Hostage to Fortune

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Who was she?”

  “I only ever knew her as Diane.”

  “Are you still in touch?”

  “God no! The moment I left I had nothing more to do with her.”

  “Why did they bother about you? Was it only your father’s money?” Guy asked.

  “It seemed that some of the information I had given the police was deemed useful, very useful and so, no doubt with substantial prodding from my father, I was given a new identity.”

  “Brian Cliffe,” Elspeth said rather sadly.

  Her husband nodded.

  “Who chose the name? It wasn’t a dead—”

  “No! Oh no! It wasn’t the name of a real person who died or anything like that. I chose Cliffe as the surname. You may have noticed my family’s names – Stratford, Warwick, Barford – are all places in Warwickshire. There’s this place called Guy’s Cliffe House, a magical shell of a building destroyed by fire. We’d been there, Wave and I, and in a way it was a link to the Barford I had been. I wanted to be called Guy Cliffe but they wouldn’t allow it. They chose Brian. But they couldn’t stop me calling my son Guy, could they?”

  “So I’m named after a ruined building? Thanks.”

  “It’s very beautiful. You should go there someday.”

  “So you became Brian Cliffe and you got a job as a lorry driver and met me and the rest is history.” Elspeth was tired. She wanted to go to bed where she could think what all this meant for her and her son’s future.

  “You know what really pisses me off?” Guy asked but did not give his father a chance to answer. “It’s the money. We’ve scrimped and got by, I’ve never had the most up to date of anything, games consoles, computers, nothing. Mum’s worked so hard all these years to keep us going and all the time, all the bloody time, you’ve had all this money behind you. I checked up on Warwick bloody Eden. No one’s even sure how many billions he’s worth. And all that should have been ours.”

  “It would never have been yours, Guy. Barford Eden would never have met your mother. You would never have been born.”

  “I wish I never had been!”

  Elspeth let go her husband’s hand, stood and walked slowly towards the door. Brian put out his hand towards her and she moved to avoid his touch. “No, Brian, Barford, whoever you are. No.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Brian said though he knew his apology was inadequate and would change nothing.

  “At least all this has made my mind up about what I’m going to do. I’m not going to university or college or whatever, I’m leaving home. I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “When have you ever cared about my mother? Ever? Wasn’t she just part of your cover or whatever it’s called? You had everything when you were a kid. Everything. And I had nothing. You gave me nothing except a stupid name.”

  “I—”

  “Oh. Just one more thing before I go?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stand up,” Guy said towering over his father.

  Brian looked up at his son. “You think you can hurt me any more than I already hurt?”

  “Stand up!”

  “Do you think hitting me will make you feel any better?”

  “Stand up!”

  “You’re just a boy, Guy. Just a boy. You will learn that life is a lot more complicated than you see it now.”

  “Stand the fuck up!”

  “When you’re older—”

  Guy leant down and pulled his father out of his chair and Brian was still unbalanced when he felt the punch. He could not stop himself falling backwards and could not stop his head hitting the sideboard. He was unconscious by the time he reached the ground.

  Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth and from a gash on the side of his forehead as his eyes closed.

  “That’s what a boy can do!” Guy whispered as he looked down on his father. “I’m not a fucking boy anymore.”

  Guy did not sleep that night.

  His father lay unconscious, possibly even dead, on the living room floor; his mother was asleep, snoring loudly, in her bedroom so there was no one to see what he did.

  He opened his mother’s handbag, in its usual place, slung over a chair in the kitchen. He took the bank cards along with what cash there was. He found his father’s wallet where it always was, on the sideboard, and removed his bank cards and cash.

  Of all the computer games Guy had played since he had been given a Game Boy for Christmas when he was seven years old, the ones he had enjoyed most, and been most skilful at, were virtual sailing games. He had started playing them as relaxation from the more aggressive shooter games but soon spent more time competing with other gamers sailing a variety of vessels, from cruise ships to yachts, whilst adjusting to sea and weather conditions in different areas of sea. Although he knew a great deal about the theory of sailing he had always wanted to explore the reality for himself. Now was his chance.

  He went online to book a flight for the next day, paying with his father’s credit card. He then dismantled his computer, putting the hard drive in his bag along with a few clothes. He put his passport and his mother’s and father’s bank cards in his wallet along with the cash he had stolen and the ticket he had printed out: MAN to BGI, Manchester to Bridgetown, Barbados.

  He was nearly eighteen years old, he was free of his parents, his life was his own.

  He was going to the Caribbean.

  There, while he learnt to sail real yachts, he would work out a way to get hold of the wealth that should always have been his.

  Chapter 5: Guy Plans

  When Guy stepped down from the airport bus he was aware that, for the first time since he had left home the day before, he had no idea what to do next.

  For every minute since he had left his home he had had an immediate target. He had had to find the best way to get from East Kent across London and north to Manchester; once there he had had to find somewhere to sleep in the airport terminal as he waited for his early morning flight. On the plane there had been the excitement of crossing the Atlantic and even as he queued at passport control to enter Barbados he had had to think about how to get into Bridgetown.

  But as he looked around at the bustling town he had no idea what to do and for the first time in thirty-six hours he questioned whether hitting his father and leaving home without a word to his mother had been wise.

  Guy was not one given to self-doubt so he pushed any thoughts that he had been wrong from his mind and headed along the harbourside boardwalk, taking in the heat and the bustle of activity around him. He was a free agent; he could do whatever he wanted to do with no one to tell him he was wrong or making a mistake or could do better. He would find a boat, get a job and see what it was really like to sail on the Caribbean Sea.

  Walking along the dockside he could not help but be disappointed by the yachts he could see. They were not what he had hoped for, geared as they were towards day sea fishing trips. He had hoped to find larger, more luxurious, yachts which would need crew and where he would be given a job despite his lack of experience.

  As he watched the sun set, he allowed himself to admit that perhaps he had been naïve in thinking it would all be easy. Within minutes, though, he had shaken those thoughts from his head. Hungry and thirsty he headed for a bar.

  “Hi, Banks’s please.” He had seen the advertisements for the local beer.

  “Bottle or pint?” the girl serving behind the bar asked.

  “Pint, please.” He was relieved she did not ask for ID or proof of his age. He wasn’t quite eighteen but perhaps he looked old enough. He was grateful that he was dark haired and his unshaven face showed a respectable amount of stubble.

  The bar was busy but Guy sat alone watching people come and go.

  “Do you know anywhere I can cr
ash?” he asked the girl, whose nametag said her name was Mickie.

  “You got nowhere to stay?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Got any cash?”

  “A bit.” Guy was not going to admit to anyone just how much he had extracted from his parents’ accounts with their stolen bank cards.

  “We do rooms here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re pretty basic.”

  “That’ll be fine, I don’t do fancy.”

  “I’ll get the boss, he’ll sort you out.”

  “Could he sort me out with a job too, do you think?”

  “A job?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You not just here on holiday?”

  “No, I’m on my gap year,” he lied. “I’m working my way around the world.” It was a story he had worked through in the flight from Manchester.

  “Where’ve you been already? They must’ve been cold places; you seem a bit pasty-faced.”

  Guy spent the rest of the evening, when Mickie wasn’t busy serving, regaling her with imagined tales of working his way through Canada and America. “I’ve been working indoors most of the time, that’s why I haven’t had much chance to get a tan.”

  “The boss is always looking for people to work in here. Perhaps he’ll find something for you. Do you know how to work a bar?”

  Guy nodded. He had been watching Mickie and her colleagues carefully and had worked out just how much they were fiddling the till. One of his mates from school had been working in a pub and had told him all the tricks he had been taught to augment his meagre wages.

  Guy worked in that bar for seven months.

  He had been reticent at first, as he got to know the way the bar worked and what the boss did and did not allow them to get away with. Gradually he had gained in confidence, chatting to customers, asking what they did and how he could get to work on a yacht. ‘That’s what I really do, I’m not a barman, I’m a sailor,’ he said to a lot of people before one suggested he turn up at a particular yacht in a marina several miles up the coast. ‘The owner always likes new faces, I reckon he’ll like you and give you a berth.’

  Guy did not understand the appraising look the man gave him.

  “You’ll do,” the yacht’s captain said after the brief interview. “Just do what you’re told without arguing and you’ll be fine. Oh,” he added almost as an afterthought, “and keep your eyes out of things that don’t concern you.”

  Guy stayed on that first yacht through the spring and summer of 2013.

  He found life on board an education. He felt he held his own with the other members of the crew as they sailed through the Lesser and Greater Antilles, the Windward and the Leeward Islands that he had ‘sailed’ through on his computer in his bedroom in Canterbury.

  When the owner’s daughter flirted with him he had ignored her advances at first but then she had threatened to have him fired unless he slept with her. He was grateful for his months with Mickie who had been surprised, but not fazed, by his lack of experience and had made it her mission to turn him into a lover worthy of the feisty Australian she was.

  He soon found that when the owner’s daughter was on board, along with her friends, he was expected to keep them all happy, regardless of their gender.

  His official job, deckhand, was simply to keep the yacht clean and tidy, though he made use of the time, asking questions of the crew, learning what he could of the practicalities of sailing a yacht in these waters.

  Almost exactly a year to the day after he arrived in Barbados he was offered a job on a newer, larger, more luxurious yacht with pay nearly double what he had been making, even allowing for the tips the owner’s guests had given him. His duties on that second yacht were confined to working the yacht rather than its passengers, though he had ample opportunity to observe them.

  He despised the men and women who chartered that yacht. The more he saw of them the less respect he had for them, their money, their lifestyles or their children, whose sense of entitlement and arrogance tested his patience to the limit.

  His resentment was all the stronger for knowing that the life he saw others living should have been his.

  He should have been the one who owned the yachts rather than the one who had to pander to the whims and fickle fashions of others.

  He never forgot why he had left his home and followed the life of Warwick Eden as closely as he could. Picking up and reading the celebrity magazines the guests on the yacht left behind or spending time on the internet. With everything he learned his resentment against his uncle grew.

  One thought took root in his mind.

  His father, as Warwick’s closest relative, would inherit should anything happen to the billionaire.

  And then, if anything happened to his father, it would all be his.

  Chapter 6: Guy’s Plans Progress

  Guy was let go after only three months on that yacht. She was to be sold and the new owner had no immediate plans to use her. The fact that someone could spend millions of US dollars on a yacht and then not use it simply fuelled his resentment against Warwick Eden and people like him.

  “At least I’m here in Barbados rather than some other island where I don’t know anyone,” he said to Mickie.

  “You can crash with me,” she offered.

  By the end of November 2013 he had been with her for four weeks and she was making it clear he was beginning to outstay his welcome.

  “You going to go through life as a gigolo or are you going to get a proper job?” she asked.

  Guy had the sense not to argue. “You taught me,” he pointed out.

  “You were a quick learner.”

  “And I don’t seem to be much good at anything else.”

  “Do a course. Learn. If you want to stay working the boats you must get your certificate.”

  “That’ll cost, won’t it?”

  “You’re not saying you’ve not saved up, are you? You must have been making good money.”

  “Deckhands get paid diddly squat.”

  “And your sidelines? I bet the girls and boys tipped you well.”

  Guy shrugged. They had never given him what he thought he was worth.

  “And don’t say you didn’t run a little business of your own.”

  Guy feigned innocence. “What do you mean?”

  “Drugs, money?”

  Again Guy shrugged. He had learned a lot from other crew members who shared with him the best routes, the best islands and the best goods to transport between them, along with names of the contacts who bought at a reasonable price and asked no questions.

  “Get a certificate, work the yachts, keep up your sidelines and it won’t be long before you have a yacht of your own.”

  When Mickie announced that evening that she had enrolled him in a course he had acquiesced. It was easier to allow her to organise his life than to argue.

  Every morning over breakfast she checked the ‘crew wanted’ websites.

  “Here’s one. Out of Barbados. They want someone to be sole crew member—”

  “I can’t do that.” Even armed with his certificate in the basics of safety and survival at sea earned after a five-day course, he knew he was not sufficiently experienced or qualified to be the effective captain of a yacht.

  “It’s not a big yacht. You’d manage. Anyway, I clicked the application and it’s come back with a time for you to be there for an interview.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon. Three.”

  “They must be desperate.”

  “I think they are.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Peabody Three.”

  “So? How did you do?” Mickie asked when he walked into the bar that evening.

  “It looks like you’ll be rid of me in a
day or so.”

  “You got it? Brilliant!”

  “The man’s an idiot.”

  “Hiring you? He must be.”

  “No, seriously, the man’s an idiot. He’s just come into loads of money and bought the yacht without knowing the first thing about anything.”

  “So he won’t know how little you know?”

  Guy grinned.

  “He asked bloody stupid questions and really couldn’t see through my bloody stupid answers.”

  Three days later Guy became involved in a heated conversation with a man in a bar.

  They were both very drunk and an argument was inevitable. The brawl that followed led to the arrest of everyone involved, including Guy.

  “Do you have a name?” the policeman asked wearily when Guy had, after what had seemed an age, reached the front of the queue of arrested men.

  “I do,” he answered as clearly as he could manage.

  “And are you going to share that information with me?”

  Guy nodded. “I always thought I was Guy Cliffe, but I’m not really.”

  “So who are you really?” the policeman asked patiently. He was well versed in how to deal with drunks.

  “Guy Cliffe. That’s what’s on my passport. But that—”

  “That’ll do then. Address?”

  “No fixed abode.”

  “That won’t do.”

  “I’m on a yacht.”

  “No kidding me. Does this yacht have a name?”

  Guy had only been on the yacht two days and wasn’t sure he could remember the name. “Peabody something,” he said hopefully.

  “Peabody something?”

  “Got it! Peabody Three.”

  Guy watched as the policeman slowly typed the information into his computer.

  “When do you leave?” the man asked, not unkindly.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Then we won’t charge you, this time. But we don’t want to see you here again.”

  “In Bridgetown?” Guy asked, worried for the first time about his predicament. “You don’t want me to come back to Bridgetown?”