Bernard Cornwell - Sea Lord

“I’m not a thief,” I said in hopeless protest.

“So you say. But you should know that Sir Leon considers your guilt or innocence entirely irrelevant. If you can give us any information that will lead to the Van Gogh’s recovery, then you’ll be well rewarded as well as handsomely paid for the painting itself.”

“I don’t give a monkey’s toss about Sir Leon’s reward,” I said brutally, “but I do give a damn about people who try to have me killed.”

“That’s just masculine pride,” she said scornfully. “No one ever accused you of humility.”

“You know nothing about me,” I said angrily.

She smiled. “I know a great deal about you, my lord.” She made the honorific sound like an insult. “We’ve spent four years searching for that painting, and our starting point, and our ending point, is always you. So, my lord, I am somewhat of an expert on your grubby life. You were expelled from three public schools, you’ve been arrested four times…”

“Just drunk and disorderlies,” I protested, “nothing else. Anyone can get pissed.”

“One charge of grievous bodily harm,” she insisted icily. “You served two months in a Tasmanian jail for that.”

She had done her homework. No one had ever known that it had been the twenty-eighth Earl of Stowey in that jail, but she had somehow discovered it. Mind you, the bastard I had knifed had been pleading for trouble, but I didn’t think Jennifer Pallavicini would be amenable to that excuse. “It was all a long time ago,” I said feebly.

“You’re a very destructive man.” She ignored my plea of mitigation. “In previous times, my lord, you’d have been sent to a forgotten corner of the empire as a remittance man. Doubtless your family was very relieved when you and your friend decided to sail away. Oh, I know about Mr Barratt, too. What was his attraction for you? Was it simply that your family hated his influence on you, so naturally you flaunted him in front of them?”

“No,” I said, “he’s a friend.”

“But he’s settled down, which must leave you friendless, and doubtless not a little short of cash as well. Is that why you’re here, my lord? Do you want some money to hire your own thugs who’ll protect you while you double-cross your former accomplices?”

Her tone was deliberately offensive, but I did not answer. I had been staring at the green pastures, at the slow tractor, and at the long hedgerows which were bright with stitchwort and campion. I was suddenly assailed by the strangest notion that I didn’t want to go away again. I wanted to stay. I’d had my adventures, and it was time to put down some roots. I’d seen the ending of the sea-gypsies, I’d seen them dying of fevers and the pox, I’d seen them selling their bodies in lousy little towns, I’d seen them crawling home in boats that were lashed together with fraying coir and untarred manila, and I suddenly felt lonely. I disliked the feeling. I forgot it as I made one last attempt to convince Jennifer Pallavicini of my innocence. “Do you really think,” I said, “that if I’d stolen the painting, I’d rock the boat now? If I’d sold it to someone, and was now trying to get it back, I’d probably end up in jail myself! Why should I risk that?”

“Because doubtless you don’t believe that you are in risk of a jail sentence.” She pushed herself away from the balustrade. “Do you know where the painting is?”

“Of course I don’t. I’ve already told you that.”

“Did you steal it?”

“No!”

“Can you tell me anything that might help us to recover it?”

“Beyond what I’ve told you, no.”

“Then I fail to see how you can help us. You’ll find the car park is through that gate. Good day to you, my lord.” She walked away.

“Where’s my sweater?” I called after her.

She did not turn round, but just waved in negligent reply. It was just possible, I thought, that she raised two fingers as she waved. She was very beautiful, and I was very wretched.

So go back to sea, I told myself, where nothing matters except the wind and the waters and the cold high stars. Because here, on land, I was everybody’s scapegoat, but there I was as good as the next man and better than most. And it was there, despite my sudden wish to stay ashore, that I belonged, so it was there that I would have to go.

Charlie was sharpening his chisels when I got back to his yard. “What’s got up your nose?” he asked.

I told him about my visit to Buzzacott’s gallery, and how the girl I had been chasing worked for Buzzacott. Charlie was scornful of my amateur sleuthing. “You’re a berk, Johnny, a prize berk” – he stropped a blade on his palm and gave me a long-suffering smile – “you should know better than to get involved.”

“I offered to help her find the painting,” I explained.

“What painting? It’s gone, Johnny. If you miss it, buy yourself a tin of yellow emulsion and paint another.” He tested the newly sharpened chisel by slicing away a sliver of his thumbnail then, satisfied, dropped the blade into his toolbox. “I made you a new chart table. Say thank you.”

“Thank you,” I said. Behind us Sunflower was shrouded in a canvas tent ready for the professional shot-blasters who were coming the next day. I hated to think what the work was going to cost, and said as much.

“That’s my problem,” Charlie said. “I’ve told you I’ll pay, and I will. You did enough for me in the old days, so you don’t need to feel embarrassed now.”

Yet I was embarrassed, because Charlie was clearly spending a small fortune on Sunflower ’s repair, but as the days passed I also saw how much pleasure he was taking from the work. “I’d forgotten how much fun you can have in getting a boat ready for sea,” he told me more than once. He threw himself enthusiastically at the task, so enthusiastically that it seemed at times as if Sunflower was his boat and not mine. Whatever she needed, he was determined to supply, but only the very best. He would leave the house at dawn, drive down to the yard, and start work. He found rust under the transducer plugs, so nothing would serve but that the fittings were drilled out of the hull and new steel fairings made for the depth-sounder and Pitot log heads. Charlie welded the new fairings into place himself and afterwards, in his old fashion, congratulated himself on a well-done piece of work. “Proper job, that.”

In the next busy days there were dozens of ‘proper jobs’ performed on Sunflower . Her shot-blasted hull was anti-fouled and, above the blue bootline, painted a dazzling white. Her liferaft was sent away to be repaired and restowed in its canister. The guardrail stanchions were replaced, and new lifelines rigged from bow to stern. Her cabin joinery was repaired with a lovely pale oak, but not before Charlie had rewired the whole boat. “I needed a holiday,” he told me when I wondered how his business was managing without him, though in fact Sunflower simply became Charlie’s temporary office. He had a cordless telephone in his tool box and, if a problem would not yield to bullying on the phone, he would drop down from Sunflower ’s gunwales and stride across to his real office. I was grateful for his continual presence; just to be with Charlie gave me a sense of being physically protected from Garrard and Peel, while working with him brought back memories of happy days.

The biggest difference between our old days and these new ones was the amount of money we now lavished on Sunflower . A new VHF radio was installed, one that was pre-tuned to all the American and European frequencies. Charlie wasn’t content with such a lavish toy, but insisted on installing a short-wave radio as well. “So you can listen to all those posh voices on the BBC.” He patted the panel which he’d made to house the twin radios. “Proper job, that.”