Festival, page 20
At that moment the thump-thump of the diesel stopped. The schooner was thrown beam on to the sea, and lay wallowing. A distraught Harriet ran to the top of the companionway. ‘The engine’s stopped. On deck everyone and help me get some sail up,’ she called. Then she noticed Piet. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.
‘Hit him, Harriet. Rush him from behind,’ Stephen Partridge yelled.
Harriet did not move. ‘There’s an injured man on the settee,’ Piet said. ‘You, Miss Partridge, had better help to bandage his wound. There is a key in the lock of this door. I am going to lock you in. If there’s another key, or if anyone breaks out and appears on deck, I shall shoot to kill. I’ll get at least a headsail up, and try to bring the schooner under control. After that, we’ll have to see.’
He slammed the door, locked it from the far side, and went on deck. The schooner was taking a dreadful battering – at this rate it couldn’t be long before the masts went, Piet thought. Clinging to the rail he went forward to the wallowing foredeck, found the halliard for the jib left ready to set, and hoisted the sail. He sheeted it for running before the gale, and went aft again to the wheel.
With a headsail to pull her round, the schooner’s wallowing eased a little, and the weight of wind was enough to give her steerage way with only one jib set. Piet had her more or less under control, but he was not at all happy about their position. They couldn’t be far off the coast, and this was an onshore gale. Left as she was, it wouldn’t be long before Morning Star was piled up on one or other of the outlying rocks of that fearful Cornish coast.
Through the noise of the gale he heard a battering on the saloon door. He could scarcely leave Morning Star to steer herself, but she was steadier now, and he could lash the wheel for a moment. There was some line on the deck beside the wheel, and he used this for a hurried temporary lashing. Then he went below to the door, but did not open it. ‘I can hear you through the door if you shout,’ he said. ‘What is it now?’
‘They want to kill your daughter,’ Harriet said.
*
Piet unlocked the door and was thankful to see four people still in the saloon – the wounded man on the settee, Stephen Partridge and the girl Sue leaning on the table with their heads on their arms, the third man apparently about to go through another door that led out of the saloon forward. Harriet was standing by the companion entrance. ‘Jane lost her life in trying to save your daughter,’ she said. ‘I don’t want her killed now. He’ – pointing to the man –’is quite capable of killing her.’
Piet was an excellent pistol shot, and had won several prizes in training at the small arms school. He sent a bullet within an inch of the third man’s right ear, to crash harmlessly into the woodwork of the saloon. ‘That went where it was meant to go,’ he said. ‘If there’s another round, it will be in your head. Come back here.’
The man obeyed. Piet took a sudden decision. To Harriet he said, ‘I’m going to trust you. Go back to the wheel, and try to keep her from broaching to. I’ll be on deck with you in a moment.’
Harriet went up the companionway, and as the man approached Piet said, ‘Put your hands behind your back, and go on deck.’
‘I can’t go on deck if I can’t hold on,’ the man said.
‘Then you can bloody well fall down. Do as I tell you.’
Lurching as the schooner rolled, the man tried to climb the companionway, slipped, and instinctively threw out an arm to steady himself. Piet hit him hard on the elbow with his pistol, and the man fell. Slipping his pistol into his pocket Piet seized the man’s wrists from behind, heaved him more or less to his feet, and pushed him up the companion steps. On deck, he hit the man hard on his jaw, partly knocking him out. ‘I want that line by the wheel,’ Piet called to Harriet.
She threw it to him, and before the man could recover Piet tied his wrists together behind his back. Then he bound the man’s ankles. Securely trussed, Piet dragged him to the scuppers and used the rest of the line to tie him to the mainmast shrouds. At least now he couldn’t go overboard, though he would be wet and exceedingly uncomfortable. Piet simply did not care.
Harriet was fighting gamely to hold the schooner to some sort of course before the wind. She was yawing wildly, but came back each time, and seemed in no immediate danger of broaching.
‘Are you really that Chief Constable Mr Deventer?’ Harriet asked.
Piet nodded, and she went on, ‘I suppose that explains some things, though I don’t know how you knew that your daughter was on board.’
‘I didn’t. I thought she might be.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Sue Carson said you were the baby’s father, and Malcolm – that’s Malcolm Jones, the man you tied up – was delighted. He said they still had the baby, and that was the best hold on you they could have.’
‘Where is Jo?’
‘In a cabin forward of the saloon. Malcolm was going to get her, and kill her if you didn’t hand over your pistol to him. He would have done it, too.’
‘What about Stephen, and the woman with him, and the wounded man?’
‘Stephen and the other man are all right – I mean, I can’t see either of them killing a baby. Sue could, but she’s so seasick I don’t think she can do much at the moment.’
‘I don’t know. Give me the wheel, and you go below to fetch Jo. Bring plenty of blankets, and we’ll put her at the foot of the companion where we can see her. Then I’ll lock the others in, as before.’
Harriet went off, and was back in a couple of minutes carrying Jo, who seemed able to sleep peacefully through the storm. Piet took Jo from her, handed over the wheel, and returned to the foot of the companion. Having locked the door again, he made a kind of nest of blankets for Jo, and cradled her in it. ‘I want some more line,’ he called to Harriet.
‘There’s a coil on one of the belaying pins to starboard.’
Piet fetched it, made a harness to go under Jo’s arms and round her shoulders, and made fast the line to the rail of the companionway. Snuggled at the foot of the companion she was unlikely to be tossed overboard, but Piet was taking no chances. The feel of Jo’s warm little body as he worked on her filled his whole being with a prayer of thanksgiving. That Jo, with the rest of them, was in a position of the gravest danger, didn’t seem to matter. She was restored to him, and she was unhurt.
Having made Jo as comfortable as he could, Piet went aft again to Harriet. ‘Where do you think we are, and what are we going to do?’ he asked.
‘I doubt if we’re more than three or four miles off Lobber Point. If we can hold this course we’ll stay clear of the Lobber, but we’re almost certain to be blown on to Tresunger’s Point, or somewhere at the bottom of Bound’s Cliff, to the east of Port Gaverne. I should think we’ll hit in about half an hour.’ She seemed wholly practical, unemotional and even unconcerned by the prospect of imminent shipwreck.
‘Then we’ve got to find more sea-room quickly,’ Piet said. ‘Is there really no more fuel for the diesel?’
‘No. There should be, but they seem to have been using the engine all day. We were going to take on fuel at Port Gaverne, but in all the fuss it was just left on the quay.’
‘Then we must get a reefed main up. This little headsail’s helping, but it’s got nothing like enough power. Can the two of us get the main up?’
‘Oh, yes, we’re well equipped with winches. I’m not sure if she’ll stand it, though. It ought to be a storm trysail.’
‘Have you got one?’
‘Yes, but it will take time to get it from the sail locker.’
‘We haven’t got any time. It will have to be the reefed main, and we’ll hope for the best. I’ll take the wheel while you make ready the halliards and sheets – you’ll have to do that, because you know how everything runs. When you shout, I’ll come and help lift.’
‘You seem to know something about boats.’
‘A bit. But we can’t talk any more. We’ve got to get out to sea.’
The north-westerly wind was pushing them south-east, but the brave little headsail, and the fine handling qualities inherent in the schooner’s design, combined to enable them to hold a course that was a little more easterly, perhaps about east by south. Somehow they had to get some northing, and soon. Harriet worked quickly, Piet ran between wheel and halliard, and between them they got the heavily-reefed mainsail set. In spite of the winches, it needed all Piet’s strength to control the sheet.
The schooner felt the power of the sail at once. ‘Can we make anything like north-east?’ Piet asked.
Harriet shook her head. ‘I’ll try, but I don’t think she’ll go round that far. With another headsail we might, but even then I doubt it, and we’re losing ground so fast that there isn’t time to get another sail up. You’d better let me have the wheel – I know her, you see.’
Again her assessment was wholly practical. Piet agreed, and gave the wheel to her, standing behind her in case she needed his strength to help her with it. For all their critical situation, Piet was absorbed in watching her – she handled the heavy wheel with the delicacy of a jockey at the reins of a finely-bred racehorse, letting Morning Star have her head when she wanted to, seizing just the right second to nudge her more nearly towards the course they needed to try to make. The compass card in the binnacle was swinging so much that it was hard to make out what was their heading, but first they gained easting, and then at least a scrap of north. Anything north of east would at least take them away from the immediately dangerous coast to the south of Port Isaac Bay, though as the coast trended northwards to Tintagel Head they would need to make much more northing to clear the later dangers ahead of them. For the moment, though, Piet felt that they had won some breathing space.
‘You’re a wonderful partnership, you and your boat,’ he said in genuine admiration.
‘You’re not a bad partner, either,’ Harriet replied.
‘Where were you actually bound for?’ Piet asked.
‘Antwerp, or rather a place on the Scheldt where yachts go, not far from Antwerp.’
‘Could you have got out to sea against this wind?’
‘With the engine we’d have managed, I think. We were making a little headway before the fuel ran out.’
‘Why were you taking Jo?’
*
She didn’t answer at once. Piet felt the extraordinary nature of their relationship – she was apparently on his side, or partly on his side, but she seemed as totally detached from life as a human being can be. He had to stand close behind her, almost enfolding her with his arms, his hands closing over hers on the spokes of the heavy wheel when she needed his strength to hold the schooner to her course. They were so close together that in spite of the wind they could talk to each other. Harriet answered his question with another question. ‘Do you know why Jane was killed?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘I want to be sure that you know. I don’t think we’re going to survive because I don’t think we can avoid hitting the rocks. I’m really rather glad. But I don’t want to die before I’ve convinced you that Jane was not an evil person.’
‘We’re not going to hit just yet. And you never know what can happen. I think I believe you about Jane.’
‘You must believe me. I suppose it was all Daddy’s fault in a way – he gave Stephen far too much money, and it was all borrowed money, which had to be paid back when he died. Stephen got into a rotten set at Cambridge – drugs and all the rest of it. And in a way it was because he was so talented – he really was a good composer, and at least half a poet. Then he started taking drugs himself, and needed more and more money to buy them. His group, the Space Orchids, was quite good, but there were some rotten people in it – I think the girl Sue was the worst. They weren’t well enough known to make all the money they wanted, so they developed a sideline, which became their main business, of acting as sort of wholesalers for drugs. But that wasn’t the worst of it. They were suspected by the police, but one of the top detectives was a thoroughly bad man himself. He realised how useful the group could be to him, and not only to him, for although I suppose you’re a decent policeman, not all policemen are, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know. There aren’t many bad policemen, but those there are can do an appalling amount of harm.’
‘They did to Stephen. There was a kind of police ring, engaged not only in helping to push drugs, but working with people who stole jewellery, and anything valuable and small. It may seem funny, but their difficulty was to be able to assemble the loot. It came from a lot of different places, you see, and the police who weren’t crooked were always trying to track it down. The group was of tremendous value to them – it could move about the country without any questions being asked, it could draw crowds at concerts, and anything could be handed over.’
‘How did you and the schooner come into it?’
‘Through Stephen – and Jane. I’m afraid Jane helped with the distribution work a bit. In a way she wanted to make money, and it paid well, of course, but really she was trying to keep an eye on Stephen. The trouble came when they threatened to cut off Stephen’s drugs. They knew I had a boat, and one of the police ring – I’m not mentioning names because I’m only talking about Stephen and Jane and me – but I think you know who he is, anyway – thought that the boat could be useful for distribution to the Continent. Well, she was . . . I hated everything to do with it, but Stephen was in their hands, and so by that time was Jane, for that matter . . .’
‘Are you taking a consignment now?’
‘Yes, the biggest yet. That was how the Earl’s Down festival came into it. Drugs and jewellery worth millions, perhaps, were collected there, and brought down here yesterday. That was why we had to sail in spite of the weather.’
‘I still don’t understand why you were taking Jo with you. Incidentally, I know all about Margaret’s baby.’
‘How on earth did you find out? I suppose it doesn’t matter. You see, the people at Earl’s Down – I mean, the people in the ring – were afraid of you, and wanted you kept out of things. That is why they took your daughter, and it was worse than that, because I think they were going to get rid of her. They thought that a murder hunt after such a kidnapping would keep every policeman out of the way for a bit. Jane and another man – again I’m not giving names – were to do the kidnapping, and it was arranged that Stephen’s group should be playing at the time, so that none of them could possibly be involved. But your daughter was to be handed over to Sue. Jane partly heard about, partly guessed, the rest of the plan, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with hurting the child. She came down and talked it all over with me, and we worked out a scheme for not delivering your daughter to the festival. If you know about Margaret’s baby, you know how our scheme worked.’
‘I think so, yes – the main parts, anyway. But why did you want to keep Jo?’
‘Well, first, we were frightened – what else could we do with her? You see, I didn’t know that Jane was dead, until you told me. I couldn’t expect to hear from Jane while I was on the boat, but I expected her to ring me up after I came ashore last night, or even to be down here waiting for me. When I heard nothing I was very worried and guessed that something awful must have happened, but I didn’t know. Until you came to see me, I was still hoping that Jane would turn up with the party tonight.’
‘You kept Jo on your boat until you landed to return Margaret’s baby last night. Why did you go on keeping her?’
‘There wasn’t anywhere I could take her. And I thought that if we could keep your daughter alive somewhere –perhaps in Belgium or Holland – she’d give us a kind of hold over the others, so that we could get Stephen away from them. You see, we could threaten to produce her at any time.’
‘How did you get her looked after when you’d left the schooner yourself?’
‘Angus – the man you shot and wounded – is the regular engineer, and although you mightn’t think so as a policeman, he’s a very decent sort. He likes kids, and he got on famously with your daughter when we were all on board. After I left there were only Angus and Malcolm. I don’t trust Malcolm, but I knew that Angus wouldn’t let him do anything to your daughter, and until you turned up tonight Malcolm had an interest in keeping her safe, because he could use her to blackmail the others. I suppose that’s really what we were trying to do too, only we wanted to blackmail them for different reasons.’
‘Did Angus and Malcolm bring the schooner into Port Gaverne tonight without any other crew?’
‘Yes. Angus is a fine seaman, and he doesn’t have to be with the diesel all the time. He had Malcolm to give him a hand on deck.’
‘I’m sorry I had to shoot Angus. He’ll have a nasty wound, but I made sure not to hit him anywhere vital.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You did what you had to do. Angus would have got you if he could, and Malcolm and Sue would certainly have argued for throwing you overboard.’
‘What would you have done?’
‘I don’t know that I could have done anything. Stephen’s no good, with drugs and seasickness. Angus would probably have tried to keep you tied up and let you go somewhere, but he couldn’t have done much against Malcolm and Sue, seasick as she is. Before I knew about you being on board I’d pretty well made up my mind to run us all on the rocks, perhaps on the Mouls. With Jane dead and Stephen finished, I’ve nothing to live for. Now it looks as if we shall go on the rocks anyway. I can’t get any more north than we’re going. We’re bound to hit the coast.’
‘Maybe you have a lot to live for. And going ashore doesn’t necessarily mean the end – it depends how we do it. I wish I had your knowledge of the coast – all I’ve got is a rough picture of the Ordnance map in my mind. Could you identify Nancarrig Head?’
Piet accepted that they might have to be shipwrecked, but he was determined to try to run the schooner ashore on sand or shingle instead of hitting rocks in deep water. Running ashore in the breakers they would meet might or might not give them a chance of life, but with any luck it would leave the wreckage of the schooner with the evidence, and the valuable haul, she carried. From his memory of the map there was a fairly wide-mouthed cove just east of Nancarrig Head. If they could round the Head and run into the cove, they just might be able to beach the schooner. And with the tide now falling, at least she might stay until dawn without breaking up.
