The German Numbers Woman (54 page)

Howard came in. ‘He was talking on VHF. Nearly popped my eardrums.'

‘Who to?'

‘Somebody on shore, I suppose. In English. La-di-da voice. Said numbers, which sounded like course and position.'

‘What did the others say back?'

‘They just acknowledged the signal. It could have been his coordinates, but the course sounded like ours.'

‘We'll lose 'em in the night. A bit of zig-zagging ought to do it. It's far from beyond us. I'll tell the chief as soon as Cleaver takes over. No use worrying him too soon.'

‘Meanwhile I'll do a stint on the Interpol frequencies.'

He wanted fog, a nice all-hiding cough-dropping fog, but the last way to get anything was to pray for it, though mist around the Foreland would also have its dangers – like bumping into the wall of a container ship or cross-Channel ferry. Even a fishing boat would mean a nasty smack. Bad luck to kill ourselves, or anyone else, come to that. Such blatant aerial shadowing hadn't happened before.

Waistcoat would scream that they had been shopped, and who could deny it? Maybe the people in the Azores had set the trap. He would believe anything, except that Howard had had anything to do with stitching them up. In the drugs game everyone played dirty. The more stuff at the bottom of the sea, or burned behind a customs warehouse, the more the price of powder and weed went up, so all the better for those who found a chair when the music stopped. On the other hand it could mean a grudge was being settled, someone getting his own back on a bit of pique so ancient that he who had done the trickery – hardly thought of as such at the time – had lost all memory of it. The trouble was, half a dozen good men went down with whoever they were after, and none could be sure who had gone shopping with such a big trolley.

When anybody was caught it was always because of a tip-off, which those betrayed could never see the reason for. Yet even the South Americans – savages to a man – wouldn't do anything to Waistcoat. Or so Richard hoped, a ripple of ice going into his blood. Of course they wouldn't. Waistcoat knew too much, was too solidly embedded in the network. Such treachery on that level of the hierarchy was unthinkable, would ricochet too far upstairs, though never far enough if Waistcoat began to tell all he knew – which he surely would – to get a shorter sentence.

Morbid thoughts because he had heard a couple of aeroplanes, but every sign worried when close to the white cliffs. Keep a good lookout, and forget all else. He stood at the stern after Cleaver had taken the wheel. Pale grey cumulus, settled in the west, had decided to come after them, egged on by those behind flamed into orange by the setting sun. The wind diminished but the chase was on. Only a fool would deny it. The evening was peaceful enough, but a menace from both west and east was about to box them into a situation hard to avoid or get out of. He didn't like it, tapped the pistol under his coat, and resisted the urge to throw it into the water.

THIRTY-THREE

Howard's inner sight was for the time being of a blacker blackness than during the day. He only knew it was night because he was tired, yet the blacker the blackness the more he needed to see. In the sink of exhaustion he forced senses into sharpness, though for what end he found hard to say. Every shape on the boat haunted him: every person was on the hunt to get him. They were invisible in their prowling.

Hearing didn't give enough proof as to whether they knew what was in his mind. He put fists to his ears, pressed at them painfully as if to get into his head and rearrange his brain. Sharper hearing was the only way, and he wondered whether anyone else would know when he achieved it.

He gave his attention to the radio. The crew had eaten their evening slop, and their vigilance seemed relaxed. Voices were tracking a boat which could only be theirs. Perhaps every small craft was likewise noted. He wouldn't know, but in spite of the elliptical maritime lingo he knew they had found the position of the boat, divined its course and speed – a simple matter if they knew what to look for.

The boat was clogging fair and square into a trap, though Waistcoat might yet have a few sly moves in mind. Should they turn out to be too deviously on the way to succeeding, Howard would break radio silence and reveal the position to whoever was listening. His fingers had explored the face of the transmitter for a dummy run every day since leaving port. He knew how to set the frequency and the morse key in his bag would be plugged in to do its work.

The voices were circumspect, brief and self assured. A few clipped numerals, and they were off the air, confident at not being overheard, never imagining that Waistcoat's yacht would be carrying a man whose only job was to listen at the radio. He would not tell Waistcoat what he had heard: no more cooperation, though it might make little difference.

‘Are we going to be all right?'

He felt his soul damned in lying to her. ‘Yes, I think so. No problem.'

‘Anything startling on shortwave?'

‘I listen. Not a word from Carla on any wave.'

‘Her boat's done turnaround and gone back to the Med. The skipper she works for doesn't lose any time.'

‘Nobody does, if they can help it.'

‘Not in this game they don't. I've given her up, anyway.'

He switched on the shortwave transmitter, curbing his despondency. ‘Give her a call.'

‘Do you mean it?'

She failed the test – for which he was risking his life – yet he wanted her to go on knowing Carla, because if something happened to him she wouldn't be without a friend. ‘This is the time she would listen.'

She picked up the microphone: ‘
Daedalus
calling
Pontifex
, how do you read me, over?' No response, she tried once more, then pushed the microphone aside.

He noted the shaking of her hand. ‘She's not there.'

‘That's it, then,' she said. ‘Thanks for letting me try. You know I only love you, don't you?'

He felt for her. ‘I'm aware of that.'

She drew him into her arms, her words so close at his lips that he saw them as if written. ‘Don't think I love you only because you let me use the radio. If I'd heard her I would have told her to get lost. I really mean it.'

‘Let's go on deck.' He would set no more tests. ‘You can tell me what stars are out.'

‘You want them to see us kissing?'

He felt the twenty-five he had never been. ‘Yes, and even more than that.'

She led him to the bows. ‘It's cold. Real England weather.'

‘I like it. But you need your anorak.'

‘I don't mind.' She put an arm through his. ‘I see the Plough, so we must be heading east-north-east. When we turn north the fun will start. There's tension on the boat, but I don't care what happens now I have you.' She kissed him, warm in his arms. ‘I don't care about anything. I know we'll make out. I don't want to lose you, and I won't.'

‘We'll be together.' He could hardly imagine it, but to question her hopes would smash his own. He was more than happy to welcome back the young man in him, only wishing he had new eyes to see. ‘Just as long as you like. I don't want to be with anyone else. I should have met you when I was twenty. I don't feel much use to you now.'

‘It doesn't matter. I can be every use to you, if you'll let me.'

‘I will, for as long as you like,' though he didn't want her to Laura him.

She laughed. ‘It's wonderful what we agree on. We're two of a kind. It's like being with a brother, except it's very sexy.' She turned, head up he knew: ‘The Plough's covered. Gone to watch another couple, though they won't be as happy as us. Maybe you ought to get back to the radio. I'll see if the chief needs anything from the galley. Be back later.'

Shortwave, lively in fine sunspot conditions, rippled with activity, Warsaw hammering out its messages, call sign before bubbles of sound, harsh yet rhythmical, pleasant, almost hypnotic to hear. Forecasts came from all corners promising good weather tomorrow. The German Numbers Woman strung him along, and all was right beneath the heaviside layer because he was in love with a woman who loved him.

Voices on VHF indicated that someone was in the know about their boat. His morse letter-tape must have been received. Perhaps even poor Jehu had landed with confirmation of their return. He was aware of Waistcoat standing close.

‘Any news, Sparks?'

Howard took off his earphones. ‘It's quiet tonight.'

‘Even on VHF?'

‘There's something in the distance. I think it's in German. Can't be anything to do with us.'

‘All right. But keep your ears pinned back.'

Such mateyness was disturbing though he imagined that a man of Waistcoat's moods could occasionally crave ease and openness, unable to survive all the time in an unloved state. A friendly word or two, even a smile, sent him to bed happy. Good that he seemed halfway human now and again.

Something had happened. Waistcoat was villainous, as everyone found on coming into his employment, lived so much in his own mind he wasn't aware of the attitudes of others, and didn't care however much they knew it. Waistcoat assumed he didn't need to know or care. Cocksure and brutal, he had been operated on a long time ago by the surgeon of circumstance, any trace of human feeling had been cut away leaving a contempt for everybody, which had led him into a labyrinth without exit.

Even so, Waistcoat must suspect that several stages were missing in his ability to deal with people, knew that he lacked the ability to get more out of them than could be paid for by money, which kept his temper on a fractious and violent level, and his body in permanent thrall to the worms. Because everyone put up with his high handedness he believed cunning to be the ultimate protection. The more he thought it true the more he let success deceive and lull him, unable to see the danger because he hadn't gone through normal experiences of development that most people had as a matter of course. He had jumped, so Richard had implied, from being a battered infant to an accomplished and bitter thief who, as they often heard – from the horse's mouth, no less – stood ‘no fucking nonsense'. Howard considered that the so-called nonsense such people were unable to tolerate commonly doomed them.

The rest of the crew members would stay loyal to Waistcoat, too much afraid of him not to do as they were told. They may despise and even hate him, but they worked with competent dedication because it was in their own interests that the enterprise succeeded.

Expecting no help from any quarter, the one man on board they should be wary of, Howard left the radio running, earphones on the table emitting faint noises, and went outside as silently as only a blind man could – as if tempted by the clean air of the breeze. The boat vibrated to its steadily humming engines, wind at the back of his head as he moved along, meeting no one because they were on the bridge or in their quarters. Judy had gone to hunt up a gin and tonic, promising one for him later. Waistcoat's one gesture towards concern for his crew was to make sure the booze never ran dry. ‘The grub's a bit short,' Killisick had told them, ‘so maybe we'll cast out the fishing lines before we get home, but we've got all the fags and bacca we need, so we can't complain.'

Hands going from port hole to port hole, he felt his way along the deck, hardly knowing where he was heading but drawn on by instinct. A piece of wire that came out of an opening made little impression on his fingers. He passed it, but turned back, and followed its direction to the upper deck, a thin strong length of wire, probably copper, ideal for a radio independent of the main aerials.

He shuffled along the steps, as if out for as much of a stroll as could be got on such a vessel, convenient handrails everywhere. Ordinary men needed every assistance in rough weather, so boats were made as if for the blind.

At the top of the steps, and towards the main aerials, he trod over Waistcoat's state room, taking care not to be heard, holding the rail, putting his heel soundlessly down followed by the rest of the foot, paces completed in silence and slow motion. The wire, almost invisibly laid, came from Waistcoat's cabin. Howard stopped. Easy to snap the strand, though not so as to show that the wind had done it. Otherwise Waistcoat's suspicions would become certainty, if they weren't already. A warning disturbed his darkness, that Waistcoat knew he had been distorting his reports. He shivered in the more erratic gusts from one side and the other. The wire from below was attached to the main system, confirming that Waistcoat had a VHF receiver in his stateroom. He could check what Howard said he had heard, or know what items he had claimed not to hear.

‘Hey, I've been looking for you,' she called from the stairway.

A finger to his mouth, he moved quickly down – at whatever risk. ‘Don't say anything. I'll follow you.'

She looked back. ‘What's it all about?'

‘The chief doesn't like anybody stepping over his quarters.'

‘Oh, right!' she laughed. ‘They never do, especially if they've got the DTs. Take this, then. It's the best gin and tonic between here and a pub in Boston. I made it especially for my lover.' She kissed him, and put it into his hand as they stood by the rail. ‘I had mine back there. It wasn't easy carrying two.'

He drank it with the speed of water, made tasteless by the peril he was in. ‘A kind thought.'

‘Is anything worrying you?'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘You look as if you've had a shock. I can feel everything that upsets you. You've got something on your mind, and won't tell me. Is it that you can't?'

He tried for the right uncaring tone. ‘It's just the everyday anxiety I've had since birth. I'm wondering if everything will be all right when we reach land. Nothing more.'

Her lips must show disbelief, but she said: ‘It always goes better than you think. Maybe the gin will settle you. It works wonders for me.'