The Pirate Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Can you give me a list of the other passengers aboard?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Captain, but that would be out of the question.’

  ‘In that case,’ Robin hated sitting down here looking up at the woman, it put her at such a severe disadvantage, ‘I would like to speak to the senior security officer aboard, please.’

  ‘You are, Captain. Now what can I do for you?’

  ‘I would like to speak to the Foreign Secretary.’

  The perfectly curved eyebrows rose fractionally.

  Robin’s nose went up by exactly the same degree and an icy hauteur swept over her. ‘We know each other,’ she said. ‘Socially.’

  The senior security officer hesitated an instant longer. ‘I’ll tell him you’re aboard, Captain,’ she said, and was gone.

  ‘My God!’ said Adam and pressed the button again. This time the original hostess appeared. ‘Whisky, please,’ croaked the economist.

  As the drink came, the cabin announcement system chimed. The captain of the aircraft advised them that they were just about to begin their descent into Bahrain International Airport where there would be a refuelling stop of one hour. The cabin tilted, pitched. The tiny canals within Robin’s ears which registered level and pressure began to warn her that they were diving increasingly steeply down towards the distant curve of the world. She found herself relieved that her stomach contained nothing particularly heavy.

  Waiting for an answer to her message, Robin found herself looking dreamily out of the window. They descended swiftly through a skim of high cloud and down until the ground became visible. It was the old, familiar terrain of bare gold rock and brick-dust desert. There seemed to be a wind down there, blowing a skim of sand, not enough to be called a sandstorm, her wise eyes registered, just enough to keep the edges of all the land forms blurred and to make the shadows scurry across the landscape which was itself hurling past below disorientatingly as though the plane itself were still and the turning of the earth were visible.

  She knew Bahrain well — the way it had been when it was an island state. But the bridge was there now, striding across from the Emirates, and the contact with the mainland, by all accounts, had made quite a difference. Lazily, she strained for the first sight of the old, familiar Gulf.

  As things turned out, there was no opportunity to leave the plane as it stood on the apron and was serviced. Robin looked at the distant airport buildings as they danced in the haze of the Bahraini afternoon like a mirage just about to dissolve. She was never so glad of anything as she was of the fact that the toughened glass through which she was looking kept out the heat which she remembered so well. The last time she had been here she had been pregnant with the twins and the fearsome heat had knocked her out like a mugger’s cosh.

  She looked vaguely at her watch which told her mendaciously that it was three hours earlier than the sun outside thought it was. Idly, she wondered whether to correct it, but that would be pointless. In three hours’ time she would be in HK and then she would need to go through the process all over and move it forward another four hours. The weight of all those extra hours crushed down upon her and she was asleep when the elegant length of the Concorde accelerated down the runway and swooped up into the air above the iridescent water of the Gulf.

  She was awoken an hour later by a decided movement at her side. There was no disorientation — the catnap had refreshed her enormously and she knew exactly where she was. Adam Maxwell was pulling himself up out of his seat and an impatient figure loomed restlessly beyond him. Robin recognised the newcomer — with no particular pleasure. It was StJohn DeVere Syme. Of all the names she could have called to mind in the Foreign and Diplomatic Services, his ranked among the lowest. He was not particularly senior in the Foreign Office but had every intention of going far. His presence here was proof that his ambitions were being fulfilled, she supposed. He seemed clever enough — he had a First in Classics and was a member of the First Division Club — but he was coldly ambitious and arrogantly scornful of concealing it. He was over-precise in his movements, pedantic in his speech, fussy in his dress, and obviously an extremely lucrative customer for the Personal Toiletries counter at Harrods. Whenever they talked, Robin could never get rid of the idea that she was being interviewed by Lady Macbeth or one of King Lear’s elder daughters.

  Syme perched on the edge of the seat vacated by Adam, brought his knees together, eased the trousers until one could have shaved with the creases, flicked a little lint off the cloth and rested his long, pale hands precisely on his kneecaps. The subdued light of the cabin gleamed upon his fingernails. ‘Mrs Mariner,’ he said. ‘How nice.’

  ‘Not really, Mr Syme,’ she said with a touch of asperity. ‘I’m on my way to Hong Kong to try and find out why my husband has been accused of mass murder.’

  Syme’s pale eyes flickered. He was used to innuendo, not directness. ‘While we were in Bahrain, we took the opportunity of contacting HK ourselves,’ he purred. There was an instant of silence as he paused for a response. But the words had taken her breath away. ‘Your husband, Captain Mariner, is in fact, it seems, being held in a secure area of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. There is indeed a warrant for his arrest naming two victims. I’m afraid I can tell you no more than that at this stage. The Foreign Secretary —’

  ‘Is there anything you can do to help?’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With getting him out. Helping him. Finding out —’

  ‘The matter is absolutely beyond our jurisdiction. The Foreign Secretary —’

  ‘Names then, who do I talk to?’

  ‘I should start with the police or the Navy. The Foreign Secretary asked me to explain some points briefly to you which you might not have quite appreciated.’

  ‘Who do I talk to at Government House?’

  ‘I’m afraid you will find that everyone at Government House will be extremely busy. As you will readily appreciate, the Treaty runs out in a matter of weeks. We are extremely active in overseeing the handover of the Crown Colony to the representatives of the People’s Republic. It is at the top, the absolute top of all our agendas to ensure that the transfer does not damage the institutions or economic standing of Hong Kong. The Foreign Secretary —’

  ‘But there must be someone in Government House I can speak to who will help me arrange for Richard —’

  ‘My dear Mrs Mariner, you do not seem quite to have grasped the point. It is the Hong Kong authorities which have made the charges. There are forms and provisions, of course, but it is just as if he had been accused of murder in London. You cannot go running to Government House as though it were an embassy in a foreign country. There is no one there who can be of particular help except that they might be able to recommend a good local lawyer. Hong Kong is, effectively, England in this instance — until the Basic Law is instituted when the Chinese officially take over on the first of July, of course.’

  He had hit her with this fact as though it was a weapon and the shock of it was like a slap in the face. She was reduced to stunned silence for a moment as he proceeded as smoothly as a greased steamroller. His eyes dwelt with apparent fascination on the glitter of his gold cufflinks and the absolute white of his folded shirt cuffs. ‘The Foreign Secretary has asked me to ensure that you have a clear view of this situation. This is a position for the Hong Kong authorities. There is nothing that anyone on this aeroplane can do to help you. It is absolutely crucial that you understand that we can do you no good at this time and in this instance but you can do a certain amount of harm to us. We are proceeding at twice the speed of sound towards what the tabloid newspapers call a “media circus”, I understand. The Prince of Wales will be there. The Foreign Secretary will be there, of course. The Governor will be there, needless to say. Senior representatives of the People’s Republic will be there. And the world’s press will be there. It is absolutely vital that you do not do or say anything inappropriate. And not only tonight, either. Only a dunderhead would suppose that your
husband’s case will not arouse a great deal of publicity, given its background, placing and timing. It is a situation fraught with incalculable dangers, you see, and we cannot afford to have a hysterical woman running around in the middle of it. My personal recommendation would be that you see your husband, talk to the authorities, arrange for a defence if necessary and then go home to look after those charming twins of yours.’

  ‘How dare you, Mr Syme!’

  ‘Ah now, Mrs Mariner —’

  ‘Just who the hell do you think you are talking to?’

  ‘This is just the sort of reaction which we feared —’

  ‘Let me see if I’m following your logic clearly.’ Robin’s voice trembled with the effort of regaining some kind of control over her flaming temper. ‘Hong Kong is just about to be handed back to Chinese control so it is high on the Foreign Office’s agenda. No doubt there is an awful lot of political, and financial, capital to be protected. We are just about to attend the opening of a new, extremely costly airport by the Prince of Wales so it is high on the press’s agenda too. And you think I’m going to charge hysterically into the middle of the ceremony begging the Prince to help me defend my husband. And then you think I’m going to rampage around the Crown Colony for the next few weeks, grabbing headlines and damaging the political process of the handover.’

  Syme studied his signet ring and allowed this to wash over his perfectly coiffured head. When he moved slightly, the light emphasised the absolute straightness of his white-floored parting. His blonde locks gleamed like a helmet of oiled gold. ‘Then please explain to me, dear lady, just exactly what you do propose to do.’

  ‘You must be joking!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘After the conversation we have just had, Mr Syme, a man of your acuity must readily understand that you could roast in hell before I told you one word about my plans.’

  He shook his head slightly and tutted like an irritated schoolteacher. The signet-ringed hand rose palely to adjust the tiny, tight knot of his tie, lingering briefly on the dark and light blue striped silk. ‘Then there is really no point in continuing this conversation,’ he purred regretfully.

  ‘Nor, I assume, of having a similar conversation with anyone else on your team,’ she snapped.

  ‘Or, indeed, in Government House, Mrs Mariner,’ he persisted. ‘Unless you are simply following the normal procedures, of course.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘I see very clearly indeed.’

  ‘I am most gratified,’ he drawled. He rose and hesitated, obviously wondering whether to offer her his hand. But then he realised he was unlikely to get it back unscathed. ‘So nice,’ he said again, vaguely, and wafted away leaving a lingering cloud of something expensively spicy.

  It was a positive relief when Adam dropped back into the seat in something akin to a sprawl and overpowered Syme’s lingering scent with Imperial Leather soap, the odour of Scotch and a hint of honest perspiration. ‘You move in exalted circles,’ observed the economist. ‘Syme is what they call a coming man.’

  Robin grunted. She was tempted to deliver her own estimate of Syme but she didn’t know Adam Maxwell well enough yet and so she held her peace.

  ‘Bad news.’

  Robin thought it was a question referring to her conversation with Syme and was about to answer when Maxwell continued.

  ‘Well, it might be bad news. They’re not sure yet.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, pulled away from her own concerns for a moment.

  ‘Air hostess just told me. The typhoon warnings are out in Hong Kong. The Number Three signal is up already,’ he said glumly. ‘If it gets any worse they’ll have to close the airport.’

  Chapter Eight

  Robin had vivid memories of flying into Kai Tak — as did everyone else who had enjoyed the experience, she suspected. She remembered really believing that the jumbo’s wing tips were going to brush against the high-rises as the massive plane came round between the mountains capped with mountainous blocks of flats. She remembered how the washing on the poles outside the windows flapped in the slipstream, how the greenery in the plant and vegetable boxes extending from the sills bowed and danced, how the gardens on the rooftops rocked as though in the grip of typhoons and the tax chi schools practised with the precision of marionettes and did not look up. How life behind the windows just went on regardless. She had bright memories like picture postcards of scenes she had seen, for ever frozen: the mahjong games; the family meals; the rows caught in snapshot, angry faces and violent gestures frozen; the relaxed bodies sprawled in front of the television, almost always on the floor; occasionally people in various states of undress, at their ablutions or partway to or from their beds; and once (perhaps it was just as well) a pair of beautiful, golden, naked bodies wrapped passionately in a kind of rictus of love. The pictures were terrifyingly clear proof of just how close the planes came to the buildings on final approach to Kai Tak.

  Such was not the case with Chek Lap Kok; and Robin was quite certain that Kai Tak must be closed now because of the severe weather. The wind buffeted the Concorde’s long fuselage from side to side and up and down. Rain spattered against the window as though fired from a series of shotguns close by, and had been doing so ever since they dropped below the cloud base. The silence with which the fuselage had stabbed through the thin upper atmosphere was replaced by the thunderous noise of the thick wind down here. Darkness seemed to be painted against the outsides of the windows; even the skim of rain and spray stood out only because it was illuminated from inside the cabin as it appeared and disappeared across the glass past the shadow of Robin’s head.

  Suddenly and distantly there came the gleam of a light away on the right. Robin, the mariner, automatically racked her brain. There was a light at Tai O village, on the north coast of Lan Tao Island, she remembered; that was more or less where they were, surely. What was it? A fifteen-second flash time? While she waited for the light to return, she found herself thinking that at the Tai O police station they displayed storm warnings too. There would be a storm warning up at the moment, she thought wryly. They would be waiting for the Hong Kong coastguard to warn them that Number Three should be replaced by Number Four or even Five. The light flashed back and she was surprised that she had to look so far back in order to see it. The bright beam stabbed out, giving a depth to the night and revealing the scurrying sheets of rain. As her eyes focused upon it, so they cleared sufficiently to see the pale outlines of storm-shuttered buildings on the sloping, hilly coast. The whole vista seemed to shiver in the grip of an earthquake and the thunder of the wind came again. She glanced across at Adam whose eyes were closed. He was white and seemed to be regretting after all the smoked salmon with scrambled eggs, champagne, whisky and all the rest. Now, she thought, was just the moment to reset her watch.

  It was not until she was actually inside the new building of Chek Lap Kok International Airport that the cold reality of her situation hit her. The Foreign Secretary and all the others were whisked away. She herself was isolated by the requirements of Customs and Immigration which the diplomats did not have to undergo. Even Adam, with his House of Commons cards, got an easier ride than she did. But she did not really care. Her one desire was to get to Richard. She was certain that the pair of them were on their own. That humiliating conversation with StJohn Syme had established that they could expect little or no support from the establishment for the time being. Especially as Syme’s point was well made: it was the authorities here which were accusing Richard in the first place.

  As she thought these dark thoughts, everything in the great, plush building seemed to become increasingly sinister. All officialdom seemed to be taking longer, looking more closely, becoming more threatening than she had ever experienced before.

  It began with the Immigration Service. She was alone when she reached the high desk. She had to wait while a plump Chinese official came out of a small office, leaving the door ajar. He walked slowly to the desk, sat behind
it like a Buddha and held out his hand. She handed over her passport. He looked at it and looked at her. He did so slowly, frowningly. Then he pulled himself back up onto his short legs and went away with it, walking silently, rudely, through that doorway. Robin waited, her nervousness adding urgency to her impatience. The first man came back into the doorway accompanied by another, a Westerner. They both looked at her, silently, suspiciously, sinisterly. They went away. Abruptly she found herself wondering whether Audrey’s advice of nine hours earlier had been inaccurate after all and she was about to be deported straight back to England — or slammed into custody as an illegal immigrant. Anything seemed possible to her exhausted, stress-hyped imagination. Never had she felt more alone, more under threat. It was like something out of one of Kafka’s novels, and yet here she was in the hands of fundamentally British officialdom. It was ridiculous. Typically, she began to get angry.

  But before her temper was put under too much strain, her passport was brought back. The Chinese immigration official sat behind the tall, forbidding desk. Just as though he had not already examined it at some length himself, and then again with the security man in the office behind, he opened her passport wide for the third time and studied it. ‘What is the purpose of your visit, Captain Mariner?’

  ‘I have come to see my husband who I understand was arrested yesterday for murder.’ This was the fifth or sixth time she had said this. Why should the reality of it hit her so powerfully now?

  The official looked up at her. His bland, round face betrayed no emotion at the sight of the tears on her cheeks — if he felt any.

  ‘And how long do you propose to stay?’

  ‘I really have no idea. It depends on what happens with regard to my husband’s case.’

  The official gazed stonily at her for a moment longer. ‘Mariner,’ he said. ‘Sulu Queen.’ He gave a single nod. ‘You may be here some time.’ He stamped the passport and gave it back to her. ‘You will need to visit our offices in Immigration Tower at 7 Gloucester Road at the earliest opportunity,’ he said. ‘You will need to talk your situation through with someone there. The telephone number is 824- 6111. Straight through to the baggage hall.’