The tide was rising quickly. It was now at mid-thigh; squatting, it soaked him to the waist.
He shifted a little to relieve the cramp in his bad leg, and suddenly realised his error. All had gone quiet because the other man had been listening for him. Before he could react, a fist punched through the drainage hole right beside him and an arm hooked around his neck, seizing him by the throat. He could not bring up the blade and use it in defence: the space was too constricted. Simon increased the pressure, bracing himself against the wooden floor inside, tightening his hold.
Aleksey dropped the sword and brought both his hands up to the forearm around his windpipe, attempting to pull it away. This man was not as strong as the giant Russian who had once tried to crush his throat, but Simon had the advantage of leverage.
There was something twisting in his fingers, Billy’s toy, and he tried to free them so he could dig and scrape at the man’s skin. With both hands he could just keep the elbow from its full squeeze, but he was struggling badly, sensing himself greying out. He caught hold of Simon’s wrist and tried to bend it back. Simon hissed alongside him, but still the hold tightened.
Harry had said he could swim. That he would escape the whirlpool that way. Aleksey remembered his words and found himself replying in his head to the old man, ‘Yes. And I can hold my breath too—watch me.’
Slowly, he began to free his own fingers from the entanglement that entrapped them—Slinky Snake. A metal spring sold on a promise to excited children that it could walk down stairs. Simpler days. He had not been able to recall the toy’s name when he’d seen it on the asylum bed, but now its sibilance played in his head as he fastened it around the other man’s wrist. Around and around, clinching the metal tight, and when he was done, when his sight was gone and he was more dead than alive, by feel alone, he bound the other end to the axel.
He slumped and knew he was at the end of his swim and if he had not swum hard enough he would now be lost.
* * *
Chapter Forty-five
He came back to consciousness underwater and tangled in seaweed. He panicked, kicking out, unable to get his bearings, choking and swallowing water, totally disorientated. He windmilled his arms around, sensed space, and pulled on the framework, and then he was out in moonlight. He gasped and vomited water and spat and breathed.
The space beneath the cabin was gone; the tide had risen right over the axel and was now seeping into the interior of the tractor.
Only then did he hear the cursing and banging.
He pulled himself up cautiously to peer over the lip of the interior.
Simon was kneeling, punching at the floor of the cabin which rose in front of his face.
He sensed Aleksey, possibly noticed the light drop as he blocked the moonlight and stopped his attempts to get free and fumbled into the shallow water around his knees. Aleksey levered himself over the side and dived forwards.
Simon found the gun, but, one-handed, bleeding where he’d been punching at the wall, he couldn’t do much with it and Aleksey relieved him of it fairly easily.
He took a deep breath of relief and sank with his back against the opposite wall, letting the gun hang loosely in his fingers.
‘Let me go. You have no idea what you’re doing or who you’re dealing with.’
Simon Raiden was not looking nearly so relaxed now. The bluff and bluster and extreme self-confidence that had allowed him to saunter so mockingly after them were entirely gone. Aleksey could imagine he’d been pulling at the metal fastening for some time and that his wrist was now extremely painful—his other hand was swollen and the knuckles ruined.
‘Why don’t you tell me then.’
Simon considered his situation for a moment. It had clearly not escaped his notice that the seaweed which draped the cabin went someway above his head. Perhaps, being a landlubber, he genuinely didn’t get the significance of this. Yet.
‘You’re going to release me anyway, once you think he’s far enough away.’
‘You clearly know very little about me.’
Simon slumped to sitting, his arm still trapped awkwardly through the hole. Aleksey didn’t relax—if their positions were reversed, he’d pretend he was secure until he wasn’t. Deciding to take no chances, he pushed himself reluctantly to his feet. Simon tracked him with his eyes. ‘You can’t leave me here like this.’
Aleksey lowered himself back into the water then fished out his phone. He’d never tested its underwater illumination abilities, but he clicked on the app and then duck-dived back beneath the axel.
The metal slinky was digging into the pinned man’s wrist. Like a Chinese finger trap, the more he’d pulled, the more it had tightened. Aleksey made sure it was well attached to the axel and smiled when a finger was raised at him from the disembodied hand. As he was twisting around to exit, he saw a glint from the seabed. He grinned wider and scooped up the sword. He didn’t put it between his teeth as he surfaced and climbed back into the interior, but he wanted to.
The water was now a couple of feet deep in the side-on cabin, so Aleksey climbed past Raiden and into the driver’s section, where he was able to perch in the dry.
Simon watched this with a cautious expression of optimism. Perhaps he’d thought he’d been abandoned to his fate when his captor had left. Now he was back, Raiden obviously felt things were looking up.
Simon shifted himself into a more comfortable position.
‘Why did you think I’d come here to kill him? I’m puzzled. Surely you have worked it all out—that’s why you were looking for him.’
