Kerak had disappeared in the spume, leaving Sycorax in lesser waves. I turned her to face the swells when the squawk of the radio startled me. I forced Angela to take the tiller, then pushed open the cabin hatch and leaned down to the set. Vicky mewed at me from the chart table and I muttered something soothing as I pulled the microphone towards me. The call sounded again from the speaker.
“This is merchant vessel Kerak to yacht Sycorax, over.”
“Sycorax,” I responded. A sea shattered on our bows and slashed down to sting my face.
“Is that Captain Sandman? Over.” It was Yassir Kassouli’s voice.
“Who else?” I snapped back.
There was a pause. “I could not see anyone on board Wildtrack.
Did you get close enough to see anyone aboard? Over.”
“I got on board Wildtrack,” I said. I was too tired, too hurt, and too cold to be bothered with radio courtesies.
The radio hissed. Angela was watching me, but so dully that I did not think she could hear what I was saying. “You were on board?
Over,” Kassouli asked, and I could hear the incredulity in his voice.
“Why don’t you just piss off?” Except I hadn’t pressed the microphone button so he did not hear me. Now I did press it. “I was on board,” I confirmed, “and there was no one there alive. No one.
Bannister’s dead. So is Mulder.”
Kassouli’s metallic voice sounded after another pause. “Who was the body being towed behind your yacht, Captain? Over.”
“That was Mulder. I tried to save him. I couldn’t.”
“What happened? Over,” Kassouli persisted.
“Mulder died,” I said. “He just died.” I raised my head to look for Kerak, but the tanker was still lost in the whirl of windborne spray. She’d be watching me on her radar, though, and I feared that she would turn and come back. “It was an accident,” I said into the microphone.
“And Bannister’s death? Over.”
I hesitated. I wanted to vent my anger at Kassouli over the air, I wanted to accuse him of murder, I wanted to tell him that I did not think his daughter had been murdered, I wanted to tell him that his perfect American Princess had chosen a Boer brute for her lover, but somehow, in this stinging ocean, the truth seemed out of place. There had been too much killing, too much anger, and it was time for it all to end. Revenge breeds revenge, and I had the chance to end it now. So I hesitated.
“Are you receiving me, Sycorax? Over.”
“Bannister’s death was an accident,” I lied, and only after I’d told the lie did I wonder whether my motive was simply to stay alive for, if I’d accused Kassouli of murder, then the great Leviathan might have returned from the north and crushed me like matchwood. I pressed the button again. “All three deaths were accidents, Kassouli, all three.”
Kassouli ignored my protestation that his daughter’s death had been an accident. He was silent. There was nothing but the wind and the sea and the hollow emptiness of the gale’s dying throes.
Kerak had vanished and the radio only hissed. I watched for a few minutes, but nothing appeared in the north. Kassouli, I thought, had succeeded and his daughter’s soul could fly free. It was over.
I killed the engine, took down the shredded storm jib, stowed the gallows, and set the reefed mainsail while Angela hoisted the mizzen.
She pegged the tiller, then helped me down to the cabin where, before I could put butterfly sutures on my cut hand, I first peeled off my wet, stiff, torn oilskins. I was shaking with cold and fatigue.
Angela found the strength to make oxtail soup, to wrap me in a blanket, and then to hold me tight as though she could pour her own body warmth into me.
“Tony was dead?” she asked at last.
“He was dead.”
“And it was an accident?” she asked, and I realized she must have heard my words on the radio.
“It was an accident.” I shivered suddenly, remembering the slit throat, then the image of the blood boiling up from Sycorax’s stern drove the memory of Bannister’s body from my mind. I closed my eyes for a second.
“Tell me the truth, Nick, please.” Angela was staring very gravely into my eyes. But I did not know what cause the truth would serve now. If I told Angela the truth there was no saying where her intense nature might take her. It was over and she would live better in ignorance. I tried to move off the bunk, but Angela pressed me back.
“Nick!”
“I need to set a course for St John’s,” I said.
“What happened to Tony, Nick?” Angela asked. The seas were hammering our hull, shaking us.
“The boat was knocked down.” I made the story up as I went along. “Mulder broke his leg. Tony was struck on the head. I don’t think Mulder tried very hard to save his life, but it was an accident.
He was unconscious. I think he died of exposure in the end. It’s the cold that does it. It can be so bloody cold.” I was shivering as I spoke.
“Mulder told you that?” Angela asked suspiciously.
“I saw the body.” I closed my eyes. “It was an accident.” I think Angela believed me. It was better that way. If I’d told her the truth about her husband then I do not think she could have resisted using it. She would have mocked Kassouli for his daughter’s choice of lover, she might even have tried to take Kassouli to court.
Wherever her life went now, I thought, she did not need Yassir Kassouli’s enmity to haunt her. Thus, at least, I justified my untruths to myself.
Angela sat back on the other bunk and dragged a thin hand through her lank hair. “I need a bath. God, I need a bath.” The metallic squawk of the VHF startled us both. “Yacht Sycorax.
This is merchant vessel Kerak, over.” I did not recognize the man’s voice that had an American accent.
Angela picked up the microphone. “Kerak. This is Sycorax, over.” The voice betrayed no surprise that a woman had answered his call. “Our determination is that Wildtrack’s hull is a danger to shipping. Can you confirm that there’s no one aboard? Over.” Angela looked at me, I nodded, and she pressed the microphone button. “There’s no one alive,” she said curtly.
“Thank you, Sycorax. Over and out.” I could feel Kassouli’s brooding presence like a threat. I slid back the coachroof and climbed to the bridge deck. Angela joined me.
Neither of us spoke, but we both wondered whether the great tanker would come back to crush us for being inconvenient witnesses to a rich man’s anger. We waited two minutes, then the vast shape appeared from the grey north. Kerak had turned and come back to us.
She had come back to finish her rotten task. I saw the swollen bow wave pushing ahead of her, evidence that the engines drove the tanker at full speed. She was not coming towards Sycorax. I looked for Wildtrack, but could not see her among the broken waters. The tanker could see her, though, and was aiming all her weight at the half-sunk yacht. Angela’s face was expressionless. “Is Tony’s body still on board?”
I took her hand. “Yes.”
Then the Kerak struck the floating hulk. I doubt if a shudder went through the hundred thousand tons. She hit the floating hull and I saw Wildtrack ride up the bulb at the Kerak’s prow and she seemed to be caught there like a piece of driftwood trapped by the steel bows.
The Kerak ploughed on. The spinning windscreens on the bridge looked like the malevolent eyes of a machine. There were lights behind the windows, and figures moving there in the soft comfort of the huge boat.