by Peter Tonkin
‘But Whitesand-Sandarkan did manage to buy them all. At a bargain basement price - with a huge profit achieved already. And in six years time, all Charles has to do is pop up again and prove that he’s alive. Outside our jurisdiction, but alive. It could go on for years and years. That’s why we have to fight now and fight hard. Our best weapon still is to find Charles and bring him home. Or, failing him, then his shares will do just fine.’
Richard sat, dumbfounded and looked at the share certificates. He knew every whirl and curlicue, the signatures and the names. And most especially he knew the numbers. They were Charles Lee’s all right. What a pity they were just photocopies. He looked up at the skeletal old ivory face in front of him, gaping like a schoolboy. May’s grandmother sucked on a cigarette through a green jade holder and speared him with a fathomless look from eyes that were almost as black as her chop-stabbed geisha wig. She spoke, rapidly, in Chinese that was so thick and slurred that Richard could not even work out whether it was Cantonese, Mandarin or one of the country dialects. But he didn’t need to understand what Grandmother Chung was saying to him.
Even more at home in the office behind the heaving betting-shop than she had been in the private room in Pont de Londres, May swung one fashionably clad leg and observed her top- of-the-range trainers as she translated.
‘This man Charles Lee is gambling man. Big gambling man. Gambling like opium to him, you understand? Since one year ago he has bet upon this race. Long odds. House offer very long odds. Very good odds. He wished to bet money or credit. He try to bet fast car. He say worth £100,000. Grandmother Chung say to him “No.” If he bet £100,000 with her he must bet something she can hold and touch and keep against the wager.
‘So he bet these. Grandmother Chung has valued them with discreet banker and holds them in secret. No one knows. If he wins then she will return them to him with his £100,000 at odds of twenty to one. That two million one hundred thousand pound in all. Big bet. Big race. But if Charles Lee lose this gamble, Grandmother Chung sell shares to you. Five times market value as big favour. Because you save life of favourite granddaughter.’
Excitement and hilarity warred hysterically in Richard’s breast. Perhaps there was something more than nicotine in the fumes wafting through from the betting shop and the deeper, darker rooms beyond. This was simple madness, he thought. But it was all of a piece with the adventure so far. And he could well believe it of Charles Lee. To have planned the whole thing and put it into action with such painstaking care over so many months and years - and then to have risked the whole thing on a simple roll of some cosmic dice. It was Charles to the life.
It was Achilles, with his heel.
‘What race has he bet on?’ Richard asked, though his racing mind had made him suspect the answer already.
May didn’t even need to consult Grandmother Chung. She knew the answer to that one herself. ‘He has wagered on the Fastnet ocean yacht race. He has bet upon the vessel Tin Hau to come first, allowing for class and handicap.’
Grandmother Chung leaned forward and croaked through a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.
May listened, giggled, and translated. ‘Grandmother Chung says now you know, what you do about it? You have too much Yang, she says, to allow Luck Dragon to achieve this thing for you. And also you not looking like Feng Shui man to her. She says, do you know how you can beat this Charles Lee, this yacht Tin Hau?’
Richard leaned forward, his face absolutely still and speared the old lady with the ice-blue of his most powerfully intense gaze. ‘No, I don’t,’ he told her. ‘But I know a man who can.’
THE ROCK
Chapter 30: The Hard Place
The Katapult VI crewman crippled by the hit-and-run had been called Harry Hansen, Richard soon learned. So when Harry Black replaced him it was easy for the others. They just continued to bellow, ‘Harry, get ready to gybe,’ and so forth. But when Sam Wells got beaten to within an inch of his life by a gang of drunks outside the Jolly Roger a couple of days before the off, things got very much harder indeed.
They would have been made impossible for Doc and his crew, in fact, had Richard not been working effectively as extra crewman for the better part of the last fortnight. And had Cowes Week itself not been held back to the beginning of August that year because of the unusually heavy spring tides, allowing him the vital extra time to do so. Even so, as Doc said, when he called Richard on his cellphone from Sam’s bedside in Southampton General Hospital, they were between a rock and a hard place.
During the last week in July, Richard went down to Southampton almost as often as Doc popped up to London. As he became caught up in the final preparations for the Fastnet Race, he took a room at The Star with the rest of them. But on those couple of vital nights after Sam was beaten up, they all started sleeping aboard Katapult herself, where she lay, moored off the green to the west of the Fairway and the Royal Yacht Squadron’s H.Q.
That first day, however, they had met in Doc’s room in The Star and sat on such pieces of furniture as the room afforded. Doc and the two girls, naturally, on the bed. Harry Black and Ben Caldwell leaning amenably, side by side against a chest of drawers. Sam Wells and Bob Collingwood in the two chairs, because they were the biggest. Richard paced as he explained to them what it was he needed them to do. ‘Beat Tin Hau. Or, if that’s going to be impossible, try your best to make sure someone else beats Tin Hau.’
‘Be a damn sight easier to beat her ourselves,’ observed big Bob Collingwood. ‘Be black and white then. Cut and dried. Them or us.’
‘That’s the way we have to go in any case, isn’t it?’ mused deceptively mousy Joan Rouse. ‘We have to beat them as soundly as we can, and hope there are no tricky handicaps or time penalties involved.’
‘That’s what we have to watch out for, isn’t it?’ demanded Amy Cook the navigator. ‘I mean there are what, half a dozen well-fancied yachts in our class who do this thing every time. One or other of them seems to have won the Fastnet every race since the Millennium. A bit of a club, so to speak. Tin Hau and Katapult are the two best fancied outsiders so we were always going head-to-head, weren’t we? But we simply don’t know what handicaps and so forth the race organizers will put in place for all of us. Therefore if we get in among the leaders and stay there - which is what we planned in any case - we should keep Tin Hau well out of contention. But only if she hasn’t got some kind of technical advantage we don’t know about.’
‘Or we aren’t nobbled ourselves by some kind of penalty somewhere along the line. Other than that, it sounds simple,’ said Ben from the chest of drawers. ‘Get out in front, stay out in front, get back in front and keep our fingers crossed.’
‘Well, it’s a plan,’ decided Doc. ‘And like Brains here said...’ he gave navigator Amy a hug, ‘it was what our race plan was in any case. So let’s go for it, eh kids?’
And that became - remained - the strategy. But like most apparently simple ideas, it required a great deal more in practice than it seemed to do in theory. But beating Tin Hau in particular gave them extra focus. A specific target for the race. So they went back to work with redoubled will.
And Richard rolled his sleeves up and went to work alongside them. He was simply amazed at how fast it all came back to him. It was a good number of years since he had crewed the first Katapult around the Arabian Gulf with Robin, Doc and Sam Hood. They had been basically pleasureboating then and this of course was very different. Crewing Katapult VI was like riding a thoroughbred after hacking around on a carthorse. Riding a thoroughbred 150% bigger than the original, needing seven instead of four to handle her. A thoroughbred which needed a good deal of extra tack, into the bargain.
The original Katapult had been entirely internally rigged. Her simple sails - mainsail and jib - had both been controlled by pulleys working within the super-strengthened hollow mast. The setting of sails and outriggers was controlled via a central computer designed to make pleasureboating almost as simple as riding a bicycle.
&
nbsp; On Katapult VI, the basics were the same. The knobs and whistles were, however, different. They still had the almost unique suit of computer-controlled sails. But the overall square footage had risen exponentially. So, therefore, had the external rigging and the systems needed to winch, shorten and belay it all. This was a racing machine, moreover, not a pleasure boat; and so there was even more external cordage for when they wanted to vary the racing trim, set Genoas instead of jibs or deploy the big spinnaker.
There was change also in the way they could set the outriggers, much more variably hinged on almost impossibly strong joints that could lift the central hull out of the water to several different degrees, setting her up in various hydroplane modes. Outriggers extended with extra rudders of their own. Which of course made the steering even more complicated still.
But Richard worked alongside them and he learned it all. It was a huge release for him to feel, after nearly a year of powerlessness when his fate - and those of his family and company - had lain in the hands of prosecution and defence, that he had some control again. And some physical control, with a tangible outcome. That there was a problem here which could be solved through physical action. That - through working till his hands bled and his back was breaking, then working on until his legs were numb and he could no longer move his arms, and then working on some more - he was actually going to solve it all himself. Make up to Robin, William and Mary everything he had put them through during the last terrible year. The thought was energizing, motivating. A most potent release for all the helplessness and frustration he had been feeling for so long.
And it was as well he did so, for, like Harry Black, Richard was an outsider. This was a crew that had worked together on and off for years - long ago and far away; recently and near at hand. They had done the Sydney-Hobart together late last year. They had done the Morgan Cup late last month and the Cowes-St-Malo while Richard was still in court.
At Cowes Week itself, Katapult joined some of the Maxi races and Richard was able to get in a little race-toughening around the buoys in the Solent and away across Christchurch Bay. Watching as the big national teams racked up the points and outsailed most of the independents and learning yet more from what he observed; as yet unaware of how important the experience would be.
Many of the other Fastnet favourites were there, single hulled and multi; ultra-modern cutting-edge, or classic 1930s J Class restored. As well as national teams from all over the world, from Portland, America to Papua New Guinea. But Tin Hau remained aloof. Every now and then, between races, sailing out of the Solent round the Isle of Wight - exploring those early, vital tideways - someone from Katapult would see her tell-tale jade-green sails on the horizon and call to the others. But she appeared at none of the inshore races. Her crew came to none of the Yacht Club dances, receptions or parties that the others sometimes visited. She remained a slightly sinister mystery, therefore - even to those whose interest in her was merely to gossip and speculate over a flute of champagne and a canape.
The last time Richard saw Sam Wells was during the fireworks display on the Friday. Richard planned on watching just the very start of the magnificent show and then was driving back to Ashenden for the weekend, all too well aware that if he stayed much longer he would simply be in the way. But he was still in the car park setting the destination into the Bentley’s GPS and working out his chances of getting the whole family down here for the off at midday on Sunday, when the hands-free phone began to buzz. And everything changed when he answered.
‘Richard,’ came Doc’s flat, familiar tones. ‘We are between a rock and a hard place, Sport...’
Katapult came thundering over the Royal Yacht Squadron line at full pelt, towards the front of the jostling pack of racers. Richard hung on to his allotted line and looked, simply awestruck. There were nearly three hundred in all - and every single one of them, it seemed, was as set as Doc and Richard on getting back from Ireland first. A stiff easterly whipped in over the wooded hills of the portside shore stirring the Solent up into a fair old chop. And the chop exploded into spray as the racing hulls tore through it. Within moments of the start of the race, Richard was soaking - and he knew he would stay that way for the next thirty-six hours at least until Katapult got back into Portsmouth.
Doc was at the big wheel of the helm, eyes narrow and hair flying as he eased Katapult round to starboard. He was seeking to settle her on to a course that would get her across the fairway and Cowes Roads into the channel between the Isle of Wight’s eastern shore and Lymington Harbour. Richard had an instantaneous, mad, vision of all the busting sailboats wedging there in the narrows like shoppers wedged in the doorway at the start of the Harrods Sale.
But that of course could never happen. The narrows were not in fact particularly narrow at all - except on Amy’s chart. And in any case, the fair cross-wind, easing round behind them as they began to swing westward themselves, soon began to sort them into line - ahead, like a squadron of Nelson’s battleships. Genoas spread and spinnakers blossomed amongst the eager and they began to pull away. Doc preferred to lean on the outriggers at this stage and let the huge spread of Katapult’s normal canvas keep them in contention. ‘We’ll deploy the Number One Spinnaker when the wind dies down a bit,’ he bellowed. ‘Catch some of these eager fellows napping. Get ready for it, ladies and gentlemen...’
And, sure enough, as they came into the channel beside the Isle of Wight, the bulk of the island stole the wind. Out came the huge blue Number One Spinnaker, and Katapult settled to work. Beneath her, the tide was falling, and that favoured the big- and variable-keel boats which had large fins below to grab on to the outrush of the water. But Doc too had his outriggers, and the ability to dig them into the fleeing element.
The organizers might have held back Cowes Week to avoid the worst of the big spring tides, but there were still one or two massive movements of water up and down the Channel yet to come. The tide past Milford Point must have been ebbing at the better part of five knots. So, as they came out under the Needles and began to pick up that steady easterly again, all the tall ships there leaned into the broad reach; those eager souls with big sails up sending their crew out to lean out along the side or to hang on trapezes already. Not that Doc was above that sort of thing. ‘Out on the port rigger,’ he yelled as Katapult lifted and the aquadynamic blade of the starboard outrigger suddenly changed from white to green under the surface.
So Richard, Bill, Harry and Bob scrambled over the netting secured over the non-slip paint that covered the portside wing between the hull and the outrigger itself. Then Richard latched on to his trapeze point and missed the pretty sight of Christchurch slowly settling below the horizon altogether as he eased his aching back out from the port outrigger as the second hour of the race began. With the other big crewmen, he was using his weight to keep the hull more level with the water, the mast therefore more upright - and the sails, consequently, more purposefully in the wind while it was there and offering them so much help and power. ‘Don’t go to sleep out there,’ Doc bellowed. ‘I might just want to stow the jib and set the Genoa instead.’
Katapult, drifting southwards as Doc set her steadily across the steady blast of the easterly, was moving at thirty knots now. He wanted to be well out from St Anselm’s Head on the southern coast of the Isle of Purbeck, which protected Poole Harbour, getting maximum benefit from the continuing tidal fall by the end of the second hour if possible, Richard knew. And he planned to be well off Portland Bill by the end of the third.
Like the rest of the crew Richard had slept aboard last night, conveniently able to go through the game plan yet again. Conveniently to hand in case the accidents to the two crewmembers so far had been something other than accidents after all. And they all knew the Channel well enough to put its vagaries into their plans. They all suspected that the wind would turn with the tide, or die away altogether. And they wanted to be well past Prawle Point and Start Point by then if possible. They could even be at the Eddystone Lig
ht, if they kept this speed up, thought Richard dreamily.
Then Bob Collingwood thumped him on the shoulder to get his attention and gestured. Richard twisted to angle his gaze in the direction of Bob’s gesture. His shoulder dipped into the green crystal heave of a wave and he had to blink a faceful of spray away. He saw the foam of their passage spread out like white webs on the water as it rolled out of their wake. The wind seemed almost still, so perfectly were they harnessed to its rushing easterly power. The water of the Channel rose and fell away towards Le Havre.
And there, stunningly close, on the parallel tack and seemingly mere metres upwind of them, lay the sleek black hull and jade-green sails of Tin Hau. No, saw Richard at once. Not hull – hulls! Like Katapult, Tin Hau was a massive trimaran.
Her boom was high, and in any case it was swung well out towards Katapult, its end just kissing the tops of the biggest waves beneath her starboard side. Leaning back the way he was, with Tin Hau leaning over into the wind, Richard was able to see straight into her cockpit. And even, if he strained his neck a little, he could see beyond it to where the crew, like him, were standing up on their trapezes.
And there, exactly opposite Richard, hardly more than fifteen metres of wind-scrubbed, foam-flecked air away, red-clad, lifebelted and laughing, stood the unmistakable figure of Charles Lee.
Chapter 31: The Light
The wind began to falter when Start Point was still a big black bulge on the starboard horizon, more than three hours later - nearly five hours into the race. That was when Doc called them all back in and set the outriggers to lift the central hull and cut the drag to a minimum. But by that time Richard had begun to see the light in earnest. Perhaps it was the realization that Katapult and Tin Hau could almost have been sister ships. Perhaps it was the revelation of seeing his erstwhile friend so close and in the flesh. Perhaps it was the timing - as the physical work and the effect of sailing Katapult up against Tin Hau in the hope of recovering the shares. Perhaps it was the realization that, unlike James Jones and the other missing men, Charles Lee was no hangdog, skulking fugitive. He had freedom of action. He had been able to come and go - discreetly perhaps, but freely and yet invisibly. He had abilities Richard had never realized. He had contacts outside the normal channels. He had power beyond the law. And in Richard’s experience that meant only one thing - he had Triad contacts. He had gone through the ceremonies with the black hen and he lived under the godlike leadership of a Dragon Head.
