“Get to your feet,” George said, his voice menacing. I wasn’t to keen to stand up just yet, especially if it meant that I was going to be knocked straight down again. On the other hand he could have just kicked the hell out of me or shot me with the ancient looking Smith & Wesson he held in his right hand, if he’d wanted to.
“Listen, George, I don’t want to fight you,” I said.
“I’m not going to fight you, Mr Dillon. I’m going to kill you.” He didn’t say it like a cold-blooded killer but like a man who, although completely mad, talks like any other calm, educated and mentally stable person.
“In that case, George, you will be making a serious mistake,” I replied. But it was no use; I had read this man’s army personnel file. He had fitted into civilian life so badly, building up resentment and rage against people in positions of power, so that he was a bubbling cauldron of violent behaviour just simmering under the surface, and waiting to erupt.
The girl was back at the wheel, and the boat was drifting with the swell, the engines at idle. George faced me across the bridge. “I was going to make it quick and clean by shooting you, Mr Dillon. Followed by a dignified burial at sea, of course. But I’ve decided to make an exception in your case.”
“Especially as you have taken it upon yourself to destroy my lucrative little venture down here in Dorset. For that, I am going to take great pleasure in destroying you — blow by blow.”
He moved slowly, ensuring he kept his balance. His eyes stared into mine, sizing me up, judging my probable actions. We faced each other no more than an arm length apart. He brought his hands slowly and easily upwards in front of him, fists clenched. He widened his stance and turned his shoulders very slightly.
It confirmed what I had suspected. George was a street brawler; his stance was that of a boxer, one hand and one foot slightly advanced.
Rivulets of seawater caught in the light meandered across the deck under George’s feet. I brought my left arm up in front of me in a basic block, sweeping it across to the left, deflecting George’s right fisted punch. I watched his eyes, he was deciding whether I was going to be a pushover. He came at me with a short left hook in the ribs, followed with a jab at my face.
His fist scraped my cheek, but my body was wide open. I ignored the pain in my side, bringing my left leg around in an arc, and the top part of my foot made contact just behind his knee.
His leg buckled with the blow. As he went down on one knee, he spun round in an attempt to kick my feet out from under me.
I stepped back quickly out of his reach. It was the correct counter but he was slow, far too slow. A man off balance thinks of nothing but getting balanced again; aggression disappears. He lunged forward, knees slightly bent, body forward, eyes keeping constant contact with mine.
My left hand blocked and gripped his right forearm as he came in for another punch, and my right fist made contact with his stomach, just under the ribcage. George doubled over, my knee smashed into his nose, bone crunched and splintered, and blood began instantly pouring onto the teak deck.
Still holding onto George’s right arm, I stepped around and behind him twisting the outstretched limb up at an angle. I heard a sharp intake of breath as I applied upward pressure to the point of dislocating or breaking George’s arm.
The girl turned and looked over her shoulder, her eyes like belisha beacons as Fiona Price came crashing through the open salon doorway. She moved like a cat, low and crouching until she was out in the open. Then she stood up and fired her pistol into the air.
Even at that instant George did not allow the pain to influence him. He still tried to struggle out of the hold I had him in. He was a tough man, this George Ferdinand. He fell away as I released him and sat on the floor holding what was left of his nose.
He said, “You know I could easily throw you over the side — and no one could ask any questions?”
“Of course you could, George, but there is just the possibility that I’ll break your neck while you’re trying or the lady over there will shoot you.”
“We’ve got no power on that side.” the young girl pointed to the starboard side. The cable from the sonar had probably wrapped itself around the screw. I retrieved my automatic, motioning George down towards the dive platform.
“Fiona, cover the girl while I attend to our friend here.”
I tied George to the steps with the rope from a life buoy and went back up to the bridge. I told the girl to head back towards Poole Harbour and Sandbanks, using only the port motor. It would be a slow journey and the wind had got up, coming at us with the dawn sun. This floating gin palace was definitely not the type of boat to be in at sea with only one propeller.
“You’ve got nothing on me,” Ferdinand shouted.
“When we hand you over to the police, or perhaps those gentle souls from drugs, you might think differently.”
“There’s nothing linking me to Harry Caplin or anyone else, so dream on, Dillon, and another thing, the authorities won’t be holding me for too long when we get back. Once I’ve phoned my lawyer,” said George, with a twisted sneer, his eyes flitting in all directions and beads of nervous sweat all over his face.
“Who’s to say that you will get a phone call, George?” I said. “It’s like this, certain parties that I know want to question you about your involvement with the distribution of class A drugs across the country. I’ve no doubt they will also want to know where and from whom you obtained the list that enables you to blackmail some of the countries most influential and wealthy people.”
The wind howled all around us. George was getting the full force of it where I’d tied him up. The girl sat at the wheel keeping close to the coast as we made our way back to the harbour.
“Save your fantasies for your report,” said Ferdinand. “You have no interest in drugs.”
“No? So what am I interested in, then.”
“Your only interest is in Constantine’s list, the one I would have retrieved from that cove had you not gate crashed the party.”
“Well done George, that’s exactly right,” I told him. “My brief has always been to locate the list and then to destroy it. But my colleague up there is most definitely wanting to talk to you about the drugs.”
Fiona looked down at me quizzically at the mention of drugs.
“It’s not there,” he said, “it’s gone, you’ll never find it, not now — not never.”
“But you admit that it has been your source of blackmailing inspiration?”
“Of course, it contains the names of some of the most powerful people in this country. It’s not everyday you get the opportunity to screw those filthy rich bastards, is it now? But, I really can’t recall much of it,” he added for good measure.
“Let me help you remember,” I said. “I’ll tell you one name that was on it.”
I named Hawkworth. Ferdinand said nothing. “The man that you served under in the army and whom with your friend Jasper Lockhart you decided to blackmail.”
“You know about Lockhart,” George’s eyes filled with hate, and he flared his nostrils in a primitive show of anger. “Leave him out of it. He’s all right; he was just trying to help me. He’s not involved in…” George stopped talking and looked out to sea.
“He’s not involved, eh?” I said, but didn’t push it any further.
I sat down under the canopy on the lower deck, just above the dive platform. The nagging pain in my side told me that at least one rib was possibly fractured, maybe two.
George sat slumped on the deck, his hands tied together to the steps. His nose had started to bleed again and both eyes had started to swell. Just to add to his discomfort.