“Bad veather,” he spluttered for the nth time, and gave three short coughs as he did at the end of almost every sentence.
“You got your money,” replied Motsom tersely, not eager to recall he had already paid ten thousand dollars and had promised a further ten if they found LeClarc alive.
“I know you vant to find your brother Mr. LeClarc, but it will be difficult in this fog.”
Motsom managed to look crestfallen, although the skipper could hardly have noticed in the poor light. “We must find him—his poor wife and children …” His voice, dripping with anxiety, trailed off, and the merest suggestion of a tear appearing in his right eye was swiped away with the exaggerated brush of a hand.
The anchor-chain capstan, on the forepeak below the wheelhouse drifted momentarily into view as the fog thinned a fraction, then disappeared again just as fast. The bow of the vessel remained permanently out of sight, the other side of the murky wall into which they continually pushed. With dawn, just a hint of daylight had seeped through the gloom and changed the black of night to the smoky grey of day. Only the booming foghorns penetrated the thick fog. Their sonorous tones, muffled further by the water-laden atmosphere, came from all directions at the same time. Some from ships, others from lighthouses, and some from navigation buoys along the waterway.
Stretching above his head, the skipper pulled a switch and the foghorn on the roof of the wheelhouse rumbled through the entire boat. Motsom reached up and flicked it off. “Too noisy,” he said, his tone daring the skipper to challenge him. Concern and anger met in the skipper’s eyes, but he said nothing, quickly turning his attention to the radar screen. The x-ray vision of the radar saw through the fog, mapped out the river-banks and marker buoys, and occasionally a large blip indicated a ship at anchor. Rows of little blips showed the location of a string of trawlers and pleasure craft firmly tethered to moorings, their skippers too wise to venture into the murk.
The marine radio, humming quietly to itself on a shelf above the console, suddenly buzzed with the crackly voice of a coastguard. The skipper reached for his microphone to respond—Motsom seized the arm, “What are you doing?”
“They vant to know why we are going out in this veather.”
“Leave it,” he commanded, relaxing his grip.
The skipper pushed his hand forward. “I must answer.”
“Why?” Motsom’s grip hardened again.
The radio cut in, the voice insistent.
Glancing at Motsom the skipper jerked his arm free and reached for the microphone. “It’s the coastguard. They vant to know the boat’s name. They see us on radar.”
Motsom smacked the arm away. “I said, leave it.”
Deep concern spread over the skipper’s face as the atmosphere between the two men darkened, gloomier even than the surrounding fog. “I have to answer,” he said. “They will send a boat to stop us.”
“In this weather,” said Motsom,” I don’t think so. We’ll take the risk.”
Making up his mind, the old skipper grabbed the microphone and said two words before a single bullet ripped clean through the radio, embedding itself deep into the solid woodwork of the wheelhouse.
In panic, the skipper spun the wheel and the trawler’s invisible nose veered shoreward as the vessel leaned on its beam.
“Straighten up,” yelled Motsom, the muzzle of his gun in the skipper’s back and the gnarled, scarred hands gripped the wheel to a stop, then swung it back the other way. The small boat gradually hauled itself upright as the rhythmic puttering of the old diesel engine shook it from end to end, and dirty black smoke poured out of the chimney to mingle unseen with the fog.
The muffled crack of the pistol shot penetrated the thick wooden deck timbers and alerted the only crewmember—Willem, the seventeen-year-old tidying ropes on the aft deck. Only three weeks at sea—still green, still finding his sea legs—he was drawn to the wheelhouse to report the noise and was surprised, alarmed even, to discover it locked.
“What do you want?” the skipper shouted in Dutch, his voice hardly audible through the thick wooden walls and armoured glass, and his face barely visible in the gloomy light. Motsom slipped the gun back in his pocket and said, threateningly, “Tell him to go away.”
The skipper started in Dutch, but Motsom stopped him with a hand gesture and commanded, “Speak English.”
He started again, shouting this time, “Everything’s O.K. Go and make some coffee.”
Willem’s young face clouded as he clambered down the short ladder into the tiny cabin. The two occupants, Motsom’s compatriots, glowered intimidatingly at him, and he bustled around uneasily occupying himself with the kettle and stove.
The local news headlines the evening before had carried the story of the ferry’s missing passenger and it was quite understandable, he thought, that the man’s brother and two friends would be prepared to hire a boat to try and find him. Motsom, masquerading as Roger LeClarc’s brother, had gone straight to the wheelhouse to chart a plan of action, but Willem had watched with misgiving as the other two cased the boat: Peering into the fish hold, delving under the tarpaulin covering the dinghy on deck, lifting the hatch on the tiny engine compartment.
“Coffee?” Willem enquired as pleasantly as his taut face would permit, showing the container. Both shook their heads.
“Rather have a scotch. This stink’s making me fuckin’ sick,” snarled Jack Boyd, the taller of the two, a man in his mid-fifties who might have blended at a criminal lawyer’s convention, though the dark stain of stubble shadowing his long chin and his gritty diction would have put him on the defence bench.
“Haven’a got any,” replied the other, his speech heavy with a rough Glasgow accent.
“You’ve never got fuck-all.”
Willem felt the eyes of the two men boring into him as he made the coffee. The water took forever to boil on the single propane burner with its dancing blue flames, but a sense of normality and consolation returned with the pleasant aroma rising from the percolating grounds. Thankful when it was ready, he climbed from the claustrophobic cabin juggling three stained cups, a coffee pot, and a metal jug of milk. The heavy wooden wheel-house door was still locked so he gave It a vicious kick. The skipper looked at Motsom questioningly.
“Open it,” he ordered, tapping his gun pocket. “And no funny business.”
Keeping one hand firmly on the wheel the skipper reached over, unlatched the door, and drew Willem in without speaking.
The skipper’s uncharacteristic coldness immediately caught the youngster’s attention. The old man was usually so chatty, more like a good mate than someone old enough to be his grandfather: Football, the Spice Girls, and a new movie could often keep them going to the fishing grounds, and the old man wasn’t beyond recounting hair-raising tales of long past sexual encounters or wartime exploits when he’d smuggled the odd allied serviceman to a rendezvous with an MTB off the coast under the German’s guns. Now his worried eyes flicked nervously back and forth, ever watchful of Motsom’s hands, and he said nothing to his young assistant.
“Where shall I put it?” he asked the old man in Dutch, and the skipper caught a rebuke from Motsom as he started to respond.
“English.”
“He doesn’t speak much English,” he lied, glancing repeatedly at the smashed radio in the hope the boy would notice.
“Don’t say anything then.”