sea, a delicate rosy pink.

And, swooping low out of a huge red sun,
à la Apocalypse Now
, came the air-sea rescue helicopter.

‘Don’t
fuss
,’ I snapped. ‘I’m perfectly all right.’

Gerry raised an eyebrow, said nothing.

A long silence.

Then, ‘Hypothermia.’ He leant back, confident he’d served an ace.

‘Mild,’ I returned.

‘Concussion.’

‘Ditto, mild.’

‘Multiple lacerations and contusions.’

‘Pooh. C’mon now, that just means a few scratches and bruises – I’ve had worse from a scrummage in the January sales.’ I served
my
ace. ‘The hospital discharged me, didn’t they?’

Gerry twirled a pencil clockwise between his fingers. He picked up a paper on his desk and read it silently, as if to refresh his memory. Who was he trying to kid? He never needed to read
anything
twice.

‘Hmm. I’m quoting from the clinic’s report, Deborah.
Released against medical advice. Patient 
discharged herself at
— Hmm, need I read more?’ He put the paper down and peered at me over the rim of his glasses, another technique calculated to unsettle.

I gave in. ‘OK,’ I sighed. Dammit, I wasn’t my usual armour-plated self, was I? ‘But I’m here, anyway. And I think I know now how they work the retrieval of packages dumped at sea.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Very interesting, Deborah.’ I could tell he was just humouring me.

‘They use a Global Positioning Transmitter signalling to a Global Tracking Device,’ I said triumphantly. Hah, that should get his attention.

‘We’d already worked that one out,’ he said. Smug bastard. ‘They’ll use an aquatic transmitter with a microcontroller programmable chip, probably the type used for tracking fish.’ He twirled the pencil anti-clockwise. ‘Activated on command. That way there’ll be less chance of detection by anyone surfing for a signal.’

‘Oh,’ I said faintly. During my battle with the waves, the thought that I had this nugget of information to deliver had been one of the things that had kept me going. I swallowed my disappointment. ‘Well, anything new at this end?’

He tipped his chair back. ‘Just ask me what you want to know.’

The Burnside drip-feed technique. Second nature.

I was stressed out, I admit it. Something snapped. ‘
Gerry
,’ I screeched, ‘for once in your life, just give a
straight answer to a straight question.’ I reached over and brought the flat of my hand crashing down on his desk.

In the silence that followed, the hospital report fluttered face down to the floor at my feet. I reached to pick it up. Completely blank on both sides.
Bastard
. In my weakened condition, it was the last straw. I crumbled. First, a prickly pressure in my nose, then a constriction in the throat, finally, an involuntary sob I couldn’t stifle and a couple of trickling tears, embarrassingly obvious.

It was the only time I’ve seen him discomfited. Silently, he passed me a handful of paper tissues. I’ll draw a veil over the ensuing sodden-hanky scene. Suffice to say, Gerry made amends by being, for him, quite garrulous as regards future tactics.

‘We’ll let the next pick-up take place. And with
The Saucy Nancy
out of action, I’m counting on Vanheusen making it himself.’

It seemed that while I’d been wallowing in the waves, courtesy of the said Vanheusen, electronic experts had hit pay dirt when they’d detected that
The Saucy Nancy’s
sophisticated GPS receiver had been set up to display target direction and distance. John Sinclair had been a tad careless – he’d not closed it down securely, enabling our white-coated brigade to hack into it. They’d be able to pick up the signal when it was activated.

‘Now, how about a nice hot drink, Deborah?’
Gerry took the damp wodge of paper hanky from me and dropped it into the waste bin.

When I nodded soggily, he went over to the coffee machine, punched a button, and came back with two mugs of soothing camomile tea. I’d forgotten that last week the coffee machine had had a brain transplant when overnight Gerry had become a convert to the life-enhancing properties of herbal tisanes. Lemon balm, camomile and peppermint teas were now dispensed under the labels of
Black coffee, White with sugar, White without sugar
. The resulting storm of protest had left him quite unmoved – according to him, it just proved his point that too much caffeine overstimulated the nervous system.

‘As I said,’ he gulped down the vile brew, ‘we’ll let the pick-up take place. He’ll use
Samarkand Princess,
but that flashy ship of his will have to operate from Los Cristianos. It’s the only local harbour big enough to take her.’ He drained the mug, laid it down, and leant forward. ‘She’s a familiar sight there, won’t attract attention. Once the signal from the beacon stops, we’ll know he’s made the pick-up, and when he comes into port with the goods—’ He slammed a fist into his open palm. ‘
Gotcha
.’

The beacon had ceased transmission an hour ago. In the powerful night-scope’s eerie green glow, a distant ghostly shape powered through the waves under a midnight-black sky heavy with cloud. I lowered the
scope and shifted from one buttock to another in a vain attempt to get into a more comfortable position, though comfort was relative, given the fact that I was sitting, knees to chin, on bare wooden planks that smelt strongly of fish and the sea. Piled over me was a tangle of scratchy, salty nets with hard little floats that snagged my hair with every pitch and yawl of the tiny fishing boat. Designed to carry one man, tonight it carried two – or to be more accurate, one man and a woman.

I’d
have to
straighten my legs,
have to
. This wooden tub was no bigger than…than…that polished stone bath of Vanheusen’s that I’d so light-heartedly tried out only thirty-six hours ago. Perhaps if I did some of those anti-DVT exercises the airlines push at captive passengers…Circle foot clockwise, circle foot anti-clockwise… Lift heel from floor… No good. I pushed my feet hard against the side. The boat listed alarmingly, sending water sloshing over the low gunwale.

From the stern came a gruff, ‘Quit that, will you, wumman. You’re shoogling the boat, dammit. This skiff’s that unstable you’ll have us cowped.’

Expressive word, ‘shoogle’. I suppose it conveyed shake and joggle, all in one. I peered through a gap in the heaped netting and made a rude gesture at Jock’s bulky silhouette perched a few centimetres above the water. He’d not been at all happy to be confined to a spectator role. And, in addition, he’d been saddled
with a gawping rubberneck, a female one at that. Observer status, I preferred to call it.

I’d pressurised a contrite Gerry into giving me a share in the coming action – even if it was just a grandstand seat a kilometre or so away. Not
just
a spectator role, though. We could provide timings, more accurate than would be possible from the shore, and give advance warning of any attempt by Vanheusen to slip out of the closing net in one of his smaller craft. So here I was in the aptly named
Berberecho
, a cockleshell of a boat if ever there was one, with only a couple of centimetres or so of freeboard, stern dredging the sea, uptilted bow trawling the stars.

A wave passed lazily beneath the boat, sending the masthead light arcing across the night sky. As the boat heeled, the dim glow from the packing-case-sized wheelhouse under-lit Jock’s craggy face, two days’ growth of stubble, cigarette drooping from scowling lips, flat fisherman’s cap pulled low. Perfectionist Gerry was leaving nothing to chance. A jumpy Vanheusen would have
his
night-vision device trained on anything that moved between him and the shore, on the lookout for something not quite right, something not in the usual run of things.

There was no sign of the Taskforce hit squads. They’d wait till
Samarkand
Princess
was committed to entering the harbour and was swinging round the mole, engines throttled back, before initiating their pincer movement to cut off escape. I poked the
night-scope back through the nets and scanned the nearest building, a balconied and domed holiday complex, its sprinkle of lighted windows an indication of night owls returned from clubs, or holidaymakers cramming souvenirs into suitcases before an early flight. The top-floor apartments jumped into focus. All was dark there, only a gently swaying curtain in the black rectangle of an open balcony door, or the blank-eyed reflection of mirrored glass. But behind one of these windows lurked Gerry and his team. And, out of sight in the harbour, hidden behind the high wall, the assault Taskforce powerboats waited, engines slowly turning over.

Gerry was risking everything on this one throw of the dice. High stakes, rich prize. Vanheusen’s presence on board when the package was located was the vital prerequisite for success. If he succeeded in slipping away, tables would be turned with a vengeance in the shape of high-powered lawyers, astronomical financial damages, international repercussions. And Gerry’s career in shreds.

‘Lights.’ A low mutter from Jock into the transmitter. ‘Ten minutes.’

I applied an eye to a small aperture I’d made in the seaward-facing side of the nets.
Samarkand Princess’s
red port light and a string of cabin and deck lights now shone brightly where before there’d been only darkness. A casual watcher on shore, if he noticed anything at all, would think the yacht had emerged
from a bank of sea mist. I pictured Vanheusen, drug packages safely stashed, feeding his thug of a cat a morsel of celebratory caviar, in his hand a tot of mind-blowingly expensive whisky.

I eased an aching hip, taking care not to shoogle the boat.
Samarkand Princess
drew closer every minute, her lights bigger, brighter. The whispered beat of her engines deepened to a growl.

‘Four minutes.’ The cigarette tip glowed.

Now she was passing to starboard, white foam at bow and stern. I braced my feet against the gunwale in anticipation of the backwash.

Jock spoke into the transmitter. ‘Target turning. Two minutes.’ Then, for my ears, a muttered, ‘Brace.’

I could feel us swinging round to meet the wake. I pressed my palms hard against the wooden side.
Slap
. The first wave hit. With our lack of freeboard, there was a real danger of being swamped. The little eggshell of a boat tilted its bow at an impossible angle towards the sky, tilted again. And again. Pitching, bobbing. I made a frantic grab for something to hold onto. There was nothing. My upper body tossed this way, that way, like laundry in an oscillating tumble drier. Involuntary gasps from me, stoic silence from Jock who was obviously made of sterner stuff. A particularly violent twisting lurch buried my face in salty nets. For a moment, just a moment, I regretted I’d used emotional blackmail on Gerry to let me be in at the kill.

Then Gerry made his move. Engines roared throatily at full throttle as powerboats surged from the harbour between
Samarkand Princess
and the shore, a swarm of angry hornets fanning out in attack mode from their byke, fanning out, encircling, cutting off all seaward escape. Now that our stomach-churning corkscrew motion had moderated to an irregular see-saw rocking, I managed to steady the night-scope and sweep the dark waters for any tell-tale splash of hastily jettisoned cargo. Seemingly oblivious to all the commotion, searchlights, loudhailers, shouts,
Samarkand Princess
sailed regally on and rounded the mole into the harbour. Snapping at her heels, the mini-flotilla scurried after.

I lowered the scope and fought my way out from under the scratchy embrace of the nets. My micro-nano role in Operation Softly-Softly was over. Now I was free to goggle at the flurry of police activity, the blue flashing lights and wailing sirens, perhaps to revel in the spectacle of that bastard Vanheusen being led away in handcuffs…

Samarkand Princess
glided to a halt and docked. Unfortunately, all I could see over the high harbour wall was the top of her superstructure, the navigation mast, radar dish and radio antennae, and the tantalising reflection of flashing blue lights on white paintwork. Abruptly the sirens fell silent. They’d be cordoning off the quayside, rushing the gangway, sprinting along the corridors and through those
luxury saloons, probing, ferreting, rummaging in every nook and cranny. And I was missing it all.

‘Let’s get over there, Jock. I want to be in at the kill.’

Not a twitch from his silhouette, not even an acknowledging grunt.

‘C’mon, fella. Action!’

No response.

‘Hi. Anybody there? You meditating, sleeping – dead?’

The silhouette stirred, straightened and gave utterance. ‘Whisht, lassie.’ He made a slow cutting motion, finger across throat. ‘Orders.’

‘Orders?’ I squeaked.

Jock waxed loquacious. ‘You stay here till I get the signal.’

He slumped back into suspend mode, and I knew it was no use arguing. I’d just be banging my head against a concrete block.

Sound of gritting teeth. Mine. Gerry had turned the tables, outwitted me once again.