Stormchild (44 page)

Molly Tetterman, released from her prison, took it upon herself to organize the dispirited Genesis survivors. Molly could no more resist organizing other people than a bee could desist from making honey, for, while she believed herself to be a nurturing earth mother, she was, in truth, a feminist sergeant-major, who discovered in the sodden wreckage of the settlement a challenge worthy of her talents, and thus she cowed, drilled, and bullied the Genesis survivors into making some small efforts for their own comfort. She rescued food from the ruin I had made of the kitchen and handed out warm clothes from von Rellsteb’s wardrobe. She harassed the men into cleaning up the mud-drenched rooms, and used her gentler talents to comfort the scared children. Molly, in brief, was just what a shattered Genesis community needed, and just what I needed, for her bundles of energy freed me from the need to make a similar effort.

Molly looked after the settlement’s survivors, while I crippled their boats and wrapped their dead. Then, in mid-morning, I limped through the remains of the vegetable plots toward the escarpment. Stephen, I remembered, was still imprisoned on the ridge.

Jackie caught up with me beside a pond that had been a cabbage patch before I released the reservoir. Where the dam had been there was now nothing but a smooth, high valley that hung above the coastline. A small stream spilt over that lofty rim to glitter in the wan morning light. “What do you think of Molly?” Jackie asked in a tone of voice which implied that she expected to hear my heartfelt expressions of admiration.

“She overwhelms me,” I said, “but I’m glad she’s here, because she can look after this place till the authorities get here.” Once David arrived I proposed to contact the Chilean authorities on
Stormchild
’s radio and tell them about the murder of the Australians, and about the body they would find in the high rocks above the limestone quarry, and about von Rellsteb and Lisl. They would not, however, find me because, as I told Jackie, I intended to take
Stormchild
and intercept Nicole’s return.

It took me most of the scramble up the wet escarpment to outline those plans. Once at the top I released the freezing Stephen from the rock cleft. He was pathetically grateful, but less so when I unceremoniously kicked him over the escarpment’s brink to tumble him helplessly down the steep slope toward the flooded settlement.

Jackie and I stood together on the rocky summit beside the wreckage of the radio mast. The wind whipped at our coats and drove cold rain toward the empty bay where the burned-out trawler lay like a black scar against the rocks. “Suppose the missing Genesis boats get back here before the authorities arrive?” Jackie asked nervously.

“I’ll leave you these two guns. Personally I doubt that you’ll need them. I suspect Nicole will follow me, and the other boat will know the game’s up. They won’t fight you.”

It took a tired Jackie a moment before she realized that I planned to sail without her. “You don’t want me to come with you?” She asked with a hurt intonation.

“More than anything in the world,” I answered truthfully, “but you’re not coming.”

“Why not?” Her voice was guarded.

“Because Nicole isn’t like the rest of Genesis. She’s not going to collapse at the first hurdle. She’s fighter, and her boat is crewed by the most fanatical of all von Rellsteb’s recruits. I don’t think she’ll give in without a fight.”

“But what does she have to gain by fighting you?” Jackie asked.

“Nothing now,” I said, “because it’s all over, but she may not see it that way. She’s obsessed; she lives in her own world where everyone else is out of step.” I paused. “I hope I’m wrong about her, but she could be a very angry and very lethal young woman right now.”

“So why are you going to find her?” Jackie asked.

“Because she’s my daughter. Because no one else will help her. And because I’ve come all this way to find her, so it seems stupid not to take the last few steps.”

The wind lifted Jackie’s fair hair which was still bleached from the sun and salt of our Atlantic crossing. “I think it’ll be safe for me to come,” she insisted with a gentle defiance. “Nicole must know that the Genesis experiment is finished, and that there’s no point in fighting anymore.” She looked worriedly up at me. “Besides, you can’t sail
Stormchild
on your own, not in these waters.”

“Of course I can,” I said with a confidence I did not altogether feel, “and David will help me,” and even as I added those words, glorious and sudden, and with her great sails white as innocence,
Stormchild
appeared in the Desolate Straits.

/David, noticing the empty quay, motored
Stormchild
to the berth vacated by the burnt trawler. He looked exhausted; he was so tired that he could scarce raise the energy to berth the yacht properly. “It’s one thing to sail across an ocean,” he explained to me, “but trying to stay safe off a lee shore is no joke. I’ve hardly slept in two nights or days!” He fastened the last fender to protect
Stormchild’s
hull from the stone quay, then stumbled ashore. His eyes were red and his face deep-lined.

Berenice Tetterman had already jumped ashore and was running toward her mother, who, in turn, was hurrying toward her daughter. They met, they clasped, they wept, and I felt tears in my own eyes as I realized I would probably never again feel a daughter’s clasp. Lucky Molly, I thought, and I tried not be jealous. Mother and daughter hugged each other, both talking at the same time, neither listening, but both happy and both crying.

David, embarrassed as ever by a display of sentiment, turned to stare at the burned-out trawler, the beached yachts, the flooded fields and the gaping hole in the escarpment’s ridge where once there had been a dam. “What happened here?” he asked at last.

I described the night’s events as we walked toward the house. He grimaced when I told him of Jackie Potten’s return, and seemed to flinch when I told him I hoped to marry her. He sighed when I described my bombs, and shuddered when I claimed to have shot both von Rellsteb and Lisl. I took the blame entirely on myself, so that the authorities would not give Jackie a hard time.

David, suddenly alert, smelt something wrong in my story. “They were both armed?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t have shot them otherwise.”

“They were shooting at you?”

I nodded. “Automatic weapons, too, and all I had was the good old Lee-Enfield.”

“So you shot them both from the front?”

It was an odd question, but also a very shrewd one. I hesitated before answering. “No. Well, yes. I shot von Rellsteb in the back, but not the girl.”

“So von Rellsteb wasn’t shooting at you?”

“What are you?” I asked. “Counsel for the prosecution?”

“The police are going to ask a lot of very awkward questions,” David said, “and I just want to make sure you don’t tell them lies.”

“I won’t tell them anything,” I said. “I’m sailing away from here and I don’t intend to summon any help until I’m well offshore.”

David, who had been walking beside me toward the house, suddenly checked. “They’re already on their way, Tim. I called them last night.”

I stared at him in horror. “You did what?”

“I called the
Armada
last night. Good God, man, what else was I to do? You summoned me here with a radio message that was virtually inaudible! For all I knew, it was a trap! So, of course, I reported the matter to the authorities. The
Armada
should be here later today.”

“Oh, God!” I blasphemed.

“Does it matter?” David asked.

“Of course it matters!” I retorted angrily. “Because once the authorities are here they’re going to stop everyone leaving. They’re going to want statements and fingerprints and God knows what else. We’re going to be tied up in Chilean red tape and that means I can’t head off Nicole. Not unless I leave now!”

“Where are you going?” David shouted after me. I had begun running back toward the quay.

“I’m going to find Nicole,” I turned and explained to him, “because I want to see her alone before she goes to jail. I haven’t come this far to run away from her, whatever she might be.”

“What do you mean?” David caught up with me.

“I mean,” I said, “that Nicole is a killer. She planted the bomb on
Slip-Slider,
David, not von Rellsteb. It was always Nicole.”

“Oh, my God.” David was stricken. His face went white.

“So I’m going to find her.” I turned away.

“No!” David pulled me back, then gestured at the flooded fields and at the the scorched facade of the house. “You’ve done enough, Tim. There’s no need to do more. There’s no need to risk more.”

I shook my head with exasperation. “You don’t understand, David. Nicole is in hell, and only one person can go down and save her now. That’s me. I love her, and I can offer her salvation of a kind, but what I can’t do is walk away from her.”

“You’re not God,” David said.

“I have to find her,” I said, “and touch her before they put her in chains. Is that so bloody bad?”

David held my shoulders with his strong hands. “We agreed,” he said urgently, “that if we found evidence of wrongdoing, then we would leave it to the authorities. The Chileans will let you see Nicole. You’ll have your chance with her.”

I shook myself free. “I make my own chances, David.”

“You aren’t thinking straight!” He took hold of me again. “You mustn’t do this, Tim! No good will come of it! Let the competent authorities deal with it!”

“The competent authorities,” I said, “will clap her in jail, and maybe even put her to death. Do they have the death penalty here? I don’t know, but whatever happens to her, I first want to go down to her hell, and take her hand, and bring her back to the light. Doesn’t your faith approve of that? Or don’t you believe in hell anymore?”

“I believe,” David said simply, then frowned at me. “You want me to come with you, don’t you?”

I ignored his question. “Maybe I’ll offer to take her to face British justice,” I said, “instead of Chilean.”

“And maybe she won’t want anything you offer,” David said, then he shook his head in a sudden horror. “You mustn’t go, Tim! It’s too dangerous.”

I smiled. “I don’t want you to take risks, David. I want you to stay here. I’ve always thought you should stay here.”

Relief showed on his tired face. “Truly?”

“We don’t want to risk the bishopric, do we?” I teased him, then turned wearily toward
Stormchild.
“The reason I wanted you to stay here, David,” I told him, “is because there’s still one other Genesis boat at sea, and just in case it does get here before the authorities, it might be a good idea if you were here to hold the fort. Molly Tetterman seems a very competent lady, but I have a suspicion you’d be a more convincing threat with a gun.”

“I think you should stay with me,” David said trenchantly.

“I know you do, but I won’t.” I grinned at him, then stepped down onto
Stormchild’s
deck. We both went down to the saloon where I helped David collect and pack his belongings. He would deal with the Chilean Navy, then go to Santiago and tell the Australian Embassy about the pirating of the
Naiad.
I gave him Maureen Delaney’s passport, then warned him that he would have to field the attentions of some very curious reporters. “If you play it canny,” I told him, “you can probably persuade one of the newspapers to pay your fare home in return for some exclusive information.”

“Is that how it works?” he asked, though very distractedly. David was not worried about the newspapers, but about me. He thought I was sailing to my death, and he did not know how to stop me.

“Jackie will help you deal with the press,” I told him. “This is rather going to be her moment. All those self-important papers who turned her down are now going to be begging for her story.”

“Only if they can find me,” Jackie said. She had boarded
Stormchild
and now crouched at the head of the companionway. “I’m going with you, Tim.”

“No!” I insisted.

Jackie half smiled, then produced one of the guns I had left in the cockpit. It was an M-16 and, with a newfound confidence, she switched it to automatic fire and aimed it at the array of instruments that was mounted above the chart table. One squeeze of the trigger and
Stormchild
would be without radios, log, depth sounder, Satnav, and chronometer. “I’m coming with you, Tim,” Jackie said, “or you’re not going at all.”

“Put the gun down,” I said, “please?”

“Well?”

I sighed, then said what I had been wanting to say all day. “Dear Jackie,” I said, “please sail with me.”

We sailed just after midday, sliding away from the settlement and past the burned-out trawler and out into the swirling eddies of the Desolate Straits. No
Armada
patrol ship had yet arrived. We left David with all our guns except one Lee-Enfield that I stored in a cockpit locker, then, after Molly had embraced Jackie and enjoined me to look after her, we cast off our lines.

We used the big engine, pushing it to the limit in my hurry to escape to the open sea before the
Armada
arrived in the Desolate Straits. By mid-afternoon I had found a narrow channel that, according to the chart, led to the ocean and I plunged into its shadows. I doubted any patrol ship would find us now, and the clouds were too low for any helicopter to be useful. We had escaped unseen, and now hurried between dank, dark cliffs that funneled the gusting wet wind and echoed back the rhythmic pounding of our big engine.

I gave Jackie the helm while I went below and, at last, took off the walking boots and peeled away the blood-encrusted socks. I hobbled into
Stormchild’s
tiny head, showered, then used an old cut-throat razor to hack off my stubble. I bandaged my feet, pulled on some reasonably clean and dry clothes, then heated myself a tinned steak and kidney pie and made Jackie a vegetable omelette. I carried the meal to the cockpit where I scoffed down the pie, drank a bottle of beer, stole some of Jackie’s omelette, had another beer, made myself two cheese sandwiches because I was still famished, and then, after wolfing down a tin of peaches slathered with evaporated milk, I brewed a pot of tea strong enough to scald the barnacles off a battleship’s bum. “Oh, Christ,” I said, “but that does feel better.”