The Abigail Affair (15 page)

The boat glided on. A touch of the oars here and there steered it surprisingly well.

This was do-able.

On a whim, he decided to go for it and row to the mainland.

Chapter 13

Toby pulled on the oars with short, quick strokes. The boat developed a handy turn of speed.

After five minutes or so, the pirogue started to rock as he arrived in deeper, bluer water. Little wavelets splashed against the hull.

It was time to turn, head around the end of the island and pull back towards the mainland.

He hauled on one oar until he had managed a ninety-degree turn and was rowing parallel to the beach from where he had set off. He looked back at the islet. Already it seemed quite a way off. Had he really rowed out that far? It was encouraging how quickly he had progressed.

He rowed some more. The boat bucked and splashed down into the trough of a wave. Toby’s bare feet slipped from under him. He fought to keep hold of the oars as he fell backwards, and just managed it. He landed on his back on something hard in the bottom of the boat. But he still had hold of both oars. He pulled them towards him until they were safely inside the boat and couldn’t fall overboard.

He struggled up, and back on to his hard bench seat.

He looked around.

With a shock, he realised that the little island was further way than ever. Much further. He was drifting out into the ocean, and fast. That was why it had seemed so easy to leave the beach and get underway. It wasn’t his skill—it was the current carrying him along and away from the mainland.

He needed to make headway back towards shore. The islet would do. Rowing to the mainland was already out of the question.

Toby’s toe throbbed, and he had grazed his back from the fall into the bottom of the boat. He pushed his hands upwards to give the crude oars the maximum bite in the water and pulled back. The right-hand oar came out of the water and he nearly fell over again. He glanced over his shoulder. The island looked smaller again, and the mainland impossibly far off. Why had he ever thought this was a good idea? A small knot of panic started to grow in his stomach.

He rowed, using careful, short strokes, and put in maybe five minutes’ hard graft until his heart thumped like a bongo drum and his breath came in big gulps. His chest and stomach hurt with every breath from the kicking and punching he had received. But he wasn’t lightheaded or wheezing for air. His fitness was OK at least. He could keep this up for a while.

He looked over his shoulder again. Maybe he was making ground back towards the islet.

He renewed his efforts and rowed steadily for what seemed like fifteen minutes. He checked his watch. Yes, nearly twenty minutes, in fact. He turned his head again. The islet seemed only a little closer.

He was not going to make it. By rowing as hard as he could, he had managed to stay in one place, or make a little headway. To regain the lost distance and get back to the beach was not going to be possible unless the tide turned.

Toby, of course, had no idea when or if the tide did turn in these parts.

He realised that his throat was parched and sore. His lips felt dry and chapped. He shipped the oars, reached for his little bottle of water, twisted off the cap and took three small, slow draughts. That left about a third of the bottle. With exaggerated care, he replaced the cap and twisted it tight.

The sun beat down from almost directly overhead. Toby looked back again and realised with a sinking feeling that he had lost all the ground he had made up in the past half hour of strenuous rowing.

He was adrift and moving swiftly into deeper ocean waters, heading westward in the general direction of Belize.

He pulled the mobile phone from his pocket and turned it on. Perhaps, by some miracle, the radio coverage would be better out here on the ocean than it had been nearer land.

This turned out to be wishful thinking. Once again, the same infuriating “No Service” message flashed up on the little coloured screen.

He was in the deepest mess of his life. He should have stayed on the island. He could have made a shady shelter, conserved his strength and his water, kept the fire going and awaited rescue. He could have fashioned a fishhook from something, caught snappers and grilled them. If it rained, he could have strung up something to catch the water.

What a fool he had been. He had made what looked like a fatal error out of impatience and ignorance.

Toby didn’t want to die like this.

His toe throbbed. He bent down and pulled his foot up towards him. It was a nasty sight—blueish, swollen, and with some blood oozing around the nail, which was broken.

He bent over with his head in his hands. The boat rocked and the sun bore down cruelly.

After a few minutes of self-pity, he pulled himself together. Inaction was equally fatal. At least he had tried his best. And he wasn’t dead yet, not by a long way.

What were the strong points of his situation?

He was in a fishing boat.

He was a keen fisherman.

So get looking for ways to catch fish, Toby boy
, he told himself.

There were no nets as such in the boat, but there were plenty of small, torn pieces of netting. Perhaps he could deploy these over the side to catch something. It always worked in books and films.

There was certainly plenty of nylon line, although it was all horribly tangled in bunches and clumps. But he had time on his side to unravel a length to suit his purpose.

What about a hook? He got down on his hands and knees and crawled up and down over the detritus in the bottom of the boat. A little water slopped around the bilge area, but no more than when he had got in. At least the boat was seaworthy.

He sorted through the rubbish like an archaeologist seeking a Stone Age artefact. Logically, there had to be a fishhook down here somewhere.

He fingered his way through sand and sludge, checking each rib of the pirogue, looking at the places where a dropped hook would slide and lodge. He went carefully. He knew he wouldn’t do it twice.

Time went by, and he felt the sun burning its way into his back through his shirt. He willed himself to continue, and visualised the first fish he would catch. He would eat it raw. It was only sushi, just without the wasabi. He wasn’t squeamish about that. And the flesh would likely contain enough moisture to keep him from dying of thirst before it rained. And rain it must—they were still in the rainy season, and it had poured when he had tried to escape from the
Amelia
all those hours—days?—ago. He straightened up from his task. His back ached now, in addition to the graze and bruise he had sustained when he fell over backwards. He looked around hopefully for clouds bearing rain squalls.

The sky was perfectly clear in all directions, like an upturned blue pudding basin over the sea.

The boat rocked and little waves lapped and sloshed at the sides. Occasionally a small amount of spray flew up and landed on him. It was nice and cooling.

He returned to his search and immediately saw a small, rusty, but serviceable hook. It was well disguised. The rust blended in with the thin layer of muddy sludge that coated the bottom boards.

He was going to be OK.

To reward himself, he took another two mini-slurps of water, resisting the urge to go on and empty the bottle. He hadn’t caught anything yet.

He set about salvaging some line. He picked the least tangled clump of nylon and started to pick at it. It was knotted into a solid ball. No—wait—there was a loose end. He began to unravel the stuff.

He worked on for several minutes and was rewarded with an arm’s length of line. The same again, and he would be on his way to his first fish.

He looked up. He could not see his islet now, only the main island far away on the horizon. He was well and truly adrift. He unscrewed his water bottle and took another sip. There was a little under a quarter left.

Not much, but marooned sailors had survived on less than that, and there was always the chance of a shower at night.

He turned back to his unravelling. As he worked, he found his mind running back over the extraordinary events of the past twenty-four hours.

There were two facts. One, he had been framed for the murder of the Russian girl. Two, he had only one ally on the yacht—Julia—and she would save her own skin first.

They could have killed Toby and dumped both his and girl’s body overboard, weighted down. Why had they not done this? Presumably, because it would look better for them if he was found with the corpse. In that case, why had they not left the RIB?

Perhaps the fishermen had simply stumbled on the scene and made up their own minds to steal the RIB. That seemed unlikely—the men had known what they were doing and had not been surprised to find Toby.

Then there was the explosion at sea.
Let’s assume the worst case
. The RIB was blown up deliberately to destroy evidence. That meant Krigov and Co. had duped the fishermen and callously disposed of them. That was in character for them.

But why had no one killed him, Toby? Scott had a gun and could have done it—would probably have enjoyed it.

Because that would have cleared Toby of the crime, albeit posthumously. Eventually someone would find Toby and he would be identified—not many young white men go missing in the Caribbean, and his dental records would be swiftly sent. Once identified, the authorities would be straight on to Krigov and the
Amelia
. Everyone knew that was Toby’s job, from his parents to the Immigration officers at St Helen’s.

So Toby was more useful alive than dead—or if dead, at least dead from natural causes and not a bullet in the head.

Would they have raised the alarm eventually and sent the authorities to pick him up from the islet? No—the hope would have been that Toby would succumb to dehydration and heat, and expire. They would say he jumped ship with the girl. Maybe there was a sound or video recording of his encounter with Irina on the bridge that they could edit to back that up.

He worked at his fishing line, and teased out another little piece. Another few centimetres and he would be in business.

Next, he ran through possible ways he could be rescued.

By a passing ship.

Possible, and he had better rig up a flag or some way of making himself more visible, using scraps of cloth and the oars. If he added something metallic, he would have an improvised radar reflector, which might be seen on screen several miles away by an attentive Officer of the Watch—even at night.

How else to get out of this?

By Julia raising the alarm and somehow getting the Coastguard out, or some sort of search organised.

Would she do that? She didn’t necessarily know where they had taken him, or even if he was still alive, and she would be risking her own neck if caught.

What about his family back home in England?

His parents would be unlikely to worry. Toby had told them about the ban on mobile phones, so they wouldn’t be expecting a call even at New Year. His sister? Ditto. Friends? Double ditto. They would be so busy partying, they wouldn’t give him a thought.

What about the mobile phone? Maybe there were more islands out here, and he would wander into a service zone or even drift ashore. The Cayman Islands, for example. How far were they? If only he had studied those charts with more enthusiasm!

Suddenly, a wave of homesickness swept over Toby. He longed for the cold, drab weather of his homeland.

The Christmas decorations would still be up. In the pub, the lads would be practising for the big bender on New Year’s Eve.

Once again, but with more difficulty, Toby pulled himself together and returned to the immediate task at hand—catch a fish to stay alive.

The sun was lower in the sky, but still packed a punch of heat. The back of Toby’s neck was aflame. His toe was on fire too—blue, red, and black from its injury. And he was so thirsty. He reached for the bottle …

No! He must stay strong and make the ration last. He vowed to have no more water until sunset. By his watch, that was less than three hours away.

He would survive until then.

Chapter 14

Commander Gill Boyd stood on the bridge of
HMS Surrey
and looked around him. He allowed a smile of pure contentment to form on his lips. Everything was calm and orderly. No one on the bridge spoke. Ratings sat at their gunmetal-grey consoles. Outside and below, the Caribbean Sea glinted occasionally in the light of the waxing, gibbous moon, which hung low in the western sky.

At twenty-seven years of age, Boyd was the youngest captain in the British Royal Navy, and the
Surrey
was his first warship command.

No matter that she was an ancient Type 42 destroyer, almost due for retirement.

She was his, all 141 metres and 5,200 tonnes of her, with a solid crew of twenty-four officers and nearly 300 ratings.

Life was good.

The
Surrey’s
six-month mission was routine enough—drugs and arms interdiction in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, hurricane relief in the islands if necessary during the season, and ceremonial duties.

Boyd had one other responsibility, however, which was more unusual—the welfare and safety of the heir to the British throne, who was aboard on his first live training mission. Not that the young prince was any problem—he was a fine officer who learned quickly, distinguished himself in all he did, had a good sense of humour and never expected to be treated differently than anyone else.

The bridge door opened. An officer entered and saluted briskly. He was a short man, no more than five-foot-three, neat and dapper, with a surprising mop of luxuriant jet-black hair rather longer than regulations stipulated. He held out a piece of paper. “Something you should see, sir.”