Hammond Innes - The Black Tide

torn scrap from Highlife under my nose. ‘Terrorists. Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ I said.

‘You escaped in a dhow. I remember now.’ Grey, worried eyes stared at me for a moment. ‘But that was in the Gulf. How do you know these tankers will be in the Channel now?’

I told him how we had sailed out to the Selvagen Islands, had seen them rendezvous there and then been nearly run down in a deliberate attempt to obliterate us. ‘The way you say it—’ He was watching me very closely. ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘Why are you on your own? What happened to the marine solicitor?’ And when I told him Saltley had taken the early flight via Lisbon, there was a sudden wariness in his eyes and I was conscious of a tenseness building in him. He glanced at the stewardess. ‘Get Dick, will you. He’s my navigator,’ he said, and began talking about air speed, winds and our ETA at Gatwick, his voice suddenly matter-of-fact.

The navigator was a big man and as soon as he had shut the flight deck door, the captain turned to me and in a quiet, slightly strained voice said, ‘Mind if we check you over?’

‘For weapons, do you mean?’

‘Just in case.’ He nodded to the navigator and the two of them pressed forward, forcing me to the back of the pantry, where the captain ran his hands under my arms and between my legs, the muscles of his neck corded into tense knots and the navigator standing off, his fists clenched ready.

‘Is that necessary?’ I asked as he straightened up, letting out his breath, his body relaxing.

‘We have to be careful.’ His eyes still had that wary look. ‘You know about the controllers’ strike at Lisbon, I suppose?’

I stared at him, a feeling of shock running through me. ‘Strike? I don’t know anything about a strike.’ I was thinking of Saltley marooned in Lisbon and myself alone with nobody to confirm my story.

‘You could have heard about it at the airport. The staff were full of it.’

‘I heard nothing. I didn’t ask.’

His mouth was shut in a tight line, the jaw muscles visible as he watched me. ‘No — well, probably you didn’t know then. They walked out during the morning, a manning schedule we were told. But we’ll be landing soon. I’ve no time to check with Lisbon. They could take an hour or more to make sure whether your man is stranded there or not.’

‘So you’ll do nothing?’ I suppose my own fears, the strain in my voice, something communicated itself to him, for the wary look was back in his eyes.

‘I’ll report to Gatwick, of course. Fve said that already.’

‘And the media?’

He hesitated. ‘I’ll have a word with the PR man, if he’s still there. He likes to know when there’s a—’ He checked himself. I thought perhaps he had been going to say ‘when there’s a nut on board’. ‘When anything unusual is happening. That satisfy you?’

I didn’t know whether he believed me or not, but I

knew it was the best I could hope from him. I nodded and he let me out of the pantry then, requesting me in a neutral, official voice to return to my seat. I was conscious of the two of them and the chief stewardess watching me as I pushed past the queue for the toilets and went back down the aisle. By the time I was in my seat again the officers had disappeared, the door to the flight deck was closed and the stewardesses were seeing to last minute requests as they had a final clear up. The man next to me was still sleeping, the engines whispering very quietly now as we lost height. Everything was normal again.

The only thing that wasn’t normal was my state of mind. I could think of nothing but the fact that Saltley wouldn’t be around when we landed in England. I would be on my own, the only person available to the authorities who had seen those tankers rendezvous in the Selvagens. Would they believe me without Saltley’s physical presence to confirm it? A voice on the telephone from Lisbon wasn’t the same at all. Would they believe anything I said? I was thinking of the captain, the wariness, the tenseness, the way he had summoned the heaviest of his crew, the search for arms. Would Forthright’s help, or Lloyd’s — would their Intelligence Services have discovered anything to corroborate my story?

The seat belt sign came on, the flaps slid out from the wings and I heard the rumble of the undercarriage going down. I felt suddenly sick, a void in my stomach and my skin breaking out in a sweat. It was nerves, the tension of waiting, wondering what was going to

happen. And then we were down with the runway lights flashing by and I braced myself, breathing deeply, telling myself I had nothing to be afraid of, that the truth was the truth, something I couldn’t be shaken on, so that eventually they must believe me.

The plane came to a halt and a chill wind blew in as the fuselage door was thrown back. We filed out past the chief stewardess, who said her usual piece, hoping I’d had a good flight, and I saw her eyes widen in confusion as she realized who it was. And when I boarded the bus one of the airport staff got in with me and kept his eyes on me all the way to the arrivals area.

The time was just after 19.30 GMT when I joined the queue at the UK passport desk. It moved quickly so that in a moment I was handing my temporary papers to the immigration officer. He glanced at them and then at me, his glasses reflecting the glint of the lights, his eyes faintly curious. ‘What happened to your passport, sir?’

‘I lost it.’

‘Where?’

‘I left it on board a tanker in the Persian Gulf.’

He looked down at some papers on the desk beside him. ‘And this is your correct name — Trevor McAl-istair Rodin?’ He turned and nodded to a man over by the wall. ‘This gentleman will look after you now.’ The man came quickly forward, positioning himself at my elbow. He took my papers and said, ‘This way please.’

He led me through into the Customs hall, where

he arranged for my baggage to be cleared and brought to me. ‘Am I under arrest?’ I asked, not sure whether he was airport police or CID.

‘Just a few questions, that’s all at this stage.’ We went upstairs and into one of the airport offices, and when he had sat me down at the desk facing him, I asked to see his credentials. He was a detective-inspector of the Surrey police force. I started to tell him about the tankers then, but he stopped me almost immediately. ‘I’m afraid that’s nothing to do with me. I’m told the information you gave the captain of your aircraft about tankers and terrorists has already been passed to the proper authority. My concern is a much earlier statement you made, about how you escaped in some native craft in the Persian Gulf with a French engineer named Choffel. I’d be glad if you’d now go through that again, so that I can prepare a statement for you to sign.’

I tried to argue with him, but he was insistent, and he gave me the usual caution about the possibility of evidence being used against me. And when I told him about the statement I had already made in London a month ago, he said, ‘That’s the Metropolitan area, Special Branch by the sound of it.’ He was an ordinary-looking man, quite human. ‘I have my orders, that’s all.’

‘Who from?’

‘The Chief Constable.’

‘But not because of what I said about those tankers. It’s because Choffel’s daughter has accused me of killing her father, isn’t it?’

‘She made a statement, yes.’ ‘But there’s no warrant for my arrest.’ He smiled then. ‘Nobody has told me to do anything more than get a statement from you, all right?’ ‘And it’ll go to the Chief Constable?’ He nodded. ‘He’ll then pass it on to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions or not as he thinks fit. That’s why I had to caution you.’ He pulled his chair into the desk and got his pen out. ‘Now, shall we get started? I don’t imagine you want to be all night over it any more than I do.’