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They were meeting the agent for a self-sail boat hire company who’d stated he’d be in a café next to the port authority building.
Aleksey eyed the distance from the car park to the entrance and knew, after the four hours he’d endured, he’d be limping. He sighed and rummaged in the glove box, pulling out a small folder.
‘What’s that?’ Ben was watching him closely. This was a time when he could have done without attention.
‘My coastal and day skipper papers. I was told I would need them to rent the boat.’
‘Uh-huh. Are they like your diving papers?’
‘Not at all. Kate got those for me. These are courtesy of Peyton.’
‘I kinda only went along with that because I knew what I was doing anyway.Noneof us know how to sail then. I’m not liking this much.’
‘You are being very boring, Benjamin. Usually you come out with something likeSAS know how to sail.’
Ben pursed his lips, watching Tim and Squeezy who were walking the dogs on the stony beach alongside the harbour. All four were drenched and looked miserable.
‘Okay. I’m just being dumb. Ignore me. Only…I can’t help thinking something is going to go wrong.’ He laughed lightly. ‘When we came through the tunnel, back at Saltash, I pictured it collapsing on us…fighting for our lives in the dark. Possibly with zombies, but that seems too far fetched even for us.’ He glanced across and added more seriously, ‘Are you going to be okay with all this?’
Aleksey was pleased and disquieted in equal measure at how much Ben’s anxieties matched his own. He supposed they’d both had more of a reality check than they’d let on that fateful day on Dartmoor: neither of them was invincible and something as tiny and insignificant as a hole in the ground could snuff out even the brightest of illuminations.
Aleksey knew Ben was referring to more than just this current trip in his question. He turned full face and they held each other’s gaze. He took Ben’s fingers in his own, playing with them thoughtlessly. ‘You do not like change, Ben. You never have. And I know you have reason to be…cautious, and I’m sorry for that. I truly am. But I see so many differences in you too since…well, since I forced change on you, I suppose.’ He turned and considered the depressing rain. ‘I will never leave you, Ben.’ He gave a small squeeze to Ben’s wrist. ‘Well, unless there were zombies, obviously—then it would be every man for himself…’
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ben went to join the others on the little patch of grit that went for a beach, which lay, full of cast-off nets, floats and other detritus of the fishing fleet, to one side of the harbour wall.
Tim, hands thrust deep in his pockets, was anxiously staring out to sea. Squeezy was trying to pull Radulf away from something that was apparently buried deep in some seaweed.
Ben nodded to Tim as he approached. ‘Nik’s gone to get the boat sorted. What’s wrong?’
‘We’re in over our heads with this, Ben. We agreed: keep things on an even keel, curb any odd enthusiasms, let things get back to normal. If I’m not mistaken, we’re about to launch off into the Atlantic with only one person aboard who has ever been in a boat, and he’s the least reliable of us all. And I do include the dogs in that assessment.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’m kinda thinking the same thing.’
‘But I don’t see you doing much to stop it. In fact, I think you’re secretly enjoying it.’
Ben smiled ruefully. ‘It’s better than the last few months, Tim. I thought he’d left me. Then I was convinced he was going to die. Then I was fairly sure he was never going to walk properly again. Then I went through a phase of thinking he’d start taking drugs and drinking all the time again. And then I got back to believing he’d up and leave me again, because him being so injured and me having to look after him just isn’t the way we are together, it justisn’t. So, yeah, Iamenjoying this. I’ve never seen him like this before: he’sexcited, Tim. I know he doesn’t show it under all his usual bullshit, but there’s something about this that…calls to him. And I don’t care, Idon’t, if we end up sinking together in that bloody boat, because it’ll have been worth—What?’
‘I meant we might run aground on a sandbank. You don’t seriously think we’re going to go down? I’m not a very good swimmer…’
‘Oiy, no fair, who’s going down on you, Diesel? Hey, Orgy Island, I like it.’ Squeezy ruffled Tim’s hair. ‘Don’t worry, my chilly little fuck bunny—I know how to fucking sail.’
They both regarded him with some astonishment, and he just shrugged. ‘Like you were saying, Diesel, there’s something about this that’s sorta perked the boss up a bit. I did my best with my fucking shorts the other day, but seriously no luck there. This island thing seems to have done the trick right nicely, so who was I to ruin his fun and tell him, hey, master mariner since I was five here? Anyhoo, we going? I’m fucking freezing. Boss better ‘ave got a ship with a fucking big heater in it.’
Tim waited until Squeezy and dogs were out of hearing then muttered, ‘I actually think he thinks I’m reassured by anything he’s just said.’
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Spindriftdid have a heater. It had a lot of things that none of them, being men, wanted to…coo over, but Tim did some of this for all of them. It had a cabin with a tiny galley, a shower and heads. It had berths for eight people in its thirty-seven-foot length, although could, in theory, be sailed by only two.
‘If the house is not habitable, we could always stay on the boat.’ Aleksey’s head hit a swinging lamp just as he suggested this. Although the headroom was described as adequate, this clearly wasn’t intended to include men over six feet.
‘What did the agent say about the dogs?’
