by Nick Fisher
“We give it one more go.”
Matty considers it. “One more,” he says.
“One more proper go. It doesn’t shift we buoy it off.”
Matty nods agreement.
Adrian swings the Kitty around again. Matty tightening the rope to the starboard sternpost. Adrian pushes the throttle forward, this time running with the tide a few yards, when the rope jams tight again, straining against the post. The transom flexing scarily as the force of the propeller churns the sea into creamy foam. Nothing shifts. The engine howls. Adrian looks back to see Matty’s hanging over the transom again, peering down at the rope where it disappears into the foam. Matty now beckoning to Tim, and shouts something in his ear over the roar of the engines. Tim comes trotting up the deck to the wheelhouse, with a message for Adrian, “He says, stick her in neutral. Come and look.” Over Tim’s shoulder, Adrian can see Matty’s gesturing.
“What the fuck’s that?” says Matty, pointing down the rope as Adrian leans across the transom beside him.
With the propeller at rest, the sea is clear and down the rope three or four yards below, Adrian can just make out the outline of another rope.
“Whose rope’s that?”
“Not ours. S’a Joseph,” says Matty.
“It tight?”
“Fuck yeah. Look at the angle.”
The strange rope, known commercially as a ‘Joseph’ because it’s weaved with multi-coloured fibres, is twisted at an angle around the rope that links some of Kitty’s pots in the middle of the shank. The clean, new, expensive-looking rope veers off at an angle to the east, in the direction of the running tide. But the upper section of the smart rope seemed to have a little slack in it.
“The fuck’s that doing here?”
“Someone else shooting gear out here?” suggests Adrian, like he already doesn’t believe it. They both look around, scanning the sea for more pot markers, but see none.
“One shank?” shrugs Adrian. “No one comes out here to shoot one shank.”
“Could be pots rolled out from further in,” says Matty, trying to make sense of it. “Busted up stuff.”
“Rope’s too clean,” says Adrian. “Too new. Not been in the water long.”
“Yeah…” They shake their heads. Some kind of mystery.
“If I gun it some more. Take up the slack,” says Adrian. “And you can reach it with the hook. Cut it off. Then maybe our shank’ll come free.”
“Uh huh,” shrugs Matty.
“Could be it’s the Joseph’s snagged. And, we’re not. Cut us free, and maybe we’re back in business,” says Adrian, not believing the words coming out his own mouth. But living in hope.
“Don’t you want to know what’s on the other rope?” asks Tim.
“Just be loose warp being dragged around by the tide,” says Adrian. “Some yachtie’s stern-line, fallen off his deck and got looped around our pot rope.”
Adrian pushes Kitty hard down-tide. Matty leans over with the boat hook, fighting to get a glimpse of the Joseph through the foam. Leaning right over, Tim grabbing the back of his waistband with both hands, as Matty manages to snag the shiny rope and pull hard. Trying to pull it up out of the water within knife-cutting range. Tim taking the filleting knife out his belt sheath, passing it to Matty, who strains, pulling, fit to fucking burst. When suddenly, he jerks backwards, canonballing into Tim, throwing them both back, crashing into the worktable. Tim rolls and falls on deck, knife clattering from his hand, Matty managing to stay upright, by grabbing the edge of the table.
“Motherfucker!”
The boat hook lies on the deck, Joseph rope still caught in its crook.
Adrian is out of the wheelhouse now, Kitty in neutral. As he picks up the new rope, he can see now it’s torn free from Kitty’s pot rope. One end of the Joseph still angled down into the deep, the other end of the rope waving in the tide, behind the stern of the boat.
Hand-over-hand Adrian pulls the loose end of the rope to the boat. He coils it at his feet until, in the tide-wake behind the transom, all three men see a small green plastic fender bob up on the surface. Sort of little plastic fender you’d use to protect the side of a sailing dinghy. It too looks brand new, although deflated. All crumpled up, because the air bung that keeps it sealed is missing.
Adrian turns it over in his hands. Apart from being wet, it looks like it could’ve just been plucked off the shelf in some posh yacht chandlery. Is even a sticky square on one side where a price tag was once stuck.
The knot that had been tied to fix the green fender onto the line is an over-complicated thing, with way too many turns and tucks. Like whoever tied it wanted to make very sure it didn’t come apart, but knew fuck all about what was really needed to secure a buoy to a rope.
“Fucking yachtie knot,” says Matty, studying the rope where it meets the buoy.
“We going to see what’s on it?” asks Tim again, grinning like an idiot, half-smashed on the spliff and just glad to be getting a break from baiting pots with week-old pollack heads.
“Be a fucking anchor. Some yachtie twat got his hook stuck and then tied his tender buff on the end of his rope to mark it,” says Matty. “Prob’ly thinking he’ll waypoint it on his plotter. Then ask the Navy or the Coastguard to come retrieve it for him.”
“Who anchors out here?” says Adrian, his tone serious. Scanning the horizon. Not a boat, a ship, a yacht in sight. Fair point, thought Matty.
“It’s 200 feet deep. Middle of the shipping lane. There’s no shelter, no clubhouse, nowhere to buy a Pink Gin,” says Adrian, thinking it through. “No one anchors on the edge of the Hurds. Not even a yachtie twat. Wouldn’t probably have enough anchor rope, anyway.”
“S’not really yachtie rope, anyway,” he adds. Like he’s Sherlock Holmes all of a sudden. Turning it over in his fingers. “More like expensive commercial rope.”
“S’a yachtie buff though,” argues Matty, picking up the lime green fender.
“Why don’t we pull it?” asks Tim.
“We still got half the shank down there,” says Adrian, getting his priorities straight.
“Fuck it. Give it a pull. If it is a yachtie anchor and we get it off the bottom, gotta be worth a few quid,” says Matty. “Some of them yacht anchors is a fucking fortune.”
“Alright.”
“And, if there’s a few yards of anchor chain on too, we could–”
“OK!” says Adrian sharply. Worrying about the time and the worsening weather. “Cleat it. We’ll give it one tug.”
A part of Adrian can’t believe he’s about to mess around yanking on a length of mystery rope in the middle of the Hurds, in the middle of a snotty sea, when they already have a full day’s pot-hauling ahead of them. It’s coming up to noon. And one of their longest shanks is still stuck to the seabed. Another part of him is a little curious too. He could see the sense in hauling up a free anchor to make a little cash. Something for nothing is always a tease. First they’d have to get the fucking thing off the bottom though.
The engine rattles and growls as thick black sooty smoke pours out the exhaust. The strain on Kitty’s engine, making her pump more fuel oil than she can burn, so it’s expelled as thick black smoke.
With the Joseph wrapped around the sternpost, the strain of pulling on the stuck rope holds Kitty rigid in the water, foam churning out her arse. Frustrated, Adrian pushes the throttle hard against the furthest stop, the rattle of her bearings is sharp and clanging. Tim, closest to the engine box, covers his ears and takes a pace backwards, like he expects the whole thing to blow.
Adrian shuts his eyes, now lost in the roar and rattle of this miserable tub’s fucking sick, fucking engine. Adrian almost willing her to blow. At least then there’d be an end to it. When suddenly Kitty hoofs forward with a lurch, the rope still fixed to the sternpost. Something somewhere gived.
Adrian flings her into neutral and walks back down the deck where Matty’s already hand-hauling the line. He’s making rope, but it’s
hard going. Obviously, something still attached to the far end.
“You fucking beauty!” he says as he pulls.
“Still on?” asks Adrian, thinking of the anchor.
“Fucking right, bro. We got ourselves a yachtie hook!”
Matty looking a mixture of elated and wild-eye stone-baked, as he hauls a few more arm lengths. Then changes his mind.
“Let’s winch it,” he says.
The Joseph rope is looped over the jib’s hauling hook and rollers, and wound onto the pot-hauler wheel.
All three men leaning over the starboard gunwale to look down into the sea, as the winch pulls on the fancy-coloured rope. Two hundred feet later, out of the gloomy depths there appears… a crab pot.
Matty sucks his teeth in bitter disappointment.
“Bastard. S’a fucking pot,” he says, bummed out, at seeing what he sees every day of every week. Just another crab pot appearing out the sea on the end of a rope.
He kills the winch and the pot swings on the end of the jib. They all look at it. Nothing unusual about the pot. Except, once again it’s a brand new piece of kit. Rubber lashings all still shiny and even the metal frame still showing blue enamel paint, instead of layers of brown gritty rust. On first glance it looks like the entrance funnel-tube’s been removed, as has the parlour separator mesh, and instead of there being bait or crabs or lobsters inside, there is nothing. Nothing except a weird big dark bulge that fills the pot.
Matty swings the pot off the jib and rests it on the gunwale. They all stare at it. Inside, through the nylon netting mesh, is the dark shape. Adrian sticks his finger through the net to touch it. The coating of the thing gritty, like roofing felt.
Adrian looks at Matty. “The fuck?” he says.
Matty hefting the pot onto the worktable, straining. It’s heavy. Much heavier than a normal pot. Even one full of crabs. Heavy as a crab pot with a big conger eel inside. One of those mean-eyed fuckers that climbs in, to eat the bait and then the lobsters, and then gets stuck. It’s because of congers and big bull huss that Matty keeps the metal baseball bat handy. For slugging the fuckers when he finds them in his pots.
Matty tries to unhook the parlour door but it’s locked shut. All around the door rim are thick black cable ties. At least a dozen of them spaced around the edge of the parlour door.
“Someone really didn’t want this to fall open,” says Matty. As he flips the lid on the rust-encrusted toolbox under the worktable and takes out a pair of wire cutters, jammed open, from a mixture of long-term corrosion and fish scales. With both his hands he manages to close the cutters and open them again, four or five times, freeing the pivot enough to start cutting through the cable ties, one by one.
Adrian and Tim watch, fascinated to see what’s inside the pot. Instinctively, Adrian also taking time to look up and scan the sea, 360 degrees, all around the horizon. Something making him wary.
With the door open, Matty grabs at the black thing inside and tries to pull it out. Looks like a bag made of roofing felt. Some sort of thick waterproof coating stuff for construction or ship building. Something heavy duty that’s been folded and sealed into a shape, like a duffel bag.
He pulls on the top seam, the lipped edge where the felt stuff’s been heat-sealed by melting the two sides of the felt stuff together in a waterproof weld. The felt rough and gritty, scraping skin off Matty’s fingers, as he grunts and tugs, pulling at the thing.
Eventually, it comes out. He stands it on the worktable. The exact size and shape of the inside of the crab pot. Even has the mark of the pot’s metal hoop-braces imprinted into the felt.
Using the scallop-shucking knife, with its short wedge-shaped blade, made for prying open shells, Matty stabs into the gritty felt just below the sealed edge. With the thick blade inside, he cuts an opening six inches long and prises the felt apart, to peer inside.
Adrian wants to look. But first he feels compelled to scan the horizon again. His hackles up. Without knowing why, Adrian feels exposed. Even though he’s in the middle of the English Channel miles from any eyes. Still he scopes the water. Nothing visible, apart from the large dark shape of a container ship, four or five miles to the west making a good pace along the shipping lane, moving away from the Kitty, heading towards the Atlantic.
All Matty can see inside is more blackness. So he works the blade along the front edge and up along one long side. Before moving back to his first incision and cutting up the opposite long side, so he can peel the felt back, like the lid on a sardine can.
Under the felt is thick black plastic. So thick it’s almost rubberised. Like inner tubing rubber’s been used to wrap up the bundle. Whoever did this is taking waterproofing to a whole new level.
The more complex the packaging gets, the more layers they unveil, the more nervous Adrian feels. A queasy feeling. Layer by layer the feeling gets worse. The evidence of just how much time and effort someone’s spent creating this parcel, giving him a chill.
“This’s someone’s fucking stash,” says Matty, sucking through his teeth as he cuts into another layer of plastic and peels it off. “Fucking got to be.” Layers of rubber-plastic now strewn across the deck, beside the empty pot and the roofing felt bag.
“Of what?” says Tim, almost wetting himself. “Stash of what?”
“S’what I’m trying to fucking find out.”
Under four layers of black heat-sealed rubber-plastic is a mass of cling film. Like suitcases that gets wrapped at one of those airport concessions, to stop them being tampered with by light-fingered baggage handlers. The inner shape, inside the rubber-plastic, inside the roofing felt, sheathed in layer upon layer of heavy grade clear plastic.
Matty tearing into the layers. Ripping and slashing with the short knife, pulling the plastic off in hunks and handfuls. Everywhere around him now, folds of plastic. The deck practically knee-deep in packaging, and still he hasn’t got to the inside.
“It’s like pass the parcel,” says Tim, stooping over, to get a look in.
Again Adrian scanning the horizon. As Matty pulls the last wrap of cling film off a grey polythene-covered block, about half the size of the original shape. This new layer, thick and grey. A heavy duty bag. Like something used to line a recycling bin. All taped shut with silver duct tape. Matty cutting through the tape along the top seam, then tips the bag forward, as a bundle of plastic wrapped slabs fall out on the deck.
Matty picks one up. About the size of a bar of cooking chocolate. It’s also wreathed in cling film, which peels off easily to reveal a slab of black shiny sticky material, like a slab of pressed figs. On top, embossed into the tacky surface is the image of a camel, coloured in gold. Beneath the gold camel is a small cream label with three squiggles of some Arabic-type lettering.
“That heroin?” asks Tim.
“Heroin’s a powder, you dick.”
“Opium?” says Adrian.
Matty presses the block to his nose and breaths deep.
“Hash. Black hash! Fucking, black hash!” he says. “Afghani … or Paki or something. Black fucking hash!”
Matty throws his head back and howls. Like a hyena. Whooping and yowling and hollering.
Tim watching him, with an open mouth at first, and then trying a few whoops of his own. Adrian just staring down at the slabs on the deck, and then kneeling to peer inside the grey bag. Inside another 15 or 20 bars, maybe more, still neatly stacked.
“This is someone’s stash!” says Matty, clapping his brother on the back and grabbing the scruff of his neck through the collar. Turning Adrian’s face towards his. “This is it. We are fucking minted!”
“Whose?” says Adrian.
“Who gives a shit?”
“Who put it out here?”
“Probably a drop off from some freighter. For some wide boys with a speedboat to come and collect, from Bournemouth. Or Brighton. Who cares? Ours now.”
“Don’t think we want to hang about,” says Adrian, scanning the sea.
“When was
the last time you saw black dope?”
Adrian shrugged.
“I’ve not seen any in ten, maybe 15 years,” says Matty. “Long before the Iraq war and shit. And then, piece I saw was about as big as a postage stamp. And thin. Like wafer fucking thin.”
“We shouldn’t be here.”
“We should smoke some,” says Matty. Tim nods, enthusiastically.
“No!” says Adrian. “Not now. Not here.”
“Fuck, yeah.”
“No.”
But Matty is already walking to the wheelhouse, fishing his Rizlas out of the depths of his fleece.
“Bring them in. Let’s count them,” he says to Tim. Tim bends and picks up the four slabs lying on the deck amidst the layers of packaging. He drops three into the grey bag and holds the other to his nose. Breathing deep. Trying to smell it through the plastic.
Tim’s eyes meet Adrian’s. Adrian’s stare is cold and hard as he looks back at this boy-man face. Spotty. Scrawny. With a scraggle of fluff on his top lip. Tim holds the grey bag under one arm and presses the slab of black hash to his nose.
“Fucking great, eh?” he says to Adrian, like it’s a real question. Tim all excited. Like he’s just seen his first pair of boobs.
Adrian, staring back, says nothing. Thinking. Suddenly, what this boy-man thinks or says or does is relevant to Adrian’s life. This little mouthy shit that hangs out with Matty and could normally be ignored or abused, without any glimmer of concern, has all of a sudden become a relevant and complex factor in Adrian’s future.
Adrian watches Tim’s back as he walks into the wheelhouse, then he turns around again and looks to all points of the horizon.
Through the window he can see Matty skinning up on the sink drainer, warming the edge of the block of hash over the same Calor gas ring they infrequently use to boil a kettle, to make a brew, or wet the contents of a Pot Noodle. Already Adrian can smell the sweet tarry scent of the black hash as it warms in the flame. Matty pinching lumps of the crumbly hash from the block and sprinkling it in a long thick layer over the tobacco.
Matty grinning at Tim. Tim hopping on the spot, his hand raised like he wants to high five Matty, while inside Adrian’s heart sinks another whole layer into doom. The sight of these two jiggling with joy as they roll a spliff with some of fuck-knows-how-many thousand of pounds’ worth of someone else’s hash doesn’t make him feel warm and fuzzy for the future. It makes him feel fear.
