The quay was moving behind her mother's head. Ruth watched a yellow bollard pass the window, followed by the corner of the ticket office and a man walking his dog. He was going home. She had been going home too, until Vera's message arrived.
“You said you'd turned your ankle.”
“And you said hello. Such a nice start. Shall we try it again?”
They stood at the back of the wedding salon, just inside the doors to the aft deck. A gold balloon brushed the ceiling above them. It said MRS when it turned one way and showed its seam when it turned the other. Vera had put on a green silk dress that Ruth hadn't seen before. With her red leather bag over her arm and a glass of wine in her hand, she looked very well for an injured woman.
Ruth had come in jeans and a shirt, left the car about eighty metres from the pontoon gate and boarded to find her mother. Vera was in the lavatory, someone had said. Ruth had waited. She had watched the crew lift the gangway without quite believing they would sail while she still needed to get off.
Now it was seven thirty-three, the hired boat was leaving North Quay, and a man in a dark suit was coming towards them.
Vera saw him. Her smile stayed in place, but she lowered the wineglass to a table.
“Leon. You've missed the speeches.”
“I've heard them.” He stopped close enough to speak without raising his voice over the music. “May I have a word?”
“I'm collecting my mother,” Ruth said. “We need someone to turn the boat round.”
“I won't take long.” He looked at Vera. “The twelve thousand, please.”
Ruth waited for her mother to laugh. Vera's hand moved to the clasp of her bag.
“Here?”
“We agreed today.”
“Yes, but here?” Vera glanced towards the front of the room. “At Nina's wedding?”
The bride was there with a little group of guests, her white skirt caught up in one hand so that no one stepped on it. Beside her stood a broad man in a pale waistcoat. He was shaking hands and drawing people towards the tables. Ruth knew Nina by sight. Vera had talked about the wedding for weeks, down to the flowers and the sins committed by the woman making the cake. She had said remarkably little about the groom.
“Martin asked me to see you before you left,” Leon said.
“He's managed that,” Ruth said.
Leon turned to her. “Mr Kells.” He indicated the man beside Nina. “Your mother borrowed money from him for a business venture. Twelve thousand pounds is the amount outstanding.”
“I can explain my own affairs,” Vera said.
“Then explain them.”
“Oh, don't use that voice.”
Ruth could feel the evening she had planned slipping away. Jo would be putting takeaway cartons on the one clear stretch of kitchen worktop. There would be no wedding music, no strangers, and no reason to stand upright for a while. She had finished a hard week and wanted to sit down with someone who didn't need anything dealt with.
“Who owes it?” she asked Leon.
“Your mother.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“You asked for an explanation.”
“I asked her.”
He gave a small nod, accepting the distinction without moving away.
Vera touched Ruth's sleeve. “There's no need to make him feel unwelcome. We've had several perfectly civil afternoons.”
“Six visits,” Leon said.
“And I gave you tea on every one.”
“The payment, Mrs March.”
Something in his face made Ruth stop looking at the quay. His voice was quiet and his hands were open at his sides. She had seen people remain that quiet while deciding whom to hurt. She had also seen frightened people make themselves perfectly still. The stillness told her very little on its own. The fact that he had ignored her request to leave told her more.
“Does my mother know you're here to collect it?”
“Yes.”
“Mum?”
“I knew there might be a conversation.”
“Twelve thousand isn't a conversation.”
“Everything starts as one.” Vera tried the clasp again and winced. Her right thumb had been troubling her for months. Ruth reached for the bag before she had thought about doing it, then stopped with her hand between them.
Vera looked at the offered hand. She turned the bag and opened it with her left.
Leon said, “Your mother told me you worked with people in difficult situations.”
“Did she.”
“Police negotiation.”
Ruth looked at Vera. Her mother was taking time over something inside the bag.
“You used my job?”
“It came up. People ask about your children.”
“It came up while you were asking him for more time?”
“You're very suspicious this evening.”
Leon said, “She suggested you might be able to help.”
There it was. Vera had invited him to imagine a daughter with a salary, a profession and a reason to keep her mother out of trouble. No amount of tea would have been as useful as that.
“I haven't agreed to pay anything,” Ruth said. “I haven't guaranteed anything. My job has nothing to do with her debt.”
“I understand you're not a guarantor.”
“Then keep me out of it.”
A waiter came through the doors with a tray of empty glasses. Ruth moved aside. Leon did too, pleasantly, and the waiter thanked him. Vera looked past them towards the front of the room, where someone had started applauding. For a moment Ruth wanted to leave her to it. She could ask the crew to get her ashore and let Vera spend the rest of the cruise explaining herself.
Then Vera's thumb caught again, and the thin hiss she made was familiar enough to bring Ruth back.
“Put the bag down,” Ruth said.
“I can manage.”
She set it on the little table beside her wine. Inside was a blue zipped pouch. It was full enough to pull at the zip. Vera covered it with one hand while bringing out her phone with the other.
“Before I do anything, Leon, there's this.”
She found a message and held the screen towards him. Ruth leaned in. The message was a week old.
Pay the full £12,000 and I won't approach your daughter about it.
Leon read it. “Yes.”
“You wrote it.”
“Yes, Mrs March.”
“Not one of your assistants?”
“I don't have assistants.”
Vera smiled at him, and Ruth saw his mouth close a little harder.
“Then we understand each other,” Vera said.
She put the phone down, unzipped the pouch and took out cash.
Not the handful of notes Ruth had sometimes found under a saucer at her mother's flat. Bundles. Vera laid them on the table, drew out some more and separated them with her left hand. There was still a great deal inside the pouch.
“Twelve,” she said.
“Where did you get that?” Ruth asked.
“Let him count it.”
Leon drew a chair out and sat. He checked the first bundle, sliding each note away with his thumb. Vera remained standing over him. Ruth stayed by the doors, where she could see the quay getting smaller and the table at the same time.
They could have been settling the bill for the cruise. People passed with drinks and glanced at the money, then looked away. One woman gave Vera a warm smile. Vera returned it without missing a beat.
“Lovely colour on you,” she said.
The woman touched her jacket, pleased, and carried on.
As a child Ruth had loved watching her mother with people. Vera could make a birthday wonderful when there was almost no money. She could make an adult forget the thing they had been angry about. Ruth had enjoyed being beside her when it worked, before she was old enough to wonder what she would have to do if it didn't.
Leon finished the first count and began the next. His fingers were quick, but he went through everything. Vera reached for her wine, missed the stem and picked it up on the second attempt.
“Your daughter needn't wait,” he said.
“We're on a boat,” Ruth said.
“I meant here.”
“I'm waiting here.”
He did not argue. The music changed. At the front of the salon Martin put an arm round Nina and kissed the side of her face. She laughed and pushed him away with the hand that held her skirt. It looked like a wedding Ruth might have enjoyed if she had been invited and had known anyone besides her mother.
Leon counted the last loose notes, checked the piles once more and brought them together.
“Twelve thousand,” he said. “Received.”
“And Ruth?” Vera asked.
“I won't approach her about your debt.” He looked up at Ruth. “You won't be drawn into the collection, Ms March. It's finished.”
“I'm glad we've got that far.”
He took a large envelope from inside his jacket, put the cash into it and folded the top. Once it was back in his pocket, his coat hung unevenly.
Vera shut the pouch, pushed it deep into her handbag and collected her phone. “There. An expensive cup of tea, but it was good tea.”
Leon stood. “Good evening.”
He went towards Martin. Vera watched him go before she picked up her bag.
“Now,” Ruth said. “Where did the money come from?”
“A deal.”
“What deal?”
“One that worked. You do know they sometimes work?”
“You told me you'd stopped.”
“I told you I wasn't taking deposits. I didn't tell you I'd gone into a home.”
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me argue about something I haven't said.”
Vera let her smile go. Without it, she looked older and much more tired.
“It was my money to pay,” she said. “I've paid it. Nobody asked you for a penny.”
Ruth looked at the closed handbag. Her mother had asked for a lift because of an ankle injury and found twelve thousand pounds at the bottom of her bag. There were several questions Ruth could ask, and each answer would give her more work. She wanted, very badly, to get them both off the boat before she asked another one.
“Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk.”
“On the ankle?”
Vera put her wine down. “It's the heel, actually.”
“You turned your heel?”
“It's a blister. Those shoes have never done this before.”
She moved towards the doors. There was no limp from the ankle. On the third step she shortened her stride and eased the back of one shoe away with the other foot.
Ruth held the door for her. Outside, the air was cooler and the engine louder. The pontoon was already too far away to hear anything said on it.
“You could have told me it was a blister.”
“Would you have come?”
Ruth looked at her mother until Vera turned towards the rail.
“It's a very bad blister,” Vera said.
A crew woman stood beside the closed gangway gate, checking its fastening. She wore a navy jacket and had a radio clipped near her shoulder. Beyond her, the harbour opened out between low buildings and rows of moored boats. MARIGOLD was bigger than Ruth had thought from the quay. There was another deck above the salon, reached by a stair at the side of the doors. People were going up with glasses in their hands.
Ruth approached the crew woman.
“Can you ask the captain to take us back?”
The woman looked from Ruth to Vera. “Is someone ill?”
“No. I came on to collect my mother. I shouldn't have stayed aboard.”
“I can ask. We're hired until nine.”
Vera said, “There's really no need. We'll enjoy the cruise.”
“I'd like to get off,” Ruth said.
The woman waited. Ruth could hear the music through the open door and the slap of water against the hull. She had an absurd wish to say that she had left something in the oven. It would be easy to understand. Nobody would need to ask who Leon was or why Vera was carrying all that money.
“There's been an argument about a debt,” she said. “With a man working for the groom.”
“Has he threatened you?”
“He hasn't threatened to hurt me. He's gone away for now.”
“Has he threatened your mother?”
Ruth looked at Vera. Her mother was watching the crew woman with the friendly attention she gave people whose help she might need.
“He's been coming to her flat,” Ruth said. “I don't know what's happened there. I only met him just now.”
“It's finished,” Vera said. “We paid him.”
“You paid him. And you brought me into it before I even got here.” Ruth turned back to the crew woman. “I'm concerned about it. I don't want to spend the next hour and a half aboard with him.”
“What's your name?”
“Ruth March.”
“I'm Ada. Let me speak to the captain.”
Ada moved a few steps away and spoke into her radio. Ruth heard her say there had been a dispute over money and that a passenger wanted to return because she felt unsafe. The description sounded stronger than Ruth's own. She wanted to correct it, then thought of Leon continuing to stand there after she had said she needed to leave.
She stayed quiet.
Vera came close to her. “Well, you've made a nice little problem out of nothing.”
“What would you have liked me to say?”
“You could have asked whether I wanted to spend the rest of the evening at my friend's wedding.”
“You asked for a lift.”
“And now things are different.”
“They usually are by the time I get here.”
Vera turned away. The remark had landed. Ruth could see it in the set of her mouth, and felt the brief, ugly satisfaction of having said something her mother couldn't immediately improve.
Ada came back. “The captain's going to bring us in. He needs a clear place to turn. It won't be straight away. About fifteen minutes, possibly a little more.”
“Thank you.”
“I'll be here. If there's another problem, tell me.”
“The captain won't be cross with Nina, will he?” Vera asked.
“He'll explain to Mr Kells.”
“Of course he will,” Vera said.
Her fingers went round the handbag strap. Ruth saw her change her grip, taking the weight off her right thumb.
“I'll tell Nina myself,” she added. “She's got enough to worry about.”
Ruth followed her back through the doors. The salon seemed warm after the deck. Someone had spilled wine by the little table, and a waiter was wiping it up. Their glasses had been cleared away. Nothing there suggested that twelve thousand pounds had changed hands a few minutes before.
At the front of the room Nina was disentangling her skirt from a chair. She straightened, said something to Martin and went into the passage on the right. Ruth saw the white dress pass the opening to the galley and disappear through a door farther along. Martin was still beside Leon. Neither was looking at the back of the room.
Vera stopped.
“Why don't you sit down?” Ruth said.
“In a minute.”
“Your foot hurts.”
“Yes. It does. I'm glad we agree on something.”
Ruth pulled out a chair at the table. Her mother lowered herself into it, put the bag on her lap and slipped her heel free of the shoe. She had worn shoes like that to stand for hours at parties. Usually Ruth would ask where she'd got them and Vera would say something about a little place she knew, as if giving the name would use it up.
“Let me see.”
“It's only a blister.”
“Then this won't be much of a drama.”
Vera lifted her foot a little. The back of the heel was raw. There was no swelling round the ankle. Ruth looked under the table for a discarded napkin, then caught herself. A napkin wasn't going to help. She sat opposite her mother instead.
“What happened to the venture?” she asked.
“Which venture?”
“The one you borrowed the money for.”
“Some of it didn't work.”
“And the rest?”
Vera pulled the shoe back on. “Some of the money got spent. Rent. Things.”
“You told me you were all right for rent.”
“I didn't want you worrying.”
“So you gave a debt collector my name.”
“You make everything sound so sordid.”
Ruth tried to slow herself down. Ask one question. Give her time to answer. She could do this with strangers whose reasons were much worse than Vera's. But there was her mother's red bag on her lap, and Ruth still had the car keys in the pocket where she had put them when she expected to be aboard for five minutes.
“Was the money yours?”
“It was there to pay him.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“I'm aware of that.”
Ruth's phone vibrated. Jo had sent a photograph of two takeaway cartons balanced on the bare kitchen units. A screw lay between them. Beneath it was a message: I've put yours in the oven. Where have you got to?
Ruth wrote: On the wedding boat with Mum. They're taking us back. I'll ring when I'm off.
She looked at it before sending. It gave Jo the practical facts and none of the trouble. For once that was all Ruth wanted to give anyone.
“Jo?” Vera asked.
“Yes.”
“You should have said you were having an evening together.”
“We live together.”
“I meant a special evening.”
“It was just an evening.”
Vera rested her sore hand on the bag. “You used to have more patience with me.”
Ruth put the phone away. “I used to think you were in hospital when you told me you were.”
She regretted it as soon as Vera looked at her.
“Oh, we're doing that now?”
“No.”
“I got you those shoes. I didn't forget.”
“I know you got me the shoes.”
She had been fourteen. The woman at school had accepted Ruth's explanation about her mother being in hospital, and the missing payment had become something to be patient about. Vera had said how well she'd handled it. Later there were the shoes Ruth had wanted, lovely shoes, and she had worn them. That hadn't made the lie any less hers to carry.
Now Vera was hurt, and Ruth was angry that the hurt required tending before her question could be answered.
“I shouldn't have said it like that,” she said. “I'm asking about this money.”
Vera looked towards the front of the salon.
Nina had come back out of the passage. She spoke to Martin, touched his sleeve and pointed behind her. He looked towards the passage, then at Leon. Nina left them and moved down the room. She stopped at a table to ask something, stooped to look under it and straightened again. Her skirt dragged where she had forgotten to lift it.
Vera put her foot down and drew the handbag close to her chest.
“I'm going to find Nina,” she said.
“She's coming here.”
“Then I'll meet her.”
Vera rose. Ruth got up too, almost knocking her chair into the waiter behind her. She muttered an apology. By then Nina had reached them.
“Ruth. Hello. I didn't know you were coming.”
“I wasn't. Mum asked for a lift.”
“Her foot's bad?”
“It's a blister.”
“I've got some flat shoes in the little office. That's where I've just been.” Nina looked at Vera. “Have you seen a blue pouch? A zip one, about so big.”
She held her hands apart.
“What sort of blue?” Vera asked.
Ruth turned to look at her.
“Just blue,” Nina said. “Dark blue. It was on the desk.”
“Well, things get moved at weddings. Catering people have been in and out, haven't they?”
“I've asked them.”
“Let me have a look.”
“Would you? There's quite a lot of money in it.” Nina pressed the palm of one hand to her skirt, smoothing a crease that sprang back when she let go. “I'm trying not to make a fuss. Martin's asking round.”
Vera took Ruth's arm. “Come and give me a hand.”
“You've got it,” Ruth said.
She hadn't meant to say it quite so loudly.
Vera's fingers tightened above her elbow. Nina looked from one to the other.
“What?”
Ruth could still choose her words. She could say there was a blue pouch in her mother's bag and they hadn't yet established that it was Nina's. She could ask Vera to open it. Instead, all the replies Vera had made while getting the bag closed seemed to come back at once.
“You paid him with it.”
“Ruth, stop.”
“Show her.”
Nina's hand stayed against her dress. “Paid who?”
Vera leaned towards Ruth. “Can we have one minute? Just you and me.”
“No.”
“I'm asking you for one minute.”
“Is it my pouch?” Nina asked.
Her voice had changed enough for a woman at the next table to look round.
“Nina, dear, you don't want to do this here,” Vera said.
“I want my money.”
Vera turned a little, trying to put Ruth between herself and the room. “Tell her you came for my ankle. That's all you came for. You didn't see anything else.”
The request was made close to Ruth's face. Her mother had kept her voice low, but Nina was only a pace away. She heard it too. Ruth saw her eyes move to the bag.
“I came because you said you needed a lift,” Ruth said. “And I saw you take money out of a blue pouch. Twelve thousand pounds. You gave it to Leon.”
Vera released her arm.
“Thank you,” she said.
Ruth knew that voice. It made her want to explain herself before she had even finished.
Nina looked towards the front of the room. Martin was already coming. Leon followed a few steps behind him. The guests between them moved their chairs aside, still talking, unaware of what they were making room for.
Martin stopped beside Nina. “What's happened?”
“Ruth says Vera's got the money.”
“I saw a pouch,” Ruth said. “I saw her pay twelve thousand out of it.”
Leon looked at the red bag.
“Open it,” Martin said.
Vera held the bag by its strap. “I'm speaking to Nina.”
“Then speak.”
Nina touched Martin's wrist. “Let me ask her.”
He looked down at her hand, then stepped back half a pace. Ruth saw the effort he made to smile. It might have worked on someone just arriving at the table.
“Vera. Is it in there?” Nina asked.
“There is a blue pouch in here.”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
Nina's hand fell away from Martin's wrist.
“You took it from the office?”
“I was going to speak to you.”
“When?”
Vera looked at Ruth. Then she put the bag back on the table and opened it.
Ruth had thought that once her mother stopped lying there would be something easier to do. There wasn't. Nina reached towards the open bag, and Vera lifted it away before she could touch it.
“I'll give it to you,” Vera said.
“Then give it to me.”
Martin looked round the salon. The woman Vera had complimented was watching from a nearby table. A few other people had noticed the group, though the music and talk carried on around them.
“There's a room up there,” he said. “We don't need an audience.”
He pointed to the forward passage. Ruth could see the door Nina had used. A small office off a narrow corridor. Martin, Leon and Vera, with Nina hurt and trying to keep her wedding together. Ruth didn't want to follow them into it.
“We can do it here,” she said.
“Who's this?” Martin asked Leon.
“Vera's daughter. Ruth March.”
“I'm not a guest,” Ruth said. “I came to collect her.”
“She's a police officer,” Leon said. “A negotiator.”
Martin took another look at her. Her jeans, the car keys pushing at the pocket, her shirt sleeves rolled up. She had an urge to pull the sleeves down. She left them where they were.
“Right,” he said. “Then you understand why we need to keep this calm.”
“Give Nina the pouch, Mum.”
“How much was in it?” Leon asked Nina.
“Forty-two thousand.”
Ruth looked back at the bag.
“Martin put in thirty towards our house deposit,” Nina said. “The other twelve was our wedding money. People gave us envelopes. They were writing cards and putting them in the box all afternoon.”
“And she took the lot,” Martin said.
Vera shook her head, but when Nina said, “Did you?” she answered, “Yes.”
Someone at the next table began to get up, then sat down again. Ruth could feel eyes on her mother. The green dress had made Vera look as if she belonged everywhere in the room. Now she was a woman clutching somebody else's money, and Ruth could see how hard she was working to keep her chin up.
“I needed some of it,” Vera said to Nina. “I knew you had—”
“You knew I had money there?”
“I meant that you weren't short.”
“So you didn't ask.”
Vera said nothing.
“Eight years,” Nina said. “You could have asked me.”
“Would you have lent it?” Vera asked.
Nina stared at her.
“I don't know. I don't know what I would have done. You didn't ask.”
Nina kept looking at Vera, waiting for an answer. Vera rubbed her sore thumb with the fingers of her left hand. Ruth wanted her to say something to Nina that didn't make things worse.
“How much is left?” Martin asked.
“Thirty,” Vera said.
“Leon.”
“She paid me twelve.”
“With our money. Get it out.”
Leon put a hand to his jacket. He didn't take out the envelope.
“It was given to me as payment.”
“I know what it was given to you as. It's not hers. We haven't been paid anything.”
“Return it to Nina,” Ruth said.
Martin looked at her. “You work on your mother. I'll work on him.”
“She needs to give back the pouch. He needs to give back what he took. There's no need to go into that room.”
“She doesn't need your permission to give me my money,” Nina said.
Ruth stopped. She had been telling Nina what was going to happen without asking her once.
“You're right,” Ruth said.
Vera pulled the pouch from the bag. It was still thick with notes. She laid it across the open handbag and kept her left hand on it.
“Leon, I paid you,” she said. “You counted it.”
“I did.”
“Then that's settled.”
“Nothing is settled,” Martin said. “You still owe twelve thousand. This goes back where it came from.”
“You can't have it both ways.”
“You took both lots from us. Try telling me you can't have it both ways.”
Vera's fingers tightened on the pouch. Ruth could not tell whether she was trying to keep the money or simply trying to keep something to hold.
Martin leaned towards Leon. “Five hundred pounds you're getting for this. You can do better than standing there.”
Leon's face reddened. He looked at Nina, then back at Martin.
“You've asked me to return the twelve thousand.”
“I'm asking you to help me get all of it.”
“It's here,” Ruth said. “Everyone can see it's here.”
“Then why haven't I got it?”
“You will have,” Vera said. “Nina will have it. There's no reason for you to speak to me like that.”
Martin reached for the pouch. Vera caught it against her bag and took a step back. The shoe pressed her heel. She stumbled against her chair and he caught her wrist.
“Leave her hand alone,” Ruth said.
Martin didn't let go. Vera had gone very still. His fingers were round her right wrist, just below the thumb that hurt.
“Martin,” Nina said.
He loosened his hand at the sound of her voice. Vera pulled free, holding the bag and pouch awkwardly between her left arm and her body.
“I'm getting the crew,” Ruth said.
“We're dealing with it,” Martin said.
Ruth turned towards the aft doors. They were a few steps away. Ada was outside; Ruth could see part of her navy sleeve beyond the open door.
Leon moved between Ruth and the opening.
“Stay here, please.”
“Move.”
“Your mother has the money. Let's get it back.”
Ruth tried to go past him on the other side. He put his hand round her upper arm.
For a moment she looked down at it without understanding why it was there. Then she tried to pull away. He held on, turning her back towards the table. Her arm hurt above the elbow.
“Let go.”
“Don't make this difficult.”
“Leon,” Martin said. “Keep her here. Vera can stop this any time she wants.”
Vera looked at Ruth. She had the pouch in her left hand, the red handbag hooked over the same wrist. Her mouth opened and nothing came out.
Ruth reached into her jeans with her free hand and took out her phone.
“Put that away,” Leon said.
She tried to lift the arm he held. He tightened his grip, and pain ran down towards her wrist. The phone screen lit in her other hand. She couldn't make herself look at it. She was watching his fingers and the way the skin pressed up between them.
“Ada.”
The name came out too quietly. Ruth drew a breath and called it again.
Ada turned and came through the doors.
“Take your hand off her,” she said.
“It's a family matter,” Martin said.
“She's asked him to let go.”
Leon looked at Ada. His hand did not move.
“You promised,” Vera said.
“This money was stolen.”
“I paid you. You said you wouldn't use her.”
“Mum,” Ruth said. She wanted to tell her to put the money down. It came out as her name and then a breath she couldn't finish.
Vera tried to set the handbag on the table. The strap caught round her wrist. She tugged it free, dropped the bag and shoved the pouch towards Nina.
“Take it. There's thirty. All the rest. I took it from the office. I took it.”
Nina accepted it with both hands. She looked inside, then held it against herself.
“Now let go of her,” Vera said.
Ada was speaking into the radio. “Captain, I'm in the aft salon. A man is holding a passenger by the arm. She wants him to let go. We need help here.”
Ruth heard the radio answer but couldn't follow the words. The pressure on her arm had become the only thing she could properly think about. She was afraid to pull again. She hated that Leon could feel her stop trying.
“We've got the pouch,” Nina said to Martin. “Tell him.”
Martin was looking at Ada's radio.
“Leon. Bring your money over here.”
Leon released Ruth.
She moved back at once. Her heel hit the leg of a chair, and she caught the table with her free hand. Ada stood beside her without taking hold of her.
Leon reached into his jacket and took out the envelope. He went to Nina, opened it and laid the cash on the table in front of her.
“That's twelve thousand.”
Nina set the pouch down beside it. “I'll count it.”
“You held my daughter,” Vera said.
Leon looked at her. “She was going to bring—”
“Yes. She was. I could have asked for help too.”
Vera stopped. Ruth saw her look at the pile of money, then away from it.
Martin said, “I told you to keep her there.”
“I told her the collection was finished.”
“And I told you it wasn't.”
“She paid me. I counted it and accepted it.”
“With stolen money.”
“I didn't know that.”
“You know it now. She's still twelve short.”
Leon closed the empty envelope between his hands. “Then speak to her.”
Martin moved towards him. Nina put her hand flat on the money.
“Stop it,” she said. “Both of you.”
The music was still playing. Ruth had been hearing it all along without knowing what the tune was. The woman at the next table had her phone in her hand. Other guests were watching openly now. Someone near the front called Nina's name, uncertain whether she needed help.
Nina shook her head without looking up.
Ada spoke to Martin. “The captain's ended the charter. We're returning to North Quay. He's asking for police assistance.”
“I paid for ninety minutes.”
“You can discuss that with the company.”
Martin looked at Ruth's phone. She was still holding it. His eyes moved to Nina, whose dress was brushing the spilled wine beneath the table.
“Put some music on that people can dance to,” he called towards the front of the room.
Nobody hurried to do it. After a moment he straightened his waistcoat and walked a few steps away. He turned back to Nina.
“We can still have the meal.”
She was opening the pouch. “I need to count this.”
“I'll help.”
“I'll do it.”
He stayed where he was.
Ada asked Ruth, “Do you want to sit down?”
“In a minute.”
Ruth moved far enough from Leon that she could put the phone to her ear without passing him. Her fingers were shaking. She had to try twice to make the call.
“Police, please,” she said when it was answered.
She gave her name and said she was an off-duty officer. She gave the boat's name and North Quay. The words were ordinary ones, words she knew, but she kept needing to stop for breath.
“There's been a theft. The money's been returned. During the argument a man held my arm to stop me going for help. Another man was telling him to keep me there.”
She looked at Leon when she said it. He heard her. He folded the empty envelope once more and put it into his jacket.
“Yes. He's let go now. I'm with a member of the crew. We're coming back in.”
She answered the questions she was asked. She did not say that she could deal with it herself.
By the time she finished the call, Vera had moved close enough for Ruth to feel the heat from her shoulder.
“Let me see your arm.”
“Not now.”
“He's hurt you.”
“I know.”
Vera took a step back. Ruth put the phone away and sat in the chair Ada had pulled clear of the table. Her knees felt weak now that nobody was holding her. She kept her sore arm against her side.
Nina counted the cash Leon had returned. She was careful with each bundle, separating notes that clung together and making small piles she could check. Then she counted what was in the pouch. Vera stood on the other side of the table and watched. Twice Nina lost her place because Martin spoke. The second time she told him to leave her alone, and began that pile again.
The floor tilted gently beneath Ruth's feet. Through the window she saw the shore change direction. They were turning. It had taken all this time to reach the point where the captain could do what she had asked.
Ada went out to the deck and came back to say that another crew member was there, ready for the approach. She asked Leon to wait away from Ruth, towards the forward tables. He looked at Martin, who was beside a chair he hadn't sat in, then went where she pointed.
“You won't be getting your five hundred,” Martin said after him.
Leon stopped. Ruth thought he might come back. His hand went briefly to his jacket pocket. Then he continued towards the front of the room.
Nina counted the last notes and checked her piles against one another.
“Forty-two,” she said. “It's all here.”
She put all the money into the blue pouch, including Leon's twelve thousand, and zipped it closed. Vera watched her do it. When Nina picked it up, the red handbag was left open and nearly empty on the table.
“Nina,” Vera said.
“I don't want to hear it now.”
Vera shut her mouth.
Martin came back. “We've got it. You haven't lost anything.”
Nina looked up at him. Ruth couldn't see her face, only the angle of her head and the hand that tightened on the pouch.
“Don't say that to me.”
He stood there for a moment, then said, more quietly, “Your dress is in it.”
He pointed to the wet floor. Nina looked down and gathered her skirt. Martin reached to help. She moved it out of his reach without speaking.
Vera put the red handbag over her left shoulder and looked at Ruth.
“We'll be back soon,” she said.
Ruth nodded. She couldn't bear to be reassured by her mother yet.
Nobody went back to dancing. People sat with the drinks they already had, speaking more quietly than before. One couple came down from the upper deck laughing, saw Nina at the table with the pouch and fell silent. A waiter took the tray of food he was carrying back towards the galley.
Nina called him back.
“Can you put that down? They might as well eat.”
He looked at Ada, who said she would ask the captain whether the meal could carry on once they were tied up. Nina thanked her. Then she began to move plates, making room for the tray as if it were possible to get the table back to being a table at her wedding.
“I'll take that,” Martin said, reaching towards the pouch.
“I've got it.”
“I can put it somewhere safe.”
“I've got it, Martin.”
He drew his hand back.
Ruth looked out of the window. The water no longer seemed to be taking them away from the town. She recognised the ticket office again, farther ahead. Its windows caught the last of the light.
She stood carefully. Her legs had steadied, but her arm hurt when she let it hang.
“I'm going outside.”
“I'll come,” Vera said.
Ruth almost said she wanted to be alone. But Leon was still in the forward part of the salon, and she wasn't ready to leave her mother in the room with him and Martin. She went through the aft doors without answering. Vera followed.
On deck, the air moved under Ruth's shirt sleeves. She pulled the sore one down. Ada asked her to wait clear of the gate and went to help the other deck crew member. Vera stood beside Ruth at the rail, bearing most of her weight on the foot without the blister.
They watched the quay come closer.
“You were right about the money,” Vera said.
Ruth didn't answer.
“You don't have to keep looking like that.”
“Like what?”
Vera looked away. A boat moored near the pontoon rocked as MARIGOLD passed it. Ruth could hear glasses being gathered inside and a burst of talk when someone opened the door. It was still a warm room full of people. She was glad to be outside.
Her phone vibrated again. Jo wanted to know whether she was back.
Ruth rang her.
“Nearly,” she said. “We're coming in.”
“Why are you on a boat?”
“I stayed too long looking for Mum.”
“Is she all right?”
Ruth looked at Vera. Her mother was holding the rail with her left hand and watching the pontoon gate.
“She's got a blister. There's been some trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
Ruth told her enough. The money, the man holding her, the crew bringing them back.
“Do you need me to come?”
“No. There's help here.”
“Are you hurt?”
“My arm hurts.”
“Ruth.”
“I'm all right to stay here. I just wanted you to know why I'm late.”
Jo was quiet for a moment.
“Come home when you can,” she said. “Ring if you need me.”
“I will.”
Ruth ended the call. Vera was still looking towards the gate.
“She offered to come,” Ruth said.
“I heard.”
“I didn't tell her to.”
“I didn't say you did.”
Ruth put the phone away. She was tired of answering things her mother hadn't quite said.
The engine changed its note. Ada and the other crew member worked at opposite ends of the landing while the boat eased against the pontoon. Ruth kept out of their way. It took time to get the lines secure, open the gate and put the gangway in place. The car park was visible beyond the quay, and the sight of it made her impatient. The keys were in her pocket. For the first time since she had boarded, they could be used.
There were two police officers at the pontoon gate. Ada waved to them and went along the gangway to speak. One came back aboard with her; the other waited at the gate as people began to leave the salon.
Nina came out carrying the blue pouch. Martin followed, his hand hovering behind her back until she stepped away from it. Vera stood straighter.
The officer asked who had called. Ruth said she had. Ada said the captain had called too and told him what she had seen when she came through the doors.
He listened, then asked Ruth to move a little way along the deck, away from the others. She told him about Leon counting the twelve thousand, Vera admitting the theft, and the hand on her arm. She repeated Martin's order to keep her there. When he asked what had happened before she boarded, she said she didn't know.
He asked to see her arm. She rolled the sleeve up. The skin was marked where Leon's fingers had been, and it hurt when she turned it towards the light.
“It's sore,” she said. “I can move it.”
He asked a few more questions and took her details. Over his shoulder Ruth saw Leon come out onto the deck. He stopped when he saw her talking. The officer at the gate came forward to speak to him, and Ada pointed towards the open space on the quay.
Ruth heard Leon say, “I returned the money.”
The other officer asked him something she couldn't hear. Leon answered with a small movement of his hand, then went down the gangway with him.
“We'll need a fuller account,” the officer beside Ruth said. “For now, you've told me what happened.”
“My mother's over there.”
“Yes. I'll speak to her.”
He turned towards Nina first. Vera watched him go.
Ruth went down the gangway. Vera followed slowly, using the rail and placing her sore foot with care. At the gate her heel caught on the back of her shoe. She stopped and bent to free it, the bag sliding down her left arm.
Ruth took the bag while Vera put the shoe right. It was much lighter than it had looked inside.
“Thank you,” Vera said.
Ruth handed it back.
There was a bench along the quay, a few steps from the gate. Vera sat down on it and took the shoe off. The blister had bled. Ruth stood beside her, keeping her sore arm still, while guests passed on their way towards the car park. Some looked at Vera. Some made a point of not looking.
“Where's your car?” Vera asked.
“Up there.”
“Could we go?”
“They're coming to speak to you.”
“They've got the money back.”
“I told them that.”
“Then perhaps the rest can wait.”
Ruth looked towards the pontoon. Nina was showing the officer the pouch. Martin stood beside her. Leon was farther along the quay with the second officer, under a light that had just come on.
“I'm not taking you straight home,” Ruth said.
Vera rubbed the heel of the foot that was still in its shoe against the ground.
“If you tell them I meant to borrow it—”
“I don't know what you meant to do next.”
“You know me.”
“I saw you take it out of your bag. I saw you pay Leon. That's what I've said.”
“And the rest?”
“They'll ask you.”
Vera looked at her then. She didn't have the smile she used for strangers or the injured one she used when Ruth refused something.
“You could make them understand,” she said.
Ruth could feel herself beginning to prepare an explanation. The money spent on rent. The venture that had failed. The man coming to the flat six times. They were true, or as close to true as anything her mother had told her tonight. She could give them in the right order and watch the listener's face soften. She knew how to do that.
Nina was standing at the gate with the pouch held in front of her white dress. Vera had taken her money without asking. Ruth had seen enough.
“I won't give them a different account,” she said.
Vera looked down at her bare heel.
“I didn't think he'd touch you.”
“I believe you.”
“Then why are you still so angry?”
Ruth drew a breath. It was easier out here, but she still had to wait before answering.
“I came to take you home.”
“I know.”
“That's all I agreed to.”
Vera pressed her lips together. Ruth didn't try to add anything. There were other things she wanted to say, and some of them would only make her mother hurt as much as she did.
The officer on the pontoon was still listening to Nina. Vera watched for a while, then reached for her handbag. She tried to close the clasp with her right hand and winced.
“Use the other one,” Ruth said.
Vera did. The clasp shut.
“I'm cold,” she said.
Ruth looked towards the car park. “I've got a jacket in the car.”
“You don't have to fetch it.”
“I'll be a few minutes.”
Vera nodded, but her eyes stayed on Ruth when she stepped away.
Ruth walked along the quay and through the gate into the car park. The ground felt steady beneath her feet. She found the car where she had left it, unlocked it and opened the rear door. Her jacket was on the back seat.
She stood with it in her hand. The car smelled faintly of the coffee she'd brought from work that afternoon. She could sit down inside, shut the door and speak to nobody for a while. She could drive home. Jo knew what had happened. She would understand if Ruth needed to be quiet.
Ruth closed the door. She locked the car and went back along the quay.
Vera was still on the bench, her shoe on the ground beside her and her bag held against her knees. Nina and Martin had come ashore. Nina kept the pouch. Martin was speaking to the officer, his palms held out in front of him. Ruth could see his smile from where she walked.
Vera looked up when she reached the bench.
“I thought perhaps you'd gone.”
“I said a few minutes.”
“Yes.”
Ruth laid the jacket over her mother's shoulders. Vera put her left hand through the sleeve and left the sore right one inside. She began to ask about Ruth's arm, then stopped when the officer turned towards them.
“I don't want to do this on my own,” she said.
Ruth sat beside her. “I'll stay while they speak to you.”
“You'll stay?”
“Yes.”
Vera moved the red bag from between them and set it on the other side of her. She picked up her shoe, tried to put it on and couldn't quite bring herself to press her heel into the back.
“Leave it off for now,” Ruth said.
Vera let the shoe rest on the ground. She settled the jacket round her shoulders. Ruth sat with her sore arm against her side and the car keys in her pocket.