It was, and Albert Perkins recognized and enjoyed it, a virtuoso performance in insult.
‘I meant, sincerely, the sympathy. You are dogged by the past. You have made a great nation, a nation of engineers and technicians, musicians and artists, but it is never enough to turn away the past. You are never at ease because wretched little people like me will not allow you to forget the past. Always you are condemned to carry blame for the past. The past is the bad Pfennig in your pocket, Doktor Raub, and I expect young Julius doesn’t spare you with blame for the past. So unfair… Right now, what I would really appreciate is a cup of coffee.’
The few fishermen had left their boats and gone to the shelter of the gutting shed. Peters tugged at his sleeve, pointed. The boats writhed at their moorings.
He looked across the channel, where Peters pointed.
He saw her first, and then Dieter Krause saw the man, who walked a half-dozen strides ahead of her. He saw the sharp flash of her hair.
They were on the far side of the haven channel and they went quickly, purposefully, heads tucked down, into the sleet and the snow. They walked away from the bridge that crossed the channel. He did not understand why they walked away from the bridge that would bring them to the fish quay, where the trawler would tie up. He was frozen cold in the wind on the quay, he could not think, he shivered. There was no fear in her.
She walked past the shops with their lights already bright, and past the houses with their summer balconies, and past the tourist boats that waited for the summer, towards the breakwater.
He stared. He did not understand. Peters kicked his shin and started to run. Dieter Krause followed him, past the gutting shed and the closed stalls and the moored trawlers and over the bridge that crossed the Alter Strom channel, but he did not understand.
The assistant deputy director met Olive Harris at the airport.
She came to him. With that passport she was the first of her ffight through.
He thought, his first impression, that Olive Harris was quite radiant. He thought the triumph bathed her.
‘Go well?’
‘As I had planned it.’
‘Just a bit of waiting, then.’
‘They won’t hang about. Should have it through tonight.’
‘Well done, Olive. Not that it matters, but Albert’s thing should be winding up this evening.’
‘Not that it matters. Where’s the car?’
They were by the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater. They were hunched down and the lighthouse gave a small protection from the weight of the wind gusts.
They could see out to the open sea to the east.
The big car ferry had come out, gaining speed as it cleared the Neuer Strom, from the channel at the back of the gutting shed and the fishing boats’ quay. Its lowering shape had disappeared into the blur of the merged sleet and snow. The trawler would come, rolling and staggering, from the east and they peered into the grey-white of the mist and searched for it.
When they looked down the length of the breakwater, turned away from the watch on the open water, they could see the two men. There was more snow in the sleet and the light of the afternoon was slipping. Through the sleet and the snowflakes, they could see Krause with one man beside him. Krause and the man blocked the end of the breakwater, stood where it met the beach.
Around them the waves hit the rocks on which the lighthouse was built. Close to them was the rope, jerking and slackening, holding the small, open boat. Because the breakwater curved in a shallow arc, Krause and the man could not have seen it. A family had come onto the breakwater, and a small boy had shrieked excitement when the spray had deluged him, and a little girl had clung to her father’s legs.
A bulk carrier had rolled out to sea from the Neuer Strom, and was gone.
Josh held the gun down between his legs and his hands were chilled and sea-soaked.
There was the rumble behind them, echoing in the steel-plated shaft of the lighthouse, of the automatic power. The light flashed. Its brilliance above them brought the night around them. The light rotated, spilled in a corridor, across the white wave heads, the grey-green sea, the tired, sheened concrete of the breakwater, the rocks… Josh saw it… The light caught the white and red paint of its hull. He saw the outline of the trawler. It seemed to be tossed up and then to wallow down. It came from the mist cloud that settled on the sea away to the east. The light, again, speared onto it, captured it, and discarded it. The trawler seemed to Josh so fragile, beating through the snow, the swell… The trawler was coming home, coming for the quayside…
The grotesque shadow of Tracy was thrown by the lighthouse beam over the water and the waves. She was down on the rocks, wrestling with the knot that tied the rope to the rail post. The trawler veered towards them. The rise of a wave obscured it, it rose again and the spray cloud fell above it. He saw the gulls. Incredible, in the wind the gulls held station with the trawler. He was mesmerized. When the trawler’s bow was pitched up, Josh saw the black paint on white of the boat’s identification. There was a man, stooped low behind the wheelhouse, and he threw scraps into the air. The gulls broke station and dived for them. She had loosed the knot of the rope and took the strain of the boat. He felt such fear.
‘Get in,’ she hissed.
‘Christ…‘ Josh went down the rocks and his feet slid from under him, his body scraping over the weed. He looked back. She hung onto the rope. ‘Good luck.’
She shouted, ‘A man told me you have to earn luck – start bloody earning it!’
His shoes had a grip. The water came over them but the rock was firm. He launched himself. He fell into the boat. It ducked down under the impact of his weight and water slopped on his face. He scrabbled up onto his knees. He saw her. She jumped. She was beside him. She had a paddle in her hand. She pushed the small open boat away from the rocks, and they were first lifted up and then thrown down. The lighthouse beam snatched, a moment, the colour of her hair. She paddled the boat out towards the trawler.
Krause and Peters, together, the same moment, understood. They sprinted forward… They had the length of the breakwater to run. .. The little boat was bucking, weaving, in the waves, on course to intercept the trawler.
They ran, panted and heaved. Krause, frozen hands, buffeted by the wind, held the Makharov two-fisted, aimed, fired. He could not see the fall of the bullets, into the sea, among the wheeling gulls.
The drive of the snow was into his face, the force of the wind against his body. He fired until the magazine was exhausted, until the boat was lost against the hull of the trawler.
She threw the rope to the man who fed the gulls. The small open boat clattered against the wood planks of the trawler. Josh reached up and caught at the low rail. It took his weight and his feet kicked at air below him. He dragged himself over and fell onto the slithering mess of fish carcasses. She came after him. The man who held the rope had an old, beaten face, and there was another face, as old and wizened, that peered from the door of the wheelhouse. At the wheel was a younger man. The gulls screamed above him. Josh stood, fell, stood again. He took the pistol from his belt.
He shouted, against the gull cries, against the engine drive, against the wind whistle in the wires.
‘Which is Muller? Which is Willi Muller?’
A thin, aged arm, a gaunt, scarred finger, pointed to the wheelhouse.
‘Willi Muller from Rerik?’
The head, lined, unshaven and weathered, nodded.
Josh yelled, ‘He stays, you go.’
They went without argument, over the side of the trawler and down into the boat. They went as old men would who have known the authority of command, as old soldiers would have gone, too wise as survivors to confront a gun. They were cast off.
Josh was in the wheelhouse.
He was a tall young man with blond tangled hair and a lean face. He held the wheel easily. Josh had the pistol close to his head.
‘Turn her round, bring her back out.’
The wheel was swung. Josh saw, through the water spray running down the wheelhouse window, their boat moving away from them. The two men had control of it and paddled it easily, and he saw Krause on the breakwater and the man with him. The young man stared straight ahead and the trawler pitched back towards the open sea. Tracy stood behind Josh.
