Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

Kate had walked down to the stern of the ship to take a closer look at the Britannia and her crew, and to see if she could plant another listening device on the hull.

The captain, Nicky Vallbona, the other crewman, a guy named Webb Garwood, and Vallbona’s girlfriend, Gay Gilmore, were nowhere to be seen. Kate strolled up and down the dock wall alongside the Britannia a couple of times, affecting a greater interest in the Duke’s engine towers and open stern but there was nothing to see except a lot of seagulls picking over the garbage floating in the Duke’s wake. The Britannia looked as shipshape as any other boat on the transport, and that included the Camera.

Kate looked both ways and then knelt down to tie the lace of her boat shoe. The listening device was no bigger than an earplug and it was a simple matter to lean across and stick the bug to the boat’s coach roof. She was already walking away, when a man’s voice behind her brought her to a halt.

‘Talk to me,’ said the man. ‘Don’t just stand there. I mean, have you given any thought to having kids, for instance?’

Half expecting to see Howard standing on the dock wall behind her, Kate glanced around. There was no one in sight.

‘Your biological clock,’ said the voice. ‘Well, it’s hardly slowing down, is it honey? I mean you leave it until you’re in your thirties and it becomes a lot harder to conceive, doesn’t it?’

Kate realized that the voice was coming from an open window near the bow of the Britannia. Who needed bugs when you had open windows? Not that there was anything about this conversation that was of particular interest to the FBI. It could easily have been Howard. How often had Kate heard him utter these same remarks?

‘What’s it to you?’ answered a woman’s voice. The accent was New Zealand. This was Gay Gilmore and Nicky Vallbona talking.

‘What’s it to me? Honey, I kind of thought that was one of the reasons why we were going to get married. To have kids.’

‘Is that right? Well you can think again, mate. The only biological clock I’ve got is the one that tells me when it’s time to have another fuck. And it’s got nothing to do with having kids. It’s just that I like fucking a lot more than I do the idea of having kids.’

‘What about maternal instinct?’

‘What about it?’

‘Every woman’s got some.’

‘Like hell they have.’

Kate stayed where she was, fascinated. It was like hearing actors reading dialogue she might have written for them. Scenes from a Marriage, or something of the kind. So far, she liked the actress playing herself.

‘Listen, Nick, I’ve got other plans, OK? If I’ve got a maternal instinct then it’s fulfilled by you licking my nipples and me remembering my mum’s birthday.’

Kate almost applauded: she would have to remember that line.

‘Motherhood is definitely not for me. I’ve got enough problems just looking after myself.’

Nicky moaned, ‘I just don’t understand a woman who doesn’t want to have children.’

There was a short silence during which Kate thought about what she had in common with Gay. At least, their choice to remain childless. She wondered how much Gay knew about the drugs that were hidden in the boat’s fuel tanks. She hoped nothing at all — Kate was already feeling sympathetic toward her. Enough to want to help her out when the time came to make the bust. It would be a shame if Gay had to go to prison. Nicky Vallbona’s reaction, on the other hand, had been just like Howard’s: unreasonable and selfish.

Gay said, ‘Nicky, you haven’t really thought about this. You and I. We’re not the kind of people to be bringing up children. It wouldn’t be right. When we get to Europe, when this is all over? We’ll have lots of money. Why don’t we just do what we do best? Enjoy ourselves. Have a good time. Just the two of us. No worries.’

‘Yeah, OK. I guess you’re right at that, honey. Shit, I’m not even sure why I mentioned it. But I’m chilled. You won’t hear another word about this. I promise.’

Kate walked sadly away. Sad that her own husband couldn’t have been as accommodating on the issue of children as a drug smuggler; and sad to hear that Gay probably did know what she was involved in. Not having children would be a lot easier for Gay when she was in prison.

Sometimes the job was difficult, in ways you could never foresee. Like discovering that dope smugglers could have the same conversations about ordinary human things as any law-abiding person.

Kent Bowen had just come off the radio and received the information he had requested — some of it anyway — when the man himself came knocking at the sliding glass door of the Carrera’s skylounge.

Dave said, ‘Hi there. Hope I’m not disturbing you?’

‘Hell, no,’ said Bowen, keen to meet Dave and get another look at the guy now that he knew a little more about who and what he was. ‘Come on in.’

Maybe he did work at the Financial Center in Miami, they were still checking that out. But of greater interest was the revelation that before coming into the ownership of an offshore company in Grand Cayman Island, David Dulanotov’s boat had been owned by a wiseguy by the name of Lou Malta, a small-time racketeer and former associate of Naked Tony Nudelli, one of the biggest hoods in Miami. It didn’t prove that Dave himself was a mobster, but it was enough to be going on with. Bowen promised himself that before the voyage was out he would know everything there was to know about David Dulanotov. He was going to be right about this guy. Dulanotov was a crook.

‘You have a beautiful boat,’ said Dave. ‘What’s her displacement?’

‘Come again?’

‘The tonnage.’

‘Forty. Forty tons.’

‘Really? I’d have said she looks nearer sixty, myself.’

‘You’re probably right,’ grinned Bowen. ‘I’m just the owner. If you want full specifications, you’d have to ask Kate. She knows everything there is to know about this boat. Me, I just enjoy having her.’ Saying that gave him an idea. Maybe he could put this guy off in his own way. By just dropping a broad hint that she was already spoken for, in the form of a joke — the kind a real owner would have made. He winked at Dave. ‘And the boat.’

Dave smiled thinly while Bowen got off on his own joke. Somehow he couldn’t see Kate fucking this guy. ‘Is Kate around?’

‘Let me go and fetch her,’ he said, happy to leave the skylounge before Dulanotov asked him any more questions about the boat that he couldn’t answer. Even Bowen thought you could play the dumb owner too far. ‘I think she’s down in her room. Help yourself to a drink, if you want one.’

Dave sat down in one of the black leather wheelhouse pilot chairs, smoothing his hand over the black lacquer tops on the maple units. Right away he noticed that the touch control handset for the radio was still warm, as was the transceiver’s slimline, diecast aluminium casing. It was only a few minutes since he had been in the radio room with Jock, since they had both heard the sound of another digitally scrambled broadcast from one of the boats on board the ship. Dave had no way of telling if the Carrera’s radio was fitted with a scrambler. All radios looked a little unusual after you’d been out of circulation for five years. But there could be no doubt, someone had been broadcasting from the radio on this boat. And if not to a submarine, then to what?

All of which begged the question. Who was Kent Bowen? And, more importantly for Dave, who was Kate Parmenter?

‘Hi there.’

Dave turned around and frowned. Kate looked like she’d been crying.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.