Five
GRACE REACHED DECK seven with barely thirty seconds to spare. To her amazement, and anger, Max was actually standing there counting down the time from his wristwatch when she arrived.
“Shame,” he said, lowering his arm. “I thought you might be for farm duty.”
“It was important, what I was doing.”
“So’s farm duty.”
“Of course. But my skills are better utilised in the detection and prevention of crime.”
Max grunted. “So, what crime have you detected? Here, we need to go this way.” He pointed towards the bows of the ship, and they set off walking. A stiff breeze whipped at them, making conversation difficult.
“The Morans have been claiming their rations.”
Max let out a roar of laughter. “Not missing at all then? Good, so you can be back on deck patrol after we’ve finished this charade.”
“I thought we were looking for someone overboard?” Grace sounded shocked.
“That we are. And I can tell you right now that we won’t find them.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because we’ve never found anyone who’s gone overboard.”
“But you said people went over all the time? You’re telling me you’ve never managed to find one of them?”
“Miss Garet, we rarely even try.”
Grace stopped dead. “What?”
Max looked over his shoulder, but kept walking. “This way, Miss Garet. Or are you considering a change of career?”
Grace closed her eyes, breathed deeply, then jogged to catch up. “What do you mean, you rarely try? You must make some sort of effort when people disappear.”
“This is the high seas, Miss Garet, not your ‘downtown precinct’ or whatever you call it. People wanna jump? We let them. Not our problem. We’re not spending a fortune in fuel going round in circles just so we can bring back a body for the family to bury.”
“But…but…what if they didn’t go overboard? Or what if someone fell and didn’t jump? You have a responsibility to your passengers!”
“Yep. To all our passengers. Thousands of them, who’d rather be spending their time and money visiting the pyramids than sailing in circles.”
“And if someone was murdered? Their body thrown overboard?”
“Miss Garet, are you a bit slow? It’s not our problem.”
“You have a legal responsibility to investigate possible crime!”
“No, actually, we don’t. Not in international waters anyway. If someone goes missing, the company bungs the family some cash and a free holiday and hopes the problem goes away. That’s the way it’s always been, and not just with us. All the operators are the same. Ah, here we are. Right. I’m stationing you here. Got your binoculars? Good. Just…search the sea, or something. The captain wants us to make an effort, and as he has the ear of the committee, we are unfortunately bound to comply with his, frankly, ridiculous wishes. When we’re done, you can stay on deck. You’re back on patrol.”
“But the Morans—”
“Aren’t missing, according to your own investigation. Deck patrol, Miss Garet.”
Grace clenched her hands and swallowed the expletive that was on the end of her tongue. Max was gone anyway, positioning the rest of the security team around the deck. She looked at the binoculars in her right hand and considered throwing them overboard and going back inside. That, she realised, would be a bad move. Her mind was already made up. There had to be some sort of conspiracy. It seemed obvious to her. Someone had bumped off the Morans, thrown them overboard, and was now claiming their rations. She was going to catch them.
• • •
The cold steel handrail dug into Jake’s belly and pressed against his lower ribs. He couldn’t feel it, although he would probably have bruises in the morning. He was at the very prow of the ship, leaning forwards as if every centimetre he could extend himself would somehow help him to spot the lost man in the sea. Binoculars gripped firmly in both hands, he scanned left, then right, left, then right. The wind had increased in strength the further west they had travelled, and it had begun to whip up the surface of the channel into little white horses. Every now and then he would spot one that just for a split second could be a person. Then the wave would roll over and disperse, popping the tiny bubble of hope that had ballooned inside him.
“Anything?” Coote called from his right. The submarine captain, less optimistic and perhaps less agile than his cruise ship counterpart, stood back a little way from the railing. He surveyed his patch calmly and, Jake knew, with little real hope of success.
“Nothing,” Jake replied solemnly. “Anders?” He glanced left at the fisherman.
“Nej.”
More people — sailors, the entire security team, a few off-duty farm workers, and some of the submariners — fanned out along the perimeter of the ship, one person every five metres. The Ambush, sailing parallel to them on the port side, was scanning the area with its full array of sensors. If anyone was in the water, somebody would see them.
And yet, they had seen nothing.
Nobody said it, but Jake knew they were approaching the limit of their search area. He thought that they must already have covered more than five nautical miles. The current was against them, so if it had carried Stieg away from where he had presumably fallen from the raft, they would already have passed him by now. Even so, they would keep going, backtracking their route for another mile or two. It was always possible that, disoriented, he was swimming away from them.
“Captain Noah!”
Jake pulled his binoculars away and stepped over to Coote. “You see something? What is it?”
“Not sure. What do you think? Dead ahead. I’d say three hundred metres away.”
Jake followed the older man’s finger and focussed, sweeping left and right a few degrees at a time. He spotted it almost straight away.
“What do you think, old boy? Your eyes are younger than mine.”
“It’s an oar. I’m sure it’s an oar.”
“Aha! Yes, now you say it I can see you are right. Gosh, I have become so dependent on our fancy gadgets and gizmos, old-fashioned eyeballing is not my forte.”
“This is good, right?” Jake’s voice rose in pitch. “It means we’re in the right place.”
“Can’t argue with that, old chap.”
“Listen up!” Jake turned and addressed everyone who was within earshot. “We have an oar in sight, three hundred metres to the starboard side. We’re on the right track. Keep your eyes peeled. We’re going to find him.” He unclipped a radio from his belt and called to the bridge, instructing Chuck to turn ten degrees starboard.
As they ploughed on though, the burst of optimism began to fade. Not only was there no sign of Stieg, there wasn’t even another oar.
Jake felt a tap at his shoulder. He didn’t turn; he didn’t want to peel his eyes away from the expanse of sea before him.
“Jake, something’s come up. I think you need to come and see.”
He knew the voice. It was his friend, Ewan Sledge, submariner from HMS Ambush.
“You see something?”
“Yes. But not Stieg. Captain Coote, you’ll need to come too, sir.”
“I can’t leave here,” Jake protested. “The lookout—”
“It’s okay, Eric will take over.”
Eric O’Brien, Ewan’s colleague and close friend, took up position alongside him.
“I’ll keep a good watch, Jake,” he reassured him. “You really should go with Ewan.”
Jake finally, and reluctantly, stepped away from the railing. Coote was already on his way. He followed, catching him up at a bank of lifts, with Ewan tagging alongside.
“Not going to tell me more about what this is about, Ewan old boy?” Coote asked.