The Black Tide

The curried vegetables were followed by a steak and some ugly-looking potatoes. The steak was deep frozen and tough, and for those who refused to face up to the potatoes there was sliced white bread that was already staling in the heat. The only thing that seemed to have maintained its freshness was the array of bottled sauces in the centre of the table. I hoped the dhow had loaded some provisions in Dubai, something

more interesting than those shipped at Ras al Khaimah, otherwise I could see tempers getting very frayed. Varsac pushed his plate away, Lebois too. Clearly the French were not going to take to Pakistani cooking.

Somebody — Hals, I think — wondered jokingly how long scurvy took to develop. We were discussing this, and the length of time hunger-strikers had taken to die of starvation, when I was suddenly conscious of the Welshman staring at me, his steak untouched, the letter open in front of him and a small white square of pasteboard in his hand. It was a photograph. He glanced down at it quickly, then looked across at me again, his eyes wide, the shock of recognition dawning. I knew then that the letter must be from his daughter and the photograph in his hand one of those she had taken in Nantes as I was leaving for the airport. His mouth opened as though to say something, and in that moment he seemed to disintegrate, a nerve twitching at his face, his hand trembling so violently the photograph fell into his plate.

With a visible effort, he pulled himself together, but his face looked very white as he grabbed up the photo, still staring at me with an expression almost of horror, his hands fluttering as he tried to fold the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he got suddenly to his feet, muttering ‘Excuse me’ as he hurried out of the room.

‘Malade?’ Lebois asked. Varsac muttered something in reply, reaching across and scooping up the meat from the abandoned plate. A hand fell on my

shoulder. I looked up to find Baldwick standing over me. ‘Come outside a moment.’ I followed him to the door. ‘What did you say to him?’ he demanded, his little eyes popping with anger.

‘Nothing. It was the letter.’

‘Well, leave him alone. Understand? He’s chief engineer and they need him.’ He leaned down, his heavy-jowled face close to mine. ‘You can’t blame him for wot your wife done to herself. That wot you had in mind?’ And when I didn’t say anything, he went on, speaking slowly as though to a child, ‘Well, if it is, cut it out, d’you understand — or you’ll get hurt.’ And he added, still leaning over me, his face so close I could smell the whisky on his breath, ‘This isn’t any sort of a kindergarten outfit. You just remember that. Price is nothing to do with you.’

‘His name’s Choffel,’ I said.

‘Not on board here it isn’t. He’s David Price. That’s wot you call him. Got it? And another thing—’ He straightened up, jabbing his forefinger at my chest. ‘Don’t go letting on to the others wot he done to the Petros Jupiter. They got enough to think about without they start chewing that over in the long night watches.’

‘And what’s he going to do to this ship?’ I asked him.

He tried to turn it into a joke then. ‘Think you’re going to have to swim for it?’ He laughed and patted my shoulder. ‘You’ll be all right.’

‘How do you know? You’re going back in the dhow, aren’t you?’ And I added, ‘What happened to the first crew?’

The question took him by surprise. ‘The first crew?’

‘The Aurora B was last heard of in the Arabian Sea, just a few hours after she cleared the Hormuz Straits.’

I thought he was going to hit me then. ‘How do you know what ship this is?’

‘Sadeq,’ I said.

‘Yes, he told me you had met before. Asked me why the hell I’d recruited you. But what’s that got to do with the Aurora BV

‘He was on the Aurora B.’ And I told him about the crew pictures Perrin had showed me. ‘So what happened to the crew?’

‘I should’ve dumped you,’ he muttered. ‘Soon as I knew you’d been talking to Perrin and Gault, I should have got rid of you.’

‘Hals thinks there’s probably one dead and two or three injured. What about the others?’

‘None of my business,’ he growled. ‘And none of yours, see. You ask questions like that—’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Go on, get back to your meal and forget about it.’ And he pushed me away from him, turning quickly and going through the fire doors into the alleyway beyond. I was alone then, very conscious of the fact that Baldwick himself was beginning to get scared. He didn’t want to know about the crew of the Aurora B. He didn’t dare think about it, because if somebody had been killed, it wasn’t just piracy he was mixed up in; it was murder, too.

I went back to my place at the table, but by then