But he was nowhere, Nicko.
I was, yes, losing blood: I could see it now, blackish whorls forming in the water as I moved, blowing like smoke. But it couldn't be anything serious, worth surfacing for. I had already been up a dozen times to breathe, for a while floating face upwards to reorientate, having to take the risk of being seen. I didn't want to be hauled out and questioned, at least until I'd found Nicko, or they had. If they found him, I'd know: I was watching their progress every time I surfaced.
I would rather find him myself. I had something to ask him: the telephone number. The access to Proctor. It wouldn't be easy to ask him if they found him first and put him into an ambulance; I'd have to make out I needed medical attention so as to go with him, stay with him. But I would have said that the chances of finding him alive by now were thin, unless he was bobbing on the surface somewhere among the debris and they hadn't seen him yet.
Sound of a helicopter vibrating through the water, then more light came flooding down, silvering some of the bits and pieces that had been blown out of the boat. I dived lower, using the light, one hand on an anchor chain to keep my bearings, and there was Fidel below me, his arms and legs opened out, his face turning towards the light and then vanishing, the dark smoke of blood still curling from his skull. He would be going down there to wait for his little Juanita, to wait a long time for her in the limbo of the lost, his arms and legs windmilling slowly, disturbing the slime where a fish flashed in the light, then another, scenting his blood.
I surfaced again and floated, drawing flotsam around me and sighting along the surface. There was more noise here, the thin wail of the sirens piercing the boom of the chopper's rotors; the surface was ruffled by the airstream and the debris was tossed in circles. Then it rose suddenly: I suppose it had come lower to look at something, ready to deploy the salvage net. On the jetty a frogman was settling his mask and flip-flopping towards the water.
I took a final breath and went down again into the half-lit netherworld and saw him almost at once, Nicko, his arms stretched out as the Cuban's had been, the current tugging at the cloth on his little fat legs, and as I swam towards him the light was mottled with the slow drifting of leaves, rising and whirling and spreading out, some of them touching his hands, Nicko's hands, then drifting away, turning and catching the light and darkening again, hundreds of them, puzzling me until I saw they were banknotes, the suitcase on the surface somewhere among the other things, burst open and empty now.
Still losing, I was still losing blood, the muscles languid and the mind starting to wander a little, mesmerised by the whirling of the banknotes, but I went for him, scissors-kicking through the light and shadow and missing him the first time as the current turned him so that for a moment he was upright, standing there with his arms reaching to touch his windfall, to play with it, while fish darted at his face, at the hollows of his eyes. I got close to him at the second attempt, and danced with him as I caught the folds of his clothes and began searching the pockets; but the lungs were pulling for air and I had to surface and float there taking in a snatched breath and then another until I could breathe rhythmically, taking the necessary time but worrying because he could drift away, Nicko, and I might lose him.
Down again and I couldn't find him, had to go deeper, as far as the mud and the litter of cans and tyres and broken spars and then look upwards, catching his silhouette against the light and rising for him, working on the pockets again, the light troubling me now, flooding into my head and staying there when I closed my eyes, the weakness spreading from the muscles to the will, the will to go on moving instead of letting go, drifting in the shadows, dancing with my little fat friend as he – watch it - dancing among the leaves – wake up for Christ's sake – yes, no time for dancing is there, taking his keys and his wallet, drifting with him as he turned, wallet in my hand, wallet with perhaps the telephone number in it, the access to Proctor, drifting and turning in the eerie underwater light with the mind hallucinating, weaving patterns of its own, the scene swinging as I turned again and looked into the face of Kim Harvester.
Chapter 14: GRACE
Honing the knife.
The noon heat pressed down from a brassy sky, and the glare off the water hit the inside of the cabin like a floodlight. The sea was mirror-smooth, with a long swell running. We were somewhere south of Cape Florida, she'd told me, ten miles from the mainland. We didn't want, she'd said, anyone looking at us through field glasses again.
Honing the knife, turning the blade on the stone, a big knife, long, curving to a fine point. One of her breasts showed inside the loose turquoise bra, the nipple raised. She wasn't sitting like that, leaning forward, to invite my interest; she was just used to being alone on board.
'I shall have to make it a clean kill,' she said.
The swell lifted the tug, lowered it. I could see the Cape, north by north-east, and two other vessels, one of them moving out of the bay under limp sails, and a motor yacht on the south horizon. She'd said it was the Contessa.
'Right into the brain, through the eye. If I don't do it cleanly, he'll flash away. They don't like being hurt – and he'd remember.' Looking up, her green eyes seeing the shark, not me. 'Don't underestimate those beasts.'
She hadn't wanted to bring me to the tug, early this morning. She'd moved with me through the pale underwater light but I hadn't gone straight to the quay; there were a lot of people milling around there, silhouetted against the floodlights, and the Coastguard helicopter was still hovering above the sunken boat. I'd surfaced to breathe and then dived again, leading her past the end of the jetty before I climbed onto a moored boat well clear of the action and reached the quay.
'Are you all right?' Her mask off, watching me.
'Yes. Can you get me away from here?'
'You need an ambulance,' she said. 'You're hurt.'
Blood reddening the water trickling from my clothes. 'Look, get me away, will you? I don't want people asking a lot of questions.' It was dangerous, perhaps, to trust her, but I'd been losing blood and hadn't slept and if I dropped suddenly she'd go for one of the ambulances and I didn't want that. There'd be some of Nicko's friends in that crowd along there and my photo was in circulation. I didn't want a police enquiry either because it'd hold things up.
'Why don't you want them to ask questions?' Not letting it go, not taking anything for granted, watching me hard with her green eyes.
I'd said the wrong thing, you see, not feeling terribly bright at the moment. 'In any case, I don't want anyone to see me. They're still trying to kill me.'
She'd remember the shooting, yesterday. Swaying a little now, swaying comfortably, enjoying the rhythm, the lights of the city swinging away, swinging back, watch it, yes, don't want ambulance.
'Who are? The police?'
Oh Jesus Christ, what made her think that? The drug scene, I suppose, she was so used to it, thought I was a dealer, man on the run. 'No. Toufexis. His people.'
'Toufexis?' Didn't take her eyes off me. 'All right, I'll take you out of here, but I want to know who you are.'
'Government.' The whole city swinging, swinging back, the lights dizzying. 'HM Government.'