(2005) Rat Run (63 page)

Because he knew when he would hit, he waited a few long seconds more. He could not see them, only the dinghy.

He thought himself his own master, and all that was his old world were the shoes on his feet and the tags in his hand. He came off the dune and the sand plunged under his feet. He fell and pushed himself back to his feet. The wind blasted against him, the rain stung at his eyes, and he ran.

Shells crunched, broke, under the tread of his shoes.

He stretched his stride.

When the boat's light came up again, off the dinghy, it caught them - Ricky Capel behind and the second man in front of him - found them near to the surf line.

Neither looked back.

He pounded the beach. He careered through a

lagoon of water. It was where he wished to be, a battleground that was perfect.

They were in the water. He saw them against the white sweep of the surf, and against the thunder of the breaking waves the voices were shouting, screaming.

'We're coming . . . Can't you get in bloody closer?'

'You got to come to me. I'm not bloody grounding.'

'Get in nearer.'

'Won't risk tipping her. Tip her and we're all bloody gone.'

'I can't goddamn swim.'

'If the engine goes under, we're wrecked. Come on, shift it.'

They were into the surf wall, Ricky Capel trailing.

Between the cresting waves, Ricky Capel had the water at his ankles and shins, but when the waves rolled at full height the water squirmed round his waist and seemed to drive him back. Malachy heard Ricky Capel's howl that he had lost a shoe. The man ahead never turned, never reached back with a hand to steady Ricky Capel, never tried to be of help.

Malachy splashed into the surf and the drive of his legs was blocked. He was lifting his knees, stamping for height over the surf, and was closing on Ricky Capel. He did not think why he was there, what he did, how Ricky Capel had become an enemy to be destroyed. The past was gone from his mind. He struggled against the wind's force, against the waves.

He saw that Ricky Capel had stopped and he thought exhaustion had beaten him. Malachy seemed to hear the sob of Ricky Capel's breath. The gap had opened between the two men, as if contact had been lost, and beyond both of them - riding and falling in the water, lit by the light - was the dinghy. He took the deep gulp, swallowed air into his lungs. He closed on Ricky Capel - five more strides, then three - and the water beat against his waist. A new wave came that pitched up the dinghy, ran against the other man's chest, lurched into Ricky Capel, and charged Malachy. As he braced himself, he threw back over his shoulder the two tags, and did not twist to see them fall. He had no more use for them, or for the past, and did not hear their splash. Malachy lunged. His fists snatched at space, and spray, and then his weight hit Ricky Capel.

He came without warning, and the momentum

driven by the grip of his shoes collapsed Ricky Capel.

Perhaps Ricky Capel, in the two or three seconds between feeling the hammer blow against his

back and being forced under the surf, tried to shout.

Underwater, in darkness, Malachy gripped the thrashing body and fingers gouged at his eyes and a bare foot kicked at his shin - and the height of a wave passed and the wind surged on their faces.

The light lit them.

He saw the shock in the eyes of Ricky Capel, as if he did not understand why, then the squirm of fear as if he remembered a man on the pavement of Bevin Close. The scream was choked, and water spat from his mouth. The next wave caught them, and the fight had gone from Ricky Capel. Hands grasped at

Malachy's coat, then his trousers, then his shoes, then loosed.

He stood. He felt the weight, pushed by the surf, against his ankles.

The man was at the dinghy, but had turned.

Malachy did not hear the weapon, but saw the flashes from it, and the man climbed easily up and into the dinghy. He felt a weakness in his legs and in his hips . . . and was aware of vague shouts from the dinghy, then the roar of its outboard gaining power, and felt himself sink. It did not seem important to him that the sea closed over him, then freed and lifted him, covered him, then carried him . . . so tired.

The surf was in his ears and the water caressed him, as she had done - and he heard her voice.

'Fight, damn you - don't bloody give up on me.'

He craved sleep.

* * *

'He can count himself lucky he was shot.'

'Myself, with my own hands, I'd have throttled him.'

'It's just a total and utter shambles and the responsibility for it, a criminal responsibility, lies with those who allowed him to be there.'

When the report had been given over the loudspeakers, when her voice had gone, they had bayed their anger - Dennis of the Security Service, Jimmy from the Norfolk police, and Bill who did liaison for the Hereford- and Poole-based teams .. and each in turn screwed his lip to outscore the derision, the hostility, of the previous intervention, and last in the line was the Special Branch officer, Trevor.

'I think, again, the essence of the issue is missed,' he said softly. 'I'm not talking of any morsel of charity owed to a man who fell far, but of the business at hand. We spoke of a rat run. What I made of the somewhat distraught communication from the officer on location, the rat run operates. She reported that he, the only individual I have interest in, boarded the dinghy and was
en route
to the mother boat when the light was cut. The
Anneliese Royal
is at sea and we are alive, have a man to track... Kitchen's fate is of no concern to me, is a mere distraction, as are the reasons for the stupidity of his actions.'

A dawn had gone, and the last of the storm slipped inland. A final shower of rain plastered the beach and was blown on over the German mainland and towards the heathland of Luneburg and the Baltic coast beyond. The sun broke through, caught the tail of the shower and threw down a rainbow. One end of the rainbow was on the island's endless flat sands and on the slackening surf as the gale died. It's colours danced on the body of a drowned man that was heaved backwards and forwards by the disapearing tide. A woman walking her dog found it, and thought, from a distance, that the cadaver was a dead seal, but when she came close she saw the eyes of a man, wide in terror, and the rainbow went on.

A man - long decamped to the mainland town of Norden - brought his wife and three teenage children to the island's cemetery at Ostdorf to lay flowers on the grave of his parents. For the adults it would be a solemn few minutes of contemplation while the children rambled among the stones. He was recovering memories of a stern disciplinarian merchant mariner, and a mother who had survived Baltrum's elements into old age, when his vigil was broken by the shriek of his younger daughter. He hurried to the girl, his mood of respect fractured. He found, wrapped against this stone, the body of a man wizened with age and the sunlight fell on darkened bloodstains.

Murmuring, so that she would not be heard by her son or by the girls, his wife said, 'You know who that is? It's old Netzer, it is Oskar Netzer. Never had a good word for a living soul, never had a friend since she died, never did a day's work . . . Never did anything useful to others. The end of a wasted life. What could have happened to him to make all that blood?'

Polly crouched in front of the washing-machine. She had emptied into it everything from the rucksack that could be soaped, rinsed, tumbled, and the sleeping-bag. Dried sand caked the linoleum. She heard the door of the apartment open and it was then kicked shut.

She called out, 'I'm back - in the kitchen.'

She stood and started to strip.

She was aware that Ronnie was in the doorway.

She peeled off layers of clothing and bent to stuff them into the machine.

A trilling voice was behind her: 'Oh, brilliant, good to see you. Had a good time? Christ, that's a serious mess, bloody hell. You been sleeping on a beach?

Doesn't your lot run to hotels? Don't tell me, you didn't get any shopping done. God, Polly, what's that on your hands? Is that blood, old blood, on you? Are you all right?'

She was naked, and she had to heave against

the washing-machine's door to fasten it, then hit the button.

'I'm fine. Thanks for asking, but I'm fine . . . Yes, it's blood. Not to worry, not mine.'

She watched the machine churning suds through the window in the door.

'You know what I'm going to ask.' She heard the giggle. 'Whatever it was you did - don't mind me -

did you win?'

She felt the cold on her skin, not the warmth of him.

She felt the salt in her throat, not the taste of him.

'Some people won and some people lost. But

they're history, the winners and losers.'

She walked past Ronnie, across the hall and into the bathroom, and lost herself behind the shower curtain.

Under a cascade of hot water, near to scalding, she scrubbed herself clean. Sand from her hair welled at the plughole and she washed the last of his old blood from her hands.

She yelled, and did not know if she was heard, 'You never really learn it, do you? Who are the winners and who are the losers?'

Harry Rogers brought the trawler into harbour - and did not know that a crisis committee had monitored his progress across the North Sea and that a pilotless drone flying from Boscombe Down had been overhead and tracking the
Anneliese Royal
with a state-of-the-art lens, and that a submarine's periscope had scanned him from close quarters as he

approached the East Anglian shore.

They tied up.

They reported to the harbourmaster that a winding-gear malfunction had prevented them fishing when the storm had blown out, that they had no catch to land.

His boy, Billy, took his grandson, Paul, to a doctor's surgery in the town for a check-up on his arm and to assess the damage from continuous seasickness.

Harry stayed on board.

With a hose, a brush and a mop, he sluiced through the wheel-house and the galley, and if he lifted his head he saw the rest of the town's fleet put to sea in breezy sunshine.

For more than three hours, he was alone on the trawler with memories of a storm blowing off a German island that were alive, and dreams of owning an historic sailboat that were dead.

He locked the wheel-house, hitched his bag on to his shoulder and walked the deck to the point where the old encrusted ladder would take him up on to the quay. He swung his legs over the side and on to a slippery rung, and saw two men above him.

No bullshit, no protestations of innocence . . . Too exhausted for it, too much of his life hacked from him.

They came down the ladder, gingerly, in their city shoes and suits, and he led them back to the wheelhouse. He made them coffee, but that did not soften the coldness on their faces.

He had no one on board. They could search if they wanted to. He had brought back no passenger.

Harry said, 'You make a mistake in your life, and each day that follows it's harder to extricate yourself from that mistake. My mistake was Ricky Capel. I have no excuses and I look for no sympathy, and the mistake is mine. You want to know about the man with Ricky Capel on the beach, and I'll tell you what you want to know. Billy went out in the dinghy, in a hell of a sea, and part of what I'm saying is from him, but most of it is from what I saw with the light. They were in the water, big swell and surf, and coming slow towards the dinghy. I saw this guy come off the beach, and he ran into the surf, and Ricky Capel and his man never saw him. Ricky was behind. The guy smacked into Ricky Capel and he put him down. They went together, under, then just the guy came up. The man, Ricky's man, turned, would have seen the guy, fired at him. I saw the flashes and I heard the gun, and the guy went down, and I killed the light. The man got on board Billy's dinghy. Billy brought him back to us. I was turning hard. Billy came on board first, and then he had hold of the rope, took it from young Paul, and the man was going to follow him. I left the wheel, left it spinning, and I went on deck, and I got the rope off Billy, and I chucked it. He lifted the gun and I was flat in his sights. He'd have blasted me but it didn't fire, must have been too much water in it, and then there was the gap between him and us . . . I went back in the wheel-house and took the engine to power. We left him. He had the dinghy, he had an outboard with a full tank, he had the reserve, but he didn't have us. I never saw him again, God's truth, and Billy didn't, nor Paul. We took her back to sea. I can't say what happened to him, but it was foul conditions for an open dinghy. Can't say whether he drowned, made a landfall, whether he survived and is still out there, can't.'

He had been summoned to the heavenly heights of Vauxhall Bridge Cross. He had knocked and there was the answering call for him to enter, but then he was kept standing for those few seconds, while the assistant deputy director studied desk papers, that confirmed celestial authority.

'Ah - sorry, good to see you, Freddie. Your leave went well?'

'Thank you, Gilbert, yes. It was excellent.' Frederick Gaunt was damned if he would show annoyance at the casual insult, or speak of the raging cold he had acquired in a Wiltshire field. 'We had a first-class dig.'

'Glad to hear it. I'll get you up to speed. Your target, Anwar Maghroub is lost, presumed drowned, but there is, sadly, no confirmation of that and no body. To be very frank, Freddie, some have spoken of your role in this, and that of Miss Wilkins, and of the "hired hand" as adding up to a shambles, the destruction of an operation that should have brought great rewards

- and would have done if that bloody Kitchen, and the reasons for his actions remain a mystery, had not interfered. I, of course, and you would have the right to expect it, have fought your corner with vigour but against considerable opposition. I think we are at a time when we require new brooms and fresh per-spectives, almost a cleaning of Augean stables. You know - washing out the stables of the king of Elis, a labour of Hercules.'

'I am familiar with Greek mythology.'