Itchcraft (36 page)

‘You’re going to pay for this, Flowerdew,’ he whispered. ‘It ends here.’

The RIB adjusted course so that it avoided the propeller’s turbulence and came in hard on the
Strontian
’s starboard corner. They were close enough to touch – Tobi was on tiptoe, making minute adjustments and corrections to the wheel to avoid any collision. The noise from the engines was deafening as Aisha ran onto the RIB’s v-shaped platform. Under her arm was a slim extendable metal ladder with a curved hook at the top.

That’s a grappling hook!
thought Itch.
I thought they were just for pirates!

Feet spread wide against the roll of the boat, Aisha held it up high, then let it fall onto the mining ship’s railings. It hooked over first time, and she let go. The ladder swung against the ship’s hull and Aisha waved Tobi in closer. When the gap between rig and ship was no more than a metre, she leaped across. Her feet found a rung, her hands the sides, and she climbed. Before she’d reached the top, Leila jumped too. As Aisha disappeared over the rail, Leila scurried after her.

‘I’m last up,’ said Dada to Itch. ‘You wait here. We’ll wave you up when we think it’s safe. You’ll hear what’s happening in your earpiece: pull up your hood and it should just hook in. Copy me.’ She forced the tight-fitting neoprene over her head, and a small bud swung on a cable. She tucked it under the hood and into her ear.

Itch grabbed his hood and struggled to wrench it over his wild hair. ‘Must get short hair next time,’ he muttered, then winced as he pulled it tightly over his face. It snapped around against his cheeks and forehead. Dada caught his swinging earpiece and helped him push it into place. Instantly his head was filled with hushed, urgent conversation. Aisha and Leila were swapping observations about the ship and the location of its crew.

‘Sade and Dada. Need you now.’

‘Your mic is in the hood,’ said Dada. ‘From now on we all hear what you say. Wait here. Good luck.’ She ran over to the platform from where Sade had just launched herself onto the ladder. Dada watched her climb. As soon as she was halfway up, Dada flew at the ladder. Her ascent was the fastest, nearly catching Sade at the top.

And then they were gone.

Chloe and Lucy had moved Jack over, near to the wheel. When Itch turned, Chloe and Chika both gave him a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture, then crouched again under the platform. On board the
Strontian
, the divers sounded busy:

‘Bridge first.’

‘On it.’

‘How many?’

‘Three. One’s on the radar.’

‘Wait.’

‘Now!’

‘Hands away from the controls!’

‘Step back!’

‘Lie on the floor!’

(Muffled shouting.)

‘Lock – lock!’

‘How many?’

‘We need oxygen. We want Flowerdew. We don’t want you or your ship.’

(Muffled shouting.)

Itch turned to Chika and Tobi, both with hoods up and the live feed in their ears. Tobi’s attention was on the gap between the RIB and the mining ship, but Chika, pacing around the stern of the rig, caught his eye and nodded slightly.

‘Doors locked. No one’s moving.’

‘Secure?’

‘Secure. Got them all.’

‘OK, Itch. Your turn. Come on up.’

He didn’t stop to think, didn’t look back. As soon as he heard his name, he ran to the platform. The cracked and peeling paint of the
Strontian
’s hull filled his vision, the rungs of the ladder a few centimetres in front of him. He waited until the bow of the rig was high and cresting a wave.

Then he jumped.

Itch hit the ladder hard. His hands grabbed at a rung; his bare feet scrabbled and kicked before they found a footing. Below him, the Atlantic Ocean – and the ship’s propellers, which would surely turn him to mincemeat if he fell. He looked up. Ten metres above him, Sade beckoned, then disappeared.

He climbed fast. In seconds his hands found the
Strontian
’s rail and he was scrambling over. He allowed himself one look back down at the bobbing RIB – Lucy and Chloe giving him thumbs-up salutes – then ran across the deserted deck. Past the cranes, past the drilling equipment, he weaved his way towards where he guessed the divers would be. Then he stopped, realizing that he could join in the rapid, urgent conversation in his earpiece.

‘I’m here. On deck,’ he said. ‘Should I get the oxygen?’ He hesitated, not wanting to stray anywhere he shouldn’t.

‘Sade with you now . . .’ Aisha’s voice crackled in his ear.

He looked around. The entrance to the lab and the living quarters was a few metres ahead, the steps to the bridge and the helipad just beyond that. He realized that the ship was stopping, the engines suddenly quiet. In the new silence, the rattle of feet on metal echoed loudly, and Sade appeared, jumping up the steps three at a time.

‘Let’s get the oxygen!’ she said. ‘It’s you and me. Show me.’

‘But it’s down there,’ said Itch, pointing below decks, ‘where Flowerdew is.’ He hoped he didn’t sound too scared.

‘He’s not there any more,’ said Sade matter-of-factly. ‘Let’s go.’

‘No,’ said Itch. ‘Where is he? I’m not going down there . . .’

A brief smile flickered across her face. ‘He’s being dealt with. The crew and the captain are locked in their quarters, Leila and Aisha have the bridge. It’s amazing what a dawn raid by a few divers can achieve. Now, the first-aid room – quickly.’

Itch had a feeling there was something he wasn’t being told but thought better of asking. They needed the medical supplies and he’d seen the room. He led the way through the lab and down the dark steps, his heart racing. The medical room was the first on the right, but beyond it, Flowerdew’s door swung open as the boat swayed. Itch hesitated, but Sade reassured him.

‘It’s fine. He’s not there. You can look if you want to.’

‘No thanks. Let’s get the air and go.’

From the first-aid room they took four small oxygen tanks, packets of painkillers and a variety of plasters and bandages. Itch stuffed what he could into Sade’s rucksack and they ran for the steps, with an oxygen tank under each arm. As they emerged on deck, they saw Dada waiting for them by the rail.

‘My job to get the tanks to the RIB,’ she said as they approached. Looking down, Itch saw that it had eased away from the
Strontian
, but on seeing Itch and Sade, Tobi brought it in close again.

‘We’ll take it from here,’ said Dada. ‘But I’ll be straight back.’

‘Itch, get to the bridge.’ This was Aisha’s voice again, and he looked at Sade, who waved him away.

He jogged back along the deck, weaving left at the lab door and up the steps. As he climbed, the lightening sky revealed other ships on the horizon. Would they realize that the
Strontian
had stopped? Would they come and rescue them? As he turned at the top of the steps to enter the bridge, he realized that he had no idea what the divers wanted to do next.

The door from the bridge opened and Aisha appeared. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and they carried on climbing.

The helipad?
thought Itch.
Why are we going up here?
‘Aisha, I don’t understand. What are we—?’

‘Give yourself another ten seconds,’ she said. The huge circular platform above them was only metres away, and they climbed the tightly winding steps in silence. The small hole at the top was just wide enough for Aisha and her backpack to squeeze through. Itch followed her.

He barely noticed the sweeping panoramic view of an Atlantic dawn that greeted him from the helipad. Instead he stared at the large letter H painted in yellow on the black platform; at the figure of Nathaniel Flowerdew who knelt there; and at Leila, who was holding a gun to his head.

And he said nothing.

He felt nothing.

He did nothing.

Instead it was Flowerdew who reacted. His head pulled sideways by Leila, he peered at the boy who had climbed onto the platform. His mouth fell open. His whole body seemed to sag. And then he howled with rage.

‘But you’re dead! All of you are
dead
! I saw you . . . You couldn’t have survived . . . Not unless . . .’

At that moment Chika climbed through onto the helipad and Flowerdew stared in horror from her face to Aisha’s.

‘Unless,’ said Leila in his ear, ‘unless someone killed your radar, followed your ship, then saved their lives.
Then
it would be possible.’ She walked in front of Flowerdew, pistol aimed straight at his forehead. ‘We came for medical supplies, but we all have unfinished business with you too.’

Chika walked to the edge of the H. ‘You killed our friend. You killed so many people back in Nigeria. You tried to kill these kids. You’re a monster.’

Flowerdew’s good eye narrowed and he spat at Chika. ‘This is about
her
? Shivvi? Really? Oh, please.
She
was the monster. I did the world a favour there.’

Leila swung the gun and it cracked against Flowerdew’s head. He slumped to the deck. ‘You haven’t worked it out yet, have you?’ she shouted. ‘You’re not in control any more. You’ve lost. It’s over. The crew are locked in their quarters – those steel doors are sealed pretty tight – and none of them actually seemed that keen to fight for you anyway. The ship is adrift. Someone will notice eventually, and when they arrive they can rescue them. But it will be too late for you. Now
kneel
!’

Flowerdew didn’t move and received a kick in the ribs. Slowly he hauled himself up, his face bleeding where he had hit the deck.

Leila stepped back and raised the gun. ‘It’s decision time. Tobi and Sade?’ she said into her hood mic.

‘Agreed,’ said two voices from the RIB.

‘Chika?’

‘Agreed.’

‘Dada? You hearing this?’

‘Yes,’ said Dada from somewhere on the
Strontian
. ‘Agreed.’

‘Aisha?’

She nodded. ‘Agreed.’

‘The motion is carried,’ said Leila.

‘No!’ shouted Flowerdew. ‘Wait!’

Leila removed the safety catch and Itch suddenly woke up. ‘Stop! No – not agreed!’ He ran from the edge of the platform where he had stayed, paralysed. Like a computer that had frozen running a new program, seeing Flowerdew again – and with a gun at his head – had rooted Itch to the tarmac. He heard the roll call of divers calling for Flowerdew’s death, but somehow he hadn’t understood. The metallic snap of the safety being released broke the spell. ‘I have a vote too! So does Jack. And Chloe. And Lucy. You can’t just shoot him – that’ll make us the same as him!’

Itch walked over to the man who, just a few months ago, had been marking his science homework. He waited till Flowerdew looked him in the eye. ‘And being the same as you would be terrifying.’

Flowerdew sneered. ‘You couldn’t be the same as me . . .’

Itch dropped to the ground and shoved his hand hard against Flowerdew’s jaw, shutting his mouth. ‘I’m saving your stupid life, you imbecile. Why don’t you just
shut – up
.’

Flowerdew glowered at Itch through his one open eye; he looked totally mad.

Itch turned to Leila. ‘If you shoot him, then you’ll probably get done for the Van Den Hauwe and Revere killings too. You’ll have every police force out looking for you. For ever.’

‘He deserves to die,’ said Chika, still holding the gun to Flowerdew’s head. ‘If you’d been in Lagos when he was terrorizing the Delta . . . If you’d seen his victims . . .’

‘Maybe,’ said Itch, ‘but Shivvi was in his team too. They worked it together.’

‘He had got to her by then. We’d lost her.’

‘I say prison,’ said Itch, ‘and maybe that Nigerian prison Shivvi escaped from.’

The effect was immediate. Flowerdew recoiled in horror, and Sade and Aisha smiled. From the RIB, Tobi’s voice crackled, ‘Neat idea.’

‘The Ikoyi prison in Lagos?’ said Sade. ‘The worst in the world! They’d really enjoy having such a local celebrity in their midst. That even sounds like justice.’

‘And Roshanna Wing should go there too,’ said Itch, remembering that the Greencorps CEO was on board too. ‘Where is she anyway?’

‘She’s here with me,’ came Dada’s voice over his headset. ‘She’s out cold. She had a collision with the wall. She’s tied up but easy to transport. I’ll bring her up.’

‘No,’ said Itch. ‘Leave her there – I—’

‘OK, people,’ broke in Leila, ‘I get the prison thing. But it’s messy! We can’t take him there; we can’t even hand him over to anyone – we need to be off this ship soon. But if we shoot him, we leave and it’s all neat and tidy.’

‘And you’re a murderer,’ said Itch. ‘We’re all murderers. Listen, I’ve got an idea. I need to check the labs to see if I can do it, but if it works . . . well, I think you’ll like it.’

‘Does it involve Flowerdew dying?’ asked Leila.

‘It’s a possibility,’ said Itch. ‘Depends.’

‘What happens to the crew?’ said Sade.

‘They are secure behind locked cabin doors.’ That was Aisha. ‘Cabin doors made of steel. They’ll be released once we’re gone. We’ll radio details to the nearest ships. But we tell the Moroccans that Flowerdew’s here. I’m sure they’d like him.’

‘Can we leave the ship in forty minutes?’ Dada’s voice again. ‘I’ve got the radar unjammed. There’s a ship heading towards us. Reckon we have forty minutes before they see who’s here and what’s going on. What about it, Itch?’

He considered his answer. ‘Just about. Yes. And you’ll have time to film a confession while you’re waiting. Get him to confess to everything. Wing too. We could leave it for the Moroccans to find.’

‘Do it,’ she said. ‘But if your plan isn’t working and we have to leave, Flowerdew dies.’

Running from the platform, he jumped onto the steps. ‘Don’t let him move,’ he shouted, and disappeared from view.

Leila called after him, ‘If he moves, I’m pulling the trigger anyway!’

Itch took the steps two at a time, then sprinted for the lab.
When Sade said it was amazing what divers could do
, thought Itch, w
hat she really meant was, it’s amazing what divers could do with a gun
.

‘Tobi, how is Jack?’ he shouted into his mic.

‘She’s got the new oxygen. Doing fine.’