The Savage Gorge (24 page)

Some time before, Marler had turned south-west. Paula's thick glossy black hair was streaming out
behind her. She found a pink ribbon, tied her hair into
a ponytail. Later Marler pointed to a plastic box.

'Food,' he said abruptly.

She extracted thick salmon sandwiches, fed Marler
as he continued driving, then herself. There was
Evian water to quench their thirst. By now Paula
was relaxed. I could get used to driving like this, she
thought.

Occasionally she glanced in the rear-view mirror, at
first surprised to find the heavy armoured Audi was
only a hundred yards behind them, then remembering
Harry had souped up its engine.

'Can you find out,' she asked Marler, 'when we are
about half an hour from our destination?'

'You ask Ben,' he said, handing her his mobile after
pressing umpteen buttons.

'Ben here. Who the hell is this?' a rough voice
answered.

She identified them, giving the name of a winding village Marler had been compelled to crawl through.
The rough voice wasted no time.

'Thirty minutes from now, the way Marler drives.'

Paula contacted Tweed on her mobile, which he still
possessed. Her reminder was short. 'Paula here. The bottle, Tweed.
Now!'

In the Audi, Tweed reached for the twist of paper inside which he had folded a Dramamine tablet.
Tactfully, Harry handed him a bottle of Evian water without a word. Tweed swallowed the tablet.

The one aversion Tweed had was the sea. He dis
liked even looking at it from firm land. 'It never stops
wobbling about,' he had once explained to Paula. She

knew this and always persuaded her chief to take pre
cautions.

'How much further, I wonder?' speculated Harry.
'The sun is dropping into lower orbit.'

'Another thirty minutes and we're there,' Tweed
replied. 'I gather we arrive just before dusk and go aboard the
Tiger
as soon as we get there.'

'The
Tiger?'

'Name of the ship we travel on.'

'Don't like the sound of it.'

'Join the club,' Tweed commented.

'Are we travelling on a big ship?' Paula asked
Marler.

'Surprisingly big. Even has a luxury stateroom. Compact but cosy.'

'How did Ben afford such a vessel?'

'Ben fished for prawns,' Marler chuckled. 'Off the
cove there's a whole fleet of them. Biggest you've ever
seen. He makes a fortune selling them to top London restaurants. Look at one of their menus. Prawns head the list for price.'

Marler stopped talking as the landscape changed
dramatically. Great granite bluffs reared up out of
scrubby grass on both sides. Vaguely it reminded
Paula of pictures she had seen of Utah, but minus the
columnar chimneys of stone. Here and there a stub
born pine with a massive trunk lent a touch of green.

Marler slowed as they climbed a ridge on the nar
rowing tarmacadam road. Once they crossed the
ridge, the road dropped steeply. Paula almost gasped

at the view of the vast sea which stretched forever
towards a distant horizon. It was dusk and the sun,
which had slid below the horizon, seemed to illumi
nate the Channel from below with a weird
aquamarine glow.

'There it is. Seaward Cove,' Marler told her.

'That's a cove?' she asked in disbelief.

She was looking down on a gash, long and narrow,
piercing the massive cliffs. Projecting from the shore
was a large stone jetty, curved like a sickle, presumably
to take the force of giant waves in a storm. Moored to
its inner wall was a large slim ship with a small funnel.

'Ben can't get that ship out of that channel,' she protested.

'He will. Only way out.'

She was relieved from Tweed's point of view that
the ocean was more like a flat blue plate: not a ripple
in sight. They reached the landing point in no time. Tweed's Audi parked behind them.

A short heavily built man in his fifties with a very
wide chest came out of a large shed. He shook hands
only with Paula, pointed to the shed.

'That's home and where I prepare the prawns for
despatch to London.' He looked at Marler. 'Four
hours I calculate to get to this invisible Noak Island, four to get back, so how long you gonna be foolin'
around there?'

'About one hour, maybe longer. Depends on the
element of danger,' Tweed told the old ruffian.

'Danger!'
Ben glared at Marler. 'You never said a

thing about that. Cost you another ten thousand quid on top of the fee.'

'Come off it,' Marler told Ben with a grin. 'You
know that anything I'm involved in can turn ugly.'

'All right.' Ben cupped his hands round his mouth. 'All of you aboard. We have to be back here before
dawn. Jump to it!'

Paula ran forward, skipped up the gangplank, ignor
ing Ben's shout. 'Hold on to the flamin' rails!'

He pulled his peaked cap lower over his broad fore
head. This time he kept his voice down as he spoke to
Tweed as he was about to go aboard.

'That girl is agile! - and very tough, I suspect.'

'She's in her thirties,' Tweed retorted and ran up the
gangway.

He followed her along a companionway, through an
open door, down some steps into a luxurious state
room. She sprawled on a comfortable couch at the other end. They heard voices from the dock.

'What's in that big bag, mate?'

'My lunch,' Harry's voice shouted back. Tut a sock
in it and get this old tub moving . . .'

Ben appeared at the entrance to the stateroom. He
pointed forward.

'Galley's at that end. Fridge is jam-packed. You
could cook us some plaice and chips. OK?'

'If I feel like it,' Paula snapped back.

Minutes later they felt movement.
Tiger
was about
to navigate the impossible channel. As the ship swung
round to clear the end of the jetty Tweed jumped up,

opened a second door, ran up a flight of steps and was
on the enclosed bridge. Marler was leaning through
an open window on the starboard side, waving his
hand to the left frantically. They were heading straight
for a jagged spur of rock protruding into the channel,
a spur which could rip a huge hole in the hull. He
looked at Ben, who was already turning the ship to
port. Peering over Marler's shoulders Tweed saw they
slipped past the spur with a clearance of barely two
feet. They emerged into the calm open sea.

'You can take over the wheel now, Marler,' shouted
Ben. 'I have plotted the course from the map you sent
me by courier. Just keep your ruddy eye on the com
pass.'

With Marler behind the wheel, Ben opened the door to the stateroom. Paula was sitting up, legs
curled like a cat's, studying a marine report.

'You're supposed to be cooking!' Ben bellowed.
'Can't you find the ruddy galley?'

'Cooking is not in the contract,' Paula snapped
without looking up. 'Shouldn't you be on the bridge,
as captain of this old tub?'

Ben muttered an oath under his breath, slammed
the door shut. On the bridge Tweed was standing
close to Marler, staring ahead with fascination at the
incredible vastness of the Atlantic. The
Tiger's
port
and starboard running lights were on. Ben saw him
looking at them.

'Need 'em on in case we run into a Coastguard
patrol. Further out I switches 'em off. Marler marked

Noak Island on the map he sent me. Talk about isolation - no airline flies near the place. And it's miles off
any shipping route.'

'Mr Neville Guile likes his privacy,' Tweed said to
himself.

Paula appeared and saw Harry, who had headed for
the bridge as soon as he came aboard. Typically, he sat
in a corner of the deck, knees bunched underneath
him. He had his bag open, which carried an amazing
mix of weapons and tools. He saw her watching him.
She settled down beside him.

'What are these secret weapons you keep so quiet about? I might have to use one.'

Put your gloves on. The devices are slippery.'

He shifted position so they were shielded from the
others. Out of the bag his gloved hand produced a cylindrical object about a foot long with a switch
turned to green. Pushed forward it would point to red.

'For Pete's sake, and mine,' he whispered, 'don't
touch that switch. You do and this whole ship
explodes in flames, the sea boils. It's new, invented by
Mac down in the boffins' basement.'

'What's inside?' she whispered.

'Mix of high-explosive and firebomb. Got five of the
devils, all told. Don't know why Tweed wants 'em.'

Paula stood up, disappeared back into the state
room. Tweed, on the bridge alongside Marler, was
puzzled.