The Bomb Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  She moved to the padded seat between the peck pump pads and sat with her back to the machine. She shook her head to ensure her long dark hair would not get caught up in the machinery. Her mind still involved with the list of deck officers, she reached back to grip the pads. The position thrust out her breasts to straining fullness against the stretch top of her exercise suit and her reverie was interrupted by a series of catcalls and wolf whistles. All along the gym window stood a line of early-bird seamen who had clearly discovered a new and popular spectator sport. She looked at them, stunned by the simple rage this puerile invasion of her privacy ignited inside her. Her Italian blood commanded that she rise up and scream at them at once. Explain to them in some detail what pathetic excuses for men they really were and speculate individually, collectively and loudly upon their parentage and personal habits.

  She was up out of the machine and halfway across the basketball court before she realised it and only the arrival of Yasser Timmins stopped her. He shoved past the end of the line of men and slammed in through the door. ‘What kind of an exhibition is this, Ms Cable?’ He had a high, whining voice which she found she disliked as much as everything else about him.

  ‘An exhibition of prehistoric chauvinism!’ she spat.

  ‘I thought the captain had forbidden you to wear that outfit around the ship,’ he persisted.

  ‘It’s the only exercise outfit I’ve got. It’s six thirty in the morning, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘You will just have to take some other form of exercise. I can’t have my men distracted by ...’ he paused. His words were identical to Captain Black’s words yesterday and he couldn’t remember what came next.

  ‘What other form of exercise?’

  ‘Screwing!’ came a call from outside. She recognised the New York Irish voice of crewman Sean O’Brien.

  Timmins was shaking with rage now, and all of it was directed at her. ‘You see?’ he hissed. ‘You see what your exercise is inciting? I forbid you to come here again, no matter what the time!’

  ‘None of the idle slobs you call crew seem to use these facilities in any case. How dare you forbid me to use them!’

  Timmins drew himself up to his full height, which was a mistake. His balding scalp almost drew level with her eyes. She could see the dandruff in the oily black wool round it. ‘I will not allow the crew of this ship to stand watching through these windows while you put on a pornographic ...’ He faltered as she took one step towards him, a right hook in the making.

  A roar of sound stopped her. Over the scrawny officer’s shaking shoulder, she saw the huge metal storm shutter rattling down the outside of the window to cut out all the daylight and every crewman’s gaze. The lights flickered on to reveal a tall, powerful-looking man in an exercise vest and tracksuit pants. ‘Hey, Yasser, what are your work team doing hanging around out there?’ he asked with quiet amiability. ‘O’Brien got nothing better to do than leer? I think Symes is actually drooling. You waiting for old Tightship to get up and tell you what to do next?’

  ‘They were watching our guest here doing her exercises.’ He spat out the word ‘exercises’, making it sound dirty.

  ‘They’ve never seen anyone aboard do any real exercise before, I guess,’ said the tall man. ‘I sure as hell never have.’ He crossed to the exercise machine Ann had been using, saw the way it had been set with one flick of his bright blue eyes, and walked to the other one. ‘Certainly never seen any officers do any exercise. Tightship’s too old, you’re too scrawny, Hogg’s too fat, and the Wide Boy’s got other fish to fry. None of you’re much when it comes to exercising. But you’d think one of you would know how to run a ship, how to command a crew. And you’d think a first officer would know that the best way to stop a bunch of idle, dirty-minded, shit-for-brains lay-abouts from looking through a window at people taking a little exercise is to pull down the shutters.’

  He sat down on his chosen machine and took hold of a crossbar immediately above his head. With all the power of a trained body-builder, he pulled the bar down until it was level with his short ribs. His eyes rested on Timmins, brows slightly raised. ‘You still here?’ he asked, mildly surprised. He pulled down again, muscles expanding with the effort. The bar was almost touching his massive thighs and Ann suddenly realised he hadn’t bothered to adjust it: he was pulling fifty kilos and he wasn’t even straining. ‘I tell you what, Yasser. Till old Tightship gets up and tells you what to do, I’ll tell you: take your men and give them some breakfast.’

  He released the crossbar and the weights slammed down like a guillotine. Timmins jumped and automatically turned to obey. He was out on the deck before he realised what the big man had made him do but by then it was too late to do anything about it except to slam the door behind him.

  Ann sat down on the exercise machine and waited for her breathing to slow. Silence filled the room, emphasised by the distant throbbing of the generators and the almost subliminal rumble of the ship’s hull through the water. At last she looked across at him. He was sitting with his arms up, still holding the rubberised handles of the steel crosspiece above his head. The blue eyes were distant, but even in profile she could see the slightly amused look in the nearest one. The laugh lines at the corners were crinkled in wry amusement; the long valley down his lean cheek from sharp cheekbone to square jaw was pulled back from the vertical by the ghost of a grin which stretched the moustache on his upper lip and revealed a gleam of square white teeth. The fluorescent lighting was bright enough to show a gleam of stubble on his chin, as though the tanned flesh had been brushed with gold dust.

  ‘I’m Ann Cable, the writer,’ she said, ‘and I’d like to thank you for what you just did.’

  He turned fractionally towards her and the smile widened. ‘I’m Henri LeFever, scientific officer, in charge of the cargo,’ he answered. ‘And what I just did was to strain every single muscle in my body.’

  CHAPTER SIX - Day Four

  Saturday, 22 May 21:30

  The couple entering the exclusive little restaurant overlooking the River Thames were arresting enough to turn a number of heads, even among the bustle of a busy Saturday evening. The man was tall and slim. His height and apparent frailty were emphasised by the way in which he leaned on a walking stick, causing him to stoop slightly; and the angle of his shoulders made the beautifully tailored suit jacket hang loosely on his frame. Only the youthful power of his face gave the lie to the first impact. From the blue-black waves of the hair, dusted with grey at the temples, to the blue-grey thrust of his jaw, it was a face full of intelligence and life. The eyes burned brightly, like flares behind blue glass. The lines at their corners were deep, but from the steadfast examination of far horizons, not from the weight of age or illness, and the high, tanned forehead was smooth. And if the body moved carefully, there was nothing slow about the change of expressions which fled across that visage like cloud shadows over the face of the ocean.

  The woman was in many ways a perfect match for him. She was well above medium height but beside him she looked almost petite. She walked with the hint of a dance in her step, emphasised perhaps by the length of her ballerina’s legs. Her short back was ramrod straight and she held her shoulders back and her head high. The oiled abundance of her hair was, if anything, darker than his but it contained no hint of blue. It curled like smoke down onto the breadth of one shoulder, lying languidly on the emerald silk there, stirring slightly with her movement as though it was alive. The high arch of her brows lent an air of artistry to her carefully made-up face. But the make-up was calculatedly understated, almost subliminally drawing attention to the massive black-brown almond eyes, the long, straight nose flaring into broad nostrils, the wide, deep, deep brown lips. Her jaw line, ebony where his was steely and rounded where his was square, was every bit as determined as her escort’s. And the authority of the intelligence sweeping through her lively expression was every bit as powerful as his.

  The maître was expecting them and welcomed them as old
friends. He showed them to a reserved table at the back in the shadows beside a massive picture window looking over the gleaming water down towards the Pool of London. There was no real impression of over-service, but the chief cellarman came to discuss their choice of a single bottle of wine and the chef himself came to guide their selection from his menu.

  Other patrons soon became bored with watching the pair who were immediately locked deep in discussion, but a couple of newspaper gossip columnists, never off duty, kept an eye on that shady, exclusive corner, for they recognised the man as Richard Mariner and they knew that his wife was away. The woman was familiar, too, but more difficult to put a name to.

  Magdalena DaSilva leaned forward and continued her animated conversation. ‘It’s a question of money,’ she was saying.

  ‘Only money? Nothing more?’ Richard’s tone was lightly ironic but there was a trace of shock there too.

  ‘Primarily money. It’s what you can afford and how long you can afford it for and there’s nothing guaranteed. Except me, of course. I’m guaranteed.’

  ‘But you’re the most expensive item.’

  ‘For you, yes, I am. But I’m also the best in the circumstances.’

  ‘Which is why I came to you.’

  ‘You’ve got to be certain about this. You’re running quite a risk. You know there are alternatives.’

  ‘But it’s not a situation that will just go away, is it?’

  ‘No. You’re right. It won’t go away on its own.’

  ‘Then you must take care of it for me, Maggie, however much it costs.’

  One of the reporters on the far side of the restaurant slapped the table in front of him as the penny dropped. ‘I know who that is with Richard Mariner,’ he said, his voice a mixture of triumph and disappointment.

  ‘Oh? Who?’ asked his companion, fastidiously steadying the chiming glasses and quietening the tinkling silverware.

  ‘It’s Magdalena DaSilva. She’s his silk.’

  ‘Right,’ continued Maggie. ‘Let’s take it from the top. It’s a civil suit, served against Heritage Mariner and yourself, here in London, although CZP, the company serving it, is registered abroad, the ship was registered in Panama and she was lost in the North Atlantic. It’s for the full cost of a replacement hull. Millions of pounds. You have insurance but you’re worried. You’re over-stretched. If anything else goes badly wrong, then there’s an outside chance that Heritage Mariner goes down. Folds. Calls in the receivers.’

  ‘That’s it exactly. And Sir William, Robin and I lose everything, quite apart from all our employees being thrown out of work and all our ships going under the hammer. We have every spare penny we possess tied up in Clotho and Atropos and the insurance on them since the bomb attack is simply crippling.’

  ‘Could you give me enough background to make some sense of this or shall I go to your solicitors for the details? I assume the papers were with them when Sir Harcourt died?’

  The case had been outstanding against Heritage Mariner for nearly two years now, ever since the leper ship Napoli had sunk. For nine months, Richard, his solicitor Brian Chambers and their barrister Sir Harcourt Gibbons had been putting together the most careful of defences. And yesterday, a mere five days before they were due in court, Sir Harcourt had been killed on the golf course at Brampton. Feeling as though he had himself been struck by lightning, Richard had spoken at length to Brian Chambers and he had recommended the replacement barrister. ‘I know you’ve met her socially, Richard, but don’t let that slow you down,’ Brian had told him. ‘Get onto Maggie DaSilva and promise her anything she wants. Word is that she’s the rising star of the maritime sets.’

  ‘I can fill you in on what happened,’ Richard said. ‘Then if you can’t see the way they’ve put their action at law together, I suppose you’ll have to talk to Brian Chambers tomorrow. Does this mean you’re definitely going to proceed with us?’

  ‘I’ll be seeing Brian anyway. I’ll make up my mind after I’ve talked to him and looked at what he and Harcourt Gibbons have put together. You just tell me what you can.’

  ‘The ship was called the Napoli. She was an old freighter originally built in Gdansk. Her cargo was chemical and nuclear waste which had been loaded aboard under some pressure in the Lebanon.’

  ‘Yeah, I read about that bit. The captain was killed. Heritage Mariner supplied the replacement.’

  ‘Our Crewfinders section did. Captain John Higgins. Yes. But it was more complicated —’

  ‘Complications later, unless you think they change anything about their case against you.’

  ‘Not really. There were full discussions all along the line, renegotiated at Naples and then again at Liverpool.’

  ‘When all the ports refused her entry because her cargo was so dangerous.’

  ‘Yes. But they’re not disputing any of this. It’s the ship’s loss which is the basis of their case.’

  ‘Because your man John Higgins was in command when she went down.’

  ‘And because I was also aboard, yes.’

  ‘Seems pretty thin.’

  ‘And because we were actively trying to sink her at the time.’

  There was a brief silence, which was extended by the arrival of the langoustines and the pouilly fumée.

  Maggie’s fingers were as long and finely shaped as her legs and were tipped with nails which were also long, and sharp and painted red. They pulled the huge prawns apart with feline grace and enjoyment although her mind was clearly elsewhere. Waiters hovered. Richard sniffed the familiar bouquet of the wine and nodded. Two glasses were poured and they were alone again. He poured himself some Malvern water and sipped it.

  ‘Tell me what you were doing first,’ she said. ‘Why comes in a moment.’

  ‘We had explosives aboard. We put them at the bow and at the stern. We wanted to blow a hole in each end and send her down as quickly as we could.’

  ‘Isn’t it normal practice just to open the seacocks and wait?’

  ‘The seacocks wouldn’t work. Neither did the pumps, for that matter. The leaking chemical had destroyed them.’

  ‘So, you considered several alternative ways of sinking the Napoli before you started playing around with explosives?’

  ‘We thought of every way we could. We were forced to take what we knew to be a very dangerous course of action because there was absolutely no alternative at all.’

  ‘Now, why?’

  ‘There was chemical waste on her deck and nuclear waste in her holds. The chemicals were leaking and dissolving the protective covering around the nuclear waste. It was already beginning to overheat. We had to stop the process at once or the whole lot was going to melt down and blow up. A full-scale nuclear explosion. Just off the eastern seaboard of America.’ The thought robbed him of his appetite. He pushed his first course aside.

  ‘Witnesses?’

  ‘Any number. Me, John, the crew.’

  ‘Expert witnesses?’

  ‘Ann Cable, the reporter. She was working for Greenpeace at the time. She was on board to keep an eye on the cargo.’

  ‘And she’ll support what you say?’

  ‘We acted on her expert advice.’

  Maggie sipped her wine and looked longingly over the wreckage on her plate to his untouched food. This had not begun to affect her appetite. Yet. The vividly pink point of her tongue flicked along the perfectly sculpted edge of her upper lip. Richard gave the slightest of smiles. They were old friends, though she had never represented Heritage Mariner before. If she did so this time, it would only be on her own terms. He pushed his plate towards her and in an instant hers was in front of him.

  ‘So. You sank the ship on purpose.’

  ‘That is what her owners, CZP, say. That is why they are suing us for the hull.’

  ‘No doubt their insurance doesn’t cover deliberate scuttling.’

  ‘No doubt — if they have regular insurance, which I also doubt. And whatever insurance they do have is unlikely to cover
loss of the vessel because the hull was eaten away by the cargo.’

  ‘But you said you sank her.’

  ‘No. I said I was trying to sink her and I said the owners are accusing me of sinking her. But I didn’t. We were still placing the explosives when she went down under her own steam.’

  The waiter arrived then and the chef was close behind, particularly pleased to observe that Richard had so much enjoyed the langoustines. The smile that Richard gave Maggie then was deeper and more genuine than any smile for many a day. They suspended their conversation until, with due ceremony, the grilled turbot with green peppercorn butter and the lobster thermidor arrived.

  Maggie started doing to the big crustacean exactly what she had done to the small ones. Richard peeled back the crisp black skin and took a forkful of firm white flesh. It tasted sublime. He began to eat more seriously, but he still paid close attention to her.

  ‘Let me get this absolutely clear. You contend that while you were engaged in trying to sink this ship she just happened to go down anyway.’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘Before you could actually carry out your own plans?’

  ‘That’s it exactly. Sir Harcourt and Clive Standing, CZP’s silk, have been before the judge already, putting all their submissions. As I understand it, the case in open court will simply come down to this: they say I sank their ship and I say I didn’t.’

  ‘And that’s all there is to it? I mean, I’d have thought it was worth CZP’s time trying for the further contention in the lawsuit that if you actually sank the ship then you are responsible for putting a considerable environmental and ecological hazard on the floor of the ocean off the east coast of America.’

  ‘If I sank the ship, then I’m responsible for putting the cargo where it is.’