The Abigail Affair (8 page)

But Toby did not see Irina at breakfast.

He saw the others. The trio picked listlessly at the smoked salmon, caviar and bagels which they had demanded, and washed it down with Bloody Marys. Krigov’s eyes looked red and puffy. The other girl, Natasha, who apparently had done little but consume substances since she arrived on board, sat looking vacant. The man Walther wore a leather jacket over a white shirt. He alone seemed in good humour and refreshed by his night’s sleep. Toby stood by the sideboard, where the coffee pot made a gentle fizzing sound.

After the escape debacle, Scott had frogmarched Toby to his cabin and pushed him in with the words, “One hour and you’re needed for breakfast service. Then change and report to Szczepanski. I checked your passport and it’s fine, by the way.”

He had not slept again, despite his exhaustion. The events of the previous twelve hours continued to play themselves through in his head. He tossed and turned. The image of the girl Irina lying there, injured—dead?—burnt itself into his consciousness until he could think of nothing else. What had they done to her? And who had done it? Krigov must be the culprit—a proven violent thug would think nothing of erasing a hooker, just as Irina had feared. And he, Toby, had been so cowardly, he had done nothing to stop it.

Who was going to help him? Toby had not really met the other crewmembers. He had hardly spoken to the Italian chef, Bernadetto.

Then there was the assistant engineer, Timmins, a tiny man with big, thick spectacles and a worried look about him who seemed to spend his time with his head in machine compartments. Toby couldn’t remember the man’s first name. He had christened him “Grease Monkey” for the time being.

The final crewmember on board was the senior deckhand, a tall, thin-faced Eastern European with spookily long and bony fingers who spoke poor English. Toby had not caught his name, which had been full of Z’s and S’s, and had privately nicknamed him “Ski-Pants,” which is what the name had sounded like.

What a useless lot. His only possible ally was Julia Simons. She had let Toby bum a cigarette and counted as the nearest thing to a friend he had. But she had told him to stay out of trouble. Could he persuade her to help him?

Possibly.

As he lay there in his little cabin, still humiliated from his recapture, Toby had tried to weigh up his options. He could carry on, do his job, and hope he got no more abuse. At the next port he would leave—in the daytime, when no one could challenge him.

Or he could try to find out what had happened to the girl, raise the alarm somehow, and get the authorities alerted to Krigov. At the next port, police would then be waiting on the dock to take the man in. They would find the body, arrest Krigov, and Toby would get his name in the paper and perhaps on local TV too. And he would have done “the right thing”—something on which his family was very keen. Plus, he felt for the Russian girl. Her life had been cheaply taken, he was now certain. And she had begged him for help, to no avail.

There were obvious attractions to the first course of action—carry on and keep calm—and obvious drawbacks to the second—get evidence and raise the alarm.

Everyone wanted him to keep a low profile and just do his job. Why not comply? He was only twenty-two, for God’s sake. Why should he be the one worrying about a Russian hooker? For all he knew, she was fine.

Toby reached out to the bedside table for his mobile phone to look at the calendar.

Immediately, and with a fresh pang of loss, he remembered it had been confiscated and smashed.

What date was it? Even this simple fact caused him some brainwork. He had flown from London Gatwick at sparrow’s fart on 27th December. That was yesterday, though it seemed weeks ago. So the new day now dawning was 28th December.

Three days to New Year’s Eve.

Surely the yacht would be heading to wherever they held the best New Year’s Eve parties. Antilla, maybe. St Bart’s or Antigua, even more likely.

Toby grappled with the problem as he tossed and turned, and found a plan starting to form in his tortured head.

He was going to have the best of all worlds. He would do his duty with impeccable style and grace. As soon as he was off watch, he would seek out Julia and sound her out. If she seemed on his side, the two of them would investigate the girl’s disappearance and alert the authorities. If she seemed distant and uncooperative, he would keep mum and investigate it himself. If caught, he would come up with some plausible bullshit. After all, he was new on the ship and they could expect him to get lost.

Reaching this conclusion had further exhausted him and he had started to doze off at last. A second later, seemingly, there was a rap on the door. It opened immediately and Julia poked her head in. “Come
on
, Toby. You gotta keep moving. Chef has been up for hours and you’ve done nothing but sleep since you got on board. Out of bed! Now!”

Chapter 7

“Hugh Grant, more coffee! You are in a dream world!” Walther’s sharp, educated voice pulled Toby back from his reveries to the present with a jolt.

The coffee pot by his elbow on the sideboard had finished its stuff. He snatched it up.

He poured for all of them except Krigov, who shooed him away with a dismissive wave of the hand. Toby retreated to his bar and stood behind it. He picked up a cloth and started to polish glasses. A good bartender is never still.

He continued to work on his plan later as he changed back into deckhand gear. Then he was busy finding “Ski-Pants” and getting ready to undock the yacht.

After the rain in the night, the jetty below him steamed in the morning sun. Toby had to wait by a capstan and press a button, on command, to wind in a mooring rope. He looked up to the bridge and saw Scott behind the tinted window, talking into the VHF mic.

From below his feet came a slight vibration as the engines started. A bell rang somewhere. A minute passed, then Toby nearly fell over as the ship’s horn let out a terrific blast. That was his cue. He pressed the red button, and the white mooring rope, as thick as his forearm, wound itself tidily in. It disappeared just as neatly into a hole in the deck. It turned into a thinner piece of rope, and then the end came aboard. Toby took his finger off the button and coiled up the loose end. He staggered slightly, like Popeye, as the vessel set off sideways away from the dock, and he looked over the side. Water churned up into white foam at both ends as the thrusters got traction. So that was what he had done when he played with the joysticks.

Then it felt as if the jetty were sliding away beside him. It was like being on a stationary train when the adjacent train moves out of the station, and for a second you think you are moving. Toby’s stomach did another little cartwheel. He hoped he wasn’t going to be seasick. Surely not, on a yacht this size with gyroscopic stabilisers?

The dock retreated. He stood to attention. He’d coped with the departure and knew he looked good in his clean, dry polo shirt. He was going to need the ship’s laundry soon. That would be a good pretext to approach Julia.

The
Amelia V
turned around in her own length and nosed out of the harbour mouth towards the deep-blue Caribbean Sea. There seemed to be a lot of shallow water, tinged with brown and light green, which Toby knew meant reef. Red and green buoys slid past them on either side. A black bird with a pointed beak landed on the ship’s rail a few feet away from Toby and eyed him. It obviously wasn’t a seabird because it couldn’t keep its grip on the shiny rail as the ship rolled very slightly from side to side. Toby laughed out loud at the bird’s frantic efforts to cling on. It needed nailing to the rail, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch. It couldn’t keep its footing and took off with an angry squawk.

“Zot is so funny?” It was Ski-Pants, his deckhand superior, at his elbow, carrying a bucket. Why did these people keep creeping up on him?

“Just laughing at the bird,” Toby said. “Where are we going today?”

Ski-Pants snorted. “Here.” He handed Toby the bucket, which contained a tin of polish and a roll of gauze cloth. “This.” The man indicated the stainless-steel guardrail. “No laughing matter.”

Toby said again, “Where are we heading?” but the thin-faced man turned his back and strode off. Toby tore off some cloth, applied a little polish, and began.

The work was simple, but tedious. At least it gave him more time to think, and think he did. He pulled the brim of his crimson uniform yachting cap down to keep the sun off his face.

“Are you enjoying your new life?” Toby jerked his head around. Another of the buggers had crept up on him—this time Walther, Krigov’s business partner, accomplice, whatever. He had taken off his jacket.

“It’s been quite challenging so far, to be honest, sir,” Toby said. “Incidentally, what happened to Irina?”

By way of answer, the Germanic-looking man tapped his nose. “A bit hung over. She’ll turn up. You’ll see.”

“I thought I heard trouble,” Toby said warily.

“Our Ivan is under a lot of pressure,” Walther said. “He has many deals to do. He has had some bad luck recently. He worries about his son, and his wife in New York.”

“No excuse for abusing young women.”
Whoops. That was risky.

The man merely narrowed his eyes. “Ivan Krigov is incapable of that,” he said. “I have known him as a brother these many years. His bark is much worse than his bite, as the English say, I believe. Just do your job.”

“Yes, sir,” Toby said, unconvinced. He turned back to his work.

“How much more polishing do you have to do?” Walther said.

“Down to there. All three rails and the uprights.” Was this man trying to reassure him, or what? It wasn’t working.

Walther produced a paper packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and a lighter from his trousers, and lit up. Toby wished they wouldn’t all smoke in front of him. It made him twitch. “Nice to talk to you. See you later, Toby. I hope everything goes well for you and that you have no unpleasant surprises.” Ciggie in mouth, he pushed his John Lennon spectacles up his nose, turned on his heel, and was gone as silently as he had appeared.

An hour passed uneventfully. Toby polished. He progressed slowly down the deck.
This yacht must have a hundred miles of railing to clean
, he thought. Already his back ached. The lower rail was the bummer. You had to either bend over, or squat down at deck level. Either posture was OK for a while, but not for hours at a stretch. He looked around. Nobody else in sight. He longed for a cigarette of his own and wondered where Julia was.

He was now opposite the main sundeck. This, Julia had told him, featured a ten-metre, or about thirty-foot, swimming pool that disappeared when the
Amelia
was under way. As if in confirmation of this, there were sun loungers and umbrellas dotted around. There was even an area of fake grass with four putting holes, each with a red metal flag in it. Not in the best possible taste—it reminded him of the crazy golf course at the Butlin’s holiday camp in Minehead where they had all gone to a Blues Weekend a few years back.

But the deck appeared to be solid teak, with no sign of a pool. He downed tools and crossed to where the pool should be. Ah, yes—he now saw a metal groove between the teak planking. That must be the join. It was a beautiful fit. Toby went back to the rail and leaned on it. He looked up and over his shoulder and realised with a start that he was in direct view of the bridge. He hoped no one had spotted him slacking, but if he polished a bit more (and faster) he would soon be far enough down the side of the deck to be out of sight. He picked up his polish and began edging down the rail, making bigger sweeps with the cloth, skimping on the work and virtually ignoring the lower rail, but what the hell.

In ten minutes, using this ploy, he had worked himself down the railing to a position opposite a door into the service area—the same place he had arrived and first met Scott.

Time to find Julia.

He put his cleaning materials in the bucket, set it down by the rail and opened the door. He felt his heart rate pick up. Again he thought, what the hell. He had got away with attempting to flee the boat in the small hours, suffering no more than a twisted arm and a boot up the bum at the bottom of the gangway.

He looked left and right. No one. He walked past Scott’s office. No problem to find Julia, assuming she was either in the galley, or the stillroom, or the laundry, or (unlikely) her own cabin.

He came to the galley and peered through its glass window. It looked empty. The door was ajar. He sneaked in and poked his head round the shelves of pans.

Nothing.

No one.

He swiftly decided on a change of plan. Facing him stood the giant stainless steel doors of the cold room—a walk-in fridge full of luxurious provisions, like a Harrods Food Hall in miniature. He had peeped into it the previous evening after clearing away the dinner things.

He pulled the lever and opened the right-hand door. A light sprang up inside, just like a fridge. He put his head in and looked left and right like a commando storming a hostage situation. No one. Then he grinned at his own stupidity. It would be unlikely that anyone would be waiting in a chill room in the dark in case he wandered in.

He entered and looked around. A digital thermometer glowed green just by the door, reading 2°C. As yet, Toby wasn’t feeling the cold except as a welcome coolness on his face, which felt as if it was glowing gently. Too much sun already, even with the hat on.

Beside the door, two green quilted sleeveless jackets hung on hooks. You’d need them if you were working in here for any length of time.

He ventured a little further inside. On the shelving unit nearest to him stood whole cheeses—Edams, Stiltons, French soft cheeses in wooden boxes and other cheeses that Toby didn’t recognise with Russian lettering on the wrappers.