Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

“His money,” Melissa said, “will go to his son, but Nadeznha can’t have died poor, can she? She was the genuine American Princess.”

“She was certainly pretty.” I thought of the photographs in Bannister’s Devon house.

“If you like bouncing tanned flesh and Girl Guide eyes, yes.” Melissa shuddered. “Mind you, there was something quite eerie about all that mixed blood. She married Tony on the rebound, of course, and Kassouli never really approved. She was slumming in his eyes. And Yassir Kassouli has never forgiven Tony for her death.

I mean, at worst it was murder, and at best carelessness. And you can imagine how sinister someone like Kassouli can be if he decides he doesn’t like you. He’s hardly likely to send you a solicitor’s letter; much more likely to slip a cobra into your bed.” She laughed.

“Do you think Bannister murdered Nadeznha?” I asked.

“I never said any such thing!”

“You think the Boer pushed her overboard?” I pressed her.

Melissa adopted a look of hurt innocence. “I am merely telling you the faintest, most malicious, trace of gossip, and I will utterly deny ever mentioning Tony’s name to you.” She tapped ash into a crystal bowl. “But the answer to your question, Nick, as to who might have threatened Tony, is Yassir Kassouli. The current whisper is that Yassir’s sworn that Tony’s not going to win the St Pierre.”

“Which is why Bannister keeps that Boer brute around?”

“You’re very slow, Nick, but you do eventually grasp the point.

Exactly.” Melissa stubbed out her cigarette to show that the subject was closed. “So what are you going to do now, Nick?”

“I’ll see the kids in two weeks.”

“I don’t mean that, Nick. I mean with what passes for the rest of your life?”

“Ah! I’m going to repair Sycorax , then sail her to New Zealand.

I’ll fly back to see the kids when I can.”

“You think money grows on trees?”

“My affair.”

She picked up the emery board again. “Get a job, Nick. I mean, it’s frightfully brave of you to think you can sail round the world, but you really can’t. Hon-John will help you. He has oodles of friends who’d be jolly pleased to hire a VC. You can buy a grown-up suit and call yourself a public-relations man.”

“I’m going to sail round the world.”

She shrugged. “I shall need security from you, Nick. I mean, you can’t just abandon your children in destitution while you gallivant in the South Seas, can you?”

“Why ever not?”

“I shall have to tell my lawyers that you’re planning to run away, Nick. I hate to do it, you know that, but I really don’t have any choice.

None.”

I smiled. “Dear Melissa. Money, money money.”

“Who’ll look after the children if I don’t?”

“Their nanny?” I kissed her upturned cheeck. “I’ll see you in two weeks?”

“Goodbye, Nicholas. The maid will see you out.” She pulled the bellrope.

I left Melissa empty-handed, but in truth I had not expected to get any of Bannister’s rent money.

But nor had I expected to hear the sibilant whisper of a rumoured crime. Was that what Inspector Abbott had meant when he spoke of using the long spoon? I limped through the drifts of fallen blossom and remembered Nadeznha Bannister’s face from her photographs; she had been so pretty and happy, and now she lay thousands of feet deep with her body rotted by gas and drifting in the sluggish darkness.

And there was a whisper, nothing more than a catspaw of wind rippling a perfect ocean calm, that she had been murdered.

And Bannister was clearly protecting the Boer.

And, I told myself, it was none of my damned business. None.

It was none of my business, but I couldn’t shake it out of my head.

When I got back to Devon I searched amongst the yachting magazines in Bannister’s study for an account of the accident that had killed Nadeznha. I found something even better; in a brown folder on his desk there was a transcript of the inquest into Nadeznha’s death.

It told a simple story. Wildtrack had been on the return leg of the St Pierre, some five hundred miles off the Canadian coast, and sailing hard in a night watch. The seas were heavy, and the following wind was force six to seven, but gusting to eight. At two in the morning Nadeznha Bannister had been the watch captain. The only other person on deck was Fanny Mulder, described in the inquest papers as the boat’s navigator. That seemed odd. I’d been told Fanny was the professional skipper, and anyway, why would a navigator be standing a night watch as crew?

Mulder’s evidence stated that the wind had risen after midnight, but that Nadeznha Bannister had decided against reducing sail. In the old days a yacht always shortened sail to ride out gales, but in today’s races they went hell for leather to win. The boat, Mulder testified, had been going fast. At about two in the morning Nadeznha noticed that the boom was riding high and she had asked Fanny to go forward and check that the kicking strap hadn’t loosened. He went forward. He wore a safety harness. He testified that Nadeznha, who was at the wheel in the aft cockpit, was similarly harnessed.

He remembered, as he went through the centre cockpit, thinking that the seas were becoming higher and more dangerous. He found the kicking strap’s anchor had snapped. Just as he was re-rigging the strap to a D-ring at the mainmast’s base, Wildtrack was pooped.

A great sea, larger than any other in that dark night, broke on to the yacht’s stern. She shuddered, half-swamped, and Fanny told how he had been thrust forward by the rush of the cold water. His harness held, but by the time he had recovered himself, and by the time that Wildtrack had juddered free of the heavy seas, he found that Nadeznha was gone. The yacht’s jackstaff, danbuoys, guardrails and lifebelts had been swept from the stern by the violence of the breaking wave.

Bannister, who was named as skipper of Wildtrack , was the first man on deck. The rest of the crew quickly followed. They dropped sail, started the engine and used white flares to search the sea. At daybreak they were still searching, though by then there could have been no hope, for Nadeznha Bannister had not been wearing a lifejacket, trusting instead to her safety harness. An American search plane had scoured the area at dawn, but by mid-day any hopes of a miracle had long been abandoned. Nadeznha Bannister’s body had never been found.

The coroner remarked that Wildtrack had not shortened sail, and he criticized the attitude of yachtsmen who believed that risks should be taken for the ephemeral rewards of victory. That was the only criticism. He noted that the decision not to shorten sail had been taken by the deceased, whose skill at sailing and whose bravery at sea were not in question. It was a tragic accident, and the sympathy of the court was extended to Mr Anthony Bannister and to Nadeznha’s father, Mr Yassir Kassouli, who had flown from America to attend the inquest.

The verdict was accidental death, and the matter was closed.

“Force six or seven?” Jimmy Nicholls said. “I wouldn’t shorten sail either.”

“You think it was an accident?” I asked.

“I weren’t there, boy. Nor were you. But it just shows you, don’t it? Always unlucky if you take a maid to sea. Maids should stay ashore, they should.”

It was Tuesday. My lawyer had advised me that, if I wanted Sycorax restored, I should make the film, and so Jimmy was taking me to the marina in his thirty-foot fishing boat. It was a warm day, very warm, but Jimmy was dressed in his usual woollen vest, flannel shirt, serge waistcoat and shapeless tweed jacket that hung over thick tar-stained trousers which were tucked into fleece-lined sea-boots. Ne’er cast a clout till May be out, they say in England, but Jimmy did not intend discarding any clothing until he was stripped for his coffin.