Bad Blood (36 page)

No. Not yet.

He had to keep Riley and Kemp alive in case things went wrong. Collateral. Budgeon lowered the hammer and placed it in the bag. Jackman and Fallon needed to come first. And tomorrow he’d go after them.

The curry had come from a couple of tins and was supplemented by some sachets of dried rice and vegetables which looked as if they had been packed for astronauts. Despite appearances the meal had tasted delicious, helped by the cold chill that had descended on the bay.

Now they sat in the dark, Savage and Stephens cradling mugs of tea while Frey pressed his night-vision binoculars against the glass of a porthole. The slight current in the bay caused the boat to swing around on its anchor and every so often Frey had to move from the port side of the yacht to starboard or vice versa in order to get a good view of the motorboat.

At eleven-thirty he alerted them to the fact that a dinghy had launched from the beach and was heading for the motorboat. The whine of the outboard echoed off the waterside buildings and cut through the silence in the bay.

‘Who’s onboard?’ Savage said.

‘Two people. Well wrapped up. Can’t see if it is Fallon. Now they are circling their boat. Checking her out.’

‘No worries,’ Savage said. ‘It is the sort of thing I might do.’

‘They’re not boarding,’ Frey said. ‘One of them just tapped the side of the boat and now the dinghy is coming this way.’

‘Do you think we should simulate sex?’ Stephens said, a chortle piercing the gloom.

‘They are definitely heading for our boat.’

‘Call the lads?’ Stephens spoke again, serious this time.

‘No,’ Frey said. ‘We need to sit tight. Hang on, someone is moving about on the … what the fuck?’

Frey jerked back from the port as a flash shone through the glass, which for a moment lit up the interior of the boat with an eerie glow.

‘Parachute flare,’ Frey said, moving towards the companionway steps. A second later the VHF radio in the cabin crackled, a woman’s voice coming from the speaker, the transmission overloaded and distorted.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is motor yacht Sea Mist, Sea Mist, Sea Mist. Mayday, Sea Mist. We are in the centre of Cawsand Bay. We are taking on water and sinking. We—

The call ended before the mayday had been completed.

Savage followed Frey up into the cockpit. The parachute flare floated high above them, the burning phosphorus illuminating everything with a harsh, orange light.

‘Anchor!’ Savage yelled, but Frey was already running forward. ‘Let all the chain out and release the end. We haven’t got time to bring the whole lot in.’ She turned the key in the ignition and felt the little engine chug into life beneath her feet.

Frey released the locking mechanism and the chain rattled out, coming up with a snatch when it was all gone. He bent down and cut the rope securing the bitter end of the chain to a ring in the anchor locker. The chain gave a final rattle as the end slid overboard.

Savage could hear Stephens down in the cabin calling in the police RIB on his own radio. At the same time the VHF squawked out again. This time the message was from Brixham coastguard replying to the distress call. Sea Mist didn’t answer. Savage slipped the throttle lever forward, spun the wheel and the yacht surged into the turn, swinging round to point towards the motorboat.

‘She’s listing,’ Frey shouted. ‘Look!’

Sure enough the fifty-foot hulk was down at the bow and leaning hard over on her port side, indicating a mass of water somewhere in the hull.

They were already approaching the boat and now Savage had the job of slowing her own craft and manoeuvring alongside. She weighed up the options. She didn’t fancy approaching on the port side of the boat since the whole thing might roll down on them. The starboard side would offer only an expanse of hull, way higher than the gunwale of her boat. She decided to come across the stern where a bathing platform offered a chance to get aboard. As they came alongside she shoved the throttle back hard into reverse. The boat slowed and touched the motorboat. Frey leapt from the yacht and landed on the sloping surface of the bathing platform, scrabbling to grab a cleat. Savage pushed the throttle to neutral and yelled at Stephens to take the helm. Then she clambered onto the cockpit seating and jumped across.

‘I won’t tell Pete,’ Frey said, holding out a hand to steady her.

‘What?’

‘That you abandoned your vessel.’

Savage turned and saw her yacht gliding away into the darkness, Stephens at the wheel. Frey clambered across the teak deck to the steps which led up to the boat proper and Savage followed. The boat was leaning at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, but didn’t seem to be going over any more and since she was anchored there was no motion. They edged over the sloping aft deck to the glass doors which led into the saloon.

‘Anyone onboard?’ Frey shouted through the open door before he turned to Savage. ‘I don’t fancy going inside. Once the water gets to one of those open hatches on the foredeck she’ll go down in seconds.’

Savage listened at the door. A splashing sound came from outside the boat and a machinery whine from somewhere deep down inside; that would be the automatic bilge pumps struggling to cope with the influx of water. Apart from the pump, there was nothing. And yet …

‘Somebody sent the Mayday, where the hell are they?’ She cocked her head. Down below something crashed over. Then there was another noise. Bang, bang, bang. A muffled voice calling out.

‘Oh my God, somebody
is
onboard.’ Savage began to move into the saloon but Frey blocked her.

‘No, Charlotte. This is my job.’ He began to unfasten his life-jacket.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Don’t want it auto-inflating if I am down below. It might trap me.’

Frey dropped the life-jacket and scrambled into the saloon. Savage moved back and crossed to the starboard side of the boat – the side that was uppermost – and began to edge along the side deck towards the bow to find out if she could close the hatches on the foredeck. She scrambled past the smoked-glass windows until she reached the expanse of white deck at the bow. Right next to her feet was the first hatch, a small one only open a hand’s breadth. She pushed on the smoked perspex, banging the hatch shut. In the centre of the deck a larger opening lay well out of reach. Although the deck had an anti-slip surface it wouldn’t help much when tilted at such an extreme angle. She searched around for a piece of rope but everything had been stowed away. Shit! The black water was creeping ever higher. Only a couple more feet and the sea would reach the hatch and the boat would downflood and sink like a stone.

She took a breath, let go of the stainless steel rail and slid down to the hatch using her feet to brace herself when she reached it. She had started to push the hatch shut when she heard the banging again, clearer this time. There was someone in the cabin below!

She grabbed the hatch, wrenched it up and stuck her head down. A splintering sound came from somewhere to her right and a beam of light flashed round the cabin. Frey stumbled through the forepeak door, his torch picking out a young woman in Musto waterproofs. The list of the boat had tumbled her to the lower side of the cabin where she lay amid a jumble of duvet, pillows and a mess of blonde hair.

Vanessa Liston.

‘Jesus!’ Frey crawled across the cabin to the girl, stretching his arms out to reach for her. The girl tried to back away from him.

‘It’s OK, Vanessa,’ Savage shouted from above. ‘Police!’

‘Come on,’ Frey said, yelling at the girl and pointing to the cabin door.

‘No time!’ Savage shouted. The water had reached the edge of the hatch and was beginning to cascade into the cabin. ‘Pass her up.’

Frey grabbed Vanessa around the waist and staggered to his feet, trying to balance in the lopsided cabin. He hefted the girl up through the hatch and Savage grabbed her under the arms, leaning backwards and pulling her out. The two of them rolled away from the hatch and into the sea.

‘Oh God!’ Savage cried out as the shock of the cold water hit her and then came a ‘bang-whumph’ from her life jacket as the CO
₂
canister went off. The life jacket inflated and rolled her onto her back and for a moment she struggled to hold Vanessa round the waist. Then she had her and she pushed off from the boat using her feet. The sea was pouring in through the hatch now, the boat lying very low in the water.

Behind her, perhaps thirty metres away, the white hull of her own boat materialised out of the gloom like some sort of ghost ship. Stephens was circling, trying to bring the yacht nearer to pick up Savage and the girl. Then Stephens pointed away to the east where a low rumble began to grow in intensity. In the distance, across the black sea, a blinding light pierced the night. D Section’s RIB.

Savage looked back at the motorboat. A horrible sound came from the hatch as the opening went below the surface and a vortex of water slurped around the escaping air.

‘She’s going down!’ She shouted at Stephens to keep clear and kicked out to move even further away from the sinking boat. ‘Nigel!’

There was no sign of Frey as the smoked glass of the saloon slid into the black water. The bridge deck with its array of aerials and the big white radar dome was last to go, leaving nothing but a scattering of blue and white cockpit cushions floating free amidst a slick of oil.

The roar of the RIB’s engine filled Savage’s ears and the boat’s searchlight swept across the scene. Stephens was shouting into his radio, directing the RIB. And then, twenty metres away on the other side of where the boat had been, the beam from the searchlight picked out a cockpit cushion which bobbed low in the water, as an arm emerged from the sea and wrapped itself around it.

When the boat had gone down they’d aimed the dinghy for the shore and beached on some rocks. Jackman had slipped in the surf and cut his knee, his clothes were soaking, his nerves shot. As they clambered up the rocks into the woods surrounding the bay Fallon was laughing.

‘Rock and roll, hey, mate? Rock and fucking roll.’

‘What on earth are you on, Kenny?’ Jackman collapsed in the dark beyond the tree line. ‘You’re a half a million down on the boat, God knows how much down on the sweet stuff, and the bay is swarming with the bloody Royal Navy.’

‘We’ve sold ’em one, Alec. You, me and Ness. Not to mention that bitch cop. Played a blinder. Hole in one, last-minute winner, taken the tit-heads on the final straight. Not being immodest, but sinking the boat was absolute genius.’

‘Sinking the boat?’ Jackman shook his head. Now he knew for sure Fallon was crazy. ‘I don’t see how this result is a victory. There’s a bundle of cocaine worth several million pounds floating somewhere beyond Edison Rocks. It’s either going to sink or get washed up on some beach where an honest citizen is going to find the stuff and call it in.’

‘Not going to happen.’

‘You’re off your fucking head.’ Jackman struggled to his feet, aware of a searchlight sweeping the shore below them. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘You’re right about that. The last bit. We’ll walk down into Cawsand and find some old banger I can TWOC. Interesting to see if I’ve still got the knack.’

‘Interesting? If the police catch us we are both going away for a long time. Me especially. As soon as they find the drugs we’ve had it. We may as well come clean and try to plead mitigating circumstances.’

‘What?’ Fallon’s face loomed closer in the dark, his hands grabbing Jackman by the shoulders and spinning him round. ‘You going to ’fess? Grass Kenny up? You do and you’re out of here. Off this planet. Understand?’

‘Easy, Kenny.’ Jackman lifted Fallon’s hands away and started walking along the track. ‘I’m just being realistic. When they get their hands on the cocaine they’ll be able to join the dots. Even this lot of jokers can do that.’

‘As I said before, that’s not going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

‘Simple,’ Fallon said, waving an arm back down to the sea. ‘Because there is nothing out there. The powder’s here already. Took a road trip from Rotterdam to Esbjerg.’

‘Where the hell is Esbjerg?’

‘Denmark. From there across to Harwich and along the motorway. One time they’d have been checking for hardcore videos on that ferry route. Now they don’t bother much about anything. A risk, sure, but worth it.’

‘What the fuck was all this about then? Your little jaunt to Cawsand has ended with us nearly getting arrested.’

‘You think I was going to let the drugs come in the same way after Redmond got hit? Either Budgeon got the full details from him or the pigs will have wised up to what’s going on. I figured it was time for a change of plan.’

‘So?’

‘Listen, Alec.’ Fallon tapped his head with a finger. ‘We had to get a bit cute. There’s strategy and there’s tactics. Strategy has remained the same. The tactics just got a bit diversionary, the diversionary part being the sinking of the boat. Seems to have worked, doesn’t it?’

They’d reached a break in the trees now and could see the bay. The Plymouth lifeboat sat in the centre, along with a police RIB alongside a small yacht. Farther away in the deeper water a naval cutter inched forwards, a bright searchlight sweeping the coastline.

‘I’m not sure about that,’ Jackman said. ‘And anyway, how does this sort Budgeon?’

‘Nothing for him either. Not now. He’ll catch the scent of what’s happening and decide he is better off out of it. He’s not going to risk getting caught just to have a pop at us.’

‘What about Ness? She’s only a girl, she could have been drowned in that stunt.’

‘Only a girl? You know, Alec, that’s exactly what I thought until you started convincing me she was all grown up. Now quit moaning and let’s get the hell out of here.’

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Saturday 26th January. 9.30 a.m.

In the end the RNLI had sent a lifeboat, the Navy a Coastguard cutter, and a helicopter had been scrambled to search for the men in the dinghy. The dinghy had been found floating empty off Rame Head, but there was no sign of the men. The sea hadn’t been rough, but in January the temperature was low enough to mean they wouldn’t have survived long if they’d gone overboard. Savage had taken her yacht back to the marina with Stephens, Frey had returned with his men on the RIB, and Vanessa Liston had gone to the lifeboat station and in the confusion ended up being moved from there to the custody centre at Charles Cross.