Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

Not the Guards.

“Why not the bloody Navy? You like sailing, don’t you? It’s about the only bloody thing you do like. That and skirt.”

“I don’t like sailing in big ships.”

“You’re throwing your bloody life away!”

I might not have been bright, but my father thought I could hack a living at banking or broking, or one of the other pin-striped forms of thievery at which he and my elder brother so excelled.

I joined the Army, but I would still go down to Devon and take the stiff cotton sails out of the boathouse loft so that Sycorax could go to sea. I married. Melissa and I would motor down to the Devon house for long weekends, but, as time passed, my father was rarely there to entertain us. Later I discovered why. He was borrowing money he could not repay on the strength of promises he could not keep. He was even ready to sell me both Sycorax and the wharf to raise some money. His battle became ever more desperate and flamboyant; and he lost it. He was sent down for seven years; a savage sentence, but the judge wanted to make it plain that just because a crime was committed in an office by a businessman it was no less a crime for that. But by then I was sailing to the South Atlantic and everything was changing.

Except for Sycorax . Because she was now all that I had and all that I wanted.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” A tall, cadaverous man in a shabby grey suit appeared at my bedside. He was in his fifties and looked older. He had yellow teeth, bloodshot eyes, thin grey hair and a lugubrious face nicked with shaving cuts.

“Of course I remember you,” I said. “Detective Sergeant Harry Abbott. As toothsome as ever was.”

“Inspector Abbott now.” He was pleased I’d remembered him.

“How are you, Nick?”

“I’m bloody well.” I found it hard to speak clearly because the pain in my chest made breathing difficult. “I might go for a bike ride if the rain holds off.”

“It isn’t raining,” Abbott said gloomily. “It’s actually quite spring-like, for a change. Mind if I smoke?” He lit up anyway. Abbott used to play golf with my father who loved to be friendly with the local law. My father had encouraged their gossip and relied on their help when he drank and drove. He gave wonderful parties, my father.

You could hear them a mile upriver, but there were never any complaints, not while the local police were so fond of him. “Seen Wednesday’s papers?” Abbott asked me now.

“No.”

He held a tabloid over the bed. ‘Falklands VC Hero Assaulted at TV Tony’s Hideaway,’ it read. Front page. There was a photograph of me in uniform, a big picture of Anthony Bannister, and a photograph of the house. “Bloody hell,” I said.

“Mr Bannister was in London.” Abbott folded the paper away.

“So it wasn’t him that beat the shit out of you.”

“It was a South African.”

“Figured it was.” Abbott showed no surprise, nor much interest.

He picked a grape from the bunch beside my bed and spat the pips on to the floor. “A big sod?”

“Built like a barge.”

Abbott nodded. “Fanny Mulder. He’s Mr Bannister’s professional skipper.” There was an infinite derision in the last two words.

“Fanny?”

“Francis, but always known as Fanny. He’s pissed off, of course.

Probably in France by now. Or Spain. Or gone back to the Fatherland.

Whatever, he’s waiting for things to quieten down before he comes back.” Abbott stared at my face. “He certainly took care of you, didn’t he?”

“He nicked my wallet. And my bag. And everything off my boat.”

“He bloody tried to murder you, didn’t he?” Abbott did not sound very concerned. “He dumped you on the foreshore and probably hoped the tide would wash you away. Some dentist found you. Mr Bannister says you broke into his boathouse?”

“He had my bloody dinghy in there!” I protested too forcibly, and the pain in my chest whipped at me like the recoil of a frayed wire cable. I coughed foully. There were tears in my eyes.

Abbott waited till I was silent. “Mr Bannister wants it all hushed up. He would, of course.”

“He would?”

“Not good for the image, is it? He doesn’t want the scum papers saying that a war hero was scuffed over by one of his pet gorillas.

Image is very important to Mr Bannister. He’s one of those blokes who straps himself into a fighting chair just to catch a bloody mackerel.” Abbott laughed scornfully. “You know the kind, Nick, a bloody Londoner who comes down at weekends to show us dumb locals how it’s all done.”

“Isn’t he meant to be a brilliant sailor?” I asked.

“His wife was. She insisted on buying the Devon house. She was here a lot, but then she was always bloody sailing.” Abbott pulled open the drawer of the bedside cabinet and tapped a long drooping piece of ash into its emptiness. “I didn’t like her so much. American.” He added the last word as though it explained his distaste, then blew a plume of smoke towards my drip. “I miss your old man, Nick.”

“Not surprising, is it, when you consider how generously he gave to the police orphan and champagne fund?”

Abbott sniffed disapproval. “Have you been to see your dad, Nick?”

“I haven’t had time,” I said, then, to change the subject, “When did Bannister buy the house?”

“Couple of years back. It took the courts that long to sort out your old man’s mess.”

“Did Bannister take my boat out of the water?”

“Lord knows.” Abbott did not seem to care. “Could have been anyone. There was some mischief on the river this winter. Usual thing. Radios and depth-sounders nicked.”

“That was Mulder,” I said. “There were crates of stuff in the boathouse. Including my gear.”

“Won’t be there any longer, will it?” Abbott said carelessly. “He’ll have shipped it all off to George Cullen. Remember George?”

“Of course I remember George.”

“He’s still as bent as a pig’s tail. We reckon Mulder’s been doing business with Georgie, but it’s hard to prove.”

“I thought we taxpayers paid you to prove hard things.”

“Not my job, Nick, not my job.” Abbott went to the window and frowned his disapproval at the cloudless sky. “I’m off crime now.”

“What are you? Traffic? Giving parking tickets to the grockles?” Grockles were tourists.

Abbott ignored the gibe. “I’ll tell CID about the stolen stuff, Nick, of course I will. But I doubt they’ll do anything. I mean rich fellows whose shiny yachts get ripped off aren’t exactly the highest priority on our list. Not while we’ve got orphans and widows being robbed.

Orphans and widows tend not to have insurance, you see, unlike the floating rich.”

“My boat wasn’t insured. My ex-wife didn’t forward the renewal notice.”

“You are a bloody fool,” Abbott said.

“It was hard for Melissa to remember everything when she was having fun. Besides,” I shrugged, “Jimmy Nicholls was supposed to be looking after Sycorax .”

“Jimmy’s been in hospital since November,” Abbott said, thus explaining why Sycorax had been abandoned. “Emphysema. He smokes too much.” He looked down at his cigarette, shrugged, and stole another grape. “Seen your kids, have you?”

“They visited me in the other hospital.” I wondered why Abbott was so deliberately sheering away from more pressing matters. “Are you going to charge Mulder?” I demanded.

“I doubt it, Nick, I doubt it. Wouldn’t do much bloody good, would it?”

“For Christ’s sake! He stole all my stuff!”

“Difficult to prove. You can prefer a charge of assault against him, if you like.” Abbott did not sound enthusiastic.