Whale Boy Read online

  Michael hated the way she said that, so final and so knowing. A flare of anger rose inside him. ‘What have you done with my father?’ He leaned towards her.

  The boat lurched, and JJ cried out. But it wasn’t Michael’s doing.

  Shhhhhrrrrrrchhhhhhh.

  Freedom’s flipper scraped along the underside of the boat as the whale lifted the little craft very slightly, then dropped her again.

  Pwwwwffffff!

  His spout blasted the starboard bow of the Louisa May with the stale fishy smell of his breath. His big square head poked out of the water and he began to swim around the boat, investigating the two unfamiliar passengers with rapid clicks. First he swam one way and then the other, showing the dark eye and the four white scars on the right side of his head.

  JJ and Spargo were transfixed in a way that gave Michael the shivers and made him think once more of cats and their prey.

  ‘Our lucky day!’ JJ breathed. ‘Looks like he was telling the truth after all.’

  Spargo looked at the young whale with narrowed, careful eyes. ‘About six years old, I’d say. Not independent yet, so his family won’t be far away. And he’s very comfortable around this boat.’

  He gave Michael a grim slit of a smile. ‘Well done, lad. You’ve made a very good job of befriending this animal. He should be very easy to catch.’

  JJ pulled two walkie-talkies out of a bag and handed one to Spargo. ‘Call the chopper,’ she said, ‘and the catcher boats.’

  Spargo nodded.

  ‘If we work fast, we could have it in the tank by midnight.’

  Michael shook his head in horror. He had led Spargo and JJ straight to his new friend, who was now swimming around the boat, as curious and friendly as ever. Michael reached for the outboard starter cord: a sudden engine noise might frighten Freedom away in time. But of course Spargo and JJ were sharks, well used to slicing up little fish like him. Michael didn’t even see Spargo’s fist; he just found himself on the bottom of the boat with blood running into his eyes.

  17

  The four boats that had been moored at Golden Cove sped towards them, as streamlined and menacing as barracuda. They spread out in a line like well-rehearsed dancers, and stretched a huge weighted net between them – a wall blocking the whale’s retreat to open sea.

  The young sperm whale had picked up the roar of their engines minutes before they appeared. He had dived, but resurfaced after just a few minutes, only metres away from the Louisa May. Michael guessed that Freedom found the little boat reassuring, like the presence of another whale.

  Michael was lying in the prow of the boat, his hands and feet tied; the blow he’d received sent bolts of pain through his head. With JJ’s help, Spargo had tied him up and taped his mouth. He now lay with his feet and hands lashed to the boat and his head jammed into the prow. Spargo had covered him with a sack.

  ‘Don’t want my crew getting jumpy about the kid,’ he said. ‘They don’t see him, they won’t ask questions.’

  Michael’s left eye could just see a sliver of daylight between the sack and the top of the gunwale, so he could watch the ghastly ballet of boats unfold.

  Spargo steered the Louisa May slowly after the whale – not too close, not too far, just enough for the familiar shape of the boat to make the whale feel that all might yet be well.

  ‘He’s young,’ Michael heard Spargo telling JJ. ‘All he knows about boats is what he’s learned through being close to this one. He doesn’t understand what danger he’s in.’

  Michael screamed through his gag when he heard them both laughing at this.

  Very gently, Spargo coordinating their movements with the walkie-talkie, the boats pushed Freedom closer and closer to land, away from the deep water where he was comfortable. They never got near enough to really spook him, but his clicks would tell him all about the large net preventing his escape. Little by little it drew in: first an arc, then a crescent, and finally a closing C, with the whale and the Louisa May at its centre.

  All this took a long time, but the last and most horrible part happened quite quickly. Spargo steered the Louisa May out through the small gap in the C, and the speedboats closed it behind her, rapidly tightening the ring of the net. Over the revving of their engines and the sound of an approaching helicopter, Michael heard Spargo yelling instructions.

  ‘Pull the bottom of the purse tight now!’ he told the men in charge of the net. ‘Get the divers in!’

  Freedom’s blows were closer together now as his breathing grew shallower with stress. He dived, but must have found the net closed and moving up, forcing him towards the surface. It was like a vice cinched around the whale, holding him tight so that he could no longer turn round or up-end, only thrash his tail uselessly.

  Six men in wetsuits and diving gear went over the side of one of the boats and swarmed around the whale, marking the net with flags on buoys for the helicopter crew to home in on from the air.

  The sun had sunk towards the horizon; the sea was turning from royal blue and turquoise to navy. Blood blossomed in the water around the whale and tinted the vapour of his spout a pale rose colour, as he was chafed and cut by the nets, and battered his tail against the boats. In the low, slanting light, his head was black and shiny as polished jet, the white scratches standing out like chalk marks. He looked suddenly vulnerable, surrounded by the aggressive boats, the chopper hovering, hawk-like, and the shoal of purposeful divers.

  ‘Lower the sling,’ Spargo ordered over the radio. ‘Steady now. Keep between the buoys.’

  Something like a vast grey bandage dangled from the dark mouth at the side of the chopper and was lowered into the water. The divers guided it around the whale’s middle. This took several attempts, and more blood blossomed as Freedom thrashed around in desperation.

  But at last the huge sling was around his body and the helicopter winched up the slack cables until they were taut. Now it could begin to take the whale’s weight, but it hesitated. Michael saw the crews, the divers and Spargo all look from the whale up to where the chopper hovered, as if suddenly realizing what a huge task it faced. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished that the cables would snap, the net would tear, or that the people now so intent on doing this terrible thing would just stop, stop, stop, and let his friend go.

  But it was only a small pause in the nightmare . . .

  Spargo was shouting to the pilot and crew of the helicopter in the walkie-talkie: ‘We’ve done the calculations. We know it’ll take the weight. Do it! Just do it!’

  Slowly the helicopter rose and took the strain, until the sling had lifted the whale out of the water, the dark mass of the head showing at one end, the great triangular tail at the other.

  The sun dipped below the horizon, and the last peach-coloured light spilled over the sky. Below the helicopter swung the whale, out of his home, his element, his tail beating uselessly. Michael could only imagine his terror. Nothing would make sense. Nothing would be familiar. It would be like madness. It tortured him to even think about it.

  ‘Take it straight to the tank,’ JJ ordered over the radio. ‘Spargo will alert the Rose Town crew.’

  The chopper wheeled round and headed south, with two of the black boats speeding along beneath it. The shape of the captured whale shrank into the growing dark and the sound of the rotor blades faded.

  Michael slumped in the bottom of the boat, his head pounding. He was beginning to drift out of consciousness . . . Then he heard the other two speedboats drawing up to the Louisa May, one on either side. There were voices – a mixture of Spanish and English: Spargo and JJ giving orders in two languages. Someone walked across the Louisa May and stepped off onto the other boat, which then cast off; the sound of its engine retreated, and faded to nothing. Now there was just the quiet slap of water and the low bumping of two boats rafted side by side, the Louisa May and one other. Michael was alone with Spargo and JJ once more.

  Spargo pulled off the sacking and untied him from the boat, so although his han
ds and feet were still bound he could sit upright. Spargo propped him in the bow and threw a bucket of seawater over him. Michael opened his eyes and saw the pair of them sitting amidships looking at him. Light from the black boat moored alongside slanted over the Louisa May.

  ‘Good work, Michael,’ Spargo said. ‘We’d never have got that whale so easily if it weren’t for you. But like I say, now we need more information . . .’

  ‘The medallion,’ JJ said, and ripped the tape from Michael’s mouth.

  He shut his eyes again.

  ‘Look, Michael,’ she went on. ‘NME, Spargo and I – we’ve done a lot for Liberty. People are grateful. Nobody will care if one little old lady dies in hospital or some smart-arse schoolgirl goes missing. So tell us where the medallion is.’

  After everything he’d witnessed, Michael was sure JJ meant what she said. He felt faint; he knew he couldn’t stay conscious for much longer, but he lifted his bound hands and touched his chest.

  JJ gasped. ‘It’s on you? He had it on all the time – you could have just taken it, Spargo, you idiot!’

  She leaned forward and pulled the string from under Michael’s neck band; he felt the medallion slide off his skin. She held it up to the light.

  Michael watched her lips mouth the familiar words. ‘That’s it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Davis gave us the time, and now we know the place!’

  ‘We can have the packing plant up and running as we planned,’ Spargo said. ‘We’ll have those first two million packets ready in no time!’

  ‘And the visitors will be flooding to see the captive whale at the Exhibition Centre,’ JJ added. ‘So many jobs in Rose Town will depend on us that no one will dare get in our way! My profits will be huge.’

  ‘Our profits,’ Spargo corrected her.

  ‘Of course. Yes.’ JJ smiled at him. ‘I should never have doubted you, Spargo.’

  It was like being a mouse listening to cats discuss how they’d bite your head off. Michael’s eyes closed and the words drifted over him, almost as if they were no longer anything to do with him.

  ‘What shall we do about the boy?’ Spargo asked.

  ‘He’s been every bit as useful as we hoped.’ JJ could have been talking about the battery life on the walkie-talkies. ‘But now that we have this information, I don’t want to risk anyone else getting hold of it or knowing where it came from.’

  ‘You sure about this, JJ?’ Spargo’s voice rasped. ‘I mean . . . he’s your own flesh and blood, your son: murder is not something we should take lightly.’

  JJ’s reply was as sharp as shattered glass. ‘I’ve seen you take murder lightly enough in the past, Spargo,’ she snapped. ‘I never was mother material, as my mother-in-law was so fond of telling me. This is business. That’s all.’

  Spargo sighed. ‘As you like. Pass me the gaff there, would you?’

  The Louisa May was a tough little boat and her planks didn’t want to spring apart and let in water. But Spargo was strong and the metal of the gaff irresistible. With no more than ten sharp blows she was holed, just below the waterline.

  ‘There,’ he said, recovering his breath after the effort. ‘That’s a decent little hole. Won’t sink her for a while – plenty of time for us to get away.’

  JJ retied Michael to the inside of the boat. ‘One more thing before we leave,’ she said. ‘Now that I know what they both tell us, it’s best if these go to the bottom with . . . the boy.’ Her voice caught a little on the last two words. She put the strings of both halves of the medallion around Michael’s neck.

  The Louisa May lurched twice as the two of them climbed up into the speedboat. Then there was a roar of engines, and at last, quiet. The only sound was the trickle of water slowly filling the bottom of the boat.

  Thoughts slopped about in Michael’s head, disconnected and confused, as he slid in and out of consciousness. None of them made any sense. The whale suspended in the air. JJ his mother? Water – water in the bottom of his boat? The Louisa May would fill and sink, and he was tied to her, so he would drown. It didn’t seem to matter that much.

  18

  There was a whisper underneath the boat. Something large moving there. A gentle touch. A probing stream of clicks.

  Michael’s face was partially submerged, the water washing around the side of his head and cooling the place where Spargo’s fist had struck. The water had been covering his mouth a while ago, almost up to his nostrils on one side, but now he was breathing through his nose, and through the little hole he’d managed to bite in the tape over his mouth. He spluttered. The water level was falling; he could feel it creeping away from his body. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, he wouldn’t drown after all.

  He opened his eyes. The moon was low in the sky and the stars swam up and down on the dark water. He realized that the Louisa May was no longer floating: something solid was holding her up – Freedom? For a wonderful moment he thought he had been dreaming, and that his whale was still free, and now visiting him as before. Then he remembered. But if it wasn’t Freedom under the boat, gently lifting her, then who was it?

  Pffff! A whale blew close by.

  Sspffff! – another.

  Ppppffsss! Another.

  Weeeeepffffff! A fourth, quite different from the rest; a squeaky blow, as if the whale had a flute caught in her blowhole . . .

  There were splashes around the boat, signs of giant bodies moving smoothly in the water. Michael remembered the day of the storm, and the whales that had approached the boat – Freedom’s family. They’d come looking for him and found the Louisa May instead. He tried to look around the boat, but he was bound too tightly, and his head filled with blackness once more.

  When his eyes opened again, the moon was gone. The boat was still being supported, and he heard blows and gentle swooshings of water around him. He felt a little stronger and, by biting and pushing with his tongue, freed most of his mouth from the tape. Faint and far away in the dark, there was the sound of an engine, a single puttering outboard. It came closer and closer.

  The whales heard it too. Michael could feel their anxiety in their puffing blows and the streams of clicks, as if they were discussing what to do.

  With a shushing scrape, the Louisa May was lowered back onto the water. There were four more deep outbreaths, and the surface sighed as the great flukes lifted and sank. The whales slipped down, and were gone. Immediately water began to trickle back into the boat, more quickly than before.

  ‘Michael!’ Voices called across the water, faint and distant but clear.

  ‘Michael!’ It was So-So and Mr Joseph!

  But another voice was calling too: ‘Michael! Michael!’ Eugenia? Eugenia Thomson!

  Sheer astonishment pulled Michael free of the last cobwebs of unconsciousness; coughing and spluttering, at first he called out almost too weakly to be heard.

  ‘Here!’ It didn’t sound like much of a word, smothered by the flapping edge of the tape on his mouth. He tried again, more loudly this time, feeling the strength return to his voice: ‘Here! Hurry!’

  Their approach was agonizingly slow. They were too far away to hear his voice over the outboard, so they had to stop, listen, then come closer, stop and listen again. The water in the boat was several centimetres deep already. It wouldn’t have to fill the Louisa May to make her sink. Even half full, her gunwale would be under the surface, and then she’d go down in seconds.

  ‘Sinking!’ he yelled.

  ‘Swim, Michael!’ Eugenia yelled back.

  ‘Can’t. Hurry!’

  Everything had come back with Michael’s consciousness. The terrible throbbing pain in his head and the places where the rope was biting into his wrists and legs; the agony of knowing what had happened to Freedom; and a fierce, fierce determination not to die. The call and response, call and response between his friends’ boat and himself built and built, faster and faster, as the water flooding into the Louisa May approached its deadly tipping point. There was a terrifying crescendo when the only thing Michael c
ould do to increase his chances of staying alive was to keep up a constant loud screaming, a wordless animal sound, made of fear and pain.

  Then there was a blur of action and terrible anxiety as the boat reached him; blinding light from a torch; engine noise; the buffeting of a boat; Eugenia shouting, ‘He’s tied in!’

  In the torchlight, Michael saw his friends’ expressions switch from hope to terror as they realized that, even now, right next to the Louisa May, they might still lose him if he couldn’t be cut free.

  So-So held the two boats together, and Eugenia and Mr Joseph slashed frantically at the ropes tying him, their hands groping blindly under the water. But Michael realized it wasn’t fast enough: he was still firmly tied to the Louisa May, and any second now . . .

  The sickening scllooop came as the boat’s gunwale went under. The water rushed in. So-So’s arms, as strong as steel, held onto Michael, but they were now also supporting the whole weight of the Louisa May and the water inside her. Mr Joseph and Eugenia carried on trying to cut him free. Michael had never heard Mr Joseph curse, but he cursed now, and Eugenia cried. Still So-So held him, silent, straining, his breath coming in more and more laboured gasps as the water-filled Louisa May pulled, pulled, pulled at So-So’s boat, trying to bring her down too, as if the goal of all water was to drag the whole of creation down into the depths.

  Through a blur of fear and horror, Michael experienced a moment of absolute calm: he saw that he must not take his friends down into the darkness too. With the very last of his strength, he wriggled and pushed them away to free them from the sinking boat. It made Mr Joseph and Eugenia lose their grip on him and propelled So-So backwards. But So-So had not let go, and the sudden backward wrench broke the last strands of rope holding Michael to the Louisa May. As the rescue boat rocked back onto an even keel, Michael was scooped into it, on top of his friends.

  For a moment all four of them lay in a breathless tangle; then Eugenia said, ‘This is positively the last time I ever get in a boat with you, Michael Fontaine!’