getting a much better idea of how large the platforms were, towering above them as Walfield eased back on the throttle and aimed the tugboat towards the base of the tallest platform amongst the cluster.
‘It’s like a bleedin’ jungle up there,’ said Walfield gazing up at the dangling terraces of foliage.
Leona detected movement along the decks; the ever-shifting green of endless leaves, lining every deck and walkway; the multicoloured fluttering of clothes strung out on laundry lines, and the movement of curious people emerging to gather along the safety rails.
She waved up at them, trying to see if she could recognise individual faces yet.
Walfield threw the tug into reverse to take the last of the momentum off the vessel, and the deck beneath their feet shuddered. Leona shaded her eyes, looking up at the closest faces on the spider deck.
‘It’s us!!’ she called out. ‘It’s me! Leona! Where’s Mum?’
Several voices called back, over each other, lost against the idling chug of the engine.
‘Mum?! You up there!!?’
A male voice called down. ‘Who is that?’
Leona didn’t recognise it at first. Then she remembered the newcomer, the foreign man. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d been teasing Mum about fancying him.
‘It’s Leona!’ she replied. ‘I also have some friends with me!’
She heard a chorus of voices stirring above her.
‘Somebody go get her, will you!’ she called out. No one was going to lower anything to them until Mum said it was okay to do so.
‘How many friends?’ It was that foreign guy again. She remembered his name now. Valérie.
She shrugged an answer. ‘Four of them. Can you go get my mum, please?’
She saw him now, leaning over the cellar deck railing. ‘Four men?’
Why is he speaking for them?
She wondered what was taking Mum so long. She wondered why Walter wasn’t already manning the davits, being a nosy bugger and calling out twenty questions to them as he lowered the crane hooks.
Something’s not right.
‘Where’s Mum? Where’s Walter?’
Adam emerged from the cockpit and stood beside her on the foredeck.
‘Everything okay here?’
Valérie Latoc’s voice came down to them. ‘Your mother is not in charge now! Things have changed!’
She looked along the crowd on the spider deck. She saw familiar faces. Deborah Hardy, her two toddlers, Ronnie, Moira and Audrey - white-haired old sisters - Saleena Chudasama, her children, Alice Harton, Denise Bingham. A deck up she recognised Tami Gupta, Howard, the Yun sisters, Keisha, Desirae and Kara and some of the other Bible-bashers. She saw Edward waving and grinning, David beside him. She saw Hamarra, Rebecca, the Barker sisters . . .
Familiar faces, but all somehow a little different. She’d expected smiles; teeth everywhere and waving hands. But instead the lined-up faces watched events impassively.
‘What’s going on? Why the hell isn’t Mum in charge?’
Latoc’s hesitation told her something. ‘I have replaced her! The people here wanted this! It is for the best!’
‘What?!’
‘You should go!’ called out Alice. ‘It’s not your mum’s place any more!’
‘Where’s my mum? I want to speak to her!’
‘Your crazy mum went and threw a bloody hissy-fit!’ snapped Alice. ‘She shot Valérie!’
Leona steadied herself on the foredeck as the tugboat bobbed gently. ‘What? She wouldn’t do that! Where is she?’
‘She is in our prison!’ replied Latoc. ‘We have decided she cannot stay here any more! She is going to be evicted! She can leave with you!’
This is crazy. When she’d left Mum was in the infirmary dosed up to the gills on painkillers and antibiotics. Walter was ostensibly running things, maybe not a popular choice, but as her right-hand man, the obvious choice.
The newcomer, Valérie, is in charge? How the hell did that happen?
Leona turned to look at Adam. ‘Something’s gone wrong.’
She turned back to face the others along the railings. ‘This is my mum’s place, for fuck’s sake! She took you all in! You can’t just kick her off!!’
‘This is now a place of God! A place of worship!’ said Latoc. ‘I asked her to join with us, to pray with us. Instead she took a gun and shot me,’ he continued. He waved his bound hand over the side. ‘Do you see? I cannot allow her to stay here any more.’
‘This is my home, as well!’ cried Leona. ‘You can’t stop me coming aboard!’
‘Yes we can!’ shouted Alice. ‘You pissed off looking for something much better, didn’t you? Well tough shit! It’s the faithful only allowed on here. Do you understand!’
‘Alice!’ snapped Valérie, hushing her. ‘I am sorry,’ he continued. ‘I cannot let you and your friends with their