Got My Eye on You Chapter Ninety


Pocket Full of Rye (Part Nine)


Donna was trying to move her wrists to keep the circulation flowing, but the band of the plastic ziplock handcuff was cutting in deeply. Each flex brought a fresh stab of pain and the warm trickle of what she guessed would be blood. She couldn't tell for sure because her hands were tied behind her back. There was absolutely no give at all. Her ankles were similarly restrained.

At least I'm conscious. Sherlock was lying out face down on the metal deck beside her. They were under a tarpaulin that had been thrown over the pair of them. She could barely hear their captors' movements above the sound of the engine, amplified as it was by the metal floor.

She kept replaying the scene of their capture, wondering what they could have done differently. The Filipino guard on the Gemini's gangway had kept the machine gun trained on them as they drifted closed. Behind them, Tolhurst had appeared on the prow of the Lady Aileen. He was also carrying a machine gun. The Port Police were licensed to carry weapons- it was too small a force to have a separate division. And too many of the cargo and container ships had been known to resort to armed security guards carrying such weapons when the ships passed through the Gulf of Aden and anywhere near Somalia, which meant that when the ships arrived in Tilbury, there were gun-toting crew members. So, all fifteen officers were licensed and trained.

Tolhurst used the loudhailer on the launch and told Donna to start the RIB's engine and to reverse it back towards the Lady Aileen, and then to come aboard. In the searchlight beams now shining on them, she had seen Sherlock consider the options. Going overboard and trying to swim for it was just not sane. Penned in by the concrete dock on one side and the five and a half meter draught of the cruise ship, there was nowhere to go to escape the bullets. Even if they could get deep enough, the Gemini was twenty meters wide- they'd run out of oxygen. Given the water temperature in November, the cold shock response would kick in and their bodies would try to hyperventilate. If the lack of oxygen didn't kill them, the hypothermia would. She gave a quick shake of her head to dissuade him from anything so crazy.

"Keep your hands on your heads, where I can see them." Tolhurst was taking no chances. He made Donna get on board first, and then cuffed her with his police handcuffs to the grab rail on the launch's deck next to the concrete wall of the dock.

"Kneel!" Then he pointed the gun at her head. "Alright, Holmes, your turn. Get onto the launch and stay well clear of us. Walk around the other side to the stern and into the wheelhouse. If you make the slightest move out of line, I will kill her."

She had never liked Tolhurst much. He seemed remote and suspicious of all of the Health Authority Staff. Simon had told her that the detective was a former marine, and he'd brought with him a set of attitudes and prejudices born of overseas duties where everyone with a skin that wasn't white was a potential threat. When she had pressed Simon about why the police were taking so long to solve the two murders, she remembered the constable's sad shrug. "The bloke's a bloody racist; to hear him talk they're just two proto-terrorists who got their comeuppance at the hands of their non-Muslim crewmates."

Now she knew better. When Tolhurst uncuffed her and dragged her into the launch's wheelhouse, Sherlock was already lying on the floor, with blood running from his temple where he must have been hit. One Asian-looking man was literally kneeling on the detective's back cuffing him, another was working on his ankles with plastic ties. But at least Sherlock was still conscious at that point. Then one of the dark-skinned man ripped her gloves off and used the plastic ties on her, too, before dumping her in a chair fixed to the cabin floor. There was a short figure in a yellow high-vis jacket at the wheel, Donna realised that it was Sharon Gillespie, as she turned to watch them over her shoulder with a sneer.

Tolhurst yelled at Sharon. "Let's move!" Sharon threw the Lady Aileen's throttle into reverse and the launch backed away from the stern of the Gemini. She turned the wheel and the boat came about, heading back into the main channel of the dock area. Unable to use her hands or feet to keep her balance, Donna started to slide out of the seat.

"Why?" she couldn't help but ask the question, as Tolhurst shoved her back hard into the chair.

He smirked. "You have no idea, you silly woman. You think it's about a cargo hold worth of useless grain? Think again."

She kept wondering what the best strategy was. Should she keep quiet and hope that if they thought she knew nothing, they would let her go? This is a man who KILLS people who get in his way. What risk was there in finding out more?

"Is there another shipload of blackbirds coming in then?" She couldn't help but enjoy the surprise that flared in his eyes.

He snarled, "What do you know about that?"

"You're bringing in illegal immigrants and selling them to passengers taking cruises. You're nothing better than a slaver."

His eyes blazed with anger. The blow that came knocked her out of the chair and onto the floor. "I'm finding something useful to do for this rubbish coming into our country. They're scum, taking our housing, our jobs, abusing our benefits and health service. They'd be dead in their home countries, killed off as useless female mouths to feed. Here they perform a service- and nine times out of ten, they get taken back out of the UK when their masters leave. That's a win-win in my book."

"How many, Tolhurst? How many have you sold into slavery?"

It was the overweight woman at the wheel who roared with laughter. "THOUSANDS, you silly cow! This has been going on for three years right under everyone's nose. I've salted away a good little treasure chest in a Luxembourg bank account, but I'm not greedy. A lot's being used to fund the activists working to keep our shores free of rubbish like them."

A baritone voice came up from the floor. "You won't get away with it. The Met knows. They are on their way, and they know what you're doing. Let Foreman go. You can keep me as a hostage if you want, but there is no need to double your risk. You can let her off at the lock."

Tolhurst walked over, and put his big boot hard on Sherlock's back, forcing a grunt of pain from the prone figure. "Oh, goody, our celebrity detective has found his voice. Well, Mister Sherlock Holmes, a fat lot of good your deductions have been- just ended up getting you and your little help-mate here killed. Your Met people won't be here for ages yet; that black woman sergeant? Just an example of the Met's going mad on political correctness. She's the sort to be a 'by-the-book' kind of copper. And your grey-haired veteran will be let out to pasture when they can't find a bloody trace of you two anywhere. You'll disappear just as successfully this time as you did two years ago." He leaned down to say with glee, "only this time you'll really be dead."

Muffled because his face was being pushed into the deck of the launch, Sherlock tried again. "They know about the Gemini; that phone was linked to the Met."

Donna watched as the big detective grabbed Sherlock by the hair, jerking his head up off the floor. "Too late- they'll get there too late. The Gemini will be cleared of the women within the next fifteen minutes, using the RIB you so generously provided. Even if they get forensics on the case, it will take hours for them to figure anything conclusive. We've got other storage facilities. The Morning Linda's already got another twenty seven on board, they'll just have to bunk up for a while until the Braemar sails. I've been to the station briefing room, by the way. Erased everything- your pathetic drawings and your speadsheets. Wiped the computer files, too. They'll have to start from scratch."

Donna decided to take her lead from Sherlock. If he was going to point out that they wouldn't get away with it, she'd help. "Sharon, you need to know." She decided to lie. "I've sent the file with the details about all the cargo you passed as clean to Walbrook- and the sample of ergot rye. The samples from the Printessa are going directly there, too- with your name on it. How did you use it to kill the Filipino woman?"

The woman called back to one of the guards to take the wheel. "Get us to the lock gates and hold station." She stalked back to Donna and then spat in her face. "She was scum. So are you. And stupid. My job was to keep them alive. I used grain from the ships, and damaged goods from the warehouse to feed the bints before they go off to their new owners. That dead aborigine? She was too stupid to realise that the grain was diseased, so she kept using it to make her bread. It drove her crazy and one of the guards killed her because he thought she was possessed by the devil. He's gone by the way- signed on as crew and shipped back to Jakarta a month ago. So, you can't blame her death on me. I'm not involved in that part."

"Tell that to the Director. You're an accomplice at best."

"Only if you live to tell the story. If anyone accuses me, I'll make something up to blame it on you. Say that you've disappeared after pocketing bribes and trying to pin them on me. There will be no evidence except your word." She leaned in close to Donna's face. "And you won't be there to defend yourself. We're going to kill you both, and put your bodies onto an outgoing freighter."

Sherlock tried to roll onto his side, but the Filipino guard kicked him into staying still. It didn't stop him from talking. "It's the Rio Tamara, isn't it? That's the ship that brought in the latest group?"

Tolhurst laughed and walked over, landing another kick on the prone figure. "You think you're so bleeding clever. Yeah; it's the Rio. Your body and that of your girlfriend here go in where our crop of illegals was stowed. Next Stop? Port Harcourt, Nigeria, by which time you'll be good and ripe. No one will be able to identify the rotting carcasses that will be dumped overboard."

Sherlock was wheezing, but not done. "It won't work…" Before he could finish the sentence, the Port detective grabbed the gun from the guard and smacked the butt across the back of Sherlock's head. "That'll shut you up."

Sharon was now back to the wheel, taking it from the guard, and thumbing on the ship-to-shore radio.

"Let us in, lock keeper."

The static cleared, and the port control tower replied. "Yes, mam. Water will equalise in four minutes; just got time to get you in and ready for the tide."

The gates slowly swung open and the ship started to move into the lock. Tolhurst shoved Donna roughly on the floor. "Stay put and stay quiet, or I'll hit you, too." A tarp was then thrown over the pair of them.

She could imagine the lock gates closing behind them, and then the launch slowly rising as the water from the river was allowed in. The sound of water rushing made her realise that she needed a pee. Too much coffee. That almost forced a hysterical laugh. I'm about to be killed and all I can think of is that I'm going to wet myself.