by Nick Oldham
‘Don’t want luck to be a part of it. You got fish finding equipment, haven’t you? Sonar, y’know?’
‘The most sophisticated and up to date,’ Flynn confirmed. ‘But even that doesn’t guarantee fish.’
‘Good job I know my stuff then, isn’t it?’
‘You’re an experienced sport fisher?’ Flynn asked as though he was interested.
‘Oh yeah.’
Flynn waited, but there was no elaboration. ‘I’ll do my very best for you, then,’ he assured the customer and began to prepare the boat – named Faye 2 – for the day ahead.
The fishing turned out to be pretty good. No great monsters of the deep, but a fine array of specimens including a very meaty red snapper that Flynn kept and gutted, and would be his supper that night. The customer, whose name turned out to be Hugo, was kept reasonably happy and busy, though none of his claimed skills were either evident or tested much.
It was a different matter for his girlfriend, Janey. As the charter went on, she became progressively more seasick until she was begging Hugo to have the boat turned back to dry land. She had gone the colour of the decks, pure white, from an original golden brown tan, had spent some time with her head down the chemical toilet and even more hanging pathetically over the side of the boat, all sense of modesty having vanished as she hollered dreadfully at the sea gods.
Eventually she could bear it no longer. She dragged herself across the deck like a wounded animal to Hugo. He was strapped regally into the fighting chair with a rod rising majestically from his lower belly area. She begged him to end her misery.
Flynn watched the exchange from his lofty position in the flying bridge. It ended with Hugo roughly pushing Janey away. She fell flat on her backside and looked up appealingly at Flynn, as did Jose whose expression was a dark scowl of anger. Flynn sighed and slid down the ladder on to the deck. He helped Janey to her feet and back into the stateroom where she flopped on to the sofa and closed her eyes, gulping.
Then he spun back on to the deck and approached Hugo, who was still in the fighting chair.
‘That’s the end of the charter, sir,’ Flynn told him.
Hugo’s good-looking face turned towards him. ‘Why would that be?’
‘You want me to spell it out?’
‘I think you’d better.’
‘I don’t tolerate your sort of behaviour on board.’
‘What sort of behaviour is that?’
Flynn’s chest tightened. He gestured to Jose. ‘Bring in the rods, we’re heading back.’
Jose nodded and grabbed one of the outriggers.
‘I paid good money for this charter,’ Hugo whined.
‘You can have it back, less what it’s cost so far.’
‘Does that include this?’ On his last word, Hugo pulled the rod butt out of the gimbal that was fixed to the leather pad worn around his waist and jettisoned the rod, reel and line out of his hands and into the churning sea behind the boat.
Flynn’s mouth drooped in astonishment. Words began to form on his twisted lips, but before he could say anything, Hugo rose from the fighting chair, elbowed past him and stomped into the stateroom. Still not having said anything, Flynn watched him, utterly dumbfounded by his action.
Jose had witnessed the whole thing. He said, ‘He threw that into the sea deliberately,’ his Spanish tongue struggling slightly on the last word.
‘I know,’ Flynn said, turning desperately to the water to see if the rod was still there. It had disappeared instantly. Flynn’s expression changed to anger and he took one step towards the entrance to the stateroom. Jose saw the alteration on Flynn’s face – something he had seen too often recently, and invariably it meant trouble – and stepped in front of him, holding up one of his big hands.
‘No boss, nada stupido.’
‘I’m gonna launch that son of a—’
‘NO,’ Jose said firmly, looking into Flynn’s eyes, holding his gaze.
Flynn ground his teeth, did a mental back-count from ten and took a deep breath. ‘I’m OK.’
He went into the cockpit and grabbed the radio handset, pressed the transmit button, thinking he would call the coastguard and have them get the police to await their arrival back at port. Then he decided on a different approach. He ducked into the stateroom where a still sick Janey was laid out dramatically on the couch, eyes closed, a forearm covering her eyes. Hugo lounged in a chair, legs splayed, a bottle of San Miguel resting on his stomach. He glowered belligerently at Flynn.
‘That gear’s worth fifteen hundred euros.’
‘And?’ Hugo shrugged. ‘Accident. Claim on the insurance.’
‘Listen, bud, when we get back it can go one way or the other. First way, we go along to our quayside kiosk, you present your credit card and pay up. Second way – my preferred way – cops’re waiting for you.’
‘On what charge?’
‘Criminal damage. Whatever way – no refund.’
‘Do what you want.’
‘Oh, just pay him,’ Janey piped up from her sick bed. ‘This whole holiday sucks.’
‘Tell you what, Hugo, I’ll have the cops waiting either way, eh?’
Hugo took a long, noisy draw from the bottle and scowled at Flynn. People seem to do that a lot, Flynn thought: glare at me.
‘You’re a big, hard man, aren’t you, Mr Flynn?’
Flynn shook his head and sighed. He pivoted away, could not be bothered. ‘Cops it is,’ he murmured – but loud enough for Hugo to hear.
What he didn’t expect was for Hugo to jump him.
Flynn patted Hugo’s cheeks. ‘C’mon, c’mon, wakey, wakey.’
Hugo had been placed in the recovery position – after Flynn had roared like a bear and thrown Hugo over his shoulder – and that was as long as the fight had lasted. Hugo smashed the back of his head on the corner of the door frame as he landed awkwardly and was knocked out instantly. Flynn had looked down at him in disbelief.
‘The stupid . . .’
‘Oh, what have you done?’ Jose demanded, seeing the towering, muscled frame of Flynn standing over the unmoving body. Of a customer.
Flynn looked at him pointedly.
‘He didn’t do a thing,’ Janey piped up despondently. ‘Hugo went for him. He’s like that, only he usually wins.’ She propped herself up on one elbow, no colour whatsoever in her complexion.
Flynn gasped in exasperation and bent over to check Hugo’s vital signs, which were fine. Even so, he hadn’t recovered full consciousness by the time Flynn edged Faye 2 back into her berth in the marina at Puerto Rico half an hour later. An ambulance was waiting on the quayside, as was Adam Castle, Flynn’s boss and owner of the boat, as well as other boats and businesses. Castle slid the gangplank across to the stern and stood aside as two paramedics trotted aboard to tend to Hugo. Castle waited on the quayside, a stony, serious expression on his face.
Flynn briefed the medics and they carted a groggy, cross-eyed Hugo off into the ambulance.
Janey, having miraculously recovered from seasickness simply by standing on terra firma, made no attempt to join Hugo in the ambulance. She looked fine now.
‘You not going with him?’ Flynn asked.
‘I don’t think so. I’ll catch up with him later.’ She produced a wallet from the back pocket of her minute shorts. ‘I’ll pay for the fishing tackle. Hugo’s credit card’s in here and I know the PIN.’
‘Thanks,’ Flynn said.
The ambulance pulled away and Janey started to walk towards the booking kiosk, but paused, turned and looked meaningfully over her shoulder at Flynn. ‘If you’re interested . . . I’ll be in the Irish bar in the Commercial Centre at eight tonight.’
‘What about Hugo?’
‘He won’t be there, whatever.’ She smiled. All her colour had returned and she was a completely different character to the one Flynn had been introduced to originally. ‘Your choice, Flynn. One thing though – try not to bump into Hugo again. He bears grudges.’
He nodded graciousl
y and then Adam Castle stepped into his line of sight. ‘Words,’ his boss said. ‘Now.’
Castle led Flynn along the quayside, saying a great deal with just his body language. Flynn, big man that he was, followed meekly and they went all the way around the harbour into one of the first-floor cafés in the mini commercial centre overlooking the marina. Flynn sat glumly whilst Castle ordered a couple of Cruzcampos and set the chilled beers down on the table.
‘Here, you’re going to need this.’
Flynn was parched but he took the bottle cautiously and sipped the wonderful brew, rather than pouring it all down his throat in one, which was his instinct.
‘Look boss,’ he said, ‘the guy went for me and I just reacted in self-defence. He’d been an arsehole all the charter; even his girlfriend was up to here with him.’ Hell, his throat was dry and he spoke croakily, but necking the beer still seemed a little inappropriate to the circumstances. He was shocked by what Castle had to say next.
‘I don’t really give a monkey’s about him, and I believe you, Steve – so as far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem there.’
‘Oh?’ Flynn’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘So what’s this about – the face and everything?’ He wrapped his right hand around the bottle and lifted it to his cracked lips, deciding that a long slurp – not too long to be rude – was now OK. The ice-cold beer spread gratifyingly down into his chest.
Castle looked very troubled. He was chewing his bottom lip and shaking his head sadly.
‘What is it, boss?’ Flynn liked the guy. He had been very good to Flynn when he’d landed penniless on the island almost five years before. Had given Flynn a job on a boat, and Flynn had repaid him by becoming the best sportfishing skip on the islands. Flynn had grafted, learned his trade and applied his instinctual knowledge of hunting down the big fish, something that was innate and something most of the other charter skippers didn’t have. Flynn also took out day safaris inland up into the mountains in the centre of the island and worked the doors of Castle’s two night clubs when necessary. He had a lot to be grateful for to Castle.
‘Don’t know how to say this, pal . . . credit crunch and all that.’
Flynn ingested the words and his insides went even icier than the beer.
He went on, ‘I’m a bit over-extended and I need to pull in the reins a bit, so I’ll be mothballing the boats for two months because we haven’t got one firm booking for that period and I can’t rely on walk-ons.’ He was referring to the ad-hoc customers who simply appeared at the boat, such as Hugo had done. ‘Especially if you knock them all out,’ he added lightly, but there was sadness in his voice. Castle had diverse business interests but particularly loved sportfishing. Flynn felt sorry for him.
‘Every boat?’ Flynn asked. There were half a dozen of them dotted around the Canaries.
‘I won’t lie to you – all but Orlando’s in Tenerife. Business isn’t quite as bad there, but everyone else will be out of the water.’
Flynn went hollow.
‘I know you’re ten times better than him, but Tenerife isn’t suffering as much as Gran Canaria and you’re here, not there. If it was the other way around . . .’ Castle left the words unsaid. ‘I’ll review the position at the end of January.’
‘So I’m out of a job?’
‘For the time being. If you want to try and find work with any of the other charters, I’ll understand.’
Flynn scrunched up his face. ‘What about Jose? He has a wife and kid to look after.’
Castle shrugged. Not as if to say ‘Whatever,’ but as though the whole thing was tearing him apart. ‘I’m closing down two of the bars, too. It’s like a ghost town on the Centre, but I’ll keep the Irish-themed bar ticking over. You can do the door there, if you like. And if I get any bookings for the jeep safaris you can take them out. I’m keeping the travel agency open.’
Flynn inhaled deeply and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘You going to tell Jose?’
Castle nodded, finished his beer and rose from the table. Flynn watched him wend his way back to the quayside, shoulders slumped, then head towards Faye 2. Flynn ordered another beer, this time in a glass, and sipped it slowly, his mind working the angles. So for at least the best part of two months he would be ashore and effectively out of work. Chances were the Irish wouldn’t open every day of the week and the money from doing the door would be spasmodic at best.
He mulled over the possibility of approaching another charter boat but could not convince himself it was a good idea. They were all struggling with a shortage of demand. Even the annual regulars weren’t re-booking. And he’d feel uncomfortable on another boat. He had a history with Faye 2. She had been his choice of vessel when the original Lady Faye went up in a ball of flame and exploding gas bottles. He had worked with the replacement and knew her intimately, her foibles, her strengths, her weaknesses. And he worked well with the Spanish curmudgeon that was Jose, even though their relationship was often fraught. So even if he could, he probably wouldn’t go to another boat.
The ice in the beer glass rose languidly to the surface. Flynn watched it as he also mulled over the financial aspects of the situation. He had very little money stashed, had recently moved to a small apartment which required him to fork out a nominal rent. Probably had about four months before he needed to start looking seriously for work, six before times would become desperate.
He uttered a short internal laugh and took a long draught of the beer. In spite of the circumstances he felt in reasonable spirits. Things weren’t half as bad as they had been five years earlier when he’d been effectively drummed out of the cops with a very black rain cloud hovering over his head, been thrown out by his wife who afterwards had shacked up with his best friend and prevented him from making any contact with their son Craig, then ten years old. Those had been bleak times and he had come through them, more or less, even if his past had managed to creep up on him in a most unpleasant way about a year ago.
Flynn wondered if the bleached bones of the two men would ever be discovered in that inaccessible gully near the Roque Nublo up in the mountains. He doubted it. He smiled grimly at the memory, then shrugged it off and thought that something would turn up.
He fished his mobile phone out of his pocket, switched it on and waited for it to find a signal. It bleeped, telling him he had received a voice message whilst the phone had been switched off. There was no number or name recorded but it did state it had come from an international number.
Flynn grinned with pleasure. He expected it would be a message from Craig. Following the events of the previous year, contact between the two had been re-established with the consent of Flynn’s ex-wife. Craig had even been allowed to come out to the island for two weeks over the summer holiday when they’d worked together on the boat. It had been a wonderful fortnight and he’d re-bonded with Craig. When the lad had returned to the UK, both had been heartbroken.
He dialled the answerphone service and waited for the connection, fully expecting to hear Craig’s still childlike voice.
But the voice he heard was not that of his son.
It was a thin, desperate-sounding female voice, one that Flynn recognized immediately.
‘Flynnie? Flynnie? It’s me . . . Cathy . . . hi, hope you’re OK, big guy.’ Flynn heard what he thought was a sob. ‘Sorry, sorry . . . look, Flynnie, can you give me a call? I’m . . . I don’t know what to do or who to turn to . . . God, it sounds so pathetic, but’ – another sob – ‘it’s just going all wrong, everything, please . . . gimme a bell . . . I know you’re two thousand miles away . . . need someone to talk to, to talk it out . . .’
The robotic voice of the answerphone lady came on. ‘End of messages. To play this message again, press one . . .’
Flynn pressed one and listened hard to the message again. The phone then beeped and the screen display told him another voice message had landed from the ether. He listened to the new one.
This time the voice was even more fraught. ‘Flynnie,
it’s me again, Cathy, you’re probably getting sick of hearing me by now. God, this must be the eighth time of trying . . . need to see you, talk to you, mate . . . please, please call me.’
The message ended but before Flynn could do anything more, four more landed in quick succession.
THREE
Preston Crown Court. Court Number One. Shell-shocked and evidence weary, the jury of eight men and four women shuffled back into the court room for the last time, having reached their verdict after four days of heated deliberation. They sat meekly, avoiding eye contact with the accused.
Detective Superintendent Henry Christie noted the body language and as usual, when he became excited at the possibility of a result, his bottom clenched tightly. He exchanged a very quick glance with the detective inspector sitting next to him, Rik Dean. A glance of triumph. Both men could smell it. Surely this had to be a guilty verdict.
The investigation had been long and difficult, understaffed and fairly low-key, even though the police were hunting a professional killer who had executed a gangland lord by the name of Felix Deakin. Having escaped from custody, Deakin himself had been on the run from the police; tracked by the cops to an isolated rural farmhouse, he had been re-taken into police custody but before the police had even managed to put him in the back of a van, the hit man had struck. From his hiding place up on the moors, almost a mile away, he had expertly blown Deakin’s head apart with a high-powered rifle. He had escaped before the stunned police could react.
Henry was convinced the killer had been hired by one of Deakin’s rivals, a man called Jonny Cain, because Deakin had volunteered to give crucial evidence against Cain in a murder trial. Although Henry was certain of this, certainty didn’t mean evidence, but it was a starting point for what was only part of a complex investigation with many threads.
Setting a small team to work consisting of experienced detectives, intelligence and financial analysts and firearms officers, Henry let them get on with the job. Five months down the line they had a name. From the name came various aliases. From the aliases, bank accounts across the world, complex travel arrangements, forensic tie-ins – and then the location of the individual.
