Marcus made his way carefully along the crate wall to the door at the far end. He turned off his Maglite and put it in his pocket, then opened the door handles one by one until the door swung freely on its hinges.
He stepped out into the alleyway and turned to close the door when a crewman came through an open door a few feet away. He saw Marcus and stopped for a moment. Then he called out something in a language Marcus didn’t understand. The crewman had shouted back through the door from which he had appeared, obviously calling for some help.
Marcus didn’t wait to think of any consequences; he simply ran at the man and drove his fist into his face. It sent the crewman crashing to the deck and Marcus leapt over him. There was a shout from behind as two men came through the doorway. They saw their friend lying on the floor and immediately went after Marcus.
Marcus ran as fast as he could until he came to a closed door. In the few seconds he took to open it, one of the two men chasing him threw something at him. It caught Marcus on his injured shoulder. Although Marcus hadn’t suffered any real ill effects from his wounds, when the heavy weight that had been thrown struck him, it seemed like a thousand fragments of steel had cut into him. He gasped out loud and fell up against the edge of the open door.
This gave the two men an advantage and within seconds they were on him. Marcus felt their hands pulling him away from the bulkhead, cursing at him. The look on their faces left him in no doubt what they were about to do.
But as hurt as Marcus was, he felt the anger rising up in his chest and he swung his elbow out, catching one of the men full in the face. The man yelled out and fell away clutching his jaw. Then Marcus lifted the heel of his shoe and dragged it down the shin of the second man. It was enough and Marcus was free for a moment.
He ran as fast as he could until he reached a ladder and sprinted up two steps at a time, pulling himself clear on the upper deck. Another crewman happened to be at the top and wasn’t aware of the fracas going on below. Marcus drove his fist into the man’s face without stopping and kept up his dash for the gangway.
Suddenly a shot rang out and he felt the bullet zip past his head and clang into the bulkhead. He almost stopped him in his tracks, but he turned away from the shooter and ran to the far side of the ship.
Without giving thought to what the consequences might be, Marcus hurled himself over the side and plummeted into the water below.
ELEVEN
Susan hadn’t been home from work more than a couple of minutes when the doorbell rang. She put the milk back in the fridge and went through to the front door. When she opened it she saw a uniformed policeman standing there holding his warrant card out. He looked impossibly young to be a policeman.
‘Susan Ellis?’ he asked brightly.
‘Yes,’ Susan answered with the long, drawn out reply that suggests caution.
‘Constable Evans,’ he told her. ‘I wonder if you would be good enough to call in at the local nick.’ He corrected himself. ‘I’m sorry; the local police station. Just routine,’ he assured her. ‘Whenever is convenient. Well,’ he added, ‘if you could make it this evening, that would be really helpful.’
‘What’s it about?’ she asked the young copper.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t say. You’re not under arrest; nothing like that.’ He looked quite concerned as he said it.
Susan smiled. ‘I’m sure I’m not. Very well; give me five minutes and I’ll walk down to the station with you. Is it far?’
He pointed over his shoulder. ‘I’ve got the car here. I’ll bring you back as well.’
‘Five minutes, then,’ she said and closed the door.
About fifteen minutes later, Susan walked into the police station with the young constable. He took her up to the station desk. The young, female police officer looked up at them.
‘Susan Ellis,’ the constable told her, pointing over his shoulder at Susan. ‘Chief wants a word with her.’
The young woman reached across to a box with an array of buttons and held one down. ‘Chief, desk here. Susan Ellis to see you.’
She looked up. ‘Take Miss Ellis through John,’ she told him, and looked back down at whatever she had been doing when they walked in.
Evans took Susan through a small maze of people working at their desks, on the phones, checking data on computer screens and busy chatting away as though they were anywhere but in a working nick.
Evans knocked on a closed door marked ‘Detective Chief Inspector Rendell.’ He didn’t wait for a response but opened the door and stepped into the office.
‘Evening, Chief. Got Miss Ellis for you.’
Rendell looked across the top of his half-moon glasses and signalled with a crooked forefinger to bring her in.
Susan followed Evans into the office as Rendell stood up. ‘Thank you, Evans. I’ll call you when we’re finished.’
Evans left the office as Rendell shook Susan’s hand and asked her to take a seat.
‘Can I get you a coffee, glass of water?’ he asked Susan. ‘Anything?’
Susan shook her head. ‘No thank you, Chief Inspector. So long as you don’t intend keeping me here too long, I think I’ll manage.’
Rendell was in his fifties and looked fit for his age. He reminded Susan of her father a bit. He had a warm, inviting face and seemed to exude friendliness, although she doubted he would show that countenance to offenders.
‘I’ll try not to keep you.’ He hadn’t taken his seat yet and immediately went across to a filing cabinet set against the far wall. On top of the cabinet was a folder which he brought across to the desk. He sat down and spun the folder round so that it was facing Susan.
‘Now, do I call you Miss, Ms, or what?’
‘Susan will do fine,’ she told him.
He smiled and seemed to relax. ‘Good. Now, I have it on highest authority that you are a little bit special. I haven’t been told why, not yet anyway, so I’ll assume you’re related to the Prime Minister or something like that, eh?’ He allowed himself a little chuckle at the joke.
‘Now, there are some photographs in there,’ he told Susan, pointing to the folder. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, would you look through them and tell me if you recognise anybody.’ He passed the folder across the desk and sat back and watched as Susan opened the folder.
She began turning over the page and saw a photograph of one of her neighbours coming out of the front door. ‘My neighbour,’ she muttered and kept on turning the pages.
It was obvious to Susan that someone, no doubt a police officer had been stationed outside her flat with the instruction to photograph everybody who came in or went out, and even those people like delivery men or salesmen who simply called at the front door or posted mail through the letter box.
Then she stopped at a photograph of a man putting something through the letter box. In the next photograph he had turned round and was now walking away from the door. The photograph was very good; she recognised him immediately.
‘That’s Maggot,’ she said, looking up. ‘What the hell is he doing there?’
Marcus sat in his hotel room thinking about his next move. He had thrown himself off the M.V. Odessa deliberately because he knew there was not much of a drop from the main deck down to the water, and the option of remaining on board and trying to make a fight of it hadn’t come into it; especially as someone was firing a gun at him.
As soon as he had surfaced, he had swum away from the ship as fast as he could. He could hear the sound of shouting, but mercifully no more shooting. The darkness helped to cover his escape and he hoped that the captain of the Odessa would assume he was an illegal immigrant making a run for freedom.