Chapter 7
Jack stared in awe at the gigantic cruise ship in front of him. It was seventeen decks high, the top six of which tapered off into the sky like a pyramid. From where Jack stood on the dockside, he could see palm trees, water slides, a climbing wall and a zipwire on the top decks. It was staggering. Hundreds of Asian-looking men and women scurried up and down each of the decks, brimming with purpose and commitment. They would wait on his parents hand and foot, making them feel like they were the most important people in the entire world — not because they cared about his parents having a good time, but because they, and their families back home, would rely almost entirely on the size of the tip left at the end of the cruise. But Jack balanced that cynical thought by wishing them all well, as he was certain how hard it must be sucking up to strangers 24/7.
This ship was taller than Jack’s apartment block and wider than the M25. It was like Vegas and Florida all rolled into one self-contained dream holiday. His parents would love it. He could see them now — they’d walk the decks each morning, drink champagne with breakfast, lose nightly in the casino and eat themselves silly.
Jack checked his ticket to the Isle of Wight for the umpteenth time. Still there. He had only loosely planned his line of questioning for Ester Freeman. He wasn’t one for being boxed in by pre-emptive thinking, and would rather let Ester’s answers guide how their meeting went. He’d be late sailing, but he had his excuse planned for when Ridley asked; he was going to say that he’d been dragged into helping the Port Authorities to control a problem passenger. Ridley wouldn’t be able to bollock him for that.
Jack’s mobile rang.
‘Where are you, darling?’
‘Look up, Mum. See the massive white cruise ship?’ Jack joked to Penny. ‘Head for that.’
He smiled as he slid his mobile into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. As Charlie and Penny ambled towards him, they looked as though they hadn’t got a care in the world.
‘We’re here!’ Penny laughed.
There were numerous high-end restaurants in and around Southampton Docks, but Jack took his parents to a small pub. Charlie and Penny were not complicated people, and nor was the food they liked to eat.
Charlie and Jack both ordered steak and chips, and Penny ordered chicken and mushroom pie. She always ordered pie when she went out because she’d never been able to master the art of making pastry — ‘I like to order something I’d never have at home, otherwise, what’s the point?’ They shared a bottle of red and talked and talked, but not about anything important. Nobody mentioned Charlie’s cancer, or the fact that he might never set foot on English soil again.
After they’d eaten, Jack left his parents in the pub, while he nipped to Penny’s car to collect their suitcases. Penny had parked in the long-stay car park, in the furthest space of the furthest zone — this was because she was of the firm belief that car thieves only steal from cars close to the exit in order to make a quick getaway.
Jack said goodbye at the check-in desk; the hugs were extra tight and extra long, and everyone said those underrated, underused words: ‘I love you’. The things that we assume go without saying but that should be said every day.
Charlie took Penny by the hand and her thumb automatically stroked the back of his hand. Penny would be Charlie’s rock... until the day she came home alone, and Jack would then be her rock. Penny kissed Jack’s cheek and led Charlie on to the cruise ship.
From the dockside, Jack searched the thousands of faces across all of the open decks. Eventually, he saw them. Charlie and Penny were leaning close to each other against the rail, with a glass of champagne in one hand and a tiny Union Jack in the other.
Jesus Christ. Jack laughed to himself. They’re going to be pissed before they’ve left Southampton.
Suddenly, his laughing turned to crying and he had no idea how to stop. Safe in the knowledge that he was surrounded by strangers, he let the tears roll. The maniacal, mass waving went on for at least forty minutes until the ship’s horn finally blared and, painfully slowly, the ship started to move away from the dockside. Penny blew a thousand kisses down to Jack, and Charlie repeatedly gave him the thumbs-up. Jack walked the dockside as far as he could, waving and smiling. He could no longer distinguish his parents from the people around them, but he hoped they’d be able to spot him — seeing as he was the only person following the ship out to sea.
Jack checked his ticket to the Isle of Wight for the umpteenth time.
‘Shit!’
He turned tail and raced for the ferry... which turned out to be the second ship that day he watched disappear without him.
Chapter 8
The facilities on the Isle of Wight ferry came a very poor second to the cruise ship that was currently heading towards St Lucia with Charlie and Penny. Jack imagined that, by now, they’d be in an open-deck restaurant eating as much shellfish as they could — the extravagance of it would be too much for Penny to resist, and as long as Charlie had a drink in his hand, he’d do whatever kept her happy. Jack smiled at the thought of his parents trying to ‘fit in’ with the other posher passengers... then he wondered how many more passengers had gone to sea to die. And his smile disappeared.
Jack had researched the Fisher brothers, using various police databases and Google. The name of Fisher had been slurred by Ken Moore towards the end of their evening together; the mention had been brief, but it was the only lead Jack had for now.
Arnie and Tony Fisher had run a club in Soho, which had been the subject of numerous failed drug, gambling and underage prostitution raids. Arnie Fisher was clearly the smart one, keeping his criminal activities well concealed. He was slick and charming with a penchant for young men, but he was also known to be ruthless and brutal when the mood took him. Arnie was a slimy character, with eyes like a shark — unreadable and terrifyingly soulless. He never got his hands dirty but, throughout the seventies and eighties, the police suspected his orders had resulted in numerous unsolved robberies, assaults and murders. Tony Fisher, on the other hand, was an out-and-out thug. He loved being hands-on, loved fast cars and tarty women, loved terrorising and torturing — Tony was a dangerous psychopath and had a rap sheet to prove it. Jack had to scroll three times on his mobile screen to get from the top to the bottom of Tony’s police record.
One newspaper article from 1984 covered the brutal murder of a man called ‘Boxer’ Davis. It seemed ‘Boxer’ had been a low-level, gullible dogsbody whose loyalties tended to shift towards the biggest pay packet. He was loosely connected to both the Fishers and to Harry Rawlins — and he was murdered in the spring of 1984. According to police reports at the time, ‘Boxer’ had been in a Soho alley when a car crushed him against a wire fence, backed up, drove over his body twice more, then drove away. Nobody saw a thing. ‘Boxer’ was found among the rats the following morning by a chef throwing out the slops.
This was the seedy world that Jimmy Nunn had frequented once his Formula One career went down the pan. Jimmy stuck with the only thing he knew how to do — driving — and he must have done it well, because he never served any substantial amount of time in prison.
Jack called Laura.
‘Would you do me a favour, mate? Would you get hard copy police records for Arnie and Tony Fisher?’
‘Course,’ Laura chirped. ‘Who are they?’