“Sounds good,” I said absent-mindedly, “a real skirt-lifter.”
“A real what?” She turned on me with mock fierceness.
“Force six, gusting seven,” I said contritely, then carried the bags down to the garage where she opened the door of a battered Ford Escort. “Yours?” I asked.
She heard the surprise in my voice. “What did you expect? A Lamborghini?”
“A Porsche at least.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” She dangled the keys above the car roof. “Do you want to drive?”
“No.”
“That’s good. I like driving.”
She raced the car through empty dark streets. Neither of us spoke much at first, it was too early in the morning, yet there was a distinct feeling of excitement. Just days before we had been snapping at each other like strange dogs; now, suddenly, we had the comfortable intimacy of friendship. There was also the anticipation of something more than friendship. It was that anticipation which touched our commonplace with excitement. We both felt it and we were both happy.
She drove like Charlie; fast, competently, and with a blithe confidence that the police would ignore her. They did.
We sped past Heathrow and Windsor, and only then did she break our silence. She talked about the books she was reading, and scorned me with laughter when I told her I thought four books sufficient for life. She described the Buzzacott Museum Gallery, calling it her stepfather’s fantasy and obsession. “That’s why he pursued money so ruthlessly,” she went on, “just so he could build his fantasy.”
“And he’s very rich,” I commented sourly.
“Very.” She ignored the jealousy in my voice. “It was the property world that started him off. It still pays well, I think, but he keeps Mummy and me a long way away from the seamier side of his activities.”
“Seamy?” I asked.
“A bit, I think.” She didn’t elaborate. The sun rose behind us, casting long shadows and promising a fine day, though I doubted, looking at the bare sky, whether the forecast of a skirt-lifting force six would prove correct. Not that it mattered, for this day was not really about sailing, but about exploring a friendship.
And we had plenty of time for that exploration, for we were in Dartmouth long before breakfast time. I hadn’t told Harry that I was returning, which meant my guardian angels were home in their own beds. Their absence made me feel oddly nervous, so I didn’t waste any time getting ready for sea. I cast off Sunflower’s springs, led the bow warp back to the cockpit, hanked on the big genoa and took off the mainsail cover.
“Aren’t you going to motor her out?” Jennifer asked me.
“I’m going to show off and sail us out.”
It was a happier experiment than my arrival on the pontoon. The breeze was from the east, an errant morning wind caused by the hills about the river. The tide was ebbing. I hoisted the jib, let it flap, released the bow warp, then hauled the jib flat to starboard. The wind swung our bows fast off the pontoon, just clearing the transom of the boat ahead. I slipped the stern warp, let the jib sheet run so that the sail was reaching, then hauled in all my loose warps. Sunflower ghosted out of the narrow space like magic.
Jennifer applauded. “I’m impressed.”
“Did you see my arrival?”
She shook her head. “Don’t tell me I missed another of the master mariner’s impressive displays?”
“Technically,” I said, “my arrival here was what we master mariners call a cock-up. I thought you might be watching, tried to impress you by doing it the hard way, and very nearly wrapped the mast round the bridge.”
She laughed. “Serves you right.”
I gave her the helm while I stowed the fenders, then hauled up the big main. The wind was fitful, backing north, but at least blowing us to sea. It was obvious the weathermen had got it wrong again. The wind was force two, sometimes three, but I sensed even that gentle breeze wouldn’t last. The sun was climbing to shimmer the sea and already there was a haze above the slowly receding coast. I watched the river entrance as we drew away. A gaff-rigged cutter had followed us out, but had now turned eastwards towards Torbay. A whale-decked Brixham trawler was plugging in the opposite direction, but, apart from a handful of dinghy sails in the river mouth, there was nothing else in sight. “Safe at last,” I said facetiously.
Jennifer looked back towards the coast. “I’d rather forgotten about those two men.”
“I hadn’t.”
She grimaced. “My stepfather thinks you’re being very foolish. He’d prefer to pay the ransom, but I suppose he can’t really argue with Inspector Abbott. He’s meant to be the expert.”
“Harry’s no fool,” I said. “I might be though, making myself a target. Still, we’re safe now.”
She frowned. “Suppose they saw us leaving? Suppose they’re following us?”
I shook my head. “They’re too late.” Already the river mouth was indistinct, and the land fading like a mirage. In a few minutes we would be alone in the empty sea. “Besides,” I went on to reassure her, “I’ve got a radio, so if we see anything suspicious I’ll scream blue murder to the coastguards.” It occurred to me that Harry would be the one screaming blue murder when he discovered that I’d returned without informing him, so I punctiliously called the Brixham Coastguard and gave them a routine passage report: yacht Sunflower day-sailing off Dartmouth, expecting to return to port sometime that evening. I asked them to relay that information to the Dartmouth police station. They must have been mildly surprised at the request, but promised to make the call.
Jennifer had installed herself in the navigator’s chair and was admiring the electronic display which Charlie had insisted on building over the chart table. “What’s this?” she asked.
“A Decca set.”
“What’s a Decca set?”
I explained the chain of coast radio transmitters which pulsed their signals to sea, and how the little black box translated the signals into a position. This was the first time I’d used Charlie’s gift, so I had to tell the machine roughly where we were, it paused, then the aerial found the signals and the display updated itself with our exact position. Jennifer was enthralled. I entered the latitude and longitude of St Helier in the Channel Islands and Jennifer read the course and distance off the display. “So all you have to do is follow that course and you’ll get there?”
“Not exactly.” I found a chart and showed her how the Decca course would take us straight across the islands of Guernsey and Jersey. “So what we’d have to do,” I said, “is put in another waypoint here,” I pointed to a patch of sea north of the Roches Douvres, “then make St Helier the second waypoint.”
“Waypoint?” she asked.
“Posh name for destination. You pick the waypoint and the machine tells you how to get there.”
She looked at the electronic display which was showing a small bent arrow and some apparently meaningless figures. “What’s it telling us now?”
“It’s assuming we’re trying to sail the direct line to St Helier, so it’s telling us that we’re a tenth of a nautical mile off course to port, travelling at 3.2 knots, on a heading of 162 true, and that we should be heading 137 true.”
She stared admiringly at the display. “I thought you master mariners did it all with sextants?”
“Most of the time we do,” I said, “because you run out of Decca range as soon as you leave Europe.”
So then she wanted to see the sextant. I took her up to the cockpit and showed her how to bring the sun down to the horizon. She wanted to try for herself, so I settled back and watched as she braced herself against the companionway. She was worth watching. She was wearing a shirt and jeans, and had her short black hair tied back with a band. “It’s green!” she exclaimed when she first saw the sun in the mirror, then frowned as a quiver of her right hand jarred the sun loose. A moment later she managed to hold the sun steady on the mirror, then bit her lower lip in fierce concentration as she moved the index arm. The trick of it was to move the index arm to bring the sun down, while holding the rest of the instrument absolutely steady so that the horizon stayed fixed in the sight glass. “Done it!” she said triumphantly.