Colin Forbes - The Savage Gorge

'Off somewhere, are we?'

'To London. Tomorrow,' Tweed said quickly. 'We're checking the state of our transport.'

'You'll be coming back, I hope?'

'At the latest two days after tomorrow,' Tweed assured him.

'I mustn't linger. Busy day ahead of me.'

As he spoke he jumped on a brand-new Harley- Davidson motorbike and left the garage at speed, driving up the High Street. Paula watched him as he pulled in at a house halfway up the street, ran to the door, which was opening. A tall well-built blonde appeared holding a shopping carrier. She kissed him, he patted her on the rump, she walked away as he closed the door.

'Another arista victim,' Paula commented. 'Bet he's packing her bag, ready to dump it on the doorstep…'

'I've got the special weapons you suggested,' Harry reported to Tweed.

'Time to move,' said Tweed. 'Now! ' He looked at Marler. I’d like to know where we're going.'

'Seaward Cove, border of Somerset and Devon. We'll be there before night. Cove is remote, size of an oyster shell…'

With Marler at the wheel and Paula beside him, Hobartshire passed in a flash as they headed south. Turning onto the motorway, Marler pressed his foot down. They flew.

As far as Paula could tell, Marler kept just within all speed limits – she knew he had an instinct for speed traps. The drive was an experience she would never forget. Scenery passed in a blur – rolling green hills, a dense wood, a vast rocky quarry where strange machines prowled. Marler, wearing tinted goggles, had long ago passed her a pair to counter the searchlight glare of the sun burning out of an endless blue sky.

Some time before, Marler had turned south-west. Paula's thick glossy black hair was streaming out behind her. She found a pink ribbon, tied her hair into a ponytail. Later Marler pointed to a plastic box.

'Food,' he said abruptly.

She extracted thick salmon sandwiches, fed Marler as he continued driving, then herself. There was Evian water to quench their thirst. By now Paula was relaxed. I could get used to driving like this, she thought.

Occasionally she glanced in the rear-view mirror, at first surprised to find the heavy armoured Audi was only a hundred yards behind them, then remembering Harry had souped up its engine.

'Can you find out,' she asked Marler, 'when we are about half an hour from our destination?'

'You ask Ben,' he said, handing her his mobile after pressing umpteen buttons.

'Ben here. Who the hell is this?' a rough voice answered.

She identified them, giving the name of a winding village Marler had been compelled to crawl through. The rough voice wasted no time.

'Thirty minutes from now, the way Marler drives.'

Paula contacted Tweed on her mobile, which he still possessed. Her reminder was short. 'Paula here. The bottle, Tweed. Now!'

In the Audi, Tweed reached for the twist of paper inside which he had folded a Dramamine tablet. Tactfully, Harry handed him a bottle of Evian water without a word. Tweed swallowed the tablet.

The one aversion Tweed had was the sea. He dis liked even looking at it from firm land. 'It never stops wobbling about,' he had once explained to Paula. She knew this and always persuaded her chief to take pre cautions.

'How much further, I wonder?' speculated Harry. 'The sun is dropping into lower orbit.'

'Another thirty minutes and we're there,' Tweed replied. 'I gather we arrive just before dusk and go aboard the Tiger as soon as we get there.'

'The Tiger?'

'Name of the ship we travel on.'

'Don't like the sound of it.'

'Join the club,' Tweed commented.

'Are we travelling on a big ship?' Paula asked Marler.

'Surprisingly big. Even has a luxury stateroom. Compact but cosy.'

'How did Ben afford such a vessel?'

'Ben fished for prawns,' Marler chuckled. 'Off the cove there's a whole fleet of them. Biggest you've ever seen. He makes a fortune selling them to top London restaurants. Look at one of their menus. Prawns head the list for price.'

Marler stopped talking as the landscape changed dramatically. Great granite bluffs reared up out of scrubby grass on both sides. Vaguely it reminded Paula of pictures she had seen of Utah, but minus the columnar chimneys of stone. Here and there a stub born pine with a massive trunk lent a touch of green.

Marler slowed as they climbed a ridge on the nar rowing tarmacadam road. Once they crossed the ridge, the road dropped steeply. Paula almost gasped at the view of the vast sea which stretched forever towards a distant horizon. It was dusk and the sun, which had slid below the horizon, seemed to illumi nate the Channel from below with a weird aquamarine glow.

'There it is. Seaward Cove,' Marler told her.

'That's a cove?' she asked in disbelief.

She was looking down on a gash, long and narrow, piercing the massive cliffs. Projecting from the shore was a large stone jetty, curved like a sickle, presumably to take the force of giant waves in a storm. Moored to its inner wall was a large slim ship with a small funnel.

'Ben can't get that ship out of that channel,' she protested.

'He will. Only way out.'

She was relieved from Tweed's point of view that the ocean was more like a flat blue plate: not a ripple in sight. They reached the landing point in no time. Tweed's Audi parked behind them.

A short heavily built man in his fifties with a very wide chest came out of a large shed. He shook hands only with Paula, pointed to the shed.

'That's home and where I prepare the prawns for despatch to London.' He looked at Marler. 'Four hours I calculate to get to this invisible Noak Island, four to get back, so how long you gonna be foolin' around there?'

'About one hour, maybe longer. Depends on the element of danger,' Tweed told the old ruffian.

'Danger!' Ben glared at Marler. 'You never said a thing about that. Cost you another ten thousand quid on top of the fee.'

'Come off it,' Marler told Ben with a grin. 'You know that anything I'm involved in can turn ugly.'

'All right.' Ben cupped his hands round his mouth. 'All of you aboard. We have to be back here before dawn. Jump to it!'

Paula ran forward, skipped up the gangplank, ignoring Ben's shout. 'Hold on to the flamin' rails!'

He pulled his peaked cap lower over his broad forehead. This time he kept his voice down as he spoke to Tweed as he was about to go aboard.

'That girl is agile! – and very tough, I suspect.'

'She's in her thirties,' Tweed retorted and ran up the gangway.

He followed her along a companionway, through an open door, down some steps into a luxurious stateroom. She sprawled on a comfortable couch at the other end. They heard voices from the dock.

'What's in that big bag, mate?'

'My lunch,' Harry's voice shouted back. Tut a sock in it and get this old tub moving…'

Ben appeared at the entrance to the stateroom. He pointed forward.

'Galley's at that end. Fridge is jam-packed. You could cook us some plaice and chips. OK?'

'If I feel like it,' Paula snapped back.

Minutes later they felt movement. Tiger was about to navigate the impossible channel. As the ship swung round to clear the end of the jetty Tweed jumped up, opened a second door, ran up a flight of steps and was on the enclosed bridge. Marler was leaning through an open window on the starboard side, waving his hand to the left frantically. They were heading straight for a jagged spur of rock protruding into the channel, a spur which could rip a huge hole in the hull. He looked at Ben, who was already turning the ship to port. Peering over Marler's shoulders Tweed saw they slipped past the spur with a clearance of barely two feet. They emerged into the calm open sea.

'You can take over the wheel now, Marler,' shouted Ben. 'I have plotted the course from the map you sent me by courier. Just keep your ruddy eye on the com pass.'