Domi’s pale eyes glittered in the moonlight, but the face that had been clean-shaven in the CCTV images was now covered with thick stubble, and he wore a beanie pulled low over his ears.
Tamsyn said the first words that came into her head.
“Besnik Domi, I’m arresting you for the illegal importation of a banned substance and … and…” her mind went blank.
There was no evidence that he’d killed Saemira Ruçi, even if it’s what they believed.
He cocked his head on one side, a small smile doing nothing to soften the cruel planes of his face.
“I am?”
“Yes! I’m a police officer.”
He shrugged.
“And that is a police dog?”
He glanced at Mo whose hackles were up and all her fur standing on end, making her look like an angry puffball.
“No, but…
“And you are too pretty to be a police officer.”
“I … I … well, I am.”
Even as she said it, she knew that she sounded ridiculous. She was ridiculous.
“Have you ever arrested anyone before?”
“That’s not the point!” she stuttered.
“I don’t think I want to be arrested today,” he said, taking a menacing step towards her. “So I will say no.”
“We have to get going!”
The hurried words came from Uncle George and Tamsyn nodded, automatically backing up so she was next to him.
Mo’s lips peeled back revealing sharp canines, and her eyes narrowed as she focussed on the mobster, a fierce growl rolling up from her throat.
Tamsyn put her down carefully, then pulled out her phone, backing away from Domi who was still advancing, but Uncle George bumped her arm, and the mobile slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the deck.
She started to say something but her grandfather was on his feet, scowling at Uncle George.
“You fool!” he snorted. “You bleddy stupid fool!”
“Shut up, Ozzie,” said George, his face tense.
Tamsyn couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, what she was hearing. She stared at George, confusion slowing her movements.
And finally Tamsyn saw what her grandfather had already seen: a gun tucked into the top of George’s overalls, a gun that he was now pointing at Tamsyn. This wasn’t right – it simply wasn’t where her brain had organised him to be.
Everything happened in less than a second as her grandfather threw himself forward, knocking George over, and Tamsyn screamed as the sound of a pistol shot echoed across the harbour.
Ozzie fell as if in slow motion, his eyes rolling upwards when his knees hit the deck. Then he toppled sideways, unmoving, as blood soaked his white hair, spreading across the deck and draining lazily from the gunnels.
“Ozzie! Why did you have to do that?” George cried out as he gazed down at the man he’d called a friend for forty years.
Tamsyn was on her hands and knees.
“Grandad!” she whispered, shock stealing her breath. “Oh my God! Grandad!”
She crawled towards him, slipping in his blood, but George gripped her shoulder, yanking her backwards, holding the gun in his other hand.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Tammy,” he hissed, his voice grim. “You shoulda minded your own business.”
“You shot him!” Tamsyn’s voice was shrill with horror. “You killed him! He was your friend and you killed him!”
She gasped, gazing up at him, this man, this man she’d known her whole life.
“Why?”
He didn’t reply, but she already knew the answer. It had been staring her in the face and she’d been too blinded by love, too certain of loyalty to see it. It wasn’t Jonas Jedna, it never had been.
Who else knew how and when to foul Ozzie’s spark-plugs then replace them with good ones? Who else knew the trick of making the Daniel Day’s cranky old engine spring to life? Who else knew exactly how to place the blame on Ozzie? Who else in the whole harbour would they have trusted beyond reason? Who else would she never suspect? Never in a million years.
She was too shocked to fight him as he dragged her into the wheelhouse, pushing her to one side where she collapsed in a heap.
Her hands were red with blood and they shook as she held them out like Lady Macbeth.
It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault. The words thundered through her head, drowning out her harsh gasping cries.
She curled into a tight ball on the hard floor of the wheelhouse and waited to die.
“We need to leave,” she heard George say urgently. “Someone could have heard that shot.”
The Albanian’s voice sounded almost bored.
“You English are soft – no one here knows what a gunshot sounds like. But yes, my friend, we should go. Drop the old man over the side. Weight him down properly this time, no more mistakes. Then the girl.”
A tiny part of her still hoped, still believed that George would refuse to kill her.
But he didn’t.
Weight him down. That’s what Domi had said. He’d been referring to Saemira, Tamsyn felt sure of it.
Oh God.
“I know what you’re thinking,” George said to her, his voice almost beseeching until it gradually hardened. “Why did I do it? Well, why wouldn’t I? That’s what you’ve got to ask yourself. Fish all played out, government left us to drown after Brexit – all their promises were lies.”
Domi smiled, clearly entertained by a rant he’d heard before.
“And I thought you made your money from the Hellbanianz for the last ten years, my friend, but it was stinking fish all the time.”
Ten years. Ten years?
“You’ve been working for them for ten years?” Tamsyn asked, looking up slowly, a terrible thought planting roots in her soul. “It’s ten years since Dad died.”
George wouldn’t or couldn’t meet her eyes, busying himself with starting the engine and making ready.
“You bastard,” she whispered. “You complete and utter shit of a human being. You murdered your best friend.” Then she filled her lungs and screamed at him. “You murdered my father!”
He whipped around, trapped, his eyes feral.
“No! No, I never. It was an accident. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, I would have seen him right. I’m not the first and I won’t be the last. We could have done something, the two of us! He thought buying a ring-netter was enough. He thought small, he couldn’t help it. That’s why your mum left. Did you know that? Danny always said he didn’t need much. He was a fool! But there was no better seaman ‘cept Ozzie himself. We could have made real money for a change! But he was just like Ozzie. Stubborn! Too prideful, too…”
“Too honest!” Tamsyn spat the words out.
George didn’t reply for several seconds, only the low throb of the engine filling the silence.
“I’m sorry, Tammy. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was an accident. But once you’re in, you’re in. There was no going back. I did what I did to protect you, to protect all your family.”
“Fuck you, Uncle George! You’re a liar, and a coward and a murderer, and I’ll see you rot in prison!”
Tamsyn burned with rage, almost destroyed with hatred and the need for revenge. She wanted to kick and bite and scream and feel her nails tearing into his flesh.
George turned away from her, the conversation over, but Domi clapped, an ironic round of applause.
“She has fire,” he said with a smile that made Tamsyn’s skin crawl. “Perhaps I’ll keep her.”
“I’d rather die!” she snarled.
He lifted one shoulder. “That is the other choice.”
“Stop arsing about and cast off,” George interrupted. “Time we’s going.”
Domi gave Tamsyn another assessing look, then jumped off the boat and started casting off the lines that attached the Mari-morgans to the pontoon.
“George!” Tamsyn begged. “Uncle George … leave him here. I’ll speak up for you if you just stop now! I’ll say that you didn’t mean to hurt Grandad, that Dad … that Dad was an accident. I’ll say that you’ve helped my family since he died. The police are on their way now – leave Domi here! They’ll arrest him and we’ll be safe. Please, George.”
He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, but his expression was regretful.
“I can’t, Tammy. They’d kill me.”
“So you’ll let him kill me instead?”
He turned away from her again and it felt as if her last shred of hope had been surgically removed from her heart.
“They’ll find Grandad’s car,” she said. “They’ll know what happened.”
George shook his head.
“No, Tammy. They’ll find ten wraps of cocaine under Ozzie’s spare tyre with yours and your Grandad’s fingerprints all over the car. And underneath the jack in the boot of your Fiat, the police will find a hundred tabs of Ecstasy. They’ll assume you were involved, you and Ozzie both. They’ll think it was all you. And when you disappear…”
She slumped to the floor, her knees beginning to throb from when she’d fallen to the deck.
The engine roared and Tamsyn felt the hull shudder as the boat chugged out of the harbour.
When Domi crowded into the wheelhouse, she tried to scramble away from him but there was nowhere to go. George’s gaze was fixed on the gaping mouth of the harbour’s entrance and he wouldn’t even look at her, but the Albanian squatted down close beside her, amusement dancing in his cold gaze.
“You see? I said you would not arrest me.”
“The police know all about you,” Tamsyn said, her voice wobbling, so afraid she thought that she might wet herself.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said indifferently. “They won’t find me. By the way, I must thank you for that list of all the other places that they’re looking for me. Very helpful.”
Tamsyn fastened her gaze in the far corner, refusing to look at him. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing how scared she was, how utterly without hope.
But he gripped her chin, his fingers digging into her skin and forced her to look into his eyes.
Tamsyn couldn’t help the tremors that racked her body. Was this how he’d killed Saemira? She’d had finger marks on her jaw, too.
“Maybe I’ll take you with me – you’d be surprised how much I can get for an Englishwoman. And I’ve had a lot of expenses on this trip. Although the truck I lost is worth more than you.”
He shoved her dismissively and she fell to the deck. Tamsyn lay there, winded then struggled to lift her head, as if the heaviness in her soul weighed her down.
“I’m not English, I’m Cornish,” she whispered as she stared up at him. “And you can go to hell,”
“Perhaps. But you first.”