The Sea and the Sand Read online

  The Sea and the Sand

  Finn Óg

  Morph Media & Digi

  For the oul’ fella

  Contents

  For free novellas, short stories or to join the advance reader list to receive new publications before they go on sale, please click on the link to Finn’s official website at the end of this book.

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Part II

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  For free novellas, short stories or to join the advance reader list to receive new publications before they go on sale, please click on the link to Finn’s official website at the end of this book.

  One

  The world is irritatingly small.

  Sam stood on Grafton Street, watched the man go up in flames and cursed how approximate people have become. He sighed for a moment and watched the crowd part like a sea of red, the glow of the inferno flickering off their faces, horrifying and beguiling in almost equal measure. Sam shook his head, looked to the sky and stepped forward to douse the screams.

  He’d grow to wish he’d let the man burn.

  “Snap!”

  Isla was cheating, as usual, in part due to a misunderstanding of the rules. At six years old the fun was more in beating her father to the draw than in stockpiling cards, and so she shouted before the face had even been flipped. It delighted Sam to watch how her little mind anticipated his hand movements, to see her excitement. It seemed like a normal, wholesome thing to do of an evening after all the wee woman had been through.

  They were drifting, alone, across the Mediterranean in their fifty-four-foot home. Progress was deliberately slow, there’d been a lot of rebuilding to do and the work was far from finished. Sam wasn’t sure whether his daughter’s scars would ever properly heal but she was gradually becoming less afraid of bedtime and the potential horror that sleep could bring.

  He’d made resolutions, starting with how he made a living. He wouldn’t take on any more work that could possibly impact his daughter or his family. The last job he’d been embroiled in had done that and more. From here on in, Sam determined, any risks taken would be his alone, and even at that they would be minimal. He had a child to raise and she no longer had a mother to step into the breach.

  “Daddy, you can have some of my cards,” she told him, sliding a frugal collection to his side of the chart table.

  “Thank you, darlin’,” said Sam, the salt and the stubble tautening at a gentle reminder of his daughter’s provenance. Isla’s mother would never have seen anyone stuck; winning had never been Shannon’s priority.

  “What story do you want tonight?”

  “Aw-uh, is it bedtime already?”

  “Not yet, little lady, but in a while.”

  It had become part of the ritual to keep the imagery gentle: stories at night of normal life, of other girls, of school and excitement and toys and boys and the weird and horrible things they do. Sam’s plan was to encourage Isla to want such things again, to grow the appeal of ordinariness rather than the nomadic sea-gypsy style they’d become accustomed to. Although the perpetual sailing suited Sam, and for a while it had seemed the best way to make Isla feel safe, he knew the time would come when she would have to swim in the real world again, so their grift when the wind blew them west, was aimed at Ireland once more.

  By night Sam plotted the charts and the future and occasionally sailed. It allowed Isla to keep watch while he dozed by day in the cockpit. She’d become quite the little sailor, careful and clipped on at all times above deck, and he trusted her. Mostly they anchored or found a marina at night but they’d ended up further east and south than he’d ever intended and luxuries like safe harbours were thin on the North African coast.

  Occasionally, when the notion took him, he stood at the helm and allowed his own healing. The breeze peeled back his grief and the anonymity and privacy of the sea enabled him to let the stream roll down his cheeks. Such moments kept his pain from Isla, avoiding her interrogation and worry. He’d never allow her to see him weep – it would upset her too much. She understood how much he missed his wife, her mother, but it would never be the same as it was for her. Isla hadn’t just lost her mam, she’d held her hand as that beautiful life ebbed away. They’d spoken as she bled out. Isla had cuddled her and looked into the face of her killer, convinced she was next. Worse still, she’d believed it was all her fault.

  Sam read to her until the flood and fall of her little body slowed, and curled his neck to make sure she was deep enough to extract his arm from under her. Then he waited for two full minutes, watching her eyelids for any sign of disturbance. Placated, he went on deck and indulged his maudlin currents, allowing himself to be swept back to better times and to lament his loss. That’s when the tears came. Eventually he’d snap out of it and sail the boat, but for a while he would purge. It brought an odd sort of pleasure – the wallowing, the reminiscence.

  He was shocked when Isla’s little face appeared in the companionway; the yellow light breaking his night vision as she came up the steps.

  “What was that, Daddy?” she said.

  “What, wee lamb?” Sam replied, scraping the tears from the crevices in his face.

  “The noise – the whistle.”

  Sam turned his ears from the wind and stood stock-still but could catch nothing.

  “There. Can you hear it, Daddy?”

  “No, snugs, I think you better go back to sleep,” he said, pressing the autohelm into gear and checking the radar screen to make sure their course was clear.

  He was lifting her into her bunk when she said it again.

  “There it is, Daddy. Why can’t you hear that?”

  “You’re dreaming, wee love. You’re still a bit asleep,” he told her, tucking her in, keen to get back to the helm.

  “I’m not, Daddy. I’m really, really not,” she replied.

  “Ok, I’ll go up and keep an ear out,” he said as he hugged her. He was worried she might not sleep now, and was anxious they were sailing with no watch above. “I love you so much,” he said, and returned to the cockpit.

  And then came the sound: high-pitched – audible to younger ears at a distance, older ones when up close.

  And it was close.

  Amid one hundred thousand square miles of sea, Sam and Isla were no longer alone, and every resolution he had made went over the side.

  Two

  “Wasters,” spat Habid, as he watched honest men haul nets out of the sea. The noise behind him was gradually increasing as the bumper-track of a city came to life with a relentless hammering upon horns. Not that Alexandria ever really slept, Habid was struggling to adjust to the relentless commotion.

  His life had taken some curious turns in recent months. Habid had been a shepherd, of sorts, herding flocks through the sands of eastern Libya. Now he was amassing money hand over fist, more than he’d ever known. It made him rather pleased with himself – cocky, harder, less pleasant than his usual unpleasant self.

  He wrapped up the bits and pieces, keen to get them cleared from the beach before the darkness disappeared entirely. But he afforded himself a few minutes to sneer at the fishermen as they stood th
igh deep in their underpants and plucked the occasional wriggler from an otherwise empty net. What a lot of work for absolutely nothing, he thought. There were barely enough fish in their buckets to make a meal for each man’s family.

  He looked into his little bag – well, it was his now, but a few hours ago it had belonged to someone else. It was filled with pawn, of a sort. For extras. Other travel providers were at it, he thought, so why not? Airlines, rail companies, intercontinental crossings weren’t cheap. Nothing was complimentary any more, even the basics came at a cost. Like water. Or sunscreen. Or a life jacket. Of course, his clients didn’t have any cash left, so he’d been generous to take alternatives.

  Habid hadn’t a clue how long it took. He knew nothing about boats. He knew about dust and sand and living like a bloody Bedouin. The disruption in his own failed state had allowed him to abandon his post as a border guard for Gaddafi, but the sea was a mystery he had no notion of finding out about. That’s why he hadn’t gone himself. Not yet anyway.

  “Get dressed and get your life jacket on,” Sam barked below at Isla.

  “What’s wrong?” she shouted, reawakened from her sleep and instantly alarmed.

  “I think there might be someone in the water,” he shouted back. “Pass me up the flashlight.”

  Isla emerged from her cabin half dressed, reached for the lamp and handed it up to him as he worked the helm with his other hand.

  “Now go and get warm clothes on and your harness and your life jacket.”

  “Ok, Daddy.” She tore off.

  Sam held the wheel and leaned as far outboard as he could, straining to hear the sound again, but it was gone on the building breeze. He must have passed it, whatever it was. He debated leaving it in his wake – it wasn’t his problem, then he saw Isla coming and she put paid to that.

  “We can rescue them,” she said, excitement dancing in her eyes, and for a moment Sam saw her mother looking straight at him.

  There was no question in Isla’s mind about what they ought to do. None. And there shouldn’t have been for Sam either, except that he didn’t want anyone else on his boat, near his kid, for what would inevitably be days at sea.

  Perhaps one day Sam would learn to trust his instincts.

  Habid fancied a treat. A nice place to put his head down before returning to the dust. It was a risk, he conceded, to check into the Sofitel Cecil but it looked so sumptuous after his filthy journey across the desert. He imagined a beautiful shower, a soft, clean bed, a toilet that flushed. He had enough money, but there was no concealing what he was: a sun-dried Libyan blown with the sand by a Spring that had uprooted countless thousands across North Africa.

  Except he wasn’t seeking refuge from it – he was making his fortune from it, and he had a fake passport and a bag full of cash, so he strode in and acted like he owned the place.

  “I can hear someone screaming!” called Isla from her vantage point above the spray hood. She was on tiptoes, peering into the dark, her little ears straining for sounds from the sea. The girth of the waves was increasing and the boat had begun to roll gently into them.

  “What direction?” shouted Sam.

  “What?” screamed Isla in return.

  “Point to it!” he tried instead.

  His little girl turned and gestured with absolute confidence. Sam turned the wheel and headed as she directed. Eventually he too heard the noise – a woman, he reckoned, yelling from the surface. He leaned over again, glancing at Isla to make sure she stayed well inboard. He painted the surface of the sea with the LED beam but detected nothing.

  “We’re not close enough, Daddy. It’s over there,” shouted Isla above the thunking draw of the diesel’s pistons.

  They carried forward. A high-pitched wail reached Sam from the starboard side, just as Isla had indicated, and he gently brought the boat around, conscious he could do more harm than good to anyone flailing around beneath them. He was also wary of any stricken vessel languishing in the sea. If he hit something, they would all end up in the water.

  His beam caught something and he stroked the torch back to find it again, but it was gone in the swell. His mind reached for the image – a black-clad human with arms in the air. In that position they’d no doubt plummeted beneath the waves and perhaps hadn’t come up again. He coated the area again, hunting as much for a boat as a person. As always, his primary concern was his little girl; he wouldn’t let their home sink for anyone.

  Then there was a slightly different tone coming from the water, a new urgency to attract the beam. Sam jabbed and swiped the torch like a dagger but couldn’t find a face, which must surely be turned towards the light. Suddenly two images were revealed and he juddered back to catch a veiled woman and a child. Of all the thoughts he might have mustered, his first was pointless: why hadn’t she taken off the niqab? The child was clinging to a pathetic life jacket, half inflated; the sort of useless article found under the seat in a passenger plane.

  “Come and take the wheel, Isla,” Sam ordered, confident in his little woman’s ability to hold the boat steady to a compass bearing. He reached for a line out of the aft locker and tied it around his waist.

  “Keep the boat at zero-six-zero, darlin’, ok?”

  “Ok, Daddy,” Isla said, half frightened, half excited.

  He kicked off his shoes, tore off his fleece, stepped over the guardrail and dived in.

  Habid lay between the fragrant crisp white linen sheets of the largest bed he’d ever seen and wondered whether the job had been done.

  He took comfort from his surroundings as the wind rattled the shutters outside. He imagined the fuel must be close to exhausted as his cheek plunged deep into the spongy pillow. Habid hadn’t cared about the outcome of previous trips – he hadn’t given them a second thought, but this one was slightly different – if it worked out then a much grander plan could be put into action. So, try as he might, his thoughts prevented him from dozing off.

  Sam pulled fifteen hard strokes before the line snagged at his waist. His strength in the water had been hewn long before his years in the Special Boat Service but that had its drawbacks: he swam face down. It had been drilled into him in childhood, during the 6 a.m. training lengths he’d hammered out every morning in a Belfast pool as one of his bleary-eyed parents gazed on from the gallery. Because of that he’d taken his eyes off the woman in the water and now had to relocate her in the moonlight. He needn’t have worried.

  Treading hard and breathing fast, he kicked round to confirm his bearings and find Isla but was gripped from the sea by a birdlike claw. He span in shock and was confronted with the menacing mask of the niqab and rabid eyes cutting through even the blackness of the garb. How the woman managed to remain afloat in the sodden shroud baffled Sam, but he barely had a second to ingest the image of the frightening figure before a girl of similar age to Isla was thrust towards him, unconscious, her head lolling back into the sea.

  It took all the power in his legs to remain afloat in the waves as he extended the child, unfolding her like a tripod. He raised her head and rolled her slightly towards him. With his left arm curled all the way round her neck and over her face, he managed to pinch her nose and place his mouth over hers, forcing it open with his chin.

  The woman immediately started screaming, slapping and grabbing at him in protest and Sam wished she would just succumb to the deep. He breathed hard into the tiny lungs and used his right forearm to bellow the child’s stomach as if playing the pipes. All the time he was being scrabbed and punched by the woman, and it was after he’d exhausted his second lungful that he turned and pushed her back, lifting his legs to give her as hard a kick off as he could. But she had somehow caught the life jacket and the rope between him and the boat, so wasn’t going anywhere. He’d no choice but to keep kicking and breathing for two. Every exhale was matched with a glance up towards the boat and Isla and at least two slaps or punches from the woman to his rear. He was about to give the effort up as hopeless when the child’s body s
tarted to gently convulse in his arms. He raised her further from the sea and she vomited heartily all over his half-submerged face. The result quieted the mother and placated Sam until he became aware of an entirely more frightening risk.

  He looked up at their boat, now thirty feet away, and saw another woman emerging from the water, up the bathing ladder towards where Isla stood, alone.

  Three

  Despite the decadence, Habid couldn’t enjoy his treat. It wasn’t his conscience that prevented rest, he possessed little by way of guilt or regret, nor was it concern that events at sea may not have gone to plan – that would have annoyed him, but it wouldn’t have surprised him. No, Habid was worried about getting caught. Not so much about being arrested, but the prospect of losing his earnings. He’d worked hard for his money and if some hotel worker alerted the police, the spoils would vanish. Baksheesh, they might call it. Corrupt wouldn’t come close to characterising some police officers.

  Deportation he could deal with – it was his intention to return to Libya and repeat the process anyway, refining nicely as it was. Losing the loot, however, wasn’t attractive. He’d spent years taking border backhanders in the eastern desert, so he knew that capture would result in his money being pocketed by some low-level Egyptian official.