The familiarity of it all brought reassurance and my legs were starting to feel steadier. I peered through the gap in the hinge of the door – nobody in sight. I couldn’t hear anything other than the distant traffic. I moved to the doorway, then out on to the unmade path outside. No one there. The door at the bottom was shut, the office in darkness. Beyond, the boats lay silent, sleeping on their muddy beds.
The men had gone to the left. I followed them, crept around the corner of the building in case they were just the other side. Nothing. I went to the corner. The car park was empty.
They had gone.
I went back to the storage room and got my bike. For a moment it crossed my mind that I could go back to the boat, collect some clothes and a few other things that I might need. Get off the boat, he’d said. NOW.
I cycled up the hill towards the main road, looking all the while for the men, for parked cars. But until I got to the road there was nothing, no one.
I got as far as the castle, the outer wall clad in fiery Virginia creeper like lava pouring from the battlements. I carried my bike up the steps and into the castle grounds, and found a bench. Took both phones out of my pocket. I wanted to call Dylan again, but something told me that his phone would be switched off. Instead, on my phone, I called Jim.
It took him a while to answer.
‘Hello, Genevieve.’
‘Hi.’ He sounded as if he was still angry with me.
‘Dylan called me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He told me to get off the boat. He said they were watching me, and that I should get off the boat and ring you. So, I’m ringing you.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Rochester Castle. I’ve got my bike. Can I… can I meet you somewhere?’
There was a pause, a muffled noise as though he was holding the phone against his shoulder.
‘Gen, I’m working; it’s going to be difficult to get away. Are you safe right now? Are you sure you weren’t followed?’
‘I didn’t see anyone. There’s nobody here. Nobody suspicious, anyway,’ I said, looking across at the couple walking across the green, pushing a buggy. By the steps to the castle, an elderly couple sitting on a bench. The woman was laughing, clutching her chest. A few students with matching backpacks were sprawled on the grass. I could hear faintly the tinny noise of music, played through a mobile phone.
‘I’m going to send someone to get you, alright?’
‘You don’t need to do that. I’m alright here, there’s loads of people,’ I said. ‘Jim, what the fuck’s going on?’
‘I don’t know for sure. Just keep your head down, I’ll get to you as soon as I can. Keep your phone with you. Stay where you can see other people, and, if you need to, ring 999. Alright?’
‘Sure,’ I said.
He rang off.
I sat on the bench, feeling the beginnings of righteous anger bubbling up inside me. Fury at being told what to do, where to go.
Well, safe or not, I wasn’t going to stay here waiting for my hero to come and rescue me. I got back on the bike and pedalled down the hill, into the flow of traffic.
Thirty-seven
Rochester High Street was deserted, bunting fluttering in the narrow space between the historic buildings the way it always was, heralding the next festival or mourning the end of the last. My bike tyres bumped over the brick paving.
I propped the bike up against the side of the Dot café, ordered a latte and a bacon sandwich and sat at one of the metal tables outside, tucking the bike behind my seat. It was breezy and I was the only one sitting out here, but it gave me some fresh air and time to think.
I hadn’t told Dylan that his parcel had gone. I wondered why he hadn’t asked me to bring it with me. Maybe he already knew. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might have been on the boat and taken it back.
The waitress brought my bacon sandwich outside to me and I ate it, big mouthfuls that filled my cheeks. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until my stomach growled and churned at the prospect of hot food. It was delicious, and hardly touched the sides, as my dad used to say. I washed it down with the coffee. I kept looking up and down the High Street, half-expecting to see the two blokes who’d been at the marina.
I realised my phone was ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket, the display told me it was Jim Carling.
‘Hello?’
‘Gen, it’s me. Where are you?’
‘Rochester High Street. Where are you?’
‘I’m still in London. I’m coming to get you now, but it will take me a while to get there. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You could wait for me at the police station.’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. I could think of better places to hang around.
He sighed as though I was being difficult.
‘Is my boat in danger?’
‘What?’
‘Dylan told me to get off the boat. Are they going to torch it, or something?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, far too quickly.
‘You mean you don’t know.’
He didn’t answer right away. Then, ‘I’ve got to go. Don’t go back to the boat, alright? Promise me?’
‘Would you please tell me what the fuck is going on?’
‘I don’t know, alright? If I knew, I would tell you.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll see you in a bit, okay? I’ll get there as soon as I can.’
I walked up the High Street towards the cathedral, pushing my bike beside me, wondering how I was going to fill the next few hours. I was at the end of the High Street. The bridge stretched out in front of me, traffic flowing across it towards Strood, a train rattling on its way to London. I was finding it hard to think straight. Everything in me wanted to go back to the boat. I had a longing for it now, a need to go back there, as though I’d been away for months instead of half an hour. A need to go home. I could jump on my bike and be there in ten minutes, maybe less.
The doors to the Crown were open, inviting me in. I thought about going inside and getting wrecked; that was another option. Or I could cycle a little further down the Esplanade, to the playground and the gardens, sit on a bench or something and watch the river. I wouldn’t be able to see the marina from there, but at least I would be close to it.
I got on my bike and was just turning into the gap in the low wall to the gardens in the shadow of the castle when Dylan’s phone buzzed in my pocket. I freewheeled over to an empty bench, leaned my bike against it and answered.
‘Hello?’
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
It was Dylan.
‘You told me to get off the boat!’
‘I didn’t tell you to fart around in the city centre where anyone can see you. Have you completely lost it?’
He was watching me. I looked around me, as though he would be standing right there. There was no sign of him. ‘Where are you?’
‘Never mind. Where the fuck’s Jim?’
‘He said he’s working. In London. He’s going to come and pick me up.’
I heard him sigh heavily. There was a pause.
‘Dylan! I really need to talk to you.’
‘Go back to the road. There’s a white van. See it?’
I looked back to the Esplanade. There was a huge oak tree between me and the road, and behind it I could see the rear end of a white van. ‘Yes.’
‘Fucking hurry up, then!’ he said, and disconnected the call.
I jumped on to the bike and cycled back to the road. By the time I got there, the van’s side door had opened. Dylan was in the driver’s seat. He didn’t smile, or look at me. His eyes were watching the road, looking across to the mirror to see what was coming up behind us. Through the half-open window, he said, ‘Put the bike in the back. Get in, shut the door, hold on to something.’
I did as I was told, lifting the bike awkwardly over the step and pushing it into the dark space. Th
ere was nothing to secure it to, so I laid it down on its side. Shut the door with a slam. Before I could even sit down on the bare wooden floor, the van was moving.
I sat down quickly and held on to the bike by the saddle as it slid towards the van’s rear doors. It was dark in here, a chink of light showing around the door hinges. The van turned sharply to the left and then to the right. I tried to think, my heart thumping. It must be the little roundabout. We were heading towards the marina. On the straight road I shuffled back against the rear of the cab, found a wooden rail to hold on to. One hand on the bike, the other on the rail, I braced myself for the sharp turn at the end of the road, the steep hill up towards Borstal village, the bike heavy and desperate to throw itself at the back doors.
I’d only caught a glimpse of him. He looked rough, rougher than he used to after several nights of too much vodka and no sleep. I was surprised by the force of excitement I felt at seeing him again.
I heard his voice, raised above the rattle of the engine, through the wooden partition separating the back of the van from the cab. ‘You alright back there?’
‘Yes. Where are we going?’
‘Not far. I’ll stop in a minute.’
At the top of the hill the van stopped. I could hear the click-click of the indicator. As I’d thought, the van swung to the right. Still heading towards the marina. Slight downhill and then up again. In the darkness I pictured the same route I’d cycled this morning, past the church, past the shop. Any minute now he’d slow down and turn right.
But the van didn’t slow. In fact it accelerated slightly, with a crunch as he changed up a gear. Where were we going? I tried to think about what was beyond the turning for the marina but I never went this way – there was a road which led to Wouldham village, a winding road through the fields that snaked under the Medway bridge and followed the curve of the river for miles, heading towards Maidstone.
Then, abruptly, a turn to the right.
It caught me out. I’d relaxed my grip on the wooden rail and I gasped as the bike and I swung round, the tyre banging off the side of the van, my foot out to brace against it as I slid across the splintery wooden floor. The van was driving slowly now, bumping over pot holes and then over some sort of bump that felt like a mountain and crunched against something metallic at the back as we crawled over it.
The van stopped. The engine shuddered and cut out. I heard the driver’s door open, and slam shut with a hollow clang. Then the side door of the van opened, and I blinked in the sudden light. He filled the doorway, brightness behind him. I let go of the bike and shuffled to the open door, intending to put my arms around him, but by the time I got there he’d turned and sat on the edge, his back to me.
I sat next to him. My legs dangled over the side; his reached the rocky rubble on which we were parked.
‘Where are we?’
All around us were bushes, trees; through a gap in them I could see the river. I could hear the traffic on the motorway bridge just as I could from the deck of the Revenge, but I couldn’t see it until I jumped down from the van and picked my way through the uneven ground to the gap in the bushes.
The bridge rose up, mountainous, to my right, one of the pillars just a few metres away. The traffic roared overhead.
‘Stay out of sight,’ Dylan said.
Tearing my eyes away from the soaring height of the bridge, I realised where we were – on the bend in the river past the marina. I could see the back of the Revenge of the Tide, the edge of the Scarisbrick Jean. If I went a little further, I would be able to see the whole boat, and most of the marina. A few steps out on to the muddy shore, and I might be able to see right up to the car park and the office. A thin pontoon made out of pallets held together with bits of rope stretched out across the mud. I remembered the tracks I’d seen in the mud leading to the porthole. This was where whoever it was had started their walk to my boat. It must have been Dylan, then.
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. On the deck of the Scarisbrick Jean, Malcolm’s shorn grey head popped up and then went below again. I moved quickly back into the shelter of the bushes and turned towards the van. He’d driven it through a gap and parked it in a space tucked away in between two trees. From the rocky, unmade road the van would have been invisible; from the northern bank of the river, it would have been possible to see the back of it sticking out, but little more than that.
‘Is this where you’ve been all this time?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘On and off. I’ve been here solidly for the last couple of nights. But I had to go back to London, too, last week. And I was over there for a bit,’ he said, pointing directly across the river to Cuxton. The public waste site was on the opposite bank and I could just about make out the queue of cars waiting to dump broken furniture, hedge clippings and whatever else into the skips.
I sat next to him again. His shoulders were bowed, and when I looked at his hands, gripping his knees, I realised they were shaking. I put my hand over his, squeezed it. His skin was cold, rough to the touch, the knuckles scarred and dirty. I looked at his face, but he was staring resolutely out across the bit of river we could see in the space between the greenery.
‘What’s going on, Dylan?’ I asked quietly.
He made a noise, like a grunt of sheer hopelessness. A Where do you want me to start? kind of noise.
‘What happened to Caddy?’
‘Wrong place. Wrong time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Fitz thought he had a leak. He thought Caddy was it – he was having her followed. They followed her all the way to your boat. Apparently they lost her at the marina, then she suddenly popped up in front of them – don’t ask me how or why, I don’t know. She started yelling. One of the fuckwits punched her and she went down. That’s what they said to Fitz when they got back to the club, anyway.’
I stared at him, the thoughts spinning and whirling around my head. ‘You mean it was an accident?’
‘No, it was them being complete fucking idiots. It was an accident that it happened near your boat. A coincidence, I guess. Apart from the fact that you invited her to your party.’
It was all my fault, was what he meant. I was still processing this when I realised he was saying something else.
‘…thing is, Fitz didn’t know where you were. In fact, he’d almost forgotten all about you. And then when the fuckwits went back to the club and told him what had happened – when he’d come down from the ceiling – he started wondering what she was doing in a boatyard. And he found out you were here.’
‘So what?’
‘So, now he thinks you and Caddy were in on some scheme together. He doesn’t know what. But sooner or later his paranoia will bring him to bloody invent something. Which is why you’re in big trouble.’
‘I thought it was the parcel,’ I said, vaguely.
He gave a short laugh. ‘The parcel? You mean the one I gave you? I don’t think so. Not unless you’ve been waving it about.’
‘Dylan. Someone took it. I don’t know when. I’m sure it was there on Thursday, then this morning when I looked it was gone.’
He was staring at me with an amused smile on his face. Whatever I’d expected in reaction to the news that his precious parcel was missing, it certainly wasn’t this.
‘You never looked in it?’ he said.
‘No. Of course not. I just hid it, like you told me to.’
He rubbed a hand over his scalp and sighed. ‘Put it this way. Whichever idiot has got it will get a big shock when they finally open it up.’
The clouds were thickening over the bridge, moving so fast it looked as though the bridge was swaying and might fall at any minute. It was dizzying. It was starting to get dark.
‘Why are you here, Dylan? If you’re not here to pick up the parcel, what are you doing here?’
He didn’t answer at first, looking out across the grey-brown river to the opposite bank, to the trees and the grass and, in the distance, the cars
queuing to get round to deposit their rubbish in the public waste facility.
‘I’m here because of you, of course,’ he said, so softly that I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him.
‘Me?’
‘I was watching out for you.’
My first reaction was to blurt out that he hadn’t been doing a very good job, considering the number of times I’d felt threatened and afraid in the last few days, but I bit my cheek instead. ‘Does Fitz know you’re here?’ I asked at last.
‘Of course not.’
‘Where does he think you are, then?’ I asked, remembering how Dylan was like Fitz’s shadow, the one out of all of them who seemed to be completely trusted, always there.
He shrugged miserably. ‘Told him I was going to Spain to see Lauren.’
‘You won’t have much of a tan when you go back.’
He laughed then, a throaty laugh that ended in a cough. ‘Not much of a one for sunbathing, me,’ he said.
‘No, I guess you’re not. Jim said you’d done a runner.’
‘Did he now?’ he said. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘You weren’t answering when he called you, same as you weren’t answering me. Why did you do that?’
‘I rang him when I needed to.’
‘And why did you ring me the night after Caddy died? I answered the phone and you didn’t say anything.’
‘I wanted to check you were okay. Then Fitz turned up and I had to pretend I was listening to voicemail. It’s not that easy to make private phone calls in that place, you know that. Always someone watching. Anyway,’ he said with finality, ‘I’m not going back.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a long story. But I’m not doing it any more. I’ve had enough. Like you.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to go to Spain,’ he said. ‘Set up my own club, a bar, something like that.’