Hostage to Fortune

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Really?”

  “You can trust me, AP,” Guy lied. He was good at lying; in the eighteen months he had been in the Caribbean he had had a great deal of practice.

  “I do.” Arjun carefully placed his hand on Guy’s thigh, placing his arm around Guy’s shoulders.

  “Sorry, I’m not that way inclined.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Okay,” Arjun agreed, believing that he would have no difficulty in changing Guy’s mind.

  They had been together for eighteen months when Arjun received an email from Raima, his eldest sister.

  Father has gone to lawyers. He is stopping your income from your fund. He says he is perfectly within his rights as you are living an immoral and sinful life. He says you must change your ways, marry and have a son and until you do you cannot have any more money. Yes, Arjay, it is blackmail but you should know he has only a short time left. He does not want to go to his heaven believing you will go to hell. Come back, make your peace with him.

  “Guy?” he called out. “Head for Road Town.”

  “But AP, we’re—”

  “No buts. Road Town, Tortola. As quick as we can.”

  For the three days it took Peabody Three to motor north Arjun had nothing to do with Guy, never leaving his cabin and eating his meals off a tray.

  As soon as the berthing formalities were complete he headed for the bank.

  He was pleased that it was a man who showed him into his office, not the woman Rick had always referred to as ‘Banker-woman’.

  “Please sit.”

  “You are aware of my situation?” Arjun came straight to the point, waving away offers of coffee or water.

  “I have read the files.”

  “Then you realise that my father cannot do this. It is my money. It is not for him to say what I can and cannot do with it and you have frozen my account. I demand to know why.”

  “Your father is an administrator of the fund. He has a legal obligation to ensure money taken from it is not being used for illegal or immoral purposes,” said the man whose name, Arjun read from the plate on the desk, was Lyron.

  “I can absolutely confirm that I am involved in nothing illegal or immoral.”

  “No?” he replied, his doubts obvious.

  “Absolutely not,” Arjun said firmly.

  “I suppose it depends on your father’s definition of immoral.”

  “But his may be different from the law’s.”

  “That is entirely possible. We are, of course, referring to your homosexuality?”

  “It may not be accepted everywhere in the world, but it is not illegal.”

  Arjun could barely contain his anger and frustration as Lyron explained that the funds were dependent on his living a life free from illegality and immorality. He repeated, more than once, that the bank could not be associated with funds that came from, or were used to fund, suspect activities; that if there were signs of illegality or immorality the funds would cease.

  “Nothing I do is illegal or immoral.” Arjun tried not to think of the passengers they taxied from island to island, and the possibility, always denied by Guy, that he was involved with smuggling. He knew that if he thought about those things the man would see that he was lying. “Nothing,” he said firmly.

  “Are you saying that I can reassure your father’s lawyers that there is nothing to prevent them from allowing payments from the fund to resume?”

  “Of course I am.”

  Lyron looked through the file on the desk in front of him. He slowly turned the pages, his face giving away nothing of what was going through his mind.

  “When will I be able to start withdrawing money again?” Arjun asked anxiously.

  “I will have to get back to your father’s lawyers, then there will be some paperwork to go through to undo what they have been doing.”

  “What have they been doing? What paperwork?”

  “At your father’s instigation they have begun court proceedings to declare you inadequate to run your own affairs.”

  “That is ridiculous! It’s clearly not the case! It’s far more likely him that’s going ga-ga.”

  “I have to say that the picture painted in these documents is very different from what I see in front of me.”

  “Good. We’ve cleared that up now, have we? You will release the funds?”

  “It might take a while to get this sorted. But in anticipation I have prepared two documents, affidavits that formalise what you have said to me.”

  “If I sign these wretched forms you can restore payments now?”

  “I can, sir.”

  Arjun noticed it was the first time in all their conversation he had been afforded that courtesy.

  It was two days before Guy returned to Peabody Three. Two days that tortured Arjun as he realised just how much he had come to depend on the young man, at least ten years younger than he was but so much more capable and worldly wise.

  He tried not to remember how he had felt when Raj had said that he was getting married; that his family had prevailed and that, when it came down to it, he had to do as they insisted or they would be the ones to suffer being shunned by their community.

  He was thinking that, for the sake of his mother and sisters, perhaps he should give in, go home, marry his cousin, have a son, live a double life as Raj would be doing.

  But Guy returned and, after two hours of being teased and tantalised and satisfied, Arjun knew he could not go back.

  When he awoke the next morning Guy was lying next to him, but was not asleep.

  “Things are going to change around here,” Guy said in a voice Arjun barely recognised. “I know who you are now, I know why you did not want me to know who you are.”

  It was very early in the morning, dawn was barely breaking on the horizon; he had slept little through the night but Arjun was immediately alert.

  “Really? So, what is my name?”

  When Guy replied ‘Arjay’ he laughed, saying that it wasn’t and whatever it was Guy thought he knew, he was obviously wrong.

  Arjun had been very careful not to let Guy know his name. Since they had met he was ‘Boss’ or ‘AP. He kept anything that contained his name carefully hidden away. Peabody Three had been bought by his trust fund; he, personally, was not on any of the yacht’s papers. He did not know how Guy had got as far as ‘Arjay’, the pet name his sisters had for him, but it was not enough if Guy had any thoughts of blackmailing him.

  “If your idea is to extort money from me you will fail. My father has long been aware what or who I am. You cannot blackmail me on that.”

  “But the smuggling?” Guy responded.

  “What smuggling?”

  He listened, shocked, as Guy told him how Peabody Three had been used to move rum, cigarettes, drugs and people from island to island.

  He realised that he had been right, months before, when he had questioned who the passengers were. He realised he had been too pleased to take the boys to his bed to ask real questions and get real answers.

  He had turned a blind eye, too, to the boxes of provisions taken on board, and the bags of waste removed, that always seemed too substantial.

  Arjun realised how naive he had been. He had believed Guy when he had told him, those months before, that he was not like Rick ‘wheeling and dealing’.

  “If my father knew he’d cut me off. For fuck’s sake, Guy, I’d have nothing.”

  “And then I’d move on.”

  “You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?” Arjun pleaded.

  “I’m sure we can sort something out,” Guy replied smiling.

  In the next few minutes Guy got everything he asked for.

  He would be able to do what he wanted, when he wanted and go where he wanted; Arjun would have to do everything h
e was told to do, or the bankers and the lawyers would be informed, anonymously, of the true activities of Peabody Three.

  “You are the strong one, aren’t you? I accept that,” Arjun pleaded. “But please…” He pulled at Guy’s arm, turning him towards him. “You can do what you like but please, make me feel good again.”

  “We’re going to England,” Guy announced one evening little more than a month after the balance of their relationship had changed.

  “England?”

  “England.”

  “How?”

  “Peabody Three of course.”

  “Really? Will she make it?”

  “It’s really not that difficult. With an extra fuel tank and running carefully we can get from Barbados to Cape Verde Islands no problem, then it’s simple stages north to the Canaries, Madeira and England.”

  “You can navigate all that way?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “Can you do it alone? With just the two of us?”

  “It’s high time you learned to do a little more with her than occasionally simply steer her.”

  “Really? Across the Atlantic? I’m not sure England is a good idea.”

  “There’s a lot of money involved.”

  “A lot?”

  “Potentially millions. I hate that everything is your money. I hate that I contribute so little. If we want to plan for our future together this is the way.”

  Arjun was surprised. “You want to plan our future? Not so long ago you wanted to blackmail me.” He believed he loved Guy but he had not realised Guy felt the same way.

  He felt his lover’s hand on the back of his neck drawing them together.

  “You love me?” Arjun asked. “Just as I love you?”

  “Of course.”

  He felt the familiar stirrings as Guy leaned down to kiss him. He could not know how, by offering his body and speaking a few, to him, meaningless words, Guy had achieved his objective.

  Complete control over his boss and Peabody Three.

  For the weeks of the voyage Arjun was as happy as he had ever been but that happiness seemed to be ended on their arrival in Poole.

  “I’ll be away for a couple of months,” Guy announced.

  “You’re leaving me?” Arjun asked, aware of how much he depended on the young man in so many ways. “What am I going to do without you?”

  Guy was persuasive. “I have to do something that will make me a very great deal of money.”

  “I told you. I have enough for both of us.”

  “But we would never be equals, would we? With money of my own you’ll know I’m with you because I want to be not because of your money.”

  Despite his misgivings, Arjun signed the reference Guy had written for himself.

  “Beausale? You’re going to work on another yacht?”

  “Just for a few months. I need the job so we can be together, forever. You want that, don’t you?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then go and visit your family. Make peace with them. Then, when I get in touch, come back to Peabody. There’ll be someone here who will help you sail her to meet me.”

  “Just a couple of months you say?”

  “Just a couple of months.”

  Arjun did not go to Bradford to make peace with his family as Guy had told him to do. He knew that if he saw his mother and sisters he would weaken and would never return to Peabody Three, and to Guy.

  Instead he spent the summer of 2016 in Brighton checking his phone several times a day, hoping that Guy would tell him where and when they could meet again.

  The text message eventually came after three anxious months. Get to Peabody. Head for 50.4020N – 3.4283W Sunset Sunday evening. Sandy will be on board. He’ll know what to do.

  Chapter 9: Skye and Fergal Shepherd

  On the first Sunday in September 2016 Fergal Shepherd sat with his wife, Skye, on opposite sides of the oversized pine table which stood in front of the wide stone mullioned window in their kitchen. Skye was reading a newspaper while Fergal scanned the news on his tablet. Having just returned from a three-week lecture tour in America they had a great deal to catch up on.

  “You wouldn’t think anything would happen in August, would you?” Skye asked, not expecting an answer. “Everyone’s supposed to be on holiday. Everyone’s at festivals or sunning themselves on faraway beaches. No one’s supposed to be doing politics, are they?”

  “This August is like no other,” Fergal replied, not looking up from the article he was reading. “Brexit is causing all sorts of havoc.”

  “And it hasn’t even begun yet.”

  “I’m not sure whether to love what’s happening to the Labour Party or be afraid.”

  “Be afraid. Be very afraid,” Skye replied with mock horror. “Mind you, the other parties aren’t much better.”

  “I’m glad we missed all the Olympics hype. They didn’t seem to play it up in America.”

  “Only when an American won gold.”

  “Obviously.”

  They continued reading for a few minutes in a companionable silence broken only by the striking of the long case clock which had stood in the hall of the old house, Skye’s childhood home, for as long as she could remember.

  “That dreadful man is all over the inside pages.”

  “What dreadful man?” Skye asked.

  “Warwick ruddy Eden.”

  “Oh him! I thought you meant my father.”

  “Sir Arthur has, thankfully, kept his head down very low since that scandal back in 2015.”

  “A scandal in which we played a not insignificant part.”

  Fergal nodded his head in acknowledgement as Skye continued more thoughtfully. “I wonder if he knows Warwick ruddy Eden, they’re of the same way of thinking, aren’t they? ‘England for the English’ and all that, though what he means by ‘English’ is a very narrow interpretation of the word. He doesn’t even mean ‘English born’; he means white and preferably male. I’m glad we showed my father up for what he is, a lying bigot. They’re both all bluff and bluster, aren’t they? No one takes them seriously anymore, do they?”

  “It seems Warwick wants us to,” Fergal said ruefully.

  “What’s he up to now?”

  “He’s spouting off about the referendum and how he should be a leading voice in the ‘Leave’ camp.”

  “But they’ll have other, bigger guns, won’t they?” Skye asked.

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “But you don’t think that will shut him up?”

  “I suspect nothing, apart from death, will do that.”

  As they returned to their papers, he to his e-version and she to the wodge of supplements and magazines that was the paper version, Skye’s phone vibrated on the pine tabletop.

  “It’s an email from Alex.” Skye went to pass her phone over to her husband but he didn’t take it.

  “How is he? It’s only just over a month since we tracked him down.”

  “The first case for our investigative organisation, Agents of History. We may not be Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson but we did solve all the mysteries around his disappearance.” Skye grinned. She had been very pleased with the outcome of their first case. Not only that they found the missing Alex, but they had solved a murder where the motive went back decades into the Cold War.

  “I honestly think we found Alex and discovered Walter Brittain’s murderer more by good luck than any particular skill. We must be very careful with our next case. No missing persons, no spies, no haring around Southern England—”

  “And France, and Spain,” Skye added.

  “We should just stick to doing what we planned to do, solve people’s problems by learning about their families’ histories.”

  “Though it was good to get Alex and Rachel together,
she was a much nicer person than Teri, much better for him. I never liked Teri.”

  “And Rachel has, as far as we know, never murdered anyone,” he added. “Now let’s just do something nice and straightforward, though I’m not sure getting involved with Gordon Hamilton, and his mysterious Home Office people, will lead us into anything straightforward.”

  “Talk of the devil.”

  Fergal frowned. “Who? Gordon? What does he want?”

  “I know you don’t like him.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You don’t, though, do you?”

  “What I don’t like is he is altogether too controlling and demanding. I don’t like that he seems to have involved us in his world.”

  “Whatever that is.”

  “Exactly. Whatever that is. I really don’t like the idea of him involving us as… how did he describe it?”

  “Pawns.”

  “I don’t like the idea of us being pawns in his silly games.”

  “They aren’t necessarily silly.”

  “Whatever they are they can’t be that critical to national security if they can be solved by a couple of rank amateurs like us.”

  Skye gave up arguing and turned to her phone. “Anyway, there’s a text from him. We’re to expect a phone call in half an hour from Anne Hill.”

  “The policewoman who couldn’t solve two murders on her patch? She went to work for him, didn’t she?” Fergal took his wife’s phone and read the email. “Even in a text the pompous arse uses full sentences and punctuation. Anne Hill will call you on your landline at 2 p.m. Please make sure you take the call. By the way I have heard excellent reports of your Napoleonic lecture tour in the US of A. Whoever calls it ‘the US of A’ for Pete’s sake? Anyway, how did he know we’d got back?”

  “I suspect there’s very little Gordon doesn’t know about where we are and what we’re doing.”

  Thirty-five minutes later Fergal replaced the phone receiver, frowning.

  “Well?” Skye asked.

  “Diane Hammill is missing.”

  “Diane? Dartmouth Diane?”

  “Yes, the Diane who helped us when we were trying to prove Alex didn’t kill old Mr Brittain.”