running out or something? Wasn’t that why the world got totally fucked in the first place?
He guessed Maxwell had a handle on that. The man certainly wasn’t a fool.
Chapter 57
10 years AC
Bracton Harbour, Norfolk
Walter listened to the gentle lapping of water against the quay and the boat’s fibreglass hull. It was an altogether more relaxing sound than the thump and roll of the North Sea. That and the soft tink of the halyards against the mast.
Bracton was quiet and still as it always was. Earlier he’d heard the snapping and yipping of a pack of dogs disputing some small find, but since then nothing but the tide.
He could have headed back to the rigs before it got dark. He could have made it back in time. Instead he chose to overnight here and sail back some time tomorrow morning.
To be honest, he preferred the time away from the platforms. Things were getting unpleasant on there. Jenny refused to talk to Latoc any more and that bastard was carrying on as if he was now in charge. There were well over a hundred and fifty, maybe even two hundred of them now following the man. Too many, really, to all fit on the large compression platform. Since the accommodation platform was the one directly linked to his, Walter guessed he’d soon be insisting Jenny and the others currently bunked there vacate onto the next platform down so as to make way for his overspill.
The day that happened, Jenny might be better admitting she’d lost control of the rigs to him and prepare to gather up her things and those who wanted to go with her, and come ashore. The accommodation platform was the heart of the community, and surrendering that to Latoc was as good as losing it all.
There was another reason he preferred as much of his time as possible ashore, ostensibly scouring for bits. It was the staring. Everyone was doing it now and not just Latoc’s loony followers; long icy stares as he passed by, not even a formal nod, or a half smile, or a limp wave.
Just the bloody staring.
He knew what it was. That silly rumour. Alice Harton’s rumour, or whoever else she’d picked it up from. Just words. The rigs were full of words. In between chores it was all there was to do, gossip. But this . . . it was nasty. And there really was no verbal defence a man could make against that kind of innuendo. In fact, to bluster aloud that he’d never had any inappropriate thoughts about Hannah would seem to condemn him still further.
He protesteth too much!
Hannah, she was a lovely little girl. He was very fond of her, almost like a granddaughter to him. And yes, there’d been occasions he’d been in the Sutherlands’ quarters when Leona was washing her hair or scrubbing her in a tin bath. But it was all innocent. For Christ’s sake, this was the kind of environment - all of them living cheek-by-jowl - where people were going to catch each other half dressed occasionally. It happened all of the time. But this . . . this kind of suggestion made by someone out there, someone who presumably had an axe to grind, somebody whom he must have annoyed or upset at some point in the past, this kind of suggestion stuck fast and never shook off. It made every hug he’d given Hannah, every peck on the cheek and a million other innocent physical interactions since she was born, take on a sinister new meaning. And dammit, yes, it could make him look like some pervert if that’s what someone wanted to see in him; a pervert carefully, patiently playing out some long game, biding his time as he groomed the girl and earned Jenny’s and Leona’s implicit trust.
An idea like that, once planted . . . Jesus . . . any interaction with Hannah would appear suspect.
‘Fuck!’ Walter snapped suddenly, angrily punching the side of the yacht’s cockpit. The fibreglass rang hollowly. He was angry enough he could throttle the vicious bitch, and he could start his guessing that it was Alice Harton who came up with that kind of poison.
The thought enraged him. The idea that everyone back on the rigs must actually now be wondering if he’d taken Hannah down there, done things to her . . . then killed her? That he was capable of that?
No. Jesus, No. Not any child . . . not anyone, in fact.