The Valley (12 page)

He looked at me and nodded.

‘You must be Long John Silver.’

I had been sitting in the coffee shop for ten minutes, with the walking stick propped against my chair, when Gerry came in. He matched the description that Max had given me perfectly: a short rotund man, about fifty five years old, with small round glasses, a red nose, and sandy hair which was receding, but still defiantly curly. Max had also been right about Gerry being dressed for a smart business lunch rather than a day’s sailing. He wore black brogues, a polka-dot tie and a pinstripe suit.

‘I’m John,’ I said, pronouncing it as ‘Jen’, like a South African. I picked up my walking stick and stood up. ‘Do you want to follow me?’

Gerry’s eyes darted around the cafe. ‘Where to?’

‘Max.’

‘Why isn’t he here?’ He had a soft Irish accent.

‘Didn’t he tell you, man?’

‘No,’ Gerry said firmly. ‘Max just rang me on my mobile when I was on the train and said to meet a semi-crippled sailor wearing a blue shirt in a coffee house and you’d explain everything.’

I tried to laugh it off: ‘Semi-crippled, heh?’

But Gerry was not laughing. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘My instructions are to give you this pass and take you to the marina. It’s a couple of hundred yards walk down the road.’

I handed him a crew member’s pass in the name of George Walker. Gerry examined it.

‘If you don’t want to use the pass, we can go through the main entrance,’ I said. ‘But you’d have to register. And Max reckoned you wouldn’t want to do that.’

Gerry eyed me suspiciously.

‘Look, man, we can register if you want to. You have to fill in a lot of forms, that’s all.’

‘Why are we going inside the marina? Why couldn’t Max meet me here?’

I smiled. ‘Because he wants to surprise you.’

‘I don’t like surprises.’

‘Not even if they are about boats – big boats with big sails on?’

I saw a smile form on Gerry’s face. ‘He’s not got the
Glen Avon
here, has he?’

I grinned back. ‘My lips are sealed.’

‘He’s going to try to take me sailing, isn’t he?’ Gerry said, his smile growing broader. ‘For God’s sake, I’m not exactly dressed for it, am I? And I’ve got to be back in London this evening.’

‘Well, at least have a look at it,’ I said, clipping my vowels. ‘And if you don’t like it, you can always walk away. It’s not as though I’m going to be able to run after you, is it?’

I leaned ostentatiously on my stick, and then I hobbled out of the cafe, hoping he would follow. By the time I reached the pavement, he had drawn up alongside.

The marina was about quarter of a mile from the cafe. Whilst we waited to cross the road, Gerry asked what was wrong with my leg. I told him the story that Max had suggested: that I had torn my knee ligaments falling down the stairs in the yacht when we were off Marbella.

‘And he still kept you on as a deckhand?’ he said, sounding surprised.

‘He told me he wanted to break the record for sailing across the Bay of Biscay in a yacht manned by a crew with a total of three working legs.’

Gerry laughed. He was still wary but he kept following me.

‘So what did Max tell you about me?’ He asked.

‘That you like boats.’

‘Do you know my name?’

‘Gerry,’ I replied then I looked at him. ‘Look, man, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, or anything. If you want me to call you Mr Someone or Lord Something, that’s fine with me, but you’ll have to tell me, because Max only gave me your first name.’

‘Gerry’s fine,’ he said. ‘How’s Max been lately?’

‘He has good days and bad days.’

Gerry opened his mouth but I cut in. ‘That’s the staff entrance over there, follow me.’

I set off towards it as fast as I could, my walking stick bashing the ground. Outside the gate, I showed him how our swipe cards worked, and then stepped inside. He kept close to me as we marched through the small office and out through the turnstiles without attracting the security guards’ attention.

‘So what sort of boats have you sailed?’ Gerry asked, as we emerged into the marina.

‘Nothing as smart as the
Glen Avon
. How about you? Max implied you owned something special?’

‘Did he really?’

I nodded.

‘I own a Benetti,’ he said, proudly.

‘How big?’ I said, hoping that Benettis didn’t come in just one size.

’Ninety-six feet. Ever crewed on one?’

‘No. Do you race it?’

‘We sometimes do overnights. Ever done one of those?’

I could see the
Glen Avon
so I pointed to it. ‘There she is.’

Gerry whistled softly. ‘She’s a looker, I’ll give Max that,’ he said. ‘But I really can’t go sailing.’

‘You’d better tell him that,’ I said, gesturing to Max, who had jumped onto the quayside and was running towards us.

‘What do you think of my one-legged staff policy?’ Max yelled out.

‘He should have a parrot on his shoulder,’ Gerry replied.

Max guffawed, then hugged him and gently steered him towards the gangplank.

‘Max, this is fantastic,’ Gerry said. ‘But I haven’t got the time, or the clothes.’

‘Rubbish,’ Max said. ‘I’ve just opened some champagne. We’ll get you back to Southampton station by 4pm. We’ve got lots to discuss, so let’s do it on board, not in some ghastly provincial restaurant. You and I will cast off, and Long John Silver here can make a start on lunch. Then he’ll motor us into Spithead. We’ll have our lunch and maybe do a few gentle tacks. You won’t even have to take your jacket off. Come on. I haven’t seen you handle a boat for ages.’

Gerry let himself be dragged him on board by Max. I left them on deck and went down the stairs to the galley. As I laid out the food and put the potatoes on to boil, I felt the boat turn around. I put a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and brought it up to the control room.

Gerry had undone the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie, and was holding the wheel, his face beaming like Tom’s would if he had been given the chance to drive a train.

Max relieved me of the champagne bucket. ‘Is there anything that needs doing downstairs?’ he asked.

‘The potatoes have to be taken off the hob in half an hour,’ I said. ‘I’ll pop in to do them.’

‘We’ll do them, won’t we Gerry? You just steer us out into Spithead, John, and find us some good westerlies.’

Gerry reluctantly allowed me to take over the controls, and followed Max down the stairs, suddenly halting when Max called my name.

I walked over. Max was holding up a two foot long, metal spanner. He held it in his hand like a truncheon.

‘John, the camshaft may need tightening. You might need this.’

I did not make any move towards it. It was Gerry who grabbed it, and placed it in my hands, before descending to the mess.

I put the heavy spanner on the floor next to the wheel. As I steered the Glen Avon down the deep water channel towards the Solent, I reflected that at close range, it might be even more deadly than a gun.

On entering the Solent, I swung left, turning gradually in a giant arc until I was equidistant from the English coast and the Isle of Wight. I opened up the throttle, and soon we were on our own, at least quarter of a mile from the nearest visible boat. Seeing no danger close by, I briefly abandoned the wheel and tiptoed down the stairs. Through the closed door of the mess, I heard Gerry telling Max about all the problems he was having with the motor in his Benetti. Before I could hear Max’s reply, I felt the boat change direction, and rushed back upstairs.

Standing at the wheel, I tried to identify the towns I could see on the Isle of Wight: Cowes, Fishbourne, then Ryde. On the other side, the GPS warned me we were approaching the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. A hovercraft emerged from around the headland, and raced across our path. As we rocked up and down in its wake, I remembered that the last boat I had been in control of had been a pedalo on the lake in Battersea Park.

I eased the throttle forward and the engines responded immediately. It was still a clear day. Beyond Portsmouth, I could just see the rounded green bumps of the South Downs through the haze. Somewhere among them was the cottage where I was due to meet Angela. I remembered that I had promised to tell her when I would be arriving. Steering the boat with one hand, I sent a text, saying I would get there by seven o’clock. I pressed the send button just as I caught sight of one of the old Napoleonic forts that Max had described.

Before the sea became too choppy, I lowered myself down the stairs again. With the increased noise of the engines I could hear very little, but Gerry seemed to be quizzing Max about land prices and planning permission. I crept back up and pushed the throttle out still further. The coast of the Isle of Wight was now slipping away from us. I checked my mobile to see if Angela had texted me back, but there was no longer any signal.

After about half an hour I reached the area that Max had identified on the map. In the distance, I could just see the hazy outline of Foreland, the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. Out to sea, the main shipping lanes of the Channel were more than ten miles away, and even supertankers looked like mere slugs on the horizon. I shut down the engines, and was rewarded with near total silence. As the boat bobbed up and down, the loudest noise was the slap of water on fibreglass, until I heard a scream coming from down below.

I grabbed the spanner and ran down the stairs. Through the door, I could hear Gerry pleading with Max: ‘I swear, I didn’t Max…You’re wrong, I’d never…’

Then there was another scream, and a loud crash. I turned the handle, and pushed the door open a few centimetres. Peering through the gap, all I could see was an upturned chair, and papers strewn across the floor. Then Gerry’s voice cut in again. ‘Max, be reasonable…please, please…’

I pushed the door wide open. Gerry was cowering against the wall, clutching his right shoulder. His right arm dangled down uselessly, bent backwards at the elbow into a horribly unnatural shape. His spectacles had come off, he had a cut on his forehead, and his left cheek was shiny and swollen. As he breathed in and out, a bubble of blood at the end of his nose inflated and deflated.

Max was standing about five feet away from him, holding the shotgun in two hands. The silencer on the end was pointed straight at Gerry’s chest.

I stepped into the room. Gerry spun around to face me, his bloodshot eyes flickering with hope. Max did not move an inch.

‘Oh, thank God,’ Gerry whimpered. ‘John, you’ve got to stop this.’

‘Close the door, John,’ Max said, without even looking at me.

I hesitated.

‘John, please close the door,’ Max repeated. ‘Gerry has a last chance to tell us something that might just save his life.’

‘He’s mad,’ Gerry blabbered. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

I looked at Max, and for a brief second his eyes swivelled from Gerry to me, and he winked, and I immediately understood. He had told me that if bribing Gerry did not work, he would let him know that he could tear him apart with his bare hands, and that was exactly what he was doing. Predictably he had taken it too far, but at least he had not lost his temper.

I closed the door. Gerry’s whole body sagged as he realised that I was on Max’s side.

‘Last warning, Gerry,’ Max said, his eyes looking down the short barrelled gun.

‘Max, please…’ Gerry begged.

Max shouted at him. ‘Gerry, you’ve one more chance. Just tell us what you know about Lucy, or I swear to God I will shoot you dead in the next five seconds.’

He slid the safety catch forward. Its click was clearly audible. I tried to remember if Max had taken the cartridges out of the gun before he had put it away in the drawer.

Gerry gently shook his head. ‘I’ve told you everything,’ he whimpered.

‘Wrong answer,’ Max said, and fired the gun.

There was a shower of sparks as Max’s homemade silencer was blown to pieces. It only partly muffled the shotgun’s blast, transforming it from a bang into a loud clap, as if someone had cupped their hands and suddenly brought them together right next to my ear drums.

Gerry tumbled backwards, hitting the wall. His left hand spasmed upwards then fell away. In the centre of his chest, an area on his shirt the size of a saucer simply melted into his body, and then turned dark red. He slid down the wall, his eyes wide open and his lips moving.

Max slowly uncurled his finger from the first trigger and transferred it to the second one. The gun stayed tucked into his shoulder, its barrels tracking Gerry as he slid down the wall, the charred remains of the silencer emitting a trail of smoke that rose to the ceiling.

Unable to move, I waited for Max to administer a coup de grace with the second barrel. Instead, he slid the safety catch back before carefully placing the gun on the floor, his eyes never leaving Gerry for an instant. He walked over to Gerry’s slumped body, knelt down and cradled Gerry’s head in his hands, as if he was going to administer some medical treatment. Then one of his hands snaked under Gerry’s chin, pushing it upwards, and the other folded over Gerry’s face, yanking the head back and twisting it around savagely. Gerry’s body jerked up and down. I could not hear anything because of the ringing in my ears, but I imagined it very clearly: a gentle cracking noise as, one by one, the vertebrae in his neck gave way.

Max stood up, leaving Gerry’s head to flop forward on its distended neck. I kept on staring at Gerry’s body, seeing his legs twitch, and a dark stain spread out from his groin across the front of his trousers.

‘Are you okay?’

For a moment, I thought Max was addressing Gerry, not me.

‘You’d better go up on deck and see whether anyone’s around,’ he continued.

I looked at him and struggled for words. ‘Max, we’ve got to…’

‘John, you need to go to the control room and take the wheel now. I will join you in a moment, I promise.’

I noticed Max’s sweater was stained a deep crimson, and his hands and face were covered in blood. At the same time, an acrid stench of cordite, burnt paper and melted plastic filled my nostrils. It made me want to vomit and I rushed back up to the control room, leaning out of the open window, and sucking the sea air deep into my lungs until my nausea subsided. I could see we had drifted further offshore and were heading towards the main shipping lanes. I started the engines, spun the wheel and the
Glen Avon
slowly turned in a large circle, until we were heading back to Southampton.

I opened up the throttle, welcoming the noise that drowned out whatever Max was doing down below. The waves buffeted us, but I clung to the wheel, occasionally glancing over to the stairs, waiting for Max to emerge.

He stayed down there for nearly half an hour. When he appeared he was wearing a fleece and a new pair of shorts and he smelt of soap. He peered through the window, then checked the GPS.

‘You’re heading back to Southampton?’ he said.

‘Yes. Where’s Gerry?’

‘Gerry does not exist anymore.’

‘Why did you kill him, Max?’

Max gazed out to sea. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said.

‘You might as well get used to telling it, because you’re going to have to tell it to the police once we get to Southampton.’

Max opened his mouth but then closed it again. In the distance, I could see the coastline of the Isle of Wight more clearly now. I gripped the wheel very tightly.

‘John, the story I told you earlier was based on the story Gerry told me. It’s mostly true, but in one important aspect, he lied to me.’

I turned around. Max was still looking out to sea.

‘There never were four informants passing us insider information. All the tips came from one man: a deputy compliance officer at one of the big US investment banks in London called Andy Cartwight. He knew all the deals his bank was working on. If he’d given us just one or two tip-offs a year, he could have got away with it for a decade. But seven or eight a year was too many. The authorities were bound to spot a pattern and eventually they did. They knew the person who was leaking information was in the compliance department, so they hauled in the entire team for a real grilling. Andy was one of three prime suspects. He only survived because there was no evidence that he was benefitting from the leaked information.’

‘So who got all the money you paid out?’

‘Gerry. He paid Andy 20k a year at most. He didn’t need to pay him any more. He had some other hold over him. Something to do with little boys, I think.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘Andy did.’

‘I thought he didn’t know who you were.’

‘Gerry never told him. But when he was questioned about suspected insider trading, they quizzed him relentlessly on whether he’d ever met me, whether he he’d ever met Lucy and whether he’d ever bought shares in Alpha Tec. Afterwards he put two and two together, then hung around outside our offices in Mayfair until he spotted me on my way out to lunch and stopped me in the street. At first I thought he was a madman; then he mentioned Gerry and pay-as-you-go phones and text messages, and I realised we were in trouble.’

In the distance I could just see the first of the Napoleonic forts.

‘I wouldn’t talk to Andy in my office,’ Max said. ‘We sat on a bench in Portland Square. I thought he was going to demand money, but he simply told me that if we carried on, we would both end up in jail, and he’d tried to stop it but couldn’t, so now it was up to me. Then he got up and walked away.’

‘And that was enough for you to close the hedge fund?’

‘He tipped the balance. The FSA, the fraud squad, even the Cayman authorities were all onto us. They had not been able to prove anything, but sooner or later they would, and Lucy was already suffering from the stress. It was time to call it a day.’

‘So who asked you for the £10 million termination fee?’

‘One of Gerry’s people following his orders.’

‘Where’s Andy now?’ I asked.

‘He was killed in a hit-and-run accident near his home in Esher, shortly after I announced the fund was closing.’

‘And you think Gerry killed him and then Lucy?’

‘Not all by himself, no. But with some help, yes. And it was not only Lucy that Gerry was after. Remember I was supposed to be in the house with Lucy that night. I only decided at the last minute to spend an extra day in Spain.’

‘So how have you survived since then?’

‘By being careful. I haven’t spent too many nights in the UK since Lucy died. Whenever I do, I stay on the boat or in a hotel. I don’t go back to the house in Chelsea. My place in the Caymans is like a fortress. And I’m very careful about letting people know where I am.’

I thought about all the secretaries he used to screen his calls and the way he would fly in and out of London at short notice. It all made sense, except for one small detail.

‘So why did Gerry abduct Lucy? Why not just kill her in your home?’

Max turned away from me.

‘Tell me, Max.’

Max took a deep breath. ‘Gerry needed to know what records we’d kept.’

‘But why –’

Max suddenly turned and screamed in my face. ‘He tortured her, John, he fucking tortured her!’

His face was completely white, except his eyes which blazed with anger.

‘He needed to know what I knew – what evidence I had, whether I was onto him or not,’ he continued, his voice close to cracking. ‘And she told him nothing. That’s why he’s been buzzing around me ever since she disappeared. And that’s also why he came here today.’

‘What about the marina deal?’

‘That was just an excuse. He came to find out what I knew – and to tempt me into a follow-up meeting with him, which he was going to arrange and from which I was never going to come out alive.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me all this earlier?’

‘Because you freaked out about the gun.’

I turned around, but still kept my hands on the wheel.

Max looked me in the eyes. ‘I’m sorry I had to involve you, John but I’m not sorry I killed Gerry. I gave him a quicker death than he would have given me, and a much quicker one than he gave Lucy.’

He waked over and placed his hand on top of mine on the wheel.

‘It’s been a nightmare, John. But it’s over now. All you have to do is turn around the boat. Gerry won’t have told anyone he was meeting me – or at least, not anyone who’ll talk to the police. And there’ll be no written record of it. Gerry didn’t even know we were going sailing, so no one will suspect he ever came aboard the
Glen Avon
. And in a few hours, once we’ve chucked him off the side and scrubbed the boat down, there won’t be any evidence that he was ever here.’

I gripped the wheel more tightly. ‘It’s not that simple, Max. After Lucy disappeared, I was questioned by the police. I know what a full forensic search is like. They can trace everything. You can’t make all the evidence disappear.’

‘At sea you can.’

He suddenly grabbed hold of the throttle lever, and pulled it back. The growl of the engines instantly dropped to a quiet hum, and the boat settled lower in the water.

I gripped the steering wheel, but Max made no effort to prise my hands away from it. Instead he looked straight at me. ‘I can’t go back to living on air and ducks from the park, not now. And, you know what, John? I’m not sure, you can either.’

He turned around and walked out on deck. I watched him through the open window of the control room, as he opened one of the holds in the bows of the boat, and pulled out a thick metal chain which he coiled around one of his shoulders. After ten loops, he switched shoulders, but kept on spooling out the chain, draping it over his body. He must have switched shoulders three more times before he reached the end. Then he staggered to his feet and faced me.

‘This is the spare anchor chain, John,’ he shouted, pointing to where it criss-crossed his chest. ‘Anything it’s wrapped around won’t come to the surface again. So now you get to choose which body it goes round: mine or Gerry’s.’

He lurched across to the edge of the deck, gripping the wire rail as the boat rocked up and down in the gentle swell.

‘Max!’ I yelled.

‘Are you returning to Southampton, John? Tell me quickly please. It’s slippery out here.’

‘Max, for God’s sake…’

He swung one leg over the wire. ‘I can’t go back John, not now.’

‘Max, no!’ I screamed.

‘It’s your choice, John,’ he shouted.

I spun the wheel around.