‘Go well?’
‘As I had planned it.’
‘Just a bit of waiting, then.’
‘They won’t hang about. Should have it through tonight.’
‘Well done, Olive. Not that it matters, but Albert’s thing should be winding up this evening.’
‘Not that it matters. Where’s the car?’
They were by the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater. They were hunched down and the lighthouse gave a small protection from the weight of the wind gusts.
They could see out to the open sea to the east.
The big car ferry had come out, gaining speed as it cleared the Neuer Strom, from the channel at the back of the gutting shed and the fishing boats’ quay. Its lowering shape had disappeared into the blur of the merged sleet and snow. The trawler would come, rolling and staggering, from the east and they peered into the grey-white of the mist and searched for it.
When they looked down the length of the breakwater, turned away from the watch on the open water, they could see the two men. There was more snow in the sleet and the light of the afternoon was slipping. Through the sleet and the snowflakes, they could see Krause with one man beside him. Krause and the man blocked the end of the breakwater, stood where it met the beach.
Around them the waves hit the rocks on which the lighthouse was built. Close to them was the rope, jerking and slackening, holding the small, open boat. Because the breakwater curved in a shallow arc, Krause and the man could not have seen it. A family had come onto the breakwater, and a small boy had shrieked excitement when the spray had deluged him, and a little girl had clung to her father’s legs.
A bulk carrier had rolled out to sea from the Neuer Strom, and was gone.
Josh held the gun down between his legs and his hands were chilled and sea-soaked.
There was the rumble behind them, echoing in the steel-plated shaft of the lighthouse, of the automatic power. The light flashed. Its brilliance above them brought the night around them. The light rotated, spilled in a corridor, across the white wave heads, the grey-green sea, the tired, sheened concrete of the breakwater, the rocks… Josh saw it… The light caught the white and red paint of its hull. He saw the outline of the trawler. It seemed to be tossed up and then to wallow down. It came from the mist cloud that settled on the sea away to the east. The light, again, speared onto it, captured it, and discarded it. The trawler seemed to Josh so fragile, beating through the snow, the swell… The trawler was coming home, coming for the quayside…
The grotesque shadow of Tracy was thrown by the lighthouse beam over the water and the waves. She was down on the rocks, wrestling with the knot that tied the rope to the rail post. The trawler veered towards them. The rise of a wave obscured it, it rose again and the spray cloud fell above it. He saw the gulls. Incredible, in the wind the gulls held station with the trawler. He was mesmerized. When the trawler’s bow was pitched up, Josh saw the black paint on white of the boat’s identification. There was a man, stooped low behind the wheelhouse, and he threw scraps into the air. The gulls broke station and dived for them. She had loosed the knot of the rope and took the strain of the boat. He felt such fear.
‘Get in,’ she hissed.
‘Christ…‘ Josh went down the rocks and his feet slid from under him, his body scraping over the weed. He looked back. She hung onto the rope. ‘Good luck.’
She shouted, ‘A man told me you have to earn luck – start bloody earning it!’
His shoes had a grip. The water came over them but the rock was firm. He launched himself. He fell into the boat. It ducked down under the impact of his weight and water slopped on his face. He scrabbled up onto his knees. He saw her. She jumped. She was beside him. She had a paddle in her hand. She pushed the small open boat away from the rocks, and they were first lifted up and then thrown down. The lighthouse beam snatched, a moment, the colour of her hair. She paddled the boat out towards the trawler.
Krause and Peters, together, the same moment, understood. They sprinted forward… They had the length of the breakwater to run. .. The little boat was bucking, weaving, in the waves, on course to intercept the trawler.
They ran, panted and heaved. Krause, frozen hands, buffeted by the wind, held the Makharov two-fisted, aimed, fired. He could not see the fall of the bullets, into the sea, among the wheeling gulls.
The drive of the snow was into his face, the force of the wind against his body. He fired until the magazine was exhausted, until the boat was lost against the hull of the trawler.
She threw the rope to the man who fed the gulls. The small open boat clattered against the wood planks of the trawler. Josh reached up and caught at the low rail. It took his weight and his feet kicked at air below him. He dragged himself over and fell onto the slithering mess of fish carcasses. She came after him. The man who held the rope had an old, beaten face, and there was another face, as old and wizened, that peered from the door of the wheelhouse. At the wheel was a younger man. The gulls screamed above him. Josh stood, fell, stood again. He took the pistol from his belt.
He shouted, against the gull cries, against the engine drive, against the wind whistle in the wires.
‘Which is Muller? Which is Willi Muller?’
A thin, aged arm, a gaunt, scarred finger, pointed to the wheelhouse.
‘Willi Muller from Rerik?’
The head, lined, unshaven and weathered, nodded.
Josh yelled, ‘He stays, you go.’
They went without argument, over the side of the trawler and down into the boat. They went as old men would who have known the authority of command, as old soldiers would have gone, too wise as survivors to confront a gun. They were cast off.
Josh was in the wheelhouse.
He was a tall young man with blond tangled hair and a lean face. He held the wheel easily. Josh had the pistol close to his head.
‘Turn her round, bring her back out.’
The wheel was swung. Josh saw, through the water spray running down the wheelhouse window, their boat moving away from them. The two men had control of it and paddled it easily, and he saw Krause on the breakwater and the man with him. The young man stared straight ahead and the trawler pitched back towards the open sea. Tracy stood behind Josh.
‘You are Willi Muller?’
‘Yes.’
‘You worked your father’s boat in Rerik? And, in November of nineteen eighty-eight you took your father’s boat out for the Stasi?’
‘Yes.’
‘You lifted a man from the Salzhaff? You saw him killed ashore?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was from your boat the body of the man was thrown back, weighted, into the Salzhaff?’
She beat the questions at him, savage, and his voice quavered the answers, afraid.
‘Yes.’
‘I want your evidence of murder. I’m taking you home.’ The shoulders of the young man shook. The colour of his face had gone. They went towards the west, beyond the small shelter of the breakwater, towards the last glimmer of the day’s light.
They watched the trawler going. They watched it head for the reddening ribbon of the dusk.
‘They are going to Rerik,’ Peters said. ‘They have been out four days, they will have little fuel left but they would have enough fuel to reach Rerik. We should meet them at Rerik.’
They walked back along the length of the breakwater.
Chapter Nineteen
We are taking you home.’
The young man, Willi Muller, moved, dull-eyed, in the small space of the wheelhouse. She dominated him, was at his shoulder as he checked the fuel gauge where the needle was close to the red line.
‘You have not dared to go home.’
She was close behind him when he squinted down at the compass, where the needle rocked with the pitch motion of the trawler, and when he took the wheel from Josh and set the course to the west.
‘You let the fear, as a coward would, cripple you.’