Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

At mid-morning, reluctant at first, a wind scoured the sea and creaked the port shrouds. I dropped the mop and seized the tiller.

I listened to the growing sound of water running past the hull and felt my excitement increase because Angela might be waiting for me. I did care. I cared desperately.

It was mid-day before I passed the Calfstone Shoal. The bell-buoy clanged at me. The wind was fitful now, but strong enough to carry me up the river and round the point.

Where, on the terrace above the river, and in front of an empty house, Angela was waiting.

She had been crying. She was in jeans and sweater, her hair bound in a single plait that hung to her narrow waist. “It’s a hell of a way to start a marriage.”

Or to end one, I thought, but did not say as much.

She was distraught, but I was too cold and famished to be a gentle listener. I made myself eggs, bacon, coffee and toast that I ate at the kitchen table. Angela sat opposite me and I noticed the thick gold wedding ring on her finger beside her diamond. She shook her head despairingly. “I tried to talk to him…”

“…but he wouldn’t listen.” I finished the sentence for her.

“He thinks you put me up to it. He thinks you want him to fail.” She stood and paced the floor. She was restless and confused, and I did not blame her. She only had my word, and that of Micky Harding, that her new husband was sailing to his death.

For a time she tried to convince herself that it was untrue. I let her talk while I ate. She talked of Bannister’s belief that he could take the coveted St Pierre, and of his happiness because she had walked up an aisle with him. She spoke of the programmes Bannister would make in the new season; she spoke of the future they had discussed and, because that future was threatened, it only seemed the brighter and more blessed to her now. “Tell me it isn’t true.” She spoke of Kassouli’s threat.

“As far as I know,” I said carefully, “it is true.” She shook in sudden anger. “How dare they say he murdered Nadeznha?”

“Perhaps because they believe he did?”

“He didn’t! He didn’t!”

“You know that?” I poured myself more coffee.

“For Christ’s sake!” She was still angry. “Do you think I’d have married him if he’d killed her?”

“Why did you marry him?”

She lit a cigarette. She had been chain-smoking ever since I’d come back. “Because I love him,” she said defiantly.

“Good.” I hid my disappointment.

“And because,” she said, “we can make a decent life for each other. I give him the security he wants, and he gives me the security I want.”

“Good,” I said again.

“And,” she said even more defiantly, “because I couldn’t marry you.”

I smiled. “I’m not a very good prospect.”

She drew on her cigarette. “You’ve caught the sun.” It sounded like an accusation.

“I’ve been working. Real work. Sawing and planing and getting paid for it. I didn’t get much money, but I’ve finished the boat. All but for a radar-reflector. And some fenders. And one or two other things.”

“Have you found a girl?”

The question surprised me, for it implied a jealousy that I had not expected. “No. I kept seeing your picture in the papers and I’d cut it out, keep it for ten minutes, then throw it away. I got drunk once or twice.”

She smiled, the first smile she’d given me. “I watched you in the film rushes. I used to go to the cutting rooms and run loops of your ugly face.” She shrugged. “You screwed up my lovely film, Nick Sandman.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” She shrugged. “I’ve given up the business, though, haven’t I? That was one of the promises I made to Tony. No more telly.” She looked at her watch. “Where will he be by now?

Off southern Ireland?”

“Yes.”

She had begun to cry very softly. “He can’t give up, can he? He’s got cameras watching him, so he has to be a big, brave boy. Men are so bloody stupid.” She blew her nose. “Including you, Nick Sandman. What are you going to do now?”

I shrugged. “I’m going to provision Sycorax . I shall go to town, visit the bank, and spend a fortune on supplies. After that, on tomorrow’s tide, I shall sail away. I’ll make a landfall at Ushant, then head for the Azores.”

She frowned. “Just like that?”

“You think I should lay on brass bands and cheerleaders?” She gave me a flicker of a smile. “I’d want seasick pills.”

“Goldfish get seasick.”

She laughed. “They don’t!”

“No, it’s true. If you take them to sea as pets, they get seasick.” I poured the last of the coffee. “I wouldn’t mind a cat.”

“Truly?” She sounded surprised.

“I’ve always liked cats,” I said. “You’re a bit cat-like.” She stared down at the table. I’d thought our last few moments had been too relaxed and, sure enough, her mind was still with Wildtrack . “I’ve thought of phoning the coastguard. But it won’t do any good.”

“No. They’d just laugh at you.”

“I’ve tried the radio-telephone again, but he just gets angry.

He thinks I’m trying to stop his moment of glory. And the last two times I tried, it was Fanny who answered.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. We’d been through this already, and there was nothing I could do. “Pray that he lives,” I said.

She stared bleakly at me. “Perhaps I should go to Canada?” I smiled. “What can you do there?”

“I can try and stop him. I could go with the film crew.”

“What will you do?” I asked. “Ram him? And how do you know the film crew will even find him? I know they’ll be in radio touch, but have you ever seen the fog in those waters? Or perhaps Wildtrack will make her turn at night. What will you do then? Crash the camera helicopter on the foredeck next day? Or do you think you can persuade him to give up there when you couldn’t do it here?” I suddenly realized that my pessimism was doing her no good. “I’m sorry.

Maybe you should try. Anything’s better than doing nothing.” She sighed. “Tony may not even reach the turning point. God knows.”

“He’ll reach St Pierre,” I said.

“He will?” She was puzzled by my certainty.

I stared in silence at her, thinking of something Kassouli had said to me. Jill-Beth had not been specific when I tape-recorded her words, but Kassouli, I now remembered, had wanted me to steer a certain course on the return leg. “Jesus wept,” I said softly, “I’ve been so bloody stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re going to take him to the exact place where Nadeznha died! Don’t you see? On the outward leg he’ll have to go much too far north, but coming back he can run the great circle with the gales!

That’s why they’ll let him turn, because the perfect revenge has to be at the same damn place!”

“What place?” Her voice was urgent.

I couldn’t remember. The only places I’d seen the coordinates were on the frame of Nadeznha Bannister’s portrait in Wildtrack ’s after cabin and on the papers that Kassouli had shown me. “Forty something north,” I said helplessly, then shrugged to show that my memory had failed me. Then I remembered the inquest transcript.

Angela ran from the kitchen, and I followed her. She went to Bannister’s study where she pulled open drawers to spill old television scripts, letters and diaries across the carpet. She found the transcript at the back of a filing cabinet. She turned the pages quickly, then seemed to freeze when she came to the evidence she wanted.

“Forty-nine, eighteen north,” she read aloud, “and forty-one, thirty-six west.” She turned to me. “Where is that?” I used an atlas to show her. I took one of Bannister’s pencils and I showed her how, on the mercator projection, Wildtrack would have to sail an arching parabola westwards, then a shallower curve back home. I put a cross on the point where Nadeznha Bannister had died. Angela used a ruler to work out the distances. I watched her thin fingers and I knew, in the room’s silence, what would come next.