a couple of old-style boxwork cabin cruisers that looked as if they hadn’t moved in decades, an open whaler and a compact sloop with an aluminium mast – too slow, too light and small to make the crossing. Nothing else back in the yard had looked even remotely seaworthy. Clay turned and started walking back to the car. He would have to try somewhere else.
‘Where you going?’ said Punk.
Clay kept walking.
‘Ey there, guv, what you want for the car?’ Punk called after him.
Clay stopped, looked down at his boots, at the oiled gravel of the boat ramp.
‘Don’t worry,’ Punk continued. ‘I can clean it. I have friends.’
‘I’m happy for you.’ All mine are dead or in deep shit. Clay stood, not looking back. He had a decision to make. And he had to make it now. Trust the guy, or leave. Problem was, he was running out of time. Time and options.
Punk was alongside him now. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
Punk led him to a steel door in the warehouse wall, through a darkened loading bay and out through another door. He walked slowly, deliberately, with a pronounced limp, as if one leg was shorter than the other. They were on a raised wharf, looking out over the water.
Punk pointed to a boat swinging on a mooring about a hundred metres out. ‘She’s old, but sturdy,’ he said. ‘France?’
‘No.’
Punk nodded. ‘Good. France is too obvious.’
Clay glanced at the guy, looked away.
‘Full set of sails, working diesel engine, charts, even food on board. I never manage to get out in her anymore. My life’s story.’
A crossing to Normandy by sail would take three days. Punk was right. France was too easy. Medved, the cops, Crowbar’s mercenary friends, they would all be watching. ‘Straight swap,’ said Clay.
Punk took in a short breath and laughed. ‘You’ll have to do better than that. My friends are good, but they take a big premium.’
‘I can give you ten grand more. Cash.’
Punk turned away and started back to the building. ‘Make it twenty.’
Clay considered this. He didn’t have much choice. ‘Done,’ he said.
‘I’ll unlock the gate. Bring it in quick. We can get to work cleaning that blood from the front seat.’
Clay’s heart lurched, hung up an instant, restarted. He stared down at the crumbling concrete of the disused wharf. Without looking up he said, ‘Once I’m gone, give me a three-day head start. I don’t care what you do after that.’
7
A Hundred Hours
They moved the BMW inside the compound and hid it behind one of the wrecked cabin cruisers at the back of the yard. Cleaning out the car didn’t take long. Punk had done this before. Afterwards, he led Clay to a small, brick cottage nestled in a riot of elm and brambles behind the corrugated asbestos office building. The rain was falling now, thick sheets of it, winter oblique, cold. Punk stamped the wet from his clothes, slicked up his hair and closed the door behind Clay. Inside it was warm and dry. A coal fire burned in an open hearth. The walls of the small lounge were covered in guitars, polished wood acoustics, electrics of every shape and colour, even an old banjo.
Punk looked up at Clay. ‘You play?’
Clay raised his hand, his stump. ‘I listen.’
Punk frowned, reached down and hiked up his right trouser leg almost to the knee, revealing a polished metal prosthetic, structure only, jammed into a boot. ‘I watch football.’
Clay smiled.
‘You should get yourself one, amazing what they’re doing with titanium these days.’ Punk dropped his trouser leg.
‘I prefer the natural look.’
Punk grinned, huffed something Clay couldn’t make out, and led him to a small kitchen. ‘Have a seat.’
Clay sat on the only chair. Punk put the kettle on and stepped back out into the lounge. Clay looked out of the kitchen window across the rain-swept estuary and heard the click-click dialling of an old rotary phone, Punk’s voice.
When Punk returned, the kettle was whistling on the stove.
‘My friends will be here by ten,’ Punk said, handing Clay a steaming mug of tea. ‘They’ll have that thing dismantled and on its way to Russia before tomorrow morning. When they put it back together, it’ll be a brand-new car. Impossible to trace. Incredible what these blokes can do.’
Clay looked at his watch. If Punk had called the cops, they’d be here in five minutes, less. There was still time to get out. But where to? He looked at Punk, watched him fussing over the