Stormtide (15 page)

‘But Maggie wouldn’t come straight back,’ interrupted Graham. He chewed his lip. ‘She had a package with her, one I wanted taken out to the
Lady
Jane
’s captain – some papers head office need. I took the package to her house just after Nurse Francis had phoned saying she’d need the boat.’ He shrugged unhappily. ‘So Maggie said she’d do the emergency run first then drop the package off on the way back.’

‘Anything else?’ asked Carrick quietly.

Fraser shook his head. ‘Just that I contacted Harry once the engineer’s body was found. Then suddenly everything seemed to fit.’

Nobody spoke for a moment while
Marlin
’s diesels grumbled underfoot and her hull pitched in steady rhythm with the lumping swell.

At last, Shannon made a noisy business of clearing his throat. ‘You’re saying that Rother – or someone – seized the coaster before she sailed. Then that Maggie MacKenzie arrived alongside to deliver that package …’

‘And would know the crew,’ muttered Graham.

‘So they would have to hold her, and the Francis girl.’ Shannon nodded agreement. ‘If they sailed the
Lady Jane
on schedule and dumped Maggie’s launch on the way out of the bay the rest fits all right.’

Carrick moistened his lips. ‘How much is that load of whisky worth?’

‘A lot, Chief Officer.’ Harry Graham rubbed one thin hand against the other and hesitated, calculating. ‘It’s still at 105 degree proof. Broken down to bottling strength, the retail value should be around nine hundred thousand pounds – including tax. Stolen, looking for buyers, probably about half a million pounds. He wouldn’t find it difficult to move, that’s certain.’

Half a million pounds, maybe a million and a quarter dollars, hell alone knew how much in other currencies. Carrick’s mind chilled at the prospect. It was a prize worth seizing, one the men concerned had already proved themselves ready to kill to achieve.

‘If these women and the rest of the
Lady Jane
crew are still aboard …’ began Shannon, then stopped.

The same thought was in all their minds. One body had been washed up, but others might still drift in. At the very least, five lives were in a danger increasing by the moment.

‘Do your people know, Sergeant?’ asked Shannon suddenly.

Fraser stubbed his cigarette and nodded. ‘I called Inspector Rankin. He’s organizing a general alert.’

‘Right.’ Shannon pulled open the chartroom door, a new snap in his voice. ‘Mr Carrick, don’t stand there like some kind of lost sheep. Get us out of this damned bay while I check some courses – I want emergency speed and full radar scan. Let’s find this damned booze boat, wherever it is.’

Captain James Shannon liked to boast that
Marlin
’s radar was sensitive enough to spot a gull and tell what it had for breakfast. But for one small ship to find another by night in tumbling seas and among a scattered maze of islands was something very different.

So he gambled on what he would have done. Slamming her way through the blustering darkness, the Fishery cruiser carved a heaving course towards the south. Down there, beyond the ‘cocktail-shake’ islands of Rum and Eigg and Muck, lay a host of smaller, mainly uninhabited outcrops. They had high cliffs and deep inlets. A flotilla of coasters could have tucked away among them and been secure from the most thorough sea and air search.

The rest was luck, though the storm was gradually blowing itself out. Scowling in his corner of the crowded bridge, Pettigrew had been working the radar screen on its fifteen-mile scan. Suddenly, he muttered to himself, clicked over to the ten-mile scan, peered again, then beckoned Carrick over.

‘This blip.’ He pointed near the far edge of the screen. ‘Anything we should know about out there?’

‘No.’ Carrick looked round at Shannon. ‘Contact, sir.’

‘Range and bearing?’

Pettigrew answered. ‘Due west at eight miles. Bearing two-eight-zero.’ He paused apologetically. ‘A rain squall was blanketing that stretch, sir. It’s just cleared.’

Keeping clear of the activity, Sergeant Fraser and Harry Graham glanced at each other. Graham moistened his lips but waited until
Marlin
was heeling round on the new course. ‘If it’s the
Lady Jane
…’ he began.

Shannon cut him short. ‘We’ll find out first. You’re forgetting that damned shark-boat should be with her.’

Checking again over Pettigrew’s shoulder, Carrick shook his head. The screen showed only that single blip, one that seemed strangely stationary.

For twenty long minutes the Fishery cruiser shuddered and rolled through the lumping seas, closing the gap towards the radar contact which remained exactly where it had first been spotted. Then, at half-mile range, the twenty-one-inch searchlight’s searing white beam lanced out and Shannon swore in surprise as it lit the scene ahead.

They’d found Dave Rother’s
Seapearl
, the sharkcatcher showed no sign of trying to escape. She lay bow-on to the waves, her decks almost hidden by the spray which broke from each creaming swell.

‘What are they playin’ at?’ demanded Sergeant Fraser, puzzled. ‘If Rother’s tryin’ some trick …’

‘No.’ Carrick had the bridge glasses trained ahead. He could see the taut hawser stretching from the boat’s stern, ending in a makeshift half-submerged raft of canvas and timbers. ‘They’ve a sea-anchor out. It could be engine trouble – and they’ve lost their radio aerial.’

That was only part of it. The
Seapearl
showed every sign of having taken a battering from the storm, and
the way sea and wind were continuing to moderate couldn’t have come a minute too soon for her.

‘Good.’ Shannon considered coldly for a moment. ‘Hold course but reduce to half-speed. Mr Carrick, signal them we’re sending a boat. Then take a boarding-party over – and warn every man on it to be ready for trouble.’

Nodding, Carrick reached for the Aldis lamp.

The clacking signal shutter brought an answering flicker from the shark-catcher’s wheelhouse. Still slowing, keeping the smaller craft trapped in the twenty-one-inch beam,
Marlin
came round in a gradual curve then stopped briefly while the rubber Z-boat was lowered and Carrick’s party clambered down.

Engine snarling, the Z-boat pitched its way across while the Fishery cruiser began her circling course again. Blanketed by the spray, the boarding party had only an occasional glimpse of the
Seapearl
until they were almost beside the scarred hull. Another moment, another wave, and they were bumping against it and scrambling aboard.

‘Hey there!’ A massive, oilskin-clad figure lurched forward to help the last men up. Yogi Dunlop grinned uneasily at them. ‘Good to see you. Good to see anyone …’

Shoving forward, Carrick grabbed him by the shoulder and had to shout above the noise of the waves.

‘Where’s Rother?’

‘Aft – in the engine room. But …’

Carrick signalled
Marlin
’s party closer. ‘You know what to do. If anyone gets awkward, sort him out.’

He left them to it and headed aft along the lurching, foam-creamed deck. The engine-room hatchway was ajar and he shoved it back then clambered down
the iron ladder into the oily, dimly lit area below, an area still warm but with its machinery silent.

‘Dave?’ Grim-faced, he looked around.

‘Over here.’ Dave Rother wriggled into sight from a space under the engine block.

His hands and face were smeared with dirt and grease and he sat on the grating where he was, twisting a wry welcome. ‘All right, you caught us. Just don’t take the credit for it.’

‘Where are they, Dave?’ demanded Carrick sharply.

‘Who?’ Rother asked it tiredly.

‘Maggie and Sheila.’

Rother rubbed a bewildered hand across his forehead, leaving a new black smear. ‘Back in Portcoig, I’d say. What’s the panic anyway? So I duck out of the bay when the boat’s under technical arrest, but …’

‘Dave, give me one straight answer.’ Carrick moistened his salt-caked lips, already sensing Sergeant Fraser’s careful theory had been wrong. ‘What the hell were you doing out here?’

‘Taking a gamble on the weather and chasing sharks – I lost on both.’

‘Can you prove it?’

Rother eyed him cynically. ‘Want me to turn out my pockets or something?’ His expression changed. ‘Anyway, why ask about Aunt Maggie and Sheila? What’s happened?’

The boat took a sudden lurch as a wave larger than the rest pounded her hull. Loose tools clattered, they grabbed for support, and the lights flickered. As the shark-catcher settled again, Carrick came nearer.

‘When did you lose your aerial, Dave?’

‘Around midnight. The whole outfit nearly went under,’ Rother answered impatiently. ‘Now look …’

He stopped as the engine-room hatch slid open again. One of the boarding party looked down, saw
Carrick, and gave a slow, significant headshake. Then the hatch slid shut again.

‘I said I want to know what’s going on,’ said Rother bleakly. ‘And now, Webb.’

‘You’d better,’ agreed Carrick gloomily.

Deliberately, keeping to essentials, he told what he knew. Expression quickly changing as he listened, Rother swore pungently at the finish.

‘So on that kind of evidence you came chasing me?’ He gave a gesture of contempt. ‘Well, it’s my turn now – and you’d better listen. You know why we’re stuck here? We lost the ruddy propeller. Clang – gone, like that, right in the middle of this damned storm. The poor old tub nearly upended before we got that sea-anchor out.’

‘That’s when you lost the aerial?’

‘And a lot more.’ Rother glared at him. ‘We were helpless – and it was no accident. Somebody had it in for us. Fixed us so good it was almost permanent.’

Carrick balanced with another roll then frowned uncertainly. ‘Dave, that prop-shaft was running rough before.’

‘Rough, yes. But take a look – a good look.’ Rother thumbed viciously at the underside of the engine block. ‘There’s my proof. And you’re going to find it interesting.’

Working his way over, still frowning, Carrick squatted down while Rother shone a hand-lamp into the dark space beside them. A length of electrical cable ran from one of the engine’s mounting brackets, vanishing beneath the block. But what made him peer closer, tensing, was the way the cable had been attached to the bracket. Someone had used a flat lashing of carefully hand-braided copper wire – the same braiding he’d seen twice before.

‘You know where the other end of that damned cable goes?’ demanded Rother. He didn’t wait. ‘Straight to the alternator control box. That means any time our engine was running the full output of the alternator was being pushed along the prop-shaft – pouring current like it was a battery terminal. Now do you understand?’

Silently, Carrick nodded.

The same thing had brought disaster to plenty of wooden-hulled craft. But usually by a combination of accident and neglect. The principle was simple enough – any electrical leakage aboard which found an outlet below the waterline could use salt water as if it was battery acid. The result turned any two pieces of dissimilar metal within reach into a miniature electroplating plant, stealing substance from one to the other.

Propeller glands, rudder pintles, even hull fastenings could disintegrate in the unseen, unsuspected process. Once-solid bolts could end up crumbling like so much grit. There were ways to hold back the process, but not against the kind of massive current which must have been attacking the shark-catcher.

‘No sparks, no overheating?’ he asked, squatting back on his heels.

‘It didn’t even change our ammeter readings,’ said Rother bitterly. ‘What about that lashing?’

‘It’s the same kind I asked you about.’ Carrick pulled himself to his feet. ‘Could your crew ride out the rest of this, Dave?’

Rother gauged the hull’s pitch and roll for a moment then nodded. ‘No problem in it now. As soon as the radio’s fixed we’ll jury-rig an aerial and get one of the other boats out from base to tow us home.’

‘Could Yogi take over?’

‘Easy enough.’ Rother paused suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘Because we’re going over to
Marlin
.’ Carrick stopped his protest. ‘No arguments, Dave – not if you want to help find Sheila and Maggie.’

‘Plus the character who fixed us?’

Carrick nodded. He hoped so, at any rate. But it might come down to whether they got there in time.

Back in the dry and warmth of
Marlin
’s chartroom they faced Captain Shannon with Fraser and Graham beside him like a pair of sceptical, sour-faced crows.

‘I’ve listened, mister,’ rasped Shannon, glancing briefly and icily in Rother’s direction then returning to Carrick. ‘You say Rother is in the clear, that we really want Fergie Lucas …’

‘And that he’ll be at Moorach Island,’ agreed Carrick calmly.

‘Where’s your evidence?’ grunted Fraser, unimpressed.

Carrick had kept that back deliberately till now. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out the whistle lanyard he’d found in Lucas’ cottage and laid it quietly on the chartroom table.

Graham stiffened at the sight. Coming closer, he reached out and touched the cord. Then he looked up, his face suddenly ashen.

‘Where did you get this, man?’

‘In Lucas’ cottage,’ said Carrick, almost sympathetically. ‘Graham, you were trying to trace a ring. I went after the rest of what you had, that necklet. Don’t ask me where he learned it, but he uses that braiding like a trade-mark.’

‘You said Lucas’ cottage …’ began Fraser suspiciously.

‘To hell with how he got it.’ The words came from Graham like a whisper while his fingers tightened round the lanyard till they formed a white-knuckled fist. ‘Carrick, how long have you known?’

‘Not long. Mainly since I heard he wasn’t at sea when he left Portcoig. He was down in Glasgow – where Helen was.’ Deliberately, Carrick switched back to Shannon who was waiting impatiently. ‘Dave found the same braiding used to sabotage his prop-shaft.’

Shannon grunted. ‘All right, mister. But don’t try to tell me Lucas was thinking of tonight – nobody could calculate when that propeller was going to come loose.’

‘He was just being bloody-minded,’ muttered Rother, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that’s what was really going on the night those sharks were cut loose – and why young Benson was shot.’

‘When Lucas had Alec MacBean as his alibi,’ murmured Carrick. He paused. ‘Graham, whose idea was it to move the coaster out into the bay so early on – yours or Alec MacBean’s?’

‘MacBean’s. It …’ – Graham chewed his lip – ‘it seemed sense at the time.’

‘Like it seemed sense for him to go out on the
Heather Bee
the moment his brother’s grave had been filled in?’ asked Carrick remorselessly.

Graham didn’t answer. No one spoke for a moment while
Marlin
’s diesels throbbed lazily underfoot and she rode with the swell. But the sound and motion, by their sheer lack of urgency, made each of them conscious that time was passing, time they could ill afford.

‘So when do we do something?’ demanded Rother acidly. ‘Do we wait till someone sends us an invitation to visit Moorach Island?’

Shannon somehow swallowed the insult. ‘There was only that salvage boat lying there when we passed – no other radar contact.’

A jeering noise came from Rother’s lips. ‘Hasn’t anybody thought they’ve maybe sunk the coaster just off shore? They know things have gone wrong – but they don’t know how wrong. That way, they’ve more chance – and they’ve a hope of getting at the liquor once things quieten.’

‘No, they wouldn’t – MacBean knows better,’ protested Graham, still white-faced but following each word. ‘Damn it, salt-water impregnation would ruin the whisky in those casks …’

‘But not the bulk stuff in the tanks,’ said Rother wearily. ‘Would the tanks float on their own if they were set free?’

Graham grimaced and nodded. ‘They’re designed that way.’

‘Then what the hell more do we want?’ Rother scowled round, and then blinked.

The chartroom door was swinging open. Shannon had gone. A moment later they heard
Marlin
’s telegraph ringing and her diesels began to increase their pace.

‘He makes up his own mind,’ murmured Carrick, smiling slightly. ‘We’re on our way, Dave. Now suppose you stop howling and we try working out what happens when we get there?’

With little more than an hour remaining till dawn
Marlin
’s radar showed Moorach Island bulking in clear detail on the five-mile scan. The screen had the
Heather Bee
lying at her salvage anchorage and showed no other vessel afloat in the area. And the
storm had died, leaving the Fishery cruiser travelling through a sea which had settled to a moderate swell.

In the scuba storeroom aft Captain Shannon looked around him and appeared singularly doubtful at what he saw.