She wheeled the boat around with her paddle and faced them. Big Jim, standing on the bow like some kind of terrible figurehead, had a boat hook in his hand, the metal tip dull grey, mirroring the colour of the sea. It looked ominously like a harpoon. Harriet brought the boat close. Shit, thought Hanlon, she’s helping the bastard.
She felt a surge of rage against Harriet. To think she’d been on the verge of actually feeling sorry for her. Maybe she was complicit in the drugs-collection business, assuming Hanlon’s theory was correct.
Things were looking black for her.
And sure enough, now Big Jim leaned forward and caught the grab loop on the top of the kayak with the tip of the boat hook. She was like a fish on the end of a line.
Hanlon was broadside to the sea now and the choppy water started to splash over the waterproof apron that sealed her in the cockpit of the kayak.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she shouted. ‘Let go!’
‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you, you bitch!’ shouted Big Jim, leaning over the coaming of the boat. His maddened eyes glared at her. He gave the kayak a vicious tug with the hook. It rocked alarmingly and a wave broke over the cockpit rim.
She said nothing but stared at him grimly.
‘I know what you’ve been up to!’ His unshaven chin was flecked with spittle. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a half-bottle of Scotch. It was a third full. He put it to his lips and drained it, then flung the bottle at Hanlon. Drunk he might have been, but his aim was surprisingly good. If she hadn’t ducked it would have hit her head. It splashed into the sea not far from the kayak.
‘Bitch!’ His eyes were practically popping out of their sockets. ‘You made Donald leave…’
Oh, God, thought Hanlon. The chef had been right. He really had gone crazy. How on earth had he come to that conclusion? She guessed that he had grown to hate her so much that her evil influence knew no limits. Anything bad would be her fault.
‘Leave her alone, Jim,’ Harriet shouted. Even Harriet, it seemed, thought he was going too far.
‘Shut up, woman,’ snarled Big Jim. He reached down to pick something off the deck. Hanlon braced herself for another missile to come flying at her head. But when he straightened up it was far worse than she could have imagined.
He had a shotgun in his hand. She stared in disbelief and alarm. Anything could happen; he was furious, drunk, out of control and he hated her.
‘Put that down, Jim!’ ordered Harriet.
Hanlon was seriously frightened now. Two or three times in her career she had seen the result of a close-quarters shotgun discharge on a body. It was horrific. There was nothing she could do. The kayak was attached to the boat hook, as if he’d gaffed some kind of huge fish, and that was held by Big Jim’s powerful meaty hand.
You’ve got to escape, she thought, but how? The boat was immobile, and she was trapped.
Big Jim ignored Harriet. The front of the kayak its prow, was now secured to the end of the pole that he held. At one end, in the sea, the kayak, at the other, on board the boat, Big Jim. He leant forward and, using his huge strength and the weight of his heavy bulk, pushed the bow of the kayak down into the water with the boat hook. It was perilously close to capsizing and she steadied it with the paddle.
The other hand held the gun, its twin barrels pointing ominously at Hanlon. He was only a couple of metres away; she could see his eyes, glassy and unfocussed. He doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing, she thought to herself. That gun could easily go off by accident.
‘Jim!’ Harriet shouted again, real panic in her voice. She was Hanlon’s only chance. At least, she thought, Harriet was trying to stop him from shooting her.
This time he jerked his head as if being woken from a sleep. He stared at Hanlon, then at the gun in his hand as if he was wondering how it had got there.
Harriet was looking out to starboard. ‘There’s a boat coming, Jim, put the gun down! Do it now!’
Hanlon could see it too, a large fishing boat of traditional design, graceful and lean with its raked lines designed to cut through the Atlantic waves. She could see its wheelhouse clearly and the superstructure of antennae and radar. She felt hope rise in her heart. Another five minutes and it would be here, and she’d be safe.
To Hanlon’s unspoken and huge relief, Big Jim laid the gun down at his feet. She exhaled and breathed in deeply; she’d been holding her breath, she realised, tensing her body, convinced he was going to blow her to pieces. Thank God, thank God, she thought. She wasn’t religious but she offered up a prayer of thanks to an unknown deity.
Then Big Jim turned his attention back to Hanlon.
Their eyes locked and she could see the implacable hatred and fixity of purpose in his baleful gaze. There was no mercy there. Any doubts about his guilt in the death of Eva disappeared. They were the eyes of a killer.
‘Swim, bitch!’ he spat at her.
She was now more than ever convinced this was how Eva had died, drowned out here at the hands of Big Jim. Maybe taken out here on this boat, lured by some pretext.
‘Jim!’ said Harriet angrily. Big Jim leant forward with all his weight and the bow of the boat sank beneath the water as
