Trapped (18 page)

That evening, sitting on the narrow crescent of sand which ran alongside the city walls, Cate watched as the children splashed and played happily in the still warm waters.

The twins were building a sandcastle and, just a few metres away from Cate, the younger two were amusing themselves by running away from the waves. Oak had been swimming in the shallows then he came and lay down in the evening sunshine next to Cate.

‘Looking forward to going on
The Good Times
tomorrow?' Cate asked him.

‘I guess so,' said Oak, his face buried in the towel. ‘Been on it before you know. At Christmas.'

‘Lucky you,' said Cate. ‘It has everything, doesn't it – a cinema, a big pool . . . even a submarine?'

‘Yes,' replied Oak. ‘But we didn't get to see the submarine.'

‘Hmm, that's a shame. Oak, do you have a mobile phone?' asked Cate casually.

‘Yes, of course,' he said. ‘I'm sure I brought it to Antibes.'

‘Would you do me a huge, huge favour?' asked Cate. ‘Tass is clearly pretty hot on security and I'm not allowed to take my phone on his boat tomorrow, but I've got to make a call, a really urgent call.'

‘To a boy?' asked Oak, turning his face towards her. ‘You've got a boyfriend, then?'

‘Not exactly,' said Cate, smiling at him. ‘But could you take your phone onboard for me to use anyway?'

‘No probs,' Oak said. ‘I'll take it. Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Who's that guy?'

Cate followed Oak's line of vision and saw with a shock Michel coming towards them. The other evening he had been dressed in jeans and T-shirt, tonight he was wearing black tie, his bow still hanging untied around his neck, his white dress shirt open at the top.

‘We have to stop meeting like this,' he said, sitting down on the towel next to Cate.

‘You look very smart,' said Cate, not knowing what else to say.

‘A-ha,' said Michel. ‘Thank you. Tonight I am playing at the wedding anniversary of the mayor of Antibes. It is a very smart party. What a shame I can't take a guest.'

He smiled at Cate and she felt her stomach lurch.

‘How did you know I was here?' she said weakly.

‘I asked at your boat of course,' he said, seemingly surprised she wouldn't know.

There was a silence. The setting sun lit up the hairs on
Michel's forearms, turning them a golden brown.

‘Cate,' said Michel slowly. ‘I know you are very busy but I wondered . . .'

‘Yes?' said Cate, trying to be brave enough to look him in the eye and failing.

‘How about we organise this drink?'

‘You can ask her out but she's already talking to some bloke tomorrow on the phone.'

Cate had forgotten Oak was still lying on the towel next to them. Her face burnt with embarrassment. ‘He's just a friend.'

Michel didn't seem fazed. ‘I am not surprised Cate has men calling her. She is very pretty.' He grinned at Oak who got up and wandered back down to the water just as Beech and Willow came rushing back up to sit on Cate's lap. ‘I can see I will have to stop messing around.' He turned to Cate, his face serious again. ‘Cate, can I have you to myself one evening very soon. Perhaps for dinner? Sunday?'

Cate nodded happily. The boys she knew were never like this. If they fancied you they usually got their mates to ask you out and then it was fifty-fifty whether or not they were doing it for a joke. And if it did get as far as a date, well, it was a walk in the park and a quick snog at the end of it.

‘Great,' said Cate. ‘Thanks. I could do with some time away from everyone on the boat. They're great but, well, they are all a bit older than me.'

Michel laughed. ‘Don't worry. I promise to take you somewhere where no one over twenty-five is allowed! And now I must go, or I will be late for my date with the Mayor.'

He stood up and Cate stood up with him. He gave her a
quick, gentle kiss on the cheek and was gone, striding barefoot over the sand, his polished black shoes in one hand, his other raised in a gesture of farewell.

Cate sat back down again, waving her hand in front of her face to cool herself down.
Wow
, she thought to herself.
If only my friends could see me now!

Cate woke up early, with an excited churning in the pit of her stomach. She lay still in her bunk, trying to work out why, and then she remembered. Today she was headed to the epicentre of this case, to
The Good Times
.

Cate lay in bed working out what to take with her. Although she would have access to Oak's phone, that would be no good to her without her own contacts. Suddenly she had a brainwave. All she needed was the information contained on her sim card. As long as she took that with her, any old phone – including Oak's – would do the job.

Then there was Marcus's survival pack. She would be mad to leave it behind but, although the tin was small, it wasn't invisible. She could do something about that too. She hunted through her belongings and brought out a small, unopened box of Tampax. She slid open the lid and pulled out the tubes and, when it was empty, pushed the survival
tin, together with her sim card, into the bottom of the cardboard box. It was a perfect fit. Next she used her penknife to cut the tampons in half and placed them back in the packet on top of the tin. If any man was brave enough to check the box, they would find a full packet of tampons. She grinned to herself. There were definitely some advantages to being a woman.

Finally she considered the gun, still hidden in the freezer, and made a mental note to find another hiding place for it soon. In the meantime, Cate was sorely tempted by the idea of creeping across the corridor to retrieve it to take with her. But if the guards did find it on her – as they probably would – she would be in so much trouble it didn't bear thinking about.

By seven-thirty her backpack was ready. As well as the survival kit, she had thrown in a jumble of girly stuff – mascara, flip flops, hairbrush and a spare T-shirt – in a bid to distract any prying eyes. Then she had showered, dried her hair and was now starving.

The silence as she made her way through the middle deck meant that the children and Nancy were still fast asleep and Cate headed for the kitchen.

Ten minutes later she was up on the top deck with Marcus, sitting in the sunshine, eating her way through several freshly warmed croissants plastered with a gorgeous blueberry jam and drinking a large mug of English tea.

‘I hear you have a boyfriend,' he teased, swinging his long legs over a lounger and pulling it up close to Cate.

She blushed. ‘How on earth do you know about Michel?'

‘Well, you see,' said Marcus seriously, ‘anyone who comes
into contact with you has to be vetted at the highest level.'

Cate stared at him in horror.

‘We have had tabs on your Michel since you bumped into him at the nightclub.'

He let her suffer for a minute before breaking into his now familiar giggles. ‘Sorry, Cate, couldn't resist it. Of course we're not following him. Try explaining that particular expense to Henri. No, he came to the boat yesterday asking for you and Wendy told me about him. He's very good-looking,' he added.

‘Mmm,' said Cate, trying hard not to laugh too.

Suddenly Marcus was serious. He went to the top of the spiral staircase, checking that no one was coming up. Then he took Cate by the hand, walked her over to the jacuzzi and switched it on. The pump whirred loudly into action, the froth rising quickly out of the large tub.

‘We can talk now,' said Marcus.

‘According to Arthur, Nancy's charity and Tass's father's bank are donating a small fortune to the Ramibian Ministry of science and medicine,' said Cate slowly. ‘All back-pocket stuff, of course. We know some of it is a bribe, but part of it is going into another account. Arthur is trying to work out who owns it.'

‘Wow,' said Marcus admiringly.

‘And Nancy let slip yesterday that Tass was helping her with some amazing save-the-planet scheme. Something that would make him into a bit of a hero. It's to impress his dad apparently. And guess what?' Cate went on. ‘She and the professor definitely knew each other. More than knew each other. They were working together, probably with Tass,
although I couldn't find out anything more about it.

‘From the way she was talking about him in the present tense, she doesn't know he's dead either. Unless, of course, she was putting on a very good act.'

Marcus nodded thoughtfully. Then it was his turn. ‘Cate, yesterday, when you were on the beach I searched through Bill's stuff. I checked everywhere, even the engine room, but I couldn't find anything incriminating. We've had a tail on him though. Last night he told me he was going out to meet some yachtie mates. Well, they might have been mates but they weren't yachties.

‘He took an inflatable dinghy out to
The Good Times
. As you know, that damn yacht has more security on it than Air Force One. If they hadn't recognised the dinghy he was in, particularly at night, they would have sent out an armed response unit to investigate.'

‘But they didn't?' asked Cate.

‘No,' said Marcus. ‘They knew he was coming all right. They didn't even search him when he climbed aboard, let alone check over the laptop he took out of his rucksack.'

‘Laptop?' Cate's mind raced back to the sound of the moped being revved, Bill coming out of the doomed house carrying the bright blue laptop under his arm.

‘Yes, it was the blue laptop. Your job is to find out just why Bill was prepared to kill to get it.'

At ten o'clock sharp, a dark red, open-decked powerboat, with Mikey and Ahmed on board, nosed its way alongside the
Catwalk II
.

Nancy appeared in a short silk dressing gown to wave the children off. She looked glum, tired and older than her thirty years and Cate, remembering their conversation of the previous day, suddenly felt desperately sorry for her.

‘Don't worry, we'll have a great time,' she said gently to Nancy. ‘And I'm sure you'll have a fab day as well.'

Now all the children were fitted with life jackets and safely aboard and Ahmed gestured impatiently for Cate to clamber onto the powerboat too. As she did so, Beech shook herself free from Ahmed, toddled over and snuggled onto her now familiar position on Cate's lap. Willow planted a sticky kiss on her lips, and Cate looked back to see Nancy's stricken face as she waved her children goodbye. Could this woman really be involved in an international ring smuggling beautiful animals?

The wind was low and the sea calm. It was a perfect ten-minute ride out from the harbour. Suddenly
The Good Times
was looming above them, its tall sides blocking out the sunshine and, despite the heat and the bright blue sea, Cate felt her mood sinking.

She'd texted Arthur that morning, but she felt sick as she thought about the task ahead. A lot could happen in the twelve hours before she was due to text again. Suddenly she wished that she was anywhere else, even back at home in London in the rain, gossiping to Louisa about what their mates were up to.

Then she pulled herself together.

Treat it like an exam
, she told herself.
It's worst beforehand, not so bad during and great when it's all over.

Now the pilot was cutting his engines and the low wall at
the rear of the super yacht slowly opened to allow the powerboat to drift quietly over a small watery ramp into a mini harbour. It came to a gentle halt next to three jetskis and a ski boat. Cate shook her head in amazement.

‘All aboard,' said Mikey from the small platform. Cate took a deep breath, resisted the urge to ask for a lift straight back to the
Catwalk II
, and lifted Beech carefully onto the walkway. With Ahmed still on board, the powerboat reversed and headed back out. Clearly Tass wasn't allowed to be without protection for even a few hours.

With Mikey in the lead, the small party walked silently into a tunnel which led towards a lift.

‘The stairs are over in that corner,' grunted Mikey to Cate. ‘The lift isn't really for staff, but as you're with the kids you can use it for now.'

The heavily carpeted lift whirred silently upwards for what seemed like far too long and, as the doors opened, Cate realised that they were on the top deck, twenty metres above the sea. The view out to the horizon was breathtaking.

Directly in front of her was the helicopter landing pad and beyond that was what looked like a glass dance floor, studded with lights and edged by a horseshoe shaped bar and huge sound system. Beyond that stood the bridge, surrounded by heavily tinted windows edged with black blinds, no doubt waiting to drop in an instant.

Through the open door Cate clocked an array of controls and screens that wouldn't have looked out of place in a NASA launch pad. From its roof, a radar mast reached up into the sky, its horizontal listening arm rotating through never-ending
circles. And next to it . . . no, it couldn't be.

‘Watch out for the missiles.' Mikey followed her gaze. ‘Up there, above the bridge.'

‘Bit over the top, isn't it?' Cate tried to sound casual. ‘All this security. What are they expecting? World War III?'

Mikey sighed, clearly exasperated by her naivity. ‘You've got no idea, girl,' he said. ‘It's all lovely here, I grant you, but out there in the big, bad world there are all sorts of people who would just love to get their hands on this yacht – and the people who own it.

‘Mr Taplinski does a lot of business in Africa and sometimes we sail there. Even you must have heard about the pirates that are taking vessels and holding them for millions of dollars of ransom. The only thing that will scare them off is a missile over their bows.'

Cate nodded. She had heard of the pirates. But she wondered too, whether there wasn't another more sinister motive behind the fear. Maybe all this armoury wasn't about stopping people coming on the boat as much as keeping something trapped here instead.