‘Fuck!’
The oath was called out in an irritated female voice. The woman must have been concealed on the raft under the plastic sheets. She had climbed on board when he was down below and then knocked him out. He was about to call out, but stopped. Who was she? An ordinary person would have called out to him as soon as he had found the raft. She would have cried out in the blessed relief of being miraculously rescued from near certain death, and hugged him in gratitude. She would not have assaulted him and tied him up.
He looked around as best he could in the dark space. There were no rough metallic edges against which he could try to sever the binding ropes. He could call out and asked to be released. He could pretend to be deeply unconscious and hope that his captor might release him. He could cry out that he was in agony and ask that at least his hands be released so that he could straighten his legs. Maybe then he could find a way of freeing himself. He realised that he needed to relieve himself. In the old days in the Marines, even in training it was expected that you would just wet your pants. But he was not a young officer in the Marines any more, he was forty-seven years old, in his own yacht and he did not want this woman, even if she was a homicidal maniac, to find him with wet trousers.
‘Hey!’ he shouted’ and winced as the ache in his head suddenly intensified. He was about to call again but then he heard a stumbling of feet from the saloon and then a few moments later he heard the bolts being worked free and the door opened. He jerked his head sideways so that the door did not hit him. The light from the main cabin made him screw up his eyes. He retained an impression of a face surrounded by long straggly dark hair peering round the door at him. He opened his eyes again and gazed up at the woman standing in the doorway. She stared down at him with brown bloodshot eyes; a yellowing bruise surrounded one of them; a thin scar led from beside her ear down her neck to her collarbone and her lips were cracked and swollen. Then her eyes darted down to inspect the ropes around his legs, and then looked around the cabin for a moment before staring at him. ‘So you’ve come round; I was afraid I’d hit you too hard; I didn’t mean to knock you out so much.’ Her voice was educated southern counties English, incongruous against her villainous appearance further enhanced by a missing front tooth.
‘I’m in pain! Can you release my legs? I’ve got awful cramp.’
‘What’s the password?’
This seemed a somewhat surreal question. He stared at the woman for a moment wondering if she had been driven insane by her exposure on the raft. He slowly became aware that she stank; a mixture of waterlogged clothing, vomit and possibly excrement. Suddenly she gave a short, irritated sigh. ‘For your computer!’
‘Oh! Its… I’ll tell you what it is after you’ve untied me.’
‘Bollocks!’ she replied emphatically. She stared at him for a moment before continuing in a more reasonable voice ‘Actually if I can use your internet connection to make a few inquiries then I can probably release you altogether. I just need to check a few things out.’
‘About me?’
‘You’re on the list.’
‘Will you be quick? I really need to go to the head.’
She frowned at him. ‘To the what?’
‘The loo, I need to go to the loo.’
‘Why did you say ‘to the head’?’
‘Because we are on a boat. That’s what they’re called on board a boat.’
Despite the bloodshot eyes and the bruising he thought he could see a hint of amusement on her face.
‘Give me the password then you jerk, and maybe you won’t have to wet your knickers.’
Bitch! Bloody pirate! She had assaulted him on his own yacht, now she was insulting him, demeaning him… and he was getting angry to no purpose. He must stay calm; see if he could get an opportunity to turn the situation around.
‘Ok, it’s “surprise”’
‘A surprise?’ She shook her head in amazement or disdain. ‘Go on then; surprise me.’
‘No! That’s it. The word ‘surprise’; it’s the name of my yacht.’
She looked at him with an expression of understanding and maybe even apology. ‘Oh I see! — thanks.’
She shut the cabin door and bolted it, leaving a strong odour behind her. Steven heard her shuffling back into the saloon. He wriggled about trying to relieve the pain in his right shoulder and right hip which had been carrying his weight since he had been tied up. Time passed slowly. He thought about his assailant, wondering how long she had been on the raft; had she been alone all the time? Had there been fellow survivors, now dead? Damn, his shoulder hurt. What kind of aircraft had she been on? Was she a passenger or one of the crew? What had happened to the rest of the passengers? That raft had been large enough to carry forty or fifty people. He thought back to the description of the raft in the web site. Why had the ELT not summoned a rescue mission to pick up survivors? Perhaps it had, and perhaps someone would soon come out to his yacht to take this mad woman off his hands and leave him to continue his solitary journey. His head ached; his shoulder ached; his hip ached and his bladder cried out for relief. He was about to call out when he heard the woman shuffling across the deck and moments later the door opened.
‘So you’re Steven Morris, ex Royal Marine officer and owner of this yacht and a property company based near Chichester.’
‘That’s near enough. And who are you?’
‘I’m Emily.’
She stared down at him. He suddenly realised that she held a gun in her hand, and he did not feel inclined to question her further.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Look I only tied you up as a sort of precaution. I’ll cut the ropes now. I know I owe you an explanation but just in case you are a vengeful person I’m going to hold this gun on you until you have heard my explanation.’ She paused and then showed him his own small automatic pistol which she must have found in its locker in the saloon. ‘In case you think I don’t know how to use your gun, I can tell you that this is a Smith and Wesson double action .45 semi-automatic compact. Barrel length is three point five inches and weight not including six rounds in the chambers is twenty three ounces.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘I won’t try anything.’
‘Good. You may be an ex-commando, or something, but I’m sure you know when you’re not in control. Now I‘m going to cut the rope holding your hands and then you can untie the rest. Ok?’
‘Understood,’ he replied.
‘Roll onto your stomach.’
He did so. She put her foot on his back high up between his shoulders. He felt the vibration through his wrists as the knife sawed through the rope, and then he heard her walking back to the saloon and he set about untying the other ropes that bound him.
A few minutes later Steven was seated in the saloon of his yacht with the woman who called herself Emily opposite him. He had borne the indignity of relieving himself while she watched him and now they both sat down with a bottle of water each and stared at one another under the cabin lights. Steven decided that she must be between thirty and forty, but her face was bruised and swollen and it was difficult to judge her age. She was tall for a woman, probably about the same as his own height of five feet ten inches. She wore a yellow weatherproof jacket from his deck storage, dark trousers and a pair of his best Timberland shoes. Her hair was matted on one side of her head and Steven wondered if she had been lying in a pool of her own vomit. She still held the small gun in her hand, but in a rather more negligent manner with the barrel pointing towards the deck. Steven had the impression that she seemed unaware that she was holding it,