The meanest Flood

first imagined. You could see right through to the scalp. He climbed up behind the steering wheel. Sam got into the passenger seat, inhaling an aroma of engine oil and stale sweat. The cab was wedge-shaped and behind the seats was a full-length bunk and beyond that a control centre and what looked like a wardrobe. Couple of pinups on the door, photographs of teenage girls with pumped-up breasts, one of them reaching down between her legs to hold her labia apart.
    ‘The going rate’s a grand. That’s non-negotiable.’
    Sam looked over at him but the guy’s eyes were fixed on some spot the other side of the windscreen. ‘You’ve got the cash?’
    ‘I’ve got it, yeah.’
    ‘A mile along the road there’s a lay-by. I’ll be there shortly after dark. You’ll need drinking water and something to eat. A torch with a spare battery. There’s a couple of other passengers, and you’ll be together in the container. It’s not comfortable and you could be inside for up to forty-eight hours. If you don’t have the cash, don’t bother showing. I’m not a charity.’
    ‘When do we sail?’ Sam asked.
    ‘Tonight, just after ten. Croatian rust-bucket called Ivan Mazuranic. ETA Immingham Tuesday morning.’ Sam walked into Kiel and found a supermarket. He bought two-litre bottles of Evian water and a selection of German sausage and cheese, a loaf of bread, oranges and pears, and a couple of bars of Swiss chocolate. At a hardware store he bought himself a Maglite flashlight and some spare long-life batteries; a Walther Solace knife with a three-and-a-half-inch blade and a lanyard so he could hang it around his neck under his shirt. Picked up a small plastic cutting board in the same shop, imagining it would double as a platter from which he could eat his food. And at the chemist next door he got a roll of Elastoplast and a bottle of Olbas oil.
    At a confectioner’s he had coffee and apple-cake and used the lavish gentlemen’s room to sort through his purchases. He put one thousand pounds in twenties into an envelope and stuck it in the side pocket of his rucksack. The rest of the cash he’d brought with him and the two passports he taped to the side of his body with the Elastoplast.
    When he’d finished he walked back to the harbour and looked for the Ivan Mazuranic, to make sure the ship existed. When he found her he wished he hadn’t bothered looking. She was so neglected that rust-bucket was a term of endearment. The Ivan Mazuranic was an unloved and unlovely vessel coated in a thick film of grease and dirt. Black as fuck. Her sides were crusted with red rust and she appeared to be abandoned. There were no sailors on her decks and no sounds emanated from her apart from the wavelets of the harbour lapping gently against her bows.
    While Sam was wondering if she’d make it across the North Sea a taxi arrived and pulled up to her gangplank. The two men who fell out of its doors were blind with drink. The taxi driver left his cab and came around to them. He took a wallet from the back pocket of one of the men and extracted a wad of notes from it. Then he counted off his fare and stuck the wallet and the change back into the guy’s jacket.
    When the taxi had left the two of them crawled up the gangplank. They’re probably the captain and the chief engineer, Sam told himself. He knew from first-hand experience what alcohol was about. In excess it allows you to fail. And failure can be gratifying, even liberating; it relieves you of the need to aspire. Sam had seen it all, done it all, and he couldn’t remember half of it.
    There was still time for them to sober up before the ship set sail. Sailors drank, everyone knew that. They wouldn’t be sailors at all if they didn’t manage the odd bottle of rum. Didn’t mean they were going to send the Ivan Mazuranic to the bottom of the sea.
    Though it would be ironic if Sam met his end because of someone else’s drunken behaviour. To get himself off the drink and to stay more or less dry for all these years only to find himself on the bottom of the ocean with a couple of Bosnian soaks. On the other hand, he consoled himself, I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
    On his way back to the lay-by where he would meet up with the trucker Sam forgot about the ship. He’d be in the container anyway, locked away from the Ivan Mazuranic and its filth, its rats and its paralytic officers. Claustrophobia wasn’t one of Sam’s problems and he hoped that it