Wreckers Island

by L K Harcourt

  ‘Zak will be walking the streets feeling bruised, humiliated and cheated out of the loot that was wrongfully his,’ fibbed John. ‘He’ll be like an angry bear with, quite literally, a sore head. And that bodes ill for us here. He won’t know, either, that we’ve removed all the treasure. He might well think we’ve still got it here, piled up on the coffee table, ready for the taking. I don’t want to wake up each day fearing that he’ll suddenly turn up in a powerful motor boat.’

  This strategy had the added advantage, thought John, of reinforcing in the girls’ mind the assumption that Zak was still alive and the threat he would therefore pose.

  Louise, still feeling guilty that she was to blame over Zak and Jake, was in a weak position to argue and when Dan whispered in Emma’s ear that he just might be able to pitch a tent somewhere near her place in Cheshire in the coming week or two, she was won over fairly easily as well. And the girls screamed with delight when John played his ace card and suggested that their lighthouse vacation be continued at the time of the inquest.

  ‘Do you mean it?’ asked Louise, her eyes shining. ‘We come back here the day before the inquest so that we’re nice and local and can all go along together, and then after it’s over we stay on in the lighthouse for more hols! What a simply divine idea!’

  As the sunk sank out of sight over the Cornish mainland and shadows lengthened above a sombre looking sea, the four students sipped their cans of beer and were content. John and Dan, relieved that the decision had been taken to leave the island early, felt relaxed for the first time in a good while.

  ~~~~~

  The following morning John and Dan double-checked that the shaft was firmly shut and that the flagstone was back in place. Dan shoved a few heavy boxes on top until John pointed out that going to such lengths to block up the shaft might appear suspicious should it come under official scrutiny. Dan saw his point and moved them.

  Louise seemed happy enough after a night in which John’s attentiveness to her body had returned. She woke up feeling sore, but wanton and wanted all at the same time. She was disappointed that she would be apart from him for some while but thrilled at the prospect of the four of them returning for holiday number two in October – and to attend the treasure inquest as official finders of the loot! She could hardly wait. And Emma was savouring Dan’s promise to turn up very soon with his rucksack on his back and camp near her home in Cheshire.

  So as the four of them bid their farewells to Wreckers Island and headed off in Louise’s boat towards the shore, thence to go their separate ways, there was acceptance rather than undue sadness at cutting their holiday short. They did, after all, have another to look forward to, and much more besides.

  CHAPTER 26

  FOUR MONTHS LATER IN MID OCTOBER . . .

  ‘I cannot believe the summer has passed so quickly,’ said Louise to Emma as they greeted each other on the railway station platform at St Perro with warm hugs and kisses.

  ‘Did you have a good journey all the way from Cheshire?’ asked Louise, who had driven over herself the fairly short distance from her village in mid Cornwall.

  ‘Yes the train journey was fine,’ said Emma. ‘A couple of twerps earlier on and an idiot who played his iPod so loud through his headphones the whole carriage could hear, but they got off at Birmingham, thank goodness. After that it was really relaxing and so lovely to head back through the West Country and down to Cornwall. I was half reading my Kindle and half just gazing out of the windows at all the lovely countryside – I was almost hoping to stay on the train for another couple of stops I was enjoying it so much.’

  ‘Oh well, sorry to disappoint,’ retorted Louise, giving her a playful punch on the shoulder. ‘Anyway you’ll have buckets of time to read your Kindle and enjoy the countryside now that we’re on holiday number two! Oh Emma, I can’t wait to get back to the lighthouse. I’ve been looking forward to this all summer! Shall we go and get a coffee while we wait for the boys? Trust them to arrive last!’

  The girls found themselves a nice table in the window of the railway station café from which they would easily see John and Dan once their trains got in.

  ‘Are you still erm, together with John,’ asked Emma, a little hesitantly, as they took their seats.

  ‘Yes, I think so, well sort of,’ replied Louise, as if she wasn’t entirely sure. ‘I mean, we haven’t met up since our holiday in June but we’ve stayed in touch, you know emails and texts and phone calls, that sort of thing. But I reckon the romance will start up again once we’re back in the lighthouse. I’m surprise we didn’t topple it over with our lovemaking that last night, ooh I’ve never had a session like it!’

  Emma looked at her with a slightly pained expression.

  ‘I meant as nights with a boy go, said Louise. ‘I didn’t mean it was better than what we had that time, which will always be special. And anyway, how about you and Dan?’

  ‘Oh yes, totally smitten,’ said Emma, brightening at the mention of his name. ‘We are so loved-up it’s enough to make you sick. And we’ve seen sooo much of each other these last few weeks. Dan came up and camped in Cheshire and I joined him, even though my mum and dad were a bit off about it and we had the most wonderful time. Then I went down to see him and actually got to stay with him at his family home and oh, it’s an amazing house they’ve got.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t scream with passion in the middle of the night and wake his folks up,’ said Louise frivolously.

  Emma frowned at her. Louise could be terribly flippant and frankly, vulgar at times. ‘No, we didn’t have sex in his parents’ house because it wouldn’t have been appropriate under their roof. I think it’s a pity everything seems to come down to sex with you Louise. I bet you’ve been having flings all over Cornwall while you’ve been apart from John, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh that’s mean of you,’ replied Louise, who couldn’t resist adding that yes, she had had a couple but they hadn’t meant anything. ‘Oh and you’ll never guess who I also shagged,’ she said.

  ‘No Louise, I don’t suppose I will, so tell me.’

  ‘Only rabbit-face Rupert, the finds liaison officer!’ As Emma’s eyes opened wide, Louise told how she had seduced him while she was alone with him, then took him up to the lamp room.

  ‘You actually did that during our holiday, you really disgust me at times, Louise. Have you no sense of loyalty to the man you are actually supposed to be going out with? And fancy messing around with that poor Rupert, I bet he felt on top of the world sleeping with you and then really upset that you didn’t want anything more to do with him.’

  ‘He sent me a few hopeful texts but I think he always knew I wasn’t interested in seeing him further,’ said Louise, ‘but he told me I had given him a new-found self confidence that he would always be grateful for.’

  ‘Well let’s hope,’ said Emma, disapprovingly, ‘since he might well be at the treasure inquest tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes the treasure inquest, I can’t wait!’ said Louise. ‘Oh and I have some good news to tell you, but I’ll save it until the boys get here.’

  ~~~~~

  John and Dan, although living far apart from each other, had both ended up on the same train. Unaware, they only met when Dan grumpily moved from his carriage which reverberated with the din of boisterous teenagers, a garrulous group of women and the tinny beat of a dozen iPhones. Fortunately, few people had thought to board the carriage at the far end and Dan was about to sit down amid rows of empty seats when he spotted a face he recognised beneath a mop of blond hair, straight in front of him.

  ‘Hello stranger!’ he said to John, ‘fancy meeting you here! We should have guessed that we’d end up on the same train.’

  ‘Howdy do matey,’ replied John with a wide grin. ‘Quite so, it never occurred to me. Well, are you all set for lighthouse holiday number two, starting with our big day tomorrow?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ said Dan. ‘But I kind of want to get the hearing over with. I know it will be fascinati
ng to go to an inquest into treasure and I can’t see anything going wrong but . . .’ he faltered.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ replied John, reading his thoughts. ‘I feel the same. But this time tomorrow, the four of us will be declared the rightful recipients of the value of our wonderful find, looking forward to some very big cheques arriving in the post. The coroner is bound to find in our favour, Rupert was certain of it.’

  ‘Oh yes, goofy Rupey, I’d forgotten about him,’ said Dan. Then he added, in a whisper, ‘you don’t think anything will emerge about Zak do you?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said John, firmly. ‘That Cornish newspaper which carried the reports of his death has an online edition which I’ve been following and it’s clear the police are no longer treating it as suspicious. They think it was some sort of tragic accident at sea.’

  Dan nodded. He too had been regularly checking local media reports on the internet during the summer and had been relieved to note that the inquiry had ground to a halt.

  ‘I wonder if the girls will be at the station already,’ he said, brightening up. ‘I’ll bet they are.’

  ‘Sure to be, and I think I can guess where we’ll find them,’ said John.

  ~~~~~

  John was right. There they were in the railway station café, sipping their cappucinos.

  He and Dan slunk up behind them and overheard Louise mention she had ‘good news’ to impart when they arived.

  ‘Roll the good news,’ he boomed cheerfully behind them, making them both jump.

  ‘How ever did you know we’d be in here?’ said Louise to John, giving him an effusive hug.

  ‘Well, knowing your love of coffee and cafés and the fact that your trains got in half an hour earlier than ours, it seemed a kind of intelligent guess,’ laughed John, refusing to take any credit for such an elementary piece of deduction. ‘And who do you think I found on the same train but Dan here – we never thought that we’d actually end up on the same train, living miles apart.’

  After Dan had also been hugged and kissed and coffees bought for the two new arrivals, came the moment Louise had been waiting for. ‘Anyone care to guess what my good news is?’ she said with great gusto, attracting a couple of glances from nearby tables.

  ‘You’re pregnant!’ blurted out Emma before she could stop herself.

  ‘Oh really Emma,’ said Louise, scowling. ‘No,’ she said, ‘my big news is that my parents have written to the Coroner to renounce any claim on the treasure in the event that we are formally declared finders. In other words, we won’t get a quarter each of a half, we’ll get a quarter each of the whole ruddy lot.’

  ‘Oh but Louise,’ said Dan, looking concerned. ‘We all fully expected your parents to take their share, they are entitled to it as owners of the undersea tunnel.’

  ‘They both said that insofar as they didn’t even realise they owned an underground cave and were never likely to have visited it, let alone searched it for hidden treasure, and that the finding of it was down to all our hard work, they had no wish to profit from it,’ said Louise. ‘They think we all showed a lot of initiative and endeavour and if this money means we can all get through the rest of our university education without feeling the need to slave away in part-time jobs, then good luck to us. They are thrilled for us.’

  ‘Well that’s amazingly generous of them,’ said Dan. ‘We will have to get them a present to say thank you.’

  ‘Hear hear,’ added John.

  ‘They’re good people, my mum and dad,’ said Louise, proudly. ‘They’re also multi-millionaires, which probably helps when it comes to renouncing your claim to hoards of long-lost treasure. So anyway, if everything goes according to plan tomorrow, I think we are due for the most enormous celebration. What say we book in to the finest hotel in St Perro have a five-course meal, drink vintage champagne and stay the night in splendid luxury?’

  ‘What say we do no such thing,’ said Emma, feeling that Louise needed to be reined in a bit. It was this sort of airy talk that had got themselves overheard and into trouble in the first place at Smugglers Tavern. They would never have ended up crossing swords with Zak and Jake if it hadn’t been for that.

  ‘Well look Louise,’ said Emma, noting her disappointment. If we are to be rich, we’re not rich yet. Right now I barely have a farthing to my name. I had to borrow money from my parents just to pay my rail fare down here. Yes I know we could Visa it, but let’s dine on lobster and vintage bubbly when the money is in the bank ok?’

  ‘Oh you’re quite right Emma,’ said Louise, ‘I was getting carried away as usual. What would you like to do to celebrate? Why don’t you choose?’

  ‘I don’t mind what we do, but for me I would like simply to pitch a couple of beach tents in Gunwalloe Cove tomorrow evening, light a camp fire and have a barbecue. And sit on the sand, gazing out to sea at our lovely little lighthouse in the bay and watching the sun sink away behind us as we swig cool lager.

  ‘I would like us to stay there all night, watching the evening slowly turn to darkness and the stars come out. Then to stand up and raise our drinks and toast each other’s good health and also say a prayer for those who perished in the Providencia 230 years ago in that very same bay and thank them for all the good fortune that has passed to us.

  ‘Perhaps if they could see us they would be content, at least, that after so long four students struggling to stay afloat financially should have their lives transformed thanks to them. I think it would be appropriate, if we are judged to be the rightful recipients of their wealth, that we share the moment with them, looking out into the bay where their remains lie to this day. And then, when we are too tired to stay awake any longer, we could crawl into our tents and go to sleep with the music of the sea in our ears.’

  It was a long, impressive speech and the others were moved by it. Emma could be exceptionally sensitive and profound, so very different from Louise’s at times brash and superficial behaviour. And they all thought it an admirable idea: a celebration for the reward they were due and a fitting commemoration and tribute for Captain Felipe and his ill-fated crew.

  Dan was especially moved by Emma’s words. ‘I am proud of you,’ he said, giving her a peck on the lips. ‘It’s a lovely idea and I’m really glad you feel the way I do about Captain Felipe and his ship.’

  Their coffees drunk, the four lugged their suitcases round to the car park where Louise’s rather clapped out old Ford Focus awaited. It grumbled and juddered under their combined weight as she took them the fairly short journey to their beloved seaside village of Porthlevnack. Louise’s boat had been stored at the boatyard pending her return and they went there first to reclaim it. They were relieved to see it looking exactly as it always did. They sat in the back as the men at the yard towed it into the sea on a tractor and before they knew it, they were launched and the motor roared cheerfully to life.

  ‘Isn’t this great,’ said Louise as the boat bounced up and down over the waves. ‘It is as if we had never been away.’

  The others felt the same. It was fantastic to be reunited and it really did seem like their holiday was continuing exactly where it had left off – even the weather was as good as in June, if a degree or two cooler and the sun would, of course, go down sooner.

  To everyone’s relief, the lighthouse was as they had left it, so was the outbuilding. The locks were secure on both and had not been tampered with. When they got inside their first move was to put the kettle on for a round of tea. Dan promised to do his curry special again for an evening meal, just as he had on their second night in June.

  ‘Remember not to cut yourself this time,’ scolded Emma, wagging her finger. ‘Mind you, I think you only did it to make me to feel sorry for you so you had a chance to chat me up.’

  ‘Well it worked, didn’t it,’ said Dan with a grin.

  They decided against any alcoholic refreshment that night – tempting though it was. It was better to keep a clear head for the following day’s proceedings and they
all turned in early, Emma cosying up to Dan and Louise, once again, in the arms of John.

  CHAPTER 27

  The following day, they drove back to St Perro in good time for the inquest. They were dressed smartly, aware that they ought to look their best for quite a formal occasion.

  The Coroner’s Court was held in the same block as the local magistrates’ and the students passed a good few disreputable-looking sorts on their way through the building. I bet they’d pinch a few of those gold coins given the chance, thought Dan nervously.

  The usher pointed them towards the cramped public seating at the back. The inquest into their find was the first of the day and the courtroom was empty when they arrived. But before long, two familiar faces turned up – the goofy features of finds liaison officer Rupert and the kindly museum curator. They got to sit in the more comfortable seating at the front.

  Then in came the court clerk wearing her black gown. She was a slightly bored-looking young woman in her mid 30s who had an air about her that when you’d been to one treasure inquest, you’d been to them all. But that wasn’t how the students felt. For them, there was pent-up excitement. And that grew more pronounced when a somewhat shabby-looking young man with a rat-like face and a goatee beard walked in and sat on the bench to the side. He placed a notepad and pen down in front of him, then appeared to scrabble around in his pocket.

  Unless he was giving himself a quick tweak before the proceedings began it could only be a reporter from the local paper suddenly remembering to switch his mobile phone off, surmised Louise. He caught her glance and gave her a wink. Louise, having resolved to show a little more decorum, particularly when Emma was around, looked away.