Run Before the Wind

by Stuart Woods

  Mark looked at the letter and the registration papers in his hand. “You’re right,” he said. He looked back at me. “Did you meet my solicitor, John Aslett?” He pointed at a large man with ginger hair in a blue suit, standing among the crowd down on the pontoon. “Could you ask him to come up here, please? We’re going to have to leave for a bit. Could you let the others know?”

  I went and sent the solicitor to Mark, then watched them as they hurried toward the marina office.

  60

  MARK WAS gone for the better part of two hours.

  “You’d better hurry,” I said to him when he came back. “The skipper’s briefing is at five o’clock at the yacht club. Where have you been, anyway?”

  “Pulling some strings, at least John Aslett has. The inquest is tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”

  “That’s fast.”

  “John’s a good man.”

  We squeezed into the back of the Royal Western’s dining room and listened carefully for an hour as the skippers of the forty competing yachts heard a long-range weather forecast, a discussion of the location of the gulf stream, which was an important factor in the race, and instructions on finishing and docking at Newport, Rhode Island, the race’s termination point. Afterward, we met Connie in the bar for a drink. She thrust a newspaper at us.

  “Denny O’Donnell’s turned up dead,” she said. “He actually had his own Irish driving license in his pocket.”

  “He was always a bit thick,” Mark said. “What about the girl, Maeve?

  “Still on the loose, according to this,” I said, reading quickly. “Denny was found with some other bloke.”

  “Poor Maeve,” Connie said sadly. “Now she’s out there alone someplace. I wonder what’ll become of her?”

  “Probably the same thing that became of Denny,” Mark replied.

  The solicitor, John Aslett, appeared in the bar. “All done”, he said. “I didn’t know you were coming here so I left it on the boat.”

  “New will,” Mark said to me. “Seemed a good idea. John, why don’t you have a drink and then come back to the boat and witness it.”

  “Jolly good,” Aslett replied. “A large, pink gin, please.”

  “I’ve got some laundry to do back at the marina,” I said, getting up. “Why don’t I go ahead now? You and Connie finish your drinks and come in John’s car.”

  “Fine,” Mark said. “We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  I parked the car in the Marina car park and started toward the pontoons. It had clouded over and was beginning to drizzle. As I started down the ramp two people simultaneously started up it from the pontoon; I recognized them both, but was surprised to see them together.

  “Hello, Peter Patrick,” I said. “What a nice surprise.”

  “Oh, hello, Mark,” Lord Coolmore said, looking surprised, himself. “Uh, this is my, uh, niece, Mary.”

  I stuck out my hand. “We’ve met, at least, sort of. Last year over at Cremyl, at the boatyard.”

  “Yes, I remember,” she said. She seemed nervous. So did Lord Coolmore, for that matter.

  “I was just down to the boat to pay a call on Mark,” he said. “I read about Annie in the papers. Terrible business, that.”

  “Yes, well, Mark’ll be along in a few minutes. Would you like to come back to the boat for a drink?”

  “I’d love to, old fellow, but we have to catch a train for London in just a few minutes. Give Mark my best, will you, and tell him. I’m awfully sorry.”

  “Of course,” I said. “He’ll be sorry to have missed you.” I turned to the girl, who was just putting up the hood on her navy blue parka against the increasing rain. “Nice to have met—” I stopped in mid-sentence. She was drawing the string of her hood tightly under her chin and tying it. I stared at her. The shoulder-length auburn hair that had wreathed her head had disappeared under the hood, and now all I saw was a face, a face with no makeup, surrounded by dark cloth. “Oh, shit,” I said involuntarily.

  I felt something hard in my ribs. “All right, now, my lad,” Coolmore said, “That’s the barrel of a pistol. Just come along quietly, now.”

  I looked quickly about me. The car park was deserted. I could see the night watchman in the marina tower above me.

  “No, no,” Coolmore said, “You’ll just get him hurt. Just move along a step ahead of me, there.”

  He pointed me toward the main gate. We walked quickly along, not speaking, through the gate, turning left, toward the water. There was a small boatyard down there, but it would be closed by now. Jesus, I thought, they’re going to take me down there and shoot me. I thought of running, then thought better of it. Maeve would surely be armed, as well. “Look, Peter Patrick, what’s this all about?” Talking seemed better than nothing, somehow.

  “All in good time, my boy,” he said in his upper-class drawl, “All in good time.”

  They marched me a couple of hundred yards down the road, to where it curved to the right. The little boatyard came into view. No lights. Deserted. A car and trailer were parked in front of the main shed. Coolmore opened the trailer door and motioned me in. The two of them followed, Maeve switching on a light.

  “Now what?” Maeve asked, pulling her parka hood back.

  “Now,” Coolmore drawled, flopping in a chair next to the door and motioning me to a sofa, opposite, “we put an end to all this.”

  “Is that a good idea?” she asked. “You yourself have told me how awkward that would be, considering who his father is. Anyway, Robinson is one thing, he’s got that coming for Donal, but this dumb kid may be the only innocent in this whole thing.”

  “Donal?” I asked, astonished. “You think Mark Robinson killed Donal O’Donnell?”

  “Too bloody right, I do,” she snapped back at me. “And he’ll pay for it.”

  “But that’s crazy! Mark and Annie weren’t even in Cork, when Donal was killed. I know, I found the body!”

  She looked at me a long time without speaking.

  “I’m telling you the truth!” I nearly shouted at her. “He couldn’t possibly have done it!” That wasn’t necessarily true, since we didn’t know exactly when Donal had been murdered, but it seemed like a good thing to say at the time. Then Coolmore saved me any further protestations.

  “He’s quite right, you know.”

  Maeve turned and looked at him. “Is he?” she asked.

  Coolmore nodded. “I shot Donal O’Donnell myself. He became a terrible nuisance. When he learned that you and Denny were going to do the bank, he came to me and threatened to go to the Gardai unless I stopped you. He could have identified me, you see.” He wagged the pistol in my direction. “So, for that matter, can he, now that he’s seen me with you.” Then he turned the pistol toward her. “So, for that matter, can you.”

  The silence was breathtaking. Maeve casually walked over to the kitchen area, turned and leaned against the stove. An egg timer was on the counter near her hand. She seemed to be waiting for him to continue. He did.

  “I told you I was closing down the diocese,” he said. “I’ve already closed down the Dublin parish, and now I’ve got to finish up here, don’t you see?”

  “You closed down Dublin?”

  “They were getting out of hand. A phone call did it, a mention of the address. I knew Michael Pearce and that lot would never let themselves be taken alive. You were getting out of hand, too, you and Denny, not following your instructions, disappearing for weeks at a time. Patrick Pearce was to have killed you both.”

  “You sent him,” she said. “You wanted me dead, too.”

  He nodded. “You and Denny could identify me. Pat Pearce couldn’t.”

  “Shit,” Maeve said and twisted the knob on the egg timer to what looked like sixty seconds. It began to tick. I looked more closely at the timer and saw a wire running from it, along the wall of the trailer kitchen, past the sink and down the edge of the counter, where it disappeared under a floorboard.

  Coolmore saw it, too, and sta
rted to speak. Maeve dove across the space that separated them. He was bringing the pistol around and it went off as she collided with him. There was a roar and a slapping sound near my ear, and a hole appeared in the trailer wall next to my head.

  Coolmore was a tall man, but thin and close to sixty. Maeve was young, a big girl and strong as an ox. They wrestled about on the floor as I watched, mesmerized. “Run, you stupid bastard!” she yelled at me. Coolmore had somehow dropped the gun and was trying to get to the timer. She clawed at his back, pulling him away from it. I ran.

  I didn’t bother with the flimsy door handle. I hit the door, running, and it came right away from its hinges. Outside, I stumbled, fell, got up again, and sprinted across the pavement. I had just reached the bend in the road, perhaps a hundred yards from the trailer, when it blew. God how it blew. I was knocked flat on my face, blasted with dirt, and showered with chunks of burning debris. I got up and ran a few more steps, then turned and looked back.

  The trailer simply did not exist anymore. There was a fairly large chunk of the car left, but it must have been twenty-five yards from where it had been and was on fire. The main boatyard shed was a ruin of tangled timber and corrugated sheet metal, and half a dozen boats that had been sitting on cradles outside it were lying at crazy angles in the yard.

  Boats. Boat. Wave. I started running again. As I reached the main gate of the marina, I saw John Aslett coming up the ramp, tucking an envelope into his pocket.

  “Will!” he cried. “What the hell happened down there?”

  “Where’s Mark?” I shouted at him.

  “On the boat. I just left him and Connie.”

  “Call the fire department and the police, John!” I yelled, brushing past him and running down the ramp. As I turned down our pontoon I nearly knocked Connie into the water. “Get out of here, Connie, run!” I shouted. “Go with John!”

  I ran down the pontoon toward Wave. I could see that the main hatch was open. Nobody was on deck. I screeched to a halt. “Mark?” I called out.

  “Yes?” he answered from below. “Willie? Come aboard.”

  I climbed on deck, went to the hatch, and looked below. Mark was sitting on the cabin sole, a small sailing duffle lying open between his legs; he was holding a flashlight in his teeth, pointing it at some wires and an object in his hand. He removed the flashlight with two free fingers.

  “Come down here and hold this torch for me, will you, mate?”

  I crept down the ladder and gingerly took the flashlight from his fingers.

  “Bloody interesting, this,” he said, obviously fascinated. “Rigged to a digital alarm clock, set for noon tomorrow. Right at the start of the race. About thirty pounds of plastique here,” I saw several bricks of what looked like modeling clay. “There’d be a bigger bang than the starting cannon, for certain. Found it in the flare locker. I went in there for a box of ballpoint pens I’d stowed away. Had to sign my will.”

  “Look, Mark, don’t you think I’d better call the police or the bomb squad or something?”

  “Oh, the police by all means,” he said. “Never mind the bomb squad. I’ve pulled the plug on this one.” Then I saw the wirecutters on the floor and, in the light from the torch, saw that two of the half dozen wires in his hand had been snipped.

  “How’d you know which two?” I asked, appalled.

  “Oh, the Royal Marines teach you that sort of thing,” he said, smiling. “I told you. Just like boy’s fiction, it was.” Then he noticed my tattered clothes and blackened face. “Jesus, mate,” he said. “What happened to you?”

  61

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, the day of the race, all hell broke loose. The institution of British journalism, having got wind from a Plymouth police officer that an unfrocked, terrorist nun and an Irish peer had died in an explosion while wrestling in a holiday caravan, whipped up a conflagration of reportage the likes of which must never before have been visited upon Plymouth. At first, the newspapers had had to depend on their bemused yachting correspondents, the only reporters on hand; and the BBC, on a West Country camera team more accustomed to filming stories on the dairy industry, but by midnight the car park at the marina hosted a maelstrom of journalistic fervor. Innocent yachtsmen, caught doing their laundry late, found themselves backed against washateria walls, bracketed by spotlights, with microphones threatening their dental work. Sleepy sailors, conscious of the problem of water pollution and trying to make it to the shore-side heads, were pursued into the stalls by men and women with tape recorders, notebooks, and cameras.

  Fortunately, the Plymouth police had posted men at the pontoon ramp to keep reporters away from the boats, so we remained aboard Wave, unmolested, during our interrogation by Special Branch. After that, when an enterprising journalist had stripped off, swum out to the boat, and had had to be repelled with a boathook, we cast off and took the boat back to Cremyl, where we spent the night on a mooring at Spedding’s.

  We had a brandy and let ourselves wind down.

  Mark sipped his cognac and put his feet on the saloon table. “Exciting evening, wot?”

  “A little too exciting,” I replied.

  “Do you suppose there’s any more danger from these people?” Connie asked.

  “Who’s left?” Mark pointed out.

  “They seem to have self-destructed,” I said.

  “All terrorists do, eventually,” Mark said. “They’re like some species of fish who, when they’re prevented from finding another species to eat, feed on themselves.”

  On that comforting note, we turned in. The following morning, an enterprising John Aslett, who had spent a busy evening on the phone, brought the inquest to us. Half a dozen local officials were brought out to Wave in a yard boat, arranged themselves about the saloon, and asked their questions. We were done in twenty minutes. Ten minutes after that, we were under way, headed down the river toward the harbor. It seemed a good idea to put some water between us and the horde of reporters still ashore.

  For more than two hours we lazily tacked back and forth across the big harbor, sipping bloody marys and sunning ourselves. The only jarring note was the blank space in the air where Annie should have been. I kept expecting her to pop up through the main hatch, asking if anyone wanted a refill. We talked about the happy times in Ireland—the cruise to Castletownshend, the afternoons in Cork Harbour, the oysters and Guinness at Dirty Murphy’s, Drake’s Pool under a full moon. We agreed to meet in Newport; the cruise of Cape Cod and Maine was still on. And after that?

  “The world,” Mark said. “Why not the world? I’ve got the boat for it, God bless Derek Thrasher. Always wanted to do a circumnavigation. Why don’t you two join me?”

  I looked at Connie. “I think I may finally have to go and earn a living.”

  “I’ve still got a job, you know,” Connie said to him.

  “Well, I’ll be out there somewhere; we’ll keep in touch. Come and do some of the shorter legs on your holidays.”

  “Great!” Connie and I said simultaneously.

  By 10:30 the harbor was filling with boats, and by 11:30, the forty competitors and hundreds of spectator boats were thrashing about in the vicinity of the starting line. Connie and I got our gear packed and into the cockpit. The fifteen-minute gun went. John Aslett appeared alongside in a runabout. We tossed our duffles down to him. Connie gave Mark a long hug and got into the boat. Mark took my hand.

  “Jesus, Willie,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears. So did mine. We embraced. I got into John Aslett’s boat.

  We lay off the committee boat and watched Mark maneuver up and down the crowded starting line. With his usual keen timing he put Wave about with forty seconds to go and headed for the line. His start was so perfect that we wondered later if someone on the committee boat had simply decided to fire the gun when Wave’s bows touched the line. She was immediately in the lead. John put the throttle down and we ran alongside Wave for a moment.

  “Win it, Mark!” I shouted over the few yards separati
ng us. “Win it for Annie!”

  “I’ll do my damnedest, Willie!” he shouted back.

  “Be careful reefing the main!”

  “Never fear!”

  “How do you feel?” I called out, not wanting to break the contact.

  He grinned broadly. “Like your fellow Georgian!” he shouted, “‘Free at last! Free at last! Great God Almighty, I’m free at last!’”

  Then he was gone.

  62

  JOHN ASLETT took us back to the marina. “I expect you two would like to disappear for a few days,” he said as we tied up his boat.

  I looked at Connie; she nodded. “We certainly would,” I said.

  “I’ve a cottage at Helford. Do you know the village?”

  “Yes.” Mark, Annie and I had stopped there on Toscana on our cruise from Cowes to Cork.

  He handed me a key and a hand-drawn map. “It’s just down from the pub, on the point. Best pick up some groceries in Helston on your way. The police may want to talk with you further. I’ll try to confine it to the phone, if I can. They haven’t given your name to the press; you’ve been described as a ‘foreign visitor.’”

  We thanked him, took our gear to the car, and drove west, out of Plymouth.

  Helford is a jewel of a village on the Helford River, one of England’s great cruising grounds, which cuts into the Lizard, the last promontory in the English Channel before the Atlantic. It has a dozen houses, a tiny church, a pub, and one of the best restaurants in England. We spent a glorious week there in John Aslett’s comfortable ‘cottage,’ which turned out to be quite a large house. We rented a little motorboat and explored Frenchman’s Creek, setting of the Daphne DuMaurier novel, and the other little tidal streams of the estuary; we had wonderful pub lunches on the terrace of the Shipwright’s Arms and wonderful dinners at The Riverside; we lay in the grass on the hill above the river and watched the dinghy races of the local club; we drove around the countryside and visited the wonderful church at St. Just in Roseland; and finally, after too long a time, we made love and slept in each other’s arms.