The Abigail Affair (24 page)

But he bent his knees and steadied himself. He knelt, then lay full-length on his stomach on the board, stretched his arms out wide and paddled with his hands like a seal with its flippers.

The sky was just starting to glow pink over the marina.

A few strokes brought his improvised craft to the end of the concrete finger pier. He found an iron ladder conveniently bolted to the very end, grabbed it and climbed up. He abandoned the surfboard.

He crouched low and padded down the pier to the main walkway, passing the high bulk of the
Amelia
as he approached its stern, moored to the jetty. He kept close to the ship and looked around for the security guard. He didn’t want anyone to catch him now.

No one seemed to be about, so, still crouched low, he made his way towards the main gates. There was a light on in the guard hut, but no sign of an occupant. Toby reached the gates. The chain-link structure was closed, and a heavy chain secured the two gates together. There was a pedestrian entrance to one side with a sliding latch. Again, it was padlocked. He would have to climb.

Wait a sec
... as Toby touched the padlock hasp it rotated, and he saw that it had simply been hung on the latch, unlocked.

He looked around, drew the metal latch slowly, opened the gate and stepped out.

Easy.

Moments later, he was on the main lagoon road. Dawn was breaking. An early bus, full of local people, slowed and honked its horn, sensing Toby as a potential fare.

Why not?

The bus was heading into the town centre, well away from the marina, and that was fine. Toby waved, the bus stopped, the conductor slid the side door back and everyone shifted around to make room for him. He shrugged off his backpack and climbed in, and dug around for some coins.

“Good morning, good morning,” the bus occupants murmured as he squirmed into a seat and arranged his backpack on his lap.

He was free.

A glint of sun showed above the rooftops. Liberty tasted sweet, and it was going to be a lovely day.

He got off at the bus station and walked down to the waterfront. He found a stall selling juice and buns and sat on a low wall as he savoured his breakfast. Then he lit up – he’d packed the cigarettes deep in the rucksack to keep them dry.

While he smoked, he looked in his backpack for the plastic nametag, found it and inspected it. He turned it over and over in his fingers.
Yulia Belova RN.
Did RN mean “Royal Navy?” Perhaps one of the boarding party from the
Surrey
had dropped it.

Except there was no woman in that party.

Yulia. Julia.
Could that be coincidence?

He put the tag in his pocket and got up from his wall.

Next stop, after his break, an Internet cafe to call his parents. He mooched around and whiled away more time until he judged the shops were open. Then he stopped a portly woman taking two tiny, immaculate girls to school and she directed him to a side street. The Internet facility was on the first floor above an Indian bazaar and had just opened. He was the only customer. The equipment looked dodgy, but it worked, and he found a usable headset. Soon, he heard the Skype ringing tone.

“Hi, Mum!”

“Toby! Where are you, darling?”

“I’m back in St Helen’s. I’m coming home. Put the kettle on.”

“Why? What’s happened? Did you get sacked? You’ve only been gone a few days. Your father will not be pleased.”

Toby realised he hadn’t thought this through. “It’s not as simple as that. I did well, I think. I just can’t talk now. It’s complicated. Trust me.”

“Toby, what are you going on about? Why are you coming home? Why have you left the yacht?” His mother’s tone was suspicious. She clearly thought Toby had been bumming around, had maybe never joined his ship. Toby wished he had not made the call. Why had he?

Duty and habit.

Time to be his own man.

“I’ve been on the
Amelia
, but there was a problem. I’ll tell you as much as I can when I see you. Just give me a chance to get home and explain. OK? I am not going to discuss it further now. Please don’t say anything to anyone about this, either.”

“You’re talking in riddles, Toby.” Now his mother sounded anxious rather than cross. “Do you need money?”

Toby was practically broke and was very tempted to ask his mother if she would loan him some money and transfer it to his account. He had a few US dollars in his wallet, and his debit card. But he knew that his bank account was already close to zero or maybe slightly overdrawn. No way would the card give him any cash from an ATM. He urgently needed money because as well as changing his ticket home, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with Julia. That would cost.

In the past, Toby had often asked his mother for money, had usually got it, and had rarely had to repay it all. But this time, he wanted to manage for himself.

He was due payment for his services to his country.

The British Government could bloody well pay his passage home and his hotel expenses. Just for starters.

So he declined his mother’s offer, which worried her further, rang off and went to pay. The guy running the Internet shop was on the phone, speaking under his voice.

Making the rendezvous was his next job, but he needed a payphone. He couldn’t risk making the call here.

“How much?” Toby asked.

The man put the phone down. “You Toby Robinson?”

Chapter 23

“Who wants to know?” Toby asked slowly.

“Royal St Helen’s Police Force. What you done, boy?”

“Nothing,” Toby said. “What did they say?” He glanced towards the door. He could run for it.

“Somebody saw you heading this way. They ask me to detain you. I guess you better go over there and sit down again and wait quietly for the cops.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Toby said urgently. He needed his backpack, which was on the floor by the computer terminal.

“They say you on the run from Immigration or some such ting.” The shop owner looked Toby up and down.

The man was behind the counter and not in a position to restrain Toby, who lunged for his backpack and scrabbled inside it. He came up with a twenty US dollar note—his last banknote. “Actually, I’m a British Secret Service agent. I’m authorised to make confidential payments to those who help me, and recommend them for awards in Her Majesty’s New Year Honours. Here’s my ID.” He reached in his pocket and waved the Yulia Belova tag in front of the man’s face, so close he would have difficulty in focusing on it.

“No kidding?” The man scratched his head. He seemed to want to believe Toby. “Sounds like you jokin’ me.”

The cops would be here any minute. If they took him into custody, they wouldn’t let him phone the British Consul, and everything would be much more complicated. “No, this is real. You take this money, and keep quiet. Orders from the Foreign Office. You’ll be in serious trouble if you give me away.” Toby dropped the twenty-dollar note on the counter and reached for the door.

As he left, the man called out, “You’ll need my name for Her Majesty. Lionel La Touche.”

Toby grinned and scuttled down the concrete stairs. On the street, he squeezed past a portly lady selling small savoury pastries from a tray balanced on an oil drum. The street was busier than when he had gone in. The sun was well up, and the temperature was climbing with it. Toby wished he had made his call to the Consulate first instead of calling his mother.

Too late for regrets.

He looked up and down the street for a pay phone. Yes—amazing. There was one, a glass booth with Cable & Wireless logos. And he had the coins he needed. Trying not to look furtive, he set off down the street.

He reached the booth without opposition and picked up the receiver. Somewhat surprisingly, because in his experience, public pay phones never worked, this one was operative. He fed in a quarter dollar and dialled the number Smithers had made him memorise by means of a mnemonic phrase—“Even With Penalties, Arsenal Can’t Win Now.”
Just tap the letters on the keypad instead of numbers. Easy.

A woman’s voice answered. “A pleasant good day,” she said.

“Abigail,” he said as instructed.

He heard some clicks. A second later, a man’s voice. “Noodles. Where are you?”

Toby looked up and across the street. “St Helen’s. In town. In the pay phone opposite Purnell’s Office Equipment,” he said. “Where are
you
? Aren’t you still on the
Surrey?”

“No. Stay there. We’ll come for you. Five minutes. We’ll be in a pale blue Honda CRV. Got it?”

“Yes.” Toby rung off and waited.

The glass booth seemed to gather the sun’s rays and focus them on his face. He felt beads of sweat form on his brow. He was like a goldfish in a bowl. Was he supposed to stay actually in the booth?

A rapping noise made him jump.

He turned around to see a young woman with a small child on her hip, clearly waiting to use the phone. He pushed the door open, exited, and stood by the booth. The pavement heaved with pedestrians and the roadway was nose-to-tail with traffic, which moved at a walking pace down the one-way street.

After a bit, the traffic came to a complete halt, and almost immediately the honk of hooters filled the air and echoed off the shop fronts.

There seemed to be some sort of holdup further down the street. Toby craned his neck. He didn’t want to leave his post.

Then he turned his head the other way and saw them—two policemen, in blue, red and white dress uniform, with caps.

They saw him at the same moment and started towards him at a run, bumping and shoving aside the pedestrians who thronged the pavement.

Toby dodged into the middle of the road. He took cover behind a high-sided van for a second, then crossed to the other side through the stationary traffic. He pulled open the glass door of Purnell’s and went in.

“Can I help you, sir?” enquired a short, Indian-looking man. His head wobbled slightly as he spoke.

“Can I use your toilet, please? I had some dodgy pastry from a vendor.”

“You mean Elsie just over the way? She not hygienic at all. Her licence revoke, she should not be vending those things. I am sorry you have had a bad experience. All vendors must have food hygiene training, take a medical, and wear a badge—“

“Sorry mate, I’m desperate, I need the khazi,” Toby said. The man pointed. Toby ran to the back of the store and pushed open the flimsy plywood door. It led to a tiny lobby area. The toilet was to one side and a rear access door, presumably leading to the delivery area, was straight ahead. But this door was latched top and bottom and secured with an industrial-size padlock. Toby ducked into the toilet.

As he had feared, this had only a small window high up. At least there were no security bars. Toby shrugged off his backpack, climbed up on the toilet seat holding it, and used it as a battering instrument on the metal-framed window. The glass shattered obligingly, but left jagged shards around the frame. Toby prodded with the backpack again to knock these out.

He had only seconds.

That would have to do.

He pushed the backpack through the window and heard it plop on the ground outside. He stood on the toilet cistern and grasped either side of the empty window frame. He winced as pain shot through his right hand. He had cut it on a piece of glass that remained in the frame. Immediately, he felt warm blood on his hand.

He pulled himself up and stuck his head out. Now he could hear raised voices from inside the store—the Indian man protesting in a loud, high voice, and the lower tones of the cops.

He wriggled and squirmed until he hung half-out the window. The problem was, he was going to fall out headfirst if he continued. If he put his hands out to cushion his fall, he would likely break a wrist. He needed to go out feet first.

No time even to try it.

Why were the police after him, anyway?

No time to consider that, either.

The voices were closer now. He could either stay and face the cops or risk his neck, literally.

After all he had been through, it didn’t seem a tough decision. He would go. He scrabbled with his hands and found a drainpipe passing by the side of the window. That was good. He grasped it and yelped as pain shot through his right hand again. There was glass embedded in the soft, fleshy part.

By working his hands down the drainpipe, half-falling and half-pulling himself, he got out of the window, suspended by his feet. He held on tight despite the searing pain, unhooked his feet, twisted his body, and fell awkwardly, but not dangerously, to the ground.

Just in time, too, for he could hear voices in the toilet. He glanced up and saw a dark face at the broken window, peering out.

He picked himself up, grabbed the backpack and looked around. There was the street exit, through an open archway. He set off and emerged, blinking, into the street behind the store.

Where to go? He could hardly double back to the phone box—at least, not yet. But if he delayed, he would miss his rendezvous. In fact, he had probably already blown that. At least five minutes had elapsed since he left his post.

Another phone call from another phone was the obvious answer.

He examined his hand. It was bleeding quite profusely. Amid the blood, he saw the glint of glass in the base of his thumb. It hurt to touch it—that meant the splinter was deeply embedded. He couldn’t get his fingernails on it to extract it. They were too short and worn-down.

While thus engaged, he managed to get blood all over his white T-shirt. He wiped his hand on the shirt and made it much worse. He pulled the shirt up and tore off a strip of cotton with his teeth to make an improvised bandage. He wound this around his injured hand, not easy with only one good hand to work with.

Time to go—and get out of sight, quick. He jogged along. At least this street was not so crowded—only the occasional passer-by.