The bodyguards clambered ashore. They threw the stern lines off their bollards, and Harker pulled them aboard. ‘Thanks,’ He turned to the wheel.
He pressed the electrical windlass switch, and the anchor chain began to come clanking aboard. The yacht eased forward out of her berth as the chain came up. He felt the anchor break out of the mud: half a minute later it inched up into its cradle in the bows, and clanked into position. Harker eased the gear lever into forward, opened the throttle a little. The propeller bit the water. And the good ship Rosemary began to ease out into the canal.
Harker took a deep breath and held it.
This was it … This was the moment he had dreamed about in his cell. The moment so wonderful that it had been impossible to believe it could happen, the day he would be finally adjudged innocent and set free, walk away out of the shadow of that dreadful electric chair, out of that dreadful prison, out into God’s sweet sunshine …
It had been a dream so impossibly wonderful that it couldn’t ever happen. And now here it was, happening. And not only was the impossible happening, the doubly impossible had happened because his dearest darling Josephine, the love of his life whom he had been convicted of murdering, his dearest person whom his broken heart had believed was dead, was not only alive and well but just a mile away across this beautiful city – but she would not come with him. She did not want to live with him any more because she did not want to love a murderer, and now he was sailing away from her for ever with a broken heart. But somehow all that was unreal too, unreal and untrue that she did not want to love him, untrue that he was sailing away from her for ever, untrue that he was a murderer, it was even untrue that he was sailing away at all. He was sailing towards her, she was waiting for him at her hotel balcony … Harker guided Rosemary down the winding canal between the lovely waterfront houses, and his tears were glistening, and his heart was breaking.
And then the canals widened out at their confluence, and there ahead was Pier 66. The Immigration jetty on one side, the big bridge, the Edgewater Hotel towering up beyond it, the open Gulf Stream and then the wide blue ocean.
Harker steered slowly towards the bridge, tears in his eyes. He lifted the binoculars and looked at the row of balconies of the Edgewater just below the penthouse roof.
It was unreal that he expected to see Josephine up there on her balcony. He steamed slowly towards the bridge; and then it began to open up for him. Slowly the two halves began to part in the middle, rise slowly up on end just for him. Harker steamed slowly underneath, and out the other side. On his left was the Marina Inn complex, jetties and boatsheds and hotel and chandlers and boat brokers, beyond that the lovely canalside homes again. Harker carried on past them. Around the big bend in the canal. And then there, five hundred yards ahead, was the mouth, and the wide open sea, the Gulf Stream, the beaches stretching away to the north and south. And there, rearing up, was the Edgewater Hotel.
Harker looked up desperately at the hotel as he motored slowly towards it. There was no face in the windows of their suite, no figure on the balcony. The tears were running down his face. Closer and closer he slowly approached, and still there was no face at those windows. Then he was at the hotel’s flank, the canal’s mouth opening out into the sea. Then he was passing out of the mouth into the Gulf Stream, the hotel’s gardens and beach dropping behind, and his broken heart leapt as he saw her.
Suddenly Josephine was standing on the balcony, her long hair cascading down her shoulders. ‘Josie!’ Harker shouted. ‘Josie!’ He leapt and waved, a tearful laugh all over his face. He waved and waved and laughed, then he snatched up his binoculars. And his overjoyed heart was breaking. He thought he saw her try to smile for him; then he saw her mouth form some words – and with all his heart he believed they were ‘I love you …’ He dropped his head and wept for joy. Then he swung the helm.
He was well past the mouth of the canal now; he swung the helm around, towards the hotel’s beaches.
The yacht was about eighty yards from the shore, the sea almost flat. Harker rammed the engine into neutral, then flicked the switch and the anchor dropped into the sea, the chain rattling out. He was grinning all over his face. The water was only twenty feet deep here: he waited until sixty feet of chain was out, then he shoved the engine astern. The boat went surging backwards; then he felt the anchor bite into the sand.
Harker’s heart was pounding deliciously as he lowered the dinghy from the davits. He clambered down into it. He unhooked the couplings, then started the outboard motor. It purred into life. He swung the tiller, and the dinghy turned her nose towards the hotel.
Harker put the binoculars to his eyes. He found her: she was still on the balcony, a smile on her tearful face. His broken heart seemed to turn over, he threw up his arm and waved and waved. And he laughed when he saw her wave back.
‘I love you!’ he bellowed. ‘I love you …’
He was thirty yards away from the hotel’s beach now: the yacht was anchored about fifty yards behind him. Josephine was still standing on her balcony. Harker bellowed: ‘I love you!’ He saw Josephine smile, then she turned and disappeared.
He was about ten yards from the beach when the bomb went off, and the yacht erupted in flames.
The boat exploded with a crack like thunder. It exploded in a mass of flying fibreglass and wood and steel, balls of yellow flame and black smoke billowing out and upwards. Then there was another thud as the fuel tanks exploded, another mass of flying debris amidst barrelling smoke and flame.
Harker slammed the nose of the dinghy into the sand. He stared back, astonished, horrified.
Josephine burst out of the hotel. She ran across the gardens, then down onto the beach.
Harker clambered out of the boat. Josephine was running across the sand, aghast. Harker started towards her. She ran into his arms, and they clutched each other, staring back at the conflagration.
Then she looked at him, her eyes full of shock, and she dropped her head on his chest and wept.
If you enjoyed Roots of Outrage, check out these other great John Gordon Davis titles.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN GORDON DAVIS was born in Rhodesia and brought up in South Africa. He went to school in the Transkei, and was a student at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape. He took a degree in Political Science before moving on to the University of South Africa, Pretoria, from which he qualified as a lawyer while serving as a judge’s clerk. He spent his university vacations as a deckhand with the British and Dutch merchant navies. After a spell as a miner in Ontario he returned to courtroom work in Rhodesia as an assistant public prosecutor before becoming crown counsel. He was later appointed to the same position in Hong Kong.
The international success of his first novel, Hold My Hand I’m Dying, allowed him to take up writing full time. His recent novels include The Land God Made in Anger, Roots of Outrage and The Year of Dangerous Loving.
‘This is the New South Africa – and the sins of the past come home to roost in this exhilarating novel of intrigue and courtroom drama. John Gordon Davis puts together a highly satisfying blend of history, politics, romance and adventure. He has a feel for Africa, and in particular South Africa and its people … immaculate research. With a fast-moving plot this becomes a most satisfying thriller. Anyone who lived through the Apartheid era, the developments swinging South Africa to a working democracy and who witnessed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, will realize just how plausible his story is. What a story! What a climax! And what a twist!’
The Citizen
OTHER BOOKS BY
By John Gordon Davis
Hold My Hand I’m Dying
Cape of Storms
Years of the Hungry Tiger
Taller Than Trees
Leviathan
Fear No Evil
Seize the Reckless Wind
A Woman Involved
The Land God Made in Anger
Talk to Me Tenderly, Tell Me Lies
Roots of Outrage
The Year of Dangerous Loving
Unofficial & Deniable
Non-fiction
Operation Rhino
Hong Kong Through the Looking Glass
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com
Unofficial and Deniable Page 48