CHAPTER 57
10 years AC
Bracton Harbour, Norfolk
Walter listened to the gentle lapping of water against the quay and the boat’s fibreglass hull. It was an altogether more relaxing sound than the thump and roll of the North Sea. That and the soft tink of the halyards against the mast.
Bracton was quiet and still as it always was. Earlier he’d heard the snapping and yipping of a pack of dogs disputing some small find, but since then nothing but the tide.
He could have headed back to the rigs before it got dark. He could have made it back in time. Instead he chose to overnight here and sail back some time tomorrow morning.
To be honest, he preferred the time away from the platforms. Things were getting unpleasant on there. Jenny refused to talk to Latoc any more and that bastard was carrying on as if he was now in charge. There were well over a hundred and fifty, maybe even two hundred of them now following the man. Too many, really, to all fit on the large compression platform. Since the accommodation platform was the one directly linked to his, Walter guessed he’d soon be insisting Jenny and the others currently bunked there vacate onto the next platform down so as to make way for his overspill.
The day that happened, Jenny might be better admitting she’d lost control of the rigs to him and prepare to gather up her things and those who wanted to go with her, and come ashore. The accommodation platform was the heart of the community, and surrendering that to Latoc was as good as losing it all.
There was another reason he preferred as much of his time as possible ashore, ostensibly scouring for bits. It was the staring. Everyone was doing it now and not just Latoc’s loony followers; long icy stares as he passed by, not even a formal nod, or a half smile, or a limp wave.
Just the bloody staring.
He knew what it was. That silly rumour. Alice Harton’s rumour, or whoever else she’d picked it up from. Just words. The rigs were full of words. In between chores it was all there was to do, gossip. But this . . . it was nasty. And there really was no verbal defence a man could make against that kind of innuendo. In fact, to bluster aloud that he’d never had any inappropriate thoughts about Hannah would seem to condemn him still further.
He protesteth too much!
Hannah, she was a lovely little girl. He was very fond of her, almost like a granddaughter to him. And yes, there’d been occasions he’d been in the Sutherlands’ quarters when Leona was washing her hair or scrubbing her in a tin bath. But it was all innocent. For Christ’s sake, this was the kind of environment - all of them living cheek-by-jowl - where people were going to catch each other half dressed occasionally. It happened all of the time. But this . . . this kind of suggestion made by someone out there, someone who presumably had an axe to grind, somebody whom he must have annoyed or upset at some point in the past, this kind of suggestion stuck fast and never shook off. It made every hug he’d given Hannah, every peck on the cheek and a million other innocent physical interactions since she was born, take on a sinister new meaning. And dammit, yes, it could make him look like some pervert if that’s what someone wanted to see in him; a pervert carefully, patiently playing out some long game, biding his time as he groomed the girl and earned Jenny’s and Leona’s implicit trust.
An idea like that, once planted . . . Jesus . . . any interaction with Hannah would appear suspect.
‘F*ck!’ Walter snapped suddenly, angrily punching the side of the yacht’s cockpit. The fibreglass rang hollowly. He was angry enough he could throttle the vicious bitch, and he could start his guessing that it was Alice Harton who came up with that kind of poison.
The thought enraged him. The idea that everyone back on the rigs must actually now be wondering if he’d taken Hannah down there, done things to her . . . then killed her? That he was capable of that?
No. Jesus, No. Not any child . . . not anyone, in fact. And certainly not someone he’d known since she was born, grown to love as if she was his own flesh and blood, for Christ’s sake. He’d been a friend of Jenny’s and her family since before the rigs. He’d known them when they’d lived together outside Newark. They were bloody family.
The truth was, Hannah had been down there, where she knew she shouldn’t be. Messing around amongst pipes that should have been more securely attached. And that . . . that was what he was guilty of. Carelessness. There should have been a lock on the door. There should have been adequate ventilation.
Unless, of course, that’s what happened to her. That she was . . .
Latoc.
He slapped the cockpit once again. ‘You f*cking bastard!’ he hissed. ‘You f*cking bastard!’
He’d seen the pair of them, as thick as thieves: Hannah and Latoc. The man helped around by Hannah, cared for, nursed by Hannah. His arm around her shoulders, his face so close to hers that their hair tangled, talking in hushed conspiratorial voices.
He almost laughed at the irony. Now the idea of Latoc being a pervert had taken hold in his head, every interaction of that Belgian bastard seemed to take on a sinister dimension.
Maybe that damned rumour had come from somewhere other than Alice’s big flapping mouth. Maybe that sick twisted f*ck, Latoc, had put the idea about somehow. Just made a veiled suggestion and let it evolve and transmit and grow as it spread like swine flu from one gossiping mouth to the next.
But why?
The first answer seemed obvious. He wanted to strip away Jenny’s allies. Leave her isolated. He’d done a swift job of winning Martha over. Maybe Tami Gupta was next? If he couldn’t woo the woman, maybe he’d start some nasty rumour about her as well?
Another thought occurred to him. Latoc didn’t seem to like other men; didn’t like them around him. Oh, yes, Valérie Latoc seemed very comfortable amongst women, but other men . . . ?
He sees us as a threat.
Perhaps the bastard wanted to make the rigs his own ‘lady palace’; a procession of dutiful acolytes for him to choose from. Perhaps that was his game; getting rid of potential male challengers one at a time. They’d rescued him. He’d woken up in the infirmary and saw the place was mostly women and like a greedy little boy in a sweet shop decided he wanted it all for himself.
That made a hell of a lot of sense. Like a rogue lion coming across another pride and coveting it, the first order of business was removing from play the existing alpha male. Before the explosion, before the bastard had arrived, Walter knew he wasn’t particularly popular, especially amongst the womenfolk. He knew they found him rude and gruff and impatient. Maybe a little arrogant. He didn’t suffer fools gladly. And maybe, yes . . . probably, he was a pompous old bastard. But he was tolerated and extended due courtesy because he was Jenny’s right-hand man. Because he knew how to fix things up. Because he knew how to pilot the boats. Because he’d built a generator that gave them electricity and light after the sun had gone down.
They wouldn’t have managed without him. He was the alpha male.
There were no rumours back then, were there? No icy stares.
Then Latoc came along.
Then the explosion.
Then people pointing fingers at him for allowing Hannah down there.
Now this - that he was some sort of a paedophile.
Latoc wants me off. Wants me out of the way.
A final thought occurred to him. There were other girls Hannah’s age.
F*ck you, you bastard.
Tomorrow morning he was going back. Tomorrow morning he was going to stand right in front of Valérie Latoc, in front of as many people as possible, and he was going to accuse the son-of-a-bitch of molesting and killing Hannah. And if the obtuse foreign f*cking bastard tried wriggling his way out of it, then he was going to take a swing at the shit.
From where he sat in the cockpit Walter could see faces lining the railings all the way up from the spider deck to the main deck. A welcoming committee. Every last person, it seemed.
He eased the yacht towards the support-leg beneath the dangling hooks of the lifeboat davits, dropping the sails so she slowly bobbed forward on the last of her momentum.
‘Cranes, please!’ he called up.
What’s going on? What’s happened?
The hooks inched down from the davits with a loud clacking as manual winches were turned. Walter gaffed the nearest with a pole and began securing the harness hooks to it.
Dennis and Howard climbed down a rope ladder from the spider deck and dropped onto the foredeck beside him.
‘What’s going on? What’s this all about?’ he asked them.
Howard eyed him coolly. ‘Natasha Bingham went missing yesterday. ’
Walter knew Natasha. She’d been one of Hannah’s best friends. Same age, same frizzy hazel-coloured hair; they used to look like twin sisters from a distance. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
‘She’s missing?’
Howard nodded. ‘Yesterday morning, same time you left for shore,’ he said. The implication was right there in his voice.
Walter felt his face pale. ‘What?’ He turned to look from one to the other. ‘Howard? You’re not saying . . . ?’
Neither man said anything. Then Howard relented. ‘Sorry, Walter, we need to check.’
‘YOU THINK I TOOK HER!?’ he found himself screaming at them.
A shrill voice from the spider deck, twenty feet above him answered him. ‘If you’ve touched her, we’re going to kill you, you dirty old bastard!’
He looked up to see a row of faces, Alice Harton’s snarling. Beside her the girl’s young mother, Denise Bingham, her face mottled pink with grief and worry. Others either side of them, all of them grasping the rail, knuckles bulging.
‘I didn’t bloody take her! She’s not on my bloody boat!’
From the deck above he heard Latoc shout down. ‘Please check inside.’
Howard and Dennis stepped carefully along the side deck and dropped down into the cockpit. Howard ducked down through the hatch into the small cabin below.
‘There’s nothing down there!’ shouted Walter. ‘I told you, she’s not on my boat!’ He squinted at the railings above, shading his eyes as he tried to make out where Latoc was standing. He spotted the man’s dark ringlets fluttering in the breeze, sixty feet above him, and the outline of his dark, trimmed beard amongst a row of pale faces.
‘You!’ he shouted. ‘Latoc! It’s you! I . . . I worked it out last night!’
‘Oh, we can guess what you were doing last night!’ shouted Alice, from the deck beneath. ‘You dirty old bastard!’
Walter ignored her. ‘You made our generator blow up, Latoc! You did it! You killed Hannah and you covered it up with the explosion!’
Latoc shook his head. ‘God have mercy on you, Walter, if we find you’ve hurt this girl . . . as well!’
‘What?! You know I . . . I didn’t touch Hannah! I never bloody touched her! I—’
‘God have mercy on you if we find something, Walter, because I am certain none of these women will!’
Howard emerged from the cockpit, his face ashen and sombre. His rheumy pink eyes met Walter’s. He shook his head. ‘Jesus, Walt,’ was all he could mutter as he held up a small sky-blue plimsoll in one hand.
Denise Bingham screamed at the sight of it. ‘Oh, no!! Oh, God!!’
Walter stared at the plimsoll. It was Natasha’s all right. Sky-blue with a butterfly on the strap. She always wore shoes that colour. Every time her feet had outgrown another pair, it was on the ‘Needs and Wants’ list: Denise Bingham = pair of sky-blue shoes, plimsolls pref, trainers if not. Size 4 this time, please!
He shook his head. ‘I . . . I . . . don’t know why . . . I . . .’ he looked up at the rows of faces. He saw Denise’s face crumpled, broken and red. Beside her Alice and others, jaws set rigid in condemnation. Sixty feet up on the cellar deck he saw Martha standing next to Latoc, shaking her head sadly and crying. And further off, a hundred feet up, leaning over the railings of the main deck he recognised Jenny. Her head dipped slowly into her hands and he thought he saw her shoulders heaving.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ he called up to her. ‘JENNY!! I DIDN’T F*ckING TOUCH HER!!’