The lock on the far doors of the yacht’s lounge snicked loudly, and the twin handles began to turn.
A man and a woman entered. He was holding a menacing-looking pistol in his right hand, while she carried a clump of small, spiral-bound notepads and a handful of pens. In truth, any pistol looks menacing when it is pointed at you, and this one was pointed unfalteringly at the three of them seated on the pink couch.
Clara Fogsworth’s first thought on seeing the weapon was, ‘How rude,’ for it is certainly not the height of decorum to aim a gun at another person, especially an elderly, unarmed person. But then she looked at the man’s face, and she was no longer surprised.
Ralph Winkler just grunted, as if he had been expecting this all along, and the sooner they got it over with the better. He did think, though, that he might have seen the gentleman with the gun somewhere before, but he couldn’t quite remember where.
Bingham Statham sat with his lower jaw touching his chest in total shock at this latest turn of events. He didn’t know the man with the gun from a bar of lavender-scented soap, but he recognised the woman all right.
‘Hello, Bingo,’ she said, using her private name for him that he’d always thought was a bit silly. ‘It’s a real pleasure to see you again, considering the circumstances.’
‘Hello, Candy,’ Bing said, thinking maybe he should have mounted her head on his trophy wall while he’d had the chance.
Clara still said nothing. She was quite determined not to, in fact. The absolute curmudgeon! Tall, handsome and athletic he might be, but Mr Joseph Sturdee was nothing more than an amoeba on the scale of worldwide evolution as far as she was concerned.
Then Ralph finally clicked. ‘You’re that actor,’ he blurted out, as if it were a crime in itself. ‘You play Doctor Messenger on The Beautiful Years.’
Joseph Sturdee’s smile was as menacing as the gun. ‘Used to play.’ He had given that smile daily, terrorising the other characters in the soap opera for over fifteen years, just to be dumped, unwanted by the network, booed and pelted in the street by fans. All because he had left his real-life wife, the popular and charismatic Pepper Green, to have an affair with Candy Statham, the wife of the Coke millionaire.
And to top it all off, Pepper had sued him and won millions! Not that she needed the money. Her star shot up like a comet after the affair, and her character on the program became one of its hottest properties.
All Bing could think of to say to Candy was, ‘I had a ferret named after you. It died.’
‘How sweet, how very touching in fact, but now that we’ve exchanged pleasantries, we have a little business to attend to.’ Brusque and business-like, Candy bustled around the room, handing out pads and pens, while ushering Ralph and Bing to seats on opposite sides of the cabin.
While all this was happening, Bing thought that Candy was quite wrong. About the ferret. It was neither sweet nor touching. He’d read somewhere that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And so he’d named his ferrets after his two ex-wives, to remind him of his mistakes.
‘I want you each to write out the formula for Coca-Cola,’ Candy said brightly. She’d had another face-lift since he’d last seen her, and the skin was drawn tautly across her cheekbones, giving her a pastiche semblance of youth.
‘When you’ve finished, hand it to me. I’m going to compare each of your recipes with each of the others. If yours doesn’t agree, then Joe here is going to throw you over the side.’
‘And we’re a long, long way from land,’ Joe added, rather unnecessarily.
‘I’m quite sure that as soon as we’ve finished writing, you’re going to tip us over the side anyway,’ said Ralph gloomily. ‘You won’t need us any more.’
Clara and Bing glanced across at each other, the same thought on their minds.
‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ Candy said. ‘We’re kidnappers not murderers. No, we have a nice little retirement home planned for you where you can all live out the rest of your lives quietly, teaching each other to sing in peace and harmony.’
Nobody smiled at her oh-so-witty reference to the famous Coke ad of the seventies.
‘Well, get writing!’ she said testily.