I could understand his reasons for doing business outside of his trade, which was lobster fishing. He told me the first time I met him that a decade earlier he’d pull up sixty lobsters on a normal night, now it was down to ten, and his cut from the middlemen averaged £5 each.

  With his grizzled seadog face and heavy beard he could have been anywhere between fifty and seventy. And he could have featured in one of those television commercials for frozen fish fingers, except the old seadogs in those kinds of commercials were always smiling and jolly, whereas Adam le Seelleur had not smiled on either occasion. He’d looked at Nicos and at me with a kind of disdain.

  Whether it was simply because he was a true-born Jersey bean and we were newbies, parvenues, or whether there was an element of judgement of us, a sort of disgust at what Nicos did – although he was happy to take the money, far more than he could earn in months of hard work at sea – I didn’t know. And I didn’t care. In a strange way, by making it plain he didn’t really like either of us, I saw a certain honesty there. I felt I could trust him.

  Which was why when he had said 11.30 p.m., very firmly, I was confident he would be there. He’d told me earlier this evening, after Nicos had left, that the shipping forecast was for it to have clouded over by then and there would be no moonlight to show us up.

  Twenty thousand pounds had bought his loyalty, a deal I’d arranged before going to England to collect that suitcase, and now I had the money to pay him. And it did make me smile to think Nicos was paying for the trip! Paying out of the £1.2 million he now thought he had with him on the Bolt-Hole.

  Maybe I had just one regret – that I wasn’t on the Bolt-Hole to see the bastard’s face when he opened the case. But I suspected it wouldn’t be pretty.

  I checked my watch. It was just gone 11.10 p.m. and I was in the back of the taxi, an old and bumpy people-carrier thing, with Bruno, fast asleep, leaning against me. All of our possessions were in the back, in two suitcases, and my trusty fake Louis Vuitton holdall, still with the £20,000 in cash sewn into the bottom, that had been there for the past four years, on the floor between my legs. Plus I’d added a further thirty thousand pilfered – although I prefer to say borrowed – from the suitcase. A decent enough nest egg. Four days’ supply of my methadone was also sewn into there. For now, it was working and although it wasn’t easy being off the heroin, I was determined to make it work. No way I was going back to my drug-addicted life.

  Hasta la vista, baby. To the dirty drugs and to evil, manipulative Nicos.

  As we wound down the steep, twisty and beautiful hill of Bouley Bay, I felt the faintest twinge of nostalgia. I’d walked down here and up again, and cycled it a few times, and it’s a tough bastard, I can tell you. But in daylight the view of the bay at the bottom is worth it. So many great views here in this beautiful island. I’m going to miss a lot of things. Pretty much everything except Nicos.

  A few hundred yards before we reached the bottom of the hill, the taxi driver, whose name I saw on his badge was Toby McMichael, turned into the entranceway of the low-rise apartment block, which was the address I’d given him. I paid the meter fare of £15 with a twenty and told him to keep the tip.

  He offered to carry the bags in and up to my apartment, but I thanked him, told him we were fine, then stood with Bruno in the warm night air laced with salt from the sea below and exhaust fumes from the departing cab, watching the tail lights, waiting for them to disappear on up the hill.

  ‘I’m hungry, Mama,’ Bruno said.

  He was always hungry. Or tired. So I always kept a stash of whatever his current favourite snack was in my handbag and pockets. At the moment it was Crunchies. I gave him a mini one. The moon was breaking through and there was just enough light to see. I picked up all the bags, and with Bruno absorbed in unwrapping his treat, we walked on down the hill, past the creepy edifice of the long closed-down Bouley Bay Hotel – which felt like something from a horror movie – and on towards the jetty.

  I checked my watch again. It was 11.20 p.m. The bay was quiet, the only sound the steady wash of the sea against the pebble beach. Ten minutes to go. Ten minutes to either Adam le Seelleur arriving or finding out he had double-crossed me. And if he had?

  I hadn’t paid him a bean yet. He’d wanted the whole twenty thousand upfront. I told him he would get ten thousand when he arrived at the jetty and a further ten thousand when we arrived in France. So I had a pretty good feeling he would turn up.

  But the closer it got to 11.30 p.m., the less good that feeling became.

  We passed the wooden shack and outdoor tables of Mad Mary’s cafe and suddenly, almost on cue – just a little behind schedule – the sky clouded over.

  I put down the bags, pulled out my phone and switched on the torch. Then, struggling with the bags and the torch, as Bruno was nearing the end of his chocolate bar, we walked along the stone pier, as instructed, and stopped several feet short of the end, with steps going down into the water. I stared out to sea. There was nothing, I thought, absolutely nothing so dark as the sea at night.

  There was a bench at the end of the pier and we both sat down, and I fished another Crunchie out for Bruno.

  It was starting to get chilly now, being right over the water. Bruno complained that he was cold and tired. I barely heard him, I just kept staring out into the blackness of the bay for any sight of a shadow moving. Listening for the sound of an engine. The thrust of a prow through waves.

  But I couldn’t see anything. Or hear anything.

  Don’t burn your bridges, the saying went.

  But that was exactly what I had done.

  Adam le Seelleur had suggested this bay as the safest place because there was zero radar coverage here. A few miles to the south there was a radar station that could detect up to six miles eastwards, just beyond the Minquiers group of islands. But by steering well to the north-east, we would avoid detection, he’d said.

  The risk was when we approached the west coast of France, close to the port of Saint-Malo, we would probably be picked up on French radar. But it was unlikely anyone would show interest in a small fishing boat arriving in the port in the early hours of the morning. Just like a dozen others returning from a night’s commercial fishing that had forgotten to switch their transponders on – or had deliberately turned them off in order to poach undetected in the Channel Islands’ waters.

  11.35.

  11.40.

  He wasn’t coming, was he? The bastard.

  Then I felt my phone, in the back pocket of my jeans, vibrate, and at the same time heard the double pips signalling a text. Was it Nicos? I felt sudden panic. Bruno and I should be safely on our way to France now, not stuck here. Especially considering the frame of mind Nicos was going to be in after discovering what was in his suitcase.

  I tugged it out and looked at the display, which was lit up. Relief surged through me. And joy! It was from Adam le Seelleur.

  5 mins. You there?

  I replied instantly with a chequered flag emoji. Then I whispered to Bruno, ‘The boat’s here in a few minutes, darling.’

  I don’t know why I was whispering. There was no one around; I could have shouted if I’d wanted. Bruno didn’t hear me, he was asleep.

  Suddenly, I heard a rustling sound, like paper. And what sounded faintly, so faintly, like an engine. Then – or was it my imagination? – a shadow that seemed darker than the darkness it was moving through. Moving towards us.

  Moments later, a torch beam shone in my face.

  61

  26 September 2011 – Nicos Christoforou

  Nicos looked in disbelief at the suitcase on the floor.

  Tight bunches of fifty-pound notes, secured by red elastic bands, were stacked up beside – £110,000 so far in this bundle.

  He carried on counting. But was shocked to see an increasing number of the bundles had been altered and contained newspaper to bulk them out along with the fifty-pound notes.

  After a couple more layers he realized the rest of the suitcase was packed tightly with nothing but newspapers, which Jerry methodically pulled out and laid down. All of them, from the headlines and front-page photographs Nicos could see, were no more than a couple of days old.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Nicos said, almost silently, to himself. He took a large sip of his rum.

  The Liverpudlian carried on, as if expecting to start finding more cash underneath the papers. He kept on removing more and more newspapers, all from the same day, until he reached the bottom.

  Nigel Davis’s face changed from benign to furious. He lit another cigarette. ‘What’s going on, Nicos, you want to tell us?’ His nervous twitch looked like it was going critical.

  ‘I – I . . .’ Nicos uttered, then fell silent. ‘There’s been a mistake.’

  ‘Crap at maths, are you?’ Davis asked, his voice tight with pent-up rage.

  ‘There’s been a mistake, I’m telling you!’

  ‘Perhaps the mistake was trusting you?’ Nigel Davis said. ‘The boss was right, wasn’t he, when he said to count your fingers after shaking hands with you?’

  ‘I’m telling you, there’s been a mistake,’ Nicos said, his confidence eroded, realizing he was sounding more like he was pleading.

  He was thinking fast. He’d checked every damned bundle of fifty-pound notes himself and there had been £1.2 million worth of them when he’d put that suitcase into that storage locker last year, not wanting to risk the sniffer dogs at any of the London airports, or bringing it in through Jersey airport. Much safer to let Sandy and her kid, returning home on the car ferry, on Jersey plates, bring it, with a layer of the kid’s clothes on top, like he’d told her.

  So where had the money disappeared? From the locker or in transit? It was Sandy, he knew. The bitch – she—

  His train of thought was interrupted by Nigel Davis standing over him, his face twitching more crazily than before. ‘Do you have any idea how much this operation has cost Mr Brignell? The fuel for this boat, all the risks of loading the cargo – and you try to stiff us with the decades-old newspaper trick?’

  Nicos raised his hands. ‘You need to understand – it’s not me – I’m not the one who’s done this. Look.’ He tried to mask the desperation in his voice and demeanour. ‘Look, guys – so there’s just over a million – so just give me that amount’s worth of gear.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Nigel Davis said. ‘You really think we’ve come six hundred fucking miles for this? It is not what we agreed.’

  ‘Like I told you,’ Nicos said, ‘there’s been a mistake – I’ll correct it – I’ll sort it.’

  Davis stared at him and he twitched again. ‘A mistake? So you didn’t check it before you came? Or did you think we’re a bunch of suckers, a bunch of honky-tonk boat people without a maths O level between us?’

  Nicos shook his head, desperately trying to think his way out of this. ‘Look,’ he pleaded, ‘Saul knows this is not how I do business.’

  ‘Saul knows, does he?’ Davis retorted. He dug one hand into the right-hand pocket of his jeans and took another drag of his cigarette with the other. ‘So the rest disappeared by magic, did it, Nicos?’

  ‘Not magic but—’

  ‘Sleight of hand, perhaps?’ Davis gave him a warm, disarming smile. And yet another twitch. His expression changed but Nicos barely noticed.

  ‘Yeah, sleight of hand.’ He nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah, sleight of hand. That’s it!’

  ‘You know the stock-in-trade of magicians, don’t you, Nicos? Distraction?’

  He frowned. ‘Distraction?’

  ‘They get you to focus your attention in a different direction, so you don’t notice when they remove the rabbit from the hat, or drop the coins up their sleeve, or do this!’ As Davis said the words he pointed his cigarette up towards the ceiling.

  While Nicos craned, looking upwards, presenting his neck as the perfect target, Nigel Davis pulled a switchblade, razor sharp, from his pocket, and with one swipe sliced cleanly through the Greek’s throat.

  Blood instantly began to spurt from the cut as Nicos raised his hands to his throat. He tried to speak but just a gasp came out. He stared in disbelief at the man in front of him holding the blade. He kept on trying to speak as he sank to his knees, shaking and gurgling as he dropped forward, before finally falling silent.

  ‘You’re really making a mess,’ Davis said. ‘Mr Brignell won’t be happy about this. He likes everything immaculate. He really doesn’t like a mess. He’s going to be very pissed off with you. And you don’t want to be around when he gets pissed off. So it’s just as well you won’t be.’

  He stubbed his cigarette out in Nicos’s right ear. There was no reaction.

  Ten minutes later, a spare anchor chained securely around his midriff, under the glare of a powerful spotlight, Nicos was lobbed over the deck rail. His body belly-flopped onto the black water, with a splash and a moment of turbulent white foam, then there was just the blackness of the surface of the sea again.

  The depth here was 135 metres. Far too deep for most scuba divers to operate. It would take a submersible to find him. And that’s if they even knew where to begin to start looking. Not that there was likely to be much left of him within a few days.

  62

  27 September 2011

  ‘Baked beans!’ Bruno had suddenly woken up, and to my concern was running excitedly in and out of the wheelhouse onto the rear deck of the boat. He appeared to be pointing up at the sky. ‘Baked beans!’ he said again. ‘Baked beans, Mama!’

  I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘You’re full of beans, suddenly, aren’t you, darling?’

  ‘Noooo, Mama!’ he said, stamping his foot and still pointing upwards. ‘There!’

  The sky might have clouded over, giving us cover from the moonlight, but the payback was the sea getting progressively rougher in the rising wind. I was starting to feel a little queasy and was more than happy to go out of the shelter of the cabin into the fresh air of the heaving deck, despite the strong stench of rotten fish and disinfectant.

  Adam le Seelleur had become marginally less frosty after we’d left Bouley Bay and headed out into the open sea, telling me we were taking a long route to avoid the slim chance of being picked up on the St Catherine’s radar, and he’d pointed out our position on the satellite screen. We were currently one nautical mile west of the Les Minquiers, a group of islands and rocks nine miles south of Jersey. Nicos, Bruno and I had picnicked there in happier days.

  I was looking up, trying to see what Bruno was pointing at so excitedly. And then suddenly I saw it. There were twin aerials on the roof of the cabin. And on top of one was something that did look like a can. I switched on my phone torch and hauled myself up onto the roof, hanging on a little precariously, but the distraction was keeping my seasickness at bay.

  I pointed the beam up and saw a tin of Heinz baked beans stuck to the top of the right-hand aerial. ‘You are right!’ I shouted back to him.

  Then I jumped down and went back into the cabin, followed by Bruno. ‘Are you aware someone’s stuck a tin of baked beans on the top of one of your aerials, Mr le Seelleur?’

  He was sat at the wheel, a swinging, gimballed compass in front of him, staring ahead into the darkness through the windscreen. ‘What of it?’

  ‘I thought you might want to know,’ I replied, a little taken aback by his curt reply.

  ‘I do know,’ he said, his voice surly again, then continued staring ahead. He reached up and made an adjustment to the navigation screen. ‘Why would I not know?’

  ‘I – I thought maybe it had been put there by some kids as a prank, or blown there.’

  ‘I never put to sea without checking my boat carefully, lady. There’s nothing on board that shouldn’t be here. Except you and the kid,’ he said, rummaging in his oilskin jacket pocket. After a moment he produced a packet of cigarette papers and a pouch.

  ‘What’s that?’ Bruno asked him, pointing at a green screen with elliptical dots moving across it.

  ‘The radar, kid,’ he said. ‘I use it to hunt for fish. Except we’re not hunting fish tonight, are we?’

  ‘Why not? Why aren’t we fishing?’ Bruno asked.

  Le Seelleur began rolling a cigarette single-handedly. As he did so he shook his head, turning to me. ‘That’s the transponder aerial. The can muffles the signal. I put it there to stop us being tracked. A beer can would work fine too.’ He sparked his cigarette with a plastic lighter and moments later, as he exhaled, I smelled that delicious sweet, pungent aroma.

  It was tantalizing.

  I’d quit smoking soon after Roy and I had married, but he had carried on, admittedly only having the occasional cigarette. But there were times when I honestly believed he only did it to piss me off. I was tempted to ask le Seelleur now if he could roll me one. But I hesitated because Bruno – in his awake mode – would see me.

  Instead I went down for’ard, and into the boat’s primitive loo. Here I took a small amount of methadone.

  Emerging a couple of minutes later, the world without Nicos already seemed a better place. It was amazing to be out here, in the middle of the sea, on the way to my totally new life!

  The colour of the darkness seemed so intense. So black. Our wake sparkled like a trillion Swarovski crystals scattered behind us.

  Then I remembered something very, very important.

  My phone. Well, what was now my old phone. My old ‘job’ phone.

  I looked at my watch. 2 a.m. Then at the phone.

  And something struck me as odd. No text or WhatsApp from Nicos. No missed call. Odd but good. Great, in fact.

  The display glowed a deep blue. I checked quickly through my messages just to be sure there wasn’t anything I had missed or needed to respond to.

  Like what, doofus? Duh!

  Then I threw it over the side and never even heard the splash.

  ‘Bye bye, old life!’ I murmured. Aware this wasn’t for the first time. But, hell, who was it who said that life is a series of chapters in a book?