Low Profile

by Nick Oldham

  The morning hadn’t got going yet and the quayside was still quiet.

  The two other sportfishing boats moored alongside Faye were almost ready to set out on their day’s fishing, their crews ready, the clients already on board and being shown the equipment. A couple of tourists strolled indolently along the high sea wall, and that was about it.

  That was until a Mercedes taxi stopped at the barrier on the opposite side of the marina in front of the small commercial centre. Flynn assumed this was probably his party being dropped off, but only one couple got out and paid the driver, and it wasn’t either of the ones who had booked a charter with him, so he relaxed and glanced over to Karen, who held her mobile phone away from her ear and said, ‘No answer.’

  Flynn nodded. ‘They did pay a deposit, didn’t they?’

  ‘Five hundred euros.’

  He shrugged. That meant they’d be here and if they were late that was their problem and waste of money and Flynn would not give them a discount or extend their time at sea. That was how it went. He crossed back to the kiosk and leaned in. Karen’s lips parted as her eyes played over Flynn’s face.

  ‘You gonna brew a coffee, then?’

  ‘Might do,’ she teased. She had a large cafetière, fresh coffee, a kettle and mugs on a shelf behind her, and her brew was excellent. ‘Weak or strong?’

  ‘Definitely strong.’

  Flynn saw her swallow, liking the way her throat moved; then she spun on her chair and reached for the kettle behind her. He kept his eyes on her smooth, tanned back, visible almost down to her shoulder blades because of the deep cut of her loose T-shirt collar. He did this discreetly as she prepared the coffee whilst facing away from him, spooning the coffee grains into the pot. He could smell it already.

  ‘I’m out tonight, if you’re interested … goodbye drink and all that,’ she said, her voice slightly muffled because she was speaking away from him. ‘A few mates.’

  ‘Could be tempted,’ he said.

  ‘You’d better be,’ she said and glanced over her shoulder at him. She had a nice profile and her slightly crooked grin made Flynn shift slightly inside. He leaned his elbows on the counter and watched as she pushed the filter down in the coffee pot, the line of her right bicep tensing.

  ‘Oi!’

  The word jarred Flynn. He stood upright and turned slowly to look at its source; it had emanated, he saw, from a man standing some ten feet away from him. He was one half of the couple that Flynn had just seen alighting from the taxi on the other side of the quay, the ones he had briefly thought might have been his missing party.

  Flynn looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Help you?’ He had taken an instant dislike to the man and although the female part of the double act, standing a little further away, hadn’t spoken yet, Flynn did not like her either.

  ‘This your crate?’ The man jerked his thumb at Faye.

  ‘Possibly,’ Flynn said, feeling the hairs tingle on the nape of his neck as he surveyed the couple.

  First the man. Late twenties, early thirties at most. Lean, with dangerous eyes. His face was pock-marked and mean looking and he was dressed in a T-shirt and three-quarter length pants but with totally inappropriate black shoes and ankle socks pulled up his shins, like he had forgotten to pack his flip-flops. His skin was pale and very white and he looked uncomfortable under the sun and for some reason was not wearing a hat to protect his very close-shaved head. None of these features stopped Flynn from pitching him as very definitely a player, but on a fairly low level. A bruiser, a finger breaker, a rent collector. He wasn’t large but looked like he could move quickly, and behind the veneer and the dangerous eyes there was a constant hint of threat and challenge – and familiarity.

  Flynn thought he recognized some of the facial features but wasn’t sure. It had been a long time since he had faced such a man – and, in his time, he had faced many like him.

  The woman, much younger, was dressed in a skimpy vest and shorts, and was painfully white. Her dyed blond hair, black roots showing, was scraped harshly back into a bun, revealing a square northern face, bags under the eyes, not especially pretty. Flynn noted the self-inflicted tattoos on her knuckles and arms, ugly attempts gone wrong. She looked uninterested and annoyed.

  ‘You Flynn?’ the man asked. He had said six words in total and Flynn had already picked up the northern accent.

  ‘My name is Flynn – and this is my boat,’ he responded pleasantly. He had no wish to screw up a good day by being rude to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary.

  ‘Mine for the day,’ the man announced.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s already chartered. You could come back at three when we return, do a four hour charter.’

  ‘Does it look booked? I can’t see any customers, can you? So I’ll have it all day, thanks … or maybe I haven’t made myself clear, mate. The guy that booked it doesn’t want it now, but I do.’

  Flynn frowned again.

  ‘In other words, I’m chartering the boat for today … deposit’s been paid, I believe.’

  Flynn felt his heart start to pound.

  ‘Met the guy last night, got into conversation and he told me he didn’t want the boat today after all, so I gave him his deposit and now you’re mine.’

  The urge to punch the guy’s lights out was suddenly very strong in Flynn, but he remained calm. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to confirm that with the customer. You can see my point of view, can’t you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I need him to confirm what you’ve just told me.’

  The man took a step towards Flynn and in that moment Flynn instinctively knew there was going to be trouble here and this man, whoever the hell he was, was going down hard.

  ‘Well, all you’ve got is my confirmation and that’ll just have to do, won’t it, Flynn?’

  Unfazed, Flynn said, ‘Actually, no.’

  The expression on the man’s face altered fractionally from aggression to wariness and Flynn knew he was someone who wasn’t accustomed to the feeling of being challenged, or being denied anything.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Flynn said. ‘The charter party is late in arriving …’

  ‘Because they’re not fucking coming,’ the other man snarled.

  Flynn started again. ‘The charter party is late in arriving … if they’re not here by nine forty-five a.m. and we haven’t managed to contact them, then if you’re still interested I’ll take you out, but you’ll have to pay full price for the day upfront, and I’ll hold on to the deposit that has already been paid.’ He paused for effect, hoping that his conditions would drive the man away. He added, ‘So it’ll be fifteen hundred euros, cash.’

  ‘You are jokin’ me.’

  ‘No I’m not … that’s how it is. You want to go out, those are my terms. You can try any of the other boats by all means.’ Flynn saw that the two sportfishers alongside Faye were just about to cast off their lines.

  The man stepped back now, clearly infuriated that Flynn had stood up to him, something of an unusual occurrence. Flynn saw a smirk cross the woman’s face, like she knew something. Like she knew that Flynn was going to suffer. Like she knew that no one spoke to her man like this and walked away unscathed.

  ‘So that gives you about half an hour,’ Flynn said. ‘Go get a coffee, maybe, and come back later if you’re still interested.’

  The man’s lips moved as if they were forming a curse, but it remained unspoken. ‘We’ll be back,’ he told Flynn.

  Flynn watched the man walk away down the quayside, constantly glancing over his shoulder at Flynn, who pulled down the peak of his cap, folded his arms and rotated his jaw thoughtfully, not liking what he saw but knowing that what the guy had claimed was probably true. He would somehow have met the original charter party last night and by means fair or foul (and Flynn could guess which) had dissuaded them from turning up in the morning and had slotted into their place. Flynn believed this because the man knew enough detail; otherwise why turn up?


  But why anyway?

  Flynn rolled his neck and shoulders and turned back to Karen, who had witnessed the exchange. She held out a mug of coffee. Flynn took it gratefully.

  ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Dunno,’ he admitted. ‘A strange one, but he’s bloody wound me up.’

  ‘I can see that. You’ve gone all tense. You don’t have to take him, y’know? Just keep the deposit that’s already been paid and put your feet up for the day.’

  Flynn mulled it over. ‘No, I’ll take him if he comes back … if he’s daft enough to pay fifteen hundred euros then more fool him and we’ll just put up with his shit-headedness. But I would like you to keep trying to phone the original party and see if you can find out what’s gone on. We can return their deposit if we don’t like the story. If they’ve been leaned on by boyo for some reason, then they should get it back and we’ll screw as much cash as possible out of Mr Nasty instead.’

  ‘OK.’

  Flynn walked to the end of the quayside with his coffee and stood at the water’s edge, staring into the clear sea. Four barracuda zipped quickly past just below the surface, causing a bit of uproar amongst the other, smaller fish in the water, which scattered.

  Flynn thought about the man, worked him through his mind, in particular the familiarity he felt about him. What was all that about? Although Flynn had a good memory, he struggled to place him. He was certain it stemmed from a cop thing, but it had been a long time since Flynn had been in the police, and the final year of his service had been a troublesome, unpleasant time, so it was well over nine years since Flynn had been operational, actually coming nose to nose with crims. Nine years was a long time, and if that was subtracted from the age that Flynn estimated the guy to be – say thirty – he would have been twenty or less if Flynn had ever come into contact with him.

  Yet Flynn knew he had come across him in some way.

  The details eluded his brain cells, but he knew if he dug around in them long enough, they would come up trumps.

  A sort of excitement skittered through him. Innately he knew that he should have given the guy short shrift, sent him packing, but his curiosity had been piqued. Even though Flynn could not recall the specifics of the man, he had come across many of his type in the past – tough, albeit second-rate villains, who often worked for first-rate ones – and it was just to satisfy this curiosity that Flynn had decided to see what the guy was really up to. There was one thing for certain: Flynn knew enough about people to be able to say that the guy had probably never set foot on a fishing boat in his life and had no interest in angling.

  And Flynn asked himself the question again: why was he here?

  Flynn sipped the coffee and watched the barracuda darting through the water below, causing mayhem. If nothing else, Flynn looked forward with anticipation to the feel of his fist connecting with the side of the guy’s head and rattling the shit out of his brain.

  He came back as promised.

  Despite constant effort, Karen had been unable to make contact with the original charter, so they had to be written off as a no-show. So other than Flynn telling the guy to get lost – which was his shout as skipper … but knowing that fifteen hundred euros was useful money, Flynn really had no choice but to go with the flow.

  He slyly watched the couple walk back along the quay from the café they’d been sitting at for the last half hour, whilst he pretended to be busy on the boat.

  ‘Told you I’d come.’

  Flynn had been swilling out a bait box. He stood up, smiling, as the fish-blood-stained water dripped from the box. ‘That’s great.’ He pointed to Karen in the kiosk. ‘You’ll need to pay her, please, and give her your contact details.’

  ‘You really gonna make me pay fifteen hundred euros?’ the man asked, his narrowed eyes playing over Flynn’s face, looking as though he was trying to place him.

  ‘I’ve only got your word about the situation, Mr …?’ Flynn said, giving him the chance to reveal his name; but he didn’t. Flynn went on, ‘So as far as I’m concerned, your dealings with the other party may or may not have happened. All I know is that they’ve paid a deposit and haven’t turned up, so they’ve lost it. Unless the party tell me any different, that deposit is not transferable. They haven’t, so it isn’t. Fifteen hundred euros – cash, end of,’ Flynn stated.

  ‘Your day rate is only a grand,’ the man whined.

  ‘Went up this morning, just haven’t had a chance to update the website,’ Flynn lied badly, hoping to discourage him.

  But he nodded. ‘If that’s how you want to play it.’

  ‘That’s the way,’ Flynn confirmed. ‘Karen will take your booking fee.’ He gestured towards the kiosk.

  ‘OK … the name’s Costain, incidentally … Scott Costain.’ He watched Flynn’s eyes for a moment, waiting for a reaction, got none. ‘You can call me Mr Costain.’ He flipped the hefty rucksack he had with him over his shoulder and turned away.

  Flynn was not sure how he managed to conceal his reaction to the name Costain, the sound of which jarred him. But he did – too many nights playing three card brag in a dingy club in the commercial centre probably helped – and he only allowed his face to register his horror when the couple turned to walk to the booking kiosk.

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘A Costain.’

  ‘Trouble?’ Jose asked. He had witnessed both interactions, the earlier one and this, and knew what was going on. He was lounging at the entrance to the bridge.

  Flynn’s top lip sneered like Elvis. ‘Yeah – but I don’t know why.’ He didn’t look at Jose, continued to swill out the bait box and hose down the deck as he worked through the ramifications of the name and what it meant to him. He began to sort things in his mind, now realizing why he had seemed so familiar. Flynn was positive that he had never met the guy before, but had met several members of his family.

  The Costains. A name to conjure with.

  Flynn knew he should immediately have marched over to the kiosk, interrupted and told the guy to go, told him that Faye had developed a fault or something, but he couldn’t bring himself to do the sensible thing because his dormant instincts had been well and truly stirred up and he needed to know why a member of the Costain family was about to board his boat. His sardonic curl of the lip turned into a grim smile.

  He tossed the bloody contents of the bait box over the side, causing uproar amongst a shoal of tiny fish as they feasted manically on the traces of blood and flesh of their own kind – then scattered in terror as the four barracuda returned and scythed through them on a killing spree.

  ‘Flynn, can you come here?’ Karen called from the booking kiosk.

  Flynn looked up from the carnage in the water to see Karen at the hatch and the couple, Costain and his so far unnamed lady friend, all looking over at him.

  He refitted the lid on the bait box and jumped off the boat, strode to the kiosk. ‘What’s up?’

  Karen looked worried and not a little scared. Flynn’s hackles rose again. ‘This gentlemen says he doesn’t want to go fishing …’

  ‘That’s right,’ Costain cut in. ‘Just sightseeing.’

  ‘And that’s not all,’ Karen cut back in.

  ‘Yeah – ditch the crew. We don’t need the greasy dago on board, just you, Flynn. I assume you can handle the boat yourself?’

  Flynn’s face remained impassive as he logged the racist remark and decided that when he had occasion to punch Costain, he would add an extra one on behalf of Jose, just for good measure.

  ‘It’s still fifteen hundred.’

  ‘Never thought it’d be any different.’

  Flynn manoeuvred Faye out of her mooring and headed out of Puerto Rico, watching the forlorn figure of Jose, standing accusingly at the end of the sea wall, grow ever smaller as Flynn took the boat further away from land, until he was just a pinprick.

  Eventually he turned to Costain and said, ‘Where do you want to go?’

  Costain walked
unsteadily across to him and stood by his left shoulder. ‘Head east, then when we’re out of sight of land, turn back and head north, following but out of sight of the coastline. Sail past Puerto de Mogán and keep going. Think you can do that?’

  Flynn glared at him. Costain grinned and said, ‘Sightseeing.’

  My arse, Flynn thought, and twisted around as Costain’s girlfriend rose from the seat she had been occupying, lurched across the deck, hit the rail and puked spectacularly over the side of the boat.

  Someone’s in for a rough ride, Flynn thought.

  FOUR

  On a scale of one to ten, one being the least, ten being the most, being adrift on a speedboat over which he had no control was one of the most terrifying experiences Henry Christie had ever had in his life. He would later describe it as nine point nine on the Richter scale.

  A swirling eddy knocked Henry off balance and he reeled to one side, grabbing the handrail to stop himself going overboard again as the speedboat, then well and truly caught by the current, did a complete three sixty turnaround. His hands slipped off the chrome rail and he slithered face down on the deck.

  Initially he’d thought the river was moving slowly but the boat rocked and spun out into the central channel and he felt it dip and surge as the muddy water seemed to take hold of its belly and throw it westwards in the direction of the coast. It was like being on a conveyor belt.

  Henry pulled himself back up to his knees and peered petrified over the side of the boat as the speed increased and the vessel began to hurtle and spin down the river. His terror escalated as he realized he was simply not in control of anything.

  ‘Oh God,’ he moaned and crawled across to the cockpit, then heaved himself up on to the seat, his eyes darting through the wheel at the instrument panel. It looked like a car dashboard, but in truth meant nothing to him, although he did work out where the ignition slot was and that it needed a key of some sort to fire it up.

  Then the boat thudded into something. Henry was jerked off the chair on to the deck, striking his head on the edge of the wheel as he fell. Underneath him, the boat juddered, scraped something, then stopped momentarily. Then it spun again and shot backwards down the river, rocking dangerously. He guessed it might have hit a sandbank. Then, as the boat moved, it rocked and turned again, faced forwards and was dragged by the receding tide, fast and sleek.