The Drift (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 1) (13 page)

O
n
the next trip to Tangier, Mohamed pulled his cinema trick while Ahmed went on
the hashish round, striking it lucky with two Australian backpackers, who paid
top whack for all the squidgy lumps in his pocket and would have bought every
other drug known to man had they been available. Ahmed briefly considered
rekindling some old acquaintances but thought better of it, knowing the
cheating scumbags would only rip him off. Besides, he had to meet Mohamed to go
clothes shopping for Europe.

“What do you reckon?”

Mohamed held up an imitation number 10 shirt in the national
team’s colors.

“Very nice – but you need an Amsterdam one. To blend in, you
know?”

“Don’t you mean a Dutch one?”

“Yes, a Dutch-Amsterdam one.”

For the first time in their lives, the two of them had money
to buy clothes rather than having to rely on cast-off goods donated to the
missions. Shoplifting them had always been out of the question, for wearing new
attire as a street kid only invited trouble. They decided against stealing
outfits for Europe, as the last thing they wanted was a shop owner catching
them in the act and thwarting their plan at this late stage.

Rather surprisingly, the stall in the bazaar was a little
short on Dutch soccer shirts, so after trying on a whole range of clothes and
footwear – most of them ridiculous, the boys having no idea of Western fashion
– they settled on the ones they liked the most and went to pay.

“Wait!”

Mohamed dashed back though the racks, returning with two
Day-Glo orange parkas complete with toggles and fake-fur-trimmed hoods.

“It’s cold in Europe.”

“Yes, you are probably right.”

The final item on the list was a travel guide. Almost all
the tourists visiting the farm carried a
Lonely Planet
, and Ahmed deemed
it imperative to have something similar. There was a secondhand bookstore in
the bazaar, so they went in to have a look around.

“Here!” said Mohamed after browsing a couple of minutes,
holding up the
Encyclopedia of the European Monetary Union
with a
triumphant grin.

“En-cy-clo-peee-dia!”
Ahmed beamed, delighted to show
off his growing proficiency in English yet oblivious to the tome’s intended
audience.

“Look! Cheechee and Chongee!”

Mohamed recognized the world-famous stoners from his trips
to the cinema. Having giggled all the way through
Still Smokin
, he
figured
Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography
would help
them corner the hash market in Amsterdam.

They stowed their books and new wardrobe in a locker at the
ferry port and walked to the harbor. After chatting to a friendly Swedish
couple, who invited them aboard
Lille Maria
for a meal of meatballs and
mashed potato served with a delicious red-berry sauce, the boys went in search
of local fishermen, intent on investigating the possibility of crossing the
Strait of Gibraltar in a motorboat.

An elderly man sat cross-legged on the dock next to a
rusting trawler, weaving a shuttle of green twine through a damaged net at
lightning speed. The boys’ minds flashed back to their work in Abu Yazza’s
carpet factory. Despite the afternoon heat, the man wore a black woolen hat and
a set of yellow rubber dungarees that has seen better days, along with a good
few tons of sardines.

“
Pas
de
problème
,”
he replied with a nonchalant shrug.

“And how many hours does it take to reach Spain in a boat
like this?” asked Ahmed in French.

“
Trois
.” He held up three callused fingers. “
Avec
suffisamment diesel
.”

“Oh.” Ahmed frowned. “And what would happen if we don’t have
enough diesel?”

“
Bonjour, Atlantique
–
phhhsssk
!” The old man
flicked a hand through the air, dramatizing the worst-case scenario – dragged
out into the North Atlantic by the unforgiving current.

Mulling over the old man’s words, the boys headed toward the
medina for their rendezvous with Naseem, eventually dismissing the idea of stealing
a motorized vessel. They couldn’t simply pull up at the fuel pump in the harbor
in a stolen boat, and if they ran out of diesel midpassage and drifted out into
the ocean with a load of hashish on board it would be game over.

Mohamed was unusually quiet, hands in pockets and staring
down as they walked.

“What’s up, sister?” Ahmed ruffled his hair.

“This crossing . . .” He sighed. “Are you sure we can make
it? Why don’t we just run away now and live like we used to?”

“All our money is in the hut.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Listen!” Ahmed grabbed Mohamed’s arm and pulled him to a
halt. “Anywhere we go in this place, the Grower will find us. And you know what
that means.”

“How about Algeria?” Mohamed looked up inquiringly.

“Ha! Swap a pig for a hog?” Ahmed spat in the dirt.

Mohamed knew it to be true.

Ahmed softened his tone. “Look, little brother, the hut is
our honeypot, our ticket out of here. I promise you it will be worth it when we
step ashore in Spain as free men.”

He cocked his head at the sea to remind his friend how close
their destination was.

“Am-ster-dam-am!” Mohamed broke into a grin.

“Jiggy, jiggy, jiggy!” Ahmed threw a high five, and to cheer
Mohamed up further, added, “Hey, you can read English?”

“Of course.”

“Look what I got!”

He reached under his manky T-shirt, pulled a hardback book
from the waistband of his pants and waved
Den Kompletta Guiden till Segling
in
front of Mohamed’s face as if hitting the jackpot.

“That’s a
Swedish
sailing book, you idiot!”

“Oh . . .” Ahmed was crestfallen for a moment before beaming
again. “Hey, we can look at the pictures!”

Approaching the medina, Ahmed remembered Mohamed hadn’t
briefed him on the movie. It was important to get their story straight before
meeting Naseem.

“It was about a man with a
brave
heart in Scotland
Land. They call him Wall-yam Willis, the
Brave
Heart Man.” Mohamed fell
silent, looking somewhat nonplussed.

“What is it?”

“It’s . . .”

“Come on, tell me!”

“Ahmed?”

“What?”

“Is Amsterdam like Scotland Land?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“In Scotland Land the men have blue faces and they wear
short skirts, like the infidel women. And they are savages –
really
savages. Fight like the Berber!”

“
N
ext
stop Portugal!”

Hans was in good spirits as
Future
sliced through a
moderate sea in close proximity to land. Marcel had agreed to meet them in the
Canary Islands, but was heading
Sietske
for the Moroccan port of Tangier
first “to see some ‘guys,’ you know?”

“Bop rabbit!” Penny paused to adjust her blindfold before
tapping the rubber fender down gently.

“Missed me!” Jessica squealed, kneeling opposite on deck.
She loved playing Bop Rabbit, trying to guess where your opponent is and “bop”
them accordingly.

With the sun on his face, Hans enjoyed the moment. It had
been a while since he felt so relaxed. The endless phone calls, emails, lab
reports, court appearances and surveillance operations crammed into a week at
the Larsson Investigation Agency were far from his mind, as was the awkward
ritual of receiving condolences and well wishes.

Unbeknown to Penny, Hans filled a bucket with seawater.
Shh!
he signaled to Jessica, climbing up beside her.

As their shipmate raised the bunny whacker and announced “Bop
rabbit!” a second time, Hans delivered an impromptu shower.

“Ahh! You
swine!”
She lifted the blindfold to find
the Larsson family in stitches. “I’ll get you back, you know!”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Hans grinned and tipped the
remaining water over her.

The two days to Lisbon made for dream sailing. Although low
in the water from ample provisioning,
Future
lay well over and ran
before the breeze like an excited stag, her brilliant-white sails a perfect
match for the cottony wisps drifting across a sapphire sky. As far as the eye
could see, glistening wave crests gave the impression of herds of buffalo
roaming the plane.

Humans are born on land, so what is it about the sea?
Hans reflected, imagining centuries of clippers and whalers plying this same
route.

By now they had settled into an easy routine, Penny and Hans
alternating turns at the helm to keep Jessica occupied with games, seamanship
and schoolwork. Hans appreciated the interest Penny took in his daughter and
the extra mile she always went without hesitation.

“She’s so clever,” Penny remarked as Jessica sat on deck twisting
her Rubik’s Cube.

“She is. Took me twenty years to solve that thing.”

“She can
solve
it?”

“In under three minutes.” Hans chuckled. “You’d be too young
to remember the craze.”

“There was one?”

“Yeah, pretty much every kid in school had a Rubik’s Cube, but
only the brainboxes could do them. Made it look easy. The rest of us struggled
to get a side the same color or resorted to taking them apart and putting them
back together again. She gets it from her mom – the intelligence, I mean.”

“Of course. I didn’t think she got it from you.”

“Hah! She gets her looks from me.”

“That’s obvious.” Penny prodded him in the ribs. “So her mum
was pretty smart?”

“Her IQ was off the scale.”

“Really?”

“State Scrabble champion five years in a row. Could make
words you didn’t know existed.”

“So that’s where Jessie gets it.”

“Look at her scuba diving. You’re an instructor, right?”

“I am.”

“How many kids do you know that are as competent as she is?”

“I’ve never met any kids her age who can dive.”

“Exactly. Makes me laugh when I see parents posting videos
on YouTube of their eight-year-old, claiming they’re the youngest open-water
diver ever. Jess dived off Maine at five.”

“It’s remarkable.”

“She’s always been advanced for her age – crawling, talking,
reading. Problem was she got way ahead in class and started to lose interest. We
had her moved up a year, and Kerry spent time in the evenings homeschooling her.”

“How did that go?”

“Really well. Kerry was good at that kinda thing – math,
English, music. Hell, she could speak Spanish and German fluently.”

“Sounds like a tough act to fol—” The words tumbled out
before Penny could stop them.

“No!” Hans kicked himself. “Don’t think that. Kerry was
Kerry and . . . well, that’s it.”

They fell silent a moment, listening to the waves splashing
against
Future
’s hull.

“And was JJ the same?”

“No, JJ was a plodder like his father, but uncannily
pragmatic.”

“That figures.”

“They were good together. Balanced one another. But it’s
been hard to . . .”

“To explain to Jessie what happened?”

Hans nodded, his jaw clenched. “She would understand death
better than most adults. It’s just . . . I don’t want to put my grief onto her.
Don’t wanna steal her innocence. She’s smart, but she’s still a child. Does
that make sense?”

“Perfect sense. It’s why she carries a teddy.”

Hans smiled. “I’ve done my best to explain it to her. You
know, without resorting to angels in heaven or a full-on science lecture.”

“You’ve done a great job, Hans. You always do. I see the way
you take time to teach her things, like the history in Plymouth. Most parents
just drag their kids around, overlooking the fact they’re a receptacle for
knowledge.”

“Ha! You’ve had the rundown on Sir Francis Drake?”

“Queen’s favorite sailor. Big ship called a galleon. Sailed
to faraway places like the jungle – and don’t get me started on nuclear
submarines.”

“She’s a cracking kid.”

“She certainly is. And bereavement isn’t something you can
deal with through logic, no matter how smart you are.”

“You’re right.” Hans put his arm around Penny and kissed her
hair. “Say, you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry, Hans. You should know that by now.”

“Then it’s Scooby snack time! Jessie, wanna eat something?”

“I’m okay, Papa.” She concentrated on putting the colored
squares in place for a fifth time.

“Got plenty of escargot, if you want some.”

“Urrrh!”

Hans went into the galley and began pulling items from the
fridge, timing his forays with the roll of the yacht like a sketch in a Laurel
and Hardy movie. He emerged with two baton rolls loaded with enough ingredients
to stock a deli.

“Hot sauce?” He waggled the bottle in front of Penny as she
set the self-steering mechanism.

“Erm?” She eyed the label “Louisiana Mega Death” and its
skull-and-crossbones logo with suspicion. “I think I’ll pass.”

They sat in the cockpit working their way along the torpedo-sized
sandwiches.

“You said you liked smorgasbord, Hans, but this is
ridiculous!” Penny tried not to let the thick slices of chorizo, wild boar
salami, chunks of goat cheese and salad sneak out of the perimeter. Having
polished off the sub, she wiped her mouth with a tissue and stared out to sea.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” She gazed dead ahead.

“Must be something?”

“It’s that . . . I’ve never asked you what happened.” She
turned to face him. “Not that I want to pry, but if you need to talk . . .”

Hans rubbed his neck and stared down at the cockpit’s wooden
decking.

Penny regretted her comment, fearing she had overstepped the
mark, though she need not have.

“Penny, I’ve always found it strange, almost despised the
way people deal with death. I don’t know if it’s a military thing or just the
result of my upbringing. My parents divorced, and a whole load of chaos came
with it. But I always refused to feel sorry for myself, you know? Even homeless
and wandering the streets at one point, I told myself this is life, and just
get on and deal with it. When I got older and people started dying – relatives
or friends I grew up with – I applied the same thinking. I guess when you
understand from an early age that life ain’t fair you learn to take things in
your stride. Hell, when my parents died I hardly shed a tear, even though I
missed them as much as anyone.”

Penny tried to understand, but she had been raised at sea,
which meant relatives were always at a distance and their deaths had little
impact on her life.

“People tread on tiptoes and use expressions like ‘passed
away’ and insist on wearing black to funerals and getting all pious and stuff.
Everyone wants to tell you this is gonna take time and that grieving works in
mysterious ways. And I just think, ‘They haven’t “passed away” – they’re
dead
.’
And it’s only gonna take time if you choose it to. I down a bottle of Jack and
get on with it.”

“Isn’t that what shrinks call ‘detachment’?”

“Shrinks can call it what they like. I figure it’s best to
see life the way it is and move on.”

“But this time it’s different, isn’t it?”

Hans slipped a hand over Penny’s. “You have a way of seeing
things.”

“When you’ve crewed on as many boats as I have, you get used
to weighing people up – kind of a survival mechanism. You meet some challenging
people in this line of work.”

“So you see me and Jess as a challenge or just work?” Hans lightened
the mood.

“I see Jess as utterly adorable, and you . . .” She paused,
looking into his eyes and choosing her words carefully. “Put it this way. In
all my years of sailing you were the first person I ever saw enter a marina
under canvas.”

“Real Tarzan, huh?”

“To this Jane, yeah. But we’re not talking about me.”

“Oh.”

“Hans” – Penny stroked his knee – “it’s okay to grieve.”

“I know. But now when I should be grieving, when I
want
to grieve, I can’t.”

“Why?” Penny spoke softly.

Hans stared at the cockpit floor once more, contemplating
his response. “Because I have unfinished business.”

Penny saw a look come over Hans’ face she had not seen
before, dark, brooding and violent. “And is this to do with your work?”

Still looking down, Hans bit his lip and nodded.

“You feel guilty, don’t you?”

“More than you’d ever believe.”

They both fell silent. Even if Penny knew what to say, this
was not the time to say it.

“I’ve done it six times!” Jessica held the completed cube aloft.

“Wow!” Penny climbed up on the cabin roof. “And what about
Bear? How many times did he do it?”

“He didn’t even do it once.” Jessica shrugged, looking
doleful. “He can’t really do anything.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Penny pecked her on the cheek.

“Well, how about taking Bear below and showing him how to
fill out yesterday’s log?” Hans suggested, knowing being trusted with this task
meant a lot to Jessica. “And afterwards I think we should break open that big bar
of chocolate.”

“Aye aye, skippa!”

An excited Jessica ran aft, forgetting to unclip her safety
line. Yanked off her feet, she crashed unceremoniously onto the deck.

“Ahh!” She pushed up onto her knees and eyed the offending restraint
with disdain. “You
swine!”

Penny glanced at Hans and ducked inside the cabin.