I swore under my breath. “How the hell does he think he’s going to get away with this?” I muttered. “He must know that we’ll ring ahead and as soon as the boat docks in Troon the police will be all over him.”
“So we plan for the worst,” Sean said, grim. He picked up his helmet and ripped the ear-piece and microphone for his radio out of the lining, reattaching it to the rest of the unit inside his jacket and draping it round his collar. William, Daz and I quickly followed suit.
“OK, William, I want you to stay on the outside, in case this all goes pear-shaped,” Sean said to him. “Eamonn’s got to be planning a double-cross, but at the moment we don’t know what. You’re known to the crew. If it all sounds like it’s going bad you’re probably the best person to get us some help. Daz, you’re with us. OK?”
They nodded, faces tight with apprehension. They must have thought, after the strike on the van, their brush with danger on this trip was over.
We were all wrong.
We pushed the outer door open and went out. The outer deck smelled of salt and diesel and chip fat from the extractor vents out of the restaurant kitchen. It was driven into our faces by the fierce wind whipping up off the Irish Sea and I was glad I was still wearing my leathers.
The sea was lumpy and getting worse. There were only a couple of the hardier passengers braving the elements and we kept an eye on them as William led us through a low gate that was clearly marked as Off Limits. From there we broke into a half-jog, half-stagger towards the stern, trying to compensate for the lurching of the deck under our feet.
Gouts of spray were being thrown up over the railing. I glanced at the increasingly rough dark green swell and hoped that, whatever Eamonn had planned, it didn’t involve any of us ending up in the water.
On a day like today, anybody going over the side wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.
Twenty-nine
William led us confidently to a heavy steel door in the superstructure that opened into a steep stairwell. The inside was never intended for passenger eyes. It was industrial in its construction, lined with padding to prevent injury in rough seas like these were increasingly becoming. The ferry’s stabilisers were working hard to compensate for the motion but we held on tight to the handrail all the way down, nevertheless.
At the bottom William indicated another doorway into the engine control room. It was loud down there, and hot enough to break me out in a sweat under my leathers. William opened the door slightly and peered cautiously through the crack. He glanced back, frowning.
“There should be at least a couple of crew down here,” he said, keeping his voice low as he pushed the door wide. “I don’t know where—”
As the door swung open we caught sight of two men in ferry company uniform, slumped on the floor.
“Well, it looks like we’re heading the right way,” Sean muttered, derisive. “You want to know where Eamonn is, just follow the trail of bodies.”
He crouched by the two men, checking for pulses. One of them stirred at his touch, groaning.
“The engine room’s through there,” William said, jerking his head. “The lever operates the door.”
“OK,” Sean said, straightening. “Do what you can for these two and then get topside. I’ve a feeling we might need you up there.”
William nodded, eyes sliding over us from an impassive face. “I take it all back, what I said earlier,” he said, stony. “If you get the chance to kill that bastard, take it.”
If the engine control room was hot and noisy, that was nothing compared to the engine room itself. The place was crowded with pipes and wires and the steel grate flooring vibrated hard under our feet. Huge cooling fans were fighting a losing battle to circulate the sweltering stale air and the stink of engine oil overlaid everything, thick enough to taste.
We found ourselves on a mezzanine walkway overlooking one of the massive diesel engines that drove the ferry. The top of the engine casing itself must have been three or four metres in length. There was no sign of any crew, or of Eamonn.
Sean nudged my arm and indicated we should go forward and keep our eyes peeled. I jerked my head to Daz and we moved off. There was little point in trying for stealth. The racket of the engines running covered any sounds we might have made.
“Ah, there you are now. I was beginning to think you’d decided these two weren’t worth giving up a small fortune in diamonds for,” Eamonn’s voice called out above the clamour. “Not that I’d have blamed you, after the trouble they’ve caused.”
We stepped forward to the railing to see Eamonn down on the engine room floor below us, previously hidden by the bulk of the engine itself. He had forsaken the suit he’d worn during our last encounter for jeans and a flying jacket.
The extendible baton he’d used to kill Paxo was in his hand, the lethal metal tip resting lightly on his shoulder. Another like the one Sean had taken away from him at Jacob and Clare’s, and the one I’d taken away from the man in the Merc van. I wished I’d kept hold of it.
Jamie and Isobel had been handcuffed to each other’s wrists, face to face, around a steel support pillar. Jamie was on his knees, hugging the metalwork, his eyes closed and his face drenched with sweat. For a moment I wondered what the hell Eamonn had done to him, then I remembered his acute queasiness on the outward voyage, when the sea had been almost glassy compared to this. The plunging of the ship and the lack of a visible horizon was making even me feel unbalanced, and I didn’t suffer from seasickness.
“I hardly think they’re the troublemakers round here, do you?” Sean said, his voice loud enough to carry but icily controlled. “They haven’t quite extended their range to common murder.”
Eamonn smiled nastily at us from beneath the plaster that stretched across his nose, partly obscuring his face. He took a step sideways and circled the shackled mother and son like a shark.
