Pirate King: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

“Well, my predecessor in the job quit rather unexpectedly, leaving one or two tasks unfinished. I’d like to ask her about them, if I could only find her.”

“Yes, I did wonder at the abrupt stylistic changes in the last communications I had from Mr Hale. That would explain it. But if you’re asking, no, she gave no indication that she was leaving, much less where.”

“Ah well, we’ll make do. Perhaps I shall see you on our return to Lisbon, Mr Pessoa.”

“I should enjoy another of our discussions, Miss Russell. Although I don’t imagine I shall be accepting a position as live translator again. Once was an experience; twice would be somewhat … disruptive.”

“Well, I shouldn’t think most translating positions would be as innately disruptive as working for a film crew.”

“You certainly have your work cut out for you, Miss Russell,” he agreed, with a definite twinkle coming from behind those spectacles.

The twinkle nearly loosed my tongue: I was hit by a powerful urge to tell the man who I was. Knowing that he was sitting knee to knee with the real-life wife of the storybook Sherlock Holmes would send Fernando Pessoa/Alvaro de Campos/Ricardo Reis/etc. into throes of intellectual and poetic ecstasy, and give him a lifetime of material for his theories of deliberate pretence and personal identity. But however much I liked the fellow, I did not know that I could trust him.

And so we ended, with Fernando Pessoa taking out his pouch to fashion another cigarette, every bit as enigmatic as he’d been when I’d first met him, eight days before.

* * *

I did not get to bed that night, and as a result, drew a line through the final item on Hale’s list-“check hotel rooms for items left behind”-at ten minutes after nine on Saturday morning. I’d even managed to scribble a brief letter to Holmes, telling him of the change in plans and reminding him that if the Harlequin went down at sea, my most recent Will was at the solicitor’s.

Of course, absolute chaos seethed at the wharf. Edith’s mother was frantic because her diabolical child had contrived to leave their passports in a drawer: I handed her the documents (which had, rather, been thrust into the farthest reaches of the bed). Bibi was in a fury because someone had stolen her pearl hair-clasp that the Duke of Edinburgh had given her: I assured her it had merely worked its way into a chair’s cushions, and held out the bag in which I had placed it, along with three frilly undergarments, an ivory-handled hair-brush, a pair of belts left on a hook in the bath-room, one red patent-leather shoe, five silk stockings, and a number of objects from the drawer of the bed-side table, which I took care not to examine too closely. Hale spoke in my ear – shouted, near enough – that he’d forgot to tell me that Major-General Stanley had drunk himself into a near-coma the other night and was in no shape to go anywhere, so he’d hired a replacement; that Will-the-Camera was going to need to take over one of the cabins to develop any film shot on board; that Will’s assistant, Artie, had another nervous collapse and was currently in a Lisboan sanatorium; and that he’d brought on board two sail-makers, who would also be available for sewing costumes if Sally needed them.

A dozen similar near-catastrophes and pieces of news assaulted me. Most of the problems I could deal with then and there, sending the complainants up the gangway onto the boat.

Unfortunately, the crowd soon thinned, a feather bed was successfully folded and inserted into the companionway with only a minor eruption of down, the last parcels were brought aboard (including, yes, Mr Pessoa’s traditional Portuguese dresses), and I was left with no distraction from what lay before me.

A very small boat, wasn’t it? And despite being in rather better condition than I’d anticipated, and showing signs of very recent and highly aggressive cleaning, it was still an old boat, and laden with a distressing number of chronically excitable people. My gaze travelled unwillingly down the twin masts (they did look more nearly parallel, didn’t they?) seizing on the occasional encouraging sign of a new rope and a gleam of varnish. The masts and beams showed no obvious sign of rot, the fore mast appeared to have a full complement of sails, and the aft mast, although naked of canvas, seemed to have the rest of its rigging in place. There were even a few scraps of fresh paint, one of which was her name.

“Ready to come aboard, Miss Russell?”

The high voice brought my eyes down to my next immediate challenge: the deck itself. La Rocha stood at the far end of the gangway, his meaty hands gripping the top of the bulwarks. His teeth were bared in a grin, and he exuded a most proprietary air. A pirate king, in all his particulars.

“Mr La Rocha-” I began.

“Captain.”

I sighed: another actor who had fallen in love with his character. “Won’t that rather confuse matters? I mean to say, the Harlequin’s captain may object.”

“I am Harlequin captain, Miss Russell.”

My jaw fell open. I felt it drop, and could only stare, but he just grinned all the wider. “Mr Fflytte buy Harlequin, I sail it for him. What, you think I was schoolteacher, maybe?”

“But, I thought … a fisherman?”

“Yes! On ship. Ship just like this, once. Come, Miss Russell. Everyone else on board.”

Yes, that was the rub, wasn’t it? Everyone else: all the people for whom I was responsible. I stood gaping up at him, wondering why I felt as if a spider had just invited me to see his nice web.

I took a deep breath, and set my foot on the worn gangway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MAJOR-GENERAL: As I lay in bed awake,

I thought I heard a noise.

EVEN WITH THE tide sucking us towards the open sea, it took us forever to reach it.

La Rocha’s crew was – I should have guessed it – our pirates.

Except that most of the men clearly hadn’t worked under sail for years, if ever, yet La Rocha absolutely insisted that we use the sails. The rest of us shifted around in front of the crew like herded sheep, trying to find a square foot of deck that might not be required by a man pulling on a rope – and continually failing to anticipate the antics of the racing, sweating figures. Eventually we were driven into four or five tight knots, and there we stayed, gazing at the antics.

Except that the antics of unpractised men made La Rocha roar, then sent him rigid and silent with fury while Samuel took over the roaring. The girls tittered when our captain’s voice climbed shrilly and commented at every slip of the hand and foot. Then the sailors’ tongues started as well, the meaning of their words plain despite the foreign languages, and the mothers hastily escorted their charges below, joined by most of the other girls.

Which left the rest of us – the men, six women, and me – shifting from amusement to discomfort to growing alarm. Finally, when we had spun lazily less than a mile from the port and twice nearly collided with other ships, Fflytte decided to take charge of operations. Hale tried to stop him, but the director shook off his cousin’s hand and marched down to the quarterdeck, where La Rocha’s hands gripped the wheel so hard one imagined the wood creaking while Samuel cursed one of the younger men dangling overhead – Irving or Jack, I wasn’t sure – for pulling on the wrong rope and sending everything into a tangle.

“I say,” Fflytte called as he went up the two small steps, “wouldn’t it be easier to just set the engine going and try out the sails when we have a little more elbow room? That last fellow seemed a bit-”

Only Samuel’s lightning reactions saved the director from a hospital bed. The belaying pin left La Rocha’s grip just as Samuel’s fist made impact, deflecting the heavy wood three inches shy of its target: Instead of smashing into Fflytte’s face, it took a chunk out of the rail, spun in the air, and splashed into the water. La Rocha turned on his lieutenant with his own clenched fist, but Samuel stood his ground. The two men stared at each other for an unnerving length of time before La Rocha’s shoulders subsided a fraction and Samuel raised his chin to yell at the boy in the rigging. Neither man acknowledged Fflytte’s presence, ten feet away.

White-faced, Fflytte crept back to where Hale and I stood. I removed my hand from the knife in my boot, and made myself sit. Fflytte mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, and said in a shaking voice, “Best not to interrupt