was massaging his neck and jaw tenderly. The one on my right had been eating garlic, and he panted heavily as he searched me for weapons.
“I think you should know that something died in your mouth a long time ago, and it’s still there,” I told him, with a thickened tongue and an ache in my head, but the effort was not worth it. He showed no sign of having heard, but continued doggedly with this task. At last he was satisfied and I readjusted my clothing.
We drove in silence for five minutes, following the river towards Hammersmith, before they had all recovered their breath and tended their wounds, then the driver spoke.
“Listen, Manny wants to talk to you, but he said it’s no big thing. He was merely curious. He said also that if you gave us a hard time, not to go to no trouble, just to sign you off and toss you in the river.” “Charming chap, Manny,” I said.
“Shut up!” said the driver. “So you see, it’s up to you. Behave yourself and you get to live a little longer. I heard you used to be a sharp operator, Harry. We been expecting you to show up, ever since Lorna missed you on the island - but sure as hell we didn’t expect you to parade up and down Curzon Street like a brass band. Manny couldn’t believe it. He said, “That can’t be Harry. He must have gone soft.” It made him sad. “How are the mighty fallen. Tell it not in the streets of Ashkelon,” he said.”
“That’s Shakespeare,“said the one with the garlic breath. “Shut up,” said the driver and then went on. “Manny was sad but not that sad that he cried or anything, you understand.”
“I understand,” I mumbled.
“Shut up,” said the driver. “Manny said, “Dont do it here. Just follow him to a nice quiet place and pick him up. If he comes quietly you bring him to talk to me - if he cuts up rough then toss him in the river.”
“That sounds like my boy, Manny. He always was a softhearted little devil.” “Shut up,” said the driver.
“I look forward to seeing him again.”
“You just stay good and quiet and you might get lucky.”
I stayed that way through the night as we picked up the M4 and rushed westwards. It was two in the morning when we entered Bristol, skirting the city centre as we followed the A4 down to Avonmouth.
Amongst the other craft in the yacht basin was a big motor yacht.
She was moored to the wharf and she had her gangplank down. Her name painted on the stern and bows was Mandrake. She was an ocean-goer, steel-hulled painted blue and white, with pleasing lines. I judged her fast and sea-kindly, probably with sufficient range to take her anywhere in the world. A rich man’s toy. There were figures on her bridge, lights burning in most of her portholes, and she seemed ready for sea.
They crowded me as we crossed the narrow space to the gangplank.
The Rover backed and turned and drove away as we climbed to the Mandrake’s deck.
The saloon was too tastefully fitted out for Manny Resnick’s style, it had either been done by the previous owners or a professional decorator. There were forest-green wall-to-wall carpets and matching velvet curtains, the furniture was dark teak and polished leather and the pictures were choice oils toned to the general decor.
This was half a million pounds worth Of vessel, and I guessed it was a charter. Manny had probably taken her for six months and put in his own crew - for Manny Resnick had never struck me as a blue-water man.
As we waited in the centre of the wall-to-wall carpeting, a grimly silent group, I heard the unmistakable sounds of the gangplank being taken in, and the moorings cast off. The tremble of her engines become a steady beat, and the harbour lights slid past the saloon portholes as we left the entrance and thrust out into the tidal waters of the River Severn.
I recognized the lighthouses at Portishead Point and Red Cliff Bay as Mandrake came around for the run down-river past Weston-super-Mare and Berry for the open sea.
Manny came at last, he wore a blue silk gown and his face was still crumpled from sleep, but his curls were neatly combed and his smile was white and hungry.
“Harry,” he said, “I told you that you would be back.”
“Hello, Manny. I can’t say it’s any great pleasure.”
He laughed lightly and turned to the woman as she followed him into the saloon. She was carefully made up and every hair of the elaborate hairstyle was in its place. She wore a long white house-gown with lace at throat and cuffs.
“You have met Lorna, I believe, Lorna Page.”
“Next time you send somebody to hustle me, Manny, try for a little better class. I’m getting fussy in my old age.”
Her eyes slanted wickedly, but she smiled. “How’s your boat, Harry? Your lovely boat?”
“It makes a lousy coffin.” I turned back to Manny. “What’s it going to be, Manny, can we work out a deal?”
He shook his head sorrowfully. “I don’t think so, Harry. I would like to - truly I would, if just for old times” sake. But I can’t see it. Firstly, you haven’t anything to trade and that makes for a lousy deal. Secondly, I know you are too sentimental. You’d louse up any deal we did make for purely emotional reasons. I couldn’t trust you, Harry, all the time you’d be thinking about Jimmy North and your boat, you’d be thinking about the little island girl that got in the way, and about Jimmy North’s sister who we had to get rid of-” I took a mild pleasure in the fact that Manny had obviously not heard what had happened to the goon squad he had sent to take care of Sherry North, and that she was still very much alive. I tried to make my voice sincere and my manner convincing.
“Listen, Manny, I’m a survivor. I can forget anything, if I have to.”
He laughed again. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d believe you, Harry.” He shook his head again. “Sorry, Harry, no deal.”
“Why did you go to all the trouble to bring me down here, then?”
“I sent others to do the job twice before, Harry. Both times they missed you. This time I want to make sure. We will be cruising over some deep water on the way to Cape Town, and I’m going to hang some really heavy weights on to you.” “Cape Town?” I asked. “So you are going after the Dawn Light in person. What is so fascinating about that old wreckr
“Come on, Harry. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be giving me such a hard time.” He laughed, and I thought it best not to let them know my ignorance.
“You think you can find your way back?” I asked the blonde.
“It’s a big sea and a lot of islands look the same. I think you should keep me as insurance,” I insisted.
“Sorry, Harry.” Manny crossed to the teak and brass bar.
“Drink?” he asked.
“Scotch,” I said, and he half filled a glass with the liquor and brought it to me.
“To be entirely truthful with you, part of this is for Lorna’s benefit. You made the girl bitter, Harry, I don’t know why - but she wanted especially to be there when we say goodbye. She enjoys that sort of thing, don’t you, darling, it turns her on.”
I drained the glass. “She needs turning on - as you and I both know, she’s a lousy lay without it,” I observed, and Manny hit me in the mouth, crushing my lips and the whisky stung the raw flesh.
“Lock him up,” he said softly. As they hustled me out of the saloon, and along the deck towards the bows, I took pleasure in knowing that Lorna would have painful questions to answer. On either hand the shore lights moved steadily past us in the night, and the river was black and wide.
orward of the bridge there was a low deckhouse above the forecastle, and a louvred companionway opened on to a deck ladder that descended to a small lobby. This was obviously the crew’s quarters, doors opened off the lobby into cabins and a communal mess.
In the bows was a steel door and a stencilled sign upon it read “FORECASTLE STORE’. They shoved me through the doorway and slammed the heavy door. The lock turned and I was alone in a steel cubicle probably six by four. Both bulkheads were lined with storage lockers, and the air was damp and musty.
My first concern was to find some sort of weapon. The cupboards were all of them locked and I saw that the planking was inch-thick oak. I would need an axe to hack them open, nevertheless I tried. I attempted to break in the doors using my shoulder as a ram, but the space was too confined and I could not work up sufficient momentum.
However, the noise attracted attention. The door swung open and one of the crew stood well back with a big ugly .41 Rueger Magnum in his hand.
“Cut it out,” he said. “There ain’t anything in there,” and he gestured to the pile of old lifejackets against the
