Peter Corris - Master's mates

I had two pistols and I felt like throwing them overboard. Master’s, I certainly would. ‘What would you expect?’ I said to O’Connor. ‘You reckon I’m going to go over there with guns blazing?’

O’Connor nodded.

‘Forget it. I’m doing what you wanted me to do all along. I’m calling the police.’

I crossed on a pontoon that ran between the jetties and squinted in the gloom at the boats lined up along jetty one. They were all shapes and sizes but mostly big. A few people were still on board tidying away or preparing for tomorrow’s sail or whatever boaties do last thing. The Ballina Belle was one of the biggest-a long, two masted white thing that made Reg Penny’s boat look like a bathtub and the Merlot look very modest. I took up a position about thirty metres away, protected by a high-riding catamaran. Show yourselves, I pleaded silently. On cue, a man appeared from below with a bucket attached to a rope. He dropped the bucket into the water and hauled it up. He was big, bearded and dark, not Warren North. He handled the full bucket carefully, watching to make sure none of the water splashed on the deck. Couldn’t have that.

North’s appearance a few seconds later registered with me almost as a physical shock. Even at that distance and in that light he was recognisable from the photograph, and his movements were those of the gunman I’d glimpsed briefly- smooth, fluid. The two men spoke, then North stepped over the side and onto the jetty. That put paid to my plan to get the police. Had I ever really meant to play it that way or was I just comforting O’Connor? It wasn’t an option now with North on the move. He walked purposefully towards the entrance to the marina and I fell in discreetly behind him, moving across to the next jetty as soon as I could. He appeared relaxed and confident and I didn’t like the look of things. If he’d managed to work the situation out to his own advantage somehow, Lorrie was no longer of any value to him.

I gained on him, walking quietly, with traffic noise from the road above helping. It was dark in the section of the car park he was approaching and he pulled keys from his pocket as he neared a new-looking Volvo station wagon. He worked the remote and released the door. I didn’t have time to consider. I charged him, head down, and slammed the door into him. He was totally off guard and collapsed, hitting his head twice as he went down. He was unconscious and bleeding from a wound above his ear. I crouched in the shelter of the car and felt his pulse. Strong. I used my Swiss army knife to cut his T-shirt from his body and then used the strongest parts of it to strap his feet together and bind his hands behind his back. I tore a thin, well-stitched strip, and gagged him with it, pushing some of the material into his mouth. Not enough to choke him, but enough to keep him quiet. I bundled him into the back and collapsed the back seat rest onto him.

There was a packet of tissues on the front seat and I used one to prevent leaving a print as I opened the glove box. His pistol with the silencer detached sat there under a much-thumbed UBD. I closed the glove box and walked away, leaving the keys on the bonnet.

Things were quieter but not yet still at the marina and I strode in, giving a confident signal to the night watchman. ‘A quick word with Ray Starcevich.’

He nodded and I went back along the jetty towards the Ballina Belle. I didn’t know how much time I had so there was no room for subtlety. I stepped over the side and approached the steps leading below. ‘Ray,’ I said. ‘You there?’

Maybe he was expecting someone, maybe I sounded a little like North, but he climbed the steps and I waited until he was almost at the top before I jumped out and kicked him in the crotch. He tumbled down the steps and I went down after him with my. 38 in my hand and ready to punch or kick again if I had to. There was no need. Starcevich lay groaning at the bottom of the steps with his arm twisted at an impossible angle. He tried to lever himself up using both hands and screamed with pain.

‘Who the fuck’re you? Where’s Warren?’

‘Warren’s out of the picture. Where is she?’

I had the gun hard in his groin and I was very calm and he was very afraid. He jerked his head towards a short passageway.

‘In there.’

‘Show me.’

‘I can’t walk, you cunt.’

I jabbed hard. ‘Crawl.’

That’s what he did for a couple of metres before he managed to lever himself up and stagger to a cabin door. He was big and strong and although he was in pain he was still dangerous.

‘Lie down,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Lie down!’

He looked at me and then at the gun and lowered himself into the narrow space. I rested my foot lightly on the crook of his damaged arm. ‘You give me any trouble and I’ll fuck it completely. Likely you’d lose it. Understand.’

He nodded and I opened the cabin door. Lorrie Master lay on a bunk with plastic restraints tying her to the frame at the wrists and ankles. Some sort of ball with strings attached had been forced into her mouth and tied around her head. Her eyes were wide open and she looked at me as if I was some kind of apparition, a stress-induced fantasy.

‘It’s okay, Lorrie,’ I said.

I turned back to Starcevich. ‘If I go in there to get her loose, do you think you could get away before I could shoot you?’

‘No.’

‘D’you want to get out of this alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got a chance. Just a chance. Lie perfectly still and your chances go up.’

I felt him flop and took away the pressure. I stepped into the cabin and used the shorter, sharper blade to cut Lorrie free. She used her hands to remove the gag.

‘Oh, Cliff. How-?’

‘There’s no time. Can you walk?’

She eased herself upright and groaned. I flashed a quick look at Starcevich. Still compliant.

Lorrie stretched and massaged her leg muscles. ‘I think so. I wasn’t trussed up like that all the time.’

‘Okay. You have to go up and go across to your boat.’

‘Jesus, are we…?’

‘Yes. Coincidence. Just go across quietly and say I’ll be contacting them in a minute.’

‘Who?’

‘No names. Just go, Lorrie. I’ve got business with this guy.’

She was dressed in the clothes Fiona had bought her and wouldn’t look out of place. She scrambled to her feet and glanced down at Starcevich.

‘He wasn’t too bad, Cliff. It was the other one.’

‘Good. He’s in luck then. Go!’

She blew me a kiss and took off. I gave her time to get there and then called O’Connor’s mobile.

‘Hardy?’

‘Right. No names. How is he?’

‘Coming around. Couldn’t have taken more than one. Either that or he’s got a high tolerance.’

‘Good. I want all three of you out of there inside ten minutes. There’s going to be a lot of activity. Don’t argue. Take them anywhere you like, just do it.’

‘But-’

‘Do it. D’you want the bloody cops to find you with them?’

‘God, no.’

I cut the call and turned my attention back to Starcevich, who’d lifted himself up into a sitting position, cradling his arm and awkwardly massaging his crotch. I’d forgotten about the kick and was almost sympathetic. ‘She put in a good word for you or I’d be inclined to give you a very hard time.’

‘You’ve done enough, you cunt. Me arm’s broken for sure and my balls’re-’

‘Spare me. Tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you, let’s say twenty minutes, before I phone Black Andy Piper and tell him where you are.’

He tried for indifference but terrified alarm won.

‘If you can cast off, or whatever you call it, and get the engine started and steer with one wing, you should be all right. But cops’re going to be here first and then Andy, and I don’t know… Up to you.’