Quiller Barracuda

Chapter 14: GRACE

Honing the knife.

The noon heat pressed down from a brassy sky, and the glare off the water hit the inside of the cabin like a floodlight. The sea was mirror-smooth, with a long swell running. We were somewhere south of Cape Florida, she'd told me, ten miles from the mainland. We didn't want, she'd said, anyone looking at us through field glasses again.

Honing the knife, turning the blade on the stone, a big knife, long, curving to a fine point. One of her breasts showed inside the loose turquoise bra, the nipple raised. She wasn't sitting like that, leaning forward, to invite my interest; she was just used to being alone on board.

'I shall have to make it a clean kill,' she said.

The swell lifted the tug, lowered it. I could see the Cape, north by north-east, and two other vessels, one of them moving out of the bay under limp sails, and a motor yacht on the south horizon. She'd said it was the Contessa.

'Right into the brain, through the eye. If I don't do it cleanly, he'll flash away. They don't like being hurt – and he'd remember.' Looking up, her green eyes seeing the shark, not me. 'Don't underestimate those beasts.'

She hadn't wanted to bring me to the tug, early this morning. She'd moved with me through the pale underwater light but I hadn't gone straight to the quay; there were a lot of people milling around there, silhouetted against the floodlights, and the Coastguard helicopter was still hovering above the sunken boat. I'd surfaced to breathe and then dived again, leading her past the end of the jetty before I climbed onto a moored boat well clear of the action and reached the quay.

'Are you all right?' Her mask off, watching me.

'Yes. Can you get me away from here?'

'You need an ambulance,' she said. 'You're hurt.'

Blood reddening the water trickling from my clothes. 'Look, get me away, will you? I don't want people asking a lot of questions.' It was dangerous, perhaps, to trust her, but I'd been losing blood and hadn't slept and if I dropped suddenly she'd go for one of the ambulances and I didn't want that. There'd be some of Nicko's friends in that crowd along there and my photo was in circulation. I didn't want a police enquiry either because it'd hold things up.

'Why don't you want them to ask questions?' Not letting it go, not taking anything for granted, watching me hard with her green eyes.

I'd said the wrong thing, you see, not feeling terribly bright at the moment. 'In any case, I don't want anyone to see me. They're still trying to kill me.'

She'd remember the shooting, yesterday. Swaying a little now, swaying comfortably, enjoying the rhythm, the lights of the city swinging away, swinging back, watch it, yes, don't want ambulance.

'Who are? The police?'

Oh Jesus Christ, what made her think that? The drug scene, I suppose, she was so used to it, thought I was a dealer, man on the run. 'No. Toufexis. His people.'

'Toufexis?' Didn't take her eyes off me. 'All right, I'll take you out of here, but I want to know who you are.'

'Government.' The whole city swinging, swinging back, the lights dizzying. 'HM Government.'

'You'll have to prove that, or I'm turning you in.' She searched for the knife wound, somewhere under my shirt, left side, found it. 'Handkerchief? Okay, keep it pressed there while I get the car.'

On the way to the tug I showed her my identity and told her there were two bodies back there, Fidel's and Nicko's, and perhaps a man still alive, Vicente, in the water, she could phone the rescue team and tell them that. Then I lost the whole thing and woke up on the boat.

'I was a nurse,' she said, 'for seven years. Does that hurt?'

'No.' Morning light across the sea. I'd slept nearly five hours and woke feeling successful, in a way, because I'd got that man's wallet and it had Proctor's number in it, or the number of the place where he could be reached, where Nicko had reached him from the boat.

'I liked it,' she said, 'being a nurse. But those male chauvinist pigs finally got under my skin and I quit, slammed the door of the emergency room in one of their faces, as a matter of fact, broke his nose. They think we're just their assistants, but nursing's a profession too; we're professionals like they are, and we spend a lot more time with the patients, and get very much closer, and that matters, you know, it's very often a question of life and death if you hold someone's hand at the right moment. But those bastards just think we're scullery maids. Keep your arm away, this is the last one.' Curved needle, going into the flesh and out again across the wound, she might have been sewing a sock, very expert. 'I keep this kit for me, really. How do you feel?'

'Good shape.'

'Because you've lost some blood, as you know, but we can't tell how much. You're a bit white still, but that could be shock hanging about. Hold absolutely still while I get a bandage.'

Came back and I said, 'Are you a police reservist or something?'

'Volunteer diver, that's all. They beeped me. So I want to know all about it, Richard, because I could be some kind of accessory after the fact or concealing evidence or a dozen other things.' Looking at me straight. 'I took a risk, bringing you here, and you owe me. But all I want is the truth.'

Told her the whole thing and there wasn't any danger in that because she already knew I was looking for Proctor and the only thing I was adding now was that Proctor was looking for me.

'When you say he's "looking for you", what exactly does that mean?'

'He'd like to find me.'

It wasn't an answer and she knew that. In a moment – 'Is he trying to kill you?'

'I think so.'

She dropped the unused bandage into the medical kit and snapped the lid shut. 'Was that him, shooting at your car?'

'No.'

'How d'you know?'

'He's no good with a gun.'

'All right, then did he set you up?'

'Either he did, or whoever he's working for.'

'Is he working for Toufexis?'

'I don't know.'

'Look, if you'd rather -'

'I don't honestly know. But I'd like to.'

'Well that's the point.' She'd seen the yacht with the slack canvas coming out of the bay, and watched it for a moment. 'If you want to find Proctor, maybe I can help. But you'll have to tell me more about things, and if you'd rather not, then say so.'

'Why would you want to help me?'

In the labyrinth, where you can't see much more than the next corner, it's nice to know which side people are on, and even nicer to know why. People change their minds sometimes, and that's because their motivation isn't strong enough to keep them stable: it happens all the time.

'I think I want to help you,' she said in a moment, 'because I like you. Not like, exactly. I find you intriguing. First you get shot at and bloody nearly burned alive and the next time I see you it's six fathoms down with bodies and banknotes all over the place.' She held her gaze for a while. 'Turns me on. And as I told you, he's an absolute shit and I'd very much like to see you put him in the gun sights and drop him stone cold dead.' Looking down, 'I phoned your hotel, after that shooting, to see if you were still in the land of the living.'

'Kind of you.'

In a moment she said, 'I did a year in bomb disposal when I was still in England. It -'

'That was before you lost your father?'

She looked up quickly. 'Yes. Why?'

'I mean you had these -' wrong start, had these suicidal tendencies was not very flattering – 'these urges to push things to the brink quite a while ago.'

She watched me quietly and when she spoke again her voice was lower. 'I suppose so. We're a bit alike, aren't we? It used to turn me on – and this is why I mentioned it, actually, about bomb disposal – it used to give me a real kick to sort of be in their presence, just sitting quietly in front of those things, knowing how much awful power there was in them. And being close to you gives me the same feeling, I mean the tension comes off you in absolute waves. And I like that.'

She got up and took the medical kit to the other end of the cabin and put it into a cupboard and then went into the head, and this was the first chance I'd had so I went over to the phone and dialled the number.

'Yes?'

'Shadow safe.'

I left it at that and hung up. He would have had support people watching my hotel and they would have expected me there after I'd called him last night from the quay, and they'd have started worrying by first light and Ferris would have signalled the board as a matter of routine, executive missing, and that boat had made a lot of noise with all the police and everything and he might have put things together and started a search.

When Kim came back she said, 'I want you to rest for a bit longer,' and dropped a pile of magazines onto the bamboo stool, 'just till you get your colour back.'

That had been hours ago and now she was honing the knife and not talking very much. She'd gone into a kind of shell, and I didn't disturb her, spoke only when she spoke.

'Sometimes you won't see one for weeks, then you'll see a whole group, moving in to feed on something.'

Something like Roget, the black, still floating out there, unless his finger had got jammed inside the trigger guard of the big Suzi and he'd gone all the way down.

'Have you seen one today?'

'Couple of dorsal fins. Over there, look.'

Cutting the surface a hundred yards away, splinters of light flashing as they turned and caught the sun. I hadn't noticed them.

The noon heat pressed down, its weight seeming to calm the sea. The glare came up from the water blinding bright, flooding the cabin and bouncing, flashing on brasswork and reflecting in barbs of light. The silence was absolute and there was no motion except when the swell rolled under the boat; we floated here in isolation, trapped between sky and sea under the burning-glass of the sun.

'Did you expect them to be there?' I asked her.

Sound carried, and we spoke in murmurs.

'In a way, yes.' She turned the blade again on the stone. 'I've been getting a feeling, lately. A feeling it won't be long.'

I watched the two fins. I think there was a third now but the light was tricky, the whole surface shimmering. 'Before you find the one you're looking for?'

'Yes.' Looking up at me, 'Do you get feelings like that? Presentiments?'

'Yes.' It was a third fin, I could see it clearly now. 'What kind are they?'

'I'd say they're nurses. Not grey ones, but still aggressive.'

'How big?'

'Maybe three metres, fully grown. I've seen -' she broke off as the water flashed over there and a slim metallic body broke the surface. 'No, they're threshers – that one's over four metres. It was a thresher that killed him. I got a close look.' She was silent for a time, her eyes on the rhythmic stroking of the blade. 'They hunt in packs.'

'How many is a pack?'

'It varies. Anything from ten to thirty. They've got large eyes,' she said, 'green ones, like mine.' She was watching them all the time now, the knife still in her hand.

'What's attracting them?' There were more of them now.

'They come and take a look at boats, quite often. People throw garbage out of boats.'

She was sitting totally still now, her eyes on the sea, her head angled a little, the knife lying in her cupped hand, her brown legs tucked under her, the toes flexed. They were circling the whole time but slowly coming closer to the boat, and we could hear the sudden sharp splash as one of them flicked a tail, scattering white water.

Five, six of them now.

The water was clear below, and I could see the dark line of a reef running across our beam, with shadows moving as the rest of the pack circled, fathoms down.

'Could you skipper this boat if you had to, do you think?' She was speaking slowly, only half-aware of me.

'I could work it out.'

There wasn't anything I could say that would change her mind. It was her own affair.

'As I said, some people say I just want to follow my Dad, be with him again. One man, I think he was into psychiatry or something like that, said that sticking a knife into a shark was penis envy. Takes all sorts, doesn't it?'

They were close now, seven or eight of them, their bodies darkening the water just below the surface. She didn't move, looked carved out of bronze under the hot weight of the sun, the knife in her hand. It used to give me a real kick to sort of be in their presence, just sitting quietly in front of those things, knowing how much awful power there was in them.

I got out of the deck chair and stood at the rail and looked over the side. They were closer than I'd been able to see before, and one of them came right in and nosed along the beam of the boat and I felt its tremor as it grazed the timbers.

She was wiping the oil, Kim, the oil from the blade, and dropped the rag on to the stone and kept hold of the knife, moving to the rail and looking down into the water, and when she remembered me and looked up against the glare of the sun her eyes were narrowed to slits of pale green in the bronze of her face, watching me for a moment before she said, her voice clear in the unearthly quiet, 'If he's there, I'll know. I'll know the one.' Then she reached behind her and unhooked the turquoise bra and let it fall and tugged the bikini down her legs and over her long narrow feet and swung herself across the rail and broke the surface quietly, sinking as far as her head and then bringing her legs up to lie flat, just below the surface, not moving her arms or hands but only her feet, fanning with them to move away from the boat.

They were charcoal, the sharks, and she was a light bronze and of course much smaller, but she looked less alien among them than I would have imagined, floating with her body aligned to theirs as they closed in, slowing to get the measure of this other creature.

I didn't move, could not, I am sure, have moved. She was holding the knife behind her back, that is to say underneath her, so that it wouldn't flash in the light like a lure and attract their attention, and as she took a breath and turned slowly and dived the last I could see was that she was holding it in front of her now, the knife. Then she was gone.

Fear crept in me, contracting the scrotum, tightening the throat, as I watched those things from the safety of the boat, fear of them, certainly, of their huge size and their latent primitive force, and fear for her, the suddenness of her going from sight leaving a sense of shock, a sense already of loss and appalling danger, of murder down there where I couldn't see, of feasting as they closed in and their curved jaws opened and they ripped and began ravaging.

Too much, yes, too much imagination, very well, let us regain a little of our control, so forth, she must have done this before and she knows those ghastly things from long experience and all she's doing is playing with life and death and maybe putting on a show for me, proud of her obsession, flaunting it. But even so, even so, my good friend, I didn't relish this, you may well believe.

And then there was just a lot of blood on the surface, a lot of threshing about and then the blood, Christ, it was a beautiful red, he was a beautiful man, he coloured the whole sea like a flag, like a banner.

Forty-five, I would have said, it must have been forty-five seconds since I'd seen her. The great shapes were still circling slowly, not so near the surface now, as if something below were attracting them, their long tails fanning in the clear water, the light of the surface ripples playing along their smooth metallic flanks.

Could you skipper this boat if you had to, do you think?

The sun beat down on the sea, pressing it flat, spreading its heat and its molten light from horizon to horizon while I dwelled here on this gilded mote and came as close as I have ever come to praying.

Fifty seconds, sixty, perhaps, as they circled the slim bronze other-creature in the depths.

It's not my vessel. I brought it in. And I want to report a death.

More than a minute, she'd been down there more than a minute now, her lungs beginning to feel the need for oxygen.

You did nothing to stop her?

What could I have done?

You could have talked to her, surely, talked her out of it. You could have restrained her, if necessary.

She was a responsible adult with a mind of her own.

A confused adult, surely, intending suicide.

How do we know? I think she was following her karma.

Her what?

Her karma.

What is that, exactly?

Movement suddenly in the water there, over there, a fin cutting the surface and flashing in the light, the others circling wider for some reason, oh for Christ's sake come up will you, it's a minute fifteen, a minute and a half.

What is karma?

It means fate, loosely translated. Destiny. She was following her destiny. People meddle too much, you know, with other people's lives, we are not our brother's keeper when it comes to the crunch.

Slowly, very slowly from the depths there was this smaller shape now, a dull gold creature rising with its long hair rippling at its sides until the head broke surface and the body followed, turning gently to float as the weakness flowed into my legs and the breath came out of me and I shut my eyes against the brazen light of the sea.

And even then you didn't try to dissuade her?

No. It was her wish. Her will. I do the same thing myself, sometimes.

You go swimming among sharks?

No, but it's just as dangerous. We like the brink, you see. We like being there.

The great gray shapes circled, some of them just below the surface with a fin cutting through it here and there like a knife through silk, some of them deeper, no more than dark shadows, and there she was, the female biped, lying in the middle of them with her face to the sky and her eyes closed and her mouth moving as she breathed, breathed deeply to replace the oxygen she'd used down there, a human being with a history and two dead parents and a few boyfriends around and a job to do and a life to live or simply, if you looked at it that way, the way nature looked at it, a morsel of food for these fish, a delicacy with rich sweet-tasting blood and tender flesh, a small feast for them in the heat of noon, an offering in the celebration of life.

A tail threshed at the surface close to her but she didn't move, didn't turn her head. Perhaps they were playing. Perhaps, I thought with my breath blocked and my blood chilled, they were playing.

And then she moved at last, rolling gently until she was face down and then jack-knifing, her legs coming out of the water and poising vertically for a second and then sliding out of sight, leaving a small ring of ripples that melted away as the big fish drew closer and I knew what I would finally say when they pressed me to it, yes, I should have tried to talk her out of it, tried to save her life.

She came up three times to breathe and dived three times, surfacing closer to the boat than before and breaking the pattern, floating across the circle they were making and lifting suddenly from the surface as one of them rose from below and glanced across her back and I had a rope ready in my hands before she got her balance and crawl-stroked to the side of the boat and I helped her across the rail, 'He wasn't there,' with the water streaming from her body, 'the one I was looking for wasn't there,' streaming from her hair as she faced me with her green eyes shimmering as she lived through this little time in that particular state of grace that comes with a release from close communion with death, and then her hands were on me and she drew me down with her and the knife dropped to the hot scented timbers of the deck and lay beside us.

Blood on the deck.

'Yes?'

'I'm at sea, south of Cape Florida, ten miles from the mainland.'

In a moment: 'Condition?'

'Fully active.' The knife wound I'd taken last night had slashed the hip but hadn't cut deep muscle. I could still run if I had to.

She was wiping the blood off the deck over there by the starboard rail – the shark had grazed her shoulder blades when it had lifted her from the surface.

'The chief of the Miami Mafia,' Ferris said, 'has put out a contract on you, effective immediately. Did you know?'

'I could have guessed.' It explained the Nicko thing.

He caught the tone. 'They've made contact?'

'Yes.'

Another pause and then he said, 'In any case it's too dangerous for you to disembark at the quay as you did before. You're on board the tug?'

'Yes.'

He was keeping the exchange of information as brief as he could: we weren't using a scrambler. 'Stay there till dark and I'll have you taken off. They'll ask for your exact position later. Understood?'

'Yes.'

'Anything to add?'

'Yes. We're under surveillance.' The motor yacht with the limp sails had furled her canvas and had come within a mile of us under power and I'd caught the glint of twin lenses.

In a moment he said, 'Wait for the dark.'