Ship Ahoy! (A Cliffhanger Novel Book 3)

by T. J. Middleton

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘One eggs or two?’

  ‘Two. And make sure they’re…’

  ‘Nice and runny, yes I know.’ She nodded to the breakfast bar. ‘Help yourself to coffee.’

  ‘Coffee too? I didn’t know you knew how.’

  I sat up at the counter, poured myself a cup. Not bad. She slapped the plate down, stood up opposite. There was lots to talk about, but it could wait. I cut the egg in half, let the yolk run into the fried bread, speared the mess onto my fork and added a slice of pig. I took a mouthful. She’d burnt the bacon.

  ‘So this is all very modern,’ she said, looking around, ‘very Swedish. Do you both actually sit on these things, like a couple of love-sick pigeons.’

  As a matter we fact we didn’t. They weren’t too comfortable, the stools. Firstly you had to jump up on them, like you were getting on a horse and then, just as you got comfy, you discovered they were all curved at the top, which made your rear end slowly slide off, like it had been greased with Lurpak. Mrs B tried one once and said that engaging your pelvic floor might help, but I told her we wasn’t ripping up that lino for anyone and she let it pass. They looked good though.

  ‘You mean the breakfast bar? It was Em’s idea, for when we do bed and breakfasts. We’re aiming for the younger market, less set in their ways. We could have gone in for something more relaxing, but you don’t want them hanging around for hours on end do you? It’s a business not a rest home. Evening, in no later than ten, breakfast next morning eight o’clock sharp, fuck off at nine.’

  ‘You should put that in your brochure,’ Audrey said, chewing on her bacon rind. ‘What if it rains?’

  ‘We’ve put a couple of chairs from Doc’s waiting room in the guest en suite, plus a radio and a goldfish bowl.’ She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I might have known it. More fish.’

  ‘They’re therapeutic, fish. Everybody knows that. You get couples coming here expecting the holiday of a lifetime, they’ll need something to calm them down when the cracks appear. The last thing we need is Romeo and Juliet having a set-to the other side of the panelling, sixty quid a night or not.’

  ‘What about sex?

  ‘What about sex?’

  ‘Will their sixty quid allow them to have sex? That can be just as noisy. And young couples? Rumour has it they can go at it for hours on end with barely a break, aside from the odd sip of water. Perhaps you should put up a notice above the bed, “Copulation above 25 Decibels strictly forbidden”, or maybe “No Hanky Panky after Ten-thirty”. Ground rules. Very important to establish them before any misunderstandings ensues.’ She went back to the bacon. She was right.

  ‘You have a point there Audrey.’ She waved her fork about.

  ‘And mirrors. You don’t want any full length mirrors on the walls. Not even in the bathroom. Full length mirrors will give them all sorts of ideas. Older couples fine, full length mirrors stops them dead in their tracks, but younger ones? On holiday? Someone else’s sheets? You’re asking for trouble.’

  ‘Do you know I hadn’t thought about that.’

  ‘It pays to plan Al, for all eventualities. Experience should have told you that by now, but perhaps thinking hasn’t been your strong point since little Miss Hilton appeared. When’s she due back?’

  ‘Her name’s Emily, and I’ll thank you to remember it. But yes, I was thinking the same. Best you’re out of here before she gets back. The fewer people know you’ve been here, the better. I can lend you a couple of quid, to get you on your feet. Where you headed to?’

  She popped a slice of fried bread in her mouth, demolished it from the inside. One of the best and worst parts of her, Audrey’s mouth.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ she said, spilling the crumbs all down Em’s gown. ‘I’ve got to get my strength back first. And you’re going to have to get me some proper clothes. Here, I’ve made a list.’

  She pulled out an old envelope from the pocket, pushed it across the bar. I didn’t bother to read it, just pushed it back.

  ‘Audrey! What are you trying to do? It won’t be just you they’ll cart off, if they catch you here, did you ever think of that? Course you didn’t. Christ, if I had any sense I’d be on the blower to Adam Rump, turn you in right now.’

  ‘Go on then, if it makes you feel any better. I’m not going to stop you.’

  ‘I’m not going to do that. You know I’m not. That’s why you came here, cause you knew I wouldn’t. But I’ve got my own life to live now, Audrey, one that’s doing real good. This isn’t your bungalow any more. And I’m not your husband.’

  ‘You never were much of one, anyway.’

  ‘Audrey.’

  ‘All right, all right. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have escaped. But I did, and I have. So, what are you going to do? Help me or what?’

  What could I say. I couldn’t refuse, couldn’t turn her out. I didn’t have a choice.

  ‘One day, all right? One day and then, you’re out, on your own. With a bit of luck Em won’t be back until tomorrow, so it will just be between you and me. Right?’

  ‘Wasn’t it always?’ She smiled.

  I picked up the envelope. Skirts, jumpers, trousers, track-suits, Christ she’d written down a whole bloody wardrobe. It would take me hours buying this lot and guess who’d be footing the bill? At the bottom of the list she’d written Sports Shop, and underneath that, Proper Cycling Gear.

  ‘Hard going was it,’ I said, folding the list into my top pocket, ‘cycling all this way?’ She stuck out a leg. There was a fair amount of muscle on it.

  ‘Not while I was on the move,’ she said, wriggling her toes. ‘It was resting up during the day that was the problem. I’m in very good shape otherwise. So was the bike.’

  ‘Where’s it now? Not outside the caravan I hope.’ She put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘I left it by the pond. I meant to bring it in, but…’

  I went into the conservatory. Her bike was leant up against the nymph’s hip, like she was going to hop on it and ride away, a la Lady Godiva. It brought out something in her, gave her a sort of tension she’d never had before. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have seen it, what Em calls the ceaseless ambiguity between flesh and the machine, but now, with my artist’s eye, I see things like that all the time. Audrey had followed me through.

  ‘Looks dead sexy,’ I said, ‘resting on her bum like that.’

  ‘If you say so. What’s that ugly great thing next to it?’

  ‘That’s one of my sharks. I’m a sculptor now, didn’t you know. There’s a smaller one by the door there, behind you, see?’

  She turned round, peered at it, stuck a finger on the signature on the fin.

  ‘Who’s Al Greco, when he’s at home?’ she said.

  ‘It’s the name I sculpt under, one chisel in the past, one chainsaw in the present. Clever eh?’

  ‘Taking the piss, more like.’

  ‘You can think what you like Audrey, but the fact is but I’m getting quite a reputation in the artist world. I’ve got to be down the cove this morning to see a well-known patron of the arts, discuss the terms of my next commission. It was her who started that Damien Hirst off, embalming her dead pets. Cats, dogs, hamsters, you name it, he’d slice them in half and stick them in formaldehyde. He’d be nothing without her.’

  She wasn’t listening. She was staring out to the nymph and the pond bubbling at her feet. The last time she been there with me, I’d tried to drown her in it. Memories, memories.

  A koi broke the water.

  ‘More carp then.’

  ‘Not like the ones I had. Have you seen Torvill yet? She’s up on the mantelpiece.’ She looked confused.

  ‘Yes, I had her stuffed, didn’t you know? Not as easy to get rid of as you thought. Go and have a look. She’s looks quite well, considering she’s dead. Her and Dean and Miranda, they’ll all dead, thanks to you.’

  She kept staring out.


  ‘You had no part in it I suppose,’ she said, her voice kind of flat. ‘I didn’t really mean it Al, not any of it. It’s just…you do things in the heat of the moment that you can’t wind back. Miranda didn’t deserve it. Torvill and Dean didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve you. You didn’t deserve me. But that’s where we were. We just weren’t very good at handling it, were we?’

  I’d been right. She felt regret, like me. And yet, if none of it had happened, I wouldn’t have gone to prison and I wouldn’t have met Em. I wouldn’t be an artist, knocking out sharks like I was on a Ford production line. I’d be with Audrey. We’d be arguing, like we were now. And yet, she’d broke out of prison, and cycled cross country, to me, the bloke who’d tried to do her in. Wasn’t that something? That whatever I’d done in the past, I was the only one she could trust. It kind of affected me.

  ‘That bike looks the business,’ I said. ‘It’s got drop handlebars.’ She stepped close to me, a bit of life back in her voice.

  ‘It’s got a lot more than that, Al. Moulded carbon fibre rims, battery powered servo actuated front and derailleur gears, high end wheel sets. It’s a racing bike. You park your arse on that and you know about it. It was the Governor’s.’

  ‘And she lent it to you I suppose.’

  ‘Who else was going to ask to look after it? I knew about such things. It took me six months to gain her confidence, but then…’ She punched me in the arm. ‘Bonsai! She was eating out my hand. It was child’s play after that.’

  I smiled. Bonsai! I hadn’t heard that word in years.

  ‘Well you better put it away before old Poke Nose cops it,’ I told her, ‘She knows all about how you got away. The whole bloody county does.’

  ‘You better put it away if you’re worried about me being seen. I’m going to fry me another egg.’

  I went out, picked up the bike, shoved it above the garage, threw some sacking over. It wasn’t a perfect hiding place, in fact it wasn’t a hiding place at all, but it was all I had time for. Later I’d wheel it up to the Pimple, drop it over the cliff. Right now I had to get spruced up and go and meet Mrs Durand-Deacon. Then I had Audrey’s shopping to do. And in between I had to get rid off that warden’s uniform and call Em, make sure she wasn’t going to come back tonight. I wasn’t quite sure how she would take it, if she found Audrey here. On the one-to-one loyalty stakes, there was no one I would trust more, but with Audrey in the frame, poncing about the bungalow in Em’s very own dressing gown, the one I’d nicked for her on our first cruise together? It was a tricky one.

  I drove down to the Bindon, parked in the sloping forecourt. The hotel was empty. Mrs Durand-Deacon was in the coffee lounge foyer, big lose-yourself armchairs plonked around the carpeted stairs up to the first floor. She was sitting to the side of them with one leg on a footstool. There wasn’t room for the other leg, though the way it was moving up and down over the carpet, it was plain it wanted to get up there. Audrey’s dog Monty had had the same problem with his outdoor kennel. Audrey had made it herself, but hadn’t been quite wide enough for little chap. He could squeeze his head and body in OK, but when it came to his back legs, there was only room for one. It was alright in the summer, but come the winter Audrey made me run out and put a bit of old carpeting over the other. She’d do anything for that dog.

  Mrs Durand-Deacon had a plate of biscuits and a cup of something balanced on the arm of her easy chair. Time to butter the old trout up.

  ‘Mrs Durand-Deacon. Here I am! The Sculptor of the Seven Seas!’ She looked up at me and moved the plate towards her. She didn’t look best pleased.

  ‘You’re twenty minutes early,’ she said. ‘The girl hasn’t finished cleaning. I don’t want us to be disturbed.’

  ‘Couldn’t keep away Mrs Durand-Deacon. The prospect of putting Gerald through his three dimensional paces has really set the creative juices going. It’s what we creative types thrive on, a challenge. I’m going to make this shark the nastiest looking b. in the ocean.’ She took a biscuit, dipped it in the cup. Coffee.

  ‘I don’t care how nasty you make it,’ she said, sucking off the soggy bit. ‘It’s not enough. I’ve been thinking about what you can do further. It’s quite fortunate really, that we met like this.’

  So that’s what this was all about. She wanted more.

  ‘Well I don’t know if I can run to two free sharks Mrs Durand-Deacon. It’s an expensive business, shark sculpturing. I use a very exclusive type of railway sleeper, very tough on the tungsten-tipped chainsaw, very tough on the two-stroke engine, not to mention the toll on the old grey matter. And have you any idea what the hourly rate is for a sculptor at the top of his tree? May I?’ I reached across, picked up a chocolate coated digestive. She moved the plate to the other side of the chair.

  ‘These “sharks” you do,’ she said. ‘They’re just bits of wood aren’t they, with lumps hacked out of them? It’s not as if they’re the product of a refined artistic skill is it? More an example of someone whose talent, if one can call it that, is essentially crude and brutal.’

  Charmed I’m sure. I carried on.

  ‘Have you considered a portrait of your good self Mrs Durand-Deacon? We could throw in a quick portrait if you like. Miss Prosser does a very passable head and shoulders. She specializes in the riper subject.’ She didn’t like that.

  ‘How do you mean, riper?

  ‘Well, you take a painting of a young woman with her flawless skin, the fresh bloom on her, the sheen, the clarity, the hope, the lack of unsightly warts and wrinkles. Apart from the perfection, there’s nothing there is there? What you need for a half decent portrait to mean something is someone ravaged by three or four decades of drink and depression, a face that’s been through it. Something like yours.’

  ‘Are you trying to be offensive Mr Greenwood, or does it just come naturally?’

  ‘A portrait needs a face that has character, Mrs Durand-Deacon, steel and depth. Depth is very important. You got depth. You got depth like the Arctic’s got penguins.’

  She tapped her fingers together, thinking. Freebies. They just can’t resist them, punters.

  ‘I suppose a portrait might be worth considering. Full length of course. Something to go on the hall landing.’

  Full length! It’s the disease of our age, greed.

  ‘The hall landing? I thought Frinton was full of bungalows.’ She sniffed.

  ‘Do I look like someone who lives in a bungalow?’

  ‘That’s what threw me, you living in Frinton at all. I can just about see you out on a bungalow patio watering plants, I can just about see you in a bungalow conservatory reading Homes and Garden, but wandering about in your nightie on the same level where you wine and dine? I don’t think so. Yours is a two storey house I take it.’

  ‘And a cellar. The only one I believe. Very well.’ She started counting on her fingers. ‘A shark, a full length portrait, and the complimentary ten-day cruise for two on the Lady Diana’s next sailing, or another of my choice.’

  ‘I didn’t know they were doing that. That’s only a week away.’

  ‘It came through this morning apparently. I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough. It all adds up. The question is, is it sufficient?’

  She dipped the biscuit in again. I was hoping the end would drop off into her lap, but it didn’t. She was an expert, Mrs Durand-Deacon.

  ‘There’s just one more little thing I’d like you to do for me, and then perhaps we could call it quits.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘surprise me.’

  In went the remains of the biscuit. This time it didn’t come out, but she didn’t seem to mind. She just upended the cup with her little finger pointing ever so politely into the air and drank the lot down.

  ‘I’d like you to get rid of Gerald, Mr Greenwood. That shouldn’t be too difficult for an unconvicted murderer at the top of his tree, should it?’

  FOUR

  That’s what happens when you get a reputation. However hard you tr
y to break free, however good your intentions, life just won’t leave you alone. There’s always someone or something tapping you one the shoulder, reminding you who you were, who you still had to be. Alan Ladd faced this problem in Shane. All Shane wanted to do was to ride across the great whats-it in his fringed buckskins, minding his own business, six-shooter tucked away quiet, like hadn’t stroked it for a twelve month, but would civilisation and Jean Arthur let him? No they would not. He had to whip it out and cream half the cattlemen in Wyoming. He didn’t want to but there it was. He had no choice. It’s a moral dilemma that reformed characters trying to keep on the straight-and-narrow have to face all the time. And now it was my turn. I’d been good as gold for God knows how many years, yet out of the blue here it was, my past knocking on the door.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow your drift Mrs Durand-Deacon,’ I said.

  ‘The thing is, Gerald, the man you’re going to dispose of, is a great friend of our local prison governor Brian de Coveley. They go fishing together. When Gerald told him what had happened to me on the Lady Di and mentioned your name as being the person who had caused it all, he sat up as if, to quote my husband, “someone had inserted a spring in his rear end”. Brian knew all about you. Apparently, you’re quite famous in prison circles. Everyone knows you’ve done something homicidal, it’s just no one can work out exactly what. So, using the internet, I did a little research of my own. First there was your own trial and that peculiar defence of yours, that you were busy killing someone else, though you weren’t quite sure who. If that wasn’t interesting enough, then there was that funny business years before when your daughter’s fiancé fell off a mountain. What was his name?’

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘Robin. Such a talented young man by all accounts. And the more I read about you, the more I thought that it was in the stars, that you were meant to let that chainsaw loose on me, just as I was meant to jump over in fear of my life, that somehow you and me had an unfulfilled destiny to share. And then, there you were waiting for me yesterday as I stepped off that boat and right away, as soon as my foot touched land, I knew what it was. People around you come to sticky end all the time, and I thought why not Gerald? One more human being falling off a cliff would mean nothing to a man like you, and yet so much to me. Biscuit?’