‘I hope so,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘We’ll go through tacking, and jibing, which is the opposite of tacking. In jibing you turn the stern of the boat through the wind. Again, you need to watch out for the boom. You tend to jib a lot less than you tack, but you need to be familiar with both manoeuvres.’

  The coastline was now far behind them. The nearest other boat was about half a mile away so they had plenty of space to practise. In the far distance, Shepherd could see oil tankers and container ships, thousands of times their size. ‘Didn’t I hear that we have right of way in the shipping lanes?’ he asked.

  ‘In theory, yes,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Power has to give way to sail. That’s the rule. But the problem is, a container ship has so much inertia it’s a big thing for it to change direction. If the crew suddenly see a small sailboat in their path, by the time they’ve got their vessel moving it’s too late. Also, you’re dependent on them seeing you. The bridge might be twelve storeys high, the waves could be ten feet or more, and the guy on watch might be at the end of a long, boring shift. Is he going to see a thirty-footer in the dark? Or on a rainy day? No. It’s all very well saying that sail has the right of way, but if you find one of those buggers bearing down on you, you really need to get out of its way. Having maritime law on your side doesn’t help you if your boat’s been reduced to matchwood.’

  Willoughby-Brown spent the next two hours having Shepherd practise the two manoeuvres. He was soon able to perform them automatically. It wasn’t difficult: all he had to do was follow the steps in order. The next hour was spent practising heaving to, using the mainsail and the jib to work against each other so that the yacht could be held steady in the sea. Heaving to was harder to master, but again Shepherd was quick to learn. While he had his hands on the wheel to keep the boat heaved to, Willoughby-Brown went down into the galley to make two mugs of coffee. He gave one to Shepherd, then lit a small cigar. ‘Heaving to takes some getting used to, but it can save your life if you find yourself in really bad weather,’ he said. ‘Basically you ride out the storm rather than fighting your way through it.’

  He sipped his coffee. ‘Right. Time to teach you about reefing.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Reefing is reducing the area of the sails you’re using. You reef when the boat is heeling over too much. There’s nothing wrong with heeling over, but it can scare a less experienced passenger or crewman so we tend to reef when we get to an angle of twenty-five degrees or so, or when the wind is up to fifteen knots.’ He grinned. ‘Time to test that memory of yours,’ he said. ‘Here’s the drill. You slacken the boom vang and the mainsheet. You stabilise the boom by taking up the topping lift. You lower the main halyard until you’ve reefed as much as you want, then tighten and make fast the reefing tack line. You hoist the main halyard until the edge of the sail is wrinkle-free, then take in the reefing clew line and make fast. That done, you ease the main stopping lift, trim the mainsheet and tighten the boom vang.’ He grinned. ‘Easy-peasy.’ He had another sip of his coffee.

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Can you repeat that back to me?’

  ‘Sure.’ Shepherd did so, word for word.

  ‘Impressive,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

  ‘There’s just one problem,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what any of it means.’

  Willoughby-Brown chuckled drily. ‘You’re a funny guy, Daniel,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll soon get the hang of it and the jargon will come naturally.’ He put down his coffee mug and rubbed his hands together. ‘Let’s get started.’

  The train pulled into Paddington station but Standing stayed in his seat. He hadn’t thought through what he was going to do. He had no friends in London. Family, barely. His father was in prison there. And his sister lived there, but she had a new family and it had been made clear that he wasn’t welcome. So clear that her new parents had taken out a restraining order against him, which, as far as he knew, was still in effect. Debbie had given him a list of London therapists. He could choose which one he wanted and the Regiment would pay for up to ten sessions. He sighed and stood up, stretched and shouldered his kitbag. It contained all his worldly goods. Debbie had offered to send anything on to him, but there was nothing to send. Other than clothes, a few books and a digital radio, he had very little else. The SAS was his life and the Regiment gave him everything he needed. He shuddered. The thought that the SAS might no longer want him was terrifying and he wasn’t sure how he would deal with it.

  The first rule of survival when thrown into a hostile environment was to find shelter, then food and water. He stepped off the train and walked along the platform. The station was busy: people were hurrying to and from trains, many of them staring at smartphones as they walked. There were two armed policemen on the concourse, British Transport Police officers holding LMT CQB carbines, short-barrelled semi-automatic rifles chambered for the 5.56mm x 45mm NATO cartridge and based on the AR-15 design. Standing nodded his approval as they walked by him.

  He went out into Praed Street, and looked left and right. Shelter. That meant a hotel. He had money in the bank but he didn’t want to throw hundreds of pounds on a luxury establishment. He needed intel. He took out his iPhone and googled ‘cheap hotels in London near Paddington station’. Most seemed to be in Bayswater and he headed in that direction. Fifteen minutes later he was walking down Inverness Terrace. Most of the houses had been converted into small hotels, and many had ‘VACANCY’ signs in the window. They all seemed pretty much the same but then he saw one that advertised ‘SERVICED APARTMENTS’. That would probably be better privacy-wise so he went into a small reception area where a young Indian girl in a black suit explained that they rented studio apartments by the day, week and month. The colonel was expecting him back in Hereford in a month but he wasn’t sure how long he planned to stay in London so he opted for a month and paid with a credit card. She handed him a keycard and showed him where the stairs were. There was a lift, she said, but it was slow and always quicker to walk. Standing thanked her and headed up to the second floor.

  His studio was one large room overlooking the main street with a sofa and a big-screen TV on the wall, a small table with two chairs and a kitchen area with an oven, a hotplate and a microwave. He dropped his kitbag on the table. A door opened into a small shower room. There was another door but when he opened it there was nothing but a washing machine, a stack of bed linen and two pillows. He went back into the main room, then realised that the sofa folded down into a bed. It was small, but functional, and considerably better than his accommodation had been in Syria.

  He switched on the TV and tuned it to CNN, then took out his phone. It had been a month since he had last spoken to his sister, and there had been no phone coverage in Syria so he hadn’t even been able to text her. He sent her a text now: I’m in London. You OK?

  He put the phone on the table and went over to the kitchen area. There was a carton of milk in the fridge but it had gone off so he poured it down the sink. There was also a packet of cheese, which seemed okay, and some bacon, which didn’t. He found a jar of Gold Blend coffee in a cupboard over the sink, with a bag of sugar lumps and half a dozen Pot Noodles. Standing switched on the kettle and made himself a cup of coffee with two sugars, then went to the table. There was no reply from his sister. He sat down and sipped his coffee as he watched a blonde woman with too much make-up explain why China’s worsening relationship with the United States meant that more Chinese companies were doing business in Africa.

  He picked up his phone but there had been no reply. He called her number but it went straight through to voicemail so he sent another text: Lexi?

  He put his feet up on the sofa and closed his eyes. He was dog-tired and within minutes was fast asleep and snoring loudly.

  Willoughby-Brown kept the yacht out at sea until the sun went down to give Shepherd the experience of sailing back to port in the dark. It was a totally different environment: the horizon disappeared as the sea blended into the sky and the land was nothing more than a dark smudge. All around there were red, green and white lights, some of them flashing, on the boats around them and on the buoys marking the entrance to the marina.

  It took more than half an hour for Shepherd’s night vision to kick in properly, but even then it was tough to work out where he was and what was going on around him. He wished he had a pair of night-vision goggles.

  ‘Sailing at night is a whole different animal,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘To be honest, you’ll want to avoid it as much as possible. At least, you don’t want to be entering or leaving port at night.’ He turned the wheel to starboard and Shepherd discovered that the dark shape ahead was a motor launch – for some reason it hadn’t switched its lights on. ‘I’m comfortable enough around Brighton but I’ve been sailing in these waters for years. I’d be a lot less confident trying to find my way into a port I’d not been to before.’

  ‘It’s all about the buoys, right?’

  Willoughby-Brown nodded. He had put on a thick fleece and a floppy hat to protect himself against the cold wind blowing from the land. ‘They’re on the charts, and they’ll guide you in. You have to keep an eye out for other boats, and you don’t want to be doing it under sail at night. In fact, generally I’d use the engine to enter and leave port. You have more control.’

  He motioned for Shepherd to take the wheel. He pointed at a flashing green light in the distance. ‘Keep to the left of that buoy,’ he said.

  The flashing light was easy to focus on, but he was worried about other boats. The only clues to the direction the traffic was heading were the running lights. Each boat had a red light on its port side and a green light on its starboard side. So unless a vessel was pointed directly towards or away from him he would see a red light or a green one. If he saw a red light the other boat had right of way. If he saw green, he had right of way. Hopefully, with both boats knowing who had right of way, collisions shouldn’t happen. Except, as Willoughby-Brown pointed out, some sailors just didn’t care and others didn’t have great eyesight. That meant he had to be on his toes all the time, and it was exhausting work.

  The fact that he had memorised the chart made it easier but it still took a tremendous amount of concentration to keep on the right course and avoid other craft.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ said Willoughby-Brown, as if sensing his discomfort. ‘Try to relax. You’re gripping the wheel as if your life depended on it.’

  ‘Well, it sort of does,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Take deep breaths. And keep moving your head, not your eyes. Make use of your peripheral vision as much as you can.’

  Shepherd followed Willoughby-Brown’s advice, but he still felt as if they were travelling too quickly and that the boat was ever so slightly out of control. Eventually they reached the marina. Shepherd had assumed that Willoughby-Brown would take over the wheel when they got there but he seemed happy enough to talk Shepherd through it.

  ‘I hope you’re insured,’ said Shepherd, as he guided the boat through a narrow strip of water, multi-million-pound yachts and power boats on either side.

  ‘I have more faith in your ability than you do,’ said Willoughby-Brown.

  He let Shepherd bring the yacht into the jetty, then took over the wheel and the throttles and had Shepherd tie it up. Once it was secure, Willoughby-Brown switched off the engine and checked his knots. ‘Nice work,’ he said. He went through the hatchway and down into the main cabin where he switched on the lights. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Shepherd, sitting down at the main table. He was surprised at how tired he was, probably because he wasn’t used to being on a small boat, where his body was constantly having to adjust itself to the movement through the waves. There was a lot of running around, too, especially when tacking and jibing, and every muscle in his body ached. Willoughby-Brown had provided Marks & Spencer sandwiches and some shortbread to eat while they were sailing, but Shepherd had skipped breakfast and was ravenous.

  Willoughby-Brown opened a refrigerator. ‘I can offer you lasagne, a roast chicken dinner, a rather nice salmon in parsley sauce with sliced potatoes, or sausages and mash with onion gravy. It’s got to be microwaved but it’s good stuff.’

  ‘I could eat anything at the moment,’ said Shepherd. ‘The sausages sound good.’

  ‘Excellent choice,’ said Willoughby-Brown. He pulled out the pack and took the lasagne for himself, put them into the microwave, tapped in the power setting and time, then pulled out a bottle of red wine from a rack built into the cabin wall. ‘Nuits-Saint-Georges,’ he said, handing it to Shepherd with a corkscrew. ‘Quite a good year. Do the honours, will you?’

  Shepherd opened the bottle while Willoughby-Brown took two crystal glasses from a cupboard. ‘I can live with microwaved food but I refuse to scrimp on the wine,’ he said, sliding onto the seat opposite Shepherd. He held out the glasses and Shepherd poured.

  They clinked and drank. Shepherd had to admit it was a very good wine, rich, fruity, and so smooth that he drank almost half of his without realising. Willoughby-Brown laughed. ‘Try to savour it, Daniel. It’s forty quid a bottle and that’s wholesale.’ He continued to chuckle as he topped up Shepherd’s glass.

  ‘You haven’t told me why you’re so keen to get me sailing,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘It’s your way of getting close to Meyer,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘He operates around the world. Heroin from Afghanistan, marijuana from Jamaica and Nigeria, cocaine from Colombia. He usually ships in bulk. And by bulk I mean tons. The DEA has been tightening up on Colombian shipments moving by land so Meyer has been using yachts. Big catamarans, specifically. The cocaine is built into the hulls in Colombia, and he has them sailed to the Caribbean. Then the crew goes back to Colombia, and when he’s sure that the shipment is safe and not being watched, he gets another crew to sail it to Europe. He uses shipbrokers to arrange a fictitious sale and often the crew have no idea what’s inside the hull.’

  ‘Lisa gave you this, did she?’

  ‘No. This was an informant within his organisation. The DEA picked him up and turned him. The yacht connection came up during his interrogation. The DEA sent him back with a wire and he disappeared soon afterwards. The assumption is that Meyer had him killed. Either that or he’s sitting on a beach somewhere, laughing his arse off. I suspect the former.’

  ‘So the plan is to set me up as a sailor and get him to offer me a job?’

  ‘The sailing is your way in. It’s up to you then to show him you can be more of an asset.’

  Shepherd frowned. ‘I’m not following you.’

  ‘We’ll give you a legend with … attractive qualities, shall we say? Army background, a spell in prison – maybe you killed a man. We’re still working on it. When he meets you, he’ll think you’re just a jobbing sailor, but if he digs into your background he’ll discover the meaty stuff and that will intrigue him.’

  The microwave pinged. Willoughby-Brown eased himself off his seat and went to retrieve their meals. They were piping hot so he used a pair of oven gloves with nautical flags on to carry the food to the table. Shepherd peeled the plastic film off his sausages and mash and steam billowed out. Willoughby-Brown took knives and forks from a drawer, bottles of Heinz ketchup and HP sauce from a cupboard, and plonked them on the table, then sat down again. ‘Hope you don’t mind not having plates, but it saves on washing up,’ he said.

  ‘All good,’ said Shepherd, pouring HP sauce over his sausages. ‘So, how do I get an introduction?’

  ‘Again, we’re working on that. It’ll be something cute, something from left field. But once you get close, you’ll need to be involved with Lisa, too. We want to see what she sends back about you. If Meyer takes you on board – no pun intended – it’ll be a major red flag if she doesn’t report you to her handler.’

  ‘Who is her handler?’ asked Shepherd. He could tell from the way Willoughby-Brown’s jaw tensed that he’d struck a nerve so he smiled and tucked into his food as he waited for the answer.

  Willoughby-Brown took a long drink of wine, then a deep breath. ‘Sam Hargrove.’

  Over the years as an undercover agent Shepherd had learned to hide his reactions – showing his true feelings could be dangerous, even life-threatening at times – but his jaw dropped and he stared at Willoughby-Brown with a mixture of contempt and distrust. ‘Are you fucking serious?’ he said, putting down his knife and fork.

  Willoughby-Brown shrugged and looked out of the porthole.

  ‘Just how duplicitous are you?’ hissed Shepherd. ‘Are you trying to set up Sam Hargrove the way you screwed Charlie Button?’

  ‘Now you’re comparing apples and oranges,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘Charlotte was using MI5 resources to pursue her own agenda.’

  ‘And you’re the one who forced her out.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been me, someone else would have done it. I hope you’re not trying to justify what she did, Daniel, because you’d be on very shaky ground.’

  ‘You forced her out, and you ended up with her job. That was a coincidence, was it?’

  Willoughby-Brown looked Shepherd in the eyes. ‘When I began investigating Button, I had no intention of doing her job. That is a fact. You might not like it, you might not believe it, but it’s a fact nonetheless. I was asked to take over her role after she had left.’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘No, I don’t believe it. Yes, I believe you were given her job only after she’d gone, but you must have known you’d be in line to succeed her.’ He was still hungry so he picked up his knife and fork and started eating again. The sausages were surprisingly good.

  ‘I did what I did because it was in the best interests of the Service,’ said Willoughby-Brown. ‘She was using MI5 assets to kill the men who had murdered her husband.’

 

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