The Abigail Affair (12 page)

Scott pushed more buttons and the crane arm began to extend and move sideways towards the open hangar doors. Toby stood at the doorway and guided the RIB. Soon it hung over the water. Scott thumbed another button and the boat descended. As it touched the water, it started to buck a little in the swell. Little waves slapped at the rubber. Toby could now see into the tender and with a shock, he saw the dead girl’s body lying in the bottom. She was still in the bikini.

Toby began to understand.

Chapter 10

“What are we doing?” Toby asked. “Is this for the burial at sea?”

Scott turned away from the crane controls to address him. “Not quite,” he said. “There’s been a change of plan.”

“What?”

“
Hou jou bek
! Into the RIB, moffie!”

“I’m not getting into that boat until you tell me what’s going on!” Toby said, taking care not to raise his voice and inflame the situation any more. “This whole thing is preposterous.”

Scott reached into his waistband. When his hand came out, Toby saw that it held a small handgun. He stared in disbelief. What did they need him for that was worth all this? How had he got himself into such a situation?

Whatever the answers, he knew that the time for arguing was over, and put his hands up. “OK, OK, I’m getting in the boat. Just tell me what you’re going to do with me. And with her.”

“You’re both going on a little boat trip, is what’s happening. Go on, get in. And tie off the boat.”

Toby obeyed. Once in the boat, he found the painter and tied it off on a cleat just below the hangar door sill. He looked up at Scott. The man released the crane hook. The hoisting harness fell with a thump to the floor of the RIB. Scott retracted the crane’s arm. Ski-Pants came across and began to unstrap one of the shiny jet skis. He had changed into a wet suit, and his tall, skinny frame looked even more sinister in figure-hugging neoprene.

Working together, Ski-Pants and Scott attached the crane’s hook to a central lifting point on the jet ski. Scott thumbed buttons, the crane motor whined, and the jet ski began its journey out over the water. He lowered it carefully into the water. It bobbed around at the stern of the RIB.

Ski-Pants climbed on to the jet ski and pressed the starter. The engine turned over and then roared to life. A fantail of cooling water arced out of the rear of the craft as Ski-Pants revved the engine.

Scott stepped into the RIB and went to the centre console. He briefly pressed a button labelled “Bilge Fan,” then turned the key. The big outboard engine coughed once and started. “Cast off,” he commanded. Toby untied the painter and pulled it in. “Here, sit next to me. And don’t try anything or I’ll shoot your kneecaps off.”

The tender and the jet ski drifted away from the ship. Ski-Pants gunned his engine, and the craft lifted its nose and accelerated. Scott pushed his throttle forward and the RIB surged off behind him. Soon the tender was bouncing over the swell, lifting Toby off his seat one second then slamming him down the next. He gripped a handhold and looked around him.

Now he saw land.

Toby was not experienced enough to judge distance at sea accurately, but he could see rooftops on a hillside and a plume of smoke rising from near the waterline. He guessed they were two miles out.

The jet ski headed towards the shore, and the RIB followed. The wind blew Toby’s hair in his eyes. He wished he had a cap, but he had lost his somewhere. Anyway, it wouldn’t have stayed on long in this slipstream.

After a few minutes, Toby realised that there was a smaller island between them and the mainland. He hadn’t noticed it at first as it had blended in.

He glanced over his shoulder at the
Amelia V
. It was amazing how much distance they had already covered as they planed and thumped over the water. He thought he saw a small figure standing at the railings on the sundeck looking at them. Julia?

He turned his head back. Ahead of them, Ski-Pants was standing up like a motor cyclist on a cross-country rally. The speed was incredible. Under any other circumstances, Toby would have been thrilled. As it was, the faster they went, the sooner he would reach an unknown destination and fate.

The smaller island was now quite distinct. You could see each end of it seeming to move against the background. Was this their destination? Toby felt a new lurch of fear. He had an idea what was going to happen, and he didn’t like it. He put his hand in his pocket and wrapped it around the baby cell phone. That little collection of plastic and metal components, buttons and circuits was his lifeline to the outside world and help, provided he got a chance to use it.

Beside him, Scott gripped the wheel and pushed the throttle to the limit of its travel. The RIB’s engine made any conversation impossible, even if there had been any point.

The islet was coming into firm shape now. Toby could see no habitation or sign of human activity. It was a long, mainly low lump of land with one hilly section. Scrubby grass covered about half of it. The rest was bare rock or beach. A great cloud of booby birds circled the highest point. Others perched in bunches. The rock was white with their guano. This was going to be a well smelly place.

Any goats? That would indicate human visitors, at least. Toby scanned the island, but saw nothing moving except the birds.

The jet ski slowed a little and Scott throttled back as well. Toby saw why—they were coming into shallows. The dark blue of the deep water gave way to lighter shades of blue, green and brown. The island was only a few minutes away now.

In a moment, Toby could see coral clearly under the water. Both boats slowed to a walking pace as they picked their way through the reefs towards a small, untidy beach covered in seaweed and dead branches.

One thing was certain.

This wasn’t the island where they filmed the Bounty commercials.

The jet ski reached shallow water. Ski-Pants cut the engine and the plume of exhaust water ceased. He got off the craft into knee-high water and towed it towards the beach. Meanwhile, the RIB touched sand.

What happened next filled Toby with alarm. Scott opened a little hatch in the centre of the floor of the RIB, yanked a rubber hose and turned a valve. The smell of petroleum filled the air. Toby worked it out at once. They were going to set fire to the RIB, with Toby and the dead girl in it, and make it out to be an accident, and then retreat together on the jet ski.

Toby wasn’t going to wait for Ski-Pants to tie him up so that could happen. He jumped out of the RIB and scrambled over the beach towards the scrubby shoreline. He trod on broken, brittle branches which cracked under his weight. He reached the top of the beach, where dirty sand gave way to coarse grass. The way up was steep but manageable. He set off as fast as he could without looking back. He had the advantage of surprise, which had given him a head start of maybe fifty yards. Could he outrun the other two? Quite possibly. He was in reasonable condition, and the youngest of the three men. Scott was too bulky to be fast on his feet, and Ski-Pants, although wiry and tall, didn’t look athletic. Also, the men would have to secure the jet ski and RIB, or pull them up on the beach, to stop them from drifting away. That would take precious seconds.

They wouldn’t shoot him, he reasoned, because that would mean a body with a bullet in it, which even a fire would probably not disguise. However, at any moment he expected shouts and the sounds of pursuit. He didn’t dare risk a glance over his shoulder. Not yet.
Get to the top of the little ridge
, he told himself. He patted his pocket. The little cell phone was a reassuring hard lump against his thigh. On he went. He scrambled up an old goat track. The surface was slippery with small pebbles, and his trainers kept losing their grip. He pushed onwards and upwards. After maybe two minutes of frantic activity, he was at the top of the ridge. His breathing and pulse were raised, but he was not too out of breath. Thank God for the gym. He risked a look back now.

Scott and Ski-Pants sat astride the jet ski, which pointed back out to sea the way they had come. They had not bothered to follow him!

Toby bent over and breathed deeply. His side hurt from his earlier kicking, and his stomach was sore, but he was basically in one piece.

He watched and listened. The sound of the jet ski starting up reached his lookout place. Its engine burbled as it negotiated the reef on its way to the deep blue water. Soon it was out of the shallows. The engine note increased to a roar and the craft shot off. It trailed its tail plume of exhaust water and left a green, frothing wake.

Then it was a toy-sized speck, and within another minute, the engine noise had dwindled to a background drone as it speeded back to the mother ship.

Toby found a flat rock and sat heavily on it.

He extricated the phone from his pocket and turned it on.

The battery icon showed full.

That was a relief.

Now he just needed a signal.

“Searching . . .” flashed up on the screen. Toby watched and willed it to come up with a bar or two, and a carrier name.

“Searching ... searching.” It would take a while, as they were in a new country. “Come on, come on,” Toby whispered.

His hopes faded. A few seconds later, “No Service” flashed up.

He would have to get higher. There was a valley in front of him, then another, longer, climb to the highest point of the island.

He tried to work out the distance. Half a mile? No more, surely. Easy. Although the sun was hot and Toby had no water.

That made it even more urgent to get a message to the world about his predicament. He stood up. His side twinged. He set off, downwards this time.

The going was easier now. The path was well trodden (by what?) and the short grass made for a simple descent. Toby looked around again for goats. Goats would need water in an arid place like this, and that would mean local people visiting from the mainland several times a week.

He trudged on and down and reached the valley. A large prickly pear marked the lowest point. Then it was uphill again, towards what he hoped was the highest point.

He climbed. The sun bore down on him and soon his shirtfront was damp with sweat. He considered taking it off, then decided that sunburn was a risk. He paused for a moment, took another deep breath and plodded on.

The path wound around a little, making the gradient manageable. If he were a tourist on holiday, perhaps on a shore excursion from a luxury cruise ship, he would be quite enjoying this.

The booby birds wheeled and screeched high above him.

It was further than it had looked from the bottom.

As he climbed, he tried to make sense of what the men had done. Anyone rescuing him would link the tender to the
Amelia V
in an instant. It had the yacht’s name on it, for God’s sake. Whether or not the rescuers believed Toby, they would certainly alert the authorities, and the
Amelia
would be on the wanted list for some serious questioning.

Even if no one came in time, and Toby expired from heat and dehydration, someone would eventually spot the tender and find the two bodies.

Why hadn’t Scott and Ski-Pants buried the dead girl at sea as they had planned?

Toby could only imagine that the idea all along had been to burn the tender with both the dead girl and him in it. In that case, only his swift action had avoided a premature and extremely grisly death.

But after he had escaped, why hadn’t they set fire to the tender and the girl anyway? Presumably because that would spoil the accident set-up.

Come to that, had they let all the fuel out of the tender, or was it still good for the short hop to the mainland? That would be Toby’s fallback plan if he failed to get a phone call out.

He pressed on towards his goal. His trainers stirred up the dust as he climbed.

He reached the summit without any real problems, except that he had developed a powerful thirst. He lay down for a moment, arms stretched wide, then stood up again and looked around.

The mainland was visible, shimmering in a light heat haze. Again, the distance was hard to judge. But it looked to be within cell phone range.

He pulled out the phone and checked the display. “Searching ... searching” flashed up. Then, after another agonising minute, “No Service.”

The sun beat down.

Chapter 11

Toby held the mobile phone aloft at arm’s length.

What was that? Please, please!

For a moment, he thought he saw the flash of a signal bar and the ID of a network carrier. But when he brought the handset down, the same frustrating “No Service” message showed again. He stood on tiptoe and tried once more.

Nothing.

He wandered around the hilltop, holding the cell phone aloft as if he were at a rock concert.

Nothing. Not even a hint of a signal.

He wondered whether conditions would improve later in the day, or at night. He had read somewhere on his course that radio propagation was better in the evenings. Well, if he was still around by nightfall, he would try again.

In the meantime he was stuffed, he realised. There was no higher point. If he continued down from the little summit towards the other side of the island, he would be marginally nearer the mainland, but lower down. Would that give him a better chance of a signal? He thought not.

His mouth felt like sandpaper and he longed for a cool bottle of water, first to drink, and then to pour over his roasting head and neck.

Time to head back to the boat and see if it would take him anywhere. He was sure it wouldn’t, but he had to try. Also, he realised with a little leap of excitement, there might be water in the tender—a bottle in a locker, maybe, or failing that, perhaps the engine used cooling water which would be drinkable in an emergency.

These positive thoughts buoyed him up as he retraced his steps all the way downhill, then uphill, then back down to the tatty beach and the inflatable RIB.