Can't remember whether or not I've mentioned it already, but here's a bit on board the ship the crept into Whorlton Bay when I wasn't looking. Unfortunately it seems to have run aground and now I can't get rid of it.
“Full astern,” spat Captain Dimitri Antonov, in Russian.
A bell rang, there was a short pause, the needles on the control panels twitched and spasmed in their green light and then a heady vibration shook the deck. There was a distant rumble, the lights of Whorlton moved across the blackness of the bridge windows, a fraction of a degree, the vibration became more solid and stopped. The distant engines throbbed, to no effect.
“All stop,” sighed Dimitri. There was another pause and the needles calmed themselves. The Turaco, Dimitri’s command for eleven years, was hard aground on the gravelly Whorlton Shoal, and it appeared that she was not to be coaxed off.
“We wait,” said Dimitri, lighting a cigarette. He paced to the door to the port fly bridge and squinted through the smoke and the glass at the lights of Whorlton, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. “Has he made contact?”
“Not yet,” came the reply.
Antonov shrugged and paced back across the unusually steady deck. The ship was indeed hard aground – the sea, admittedly calm on this frosty, windless night, was not moving her at all. The tide was falling. They would not get off the shoal that night.
“Radio Peasefurnace,” said Dimitri. “Tell them… Tell them that we shall enter the port in the morning. Tell them we will be standing offshore until daylight.”
A bestubbled man in a cable-knit sweater clicked his heels and went to the radio set. Dimitri dealt with his cigarette and eyed Whorlton, its sodium lamps flickering in the salt air. The bulk of the castle was outlined against the distant yellow glow of the steelworks and oil terminals of Peasefurnace to the North, the light diffusing into the night sky on the wafer thin cloud. A lone block of yellow and white light, nearer to the town than the castle but still separate from it, identified itself as the Atlantis. It was not late, but Whorlton appeared to be abed.
A bright white light flashed from the shore, a repeating sequence of Morse. Dimitri went to the door, but before he got there another man entered. Dimitri waved the cigarette at the other man and at the source of the flashing light.
“Tell him that we are aground for his convenience, and that he may come when he is ready,” said Dimitri.
The other man nodded, and soon answering flashes came from the powerful spotlamp on the Turaco’s prow. There was a lengthy conversation between ship and shore, in which several sequences of flashes had to be repeated for the benefit of whoever was operating the lamp on the shore.
Presently the lamp-man returned to the bridge, the corners of his mouth creased in the tiniest of smiles. “He will be here within the hour,” he reported. Dimitri gave a satisfied nod and the man left.
Somewhere in the ship, something creaked, loudly, a low frequency groan. A sort of mechanical sigh. Dimitri listened for any other unusual sounds, but when there were none he went to the flask that stood between the control panels and poured a cup of strong black tea. He took it to the door, flicked the butt of his cigarette into the sea and stood in the opening blowing on the steaming brew, scanning the dark shore. He fancied he could see movement near the slipway, but told himself that such thoughts were wishful thinking. He would be a long time yet: he was no seaman, and the falling tide would hinder his launch. The last time, the outboard on his small boat had failed and he and half a million pounds’-worth of the product had almost been carried out to sea. He was too old to row, and it was only the quick action of Dimitri and his men in one of their lifeboats that had saved the old fool. And their money. This time, in order to try to avoid a repeat of that dramatic and inconvenient episode, Dimitri had tried to bring the Turaco further into the bay, out of the currents that ran around Whorlton Brigg. In the dark, it had been foolish. Still, no harm done. The tide would refloat her without difficulty.
A clatter on the metal steps that led from the deck to the bridge and an excited babble of voices heralded his arrival. Dimitri went to the door and opened it in time to admit the usual old gentleman and a younger, fatter man who he had not met before. The younger man carried a walking cane and eyed the coast through the windows wearing a worried expression that suggested he didn’t much like being on the Turaco. The crewman who had escorted them to the bridge disappeared away down the steps and the older man sank into the creaking leather of the pilot’s chair. The other man hovered nervously near the large chrome wheel, toying with his cane.
“Dimitri,” he sighed, wiping his face with a red handkerchief, “why can’t any of your men ever speak English?”
“My dear Mr Stillings,” said Dimitri, smiling broadly with his mouth and scowling with his eyes, “it is always a pleasure to see you.”
Stillings shot him a look.
“And who is your companion?” asked Dimitri, directing the question to the nervous man.
Stillings answered for him: “This is Gregory Andrews. Gregory, this is Dimitri Antonov. Gregory,” said Stillings to Dimitri, conspiratorially, “is the urn man.”
Andrews gave a small wave and beamed nervously, extending his hand to Dimitri and then hurriedly retracting it when it was ignored.
Dimitri nodded grimly. “And his wife?” he asked Stillings.
Andrews gave a tiny noise of enquiry, but then bit his lip.
“Still missing, I’m afraid,” said Stillings.
Dimitri shook his head remorsefully. “Perhaps she will turn up.”
Stillings nodded his head slowly and said that he hoped so. To his credit, he did hope so. If she didn’t he’d have a body to deal with, and it was too many years since he had had to do anything in that line to start having to do it again. And besides, he wasn’t sure if he could lift her with his back the way it was.
Dimitri held up his finger as though a thought had just crossed his mind. “Perhaps when she hears that you, Gregory, have reconsidered your recent business decision she will see that you really are trying your best for her and will return.”
Andrews made a small noise. The other two men watched him like snakes watching a mouse. Dimitri sipped his tea. Stillings looked like he wished he had some tea to sip. Andrews made another small noise. He was having trouble taking everything in. He wasn’t totally certain that his wife, Helen, hadn’t simply left him. She was always saying she would. He wasn’t certain that this wasn’t some sort of abominable opportunist trick on the part of Stillings or truss or this Communist seafarer. She had left a note – or a note had been left – in her handwriting. And yet the kitchen had been left in a mess. She never left the kitchen in a mess. She somehow contrived to cook without making a mess. If she had disappeared halfway through making a cake or something you would never have known that she had been there. The house was usually like some sort of unearthly showhome. And yet there had been that note, and it had looked like she had left halfway through making a cake. He just couldn’t be sure. He felt his chest tightening and took two of his pills and thought hard. He should just agree to whatever they want. When he knew what had happened to Helen he could always change his mind again. He made a small noise of submission, or agreement – a deferential noise, at least. As an undertaker, his noises were usually eloquent enough. This one appeared not to be.
Stillings looked to Dimitri and pursed his lips.
Dimitri looked at his watch.
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” began Andrews, “this is absurd. What do you want me to say?”
Dimitri looked to Stillings, who nodded once, hardly, to indicate that the floor was the Captain’s. “We were simply saying that your wife is more likely to return if you continue your lucrative business venture within our organisation. Women are like that – take it as friendly advice from two men of the world.”
Stillings nodded vaguely and looked out at the lights of Whorlton and his hotel, yawned and looked at his watch. He was wondering why they didn’t just throw the fat undertaker overboard. The stuff was supposed to come through Peasefurnace anyway. Truss was taking a big risk having the Turaco come to Whorlton. He had heard some worrying things about Truss, lately. Very worrying. And it couldn’t fail to be noticed, a big ship like that, and now aground. He hoped that she would be able to get off the shoal at high tide. It would be just their luck that she wouldn’t, and then questions would be asked about what she was doing there in the first place. Awkward questions. Questions that might mean he couldn’t be Lionel Stillings any more. He sighed; he had quite liked being Lionel Stillings.
Andrews took the sigh as his cue. “Well,” he began, cautiously, “I suppose you could be right. I could treat her to a nice holiday. She’d like that…”
Dimitri broke in: “Yes, yes. You have made the correct decision, I am sure of it. Your wife will be back with you in no time, I am certain.”
Stillings got up and walked towards the door. He peered down at the lightless depth of the sea.
A man clattered up the steps, entered the bridge and spoke a few words to Dimitri in Russian.
“It appears your vessel is loaded, gentlemen,” he said. “I shall not detain you any longer. Good evening to you, until next we meet.” He shook Stillings' hand and patted Andrews’ shoulder paternally as the two men left, then crossed to the pilot’s chair, sank into it and drew out his revolver. He looked at it for a few long moments, and then, when he heard the high-pitched drone of Stillings’ outboard going away into the night he emptied the chambers and placed it in a drawer. He took out another flask and poured a clear, strongly smelling liquid from it into a small greasy glass. He drank from it, sighed and stared blankly at the black silhouette of the castle. Something glinted high up on its walls, as though a stray fleck of light had by some chance caught a lens. Dimitri watched the spot for some minutes, but then shook his head and swallowed the rest of the vodka. Paranoia. Imagination. Guilt?
The lens followed Stillings’ boat through the black to the shore and then went back into its red felt-lined black case, to be carried nearer to Stillings, nearer to Andrews, nearer to the Atlantis, and nearer to another death.
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