Swimming with Sharks Read online

  Eagles leans towards his lawyer. He is gazing at him, looking for reassurance or confirmation. The lawyer nods almost imperceptibly, then exhales heavily and says, ‘My client will co-operate to help you eliminate him from your inquiries, but as the information he will offer may incriminate him we would like to ask for your assurance –’

  Gillian does not do deals – out of principle. Deals tend to hold one to ransom. They tie one’s hands. She has burned herself in the past. She won’t go there. ‘Just tell us, Mr Eagles. I am only interested in finding your sister! Don’t waste my time!’

  Eagles bites his inner cheek. His lips twist. He is clearly ashamed, but at the same time, he seems perversely relieved to be able to say it.

  ‘Black market software, fake user licences – that’s what’s in the suitcase. I just wanted – had to – supplement my income. It’s the first time I did it. The company I work for …’ His voice breaks. He is beginning to realise the extent of troubles to come. ‘I was put in touch with that bloke. He is a Sri Lankan. A businessman. Specialises in internet piracy. I made several illegal copies of the software, faked licences, all that … They paid me by direct transfer to an account I set up in Hong Kong under an assumed identity. So there, you have it – nothing to do with my sister.’

  Day Twenty-three

  What woke her up the first time was the sound of footsteps above. Several heavy steps and male voices, talking. It was in broken English but friendly enough, and Nicola was able to pick up a few isolated words. They did not make sense, but there was something calming and reassuring about them. She surveyed the room. It was semi-dark, tiny and woody. It smelled of seaweed and something stale and alcoholic, perhaps beer. The bed, although narrow, was comfortable, with the white sheets beneath her feeling silky and smooth – good-quality sheets. She ran her hand over them. Again it was reassuring to know her creature comforts had been seen to. But her hand felt very heavy. She could just about slide it across the bed, but would be hard pushed to lift it. Her fingers felt numb and swollen. She was lying on her back. Her body was like a dead weight and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get up or even roll over to one side. She was sprawled – a jellyfish on a bed of silk.

  She turned her head. It felt infinitely huge and was throbbing viciously. Her eyes stung when she tried to peer out of the window. There was one solitary window in the room: a round one. Outside it was dusk. Or dawn. Nicola couldn’t tell what time or even what day it was. Water was lapping lazily against the window and the wall. She could see the expanding ocean beyond the window: dark but not black. It was indistinct and bleary. She wasn’t sure if it was her eyes or the dusk that made everything fuzzy and out of focus. But she was sure that she was on a boat or a ship. It didn’t quite wobble like a small boat would, but it shifted ever so slightly from side to side, and creaked and the waves clapped against it, echoing hollowly.

  She smiled to herself. Was it Mishka who had brought her here? It had to be him. It was his big surprise for her. Strangely, she couldn’t remember how they got here. Her head was spinning, a familiar reaction: she must have had too much to drink last night. Her fingertips massaged the silkiness beneath them. It was a very sensual sensation, almost erotic. Tiny electric currents travelled from her fingertips to her stomach. Butterflies. Yearning. This was still a new, uncharted territory for Nicola. She had been sexually awakened and now she was luxuriating in those thrilling new sensations. Better late than never, she kept smiling at her thoughts. Then she sobered up. She remembered the cruel joke Mishka played on her – made her believe it was over! It was as though the world had ended! Never again!

  Her lips felt crusty. She ran her tongue over them. Water, she needed a drink. Where was Mishka?

  ‘Water,’ she tried to call out, but it came out as a groan. No one responded.

  The voices outside receded. So did the steps. She heard a motor being started. Like a shot a speed boat swerved in a sharp arch past the round window. It had a blue strip across and Nicola recognised the word POLICE printed on the side. As the boat zoomed into the distance, a wave left in its wake rammed into Nicola’s little window. It was at the same time that she heard a scream.

  There was shouting. This time it was a woman’s voice: agitated, high-pitched. Softer than before footsteps rang on the deck above, followed by heavier ones. It seemed like a chase. The woman was screaming. Her words were indecipherable. She sounded foreign, or perhaps her emotional state distorted her words. Perhaps there were no words, only that harrowing scream. Then a thud, and a silence.

  Something was being dragged across the deck. Something was knocked over. Someone cursed. Finally a splash. It was very dark by then, but Nicola did register a heavy load plummeting into the water outside her window. Despite her exhaustion, she managed to stagger up to the window to look closely.

  It was a person. At first, she – for it had to be a woman as she was wearing a stripy dress, ballooning with water – floated, but slowly she began sinking. No resistance was coming from her as she went under. She wasn’t trying to swim. She most certainly was dead. Nicola screamed.

  Crawling into the corner of her small cabin, she tried to stifle the scream and ended up whimpering like a baby. The door to her room, which she had not seen before as it was behind the narrow bed, swung open. At first, it was a square shadow of a person, but quickly he drew close to her. His face levelled with hers. He put his finger on his lips and told her to shush. Nicola stopped screaming. She recognised the man: his thickset frame, shaved head, heavy eyelids, Asiatic features. He was the man to whom she had opened her door, who had grabbed her by the arm, painfully bending it and holding it against her back, and stabbed her with a syringe. It had not been Mishka. It had been this man.

  ‘Shh,’ he hissed. ‘You shouting and you go swimming with sharks. Like she,’ he pointed to the blackness outside the round window. His voice was surprisingly soft and heavily accented. She had heard that accent before.

  Nicola broke down in a cold sweat. The realisation hit her: she had been abducted. Probably for money. ‘I’ve got money,’ she mumbled, and nodded keenly. ‘How much do you want? I can pay!’ She could probably raise a million pounds. Was a million enough? She didn’t have a clue. She regretted she wasn’t in the habit of watching the news. Things like that were on the news: kidnaps, abductions, ransoms … She would’ve known how much was enough. As it were, she didn’t have a clue. She did hear somewhere, a while back, that no one paid kidnappers any more. It was a matter of policy. Except that this was her life, her life had just begun! It could not possibly end this senselessly! ‘Please, don’t kill me!’ she implored him.

  ‘Shh,’ he said again, this time putting his finger across her lips. It smelled of tobacco. She swallowed the thick bile that had built up in her throat, and nodded silently. She did not want him to hurt her, and she could imagine many ways in which he could do that. His breath stank, rotten and alcoholic. He grinned unpleasantly. One of his front teeth was missing, or decayed. The space looked black. He was a vile man and the more vile he was, the more real was the threat he posed to Nicola. She prayed he wouldn’t touch her anywhere else. His finger pressing against her lips slid down to her throat, pushing hard into her vortex. His hand gripped her neck, all his fingers digging into it, forcing her eyes out. She choked, fearing she was about to be throttled and thrown overboard, like the other woman. But he loosened his grip on her throat, letting her breathe. The flat of his palm pressed against her chest. Like a claw it clutched her left breast and fondled it, tightening and making it ache. Nicola held her breath as his hand moved to her other breast. Through her dressing gown he could feel her nipple. A glint of pleasure passed through his eyes. He circled her nipple with his finger, the same one he had held to her lips. His other hand reached for her pelvis. It rammed into it. His grin widened as he realised that under her dressing gown there was nothing. Nicola drew her thighs together. It was an involuntary reaction, but it made him angry. He prised her thighs open, lifting
her left leg and thrusting his finger inside her. Nicola cried out and fought back. She punched him, her fist landing in his eye. That amused him. He laughed and released her. Standing over her for a few seconds, he made her watch as he licked his finger. Then he threw a bottle of water to her and once again, before leaving, told her to shush.

  Nicola drank greedily. It was a two-litre bottle, but she managed to drink half of it in one go. She did not hear when the hum of the engine started, but she could feel and see the motion against the parting waves. It became a constant background noise, with time almost imperceptible. Over the days she got used to it.

  She could not tell how many days exactly she was kept on the boat. It had to be roughly two or three weeks, but there were times when the vile man – he was the only person to deal with her through the entire sea voyage, though she could hear many voices from the deck above – would inject her with something which put her into a daze. It was a state of semi-consciousness interspersed with violent dreams and periods of wakefulness when she could hear and see things, but could not lift a finger or speak. She had gaps: hours of which she had no memory whatsoever. She did not allow herself to think what might have been happening to her in those blank hours.

  No one had told her why she was there and when – if – she would be free to go. She could only imagine that a ransom demand had been made. She had money sitting in the bank, money she’d had no idea what to do with from the start. She would not miss it. She just wanted it to be over. Who would they approach for the money? she wondered. They never asked what her name was, how to contact her family … What family? Would Robert be the person to address? He was the only sensible option. He was her brother. But he lived in Australia! Why didn’t they ask her anything!

  In her darkest hours, she doubted that anyone had noticed she was gone. Who would have? Robert in his Australian outback, busy living a family life with his wife and beautiful children, Robert who never bothered to as much as send her a birthday card? Friends … What friends? Who was she kidding? She had no friends; she only imagined she had them. People at work? Yes, they would notice. And then what would they do? Find a replacement … Her cottage would overgrow with weeds and dilapidate slowly. There was no bank with a mortgage over the house so no one would come to reclaim it. Fritz would be adopted by the tireless Devonshires, who would do anything for the memory of Great-aunt Eunice. They would probably condemn Nicola for abandoning the poor creature … Maybe after seven years she would be declared dead and someone would go to the trouble of sorting out her estate – someone from the tax office. And that would be it.

  Yet Nicola hung on. Not to any hope, by far! She just hung on. The instinct of survival is amazing! She diligently kept herself hydrated with the bottles of water the vile man brought her every morning, and she ate what he gave her, just to keep her alive. Obviously, he had a reason to keep her alive.

  In the last few days she noticed the cold. From the overpowering heat at the start of the passage to the nippy cold … She wondered about that. She wondered where she was.

  And now she knows. This morning the vile man told her she smelled. He screwed up his ugly face, pinched his nose and waved his hand as if fending off Nicola’s bodily odour. He then went on to unceremoniously tear off the sticky with sweat dressing gown she had been wrapped in for days. Her nakedness had no effect on him. He pushed her into a shower. Though he turned his back on her, he didn’t leave the cabin. Instead, he sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. The smell of tobacco smoke made Nicola sick to the stomach. It was potent and suffocating, not the faint whiff that would sometimes brush by her nostrils at the entrance to an underground station. This was much stronger. Perhaps due to the nauseating stink, perhaps due to fear or hunger, she threw up. He turned and glanced at her with disgust. ‘Wash!’ he ordered her. Obediently, she turned the tap and let it run for a few seconds before she stepped into the stream.

  She is now luxuriating in the warm water, washing off the filth of the man’s hands and the glue of her own sweat and body fluids. Her hair is matted, but it dissolves into flowing streaks under the stream of water. She shampoos it thoroughly, hoping that the longer she takes, the further away she will push what is coming next. It’s hard to believe she is looking down at her own body: she has lost lots of weight and gained an olive tinge to her skin. She appears alien to her own eyes.

  The vile man turns off the shower and throws a towel at her. He does not ogle her, does not allow himself to glance at her. There is something reverent in his demeanour. Suddenly, she has acquired some value.

  He points to black robes laid on the bed. ‘Get dressed,’ he orders her.

  ‘Where are we? Where are you taking me? Can you tell me, please?’ she asks, trepidation in her voice. She has not spoken to him in all those days. It feels like surrender that she has to request anything from him, but she has got used to the relative safety – or rather familiarity – of this little cabin, and now she is being thrown into an unknown territory. It could be worse than what she has experienced so far. It could be the end of the line. But then would they ask her to wash and get dressed in order to put a bullet in her head?

  ‘Get dressed,’ he repeats.

  ‘Turn around. Don’t look. Please.’

  He snorts. He is amused. His stupid grin makes a reappearance, but obligingly he turns to face the wall. Nicola dresses, pulling the garments on with trembling hands. They are odd garments: a long black robe and a headscarf with a gauze veil, also black: all in one, a burqa.

  Two men escort her off the yacht. One glance behind her and she realises she has not been on some decrepit rusty old boat full of Somali pirates. The yacht is large and luxurious, streamlined, fresh – a beautiful white swan amongst other white swans moored alongside it. Whoever owns it does not need to kidnap Western women for ransom. Then why? And why is she now being released?

  They step onto the pier and merge with the crowd. Now she understands why she is wearing a burqa – she is invisible. The vile man stays half a step behind her. The other man is walking arm in arm with her. He has shown her a pistol, which he is holding in his pocket. He told her he wouldn’t hesitate to use it if she decided to run. He said he hoped she wouldn’t do anything stupid; she was nearly free. His English is also heavily accented, but perfectly grammatical. She heard that accent somewhere before. She remembers. Of course, how could she forget! Mishka speaks with the same accent. They are Russian.

  They have now entered the streets which are full of people shouting, laughing, arguing, trading. They speak foreign languages: Arabic and French. Lots of little outlets and run-down shops are scattered along narrow and windy alleyways, some of them shut down and boarded up, others full of life, exuding aromas of raw produce and cooked food. At one stall they are selling pigs’ heads. The smell makes Nicola’s stomach turn. She sees mainly men, dark-skinned, with keen eyes and wiry bodies. The few women out there are dressed in similar outfits to hers. That is why she is invisible.

  She thinks she must be in some North African port, but as she has never travelled abroad, she cannot form any conclusive verdicts. Slowly, she and her bodyguards leave behind the loud market place and enter a quieter area, but still rather ramshackle and dirty. And it is there, at the far end of a busy street, she sees Mishka. Her heart jumps to her throat. Whether she is happy or shocked, her heart is pounding wildly. She doesn’t know what to make of this encounter, whether she is betrayed or saved, whether this is supposed to be good or bad. All she knows is that it is not coincidental. He is looking around, and at last he sees her, too. His face is tense, but inscrutable. Not a hint of his old, boyish smile on it. He looks nervous.

  The vile man behind her pulls her to a hold. ‘Stay here,’ he whispers into her ear. His grip on her arm tightens. The other bodyguard advances towards Mishka who steps forward to meet him halfway. They speak, briefly. The man is demanding something, his hand is outstretched, but Mishka pushes him aside. There is a scuffle. Mishka explains something and the m
an lets him through. Mishka is now face to face with Nicola. She is close to fainting. He pulls down her veil. Terror, shock, disbelief – all at once crowd his face.

  ‘Nicola? You? I was told you were dead …’

  ‘Mishka?’ She has no strength to say anything else but his name. What can she say? How can she explain why she is not dead? Someone is dead, she remembers, the woman in a striped dress ballooning in the ocean; someone is dead but it isn’t her.

  Rapidly, angrily, Mishka turns to her bodyguard. They talk loudly, in Russian, gesticulating a lot. Her brain is too frazzled to even attempt understanding what is being said. The bodyguard has lifted his arms as if in a gesture of surrender. He is nodding to the one who is holding Nicola to take her away.

  ‘No!’ Nicola begs, but she does not have to. Mishka thrusts a thick envelope in the man’s hand and his finger in the man’s face. He is telling him something, laying down the law, it seems, for he is having the upper hand. On his orders, the man gestures to his accomplice to let Nicola go. She runs to Mishka, into his arms. He leads her away, his arm firmly on her back. They are walking fast, and faster. He looks back a few times.

  ‘Keep walking,’ he says, ‘they’re right behind us.’

  It is a small café: only a few tiny tables tucked around a counter with a steaming espresso machine and a display cabinet brimming with creamy pastries. The menu on the table is written in French, and French is being spoken around them. A young waitress with a moody expression on her face brings their coffees, and gives Nicola an openly hostile look. She shakes her head in disapproval and strolls away to other customers, whom she greets with cordiality.

  Nicola gives Mishka a questioning glance. He smiles. ‘It’s your veil. You’re in the wrong part of town.’

  They are holding hands across the table, his over hers, fingers curled under, squeezing. He still looks sombre, and his trademark carefree smirk is absent, but there is also tenderness in his eyes. Nicola feels safe and loved, and not at all forgotten. ‘You paid the ransom?’ she asks.