‘Not specifically, but the Sepik provinces are remote, and we need to be prepared, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Douglas?’

‘If you say so, sport.’

Douglas did not bother looking up from his phone. He seemed withdrawn, probably still stung by the news of the other pilot. Nash had been enjoying himself too much to worry about it. For the first time since the accident, he felt anonymous. Free. With a guilty start, he realised he hadn’t thought about Natalie or Jacqueline all afternoon.

‘Well, here’s to the Hoosenbeck.’ Nash was fuzzily expansive after his fifth beer, and raised his bottle in a toast. ‘May she prove as exciting as we think she is.’

He felt foolish when Douglas gave him a long stare. Kaboro diplomatically suggested they turn in for an early start on the ebb tide.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Port Moresby Harbour, Papua New Guinea

After rounding the depth marker on Natera Reef, Kaboro opened the throttles. Now the Albany revealed her pedigree. Sitting back on her haunches, she dug her twin screws into the blue tropical water and was soon planing at twenty-two knots, thudding across the small swells with ease.

‘Don’t want to push too hard with the extra weight on the stern!’ Kaboro shouted conversationally from his position at the helm.

Nash was drinking coffee in the captain’s chair against the aft bulkhead. Beside him was the chart table, in front, the VHF radio. A magical sea breeze poured in through the open windows, as Saworno’s diesels hummed reassuringly. Exhaust was vented below the waterline and a long, smoky wake billowed in the sparkling sea behind them. Up on the bow, Kaboro’s sailors were revelling bare-chested in the cooling spray.

Observing Nash examining the gauges, Kaboro said, ‘Know your way around a ship, Mr Nash?’

‘A little. My father was navy.’

‘Oh, what rank?’

‘First Lieutenant. Navigation officer.’

In fact, Nash’s first memory was of his father’s long brown legs encased in white knee-length socks. Peter Nash had been absent for much of Nash’s early childhood. When his father came home on leave, it was faintly disturbing to find a bearded stranger in his mother’s bed. In the all too brief weeks that followed, his father had behaved like a fun-loving big brother, taking him fishing and sailing, teaching him and Jacquie to surf. He never pushed too hard because they were all getting to know one another again. Then, just as they began to crave his paternal guidance, off he would go again. It got Nash thinking: When Natalie died there had been two major expeditions to Alaska and Switzerland in the pipeline. What might their child’s first memory have been? Would he have even been there to share it?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Kaboro. ‘Did you say something?’

‘You weren’t tempted to follow in your father’s footsteps?’