Wildtrack would have staggered, her bow rising as her stern was pile-driven downwards, but a good boat would survive a pooping and Wildtrack would have juddered upwards, shedding the flooding water. But Nadeznha Bannister would already have been a hundred yards astern, helpless in the mad blackness. The wind would have been shrieking in the rigging, the decks would have been seething, and her cries would have been lost in the welter of foam and wind and banging sails.
Or else she was pushed. But the cries in the darkness would have been just as forlorn.
Then, from Wildtrack’s aft cabin, Jill-Beth screamed.
The scream was more of a yelp, and swiftly cut off as though a hand had been slapped over her mouth. I detected panic in the quick sound, but the music on the terrace was far too loud for anyone but me to have heard the truncated scream.
I picked up a full beer bottle and hurled it. Wildtrack lay no further than good grenade distance away and the bottle crashed with a satisfying noise on her main coachroof. The second ricocheted off a guardrail and shattered a cabin window, the third missed, but the fourth bottle broke against the metal mainmast and showered fragments of glass and foaming beer on to the boat.
The aft cabin door opened, and Jill-Beth came out like a dog sprung from a trap. She did not hesitate, but scrambled over the guardrail and dived into the river. Mulder, bellowing in frustrated anger, followed from the cabin as I hurled the fifth full bottle. By pure chance it hit him clean on the forehead, throwing him back and out of sight.
He shouted in anger or pain. I’d thrown the bottle hard enough to fracture his skull, but he seemed quite unhurt as, seconds later, he reappeared with his shotgun in his hands. He aimed it at Sycorax’s cockpit.
I dropped.
He fired. Both barrels.
The noise slammed across the water and I saw the glare of the barrel flames sheet the sky above me. The pellets went high, spatter-ing into the bushes above the wharf. I listened for the sound of Jill-Beth swimming, but could only hear the sharp click as Mulder broke the gun for reloading.
I scrabbled through the tangled mess of stores that clogged the cockpit. Jimmy Nicholls’ and my hauls from the boat auctions lay in an unseamanlike confusion. I cursed, then found the net bag I wanted. I heard the cartridges slap home in Mulder’s gun and the click as the breech was closed.
When in doubt, an old commanding officer of mine liked to say, hit the buggers with smoke. I had bought some old emergency smoke floats and I prayed that they still worked as I pulled the first ring. I counted as though it were a grenade, then lobbed it out of my shelter.
There was a pause as the water entered the floating can, then I smelt the acrid scent and I raised my head to see a smear of orange smoke boiling up from the river. The lurid smudge spread to hide Wildtrack’s hull. The ebb had just begun and the can was floating downstream, but the sea breeze was conveniently carrying the smoke back towards Mulder. I thickened it with a second can, then leaned over Sycorax’s side to search for Jill-Beth. I could hear people calling from the terrace. I tossed yet another float to keep Mulder blinded, and the can landed just feet away from a sleek black head that suddenly surfaced in the river. “Miss Kirov?” I called politely.
“Nick?”
I held out my hand for her, and as I did so Mulder unleashed his next weapon. Perhaps he had realized that one volley of gunfire was enough, and that more might land him in trouble with the law, so now he fired a distress flare in Sycorax’s direction. The flare was rocket-propelled, designed to sear high into the air where it would deploy a brilliant red light which dangled from a parachute. I heard the missile fizz close overhead. It struck the coping of the wharf and bounced up into the night trailing smoke and sparks. A second rocket followed from the mass of orange smoke. Either could have killed if they had hit my head, but both went high.
Jill-Beth’s hand took hold of mine and I pulled her dripping from the water. I was given haste and strength by a third rocket which went wide. The first flare had exploded in the trees above the boathouse and the brilliant dazzle of the red light made it seem as if the wood had caught fire. I hurled my last smoke float towards Wildtrack and searched among the mess in the cockpit to find my own flares.
Jill-Beth was panting. Her expensive silk shirt and white trousers were soaked and dirty. “Climb the wall,” I said, “and run like hell for the house.” There were people streaming down the lawn, shouting, and I hoped their presence would deter Mulder’s madness.
I found a flare that I pointed towards the bigger boat.
“No!” Jill-Beth said the word with panicked force. “I can’t stay here! For God’s sake get me out! Have you got a dinghy?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Nick! Let’s go!”
I abandoned the flare and we scrambled over the stern into my tender. I had the presence of mind to toss a duffelbag of spare clothes in first, then I slashed the painter. Jill-Beth pushed us away and we drifted on the tide towards the overhanging trees beyond the boathouse cut. Jill-Beth poled us with an oar and we reached the shelter of the thick branches just as the first guests reached the river bank to stare in awe at the rolling orange smoke that was meant to mark an emergency at sea for searching helicopters. The cloud had shrouded Wildtrack right up to her gaudy string of lights and was made even more spectacular by the brilliant light of the burning flares.
“The smoke was smart of you,” Jill-Beth said. “Sorry, Nick.”
“Sorry?”
“Never mind. Sh!” She touched a warning finger to her lips, then pointed behind me as if to say that we could be overheard by the people who now crowded the river bank. I was rigging the dinghy’s outboard, an ancient and small British Seagull that I’d bought for a knockdown price at auction.
“Fanny!” It was Bannister’s angry voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Fireworks, sir!” Fanny must have realized that he had over-reacted and now he proved sharp enough to find an explanation that fitted the night’s mood. “Just using up old flares, sir!”
“I heard a gunshot.” The Honourable John’s voice.
“Lifeboat maroon.” Mulder’s voice came out of the thick smoke.
“How awfully exciting.” Melissa’s voice. “Have you got an Exocet?”
“Nothing to be excited about.” That was Bannister again, thinking ahead to the possibility of headlines. He knew it was illegal to set off distress flares unnecessarily. “Are you drunk, Fanny?”