Until Death (18 page)

‘Mmm. That so?’ They were talking about her as if she weren’t even in the room.

Matt’s head came round the door to the kitchen. ‘Whisky, Uncle Ed?’

He held up two fingers in reply.

‘I don’t want to talk about work, not when I’ve just come home.’

Uncle Ed smiled, his very white, capped teeth a hard line in his mouth. ‘If you ask me, it’s a man causing you trouble. Always is, in my experience. What’s the guy’s name who’s making you lose your beauty sleep?’

Dad came and slumped on the couch so she sat down again next to him, Ryan squeezed in on her other side. She didn’t reply, trying to tell by the smell how many her dad had had in the pub.

‘Come on, give us something to talk about,’ Uncle Ed added. ‘To speculate and gossip about. People are losing the art of conversation.’ He stared at Ryan, head down to his phone. He didn’t pick up on the hint.

‘It’s a shipping guy we’re investigating, that’s all.’

‘Well, of course it’s a bloody shipping guy.’ He turned and laughed easily with Dad. ‘What do I look like to you – stupid?’ She saw Dad draining the can of beer, placing it carefully on the carpet by the couch. He opened another. ‘How long you been there now? A year?’ She looked away, trying to block him out. He gave a sharp shake of his head, as if thinking things unsayable. ‘They’re taking your best years, G. Before you know it, you’ll be old and cranky like your dad here, with nothing to show for it.’ He took the glass Matt had brought in to him and took a long sip. ‘You wear that to work, do you?’ He pointed the glass at her flat, dark lace-ups, her rain-soaked Gap trousers. ‘You need make-up, a bit of voom. Now Ryan’s Shelley—’

Georgie stood in a hurry. ‘Thanks for the life coaching, I’m off out now in the freezing cold and wet.’

They crowded round, the men of her family, her dad pulling her back to the sofa, Ryan offering a run for fish and chips.

‘I’m just saying, the dice is stacked against you doing your job—’

‘And he knows all about stacked dice, doesn’t he, Dad?’ she shot back.

Uncle Ed folded his hands round his stomach and smiled. ‘Come on, what’s his name, this shipping guy? Got a phone number? If you’ve got a number I can try something.’

‘What’s this
something
you can try?’

‘Listen in on his messages, see who he’s been talking to—’

‘Oh stop.’ She actually laughed out loud. ‘You want to hack his phone? Are you seriously suggesting that?’

Uncle Ed swirled his whisky. ‘I help you, you can help me down the line.’

‘Just so we’re clear, it’s against the law, I can’t use anything you find anyway, and I’d lose my job. Got it?’

Uncle Ed’s contentment became Buddha-like.

Ryan sat forward on the couch. ‘You can listen in on what other people are saying on their phones? How d’you do that then?’ He stared at his phone as if it might provide the answer on the screen.

‘Not what they’re saying, their messages. You can listen to messages.’ Uncle Ed turned back to Georgie. ‘Remember, that dice is never going to roll you a six. Not without a little Uncle Ed help.’

She stood up again. ‘But you’re not my uncle, are you, really.’ She moved to the door in silence. His leg shot out from the recliner to stop her going. Her family members were statues, Uncle Ed’s eyes were hard and menacing. She’d said the unsayable, charged into dangerous territory.

‘They’re bent down there, bent as a two bob note.’ His voice was low and quiet, thick with menace.

She said nothing.

‘Back in the seventies, oh I remember, don’t you, Vic?’ He swung his glass towards Dad. ‘The stuff we lifted off them ships.’ Dad was nodding, staring glassy-eyed into his beer. ‘All unionised then. Not a squeak unless you were carded. Not like now. Everyone for theirselves now.’ He gave her a pointed look. ‘Remember, G, there’s always gotta be inside help. Your shipper’s got someone on the inside. That’s your Uncle Ed’s advice. To beat them you got to be like them.’

She stepped over his leg and out of the room. ‘I think I’d rather let him get away with it.’ But she said it quietly enough that she was sure he wouldn’t hear.

M
o was sitting at his desk, Tango in one hand, ear buds in the other, trying to offer Georgie some advice. ‘I heard what you did at the warehouse for impounded goods yesterday, pulling rank on the lazy old-timers. You need to be careful. They work for customs, but they’re dockers at heart. They can make life difficult.’

Georgie disagreed. ‘My dad and my so-called Uncle Ed were dockers; they’re not scary, they’re fucking eejits.’

‘Even so, you need to watch it. Don’t be naïve. Imagine running an investigation with that lot trying to block you at every turn. It’s hard enough as it is.’

They were looking at the records for May, two weeks either side of the landing date for the last visit of the
Saracen
. Checking the records of hundreds of containers on trade that never stopped. The docks were operating 24/7, 365 days a year. It was methodical, boring work, but Georgie was convinced they would get there in the end. Trade always left a trail. It might be a needle in a haystack, but if you looked hard enough, a needle glinted in the sun.

‘Thanks for the concern, but I can take care of myself. Now we should look for consignments being delivered to potential shell companies, companies that don’t exist,’ Georgie suggested, keen to move on from their disagreement.

‘Whatever.’ Mo didn’t look up. He was still in a bad mood with her.

It was hopeless. She threw her pencil down and went to get some fresh air, standing in the car park in a patch of sun watching the cranes as they inched across the sky. She saw the two men from impounded goods walking away from the warehouse up to the pub. She looked at her watch. It was five to twelve; they were breaking for an early, and no doubt long, Saturday lunch.

She noticed that the young guy she’d seen with them moving crates in the warehouse was in the car park, pulling a tyre from the boot of an ancient Astra. She walked over. ‘Can I help?’

He had the jack under the chassis and was wheeling the tyre over. ‘I don’t need no help.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lukas.’

He was Polish. ‘You been here long?’

He shrugged and didn’t look at her, attaching the wrench to the lug nuts and yanking hard.

‘I’m up in the offices.’

Still no answer. He had two of the nuts off already and was straining on the third.

‘Sometimes they need a good kick.’

He glanced up at her and stood for a moment and she saw him scan the car park behind her, checking who was there. He didn’t want to be seen associating with the wrong people.

‘Come on, how long have you been here?’

‘Four years.’

‘You like your job?’

‘It’s a job.’

‘How about your bosses? Do you like them?’ She smiled.

He gave her a curt nod. He was being cagey; he’d learned to be careful.

‘You can grow to hate your boss.’

He looked up at her but didn’t answer.

‘Here, let me help you.’ She held out her foot. ‘You hold the wrench and I’ll stand on it.’

She held on to the car and put a foot on the wrench. ‘You left family behind in Poland?’

‘All of them.’

‘You’ve come a long way to get on. Made a lot of sacrifices.’

‘We all must work. There’s no other way.’

She lifted her other foot off the ground and held on to the car. ‘You know, I realised something the other day. There’s no English phrase for the American dream. I find that strange, considering what I see.’ She bounced up and down on the wrench but it didn’t budge. ‘How do you find England? London?’

He was staring at the wrench and made a gesture for her to get down. He aimed a forceful kick down on the metal. The nut moved.

‘Chatty, eh?’

He said nothing.

Georgie wasn’t about to give up, his silence only made her keener to press on. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-seven.’

She glanced around, they were still alone. ‘Tell me, how many promotions you had in four years?’

‘None.’ He moved the wrench to the last lug nut and stamped again and the nut slipped. A few moments later the wheel was off. No promotion in four years, in a service understaffed and with recruitment problems.

‘Lukas, you can change this situation. You don’t have to remain the underdog. Those men you’re working for, how many years have they got left? They’re five years from retirement? Ten? It comes quicker than you think.’

He was listening now, turning the wrench slowly to do up the lug nuts with the new tyre in place.

‘If you want to get on, you need help. From people like yourself, and that means people like me. Not like them.’

He straightened and was now taller than her, the jack a heavy weight in his large hands.

‘If you see or hear anything you don’t like, about goods going missing or rumours about certain containers …’ She trailed off, letting what she’d said sink in.

He walked slowly round to the boot and put the jack in it.

She followed. ‘When the baton is passed, you want to make sure you’re in a position to take it, before it’s grabbed by someone else less deserving.’

He picked up the dud tyre as if it weighed nothing and put it back in the boot and slammed the door shut.

‘Think about it. We can help each other. One underdog to another.’

He didn’t reply. He didn’t say a word, but he was looking at her, his expression impossible to read. He wiped his grease-stained hands on his thighs and locked the car and walked away back to the warehouse.

T
he weather at sea had changed with dawn, the blue sky and harsh sunlight replaced by a high band of white cloud and a cooler wind. The waves were crowned with white spray, the ship ploughing relentlessly onwards. The Wolf had done his four-hour shift and was coming to the end of his break. He was on the bridge with the President and Jonas. He was telling their new traveller all their worst stories, and Jonas was lapping them up.

‘And then there was that time I was in Pakistan, stinking hot it was, and there was an armed guard at the end of the gangway telling us we couldn’t get off the ship in case we were kidnapped and filmed having our heads cut off and posted on the Internet and I said, “Fuck that, I’m a merchant seaman, I’m fucking hard.” And I got off the ship and I went looking for a drink. I’m fucking looking for a beer in Karachi!’

They laughed. ‘It’s a shame we’re not going to Singapore,’ added the Wolf, warming to his theme. He could feel the manic energy rising in him on the crest of the beer and the stories, his need to impress and his desire to have a good time.

‘Stop ribbing the guy,’ said the President.

‘We can go to the mall.’ He paused. ‘You can visit the four floors of whores. There’s a place at the mall in Singapore called the four floors of whores.’

Jonas shrugged. ‘I’ve been there already.’

The Wolf cheered and slapped him rather too hard on the arm.

The President called Jonas up to where he was sitting. ‘This is our course.’ He pointed at the computer screens in front of him. ‘This is our GPS position and this is the weather.’ The Wolf noticed the tight concentric rings like a pinwheel covering most of the mid-Atlantic and touching on the shores of North Africa.

‘There’s a storm coming.’

The President nodded. ‘Enjoy the weather now, Jonas, it’ll get bumpy later.’

‘Is that a big storm?’ asked Jonas.

The Wolf slapped him on the arm again. ‘Not for this great monster of a ship. That’s when the fun begins.’ He looked out of the bridge window at the containers, stacked end to end and high above the sides of the ship.

The President was more circumspect. ‘If they’re not lashed down good and tight they can go over, and what can be lost can be incalculable.’

The Wolf made a show of pumping his biceps. ‘But with these muscles on the job it’s no bother. Come on, I’ll take you for a cycle.’

Jonas looked astonished. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The ship’s so big we get around it by bike.’ He wanted to keep Jonas close, find out more about him. His story didn’t stack up. He looked and acted poor but travelling home on a ship was much more expensive than taking a flight. It was also a better route to try to get something back to England without anyone checking the contents of luggage too closely. The Wolf had noticed the old army rucksack on the floor of Jonas’s cabin, how he carefully locked the door behind him as he left.

Jonas followed him down the steps of the bridge and along the tight corridors, down clanging metal stairs and past the cabins.

‘Did you sleep OK?’ the Wolf asked Jonas.

‘I was out like a light.’

I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you, the Wolf thought. On a ship as big as this, it was too much of a temptation for a thief not to have a good look around, see what could be snatched. He wouldn’t put it past Jonas to be light-fingered.

‘How was your night?’

‘Quiet,’ the Wolf lied. He had known Luciana would probably be fun, but she had been more useful than he had imagined. She had spent a long time last night massaging the fingers on his right hand, trying to get the feeling back in them. Using the chainsaw a few days ago had brought on vibration white finger, the repetitive stress injury that had taken him out of the lumberjack trade in the first place and put him on ships.

He looked down at the index and middle finger of his right hand. They were a pale, waxy colour, the blood drained from them. He looked away.

Ten minutes later he was cycling with Jonas through a narrow walkway between a high canyon of containers. It was gloomy and cold down here, the sun never penetrating. ‘There’s a tamper-proof seal here’ – he showed Jonas the plastic circle with the line of numbers on the door of each container – ‘and a twist lock system keeps the containers in place.’ They rode along to the prow of the ship and stood looking north over the Atlantic. The wind had picked up and was blowing strongly now, pushing the Wolf’s hair away from his face and sticking his T-shirt to his chest.

‘What’s inside these containers?’ asked Jonas.