The Shipping Forecast

Thames - Epilogue

Well, so there you have it. Caught, and no real means of protesting my innocence in the whole affair. I left England in the search of a little adventure to pep up a comfortable but dull life, and came back an infamous criminal, trapped red-handed in the Thames Estuary like a bloody fool that I was.

Ten years at her majesty's pleasure in Pentonville Prison for smuggling, criminal recklessness and damaging crown property. I tried to protest my innocence, but even I found my testimony somewhat less than convincing, and when von Moyton, Brigham and Smith all swore that it had been me that had fired the bazooka, that was that. Henry, of course, denied everything, and being the coward and weasel that he was, let me take all the blame. He only got eight years.

And escaped after two.

But as I sit here, writing this little memoir, sipping a cool gin in the shade of a palm tree next to the white sandy beach and clear turquoise waters of ... let's just say, 'somewhere tropical', I can at least tell you that, in the end, my fall from grace didn't quite turn out the way one might have expected.

Two weeks after my release, as I returned from my morning constitutional (a quick stroll to the local police station to confirm I wasn't breaking my parole), I stepped through the doorway of the shabby little one bed flat that I now called home, and found a letter, hand delivered, on the doormat. Inside was a business card, with the simple inscription, 'I. Berkovitz & Co., Diving and Salvage Experts.' On the back was an address, a date three days hence, and the words, 'Now Recruiting'. I recognised the writing as Henry's.

I think you can guess the rest. But before I go, I should tell you that not all of the contents of Mr Berkovitz's safe came with us. The paper bonds had rotten away to mush. The ninety-eight little bars of gold, with their symbols of awful tyranny stamped upon them, were deposited, with a note requiring them to be used for charitable purposes, in the early hours of one morning on the doorstep of a little police station in Basingstoke, just a short distance off the road from London to Southampton, and its many docks where one can find ships to far-away lands.

And as for Henry, the last time I saw him was seven years ago at this very spot. I waved to him as he waved to me from his new yacht, and II watched as he hoisted the sails and ghosted out of the bay to who knew where. I'm not surprised I haven't seen or heard from him since, but I hope and pray that Henry, and the Isabelle, have found peace.