Night Over Water

by Ken Follett

  She bit her lip and considered her situation. When her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she was able to see a line of light under the door. She walked toward it, holding both hands out in front of her. When she reached the door, she felt the wall on both sides of it and found a switch. She flipped it up and the boathouse was flooded with light. She found the handle of the door and tried, without any real hope, to push it open. It did not budge: he had jammed it well. She put her shoulder to the door and heaved with all her might, but it would not move.

  Her elbows and knees hurt where she had fallen, and her stockings were torn. “You pig,” she said to the absent Peter.

  She put on her shoes, picked up her handbag and looked around. Most of the space was taken up by a big sailing boat on a wheeled dolly. Its mast hung in a cradle from the ceiling, and its sails were folded in neat bundles on the deck. At the front of the boathouse was a wide door. Nancy examined it and found, as she expected, that it was securely locked.

  The house was set back from the beach a little, but there was a chance that passengers from the Clipper, or even someone else, might meander past. Nancy took a deep breath and shouted at the top of her voice: “Help! Help! Help!” She decided to yell at one-minute intervals so that she would not get hoarse.

  Both the front and side doors were stout and well-fitting, but she might be able to break them open with a crowbar or something. She looked around. The owner was a neat man: he did not keep gardening tools in his boathouse. There were no shovels or rakes.

  She shouted for help again, then climbed onto the deck of the boat, still looking for a tool. There were several closets on deck, but all had been locked shut by the tidy owner. She looked around the place again from up on the deck, but she saw nothing new. “Damn, damn, damn!” she said aloud.

  She sat on the raised centerboard and brooded despondently. It was quite cold in the boathouse, and she was glad of her cashmere coat. She continued to call for help every minute or so but, as time passed, her hopes diminished. The passengers would be back on board the Clipper by now. Soon it would take off, leaving her behind.

  It struck her that losing the company might be the least of her worries. Suppose nobody came by this boathouse for a week? She could die here. Panicking, she began to yell loudly and continuously. She could hear a note of hysteria in her voice, and that scared her even more.

  After a while she got tired, and that calmed her. Peter was wicked but he was not a murderer. He would not leave her to die. He probably intended to place an anonymous call to the Shediac police department and tell them to let her out. But not until after the board meeting, of course. She told herself she was safe, but she still felt deeply uneasy. What if Peter was more wicked than she thought? What if he should forget? What if he fell ill, or suffered some sort of accident? Who would save her then?

  She heard the roar of the Clipper’s mighty engines sounding out across the bay. From panic her mood switched to total despair. She had been betrayed and defeated, and she had even lost Mervyn, who would be on board the plane by now, waiting to take off. He might wonder idly what had happened to her, but since her last words to him had been “You fool!” he probably figured she was through with him.

  It had been arrogant of him to assume she would follow him to England, but to be realistic about it, any man would have made the same assumption, and she had been silly to get mad about it. Now they had parted angrily and she would never see him again. She might even die.

  The roar of the distant engines rose to a crescendo. The Clipper was taking off. The noise persisted at high volume for a minute or two, then began to fade as, Nancy presumed, the plane climbed into the distant sky. That’s it, she thought; I’ve lost my business and I’ve lost Mervyn, and I’m probably going to starve to death here. No, she would not starve, she would die of thirst, raving and screaming in agony....

  She felt a tear on her cheek, and wiped it away with the cuff of her coat. She had to pull herself together. There must be a way out of here. She looked around again. She wondered if she could use the mast as a battering ram. She reached up to the sling. No, the mast was much too heavy to be moved by one person. Could she cut through the door somehow ? She recalled stories of prisoners in medieval dungeons scratching the stones with their fingernails year after year in a vain attempt to dig a way out. She did not have years, and she would need something stronger than fingernails. She looked in her bag. She had a small ivory comb, a bright red lipstick almost used up, a cheap powder compact the boys had given her for her thirtieth birthday, an embroidered handkerchief, her checkbook, a five-pound note; several fifty-dollar bills and a small gold pen: nothing she could use. She thought of her clothes. She was wearing a crocodile belt with a gold-plated buckle. The point of the buckle might be used to gouge away the wood of the door around the lock. It would be a long job, but she had all the time in the world.

  She climbed off the boat and located the lock on the big front door. The wood was quite stout, but perhaps she would not need to scratch all the way through: when she had made a deep groove it might then break. She shouted for help again. No one answered.

  She took off her belt. Her skirt would not stay up without it, so she took that off, folded it neatly and draped it over the gunwale of the boat. Although no one could see her, she was glad she was wearing pretty panties with a lacy trim and a matching garter belt.

  She scratched a square mark all around the lock and then began to make it deeper. The metal of her buckle was not very strong, and after a while the prong bent. Nevertheless she carried on, stopping every minute or so to shout. Slowly the mark became a groove. Sawdust trickled out and drifted to the floor.

  The wood of the door was soft, perhaps because of the damp air. The work went more quickly and she began to think she might get out soon.

  Just as she was becoming hopeful, the prong snapped off.

  She picked it up from the floor and tried to continue, but without the buckle the prong on its own was hard to handle. If she dug deep it slipped from her fingers, and if she scratched lightly she made the groove no deeper. After dropping it five or six times she cursed aloud, cried tears of rage and hammered uselessly on the door with her fists.

  A voice called: “Who’s there?”

  She shut up and, stopped hammering. Had she really heard it? She shouted: “Hello! Help!”

  “Nancy, is that you?”

  Her heart leaped. The voice had a British accent, and she recognized it. “Mervyn! Thank God!”

  “I’ve been searching for you. What the devil happened to you?”

  “Just let me out, will you?”

  The door shook. “It’s locked.”

  “Come around the side.”

  “On my way.”

  Nancy crossed the boathouse, skirting the sailing boat, and went to the side door. She heard him say: “It’s wedged—just a minute....” She realized she was standing there in her stockings and underwear, so she pulled her coat around her to cover her nakedness. A moment later the door flew open, and she flung herself into Mervyn’s arms. “I thought I was going to die in here!” she said, and to her embarrassment she began to cry.

  He hugged her and stroked her hair, saying: “There, there.”

  “Peter locked me in,” she said tearfully.

  “I guessed he’d done something sly. That brother of yours is a right bastard, if you ask me.”

  Nancy did not care about Peter—she was too glad to see Mervyn. She looked into his eyes through a haze of tears, then kissed his face all over: eyes, cheeks, nose and finally lips. She suddenly felt powerfully aroused. She opened her mouth and kissed him passionately. He put his arms around her and squeezed her tight. She pressed herself against him, hungry for the feel of his body. He ran his hands down her back inside her coat and stopped, startled, when he felt her panties. He drew back and looked at her. Her coat had fallen open. “What happened to your skirt?”

  She laughed. “I tried to cut through the door with the p
rong of my belt buckle, and my skirt wouldn’t stay up without the belt, so I took it off....”

  “What a nice surprise,” he said thickly, and he stroked her bottom and her bare thighs. She felt his penis grow erect against her stomach. She reached down and stroked it.

  In a moment they were both mad with desire. She wanted to make love now, here, and she knew he felt the same. He covered her small breasts with his big hands, and she gasped. She pulled open the buttons of his fly and reached inside. All the time, in the back of her mind, she was thinking, I might have died, I might have died, and the thought made her desperate for satisfaction. She found his penis, squeezed it and pulled it out. They were both breathing like sprinters now. She stood back and looked down at the big cock in her small white hand. Giving in to an irresistible urge, she bent over and took it in her mouth.

  It seemed to fill her up. There was a mossy smell in her nostrils and a salty taste in her mouth. She groaned: she had forgotten how much she liked doing this. She could have gone on forever, but eventually he drew her head up, moaning: “Stop, before I burst.”

  He bent in front of her and slowly drew her panties down. She felt shy and inflamed at the same time. He kissed her pubic hair. He pulled her panties down to her ankles and she stepped out of them.

  He straightened up and embraced her again, and then at last his hand closed over her sex, and a moment later she felt his finger slide easily inside. All the while they kissed wetly, lips and tongues in a frantic tangle, pausing only to gasp for breath. After a while she drew away from him, looked around and said: “Where?”

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he said.

  She reached up and clasped her hands behind his neck. He put his hands under her thighs and lifted her effortlessly off the ground. Her coat swung behind her. As he lowered her, she guided him inside, then wrapped her legs around his waist.

  For a moment they were still, and she savored the feeling she had been without so long, the comforting sense of utter closeness that came from having a man inside her and mingling two bodies so intimately. It was the best feeling in the world, and she thought she must have been mad to go without it for ten years.

  Then she began to move, pulling herself to him and pushing away. She heard him groan deep in his throat, and the thought of the pleasure she was giving him inflamed her more. She felt shameless, making love in this bizarre position with a man she hardly knew. At first she wondered whether he could take her weight; but she was petite and he was a big man. He grasped the globes of her bottom and moved her, lifting her up and down. She closed her eyes and relished the feeling of his penis going in and out and her clitoris pressing against his belly. She forgot to worry about his strength and concentrated intensely on the sensations in her groin.

  After a while she opened her eyes and looked at him. She wanted to tell him that she loved him. Somewhere in the back of her mind a sentinel of common sense told her it was too soon; but all the same she felt it. “You’re very dear,” she whispered to him.

  The look in his eyes told her that he understood. He murmured her name and began to move faster.

  She closed her eyes again and thought only of the waves of delight emanating from the place where their bodies met. She heard her own voice, as if at a distance, giving small cries of pleasure each time she sank down on him. He was breathing hard, but he held her weight without any sign of strain. Now she sensed him holding back, waiting for her. She thought of the pressure building up inside him with every rise and fall of her hips, and that image pushed her over the top. Her whole body thrilled with pleasure and she cried aloud. She felt him surge and jerk, and she rode him like a bucking horse as the climax shook them both. At last the pleasure eased, Mervyn became still, and she slumped on his chest.

  He hugged her hard and said: “By heck, is it always like that for you?”

  She laughed breathlessly. She loved a man who could make her laugh.

  Eventually he lowered her to the floor. She stood shakily on her feet, still leaning on him, for a few minutes. Then, reluctantly, she put her clothes back on.

  They smiled at one another a lot, but did not speak, as they went out into the mild sunshine and walked slowly along the beach toward the pier.

  Nancy was wondering if perhaps it was her destiny to live in England and marry Mervyn. She had lost her battle for control of the company: there was no way she could get to Boston in time for the board meeting, so Peter would outvote Danny Riley and Aunt Tilly, and carry the day. She thought of her boys: they were independent now; she did not need to live her life according to their needs. And she had now discovered that as a lover Mervyn was everything she longed for. She still felt dazed and a little weak after their lovemaking. But what would I do in England? she thought. I can’t be a housewife.

  They reached the pier and stood looking over the bay. Nancy wondered how often trains ran from here. She was about to propose making inquiries when she noticed Mervyn staring hard at something in the distance. “What are you looking at?” she said.

  “A Grumman Goose,” he said thoughtfully.

  “I don’t see any geese.”

  He pointed. “That little seaplane is called a Grumman Goose. It’s quite new—they’ve only been out for a couple of years. They’re very fast, faster than the Clipper....”

  She looked at the seaplane. It was a modern-looking twin-engined monoplane with an enclosed cabin. She realized what he was thinking. In a seaplane she could get to Boston in time for the board meeting. “Could we charter it?” she said hesitantly, hardly daring to hope.

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “Let’s ask!” She hurried along the pier to the airline building, and Mervyn followed, his long stride easily keeping up with her. Her heart was pounding. She might yet save her company. But she kept her elation bottled up: there might be a snag.

  They entered the building, and a young man in a Pan American uniform said: “Hey, you guys missed your plane!”

  Without preamble, Nancy said: “Do you know who the little seaplane belongs to?”

  “The Goose? Sure do. A mill owner called Alfred Southborne.”

  “Does he ever rent it?”

  “Yeah, whenever he can. You want to charter it?”

  Nancy’s heart leaped. “Yes!”

  “One of the pilots is right here—came to look at the Clipper.” He stepped back and called into an adjoining room. “Hey, Ned? Someone wants to charter your Goose.”

  Ned came out. He was a cheerful man of about thirty in a shirt with epaulets. He nodded politely and said: “I’d like to help you folks, but my copilot ain’t here, and the Goose needs a crew of two.”

  Nancy’s heart sank again.

  Mervyn said: “I’m a pilot.”

  Ned looked skeptical. “Ever flown a seaplane?”

  Nancy held her breath.

  Mervyn said: “Yes—the Supermarine.”

  Nancy had never heard of a Supermarine, but it must have been a competition plane, for Ned was impressed and said: “Do you race?”

  “I did when I was young. Now I just fly for pleasure. I have a Tiger Moth.”

  “Well, if you’ve flown a Supermarine you won’t have any trouble being copilot on the Goose. And Mr. Southbome is away until tomorrow. Where do you want to go?”

  “Boston.”

  “Cost you a thousand dollars.”

  “No problem!” Nancy said excitedly. “But we need to leave right away.”

  The man looked at her in mild surprise: he had assumed the man was in charge. “We can be gone in a few minutes, ma’am. How would you pay?”

  “I can give you a personal check, or you can bill my company in Boston, Black’s Boots.”

  “You work for Black’s Boots?”

  “I own it.”

  “Hey, I’m wearing your shoes!”

  She looked down. He had on the $6.95 toe-capped Oxford in black, size 9. “How do they feel?” she said automatically.

  “Great. Th
ey’re good shoes. But I guess you know that.”

  She smiled. “Yes,” she said. “They’re good shoes.”

  PART VI

  SHEDIAC TO THE BAY OF FUNDY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Margaret was frantic with worry as the Clipper climbed over New Brunswick and headed for New York. Where was Harry?

  The police had found out that he was traveling on a false passport: that much was common knowledge among the passengers. She could not imagine how they had found out, but it was an academic question. More important was what they would do to him if they caught him. Presumably he would be sent back to England, where he would either go to jail for stealing those wretched cuff links or be conscripted into the army; and then how would she ever find him?

  As far as she knew, they had not caught him yet. The last time she saw him, he had gone to the men’s room as she was disembarking at Shediac. Was that the beginning of some escape plan? Had he known then that he was in trouble?

  The police had searched the plane without finding him, so he must have got off at some point; but where had he gone? Was he even now walking along a narrow road through the forest, trying to thumb a lift? Or had he perhaps talked his way onto a fishing vessel and left by sea? Whatever he had done, the same question tortured Margaret: Would she ever see him again?

  She told herself again and again she must not be discouraged. Losing Harry hurt, but she still had Nancy Lenehan to help her.

  Father could not stop her now. He was a failure and an exile, and he had lost his power to coerce her. However, she was still frightened that he might lash out, like a wounded animal at bay, and do something terribly destructive.

  As soon as the plane reached cruising height, she unfastened her seat belt and went aft to see Mrs. Lenehan.

  The stewards were preparing the dining room for lunch as she passed through. Farther back, in number 4 compartment, Ollis Field and Frank Gordon were sitting side by side, handcuffed together. Margaret went all the way to the rear and knocked on the door of the honeymoon suite. There was no reply. She knocked again, then opened it. It was empty.