The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

  There was no point in putting it off any longer. He picked up the phone and dialled a familiar number.

  “It’s tonight,” he said, echoing Mason’s words. “Will you be ready?”

  He was half-hoping that she would say no.

  “I’ll be ready,” Linda said. “And by tomorrow night, we’ll be in Rio. Remember the picture of the hotel room, Tony? It’s got a big, big bed.”

  “I remember,’ Tony said.

  And when he hung up, he was disgusted to discover that he had an erection.

  *

  Fishing boats chugged slowly into the harbour, scores of seagulls following in their wake. In front of the stone houses, old women dressed in black sat on stunted chairs, knitting and watching their little world go by.

  The place had almost a picture-postcard prettiness about it, Nigel thought. When the job was over, he’d buy himself another boat and spend a lot of his time moored in places like this.

  The harbour master – his pipe clenched between toothless gums, a tattered chart under his arm – was walking along the quay. He stopped by the side of the Seaspray and glanced down at the cast-off bowlines.

  “You are leaving, monsieur?” he asked in French.

  “Yes.”

  “I think it might perhaps be wiser to delay your trip,” the old man said, pointing up at the cumulonimbus clouds which hung heavily in the sky. “There will be a storm. Of that there is no doubt. And there are predictions of a gale – perhaps a force eight or nine.”

  “We’re only going a little up the coast, as far as Boulogne,” Nigel told him.

  The harbour master stroked his bushy white beard thoughtfully.

  “Even so, Monsieur,” he said, “it might be prudent to wait.”

  “We’ll be there before the bad weather really sets in.”

  The old man gave one of those shrugs that the French long ago patented as their own.

  “It is, I suppose, your business, monsieur. Well, bon voyage."

  He walked away, his Wellington boots squeaking on the cobblestones.

  Nigel turned to Jack Sodbury.

  “You can release the slip-lines now,” he said, switching to English.

  “What was the old feller gabbling on about, Skipper?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, he was just asking me where we were going. I didn’t tell him the truth, of course.”

  “He looked like he was warning you about bad weather when he pointed up the clouds.”

  “Quite the contrary. He was telling me they should clear up in an hour or so – but I knew that already.”

  ‘Well, it seemed like a warning to me,’ Sodbury said dubiously.

  Nigel slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re getting quite good at handling a boat, Jack, old chap, but you’ve got a lot to learn about reading the weather.” He glanced at his watch. “And since we’re due to meet Frank in a few hours, we’ll set sail now. That is, if we have your permission, Mr. Sodbury?”

  The other man grinned, and gave a mock salute.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The lines were pulled, and the boat began to manoeuver its way out of its mooring.

  *

  There was an almost-full moon, but the black clouds drifting heavily across the sky obscured it for most of the time.

  Mason slowed the Land-rover to a halt.

  “This is the place,” he said.

  They were the first words he had uttered since the journey began, because he had not trusted himself to speak to the man who was about to betray him. Even now, he found it hard to deliver this simple phrase without a trace of the hurt and bitterness he felt seeping into it.

  Tony just nodded. If he had found Mason’s silence strange, he had not commented on it. He got out of the vehicle and walked a few yards up the road. In the headlights, Mason could see him neatly cutting through the barbed-wire fence. When he had finished, Mason edged the Land-rover through the gap.

  Tony removed the roll of wire from the back of the vehicle and began to repair the fence. Even on a country lane in the middle of the night, it was possible that a passing motorist would notice a damaged fence and stop to investigate. True, it was only a slim possibility, but it was not worth taking even the slightest chance at this crucial stage of the operation.

  Mason drove slowly down the sloping field. Cows, settled down for the night, shifted uneasily, but did not move. At the far fence, Mason stopped and got out. He could still see the road from where he was, but the angle was such that the lights of passing cars would not pick out the shape of the Land-rover. He had taken that into consideration when selecting the spot.

  I took everything into consideration, he thought – apart from the fact that I couldn’t trust the man I’d have gladly laid down my life for.

  He could hear the roar of the sea, and the wind, as it whistled through the telephone wires. Branches on a nearby tree bent and creaked.

  He wondered why Nigel hadn’t waited for better weather.

  Maybe he just wanted to get it over with.

  “That’s all I want,” he said softly to himself, “to get it over with.”

  Tony appeared out of the darkness. Together, they unstrapped the small boat from the roof rack and manhandled it down to the sea.

  It had been Frank’s idea to use the boat.

  “The Customs and Excise might decide to carry out a random check on the Seaspray the moment it lands,” he’d told his team, “and if they do, you’re going to have a hard time explaining all that money away. So the safest thing is to unload it before you reach Brighton Marina.”

  Yes, that had only seemed like sense at the time – but, at the time, he hadn’t known what he knew now.

  The two men returned to the vehicle for the outboard motor and fixed it to the craft. And then there was nothing to do but wait for Nigel’s signal.

  Mason watched Tony walking up and down, hugging himself occasionally.

  Was he nervous, or just cold?

  Susan, with tears in her eyes, had begged Mason not to do this – implored him not to put himself in a position where he was alone with Tony.

  ‘I have to,’ he’d told her.

  ‘Why, when you know he’s going to double-cross you?’

  ‘Because I have to be sure he’d really go through with it. And if I don’t give him the chance, I’ll never really know.’

  He will go through with it, Mason thought sadly, as he stood on the dark windswept beach, studying Tony’s body language. Linda’s got him in her grip, and he’ll do whatever she asks him to.

  When would Tony make his play?

  And what form would that play take?

  Would he drive away while his unsuspecting boss was ordering two teas-to-go from a transport cafe?

  Or would he sneak up behind him, and hit him on the head?

  Without Susan’s warning, either would have been easy. Even with the warning, he might still pull it off. Yet despite that, Mason still couldn’t bring himself to deny the man he had loved almost as a son the chance to prove he was worthy of that love.

  *

  Jack Sodbury shone his torch down on the water and saw, as he’d expected, that it was rough. He edged his way carefully round to the cockpit where Nigel Monk was standing confidently at the tiller.

  “It’s getting choppy, Skipper,” Sodbury shouted. “Wind-speed must be up to twenty-five knots by now.”

  “Nonsense,” Nigel replied. “It can’t be more than eighteen knots – which is an ideal cruising wind. And for God’s sake, be careful to keep that torch out of my eyes. Do you want to impair my night vision?”

  He was wrong about the wind speed, Sodbury thought. And not only that, but he must know he was wrong from the amount of spray that been hitting the deck for the last twenty minutes.

  “I think we should heave-to and ride it out, Skipper,” he said.

  “Do you want to take over the tiller?” Nigel demanded.

  In that weather? Sodbury thought.

  A novice like him
?

  Maybe in the daytime, but not at night – when sailing even in perfect conditions was difficult enough.

  “No, I don’t want to take over,” he said. “But I …”

  “So I’m still Captain, am I?” Nigel interrupted. “In that case, you’ll obey orders. I want the mainsail double-reefed and the hatches battened down. And I want all crew on deck – in harnesses. Get to it.”

  Sodbury felt angry and impotent. However crazy the Skipper’s instructions seemed, the crew would be lost without him, so there was no choice but to do what he said.

  But harnesses?

  For what he claimed was only an eighteen-knot wind?

  And if he wanted the hatches closed he was expecting it to get worse.

  It did get worse. The boat rocked and swayed, waves started to break over the hull, the bilge had to be pumped out every few minutes.

  It’s a gale, Jack Sodbury thought, panicking. He gazed into the black night that engulfed the tiny boat. It’s a gale, and we’re all going to die.

  He edged his way into the cockpit. Water slopped around at his feet.

  “Heave-to!” he screamed, above the noise of the wind. “Bloody heave-to!”

  “We’re almost there,” Nigel shouted back.

  “We’re not almost bleeding anywhere!”

  And then, in the distance, Sodbury saw three or four tiny twinkling lights that could only be shining from the English coast.

  *

  It was hard work dragging the small boat to the edge of the water, and, every inch of the way, Linda cursed Tony for not being there to help her.

  It would have been a simple matter to knock Frank out when he wasn’t looking. It might have been an even better idea to go further and finish him off – putting an end, forever, to the possibility of Mason finding them once this was over.

  But Tony had insisted that it be done this way – him keeping Frank busy, her with a second craft two miles further down the coast, making the real pick-up.

  She watched the waves breaking, and shuddered. Nigel would come as close in to the shore as he could, but she would still have to go out in that little boat through the rough sea.

  She knelt down and put her hand in the water. It was like ice.

  She shouldn’t have to do this! Tony should be with her. It should be Tony who risked the boat trip to collect the money. Maybe he didn’t deserve to share it with her after all. Maybe once she’d used him to get rid of Nigel, she’d take off on her own, and have all that lovely money all to herself.

  The shortwave radio by her side hissed and crackled. “Seaspray to Linda. Seaspray to Linda. Are you receiving me? Over.”

  She clicked the switch to transmit. “Not very clearly, but I can hear you. Over.”

  “I’m coming in. I expect to be off-shore from you within forty-five – repeat, forty-five – minutes. Start signalling after thirty. Over and out.”

  “Are you sure you can …” Linda began, but Nigel had already signed off.

  She lit a cigarette and inhaled greedily. Icy gusts of wind cut into her face. Why couldn’t Nigel have got there earlier, to save all this waiting around?

  She heard a noise behind her. At first she thought it was only the sound of a tin can being blown along the beach, but then she realized that it was too regular for that.

  Footsteps crunching on the shingle!

  She turned her head, and could just make the figures out in what little pale moonlight the clouds had allowed to filter through.

  Two of them, heading towards her.

  She stubbed her cigarette and squatted down by the boat.

  She wondered for a second if they were strollers.

  But they couldn’t be!

  There was only one group of people who would turn out on a filthy night like this – policemen!

  What could she say to them?

  How could she explain her presence by the boat? She couldn’t, of course. She would have no choice but to save herself by turning the others in.

  They had started out as nothing more than vague shapes, their edges blurring into the darkness, but as they got closer, their forms became more distinct. Both were men, both tall, although one was bulky and the other slim. She felt her heart sink as they approached.

  The slim one reached her first.

  “I couldn’t do it, Linda,” he said apologetically. “I couldn’t let Frank down.”

  So after all her efforts – all her scheming – she had failed, because her grip on Tony was weaker than Mason’s.

  She was angry with herself – and furious with both her lovers.

  She sprang to her feet.

  “You bloody idiot, Tony,” she screamed, slapping him as hard as she could across his face.

  He took the blow unflinchingly – as if he had deserved it. She lifted back her hand to strike him again.

  “Leave him alone, Linda,” Frank said, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

  They stood on the beach, looking in each other’s direction, yet barely able to distinguish faces, while around them the waves crashed and the wind whistled.

  “So what do we do now?” Linda asked bitterly.

  “Now,” Mason said, “we wait for Nigel to appear. We play out the end of the double-cross.”

  He turned to Tony.

  “Will the rest of the crew still be with him on the boat, by the way?”

  “No,” Tony replied. “That’s all been taken care of.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “When I was at school,” Nigel Monk said, one hand resting on the tiller, the other holding a Luger, “I was in the Officer Training Corps. And I was a crack shot. I could kill you easily – and I will do if I have to.”

  It was one of those speeches that sophisticated secret agents make in thrillers, and it sounded polished and rehearsed – which it had been.

  Unfortunately, it was wasted on the three men at whom he was pointing the gun – because the howling wind ensured that they only caught about one word in three.

  “When … at … was … Officer … and …”

  But they didn’t need to hear the words to get the gist of the message.

  Jack Sodbury started to advance slowly towards him. Nigel waited until he was close enough to talk, but not so near that he could try any heroics.

  “That’s far enough!” he ordered.

  And Sodbury stopped immediately.

  It was funny, Nigel thought, that on land he was so weak and indecisive, but once on a boat he became masterful.

  “We worked for that bleeding money,” Sodbury said. “We did the robbery, we took the risks. You’re not going to take it off us now.”

  “Oh, but I am,” Nigel said.

  “You can’t watch all of us, all the way to the Brighton Marina. You’ll drop your guard eventually – and then we’ll bloody have you.”

  “No you won’t – because you’re not going to Brighton. You get off here.”

  Nigel made a rapid gesture with the barrel of his gun towards the tender.

  “You can’t send us off in that,” Sodbury shouted. “It’s certain death.”

  “We’re only about two hundred yards from the shore,” Nigel replied. “You should make it safely enough. On the other hand, if you don’t do as I say, I’ll pull the trigger and that is certain death.”

  Sodbury tried once more.

  “You’ll never handle the boat alone, not in this weather. You know you won’t.”

  “I’ll worry about that,” Nigel replied. “You get into the tender. Now!”

  The tender bobbed up and down in the water. Sodbury lowered himself into it, and sat on the central thwart, gripping the side for support. With his free hand he slotted in one oar and then the other. Only when they were firmly in place did he signal that the other two men should join him.

  Slowly, carefully, they climbed down. When they were settled, and the tender was as stable as it was ever going to be, Sodbury pushed it away from the Seaspray.

  The small craft w
as pitching dangerously. Sodbury began to row, pulling heavily on the starboard side to compensate for the current. Despite the cold – despite the waves which soaked him to the skin in the first ten seconds – he was sweating. Already his muscles ached. It was only a short distance to the shore, but the effort it would take to get there would be tremendous.

  Behind him, the wind carried the sound of the Seaspray’s engine starting up.

  “I hope for your sake that you drown, you bastard,” Sodbury muttered through gritted teeth. “Because that’ll be an easy death compared to what will happen if I ever get my hands on you.”

  Waves exploded against the bow of the boat, raising it out of the water, threatening to tip them into the black murky sea. Sodbury’s muscles felt as if they were on fire.

  It was half an hour before the three men – cold, wet and totally penniless – dragged themselves on to the shore.

  *

  The black skeletal trees in front of the moon were shaking, the waves were getting higher and higher – and Nigel was late.

  Fifteen minutes earlier it would have been possible to use the small boat, Mason thought, but not any longer. He wasn’t prepared to risk anybody’s life just for the money.

  The shortwave receiver crackled, harsh bursts of static, then faintly – distortedly – a voice came through.

  “Linda, Linda, can you hear me?”

  Linda looked across at Mason. He had won, which meant that he was in charge now, and she was awaiting his instructions.

  “Answer it, for Christ's sake,” he said.

  Linda clicked the button.

  “Yes, I’m here. Over.”

  “I can’t control the boat any more, Linda. She’s shipping water. I … I think she’s going to capsize.”

  “Well, what do you expect me to do about it?” Linda asked.

  “Get help …call the coast guard …anything. I’m frightened, Linda. I don’t want to die. I …”

  There was a final crackle and the radio went dead. Linda dropped it on to the beach, and its plastic case shattered.

  “Shit!” she said. “Shit, shit, shit! Now none of us get the money.”