by Peter Tonkin
‘But Bertie said Jeeves could buttle with the best of them,’ replied Robin coolly. ‘And I think he did buttle on several occasions. For Gussie Fink-Nottle amongst others. Including J. Washburn Stoker and at least one terrible aunt, if memory serves. But it’s not like you to be so picky. What’s up, lover?’
The Rolls slowed to a stop and the lights at the comer of Bras Basah Road shone in to reveal Richard at his most deviously shifty.
‘What’s up?’ she repeated, with more of an edge on her tone.
‘Well, it’s part of the surprise, but I don’t see any point in waiting any longer,’ he admitted. ‘So. While we’re away, recruitment have been directed to find you your Jeeveses and at least two sets of staff.’
Nic would have appreciated the look of wonderment on Robin’s face as the next layer came off the Salome’s Dance of a Surprise.
The recruitment section at Heritage Mariner was almost as high-powered as the movements and commercial intelligence sections; second only to the crewfinders section itself. Headed by the fearsome Captain Rupert Bligh, and consequently known as the Bounty to all who served in it, recruitment specialized in finding and employing the best officers and crews in the world. Watch officers and engineering officers, cadets and so forth. Training them and employing them on long-term contracts too - not short-term emergency-fix ‘any crewmember anywhere in the world replaced within 24 hours’ stuff like crewfinders specialized in. Recruitment specialized in finding more than officers. It found ship’s architects and engineers capable of designing, building and improving every kind of ocean-going vessel. And it had its work cut out. Heritage Mariner financed, built, contracted, crewed and employed vessels from pleasure boats for weekend sailors to VLCCs. From the Fastnet-winning Katapult series of racing multihulls through the SuperCats that ferried passengers across the Channel, the Great Lakes, the mouth of the Amazon and beyond. Through the Atropos dangerous waste transport vessels and the Sissy series of oceangoing tugs to the Titan series of crude-carrying submarines and the massive Prometheus series of supertankers. Recruitment scoured colleges, schools, universities, navies, competitors and personnel sites worldwide, 24/7, 365 days a year. Rupert Bligh would be less than happy to be employing his crack team to find a couple of butlers, some housekeepers and a flock of parlour maids. ‘Like using a Maserati as a muck spreader!’ Robin said.
‘Do you know, that’s exactly what Rupert said,’ laughed Richard. ‘But I told him how important it was. And he knows which side his bread’s buttered on.’
‘Hmmm. I’m sorry to have missed out on that conversation. Did you actually mention bread and butter? Not salt beef and hard tack? No one raised the cat o’ nine tails?’ There was a brief silence as the pounding of the rain eased further and the gloom within the car eased further still. ‘So this little trip is actually a cunning plan to get me out of the wrathful Rupert’s way, is it? Or to stop me interfering in recruitment, making sure they want to find me the kind of staff I’d want to employ myself?’
‘They’ll have a short-list for you when you get back. Then you can interfere all you want. And you know Rupert’s bark is worse than his bite.’
‘Tell that to the poor souls in the Bounty!’
The Rolls was sweeping down St Andrews now, like one of the lesser Queens leaving her berth. Robin’s view was of the towers of City Hall and the Supreme Court behind the front ages they shared with the Raffles of tall palms and strictly regimented tropical undergrowth. Richard looked across the Padang, where rain had stopped play, between the Recreation Club and the Cricket Club to where the veils of misty downpour were withdrawing towards Connaught Drive.
‘Wherever, whenever and whatever this surprise is, I hope it involves something to eat quite soon,’ said Robin. ‘Peanuts and Lapsang Souchong in the Long Bar won’t help this girl recover from the better part of twenty-four hours of airline food. Even Hong Kong Airlines food.’
Richard leaned forward and snapped open a panel beside the opposite seat. A little bar folded out. ‘Sorry,’ he said, rummaging around within. ‘Looks like more peanuts. Roasted and salted.’
‘That’ll do to be going on with,’ Robin answered brusquely. ‘And is that a baby bottle of Bollinger beside the Perrier there?’
As Robin nibbled the nuts and sipped the champagne, the Rolls swept along the steaming expanse of Parliament Lane between the back of the Parliament building and the frontage of the theatre. The Empress Palace Building loomed on Richard’s side, and beyond that, at the bottom of the slope, the expanse of the Singapore River, also steaming in the post-downpour afternoon humidity.
Richard knew Robin would have had a shrewd suspicion of where they were heading. None of the buildings they had passed held any obvious attraction - not even the theatre and music hall, and Robin knew Singapore perhaps even better than he did himself. Though the last time she had spent any time here was at the time of the Hong Kong hand-back when she had come here trying to prove him innocent of murder. In those days this had been one of the stop-off points on the circular routes of the China Queen shipping company which Heritage Mariner had briefly owned as part of a slightly longer Far Eastern venture. But Heritage Mariner had never quite made it into the Noble House league alongside Jardine Matheson; and Richard had never quite become Tai Pan. Although, Sir Francis Drake’s treasure chest, which Richard had brought back from Tiger Island soon after, still resided in the vaults of Coutts & Co., his bankers in London. And it was still full of treasure. Perhaps money was indeed no object, just as Nic had said.
Certainly, Robin showed no surprise at all when the Rolls drew up alongside its companion at the very start of North Quay Road, where Parliament Lane swung right along the river’s edge with the white statue of Raffles standing determinedly at the Raffles Landing Site. Here, beside the statue itself, an exclusive little covered pathway led down to a private pier. ‘You didn’t bring me all this way just for a really good meal, then,’ she said as Richard hurried her forward through the suffocating humidity. Oblivious to the steamy heat, she held back a little, looking longingly at the restaurants and bumboats which were beginning to stir with early night life all along either side of the river from here to Clarke Quay. Then she gave in and let him pull her back on to the air-conditioned walkway. ‘This had better be worth waiting for, buster,’ she finished threateningly.
But in fact, by both of their calculations, the sight that awaited them down on the landing stage was well worth waiting for. Nic had wisely chosen to clothe himself in linen, money being no object and the heat really quite testing. Well-pressed linen with just a hint of stiffening here and starching there can hold its shape like the sturdiest worsted, though it becomes fashionably wrinkled in places. If a linen suit gets wet, however, it holds its shape and style slightly less forcefully than a bath-flannel. Nic Greenbaum looked less like Santa Claus and more like the Snowman, suddenly; but at least he seemed to see the funny side of his predicament.
Not so the glorious Inge. Silk, like cotton, can become treacherous when wet. Now the white stripes that had defined her curves so stylishly were pink ones that revealed them all too clearly. Showed with every movement of her lithe form, the way she had shoe-horned herself into a black lace basque, uplifting enough to deepen her cleavage and tight enough to narrow her waist. And, had Richard not been a gentleman born and bred, he might have noticed like the revengeful Robin just how precisely the black thong that Inge favoured below the clasp of the basque was defined by pink stripes clinging and straining before and behind. Especially behind.
‘Here you are,’ snapped Inge. Then she added, after a beat which just might have contained the phrase at last, ‘Now we may proceed.’
‘After you,’ said Richard automatically. Only to find himself on the receiving end of an amused glance from Nic and an old-fashioned look from Robin.
Inge led them across a little pier and down a short gangway into a roomy slipper launch. She was handed aboard by an imperturbable Indonesian sailor in a white c
otton uniform. An inscrutable Orang Laut who did not even seem to notice how much of her was on show. He and his three companions settled all their passengers safely aboard before casting off and revving up the powerful engines until the launch was bouncing out into the steady flow. Like something that might indeed have taken Jeeves and Wooster across Southampton Water - or the East River for that matter - the launch sped away from the landing stage. Sir Stamford Raffles, rendered in white stone, watched them from his plinth as they roared along the water- frontage of the Empress Palace building and under the wrought-iron frontage that announced this as the Cavenaugh Bridge. Then Raffles passed out of sight behind them as they swung left with the river and under the Fullerton Road Bridge immediately beyond.
After the Fullerton Building and the Road Bridge, the launch swung sharply right around the point at Merlion Park, before scudding determinedly out of the river mouth. For an instant, Robin thought they were going hard round into the Telok Ayer Basin, where the container terminal was, and the anchorages for the container ships such as the Sulu and Seram Queens - ships that had come so close to killing both her and Richard back in the days of the Hong Kong handover.
But no. The launch swung to the left again as one of the crewmen spoke rapidly into his hand-held radio, communicating with the harbour master or someone at their destination or both. The shipping of a busy anchorage came and went before them. Even the ships at anchor seeming to take motion as the launch raced past. Container vessels of every design, shape and size, with their attendant lighters, tugs and bumboats pushed in and out of the basin. Ferries came and went to and from Clifford Pier. Further out in the roads all manner of shipping was sailing from the East Anchorage to the West and back again, or around to Pasir Pajang and Jurong.
Beyond the ships, boats, yachts and junks, the Singapore Strait and the Java Sea heaved a restless, stormy grey. And above the waters hung the retreating ranks of the thunderclouds, falling southwards back to Sarawak.
Robin glanced across at Richard and was simply shocked by the childlike excitement in his face. Like her, he was searching the timeless dazzle of the shipping out in the roads, almost as though he expected to see Lord Jim hailing down from the foredeck of the doomed Patna. Or Almayer, Tom Lingard, McWhirr, Marlow or even Joseph Conrad himself might sail past, ghostlike, somewhere near, and sometime soon. But then she realized that, incurably romantic though Richard was, his excitement now went beyond the avid reading and endless dreaming of his youth. His excitement was for something more vital and immediate. And when his eyes met hers she knew. It was her surprise. He was looking for her surprise.
And, suddenly, unexpectedly and overwhelmingly, she was excited too. She surveyed the bustling seascape anew, no longer a tired and world-weary sailor butting across yet another crowded port, but a little girl again on Christmas morning looking amongst the bright wrapped mysteries beneath the Christmas tree. And, just with the very thought, like the fairy lights coming on, the sun burst through the overcast. Blades of brightness chopped through the scene, sweeping like spotlights over numberless, nameless vessels, turning them into a kind of maritime magic show.
Until, there, right in the middle of the anchorage dead ahead, the westering sun illuminated one particular vessel. Robin was on her feet, legs spread and thighs tensed against the rocking, thudding pitching of the launch as it raced towards the bright white vision. Her right fist closed with thoughtless force upon the merino of Richard’s tropical-suit shoulder. Her breath held pent in her breast and her eyes wide. Such was her focus dead ahead that she had no idea that the others were watching her.
‘What is that?’ she breathed. But her words were snatched away by the gusting headwind, the rushing wake and the grumbling throb of the motors. ‘What is that?’ she repeated. Although she already knew the answer.
Nic laughed aloud, sharing her simple joy, not mocking her stunned expression. She had an impression of Inge standing beside her, hair whipping back in the wind, like a Valkyrie heading for Valhalla. But it was Richard who answered.
‘That’s the next bit of your surprise, darling.’
It was simply the most beautiful vessel that Robin had ever seen in her life.
Chapter 3: Tai Fun
Tai Fun swung easily at her mooring, secured to the buoy assigned to her by the Singapore harbour master’s office when she first made contact last night. She had arrived with the dawn, sent some tourists ashore in the launch soon after, had restocked by mid-afternoon, retrieved her drenched and dripping shore party by teatime and was all set to sail now. As soon as the last few guests arrived aboard. Guests worth waiting for: the owner’s daughter and the passengers destined to occupy the Royal Suite and the Presidential Suite that sat on either side of the Owner’s Suite. The three huge new suites made an exclusive trio on the aft upper passenger deck behind the Starlight Bistro which stood in turn behind the navigation bridge. The suites all had exclusive balconies and overlooked, in steps down one, two and three decks below, the after sun deck, the main pool and the water sports platform aft of that.
Luggage, marked Hong Kong Airlines via Changi International, had arrived with the supplies at noon and the Filipino stewards had already unpacked and stowed the contents in drawers, wardrobes and cupboards that would have accepted twice as much with ease.
Everything was going like clockwork, precisely to plan and bang on schedule. And yet Nils Nordberg was uncharacteristically nervous. He turned to Captain Olmeijer, but the Dutchman had crossed to the far side of the open bridge to talk to the radio operator. ‘How long, Captain?’ he called.
‘They report that they can see us, Mr Nordberg. We will see them in a moment.’ The owner and his captain spoke in English and addressed each other formally on the bridge. In private they were Nils and Tom; sometimes they spoke Dutch and sometimes Swedish. Sometimes they drank advocaat and sometimes schnapps; but more often Amstel beer. They had known each other and Tai Fun since the ship had slid like a swan down the slipway of Ateliers and Chantiers shipyards at Le Havre. The three of them, it seemed, had been good friends ever since. Tai Fun, star of the High Wind shipping line, had never had another name, another owner or another captain. And if, on this cruise, she gained a new owner, Nils Nordberg was keen to ensure that the captain stayed the same. But even considering selling Tai Fun was all too close in Nils’s mind to prostituting his beloved daughter. He had not expected things to become so complicated, so personal or so difficult. He swallowed and found that his throat was dry.
‘We have them in sight, Mr Nordberg. They will be aboard in a quarter-hour.’
‘Very well. Lower the port-side accommodation ladder when you see fit, please, Captain.’
‘It has been lowered all day, sir.’
‘Of course. How could I have forgotten? I will greet them there.’
He had forgotten, he realized, because of his gathering, hopefully groundless, worry.
Ten minutes later, Nils Nordberg was standing on the little welcome platform that projected through Tai Fun’s side two decks below main deck level. At his feet, a gangway reached down two more decks to the surface of the anchorage where another little platform held the launch safe while its four passengers disembarked. Disembarked and embarked both at once. Inge came up first, which was unusual. Her face was dark with some ill-contained irritation that compounded her father’s concern. But she stepped past him on to Tai Fun and stopped. Turning courteously to make her formal introductions - as though anyone here could be unfamiliar to the others. But there were formalities to be observed; and in any case, wasn’t there a famous film star who always introduced himself in spite of possessing a universally recognized face? It was a way of breaking the ice; of putting people at their ease.
Robin Mariner came up next and paused to give Nils an infectious grin as Inge introduced them. ‘This is simply the most beautiful vessel I have ever seen,’ said Robin. Her grey eyes were exactly level with Nils’s and they sparkled with an open excitement that he found charming
ly irresistible. Until it occurred to him what an excellent business ploy such apparent openness might be.
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Richard, who succeeded her almost at once, towering over his host and pumping his hand exuberantly. ‘Even more graceful in the flesh than in the pictures I have seen.’
‘She’s just as lovely inside,’ promised Inge, gesturing him aboard.
‘Looks like an expensive lady,’ concluded Nic, with a twinkle and a glance that seemed to take in both Tai Fun and Inge at once. ‘But I’d bet my bottom dollar she’s worth every cent.’
‘She and all her sisters,’ confirmed Nils like the proudest paterfamilias.
‘I thought you were an only child,’ said Robin, following Inge up towards their suites. For different reasons, each of the women wanted to shower and change as a matter of some urgency. At the very least, neither felt ready to face the officers, crew and other guests at drinks or dinner, the one due within the hour, the other within two. The rain, wind and spray had not been kind to hairstyles. Robin still felt as though she was dressed in a plum-coloured tissue-paper bag; and her travelling slacks were very much the worse for wear. Inge’s flesh and underwear were still all too obvious beneath her damp business suit, and her open-toed sandals were on the verge of falling apart. The one followed the other, therefore, through the gathering bustle of the common parts as the accommodation ladder was raised, the launch attached to its falls and brought aboard and Tai Fun prepared to cast off and come under power. Robin was content to follow the statuesque girl, certain of their destination without further question. The men had gone off together like a gang of boys about some adventure, no doubt to watch or oversee some part of any of the activities leading towards Tai Fun’s imminent departure. Boys and toys, she thought. Still and all, Tai Fun was one hell of a toy.
