Ghosting Home (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  “Or in Singapore,” said Lottie. “Where most of the foreign workers had to send their giros. Then wondered why their families said the money never reached them”

  “And no extradition treaties from either place.”

  “She could have a twelve-hour start on us,” said Donny. “If she didn’t wait for Flint. If she realised as soon as she saw that I’d gone on board the Beckfoot that I was sure to discover Min. She hijacked Lively Lady to slow me up but she wouldn’t have been able to fool the ferrymen for much longer. Not when people really started asking questions.”

  Toxic’s house was a sugar-pink ranch-style bungalow behind high gates. They were electronically locked of course and there was no response to the entry phone or any of the numbers Anna had copied from the private area of the SS site.

  “We could try climbing in but she’ll have left everything alarmed and it’ll be another way of holding us up,” said Anna. “Mum, how do you feel about a drive to Stansted Airport? It might be a waste of time but I can be calling other people as we go. I could start with June, for instance. She’s almost there with her investigation.”

  “Tell me why we’re going to Stansted once you’ve made your calls,” said Lottie. She’d swung the car round and was re-programming her sat nav. “As long as we get Donny back in time to talk to Kathryn. I’m fairly sure she wouldn’t be able to fly direct to the Bahamas or to Singapore from Stansted, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’d need Heathrow or Gatwick and if we’re trying to catch her boarding a plane somewhere it’d be more effective to ask the police.”

  “It’s not exactly that. But yes, if you’re okay to drive I’ll ring June and see if I can get her on the case. Get flight departures watched. I wish you’d said a bit more earlier,” she grumbled at Donny.

  “Sorry.” he’d been so obsessed with getting Flint. He hadn’t given a thought to Toxic from the moment he saw her mincing away towards the ferry steps, talking into her BlackBerry.

  “You might decide to turn around and go straight back,” said Anna to her mother a half an hour later when she’d finished a string of calls and they were heading south-west along the almost-deserted A12. “But I’ll tell you now. That last call was to Wendy. She confirmed that the Diocesan Mission Lift is due to leave Stansted Airport on a chartered cargo plane sometime later this morning.”

  “Going to?”

  “Victims of the Indonesian floods. Via a depot in Singapore.”

  “Your point being ...?” Donny didn’t entirely get it.

  “That the only things about Toxic which are real are her clothes and shoes. None of them are fake, you know – all those Jimmy Choos and Gucci bags. The Hermès scarves and Christian Louboutin boots. I’ve seen the way she looks at herself wearing them. And never the same outfit twice. She must have rooms full of them. They’d need a lot of transport.”

  “So? Why would she bother taking them with her? I mean she can always buy more. I thought that was part of the point – shopping, I mean. It’s what girls do.”

  Anna would probably have killed him then, if Lottie hadn’t responded.

  “I heard Wendy ask if she’d anything she’d like to donate to the appeal. If it had been something good the Mothers’ Union were going to raffle it to raise funds. ‘Ai don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It would hev to be something Ai’d worn. Ai wouldn’t want other people touching it.’”

  “Don’t break the speed limit Mum. We’d look so stupid if we got stopped now.”

  “I hate Denise Tune. I really really HATE her.”

  Lottie was a fierce hater but she was also charming and persuasive. She got them to the freight sheds at Stansted in record time and demanded to see someone from Customs and Excise. She explained that she was a charity worker from the Suffolk Diocesan Mission and represented the Rural Dean. They were very much afraid, said Lottie, that their shipment to the flood victims was being misused to transport stolen goods. Had there been any last-minute additions to the consignment or any request for label changes?

  “Nothing like that at all. No irregularities. Sorry, Miss, but we’re very careful about these things. Plenty of people might think an aid convoy is a soft touch but they’d be making a mistake. We check every package individually against its manifest – using sniffer dogs and the full range of technology – and then we seal them. Once they’re sealed they’re treated as bonded stores and locked into our forwarding depot until they’re loaded.”

  “And how long have ... our Mission gifts been sealed?”

  He checked his papers. “Three weeks.”

  “She could have planned it,” Donny encouraged Lottie. “After Zhang died.”

  “An exit strategy.”

  “But it’s her we want. Not her shoes.”

  The Customs officer began to look impatient.

  “The Suffolk Mission Lift is already being loaded. The plane’s due for take-off within the hour. Direct to Singapore. And, if you’ll excuse me saying so, I’d expect queries about stolen property to come through more conventional channels.”

  Lottie looked dejected. Anna took her hand and stroked it. They looked more like sisters than mother and daughter with their fragile prettiness and devious ways.

  “Mum got into trouble with the Committee. She’d been out collecting for those poor people – you must have seen them on TV – and she went to a local couture shop, to see if they’d like to donate and they weren’t sympathetic at all. Then there was a break-in at the shop – except nobody thought it was really. The business wasn’t doing well so people assumed the owners were collecting on the insurance. And then we got all these boxes which were full of goods that looked awfully like stock from the shop. All beautifully packed, which were going to an address in Singapore, and the shop owners said if their boxes could travel with our consignment they’d donate towards the freight cost. And the Committee agreed because they hadn’t really collected as much as they’d hoped so there was some space in the container and a gift of money seemed heaven sent. But Mum thought it was wrong.”

  “I thought it was stolen goods and they might be going to those factories to be copied. You know, like they do out there and then they send them back here without any proper standards.”

  Lottie sniffed and wiped her eyes. Anna passed her a Kleenex.

  “Mum had a bad experience,” she explained to the Customs officer.

  “Sorry to hear it. Er, what exactly were these items? Can you describe any of them”

  “They were clothes and shoes.”

  “The whole consignment’s clothes and shoes!” he sounded completely exasperated. As if he’d been on duty all night and simply wanted them to go away so he could get home for his breakfast.

  “Oh, but those crates had a special mark,” said Donny. He might as well add his scrap to Anna’s crazy story. “I could show you if you’ve got a bit of paper.”

  “And I could write down our mobile number for you.”

  The Customs officer took Donny’s sketch and Anna’s number then sent them away. They got back into the car and began the journey home, deflated by their failure.

  “I suppose I hoped she’d be hanging around there somewhere but it was never going to be that simple,” said Anna. “What’s the point of managing a snakehead if you can’t get yourself out of the country when you need to?”

  “Rotterdam,” said Donny.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s where Defoe thinks they’ve got their nearest link. That’s where you said the container came from. She could get there easily.”

  Anna had mobile Internet. She began searching.

  “Not from Stansted she couldn’t, not directly anyway. But there’s an overnight ferry from Harwich. Leaves soon after eleven pm and connects with a train to arrive at Rotterdam Central for breakfast. She’ll want comfort – you won’t find her squashed up in the dark in a container lorry. Or even on a cargo plane.”

  “We don’t have any proof that she’s gone anywhere at all,” said Lottie.
“Why don’t you two put your busy brains to sleep and let me concentrate on driving?”

  They’d hardly got back onto the A12 when the mobile phone went off. It was their new friend from Customs.

  “Fifty-eight crates!” he was shouting so loudly that Anna had to hold the phone away from her ear. “Amazing collection. They must have raided a dozen shops. We’re going to need some guidance from Suffolk police on this. But your mother can tell her Mission Committee that they almost looked very silly. Very silly indeed. Accepting designer goods onto an aid consignment. We’ve sent the rest of it on. Plane’s half empty now!”

  It was hard to know what to think.

  “One belt from Flint and fifty-eight crates of gear from Toxic. But what does it prove?”

  “My brain hurts.”

  “It proves she meant to leave.”

  “I bet they don’t catch her. She’s got such a nerve.”

  “I’m going to ring June again. She knows how to talk to people. She’d already got onto the fraud office. I’m going to tell her what you said about the snakehead having a base in Rotterdam and I’m going to ask her to ask the police to meet that Harwich ferry.”

  Sandra’s boss, Kathryn, was an American in a tweed business suit. She was married to an English academic and lived in Cambridge. She hadn’t been head of Children’s Services for long.

  “Thank you for allowing me to make this a breakfast meeting,” she said, once she’d introduced herself to everyone. “I’d sure love some coffee if it isn’t too much trouble. I called at the patisserie before I left town.”

  Gerald had cleared the large table in the middle of the sitting room and arranged ten chairs around it. He’d set out a water jug and glasses but was soon bustling around fetching a cafetière and mugs and a pot of tea for those who’d rather. Perhaps Wendy could risk something decaffeinated now she was past her first three months? He patted her shoulder as he passed.

  Kathryn reached into her carrier bag and produced an enormous yellow and white striped cardboard box tied with curled ribbons. It was loaded with freshly baked croissants, muffins and Danish pastries.

  “I wasn’t certain that I fully understood what my colleague told me over the telephone so I thought I’d come and listen for myself. I want all of us to be as informal and as comfortable as we can but I do have to tell you that if I hear anything that makes me think there is a child or some other person at risk then I will have to take official action. I will try to be as open as I can about the actions I decide to take. If I believe that you should be making an official accusation against a named person I will advise you of the route you need to take and, similarly, if you find that you wish to make a complaint against my organisation I will explain the procedures. If you are not happy with the way I am approaching this you have the right to complain to an independent adjudicator. How are we doing so far?”

  No-one answered. Skye was there and Donny was signing. Min and Karen were sitting close to one another looking anxious. Anna had been given permission not to go to school. June had already arrived and Edward was expected later. He’d made a detour via Swallow’s End to have a chat with Bill.

  “Okay, then,” said Kathryn. “I suggest we all pitch in. We’ll start by going round the table and each person can introduce themselves and say which of the pastries they choose. I’m Kathryn, as you know, and I’m a blueberry muffin.”

  It was a good technique for relaxing people. Only Min did not seem to respond. His mother said that she would choose for him. They would both have cinnamon swirls and she would interpret.

  “Now, Donny – none of us are going to mind you pausing every once in a while to take a bite of that handsome double choc chip – what I want you to do is take me carefully through what happened yesterday from the moment that you left your great-aunt’s funeral. I’m going to try hard to keep my questions to the end so that I don’t interrupt your story. Can you sign as well as talk and eat? I think your mother needs to hear what you are saying. And if Mrs Chen asks you to stop at any point I expect that you will do so.”

  Kathryn sipped her coffee while Donny talked but she didn’t actually touch the muffin. When she saw that he had finished she thanked him.

  “There is a question that I have to ask. When Sandra rang me last night she said that you had given her a belt. Can you tell me why you did that?”

  “Because I thought I recognised it and I wanted it to be kept safe until it could be tested to see if I was right.”

  “You thought it belonged to Inspector Flint, a named person. What did you think Inspector Flint’s belt might have been doing on board that boat?”

  “I didn’t know ... I didn’t really have time to think. Mainly it just proved he’d been there,”

  “Not necessarily ...”

  Kathryn was approachable, she was fair-minded, she was determined – but like anybody else she didn’t want to believe a complaint against a fellow professional unless she had to.

  “Inspector Flint is the fat policeman? He liked to hit me with his belt. He left it there so that I would always know that he would be back again. I think he also hoped that I might use the belt to hang myself one day.”

  Min’s spoken English was quiet and exact and clear. His mother looked more shocked than anyone. Min did not look at anyone except directly at Kathryn.

  “Inspector Flint is a bully. He is also stupid. He and the poison-queen did not think that I could understand what they said. If they had treated me kindly for even a few moments when they took me away from the place of death, I would have told them all that had happened on the journey. Once I understood what they were like I said nothing in any language. Even the language of pain.”

  “You speak so beautifully,” said his mother.

  “I have studied hard ever since I went to school. I wished to deserve all that you have done for me. It is seven years since you left.”

  “Chen Min,” said Kathryn. She wasn’t bothering about coffee and cakes anymore. It was obvious that she was completely convinced. “I am so deeply sorry for all that you have been through. I am going to have to ask you to testify against the people who have made you suffer. I cannot pretend that this will be easy or a pleasant. It will also take a long time. I hope that you will be willing to do this and I will promise you and your mother all the support that it is in my power to give. There will be full-time education and somewhere safe for you both to live. It may take years. After that I cannot even promise you the right to remain in this country. I am sorry. All I can say is that I will help you in every way that I can.”

  “I don’t want to stay here for ever. I want to go back to Xiamen and live on the right side of the river. I want to pass my exams and go to university. But my mother has debts that she must repay and we will need to earn the money for our journey.”

  “We can help,” said Anna.

  “There’s a fund,” said Lottie.

  “No,” said June, angrily. “He has been criminally injured. There must be official recompense.”

  But everyone knew it was too soon to think of that and anyway it would probably never happen.

  Kathryn had one more important question. “I would like you, if you can, to name the other person who made you suffer. The one you call the poison-queen.”

  “The policeman called her Denise. I noticed however that he was afraid of her. When I was in Rotterdam I heard talk of a gweilao woman who commanded Tiger Zhang. I think that it was she.”

  And at that moment June’s phone began to ring. The connecting train from the Harwich overnight ferry had arrived. The Dutch police were waiting and they’d got her. A moment later a text came through for Kathryn. The head of Children’s Services was needed urgently back in her office at County HQ.

  No-one said anything immediately. There was a feeling of waking from a nightmare, of a dark cloud lifting away. The enormous yellow and white striped cardboard box stayed open in the middle of the table, its curled bright ribbons trailing across the clean formica.
Fluted paper cases, scattered crumbs and empty mugs gave the impression that there might have been a party but the box remained three-quarters full. There would be plenty left for everyone else.

  Min was the first to break the silence. “I was advised to find Jin Lóng when I arrived in Suffolk. Her name in English is Gold Dragon. Hoi Fung the sea cook sent me.”

  “I’m sorry, Min, Gold Dragon’s dead. Her funeral was yesterday.”

  “I hope that her spirit walks in peace. I think Hoi Fung may be dead also.”

  “Donny,” said his uncle, later, when they were sitting, just the three of them, in Strong Winds’ cabin, “My sister and I have been dreaming. When everything else that must happen has happened – however long that takes – shall we sail northwards? Shall we explore the Baltic Sea?”

  The junk was pulling against her mooring as the ebb tide hurried past. Donny could sense the restless breeze tugging at her three furled sails. Gold Dragon’s spirit would never walk in peace for long. They’d carried her body ghosting up the River Deben on that last, long, tranquil evening but her spirit would be strongest when they were out of sight of land: when they were lifting and falling to the rhythm of the waves and the wind had run free for miles before it buffeted past them and on.

  Wherever they went Granny Edith would be coming too. He’d walked to the van at Swallow’s End that afternoon and collected all the letters she’d written and the files she’d organised. He’d also brought home her campfire kettle.

  They could go anywhere now.

  From the Chart Table

  Much of my thinking about the Strong Winds Trilogy has happened on board our boat, Peter Duck. Peter Duck’s logbook from the summer of 2007 reminds me that was the summer that we failed to go to sea. Certainly we intended to. I’d done a string of RyA refresher courses, mainly with the legendary George Jepps (a character waiting to happen). We’d planned our passage, checked the Ship’s Papers and freighted up the GPS with every conceivably useful waypoint. We’d even installed a small radar transmitter and learned to love it.