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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Shetland Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Cass Lynch has achieved the post of third officer aboard her beloved Norwegian sail-training ship, Sorlandet. They're sailing from Norway to Ireland as part of the Tall Ship's race. An unnerving early-morning encounter leads to suspicions that there's a stowaway aboard - yet a police search finds nobody. Then one of the trainees goes missing ... Cass and her lover DI Gavin Macrae find themselves up against a ruthless killer. Cass also needs to confront her personal dilemma: if she wants a settled life with Gavin, she'll have to leave the sea, but could she bear to do that?
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DEATH IN SHETLAND WATERS
Marsali Taylor
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To Captain Sture and all the real crew of the sail-training ship Sørlandet, and to our beautiful ship: long may she grace the seas, and give such pleasure
6
CONTENTS
THE CREW OF SØRLANDET
Each watch has a watch leader and two able seamen (ABs)
For Cass’s watch, these are: Erik, Watch Leader
Mona and Petter, ABs
Each watch has between fifteen and twenty-five trainees. In Cass’s watch, they are: Aage, Anna, Ben, Dimitris, Ellen, Gabriel, Ismail, Jan-Ole, Johan, Ludwig, Maria, Naseem, Nine, Nora, Olav, Samir and Sindre. 8
Other officers:
Sadie, Medical Officer
Rolf, Bosun
Jenn, Liaison Officer
Lars, 2nd Engineer
James, Steward
Elmer, Cook
Laila and Ruth, Galley Girls
This is far too many suspects for even the most lively crime novel, so just to make things simpler for us all, I can tell you now that none of the trainees committed any murders on board.
LANDFALL, KRISTIANSAND
Monday 6th April
I stood on the dock beside the ochre tollbooth, Cat’s basket in one hand, my kitbag in the other, and admired the world’s oldest full-rigged ship. The morning sun shone on Sørlandet’s swan-white sides, and glinted off the double gold scroll at her prow; her three masts rose tall above the grey slate roofs and squared turrets of the Tollbodgatatenements. The spider’s web ratlines and delicate tracery of rigging were clear against the blue sky.
I still hardly believed my luck. There were fewer than a hundred and fifty of these large traditional sailing ships left in the world, and posts aboard were scrambled for, yet here I was, third mate of Sørlandet of Kristiansand, joining my ship. I lifted the ‘Crew only’ sign on the gangplank and went aboard.
It was a strange feeling to be back. Half of me was going, Oh, wow, home! as I looked around the scrubbed decks. Sørlandet had been my ship. I’d joined her when I was seventeen as a trainee for the summer, with money saved from winter waitressing, and 10returned for two summers more, until I was competent enough to volunteer as an able seaman. My feet knew every inch of those ladders and ropes up in the air; my hands could feel the shape of her wheel. Until I’d got my own Khalida, she was the nearest thing to permanency in my roving life.
The other half of me was frozen with terror. After three years of living alone on Khalida, I was about to be cheek by jowl with twenty-plus unknown people …
Then a tall woman stepped out from behind the white engine house. She was dressed in paint-stained overalls, with a smear of white on her tanned cheek. Her fair hair clustered round her head in untidy curls, like a Renaissance angel; the sea’s colour was reflected in her eyes. She held out her hand, then remembered the paint, withdrew it, and smiled instead. ‘Hey, you must be Cass. I’m Agnetha, first mate. Welcome aboard.’ She waved her paint-stained hands. ‘Here, I’ll show you your cabin, so you can make yourself at home.’ She called over her shoulder. ‘Erik!’ Her gaze dropped to my hands. ‘Oh, you’re the one bringing a cat.’
I nodded. ‘Can I let him out?’
‘For sure.’
I opened the basket and Cat stretched up, looked round, then jumped out. He was a beauty, my Cat, getting on for nine months old. He had a thick, smoke-grey coat faintly striped with silver, immaculately white paws and a great plume of a tail. He was used to making himself at home on strange ships. He paused to sniff Agnetha’s outstretched hand, then headed off to explore, sniffing round the deck, eyeing up the aft corridor with wary interest and prodding a paw into the scuppers.
‘He’s a beauty,’ Agnetha said. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Just Cat.’
A lanky, brown-haired Norwegian came out from behind 11the engine house, paint pot in hand. ‘Hei, Cass. Erik, your watch leader. You’re looking for a berth for your boat, yes?’
I nodded.
‘You sailed over?’ Agnetha asked. ‘From Britain?’
‘Technically. Shetland.’
‘Ah, Shetland!’ They nodded to each other. ‘You’re practically Norwegian, then,’ Agnetha added.
‘Our house is two miles round the corner, at Eidbukta,’ Erik said, ‘and we have a pontoon in front of it. You’re welcome to berth her there.’
My heart filled with relief. ‘This is amazing. I really appreciate it. I’ll pay you rent, of course.’
‘Oh, we can work that out. If you like, I can give you a hand to take her round once we’re off duty.’
Agnetha picked up a rag and wiped her hands down. ‘Right. I’ll show you your cabin, and you can get settled, then later, Erik and I can help you move your boat before you need to take out a mortgage for the marina fees.’
Just like that, I was in. Agnetha and I finished painting the midship deckhouse together while Cat explored round the deck, then settled himself on the mahogany berth in my cabin for his mid-morning snooze. We discovered we’d been on several of the same ships, and knew the same people. She and Erik helped me move my Khalida round to his house that evening, and we shared a huge pot of spicy stew with his wife, Micaela, and their two children, before Erik ran Agnetha, Cat and I back to the ship.
I went out with the crowd the next night, prepared to nurse an extortionately priced pint in a corner, and found Johanna, the chief engineer, making me the centre of attention: ‘Was it really you who skippered the longship for that film with Favelle? Tell us about it!’
Jonas, Agnetha’s watch leader, had worked at Roskilde, so he’d 12handled Viking replicas too. We compared experiences, splashed out on another pint each and then rose to head back to the ship. Rolf, the bosun, flung an arm around Agnetha’s shoulders as we came out into the cool air. ‘Let’s start with an easy one.’
‘You need to learn Rolf’s songs,’ Agnetha said, laughing, and launched straight in, in the middle of the street. ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor …’
In those first days, Agnetha, Johanna and I became mates. We were the highest-ranking women aboard, and we recognised in each other a burning passion for the sea. Johanna was a rare woman in the mechanics’ world, and Agnetha was determined to be the first female captain of a tall ship. We shared cooking until the galley girls came aboard, went shopping for the official navy cargo breeks, and sat together on the second platform of the mast, legs dangling, swapping confidences as we looked out over Kristiansand. I tried to explain my tug between my lover, Gavin, and the sea, particularly as our beautiful ship was about to become an academy. From the end of August, we’d be heading for America to take on a shipment of older teenagers who would combine studying for their exams with life aboard. The ship’s crew was rejoicing at this financial security – tall ships gobbled money – but I’d be on the other side of the world for two years, and my heart went cold at the thought. Gavin and I had just found each other. We’d arranged to meet in two weeks, in the fjords, then again in Belfast at the end of June. I dreaded that our tentative love would stretch to breaking point across the Atlantic.
‘If it’s right, you’ll manage,’ Agnetha said. ‘What’s for you won’t pass you by, my granny would have said.’ Her fair skin flushed. She looked away from me, out into the darkening sky. ‘I have someone, but it’s all complicated. Don’t let’s worry about it! Now, what was that new song of Rolf’s …?’
ONE BELL
Casting off: Kristiansand14
CHAPTER ONE
Thursday 25th June
At this hour, Kristiansand’s old fish market was quiet, with the water reflecting the curved bridge leading across to the cafe and mirroring the wooden houses and dark red fish market. The ochre fishwife statue gleamed in the sun; the windows around her were closed, with no lights showing behind. The only sound was a sparrow cheeping as it checked out crumbs left by yesterday’s tourists. Cat’s plumed tail twitched gently; he began to creep forward, but his striped grey was too light against the tarred wood, and the sparrow grabbed its crumb and flew off before he was in pouncing range.
I was sitting on the middle row of decking steps to the water, the wood warm under me, idly watching an Aquador motorboat nosing its way into the dock. It was just after eight, and there was a whole-crew muster at nine, to brace us for our next wave of trainees swarming aboard in a whirl of kitbags and excited chatter. Right now the Sørlandet was ringing with the sound of iron hitting 16copper as Rolf hammered new beading on the upper serving hatch in the main cabin area, and stuffy with the smell of paint as Agnetha followed him with the best cream emulsion. It had made me feel slightly sick, so I’d grabbed Cat’s lead, clipped it onto his harness and headed out into the peace of the Fiskbrabaren basin.
The motorboat paused by the steps to let off a dark, thick-set man, then purred away to the right, towards the concert hall. I called Cat away from his contemplation of the sparrows and followed it, through the dark passageway and out into the sunshine again, where curves of light rippled from the water onto the curved wooden overhang of the concert hall.
It was a beautiful morning, the herald of a perfect day. Feather-white cumulus drifted in the summer-blue sky. Kristiansand’s west bay lay in a curve of low hills, dark green with trees, the red roof of one of the larger hotels shining out against them and the light catching the long white span of bridge that crossed the fjord. Below it, the sea danced blue in the soft northerly wind. I paused for a moment to look out towards the open water. We’d have a good passage out into the North Sea, and, if the forecast was accurate, going up the coast first should let us get the sails up.
I turned away without looking and bumped straight into the man who’d come from the motorboat, my face ramming into his tobacco-smelling dark cloth jacket. There was one of those moments where we both moved the wrong way, and I found myself blocking his path. Suddenly I was conscious of the chill under this dark passageway, and how there was nobody else in sight. Cat felt like a target on his lead; I scooped him up, away from the dark workman’s boots.
‘Unnskyld,’ I apologised, and got a grunt in return as he pushed past me. I stared after him, taken aback by the discourtesy. Not 17Norwegian; Eastern bloc, I’d have said, Russian, maybe, with those flared nostrils and bull head. He had the shoulders of a man you wouldn’t want to tackle on a dark night, and a convict haircut. There was a tattoo on his hand. An ugly customer, I thought, and wondered what he was doing lurking around the pristine tourist tables of the Fiskbrabaren.
He’d taken the brightness from the day. Cat miaowed indignantly and wriggled in my arms. I set him down and we went the long way back to the ship, with Cat scampering on the grass and leaping over the small herd of Shetland pony statues by the marina. Once he’d had a good run I put his lead back on and we walked sedately to the dock, where I unbuckled his harness. He trotted ahead of me up the gangplank, tail held high. I needn’t have worried about how he’d take to life on a tall ship; he’d made himself at home as if he’d been born aboard. When it was cold and wet outside, he stayed in my cabin, or charged about the long below-decks tunnels running the length of the ship. On bonny days, he would strut across the main deck, pausing to let himself be admired by trainees. Now, since we were in port, he went straight up the stairs to the aft deck, where he could sit on a bench in the sun and survey everything that was going on below him. This, his pose said, was his ship, which made him the highest-ranking cat in the dock.
I wasn’t finding it so easy. Of course it was amazing to be back aboard, to be part of a tall ship again. I enjoyed the company of my fellow sailors, the life that was absorbed in the needs of the ship. My heart soared at being at sea again. It was just that I hadn’t reckoned on the difference between being an able-seaman volunteer and being third mate (navigation). My image in my cabin mirror filled me with pride and disbelief: this tidy ship’s officer in the navy shirt with two gold chevrons on the shoulder, 18her dark curly hair tucked into a French plait. Only my eyes, blue in my tanned face, and the scar that bisected my right cheek, were my own. The rest belonged to the persona I had taken on: Cass Lynch, officer of the Sørlandet. Cass Lynch, officer, didn’t climb masts, stand lookout or haul on ropes; she stayed aloof on the aft deck and told the helmsman what course to steer. She ate at the captain’s table, cut off from the sounds of laughter that echoed from the other ranks’ mess at the end of the corridor …
‘Cass!’ A voice broke into my reverie. I stifled a sigh and turned to face Nils, the second mate, my immediate superior and the only person on board I had difficulty liking.
Nils Karlsson was Swedish, and a stickler. He was in his mid thirties and had trained at the Royal Swedish Naval College. His light hair was still Navy-short, and he had toffee-brown eyes, a nose which jutted downwards like a heron’s beak and a downturned mouth. I wasn’t sure whether the disapproval was personal, or just that he worked on the principle of the office boy kicking the cat. Mercifully he was in charge of the white watch, so I only saw him at handover times, when he’d tell me our new course with unnecessary emphasis and point out the bits of my navigation that he’d reworked in the log. Naturally the ship’s projected course had to be changed to allow for the difference between where you’d hoped to be and where you’d actually got to, but he’d change the compass heading by one degree, when you’d be lucky if the most competent trainee could steer within three degrees either way … I pre-gritted my teeth and turned to face him. ‘Hei, Nils.’
‘The gangplank has been left unguarded,’ he said. ‘It’s your watch, no?’
Well, no, actually, we were all just mucking in to get the ship ready, and official watches wouldn’t start until after we set sail, but it wasn’t worth arguing with Nils about. ‘Yes,’ I agreed. 19Besides, we were all laid-back about the gangplank when in our home port. Erik had been on guard when I left, but I wasn’t going to drop him in it.
‘Was it guarded when you left the ship?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a word with the member of my team who was on guard.’
We glared at each other for five seconds. He had that schoolteacher’s trick of staring at a spot just past my left ear, but I knew he was getting the full impact of my unspoken, And I’m not going to tell you who.
I unhooked the ‘Crew only’ chain on the gangplank and came on board. Nils had just stalked off when Erik hurried up, taking long strides over the wooden deck. He was dressed for duty in cargo breeks and a navy jumper. The breeze had tousled his light brown hair. ‘Hey, Cass. Sorry to get you into trouble with our Nils. I got called away.’ He grinned round at the deserted dock. ‘If we find fifty refugee stowaways in the sail locker, you can blame me.’ His tone was slightly rough, as if something was worrying him, and his chest rose and fell quickly.
I gave a dismissive wave. ‘Why on earth would anyone who’d made it to Norway want to go to Britain?’
He laughed at that, but there was a forced note in his voice which made me uneasy. I’d need to keep an eye on him, maybe have a chat later if he still seemed ill at ease. In some ways I felt I knew him quite well, because of mooring Khalida at his pontoon, but that physical closeness meant that I tried to keep more of a distance between us, so that he and Micaela didn’t feel I was living in their pockets. I hoped all was well at home.
I put my peg back in the hole marked with my name – the ship’s system to see at a glance who was aboard – then headed to my cabin. 20
The officers lived along the corridor that led backwards through the last third of the ship, under the aft deck. It was like a country house, with a shining wooden floor, white v-lining and framed black-and-white photographs of Sørlandet. The captain’s rooms and the chief engineer’s were first – the two people you might need to rouse in an emergency – then the sick bay. My cabin was next, then the chief officer’s, then Agnetha’s with her door closed. I paused outside it, wondering if I should knock and check she hadn’t slept in, but a closed door generally meant ‘no entry unless in an emergency’. As I paused beside it, I heard the murmur of voices. Complicated, she’d said. I backtracked into my own cabin, dropped Cat’s harness on the bed, checked my hair was tidy and my shoulder seams straight, and headed out to the main deck.
Even at its most relaxed, our ship’s world was hierarchical, with the captain at the head of the pyramid. Below him were Johanna, for the engines, Henrik, the chief steward, and Mike, the cheerful and energetic chief officer. Below Mike were the three sailing teams, one for each of the ship’s four-hour watches. They were headed by the first, second and third mates – Agnetha, Nils and I – each commanding a watch leader and two able seamen. Roughly level with the first mate were Sadie, the medical officer, Jenn, the liaison officer, who organised the trainees, and Rolf, the bosun, the singer, a lively, uncomplicated Trondheimer that I’d taken to straight away.
For this voyage I was mate in charge of the blue watch, on duty from eight to twelve. Mona and Petter, my two ABs, were already lined up for the muster. I’d just joined them when the captain came out around the midships deckhouse with one of the local police officers, Sergeant Hansen. I knew him because he was a cat-lover, and very helpful about what forms and injections Cat 21needed to prevent him from being impounded as we travelled from place to place.
Captain Gunnar had one of those faces that was designed for a captain’s table on a thirties luxury liner, with alert eyes under bushy eyebrows, a straight nose and a neatly trimmed white moustache and beard. He’d been the officer of my watch on my first time aboard, fitting in qualifications and voyages between teaching, and he’d risen in rank each time I was back. The beard had appeared at first officer stage, the silver hair at chief officer. He was retiring this year – Henrik was already planning his farewell party – and I couldn’t imagine the ship without him. His demeanour was always grave, but today there was an extra frown between his brows, as if there was something to worry about. Sergeant Hansen was equally serious, the bearer of a storm warning.
Five to nine. Erik slid out from the aft corridor and into his place beside me, and Agnetha followed him, her fair skin white in the morning sunshine. Rolf came after them, with Nils on his heels and Mike following. Captain Gunnar gave Mike a quick glance from under his brows, and his mouth tightened. Punctuality, in his view, was next to godliness. Mike flushed, and slipped into his place beside the captain. Full house.
Captain Gunnar gave a last look around, then cleared his throat. ‘Good morning, everyone. Sergeant Hansen has asked us to be especially vigilant today as the ship prepares to leave for Belfast.’ He made a courteous gesture, indicating that Sergeant Hansen should explain.
The officer reddened, and stepped forward. ‘We’ve had word through contacts that a person known to the police is in Kristiansand, believed to be making his way to the UK. We’d ask you to take the utmost care that he doesn’t come aboard Sørlandet. I know how busy you are, dealing with trainees today, but we’d 22suggest extra precautions guarding the gangplank, allowing nobody unauthorised aboard, and checking people on and off the ship.’ I felt Nils glance at me. Sergeant Hansen spread his hands. ‘It’s all very vague, I know. He’s far more likely to try the obvious routes, but we didn’t wish to overlook anything. Thank you.’
He made a stiff little bow, and left, leaving us all looking at each other apprehensively. Known to the police … That shadow I’d felt down in the Fiskbrabaren clouded my mind again. Then Captain Gunnar began to talk about the business of the day, and the arrangements for squeezing in our seventy trainees, the full complement. Many of them belonged to a large group of teenagers funded through the social work department. ‘They’ll have two group leaders with them, and be spread over three watches. You won’t be able to stop them smoking, but make sure they only do it on the benches on each side of the engine house.’ We all nodded; we knew the dangers of fire aboard. ‘You are also to keep a vigilant eye out for drugs, though all these young people should be “clean”.’
He assigned gangplank duty to the watch leaders, then dismissed us to our tasks. I’d worked up the navigation for leaving Kristiansand the night before, so I busied myself securing the smokers’ benches with rope. I’d just done the port side when Johanna came up her ladder, bringing a warm blast of diesel-scented air with her. Her face was blanched. She stumbled to the bench and dropped onto it, moaning in pain, arms wrapped around her stomach. I leapt to her. ‘Sadie,’ she managed through chattering teeth.
I ran for the ship’s medical officer. One look at Johanna had Sadie on the phone, talking appendix, and then we had to wait, helpless, watching her fight off waves of pain while the seagulls circled above us and the cars passed uncaring below. It felt like an hour before the yellow and green ambulance came racing down the 23highway and along Vestre Strandgate, siren screaming, and spun round to the quay. The paramedics jumped out, unhinged their stretcher and carried it up the gangplank. One minute more, and Johanna was strapped on. They trundled her down the gangplank and into the back of the ambulance, the paramedics moving smooth as clockwork. Sadie grabbed her jacket and ran after them. The siren restarted, the lights flashed, and Johanna was on her way to safety, leaving us standing at the rail, watching her go.
‘She’s in the right place,’ Agnetha said. ‘They can operate.’
I nodded. My throat felt tight. An unlucky voyage …
Captain Gunnar touched my shoulder. ‘Cass, we will need a chief engineer until Belfast. Lars is not experienced enough to take over. Do you think your young friend with the rat could drop everything and come with us?’
He meant my friend Anders: engineer, Warhammer nerd and owner of Rat, who went everywhere with him. The minute he’d heard I’d got my tall ship at last, Anders had signed up for a trainee berth on one of our weekend shakedown trips, and had naturally gravitated to the engine compartment. By the end of the weekend, he and Johanna’s conversation had become unintelligible to the rest of us, but they seemed to be talking about a serious joint engine dismemberment the next time he was available. I had hopes for that relationship …
I pulled my phone out, found his number and called it.
He answered straight away. ‘Cass? I thought you’d be heading for the high seas.’
‘We’re trying to,’ I assured him. ‘Anders, Johanna’s just had to be rushed to hospital with appendicitis.’ His breath drew in with a creak like a moan of pain. ‘Don’t worry, she’s going to be fine.’ I crossed my fingers as I said it. ‘Is there any chance you could join us for this trip? Seven days, Kristiansand to Belfast.’ 24
‘I would like to, very much,’ he said. I could see him standing there in the workshop at his father’s boatyard, in his green boiler suit, his fair head shining against the oily wood walls, looking around, thinking of what had to be done in the next week. The phone crackled as he moved to look at the wall calendar. ‘Dagslys, then Maria Klara. Listen, give me fifteen minutes. I’ll need to talk to my father. Next week’s a busy one, so I’m not sure if they can manage without me.’
I looked across at Captain Gunnar. ‘Shall I give him your number, sir, so that he can call you back?’
The captain held out his hand for my phone. ‘Thank you, Cass.’
I moved away until they’d finished. Captain Gunnar gave me the phone back, and I went round to secure the starboard bench, lashing it with cord to the iron struts by the deckhouse and wishing Johanna luck with all my strength. I was just winding the tail of the cord away when my mobile buzzed. All set arriving plane mid morning see you aboard keep me posted about Johanna. A.
My next task was to sort out the man-overboard boat, ready for leaving the dock. A couple of the trainees that had arrived last night were standing beside it at the rails, looking out over the sunny harbour. One was Ellen, a tiny Norwegian lady with china-blue eyes and straight white hair bobbed to frame her face. She was seventy-one this year, she’d told me last night, and had decided that now was the time to do all the things she’d ever wanted to. One of them was going on a tall ship, so here she was, excited as any teenager. The other was a little, fussy man called Olav, who I’d already marked out as the ship’s gossip – there was always one. Beside them was someone who must have come aboard this morning, a dark man who was oddly familiar. I stopped for a moment, looking at him. Maybe it was just that he reminded me of my dad, the dark hair with the slight curl in it, the 25broad shoulders and long, straight back – then he turned, and smiled, and spoke in a voice as Irish as my dad’s. ‘Well, now, if it’s not my little cousin. How are you doing, Cassie, after all these years?’
He was laughing at me, his eyes as blue as a Siamese cat’s in his lean face. I knew him now: Sean, son of my Auntie Mary, Dad’s younger big sister. We’d always spent Christmas in Dublin with Granny Bridget and Da Patrick, among a huge family gathering, and Sean and his twin, Seamus, had been the closest to me in age, the only ones that still counted as youngsters. They’d led me into quite a bit of trouble over the years.
‘Well, well!’ I replied. ‘Sean Lynch, what are you doing here?’
‘Oh, going home, young Cassie.’ He gave me a long look, down and up again. ‘Aren’t you the clever one, all dressed up in your uniform. Are you the captain of this ship, now? I’d better mind me Ps and Qs, so I had.’
‘Third mate,’ I said. ‘But what on earth are you doing here? I didn’t see you on the trainee list.’
‘Oh, I had business in Norway, and a holiday after it, and yesterday I heard about this ship that would take me right back to Ireland, so I thought I’d give it a try. I went down to the office and signed on this very morning. You won’t make me work too hard, now, will you?’
‘You’ll have to join in the work of the ship, with everyone else,’ I said. Sean had always had difficulty settling down to the task in hand, whether it was the mountain of dishes to be washed or trying to slip me into a pub for an underage pint. Seamus would work out a system, and Sean would be too impatient to follow it. Still, maybe he’d learnt discipline as he’d got older. ‘What are you working at now?’
‘Oh, a bit of this and that. Marketing, mostly.’ It was vague enough to cover a multitude of sins, as Auntie Mary used to say 26about his explanations for a broken window. He grinned again, the charm turned up to full voltage. ‘You know me, Cassie, never one to settle to a routine piece of work.’
When Sean turned the charm on was the time to watch him, but I didn’t see any mischief he could get up to on board, and having him standing here, family, stirring all those memories of Christmas, gave me a warm feeling inside. I tucked my arm into his and squeezed it. ‘It’s good to see you.’ I turned to Ellen and smiled. ‘This is my cousin Sean, Ellen. I wasn’t expecting him aboard.’
‘I see that.’ She smiled at him, getting his measure straight off, as if she had sons of her own. ‘You’ll have to behave, young man, with your cousin in charge. None of this Irish blarney.’
‘You’ll need to give me all the family news,’ I said.
‘Oh, they’re all well enough. I’ve managed to escape the noose meself, but Seamus has a little girl, and another one on the way, and our Declan, now, he has five, all boys.’
Declan was only six years older than me. ‘Five boys!’
‘That he has, and a rumbustious tribe they are too, always up to mischief.’
‘Particularly when you’re visiting.’
He gave me a sideways grin. ‘Now, Cassie, we always led you out of trouble again once we’d led you into it. Or Uncle Dermot would have had the hide off us.’
‘It was me who talked us out of that row with the buskers.’
Sean waved a hand. ‘All in the past, Cassie, my love.’ He turned to face me, assessing. ‘And what about you? Are you married now, or do you still have a lonely washing, as Da Patrick used to say, God rest his soul?’
I waved my hand vaguely. My relationship with Gavin was too new to share, even with family. ‘Still the lonely washing with no man’s shirt in it.’ 27
‘No truth in the rumour about a detective inspector in Scotland, then.’
Families. Dad gossiping, of course. ‘I’m not doing his washing yet,’ I retorted. He nodded, but still with that measuring look, as if he was working something out. He glanced aft over my shoulder, as if he was looking around for something, then shrugged the mood off. ‘Now, what work do you want to set me to?’
‘We’ll be giving you an orientation tour once all the youngsters come aboard. For now, just settle yourself in.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll get me bag unpacked, like a good boy, and help out once you’ve got yourselves organised. I’m sleeping on one of the couches in the little cubbyhole at the end, fine and handy for slipping up the steps for a fly fag in the night.’
‘The aft steps are crew only,’ I told him austerely, and left him to it.
It was a moment before I went back to the man-overboard boat. There was an uneasy feeling down my spine. Sean had booked his passage aboard as late as this morning …
Known to the police. He’d been a wild teenager, with the potential to get mixed up in the wrong crowd, but I didn’t want to believe one of my family had turned out as the sort of person the police warned you against.
I shook the thought away, and got back to work.
CHAPTER TWO
By noon the dock was thick with trainees, each one a little island surrounded by family and baggage. A group of boys laughed and joked together at the foot of the gangplank, eyeing up the masts with reasonably convincing bravado. Looking round I could see our ship was going to be a community of all the nations on this voyage: two African boys and three girls; five boys from the Middle East; a bonny blonde whose face said Danish; three lively Greek boys with a quiet, dark girl listening to them; two sporty-looking Norwegian sisters; and a pair of boys, one very tall, with enough likeness between them to suggest they were brothers. Standing aloof was a girl with a hat like a British woman police officer’s tilted down over her brow, and a brightly coloured Bob Marley jacket. She was looking at the ship with a sulky expression, tilting her mouth downwards; the face I’d seen in the mirror in my teenage years in France. A knot of adults stood slightly apart from the sea of teenagers, kitbags at their feet.
Past them, in front of the ochre toll house, the chief officer, 29Mike, was being seen off by his wife, Klaudina. I didn’t know him very well yet, because he had a house here in Kristiansand, so didn’t stay on board while Sørlandet was in port. He was from Cork, and in his early forties. He was tall and dark, that handsomely rugged look like Pierce Brosnan in his James Bond days, and infectiously enthusiastic over everything that went on aboard – I found him great to work under, and he went down a treat with the trainees. His wife was blonde and Swedish, with a pointed nose that reminded me of someone – cartoons of Mrs Thatcher, perhaps. She looked up at the ship and made a little face, then waved him away from her: Off you go to your other woman! her gesture said, with a hint of sharpness, as if she resented the hold the sea had over him.
I turned back to work. Jenn, our lively Canadian liaison officer, had set up a table amidships, just in front of the mainmast, ready to give out berth numbers, and file passports in the secure box. Mike went forward and welcomed the trainees in English first, then in his Swedish-accented Norwegian. He unhooked the ‘Crew only’ chain. The first of the Greek boys hefted his bag on his shoulder and stepped up the gangplank, to start the hour of chaos that followed the arrival of a new bunch of trainees.
I joined Erik and my two ABs in a line at the foot of the double stairs which led down to the banjer, the big saloon where the trainees lived. It was surprisingly light given that the windows were a row of portholes. The woodwork was cream, with the settee berths upholstered in a soothing oatmeal colour. The stairs divided the two sides of the space, and under them were rows of lockers. There were tables along each outer side, close enough to use the berths as seats for eating, and square seamen’s chests as seats on the inner side. Each roof beam had hammock hooks screwed into it. The trainees were placed in watches, so that those not on watch 30wouldn’t be bumped and bothered by those rising. My blue watch was on the starboard side, white was on port, and red took up my cousin Sean’s ‘little cubbyhole’ and the end rows on both sides.
The first of the teenagers down the steps introduced himself straight away: ‘Johan.’ He was in his early twenties, a tall, slim boy with a cockscomb of fair hair above his brow and beautifully moulded cheekbones. If his confidence masked nervousness, it didn’t show. ‘I spent a year aboard Sørlandet two years ago. I can help here, if you wish.’
Someone who knew the ship that well would be a real asset on the watch. I set him to showing the trainees where their lockers were, and greeted and smiled as the banjer filled and filled. At sea, of course, there would always be a third of the trainees on watch. For now there were people everywhere, hauling out jumpers, jeans and oilskins, and stuffing them into their lockers. Already there were tablets and mobile phones trailing cords from the tabletops to the sockets in the wall. Among it all, Ellen sat quietly on her berth and knitted, pointing out a hammock number every so often, and learning the names of all the young people who would be surrounding her for the next week. Olav watched them all, his little eyes darting from one to the other, making connections between them. The noise was appalling: teenagers shrieking at each other, yelling with laughter and banging the doors of their lockers and the lids of the chests.
The adults came on last. The first for my blue watch was a man who gave the impression of being a fisherman, broad-shouldered and strong enough to haul the yards round unaided. My hand was lost in his. ‘Jan Ole,’ he rumbled. ‘I do not go aloft.’
‘You don’t have to,’ I assured him. ‘You’ll be worth your weight in gold on deck.’
He laughed at that. ‘You are talking a lot of gold.’ His eyes 31went to the hammock hooks. He reached out to give one an experimental tug, nodded in satisfaction, and headed for his locker.
‘Aage,’ the grey-haired man behind him said. ‘I too do not climb masts.’
‘Plenty else to do aboard,’ I said. We’d need to see how many of my youngsters were climbers, but at least we’d have a good deck team.
I left Mona to do the hammock demo. Up on deck, Jen was tidying away the passports into her box. The UK customs would want everyone on board in a neat, alphabetical line, and this way we’d just line ourselves up, then Jenn would come along and dole out the passports. She lifted her head as I came up. ‘Fantastic news of Johanna. It was her appendix, and they operated straight away. She’ll be fine.’
I took the other end of her green tablecloth and helped her fold it. ‘Oh, that’s great! How long will they keep her in?’
‘Only a couple of days. I spoke to her father, and she’s going home to Oslo to convalesce. He said he’d see how she was after a week, so she’ll maybe join us in Belfast.’ Jenn dropped the cloth into her bag and we began unclicking the table legs.
A screech of brakes on the dock called our attention downwards. Only a taxi stopped like that, and a taxi it was indeed, with Anders’ fair head beside the driver. He jumped out and began retrieving his kitbag and an armful of scarlet oilskins from the boot, along with Rat’s cage. I hurried down the gangplank. ‘That was quick.’
‘I was lucky with the flights.’ He gave me a hug, and Rat took the opportunity to slip from Anders’ shoulder to mine. He was a large beast, not much smaller than Cat, with patches of glossy black on an immaculate white coat, long transparent toes and an agile, curving tail. He whiffled in my ear by way of greeting, and curled round my neck like a live stole. 32
‘Cat will be pleased to see you,’ I told him.
I took the oilskins and Anders hefted his kitbag. He wasn’t tall, but compactly built, with strong shoulders. His hair was silver-gilt fair, his eyes the blue of a summer fjord, and he had a neat seaman’s beard like an Elizabethan explorer. Looking at him, remembering living aboard my Khalida together, and feeling that sense of my mate, I tucked my arm into his. ‘I’m glad you could make it.’
‘My father is not completely happy, but I reminded him that Johanna and I were talking of giving the engine an overhaul, and it would look good on the yard’s CV. What is the news of her?’
‘Good.’ I repeated what Jenn had told me. ‘You don’t need to join the watch introduction, so you would have time to nip up to the hospital. If you do, can you get her flowers from all of us?’
‘They don’t allow flowers in hospitals these days.’
Oh, he’d checked, had he? My hopes of a romance rose. ‘Just dump your stuff in my cabin for the moment – I’m not sure where Captain Gunnar wants to put you.’ Cat looked up as we entered, then rose, seeing Rat; Rat swarmed down my front and leapt for the bed, and there was thirty seconds of mutual whisker sniffing, then Rat leapt for the back of the berth and Cat followed him. I drew the curtain on the scampering noises and occasional soft thud of the Cat/Rat version of don’t-touch-the-floor, and took Anders along to Captain Gunnar’s quarters. ‘See you later. We have the induction session.’
Not that I was allowed to join in, of course. The trainees were all called together from their exploration of the ship, and lined up in watches by the watch leader and ABs for each team, with a bit of shuffling about to get them in two straight lines and not leaning on the conveniently placed ship’s rail, while we officers stood in a row in front of the mainmast, shoulders back, hands behind our backs. Once we’d got lines we could live with, Rolf took a photo 33of each watch and Jenn handed out the rota sheets. Only then did Captain Gunnar come out to greet them formally, imposing in his gold-braided jacket (I’d never seen him in sailing overalls) and leaning slightly on the polished walking stick that I suspected was more affectation than need.
As well as Olav and Ellen, my watch included the two brothers I’d noticed, the sporty Norwegian sisters, the blonde Danish girl (who looked miserably unsure of herself in this strange set-up), the quiet Greek girl and one of the Greek boys, masking his nervousness under constant movement and an echoing catchphrase of ‘All right, all right, all right!’ One of the African boys didn’t seem to speak English, for when I looked around for who was persistently talking over the crew instructions, it turned out to be a tall, red-headed boy translating into Norwegian for him. He had the white skin of a true ginger; I hoped he’d brought sun lotion. We had three of the Middle Eastern boys, one dark and alert, the second already being heart-warmingly deferential to Ellen, who was standing squarely between them in her scarlet jacket and white knitted hat, and the third leaning back sullenly on the rail with his back-to-front baseball cap pulled down on his brow.
I cast a quick look down the names on the list Jenn had just given me and the photo Rolf had just pressed into my hand, still warm from the printer, and scribbled the names as Erik went through them. Olav, at the front, watching everything that was going on. The brothers were Ludwig and Ben, the sporty sisters Anna and Nora, and the blonde girl Nine. Maria and Dimitris. Ismail, and the Norwegian boy translating for him was Sindre. Samir, Naseem with Ellen, and Gabriel hiding under his cap. We also had Johan, already eyeing up the masts, and the massive fisherman Jan-Ole and his friend Aage. It was the makings of a good team. 34
We always did rig training before setting sail. Petter gave them a lecture on safety aloft (it boiled down to ‘Hold on, and don’t mess about’), and then everyone who wanted to go up the rigging was asked to hang by the arms from the bars above the main deck. Dimitris went first, and had no difficulty raising himself up from deck level; he obviously worked out on wall bars in a gym. Johan, after him, made it look easy. The Norwegian sisters bounced up like basketball players, swung, crooked their arms and made a controlled descent. Maria followed them; Nine shook her head and backed away. Olav looked up, then shook his head, and joined Aage, Jan-Ole and Ellen at the rail. The tall brother, Ludwig, could reach the bar without needing to jump; his younger image tried, and made a face. Sindre shook his head too, and Gabriel; Samir pulled himself up easily and went grinning to start fitting his harness. Naseem and Ismail lifted, swung, and joined Samir. Nine climbers was good, plus the three crew members; a fair number for working the sails. Petter and Mona made sure the climbing harnesses were fitted and secure, then Erik began to climb up the main mast, slowly, while the ABs helped the trainees safely onto the ratlines below him.
It was sensible to be afraid. Sørlandet’s ratlines, those segments of spider’s web running diagonally up the mast, were more solid than many, with wire uprights braced apart by wooden footplates, but you were still climbing eleven metres up above the wooden deck just to reach the first platform. Erik led, and the first four followed him, climbing steadily up the swaying wires.
Dimitris was first to reach the platform. There was a triumphant grin on his face as he hooked an elbow around the ratline leading up to the second platform, and looked round at the air world of a tall ship: the heavy, horizontal spars, the tied canvas, the tracery of ropes and the wide sky behind. ‘All right, all right, all right!’ 35
Samir followed him, then Naseem, then Anna, scrambling up like a monkey, turning her size into an advantage by wedging her feet and hands into tiny spaces. Erik let them savour their triumph for a moment, then watched them cross the platform and descend on the dock side of the ship. His words floated down: ‘Remember, you’re not safe till both feet are on deck.’
Petter and Johan took the second group: Ludwig, Ismail, Nora and Maria. At the last moment Ben put on a harness and followed them. Having seen the others climb up there had given them confidence: they went up, slowly, steadily, dark figures against the blue sky, across the platform and down the other side. That was enough for one day; the harnesses clunked back into their nylon mesh laundry basket, and the whole watch headed forrard to begin their deck inspection: the foredeck and lookout area, the under-deck showers and heads, the bosun’s stairs, the washing line for wet towels. In half an hour they’d made it back to me and were clumping up the aft steps to inspect the nav shack, the deckhouse where the navigation instruments were kept. Behind it were the metre-wide ship’s wheel and the ‘captain’s coffin’, the polished wood case which covered the steering mechanism. Then they headed below to the banjer, where Jenn explained mealtimes, gave them the lecture about not leaving their stuff lying about, showed them the lost property cupboard where they’d find it when they did, and released them to relax.
That all took until four o’clock. Three o’clock in Scotland. Gavin might be having his tea break. I felt tired, tired … I went across the gangplank, along to the peace of the grass in front of one of the posh hotels, and called him.
I was in luck. He answered at the second ring. I could imagine him at his desk or perhaps standing out by the river, taking a breather from the office, russet head tilted towards the phone, a 36curve to his mouth and warmth in his grey eyes as if I was there with him. ‘Coffee break?’
‘Nearly,’ he said. ‘I’ll just get away from my desk.’ I heard a door squeak open and close again, then the wind on the phone. ‘How’s it going? Do you have your trainees?’
‘Millions of them. The ship is disappearing under a wash of teenage testosterone.’
‘What watch are you on this time?’
‘Blue.’ It was the most difficult one for phoning each other; when I got up at 6.30, it was only 5.30 in Scotland, and then he was working all afternoon while I was free. As a recently appointed DI to the mobile serious crimes squad of Police Scotland, his life was busier than it had been in Inverness. ‘I’ll phone while there’s still a signal.’
‘Yes, please. So, any extra excitement?’
There was no reason why I should feel awkward about telling him; Anders and I were just mates. ‘We’ve got Anders aboard, as chief engineer.’ I explained about Johanna, then went on, in a more natural tone, ‘And my cousin Sean’s aboard too – gave me the shock of my life to see him. He’s my dad’s sister’s son, one of twins, two years older than me. We all used to stay with Granny Bridget in Dublin for Christmas, and the trouble the pair of them led me into!’
‘That sounds like what your Granny said.’ I could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘You’d be able to match them, even as a teenager.’
‘Different league,’ I said briskly. ‘My only ever cigarette … my first pint of Guinness …’
‘Shocking. Are you all set to sail?’
‘17.00.’ He felt so remote, with the trainees aboard and the sea road beckoning. I made an effort. ‘What’s the news at home?’ 37
‘Oh, quiet, except that there’s another litter of kittens in the byre, all striped. Mother was threatening them with drowning, but I talked her out of it. You can never have too many cats around a farm. Kenny’s at his wits’ end over when to cut the hay, with this constant rain, and the grass has grown so fast that Luchag, you remember, the dun pony you rode, has had to be put on a tether to stop her getting too fat for the stalking.’
It was a different world, his farm at the end of a remote loch, steep and wooded like a Norwegian fjord, with waterfalls threading the hills. His brother Kenny was the full-time farmer. Gavin had a flat in Inverness, two hours’ drive away, and he went home every free weekend. I tried to imagine myself turning hay or tending a litter of half-wild striped kittens, with a baby on my hip and a toddler at my heels. Maybe sometime …
‘Poor Luchag. She won’t like that.’ The one thing I did know about horses was that they believed they were permanently starving. ‘How about your suspected people smugglers?’
He went cagey, as if he was worried someone might be hacking in. ‘Developments. It’s nasty. I’ll tell you the whole story when I see you.’ He paused for a moment, then said, ‘You don’t sound as happy as you should with your ship ready to sail.’
I made a face at the hotel’s immaculate lawns. ‘It’s nothing. Just one of those stupid feelings. A cloud hanging over me.’ The wind spread the Norwegian flag at Sørlandet’s mizzen mast and the long banner at the top of the mainmast. I could feel her calling. ‘I have to go. I just wanted to say hello before we cast off. I’ll phone later. Would you still be awake at eleven, when I come off watch?’
‘I will be.’ He was laughing at me now. ‘Go on, my Cass, get back to your ship, before she leaves without you.’ Go back to your other woman, Mike’s wife had gestured. But there was no 38resentment in Gavin’s voice. ‘You’ve only got an hour, and I’d guess a full hundred metres to walk, at most.’
I admitted it. ‘Half a street.’
‘My phone may go straight to voicemail. If it does, don’t wait up for me to call back.’
That sounded like a stake-out on some damp piece of coast. ‘I won’t.’ Won’t be able to, I could have added, after a watch at sea. ‘Good luck with it.’
‘Tapadh leat.’ Thanks. ‘Beannachd leat, mo chridhe.’
‘Speak tae dee later.’ Beannachd leat meant goodbye, a blessing on you, but I hadn’t yet dared to ask the meaning of the soft phrase that came after it. Sometime, when we were alone, in bed …
I put the phone away, and walked straight into Micaela, Erik’s wife, and their two children, there to see Daddy off.
Micaela was South American, and beautiful, with huge dark eyes in an oval face and a ripple of shining hair that she usually pinned up. Loose, it reached to below her waist. Their pre-children photos showed her as slim and lithe as a swimming fish, but two children and a love of cooking had thickened her slender arms, plumped out her cheeks and turned her life, it seemed, into a perpetual fight against becoming fat. Only fat-free items were permitted in her fridge, and she’d try one diet after another, being meat-free one week, then drinking only juiced vegetables the next. Erik remonstrated with her about it, and she just shook her head at him and went on to the next one.
‘It’s anxiety,’ he’d told me, one night on a quiet watch, where the trainees were dozing on the benches, and the ship was forging steadily on across the water. ‘She came from a repressive regime over there. She still expects a sudden knock on the door, and armed men bursting in. I don’t know what I can do about it.’ He’d looked anxious himself, talking about it, as if he was beginning to 39share her nightmare. ‘Nothing, I suppose. My great-grandmother, she was here during the war. She never spoke about it, but I had always to call out who I was as I went into the house.’
Today, the skin around Micaela’s mouth was drawn tight as she tucked her arm inside Erik’s. ‘I have brought you a cake, a verdens beste.’ ‘World’s best’ was a buttery cake layered with meringue, sliced almonds and cream, and scattered with berries. Micaela made it beautifully. My stomach paid attention; I reminded it that the cake was destined for the other ranks’ mess. ‘Here, remember now to put it in the fridge. What else? Oh, yes.’ She fished out a bulging paper bag. ‘Some rolls, with brunost.’
Brunost was sweet brown cheese. It was a credit to Erik’s metabolism that he’d kept that tall, rangy Norwegian build.
‘I helped make the cake, Papa,’ his daughter Elena told him. She was just six, and would be heading for school in the autumn. She hadn’t gone to nursery, for Micaela insisted on keeping her babies with her, but she was quick and bright, and thanks to Micaela she already knew all the basics like numbers, colours and her alphabet in both Norwegian and English. The four-year-old boy, Alexander, clung to Erik’s leg. ‘I put the cheese on the rolls, Papa.’
Erik put his arm round Micaela. ‘I’ll be glad of these at ten o’clock tonight.’ I came forward to have Micaela wish me a good voyage and touch me with her cherished medallion of the Virgin of Sorrows, then I went back up to the aft deck and left them to say goodbye.
I was just relaxing on the bench beside the captain’s coffin when Mona came to me and plumped herself down. ‘I think we have rats in the sail locker. Can I see if Cat wants to go down, or would a rat be too dangerous for him to tackle?’
My thoughts went straight to Rat. ‘Did you see it? Because Anders has come aboard. My friend who was on one of the 40weekend trips, remember, with his pet rat. Rat and Cat may well be charging round the ship together.’
Mona shook her head. ‘I didn’t see it. I just heard something moving in the sail locker as I put the suitcases away. I called, thinking it might be Cat gone down there while the trap was open, but he didn’t come.’
‘He might not have.’ As the hatch was generally kept closed, he would have been reluctant to be thrown out by authority before he’d sniffed round every corner.
‘I could feel I was being watched.’ She shuddered. ‘Petter said I was talking nonsense, but maybe we need a trap, so long as we made sure Cat didn’t get caught in it.’
‘Let’s just check on him first,’ I suggested. I led the way down the aft steps and to my cabin. There was a knot of fur on my berth, Cat’s grey curled round Rat’s black and white, with one striped paw round Rat’s plush middle. Two heads lifted as we came in, both sets of whiskers radiating suspicious innocence. They could have been there half an hour or just two minutes. ‘I’ll go and check it out.’
The sail locker was forrard, at the bottom of the steep stairs leading down to the carpenter’s workshop and two crew cabins, Erik and Petter on one side and the ABs from the red watch on the other. Mona had left the floor hatch open, so Cat and Rat could easily have scampered out again while we’d been talking.
I clattered down the ladder. It was a trapezoid space, framed by broad shelves that were filled with white canvas, a spare for every one of the ship’s twenty-two sails. Half a dozen suitcases had been squeezed on top of the lowest shelf. Down here, the noises of the ship filtered away to a stuffy wood-smelling silence.
Of course, any sensible rat would have made itself scarce by now, which had been my intention. I paused in the middle of 41
