Ghosting Home (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  A little Ellen, child of Wendy and Gerald. That was an idea that would take a bit of getting used to. Which of Gold Dragon’s fine qualities might she inherit? How would her parents cope?

  Donny grinned to himself and then he felt that lump in his throat again and the tears pricking the backs of his eyes. He urgently needed a sail.

  “Vicars don’t have babies!” he repeated to himself, as he and his dinghy blew gratefully away from the land out into the broad expanse of river.

  “And dead men don’t move boats.”

  He was looking towards the field where they’d camped. That was the night the fake Hispaniola had come stealthily up the river, preparing to reveal herself in her true colours and begin the sequence of events that would lead to Gold Dragon’s death.

  The Tiger had died too. He’d been taken straight to hospital in England and hadn’t left it.

  So it hadn’t been him who’d transformed the Pride of Macao back into a three-masted schooner and returned her to her mooring. It had been one of the others. And then they had seen the shark-boat at Point Horror. Why hadn’t they made the connection?

  Lively Lady’s lee chine was skidding across the river surface as if she was a one-man bobsleigh instead of a boat. Donny was on her windward gunwale, leaning out as far as his body would stretch, driving her mercilessly into the freshening breeze. He had guessed who was being kept on the schooner.

  This was already the windiest summer on record and last weekend’s idyllic North Sea saunter had vanished into memory like something from a different era. Big clouds were piling from the south-west, not majestic but urgent and continuous: not warning of grim weather to come but stating that it was already here.

  He was sailing the dinghy to her limits, one shift of his weight, one moment’s inattention and she’d be over. All those months dangling from Strong Winds’ stern davits, unused, uncared for in Oostende – would her tackle hold? He whirled Lively Lady up into the wind, let fly his sheets and stopped her in the lee of the Beckfoot as effectively as if he’d fitted her with brakes. That same rope was dangling, apparently accidentally, from her repainted deck. Except he knew now that it wasn’t accidental.

  Donny apologised mentally to his great-aunt for breaking the only promise she’d ever asked him to make and to his uncle for not giving him the chance to share this adventure. He dropped Lively Lady’s mainsail and hauled up her centre-plate; allowed himself a few extra seconds to attach a stern line so she couldn’t swing round. Then he took the painter with him and left the jib flapping. Scrambled onto the schooner’s high deck as if he was completing the final stages of a timed assault course.

  Donny didn’t get down on his stomach and wriggle along the deck. He ran towards the wheelhouse.

  It was good to see that whoever had been ordered to repaint the vessel hadn’t managed to obliterate the scorch mark where Gold Dragon’s first flare had struck. It had been glossed over with a couple of coats of cheap brilliant white, but the ridged marks where the paint had bubbled had not been sanded out and a sooty blackening showed obstinately through.

  “Good,” he muttered to himself, “that’s evidence.”

  The wheelhouse door was as aggressively padlocked as it had previously been but Zhang’s daubed warning sign had been replaced with a more official-looking notice, correctly spelled and including references to some specific section of the Private Property Code. Surely that was evidence as well?

  Donny paused and scanned the surrounding harbour thoroughly for any glimpse of the shark-boat. All clear. And Flint couldn’t be on board already because he couldn’t have got here without transport. There was no sign of the black sharklet speedboat either.

  The small, utilitarian foot-ferry that ran between Felixstowe, Harwich and Shotley was completing its last time-tabled stage of the day. Only one passenger.

  Donny turned his attention back to the bar across the door. As usual all that he had with him was Xanthe’s old rigging knife with its marlinspike. It wasn’t going to make much impression on these heavy-duty security devices.

  One important alteration had been made since from his previous visit. Then, all the windows, portholes, deck-lights had been blacked out from the inside but you couldn’t go out to sea with your wheelhouse windows black. You couldn’t even move a vessel up and down the River Orwell if your helmsperson hadn’t at least the possibility of 360 degree vision. So now there were blackout curtains but the paint had been cleaned from the glass.

  Great Aunt Ellen had given her hand for this ship and its crew.

  Donny hurried for’ard to the anchor winch, grabbed its manual handle and returned. Then he smashed the starboard-side wheelhouse window as thoroughly as he could. He chose the side away from the Shotley shore. The summer sailors had headed for shelter as the weather was worsening fast: it was unlikely there’d be anyone looking this way.

  The glass was so tough. Impossible to knock out every last spike. He took off his buoyancy aid and draped it over the bottom of the frame so its foam rubber protected him as he gripped the sides with his sailing gloves and climbed in. The buoyancy aid was getting a bit wrecked but Donny didn’t care.

  The Beckfoot had periscopes concealed inside her ventilation cowls. That was interesting. It meant that, even when all her windows had been obscured, someone would have been able to keep watch across the harbour, unseen.

  He’d guessed that already so he didn’t spend long peering through them. Not long enough.

  Donny went on down the metal companionway that led into the hull of the ship. There hadn’t been any re-decorating here. The old cream paint was flaky and discoloured, rust stains were showing through and there was a bad smell of stale air – and worse.

  He shouted out but there was no reply.

  The first door he tried led into the engine room: two big engines, obviously in good working order, large diesel tanks, wiring ducted through new-looking plastic tubes and a smell of grease and oil. Batteries, spares and maintenance equipment. All modern, practical stuff.

  Then there were two aft cabins: one obviously lived in. The Tiger’s liar? Scraps of girls’ stuff in the other. Hurriedly he shut both doors.

  The main saloon and crew’s quarters had been converted to an aviary. No living birds remained but there were cages, feathers, droppings, empty plastic bags of seed and one small, bedraggled corpse. Donny shuddered. This boat was horrible.

  That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t the boat that was foul: it was the people.

  The worst of the stink was coming from the fo’csle end. The heads must be overflowing: did he really want to look?

  “Hello?” he called out again.

  There was no answer. The certainty that had brought him here was weakening. Best be thorough. Then he could leave. He wouldn’t mind being wrong about this.

  But he wasn’t.

  A space and a cage. That was all there was. Not a bird cage or a chinchilla cage but a human-sized cage with a live human in it. A toilet. And a belt.

  “Don’t touch that!” Donny yelled and flung himself towards the coiled belt just as the boy in the cage grabbed out for it. “That’s evidence!”

  He knew whose big belly had strained against that piece of leather; he knew that at last he had something tangible to prove that Flint had been here, something that would be impossible for the fat policeman to explain away. He had to keep it safe, make sure that any fingerprints or DNA or whatever clever stuff prosecuting lawyers could flourish in court, was delivered to them, immaculate.

  Donny thought for a moment, staring hard at the other boy.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t touch it.”

  Min tried to answer. Couldn’t.

  Donny didn’t have time to wonder why. Wrong language, he assumed. No time to lose. He dashed back into the aviary, grabbed an empty feedbag, scooped the belt into it without touching, then shoved it safe inside his sweatshirt.

  “Okay,” he said to the other boy, “I know who you are. You’re the survivor wh
o everyone forgot. I’m really truly sorry. But how are we going to get you out of here?”

  Min clutched at the bars with both hands pulling himself against them. His knuckles were white, every muscle taut. He crammed his head against the metal. It hurt. His mouth kept opening and closing but he couldn’t make any words.

  Donny gave him a thumbs-up.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he told him, “Wait here.”

  That was a stupid thing to say he scolded himself as he ran the length of the ship back to that well-maintained engine room. Wait here!

  But his main idea wasn’t stupid. There was a good set of tools in the engine room including a really powerful, battery-operated implement for taking nuts off. The cage wasn’t a part of HMS Beckfoot; it had been added recently. A large section of its bars could therefore be removed with this juddering noisy tool.

  “Don’t worry,” he reassured the other boy. “There’s no-one to hear us.”

  He said that because he hadn’t heard them.

  Min didn’t know how his tormentors arrived at his prison and now he couldn’t speak to warn Donny. He’d been silent for too long. He’d seen too much. Now he was mute.

  When the bars were down and the boys had made it back up to the wheelhouse, they were just in time to see the cross-harbour foot-ferry returning once again to the Shotley landing stage. This time it had a small Mirror dinghy secured alongside.

  Hey! Donny started to climb back out of the window. He’d wave and shout so that the ferrymen would see him, realise their mistake and bring Lively Lady back.

  Then he saw their passenger: a petite figure with her gold locks coiled inside a stylish Gucci cap to save them from the wind. She directed the ferrymen to secure the dinghy to the far side of the marina waiting-pontoon, paid them from her crocodile-skin handbag and stepped briskly away in her high-heeled boots, a mobile phone pressed to her ear. The Welfare officer wasn’t going to waste her time dealing with a couple of maladjusted teenagers. She’d removed their means of escape and now she was calling her colleague, Inspector Flint. She was sure he’d relish the assignment.

  And if they drowned meanwhile? Research suggested that adolescent males from dysfunctional families frequently failed to develop adequate risk-assessment strategies. It would be death by misadventure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sanctuary

  River Orwell, Monday 9 July 2007

  Donny had to clear a lot more jagged glass before they could climb out of the window without cutting themselves. Toxic had taken the buoyancy aid.

  He wondered, briefly, what lies she’d told the ferrymen. She was probably a regular customer now that her sidekick, Zhang, was gone. He remembered, now, that the Tiger had stolen the cross-harbour ferry on the night he’d attacked Strong Winds. Even before that, Donny had watched the ferry when he’d lain hidden in Lively Lady. It had been Zhang again, pushing something in a wheelbarrow, crossing from Felixstowe.

  The schooner lay at one side of the harbour; the newly arrived containers at the other. If he’d included the ferry’s track on his forensic chart he would surely have spotted the link.

  He and the survivor had to get away. The Hispaniola had no sails; her masts and spars were bare. Neither did Donny have any idea how he would go about starting those engines. If only he’d done as he’d been told and brought Defoe.

  He looked towards the shore then tapped the other boy gently on the shoulder and made swimming motions.

  Min couldn’t. He ran clasped his arms round the base of the mizzenmast and shook his head violently.

  Donny didn’t feel that keen either. He’d rather given up jumping off ships.

  The rising gale was coming straight in off the sea. Spindrift was blowing off the tops of the waves and the big clouds had been slashed into tatters. The Beckfoot began lurching and veering on her mooring. Then she swung ninety degrees and steadied, lying to the wind with her stern towards the Shotley shore.

  It was this that gave Donny his only possible idea. They should cast her off and let her blow onto the end of the peninsula – Bloody Point, it was called. Surely he would be able to persuade his companion to splash or swim whatever reduced distance was left? There must be flotation gear on board somewhere. Then they could head for the safety of Erewhon Parva by way of the seawall.

  He could see that the other boy had very little strength but anything was preferable to an encounter out here with Flint. That was surely who Toxic had been calling.

  He tried to explain what they were going to do but the sight of the tossing greybrown waters all round him appeared to instil terror in his companion and he carried on clinging to the base of the mizzenmast. Wasn’t surprising really. He’d been in that container when all those people drowned.

  If Donny did manage to cast off the Beckfoot, it would get scarier once they began to drift out of control onto the shore. Best get him back in the wheelhouse. Give him a job.

  Min wasn’t keen to climb back through the window but Donny persuaded him. Then he stood him at the wheel. He showed him how to turn it and hold it in position. Having the rudder hard over would possibly help anyway.

  Then he climbed out yet again and went forward to battle with the heavy mooring lines. Had to fetch a hacksaw in the end. Grateful once again for the Tiger’s well-stocked engineroom.

  They were free, adrift in the turbulent harbour.

  The Beckfoot’s bows swung away from the wind and Min instinctively straightened his steering as he felt her come round. Donny stood still beside the broken window wondering what was going to happen next.

  Now the wind was pressing on her aft quarter and the corner of her wheelhouse and those three tall masts. Instead of drifting sluggishly sideways onto the lee shore, she began to move diagonally forward. She must have been cleaned underneath, for speed at sea.

  “Wow!” said Donny. “Unbelievable! Come on, you old beauty!”

  He shinned back through the window, lifted Min’s hands from the spokes and shifted him aside. If ever he needed Great Uncle Greg’s spirit to take him over, it was now.

  All those years of Navy service!

  Donny watched the direction of every wave rolling up on the schooner’s quarter. He needed to judge the precise angle of the wind on her superstructure then play gently with his steering to keep the sum of those forces pushing her forwards, not sideways. He began to feel the old ship coming alive under his hands and he knew that he was doing this by himself, with his ship. He didn’t need ancestral extras.

  He and HMS Beckfoot were edging past the shallows. They were crabbing round Bloody Point to reach the deeper water. They were going to find the last of a favouring tide and a clear course up the Orwell. They were sailing up the river together without a scrap of canvas on those three tall masts.

  Donny hoped they wouldn’t meet anything big coming down from Ipswich. He guessed the Beckfoot didn’t draw much more than a couple of metres but he wanted to stay in the centre of the channel for as long as he could. It was getting dark early and there were moored yachts to avoid. He didn’t have time to search for nav lights.

  Min stood beside him, looking out intently. He still didn’t speak but Donny sensed he wasn’t panicking any more. They were together in this adventure.

  They rounded Collimer Point and the wind began pressing more strongly onto the schooner’s beam than her stern. Donny struggled to keep her angled so she was not pushed over to the far shore. There wasn’t much further to go. He’d never get through Pin Mill anchorage without hitting someone so he had to run her aground soon. Infuriating to finish on the wrong side of the river.

  Min touched his arm and pointed.

  Searchlights coming towards them. Searchlights coming down river, leaping skywards then nose-down. Swinging fantastically from side to side.

  It was the shark-boat. Using every hp of its expensive engines to push it up and over the waves.

  Initially they were dazzled by its lights. Trapped and frightened, like rabbits. Then, a
s it got nearer and they could hear it roaring into the wind, they realised what a rough time Flint was having. Every time the boat reared up they could see the expanse of its white underbelly and every time it crashed down in a shower of spray they knew Flint’s blubber would be plummeting.

  Donny had glimpsed Swallow’s End. He needed every scrap of momentum to swing the schooner to port and run her ashore before they reached the first of the moorings. The tide was on the turn: the Beckfoot began to lose her steerage way. He couldn’t be distracted by Flint now.

  He spun the wheel. The shark-boat was metres away from them. Its lights were blinding. Surely Flint wasn’t trying to board them in this?

  A rendering, shattering, splintering impact. The shark-boat smashed into their starboard bow at an acute angle, howled its way half the length of the Beckfoot’s side.

  It was exactly what was needed to push the schooner round.

  Did Flint shout? If he did, they couldn’t hear him. As the shark-boat sheered away Donny and his companion had a perfect view of the fat policeman hanging sideways out of his padded driver’s seat. He looked semi-conscious.

  There was a jagged tear in the power-boat’s side. They saw it begin to list as the first of waves came flooding in.

  Donny had to watch ahead now. That crucial last push towards the shore. Had it been enough to get them into shallow water? The wave shapes changed as the ebb began to run. Wind against tide: the Beckfoot was caught between two conflicting forces.

  She stopped. In a moment she would begin drifting backwards.

  If he was in Strong Winds ...

  He had to treat the Beckfoot as a boat.

  “Come on!” he yelled.

  He was out of the window and running forward. Min was close behind him. He’d armed himself with a hefty spanner. Donny grabbed the winch handle as they went. Within seconds they were knocking out chocks from the heavy chain and listening to the blessed sound as the ship’s anchor fell with a muffled splash and the chain rattled out through the hawser to hold her fast on the windward shore.