And certainly not someone he’d known since she was born, grown to love as if she was his own flesh and blood, for Christ’s sake. He’d been a friend of Jenny’s and her family since before the rigs. He’d known them when they’d lived together outside Newark. They were bloody family.
The truth was, Hannah had been down there, where she knew she shouldn’t be. Messing around amongst pipes that should have been more securely attached. And that . . . that was what he was guilty of. Carelessness. There should have been a lock on the door. There should have been adequate ventilation.
Unless, of course, that’s what happened to her. That she was . . .
Latoc.
He slapped the cockpit once again. ‘You fucking bastard!’ he hissed. ‘You fucking bastard!’
He’d seen the pair of them, as thick as thieves: Hannah and Latoc. The man helped around by Hannah, cared for, nursed by Hannah. His arm around her shoulders, his face so close to hers that their hair tangled, talking in hushed conspiratorial voices.
He almost laughed at the irony. Now the idea of Latoc being a pervert had taken hold in his head, every interaction of that Belgian bastard seemed to take on a sinister dimension.
Maybe that damned rumour had come from somewhere other than Alice’s big flapping mouth. Maybe that sick twisted fuck, Latoc, had put the idea about somehow. Just made a veiled suggestion and let it evolve and transmit and grow as it spread like swine flu from one gossiping mouth to the next.
But why?
The first answer seemed obvious. He wanted to strip away Jenny’s allies. Leave her isolated. He’d done a swift job of winning Martha over. Maybe Tami Gupta was next? If he couldn’t woo the woman, maybe he’d start some nasty rumour about her as well?
Another thought occurred to him. Latoc didn’t seem to like other men; didn’t like them around him. Oh, yes, Valérie Latoc seemed very comfortable amongst women, but other men . . . ?
He sees us as a threat.
Perhaps the bastard wanted to make the rigs his own ‘lady palace’; a procession of dutiful acolytes for him to choose from. Perhaps that was his game; getting rid of potential male challengers one at a time. They’d rescued him. He’d woken up in the infirmary and saw the place was mostly women and like a greedy little boy in a sweet shop decided he wanted it all for himself.
That made a hell of a lot of sense. Like a rogue lion coming across another pride and coveting it, the first order of business was removing from play the existing alpha male. Before the explosion, before the bastard had arrived, Walter knew he wasn’t particularly popular, especially amongst the womenfolk. He knew they found him rude and gruff and impatient. Maybe a little arrogant. He didn’t suffer fools gladly. And maybe, yes . . . probably, he was a pompous old bastard. But he was tolerated and extended due courtesy because he was Jenny’s right-hand man. Because he knew how to fix things up. Because he knew how to pilot the boats. Because he’d built a generator that gave them electricity and light after the sun had gone down.
They wouldn’t have managed without him. He was the alpha male.
There were no rumours back then, were there? No icy stares.
Then Latoc came along.
Then the explosion.
Then people pointing fingers at him for allowing Hannah down there.
Now this - that he was some sort of a paedophile.
Latoc wants me off. Wants me out of the way.
A final thought occurred to him. There were other girls Hannah’s age.
Fuck you, you bastard.
Tomorrow morning he was going back. Tomorrow morning he was going to stand right in front of Valérie Latoc, in front of as many people as possible, and he was going to accuse the son-of-a-bitch of molesting and killing Hannah. And if the obtuse foreign fucking bastard tried wriggling his way out of it, then he was going to take a swing at the shit.
From where he sat in the cockpit Walter could see faces lining the railings all the way up from the spider deck to the main deck. A welcoming committee. Every last person, it seemed.
He eased the yacht towards the support-leg beneath the dangling hooks of the lifeboat davits, dropping the sails so she slowly bobbed forward on the last of her momentum.
‘Cranes, please!’ he called up.
What’s going on? What’s happened?
The hooks inched down from the davits with a loud clacking as manual winches were