“Careful Dad,” David warns, as we close towards the buoy. The first yachts have already rounded, and are careering downwind back through the pack, just to add to the mayhem. We’re aiming for the buoy from one direction, and we’ll get there the same time as the black yacht, though it’s coming in from the other side. The difference is, we’re on port tack, while they’re on starboard. That’s another tactics thing, it basically means they have right of way, and we don’t. I see Claude swear under his breath, as he has no choice but to ease off, and let the black yacht tack around the buoy before we do, but he cuts it close, so that we’re only just in its wake, the water still frothy. But then something happens, I don’t really understand it at first, I just hear Claude shout out, and look up to see the side of the black yacht is right in front of us, so close I could reach out and touch it. I see Claude spinning the wheel like crazy, to steer us away, and there’s a horrible second before our yacht responds, and I think we’re going to smash into the black boat. But then the rudder must bite, and we carve down away from the wind.
“Asshole!” someone shouts, and I see it’s Lily’s dad. “Crazy motherfucker.” Then he seems to get control of himself. He concentrates on bringing the yacht under control again, and we head back up into the wind towards the buoy. But now the black yacht is much further ahead of us. We round, four boats back from them.
“Can they do that, Dad?” Lily asks. He doesn’t answer until we’re set on the downwind leg, our sails open, trying to catch them up again.
“Yeah. He can. He shouldn’t, but he had the inside line and I took it too close.” He looks super focused now. And super mad.
We all stay quiet on the way back downwind. Like if we’re serious we’ll go faster. When we get a swell underneath us, we cream forward faster, closing the gap, but then the wave will pass out from beneath us, and it’ll pick up the Abigale, and they’ll stretch out the lead again. I can see Jacques Bellafonte, steering on the other boat, he keeps turning round, and measuring the distance between us with his eyes. And on our boat, Claude Bellafonte is doing the same, only I can hear him murmuring, come on, come on…
When we round the downwind buoy for the final upwind leg, we’re thirty seconds behind. This time Claude doesn’t ask me, nor even David, which way we should go. Instead we follow the black yacht up the left hand side of the course, and somehow we creep closer. But not close enough. It rounds the final upwind mark still thirty seconds ahead, and there’s nothing we can do. We pull out our spinnaker sail, and it cracks like a whip as it fills with wind. It’s blowing a bit stronger now, and you can feel the pull of the sail on the yacht’s heavy hull, as we cream through the water. Twelve knots on the log. Thirteen.
And then suddenly up ahead something happens. I don’t know exactly what, but the colorful spinnaker sail on the black yacht, which should be taut and filled with wind, like half a balloon, isn’t. It’s billowing like a sheet hung on a drying line. And across the water we can hear the shouts, and they fight to get it under control. I see the reaction in Claude, he tenses, leans forward as he spots the problem, and then goes back to concentrating on what he’s doing, steering the fastest path through the waves.
It only takes them thirty seconds to recover the lost rope, and the black yacht is up to speed again. But it’s all we need. Suddenly we’re neck and neck, side by side, running downwind, parallel to each other, and each taking turns to move ahead as we ride the waves downwind. Jacques steers his yacht towards us, forcing us to react and go the same way, to avoid a collision, but Claude does the same. We’re closing fast on the finish line. Emily squeals out in excitement. We’re gonna win, we’re gonna win.
But I don’t know if we are. It almost seems random as we take it in turns to have the lead, depending on who’s on the wave. And we’re all holding on, as it’s like being on a rollercoaster. The finish line is twenty meters away, the black yacht two meters ahead, but it’s at the end of its surge, and we’ve got the next swell. The push of the wave hits the stern of our boat, and we get a downhill boost. We’re a meter behind, ten meters from the line. You can see the excitement on the people on the start boat. One of them is holding a starter pistol in the air. We can’t be five meters from the line, and suddenly we must be level, and still we’re being pushed faster, while they’re still falling off the back of the wave they were riding.
Bang! The starter gun fires, and we surge across the line.
“Who won?” Lily asks, but no one answers, no one knows. Then the radio crackles.
“Sixth place to Morning Star, Abigale in seventh. Superb racing. Couldn’t have been closer.”
So we won.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After that things go a little bit crazy.
At first we’re still careering downwind at ten knots, but Claude rounds up into the wind, and we get the spinnaker down, and then we sail back towards the marina, and take the rest of the sails down as we get there. And gradually all the boats that were coming out in the morning, are now making their way back, but instead of a sense of anxiety and anticipation, at least on our boat, now there’s a feeling of euphoria. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite like it.
There’s loads of radio chatter too. I think that before I assumed Jacques was like some sort of villain in a Bond movie, but he’s not really. You can tell he’s angry at losing, but he congratulates Claude, and then David and Emily, on our boat, start talking with the crew on their boat – and you can tell they all know each other, and like each other too. But I don’t mind. Lily is thrilled with what’s happened, and everyone is working to put the boat away with huge smiles on their faces.
I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen once we have the boat sorted out, but I soon find out. We go up to the yacht club, the actual building, where the bar is already packed with people. And there’s loads of back slapping and cheering and retelling of the most exciting moments from the races. I don’t really join in, but I still find myself dragged in, as Claude, and even David seems determined to say it was my decision to go ‘left’ in the second race.
Then Jacques and his crew come into the bar, and there’s more backslapping, and more cheering, and more drinking, but it’s all good natured, sort of. Jacques insists that he had us, if his yacht hadn’t nearly broached on the last leg. Then we go to dinner. It’s a huge table, in a restaurant actually inside the yacht club, and when we get the menu this time it’s all seafood. The prices are even higher than the other restaurant, but Claude keeps telling us all loudly that we can order whatever we like because Jacques is paying. And he’s smiling at this, but in a kind of painful way, so you know he’s really hating this part. All the while a whole team of waiters and waitresses are bringing plate after plate of lobster and shrimp and bottle after bottle of Champagne.
After a while it’s clear that most people are full, and the waitresses clear away the shattered shells of all the seafood, and replace it with desserts, which frankly, are amazing. And then there’s coffees and I think, brandy, and even cigars, and then some people start to drift away. And I think that maybe this is my moment. I see Claude is sitting talking to no one, but with his eyes closed as he puffs away on his cigar, and I push out my chair to go closer to him. What better chance am I going to get to talk to him about the sea-dragons? I’m sure now. I’m certain he’s the sort of CEO who will do the responsible thing, if only he knows about the problem. But as I move I notice that Lily, sitting opposite me across the huge table, is looking at me in a funny way. It’s hard to describe the exact look she’s giving me, but then she gets up, and walks around to where I’m sitting, and she leans down and she whispers in my ear.
“Take me home Billy Wheatley.”
And I guess I forget about talking to her dad about the sea-dragons.
She takes my hand and starts to walk away, so that she expects me to follow after her. So I get up, a bit surprised at how I’m unsteady on my feet. No one seems to notice us leave, or at least no one pays much atten
tion, it feels like the heat has been sucked out of the party now, by virtue of how much sea air everyone’s had. We’re back in the bar now, out of the restaurant, and Lily stops, and turns to me.
“I’m drunk.” She mouths, looking a bit dippy.
I blink at her.
“Take me home.” She says again.
“You want to come to my apartment?”
She laughs at this, then turns away from me, and spins around, all the way around until she’s facing me again.
“Maybe. But I was hoping for a hot shower, to wash all this salt off. And I’ve got a shower at my house that’s big enough for two. Have you got one that big?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She tips her head onto her shoulder. “Well in that case, I think mine is probably the better option. Don’t you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer. Instead I watch as she steps away to the bar, which is quiet now. She asks the barman to call a cab, and he nods and picks up a phone. He speaks for a moment then holds up two fingers to Lily. I hear him say two minutes. She turns back to me.
“My hero. Conqueror of my evil uncle.” She puts her arms around me, she leans her weight on me, then she rolls around, so we’re kind of arm in arm, and she leads me through the bar and back towards the door where we came in. It’s even quieter here. There’s a few people coming and going, but the party is behind us. We go down the steps, towards the parking lot, and beyond it we see a city cab driving toward us. By the time we get down to street level, the cab’s there and Lily pulls open the door and climbs in. She gives her address, and then we sit together in the back. We don’t talk, but after a few minutes, Lily starts to let her hand creep towards my legs. First she just brushes them, but then her hand begins to crawl onto my thigh, like it’s a spider, or a crab. I don’t say, or do, anything. I just sit there, hyper aware of her hand, and what it’s doing.
It’s only a short journey, and Lily pays the fare, then runs lightly up to her front door. She leans in and unlocks it, and we both go inside. It’s quiet inside. For some reason I don’t expect it to be. I expect to see James and Oscar, playing snooker in the billiard room. But when I glance in there, it’s empty, a game half-finished on the green baize.
“You want to do it on the table?” Lily sees me looking, and I’m almost terrified that she thinks I’m serious.
“No!”
“Then come on. Upstairs.”
So instead I follow her. It’s only the second time I’ve been upstairs here, the first time was with Eric, but he wouldn’t let us go into her bedroom, but this time we go straight in, and Lily kicks off her shoes. Then she goes into the bathroom, turns on the light, and seconds later I hear the shower running. Then she reappears. She approaches me slowly. The light still isn’t on in the bedroom, but with the light from the bathroom I can see the painting that James and Lily talked about. The nude one. I can’t remember if it was a Pissarro or a Picasso. But I try to, because it’s like I need something to think about instead of what’s happening. Lily is standing a foot away from me, and then she reaches down and pulls her sweater up, and off over her head. I see her white stomach appear, and then the white of her bra. She pulls her arms clear, and tosses it aside. She breathes, I see how her chest rises and falls as she does so. Then she undoes her jeans, and pushes them down over her hips, until they’re scrunched up on the floor. She steps out of them. Then she turns around, but still looking at me, she walks towards the bathroom and the shower, just wearing her underwear.
“Well Billy? Are you coming in with me?”
And I don’t think I should tell you anymore.
25
Two Months Later
“Billy Wheatley?” The words came both from Special Agent West, and the manager of the Fonchem facility, Claire Watson, who had been listening in from where she sat on the sofa, in the hours after the destruction of the bomb.
Lieutenant Smith, who had just revealed the name the police database had linked to the fingerprint on the broken shard of pressure cooker body frowned, not sure who to turn to next, so it was West who turned to the manager.
“You know that name?”
“Yes – I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be listening in,” she said, getting up. But she continued anyway. “He’s behind this… I guess you’d call it a campaign, against the facility expanding. He runs this website, and puts up posters everywhere. They’re all about some kind of fish thing. They’re called sea-dragons.”
“Sea-dragons? What the hell are they?” Black asked.
“I don’t know exactly. But they’re rare, and he claims they live here in the bay, and the expansion somehow threatens them.”
“So he’s an enviro-nut?”
“I don’t know exactly… I guess…” Watson continued. Then the lieutenant turned to West.
“You know him too?”
She took a moment to answer, and with an apologetic smile to the manager, she pulled Smith and her partner away so they could speak in private.
“Yeah. I do. I used to work for the police, before I joined the Agency. This one time I got sent over here to work on a case of a missing teenager. A girl called Olivia Curran, you don’t remember it?”
“The Curran Case? Sure, I remember it. Biggest case we had here in years.” The Lieutenant screwed up his face, and then realization dawned. “Oh shit. That was you? You ended holed up in a cave with the woman who killed Curran, and Wheatley and his dad?”
“Yeah. That was me. His dad – Sam Wheatley – he got shot, and Billy and I had to swim him out, when the tide came in.” She stopped, and her face was more screwed up than ever. “I got… I got stuck, in the entrance to the cave, and Billy came back to rescue me. He was only eleven. He saved my life.”
“Yeah, I remember the case. I was just a deputy back then.” The Lieutenant paused a second too, thinking. He went on.
“You maybe heard, but Billy Wheatley hasn’t exactly avoided trouble since then. He formed this – detective agency thing, a few years back – started out as kids’ stuff, but he ended up uncovering his high school principal as a murderer. Then just recently, he got mixed up in some drugs gang.”
West stared in amazement. “Jesus. I didn’t know.”
“Oh yeah. He’s well known on the island.”
“And you’re sure it was his fingerprints, on the shards of metal from the explosion?”
“That’s what the database threw up.” They stared at each other.
“How old would he be now?”
The Lieutenant checked on the file on his cell. “Seventeen.”
West’s brow stayed deeply furrowed, calculating. “So he’s… what? He’s still in high school? How’s he gonna be bombing facilities across the whole east coast?”
“I have literally no idea. But that kid, I wouldn’t put it past him to find a way.”
West dropped her head into her hands. “No, there has to be some mistake here.”
“Are you kidding me?” Black interrupted her. “We’ve been hunting this motherfucker for the last ten months, and the first solid piece of evidence we get, you want to excuse it away? Let’s go nail him.”
“I’m not saying… We should talk to him. Of course we should. But this… It can’t be right. He’s a kid.”
“He’s seventeen. You just said so yourself. And the Lieutenant here said he was mixed up in drugs a while back. Come on Jess, you realize every piece of shit we end up busting was once a sweet little kid. With big doe eyes and…”
“Alright.” The sharpness of West’s voice stopped him. “I just think… I think we need to go in cautious here. Something about this doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t feel right at all.”
She turned to the lieutenant.
“It’s your case,” he said, watching both of them. “We’ll play it however you want.”
West took a deep breath, thinking. “You have an address for him?” The policeman nodded.
“Let’s not go in too heavy. Let’s just see if he’s th
ere.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The two special agents traveled together, following the lieutenant in a squad car, with another following behind. The island looked nothing like West remembered it, covered in its blanket of snow. But the day was heating up now, and the covering was rapidly melting away, the roads were slushy and wet. The little convoy made its way towards Silverlea, and took the turn off for Littlelea, the tiny clifftop community where Billy Wheatley was listed as living, with his father Sam Wheatley.
They turned off the Littlelea road into a driveway, and West had a clear recollection of coming here, years before, that time to arrest Billy’s father. They rounded a corner, and were presented with the same view, the whole of Silverlea’s broad stretch of sand, laid out below them.
“Whoa!” Black said, and West just met his eyes.
“Truck’s here,” she said, pulling her eyes back to the parking area outside the little house, where a red Toyota pick-up sat. It looked in better condition to the one they’d found those years before, but then the whole house did, better maintained. They both got out, and with the Lieutenant, went to the front door. When they knocked, the door opened at once.
“Sam Wheatley?” West remembered him clearly. He looked a little greyer on top, but it was the same guy she’d dragged out of the cave entrance, the same guy she’d sat and talked to in the hospital in those weeks afterwards.
“Detective West?” Wheatley cocked his head onto one side. He took in the other officers too. “What is this?”
The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4) Page 14