The Devil You Know

I walked on along the planking—which was probably sun-bleached in Ostia before being shipped here in individual packages and reassembled—looking at the name of each boat in turn. All I had to go on was what Scrub had said to Rosa in Jasmine’s hazy recollection: “It’s the nice lady for you.” None of the ships had a female name except for the Boadicea. That would be a bit of a stretch, I thought.

On the far side of the marina, past the harbor entrance, the berths continued around the outer face of the harbor wall. I took that direction now, still glancing at each boat as I went by. There were a few empty berths here. Presumably, the farther you got from Lots Road and its swinging night life, the less desirable the space was. Another woman’s name: the Baroness Thatcher. No. Surely an even less likely candidate for the title of “nice lady” than Boadicea.

Finally I was left with only one boat to check on this side of the marina, and it was a long way out from the others. If I got no joy here, I’d have to retrace my steps and try the other arm. But from twenty feet away, when I was able to read the name painted on its side, I knew this was the one. It was called the Mercedes. Not only was that the Spanish word for “kindhearted,” it was also the name of the woman I’d seen in Damjohn’s mind when I’d shaken hands with him the first time we’d met—the woman of whom he had such bloody and such happy memories.

I approached more stealthily now, although there were no windows lit on the yacht, and it seemed deserted. From ten feet away, I got all the corroborative evidence I needed when I saw Scrub standing up on the top deck. He was leaning on the rail at the stern end, staring out across the river toward Battersea. He was facing away from me, but there was no way of mistaking Scrub for anybody else, particularly since he was lit up romantically by the yellow radiance of a Victorian streetlamp, complete with scrollwork and nonfunctional gas mantle. I already knew Scrub was strong and mean. I wouldn’t have expected running water to deter him, although it ought to make him itchy and irritable. But there was no sign of that in his absolute immobility, his air of dense, unfathomable calm.

I looked ahead down the walkway past the Mercedes: nothing to see there. The planking just ended about twenty feet farther on, where presumably there was a last, unoccupied berth. As setups went, it wasn’t perfect, because it was remote, and that dead end might turn out to be a problem for me if things went wrong. But you do your best with what you’ve got.

I retreated off the walkway into the shadow of the last boat I’d passed—the Baroness Thatcher. I wondered inconsequentially which Tory grandee owned it and what perverse fantasy had made him name his toy boat after the Iron Lady. On the other hand, maybe it was a former wet who got a nostalgic kick every time he leaned hard on the tiller and proved that she was for turning after all.

I took off my shoes and dumped most of my tools—the lock picks and the bolt cutters; the crowbar I kept hold of. My best chance of surviving this encounter was if Scrub didn’t see me coming. Someone once bullshitted me that there’s a Welsh martial art called Llap-Goch, where the key to victory is to take out your opponent before he even knows you exist. I can get my head around that.

I rummaged in my pockets, checked that I still had the handcuff where I could get to it, and then took out my secret weapon. No point setting it up here—too far away. I started to pad stealthily down the walkway toward the Mercedes, unwinding the tangled length of cable as I went. It was weighted at its ends, like a bolas, but it was something else entirely. Scrub still hadn’t turned, which with luck meant that he was lost in whatever passed with him for thought.

About twenty feet away from the boat, I stopped and knelt down. I put the disk-shaped payload down at the very edge of the planking, where it was less conspicuous. I paid out the cable to its full length and pressed the button. I’d given myself two minutes of lead-in. Two minutes ought to get me to where I needed to be, and after that, we’d see. With good timing, I might even come out of this with my head still attached to my shoulders.

Three more steps brought me to the Mercedes’s gangplank. She was a big ship—Mercedes had been a big woman, God rest her soul. There were three decks, and on the lowest one—the one I could see from where I stood—there was a door that obviously led down into the cabins. I toyed with the idea of getting out my lock picks and taking a crack at that door; it looked ridiculously easy. But no. Scrub was a dangerous man to have at your back. There was no point in getting in there if he was still extant and blocking the way out—and in the meantime, my two minutes were ticking away.