Black Waters (Strong Winds Series Book 5)

by Julia Jones

  “Yes. Though it’s not about them.”

  “Ah, but it will be from Jonjo’s point-of-view.”

  Thank heaven for Martha’s good sense. Xanthe was getting it now.

  “You can bring him anything he wants in that case. If it’s about the kids.”

  She ended the call before she gave Jonjo his phone.

  “Okay,” she told him. “Listen up. You remember you were grumbling about Dominic’s iron curtain. Well, maybe one of the things he failed to communicate is the reason I’m working here. I’m here because I messed up badly on a pre-selection training week. I punched my main rival so I got chucked off and banned.”

  Yes, Jonjo was listening. His face was impassive, his grey eyes locked onto hers.

  “At that time it felt like the end of my world. And since then I’ve been on the wrong end of a cyber-bullying campaign – as you’re seeing here. It got so bad that I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t face college any more. I think I was having some sort of mini-breakdown. Then my mum and our vicar had an idea which was to make me forget about my problems by doing something useful for people who were worse off than me.”

  He managed a nod.

  “So, that’s why I’m here, but what is it with the kids? What are they hiding from? I saw you shut K-J up when she tried to speak out and Dominic treated me like I was an idiot. You all assumed I’d think that they’re any old bunch of kids signing up for some outdoor education. Yet it’s completely obvious that they’re not. They’re upset and terrified and they’re cut off from their families and you’re not letting me understand how to protect or help them.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I’m not stupid. Even Nelson only makes those jokes as his defence mechanism. But it was mainly from what Siri said.”

  “Siri’s suffering from mutism.”

  “Maybe it’s not total? She woke up yesterday and we were just women there and she felt safe for a moment. She said ‘Mummy’.”

  A wave of sadness washed across his face. He was ready to level with her.

  “Her mother got shot in a gangland feud. It was territorial: racketeers and drug suppliers fighting for control of an area. There was no question of her being involved. She was a single mother in the wrong place at the wrong time. Siri was with her, small child, attached to her mother’s wrist as she was carrying their shopping home.”

  Xanthe went cold.

  “…and the others?”

  “All part of a witness protection scheme. We need to bring those killers to justice. This is one small area of a vast drugs ring. It’s taken us years building the case and persuading people thet they’re safe to testify. We know we heven’t reached the big fish so, now the trial’s finally started, the parents hev to be in London under twenty-four-hour guard. One or two of them hev to accept thet they’ll be going down as well. Dominic’s charity offered the kids a break and their parents agreed on the understanding thet we could maintain total secrecy. To spread these pictures across social media could not be worse.”

  She could see that. “I’ll leave if you think it’ll draw them off. I don’t want to.”

  “I think it’s the kids who need to leave. I’ve already got our people looking for another safe house.”

  “You’re a policeman, not a youth worker.” She was totally not surprised. “So why can’t you get the photos taken down?”

  He showed her his ID.

  “I’m Special Branch and yes we’re onto it. But we know we’re too late. Look at all those hits. If these are not your friends you must hev made some serious enemies.”

  Thousands of them, all hating her and laughing. For a moment that old sick feeling twisted in her empty stomach. Then she thought of the kids and forced it down.

  “Have you found the photographer?”

  “No. I had hoped if we could identify the source thet we might squash it and stay put. I can see they’re starting to settle. And if little Siri felt secure enough to speak – even a single word – thet’s fantastic news. But I have to keep them safe. Thet’s my first priority.”

  “Martha said something like that. Is she Special Branch as well?”

  “Martha’s an Essex Special Constable. It means she’s a part-time volunteer. We took her out and gave her special training. This operation was planned months ago. If we move I’ll try to hev her seconded to come with us but I know she won’t want to.”

  He was silent now, thinking. The coffee came. They drank it. Then Martha arrived with Xanthe’s toast and her Macbook and her camera and her dictaphone.

  “So,” Xanthe asked Jonjo. “Which of my things do you want to check out first?”

  “Eh? Nothing at all. I owe you an apology.”

  Yes. He did.

  “You could clear up one thing – if thet’s ok,” he added politely. “I noticed thet you weren’t totally surprised? You knew something had happened before you looked at the computer – or did I read thet wrong as well?”

  “My sister texted me to tell me I’d been tagged on social media. She thought I’d be upset and she also said that our friend Anna, who’s a geek, was working to find where all this is coming from. But you’ve probably got some massive system that can do all that.”

  She gave him her phone.

  “Anna and Maggi don’t know anything about the kids. Read their texts.”

  He shook his head and then he laughed.

  “Jesus wept! Maybe you girls are gonna put me out of a job. You got a comment, Dom?”

  The Chief Companion’s face was pale and serious. It was as if he was looking at something that was far away and could never be made right.

  “Godwyn should be a place of safety,” he said. “That’s the heart of her mission. I think Xanthe should leave. Not for herself but because of the issues she brings with her.”

  “You think I’m a Jonah?”

  She was hurt. She knew she’d suggested it. She saw he could be right. But she was hurt.

  “I think you’re a star!” Martha was scarlet with anger. “Snap out of it, Dom. Who got Siri back for us? Who’s been putting up with insults from dotty Aunt Iris and, most important of all, who’s managed to win those children’s confidence and begin to change their outlooks? Not you, me or Jonjo. Sorr-ee.”

  Dominic stared at her. Then it seemed as if her blazing passion transferred across and warmed him. His colour was more normal and he obviously relaxed. She calmed down and paled.

  Xanthe looked out of the window away from them. “There’s almost water in the creek. We should be rigging the dinghies. Or am I sacked?”

  “No you’re not sacked,” said Jonjo. “And thet’s an operational decision for which I’m taking responsibility. But we still hev a problem thet someone took those photos. The first set was taken when the boys were on the river. I don’t think they should sail today.”

  “Or maybe they shouldn’t sail from here?” said Xanthe.

  This weather was too good to miss. Why should the kids have to hide away from all the trolls who hated her as well as from whatever mega-villains were threatening them?

  “You must have some sort of towing vehicle so why don’t we split up? Kids and minders in the minibus – as if you’re off for a picnic. Me and someone and a dinghy going separately. Then we’ll meet at a beach and I’ll take them out one at a time practising launches and landings. They’d love it.”

  “We can watch to see if we get followed,” added Martha. “Or which of us gets followed. I am disgusted by the thought that someone was spying on those girls yesterday.”

  “Where would we go?” asked Jonjo. “I can’t ever discount a snatch attempt. We need single track and very private.”

  Xanthe had been studying the chart. “On the other side of Meresig there’s a channel called Coldlight Creek. It’s mainly muddy but it has a lovely bit of sand and swimming at t
he entrance. I’ve anchored there with my family. I remember a lane through a farm.”

  “I’ll alert the boys in blue,” said Jonjo. “Get the access checked. Make sure there’s back-up if we need it.”

  “I know Coldlight Creek,” said Martha. “We lived across the river at Brittlesey when we were kids and my brother lands his oysters there. There’s a locked gate onto the track but Gareth’ll have the key. He’ll have his dory, too.”

  “Dory?”

  “Flat-bottomed boat that he do use for hauling. He’d lend it for safety.”

  For a moment Martha sounded like Gareth, as well as looking like him. Jonjo clenched and unclenched his fists. It wasn’t aggressive, more as if he needed help to think.

  “What does your brother know?”

  “Nothin’ but what he’s worked out for himself. He’s a Farran. He’s got eyes in his head. But we’re close – close-mouthed that is.”

  “I’ll stay behind if Gareth’s there,” said Dominic. “Our visitors will be packing to go and I don’t feel easy leaving Godwyn. I could check on Iris if you’re late back.”

  “Commander Gold was at Rebow Cottage when I got dropped off yesterday,” said Xanthe. “He’d bought her a new widescreen colour TV so she can watch his event this weekend. She wasn’t totally grateful, though. She thinks she should be invited as his honoured guest. You’re all related, aren’t you? All Golds.”

  “We don’t get on,” was all that Dominic could say.

  Martha leaned forward. Touched him.

  “Tell them, Dominic. Spirit of trust and openness. Give it a go.”

  The Companion-in-Chief looked at his feet. Then he sighed.

  “There’s no need to nag. Commander Gold is…a relative. He’s also the reason why I want to stay within sight of Godwyn when there’s enough water for her to float. He wants the lightship for his event and I’ve said no. It’s completely ridiculous.”

  “But you’re afraid he might help himself – just as he tried with Fritha. It’s why you’ve reinforced the mooring points with all that concrete and why you can’t sleep at night when you know the tide is up.” Martha finished for him. “I’ll give you six out of ten for that attempt at an answer.”

  “Is there anything more thet I should know?” Jonjo was alert.

  “If Godwyn’s safe, we’re all safe. I care more about security than anyone. I really think we’ve talked for long enough.”

  Xanthe swallowed the last of her cold coffee and munched her toast as she hurried to collect her crew. She did notice that he hadn’t answered Jonjo’s question. And he’d sounded exactly like Iris.

  Gareth did better than unlock the gate and get them down the private track and offer Jonjo his dory as their safety boat. He told them that his oyster-dredger was on a mooring further up the creek and he could bring her close in and anchor her if anyone’d like to come on board and take a look.

  “Hey,” said Nelson, “What swims in the sea, carries a machine gun and makes you an offer you can’t refuse?”

  “Not so funny,” said Jonjo.

  Xanthe didn’t see that he needed to be so tense: there were a few other families on the steep sandy beach but not all that many and they blended in fine. They looked like a club.

  “The Codfather,” Martha answered Nelson. “I used to think that my dad had invented that joke.”

  “Along with that one about fish being clever because they swam in schools,” Gareth added. “Then he’d look across at us and say, ‘come on you two, time to get yer homework done, you don’t want to end up like your old dad.’ He’d run away, you see, when he were young. Didn’t get on at home so he got a job on the paddle steamers. Gave up school when he were twelve.”

  “Iris told me about him,” Xanthe remembered. “His name was Joe and he helped with the Dunkirk evacuation by making tea and sandwiches.”

  “Seven trips,” said Martha. “And he was only fourteen.”

  “Would you do me a Dunkirk interview? Help me write down your dad’s story? I’m sort of avoiding that subject with Iris now.”

  Then she remembered what Martha had said; she should have avoided it with them as well.

  “Our dad drowned off of the Igraine.” Gareth’s voice darkened. “Eli went ter jail for it.”

  He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, turned away from them and looked across the river to Colne Point and out to sea.

  “Hey, bro…” Martha was warning him off.

  “What’s yellow and dangerous?” Nelson answered himself before anyone else had a chance. “Shark-infested custard!”

  Gareth laughed, relaxed, turned back to them.

  “Remember the other one Dad used to bring out when he’d had a drink or two?” he asked Martha.

  “About the richest fish on the river?”

  “That un’s the Gold-fish, he used to say.”

  The children hadn’t met a working fisherman before. They hadn’t had much chance, living in East London. Xanthe, who had lived by water for most of her life, discovered that she knew nothing at all about the growing and the harvesting of oysters – which the Farrans had been doing as long as they’d been living near Flinthammock. Which was probably for ever.

  “Romans ate these oysters here on Meresig. Flat oysters they would have been then, Natives. And not in the summer. Best sort of all, though they don’t do so well now.”

  “Why not?” asked Xanthe.

  “Could be pollution, change in water temperature, damage on the ground. Thing to remember about shellfish is that they’re sensitive. They’re opening and closing all the time: feeding and growing – or so you hope. The water’s flowing through them but a’course you can’t see that. So it ain’t until afterwards, when you find they ain’t growing or they’re dying, that you begin to wonder what went wrong.”

  “Don’t you, like, monitor the water?”

  “We’re talking about a river here, gal. A river that’s open to the sea.”

  They were squashed together on board Gareth’s little ship, anchored inside Coldlight Creek and finishing their sandwiches. Xanthe shut up after that and let Kieran and David ask endless questions about the machinery and the processes involved. Nelson was unusually quiet, probably working out a new range of shellfish jokes. By the time Gareth said he needed to run them back ashore, he’d got one – which he answered as usual before they’d had time to think.

  “How do fishermen go into business? They start on a small scale.”

  Gareth laughed aloud at that. He gave Nelson a serious answer though. “But have you seen how us humans guzzle – let alone what crabs and seabirds do, if you give ’em half a chance? Small scale’s no good if you need to earn a living from yer oysters. It used to be seasonal but now people want ’em all year round. We don’t sell ’em natives out of season, obviously. Just rocks – rock oysters, I mean, not stones. Ain’t found a recipe for stones yet.”

  “My N-nan and G-grandad used to eat c-cockles and whelks. But we don’t go there any more. N-not since we had to move.” David sounded wistful.

  “We had a holiday in Marbella once – before Dad lost his business. They eat loads of seafood.” That was Kieran. He looked across at Kelly-Jane who nodded but didn’t speak.

  Xanthe’d learned to dread the silences when the children remembered their families and the lives they’d had to leave.

  Gareth must have noticed too. “Any of you’s interested I could take you for a walk around my oyster racks. They’re in the other river, further up beyond Mell Creek. And I will just mention that I could be looking for an apprentice or two in the longer term. If I still have a business after that new hotel opens.”

  “No thanks,” said Kelly-Jane.

  “You’re such a girl,” said Kieran. “Can I come please, Mr Farran.”

  “It’s Gareth. Call me Mr Farran and I’m looking over my sho
ulder for my late departed Uncle Eli, though the only thing I miss him for is he used to help me giving the sacks a shake at low water.”

  “C-could we shake s-sacks?” asked David.

  “Don’t mind you havin’ a go. It’s tough on the back and tough on the hands an’ you’ll need thick gloves and boots and waterproofs.”

  “W-we’ve got gear, haven’t we, Xanthe?” They’d none of them got the habit of calling her Cap’n and she’d forgotten to be bothered. Different creeks, different flavours.

  “We so have.”

  It was the first time David had positively wanted anything. And Kieran looked keen too.

  “Is it somewhere we could go now?” she asked Martha and Jonjo. “Dominic said he’d cover if we were late.”

  “Don’t mind if I come along,” said Kelly-Jane. “Don’t fancy shaking sacks though. Not if they’re all smelly and slimy.”

  Jonjo and Martha were thinking aloud.

  “No one’s followed us today.”

  “How private is it?”

  “It’s about like this. We could stop at the Happy Haddock first off.”

  Xanthe and Martha looked at the girls. Siri’s eyes said yes.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Kelly-Jane.

  The oyster racks were exactly that, racks: long metal structures about a metre high, embedded in the sandy mud at the river’s edge and uncovered for an hour or two either side of low water. Everyone sat on the dry sand near the top of the lonely beach, eating their chips and waiting. Then the racks broke the smooth surface, one after another and seemed to rise up as the water ebbed away. They were blackened by grime and draped with dark weed. On top of each rack lay hundreds of flat mesh sacks. They weren’t large but each one contained dozens of oysters.

  “Them’s too small to be out on the river bed. Crabs’d get ’em. So we have ’em up here out of reach. Gives ’em time to grow. Each sack gets a regular shaking to move the little ’uns about, then after six months they’s big enough to go out in the river. Leave ’em another nine months or so, then dredge ’em up – or hand-pick, depending on the tide.”

  “Everything’s depending on the tide round here.”