‘Don’t want luck to be a part of it. You got fish finding equipment, haven’t you? Sonar, y’know?’
‘The most sophisticated and up to date,’ Flynn confirmed. ‘But even that doesn’t guarantee fish.’
‘Good job I know my stuff then, isn’t it?’
‘You’re an experienced sport fisher?’ Flynn asked as though he was interested.
‘Oh yeah.’
Flynn waited, but there was no elaboration. ‘I’ll do my very best for you, then,’ he assured the customer and began to prepare the boat — named Faye 2 — for the day ahead.
The fishing turned out to be pretty good. No great monsters of the deep, but a fine array of specimens including a very meaty red snapper that Flynn kept and gutted, and would be his supper that night. The customer, whose name turned out to be Hugo, was kept reasonably happy and busy, though none of his claimed skills were either evident or tested much.
It was a different matter for his girlfriend, Janey. As the charter went on, she became progressively more seasick until she was begging Hugo to have the boat turned back to dry land. She had gone the colour of the decks, pure white, from an original golden brown tan, had spent some time with her head down the chemical toilet and even more hanging pathetically over the side of the boat, all sense of modesty having vanished as she hollered dreadfully at the sea gods.
Eventually she could bear it no longer. She dragged herself across the deck like a wounded animal to Hugo. He was strapped regally into the fighting chair with a rod rising majestically from his lower belly area. She begged him to end her misery.
Flynn watched the exchange from his lofty position in the flying bridge. It ended with Hugo roughly pushing Janey away. She fell flat on her backside and looked up appealingly at Flynn, as did Jose whose expression was a dark scowl of anger. Flynn sighed and slid down the ladder on to the deck. He helped Janey to her feet and back into the stateroom where she flopped on to the sofa and closed her eyes, gulping.
Then he spun back on to the deck and approached Hugo, who was still in the fighting chair.
‘That’s the end of the charter, sir,’ Flynn told him.
Hugo’s good-looking face turned towards him. ‘Why would that be?’
‘You want me to spell it out?’
‘I think you’d better.’
‘I don’t tolerate your sort of behaviour on board.’
‘What sort of behaviour is that?’
Flynn’s chest tightened. He gestured to Jose. ‘Bring in the rods, we’re heading back.’
Jose nodded and grabbed one of the outriggers.
‘I paid good money for this charter,’ Hugo whined.
‘You can have it back, less what it’s cost so far.’
‘Does that include this?’ On his last word, Hugo pulled the rod butt out of the gimbal that was fixed to the leather pad worn around his waist and jettisoned the rod, reel and line out of his hands and into the churning sea behind the boat.
Flynn’s mouth drooped in astonishment. Words began to form on his twisted lips, but before he could say anything, Hugo rose from the fighting chair, elbowed past him and stomped into the stateroom. Still not having said anything, Flynn watched him, utterly dumbfounded by his action.
Jose had witnessed the whole thing. He said, ‘He threw that into the sea deliberately,’ his Spanish tongue struggling slightly on the last word.
‘I know,’ Flynn said, turning desperately to the water to see if the rod was still there. It had disappeared instantly. Flynn’s expression changed to anger and he took one step towards the entrance to the stateroom. Jose saw the alteration on Flynn’s face — something he had seen too often recently, and invariably it meant trouble — and stepped in front of him, holding up one of his big hands.
‘No boss, nada stupido.’
‘I’m gonna launch that son of a-’
‘NO,’ Jose said firmly, looking into Flynn’s eyes, holding his gaze.
Flynn ground his teeth, did a mental back-count from ten and took a deep breath. ‘I’m OK.’
He went into the cockpit and grabbed the radio handset, pressed the transmit button, thinking he would call the coastguard and have them get the police to await their arrival back at port. Then he decided on a different approach. He ducked into the stateroom where a still sick Janey was laid out dramatically on the couch, eyes closed, a forearm covering her eyes. Hugo lounged in a chair, legs splayed, a bottle of San Miguel resting on his stomach. He glowered belligerently at Flynn.
‘That gear’s worth fifteen hundred euros.’
‘And?’ Hugo shrugged. ‘Accident. Claim on the insurance.’
‘Listen, bud, when we get back it can go one way or the other. First way, we go along to our quayside kiosk, you present your credit card and pay up. Second way — my preferred way — cops’re waiting for you.’
‘On what charge?’
‘Criminal damage. Whatever way — no refund.’
‘Do what you want.’
‘Oh, just pay him,’ Janey piped up from her sick bed. ‘This whole holiday sucks.’
‘Tell you what, Hugo, I’ll have the cops waiting either way, eh?’
Hugo took a long, noisy draw from the bottle and scowled at Flynn. People seem to do that a lot, Flynn thought: glare at me.
‘You’re a big, hard man, aren’t you, Mr Flynn?’
Flynn shook his head and sighed. He pivoted away, could not be bothered. ‘Cops it is,’ he murmured — but loud enough for Hugo to hear.
What he didn’t expect was for Hugo to jump him.
Flynn patted Hugo’s cheeks. ‘C’mon, c’mon, wakey, wakey.’
Hugo had been placed in the recovery position — after Flynn had roared like a bear and thrown Hugo over his shoulder — and that was as long as the fight had lasted. Hugo smashed the back of his head on the corner of the door frame as he landed awkwardly and was knocked out instantly. Flynn had looked down at him in disbelief.
‘The stupid…’
‘Oh, what have you done?’ Jose demanded, seeing the towering, muscled frame of Flynn standing over the unmoving body. Of a customer.
Flynn looked at him pointedly.
‘He didn’t do a thing,’ Janey piped up despondently. ‘Hugo went for him. He’s like that, only he usually wins.’ She propped herself up on one elbow, no colour whatsoever in her complexion.
Flynn gasped in exasperation and bent over to check Hugo’s vital signs, which were fine. Even so, he hadn’t recovered full consciousness by the time Flynn edged Faye 2 back into her berth in the marina at Puerto Rico half an hour later. An ambulance was waiting on the quayside, as was Adam Castle, Flynn’s boss and owner of the boat, as well as other boats and businesses. Castle slid the gangplank across to the stern and stood aside as two paramedics trotted aboard to tend to Hugo. Castle waited on the quayside, a stony, serious expression on his face.
Flynn briefed the medics and they carted a groggy, cross-eyed Hugo off into the ambulance.
Janey, having miraculously recovered from seasickness simply by standing on terra firma, made no attempt to join Hugo in the ambulance. She looked fine now.
‘You not going with him?’ Flynn asked.
‘I don’t think so. I’ll catch up with him later.’ She produced a wallet from the back pocket of her minute shorts. ‘I’ll pay for the fishing tackle. Hugo’s credit card’s in here and I know the PIN.’
‘Thanks,’ Flynn said.
The ambulance pulled away and Janey started to walk towards the booking kiosk, but paused, turned and looked meaningfully over her shoulder at Flynn. ‘If you’re interested… I’ll be in the Irish bar in the Commercial Centre at eight tonight.’
‘What about Hugo?’
‘He won’t be there, whatever.’ She smiled. All her colour had returned and she was a completely different character to the one Flynn had been introduced to originally. ‘Your choice, Flynn. One thing though — try not to bump into Hugo again. He bears grudges.’
He nodded graciously and then Adam Castle stepped into his line of sight. ‘Words,’ his boss said. ‘Now.’