The Sunshine Cruise Company

by John Niven

‘Old Nails can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember why you crucified yourself?’

  ‘Who crucified himself?’ Nails said, puzzled.

  Boscombe banged his head on the desk.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘THE LOOK, OF love, bum ba ba …’ Terry sang along softly to Burt Bacharach on the Bang & Olufsen as he busied himself around the cabin of The Geraldine, getting things ready. He’d named the boat after his second wife. Ironically, it had been one of the very few things she hadn’t wanted in the divorce. She’d hated the sea, Gerry. He’d always meant to rename the boat, but it was a bit of a palaver and it seemed to be destined to be one of those things he never got around to. He was wearing only a short kimono and his hair was wet from the shower. (If she found all this just a little too much too soon he had his backstory all ready: I got here early and decided to just dive over the side for a quick night swim in the harbour. Well, it’s such a beautiful evening. The water of the Channel this far south is lovely, but why don’t you help yourself to a glass of champagne while I go and put some clothes on? Unless … maybe you fancy a swim too? Then we could jump in the hot tub to warm up? The contrast is wonderful.) He turned the bottle of Perrier-Jouët in the black plastic bucket, scrunching it further down into the ice, cold beading forming nicely around the neck now. He turned the music down slightly and the lighting up a little. Didn’t want to be too obvious.

  The walnut panelling in the twenty-foot-by-twelve lounge shone softly, the lighting was still low enough to be flattering to the off-cream velour upholstery, to not show its multitude of sins, the CSI-style stories it could tell of previous conquests. He loved it on the boat. She was a fify-footer with twin outboard motors and could make fifteen knots easily. Terry had taken her as far down as San Sebastián, him and a couple of business colleagues, a weekend of drinking and tapas.

  He opened the folds of the kimono a little at his chest, exposing the mat of silvery hair – it was a warm night, the sea breeze coming in gently from the window he’d just opened – and was just beginning to worry that she’d misunderstood his very clear directions to the mooring (maybe he should have waited until she actually got here until he popped the Viagra) when he heard the glass door somewhere behind him begin sliding softly open. Terry turned, a smile already on his face and the words ‘Hello, Susan …’ already forming on his lips.

  He stifled a scream.

  There, framed in the doorway, leering at him, was an ancient woman in a wheelchair. She licked her lips, staring straight at his crotch as Terry instinctively belted the kimono tighter, covering his rapidly shrivelling erection. ‘Come on, love,’ the leering hag said, ‘let the dog see the bone.’

  ‘What the fu—’ Terry began.

  Susan Frobisher appeared behind the woman. ‘Terry! I’m really sorry –’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Susan, what on earth –’

  ‘Hi, Terry!’ another woman said brightly, a woman he vaguely recognised, stepping into the cabin now too. ‘Julie? Julie Wickham? We were in chemistry together? In fourth year? Mr Edwards’s class?’

  ‘I … what?’ Terry stammered.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry for the intrusion,’ a fourth woman was saying as she too, incredibly, stepped inside. ‘What a lovely boat.’

  Susan was coming towards him now, stepping across the thick carpeting, saying, ‘I really am very sorry, Terry, but I need to ask you a favour.’

  ‘A favour? What? Who are these people? What the fuck is going on, Susan?’

  ‘Language!’ he heard one or other of the women say in the background.

  ‘I need you to take us all to France. Now. Tonight.’ She was standing right in front of him, looking him straight in the face. Christ, she was still beautiful.

  ‘FRANCE?’ Terry said, the words registering. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  He heard the whine of an electric motor, the trundling of tyres on carpet from somewhere behind Susan and suddenly the barrel of a shotgun appeared and was levelled at his face.

  ‘We really have to insist,’ the woman in the wheelchair said, cocking the weapon. Terry’s eyes widened and his hands instinctively went up in the air. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please don’t kill me.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Ethel! Stop that!’ Susan said, slapping the shotgun away.

  ‘All right, calm down,’ Ethel said. ‘It’s not even loaded.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the news then?’ Susan asked.

  ‘No …’

  ‘Come on, let’s have a chat.’

  She took the bewildered Terry’s elbow and led him through the doorway down to the bridge of the boat. From behind her as she closed the door she heard the crack of a champagne cork.

  Ethel.

  THIRTY-TWO

  ‘FUCK, SUSAN. I mean, fuck. Jesus fucking Christ.’

  They were sitting in the two big swivel chairs in the bridge and Susan was pouring him a second brandy. ‘Yes, you already said that, Terry. It’s not very helpful.’

  ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I couldn’t possibly explain it.’

  ‘And now you want me to help you out? To run you to France? You couldn’t enter a port legally. You’d have to be dropped somewhere off the radar. I mean, you’re fugitives. Proper bloody fugitives. No, forget it. Then I’m caught up in all this too. You’re going to get caught anyway, you know. You may as well turn yourselves in and give back the money to try and offset your sentence because –’ He paused. ‘How much did you get anyway?’

  Susan was staring out at the moonlit water, not really listening to him. ‘Terry?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why did you come to Barry’s funeral?’

  ‘I … I wanted to pay my respects.’

  ‘Rubbish. You couldn’t stand him. Even at school.’

  ‘That’s not true! I …’ He trailed off, not really having the heart for a spirited defence of Susan’s late husband. ‘I just thought you could have done better than Barry Frobisher.’

  ‘You were right. It’s just a pity it took me a lifetime to find that out.’ She stared into her brandy, swirling it in the balloon.

  ‘Come on,’ Terry said. ‘Your life isn’t over yet.’

  Susan looked up at him. There was this sharpness, a kind of cunning, in her gaze that he’d never seen when they were younger. ‘No, it bloody well isn’t,’ she said. ‘Now listen, getting to France? That isn’t the half of it. How dodgy are you, Terry?’

  ‘What?’

  Susan slapped him across the face.

  ‘JESUS!’ Terry yelped. ‘What was that f—’

  ‘Stop being coy. You’re the richest man I know and you got rich doing something utterly nebulous called “import and export”, something no one who knows you really knows anything about, so I’m assuming, I’m hoping, you’ve rubbed up against some pretty rough sorts along the way. We are in a life-and-death situation here and I need you to be honest with me and try to help me. We need new identities, passports, so we can get out of France somehow.’

  ‘And go where?’ He rubbed his stinging jaw.

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Maybe South America.’

  ‘Why do you think I’d know anyone like that?’

  ‘Money.’ Susan shrugged.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘To answer your earlier question, how much did we get? Roughly 4.2 million pounds. We’ll pay you a hundred grand for the ride to France and another hundred if you can put us together with someone who can help us out with the passports. Come on – two hundred grand for a quick trip across the Channel and a phone number?’

  Terry gestured around him, at the yacht. ‘Do I look like I need money, Susan?’

  ‘No. I don’t think you’ll do it just for the money.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Well, because you have a massive crush on me and you have had since you were fifteen years old.’ Susan took a big gulp of brandy, shuddering just a little as it went down. She really was acqu
iring a taste for the stuff. ‘That’s why.’

  ‘You’ve changed,’ Terry said, smiling.

  ‘Good.’

  They sat there in silence for a moment, just the sound of the water lapping at the hull.

  Finally Terry sighed. ‘God help me. There’s a jetty outside Le Havre. Private beach belonging to a friend of mine. I can drop you there. If we leave soon we’ll be there around dawn.’

  Susan smiled at him and raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘Go on …’

  ‘And … there’s a guy I know. Down in Marseilles. Russian. I can put you in touch. I’d be surprised if – properly compensated of course – he couldn’t help you out on the passport front.’

  ‘There’s also the question of how we get the money out of France and into South America …’

  ‘Well, in my experience, in the import and export game, no one tends to care too much about what you take into South America. But you’ll need to watch yourself, Susan. With the Russians? These are genuinely scary people.’

  ‘So am I,’ Susan said, draining her brandy and smacking the glass down. ‘I’m Mrs Fear.’

  Terry laughed, shaking his head. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this certainly wasn’t how I saw this evening going.’

  ‘How did you see it going?’ Susan asked.

  ‘You know …’ Terry grinned.

  Susan stepped close. ‘Play your cards right. It’s a long trip, isn’t it? I’m assuming there’s a cabin somewhere on board this thing?’ She pecked him on the cheek. ‘Right, I’m just going to check on the girls.’

  Terry swallowed and poured himself another brandy.

  THIRTY-THREE

  ‘BOSCOMBE?’ HE SLURRED.

  Detective Sergeant Hugh Boscombe had been woken by the ringing phone just after dawn on the day following the robbery. He’d fallen asleep at his desk, after another gruelling interview with Nails had failed to yield a single plausible lead. (It had occurred to Boscombe that Nails wasn’t so much hard – which would have been a more credible explanation of his nickname than the self-crucifixion story – as completely deranged. From minute to minute he literally didn’t know if it was New York or New Year. Didn’t know whether he wanted a shite or a haircut.)

  The chain of events that led to the phone ringing went as follows …

  At 5.15 a.m. a local beat officer in Sands, a PC Graham Denning, had noticed a navy-blue Mercedes estate parked on a side road near the marina. The interior light was on as someone had failed to close the rear passenger door properly. On closer investigation he noticed the keys were still in the ignition. He called the car in and discovered that the licensed owners were a Mr and Mrs Torbet of Densmore Cottage, Buttcombe, near Wroxham and that the car had not been reported stolen.

  Denning might ordinarily have left it there – who was to say that the owners had not simply been enjoying a lively night out at the marina club and had left their keys in the ignition and been a little careless with closing their doors? It was their battery to run down as they saw fit after all. But something made him think twice. ‘Wroxham’. News of the bank job there had been all over the area yesterday. As had two CCTV clips currently enjoying huge viewing figures on YouTube: one of an old-age pensioner running full tilt into the plate-glass window of a Morrisons supermarket and the other of this Dorset CID bloke screaming his head off as he got dragged by his nuts behind a Cancer Care minibus. Then Denning noticed something on the floor of the rear seat, behind the driver’s seat. Something pink and waxy – a single fifty-pound note.

  At 5.25 a.m. Denning rang the cop shop in Buttcombe and suggested someone swing by Densmore Cottage and see if either Mr or Mrs Torbet were home. Around half an hour later, at approximately 6 a.m., a PC Willard did just that and discovered that they were not in residence. But a glance through the garage window revealed a vehicle that most definitely did not belong there – a Cancer Care minibus.

  Beyond himself with excitement, Willard rang Wroxham CID and asked to be put through to the detective in charge of the Lanchester Bank robbery investigation.

  And so, at 6.10 a.m., Boscombe found himself yawning and saying ‘Boscombe’ into the phone.

  He listened.

  He scribbled down a licence plate and an address.

  He ran across to Wesley’s desk and thumped him awake with the words ‘Come on, Wesley! We’re on!’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  JULIE WOKE UP with an ugly, thumping headache and looked around her. She and Jill had both fallen asleep at either end of a long, L-shaped sofa. Jill had fallen asleep long before Julie had of course. The reason for Julie’s late night was snoring like a bandsaw, slumped upright in her wheelchair across from her, still cradling a near-empty bottle of gin. Christ, where did Ethel put it? Did it go into those huge, surely hollow, legs? Or perhaps into an unspeakable reservoir hidden somewhere in the wheelchair itself? Julie knew that Ethel came from a hard-boozing generation – drinks at lunch, pre-dinner cocktails, nightcaps and so on – but even so, it was impressive. Julie surveyed the four empty champagne bottles on the table, the opened bottles of vodka and gin, and tried to reconstruct the night before.

  When it had become clear that Terry was going to have his hands full driving the boat and Susan had sloped off to bed early, she and Ethel had gone a bit nutty and made free with their unwilling host’s (extensive) drinks cabinet. Even Jill had accepted a couple of small sherries, for ‘her nerves’. What was the last thing she could remember? Her and Ethel dancing to ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’? Julie spinning Ethel around in her chair?

  She picked up a bottle of water near her and drained it, sluicing it around her cracked, sandy mouth, feeling the steady motion of the big boat, the rumble of the engines somewhere beneath them.

  She looked out of the porthole and saw a pale band of pink light on the horizon, the sun about to come up. Feeling guilty she reached into the pocket of her jeans and took out a roll of fifties. She counted off ten of them and put them on the low coffee table. Should about cover what they’d drunk. She smiled. When had she last been able to do something like this? Drop five hundred quid on booze? Fifteen years ago or so, during the brief heyday of the boutique? Or even further back maybe, in London, in the eighties, when she’d been hostessing …

  ‘Bloody hell,’ a voice said. Julie looked up to see Susan in the doorway, looking fresh as dew. ‘What happened in here?’

  ‘Ech. All got a bit celebratory, I’m afraid. I’ll tidy up in a sec.’ But Susan was already advancing into the room, picking up glasses and straightening chairs.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Susan said. ‘Why don’t you go and have a shower? We’re nearly there.’ She was humming a little song to herself while she tidied, all brisk, businesslike and cheerful.

  Julie looked at her, narrowing her eyes. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘What?’ Susan said.

  Julie kept looking at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something’s up. You’re a bit … cheery for someone on the run.’

  ‘Can’t someone wake up in a good mood?’

  But Susan was colouring a little, plumping up cushions, keeping herself busy, not meeting Julie’s gaze. There was something almost … girlish about her.

  ‘NO WAY!’ Julie exclaimed.

  ‘Shhh! Shhhh! Shurrup!’ Susan came at her, flattening a hand over her mouth, pushing her back into the sofa.

  ‘Susan Frobisher! You dirty –’

  ‘SHHHHHH!’

  ‘Filthy –’

  ‘Please,’ Susan begged.

  ‘OK, OK. Get off me.’ Susan let her go and they looked at each other for a moment. Then they both burst out laughing, Susan burying her head in her hands. ‘Details,’ Julie said. ‘I want details.’

  ‘Oh, later. OK?’

  ‘You and Terry Russell …’

  ‘Oh God …’ Susan said.

  ‘I bet it was something after Barry …’

  ‘Right, enough. You’ll wake the others.

  ‘Wait till Ethel he
ars about this. Oh, this is huge.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up,’ Susan said, sitting down next to her and blowing some hair out of her face. They continued talking in whispers, even though Ethel’s snoring would have drowned out a shouting match between two drunken town criers. ‘I just thought, what the hell. You know? And you know something else, Jules? I woke up this morning thinking, what the hell. Not just about Terry, but about all of it. It’s done. No one died. We’re not in jail. Yet. So, let’s just take it as it comes.’

  ‘Bloody hell. New Susan, new danger?’

  ‘Something like that. Come on, you,’ Susan said, standing up. ‘Shower. Blow the cobwebs away.’

  ‘What about this pair?’ Julie gestured to their sleeping colleagues.

  ‘Oh, let’s give them another fifteen minutes. Ethel needs it and Jill’s probably going to start crying again the minute she wakes up.’

  ‘So what are we doing? I mean, where are we going?’

  ‘I’ve got it all figured out.’

  ‘Oh, really? How so?’

  ‘I’ll tell you over breakfast in Le Havre.’

  ‘You and Terry Russell. Bloody hell.’

  Twenty minutes later the four women were standing on a small wooden dock in the chill dawn wearing fleeces, jeans and trainers (except for Ethel who had a tartan shawl over her lap) they’d purloined from Densmore Cottage. The money was now in two smaller holdalls – again both courtesy of Densmore Cottage – which were hanging from Ethel’s wheelchair. (It had surprised Susan how much money you could fit in a fairly small space. You could easily carry a million pounds in fifty-pound notes as part of your baggage allowance on most airlines.) Ahead of them the jetty led to a shallow beach, which gave onto a forest, where a path led up through the trees. Terry made sure the stern line was tied tight and walked towards them, wiping seawater off his hands on the backs of his thighs. Susan had crouched down and was rooting through her bag for something or other so Julie put her hand out and he took it.

  ‘Sorry for, you know …’ she said, amazed to feel she was fighting to keep the smile off her face. What was she – fifteen again?