A Ravelled Flag (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  It was good he was still wearing the wetsuit because the rain was fairly bucketing down. It had washed his hands clean before he’d gone about ten metres. Who needed showers!

  The roads were quiet – he was glad about that. He was sort of haunted by the fear that he might meet the white van. Or possibly, tonight, Toxic’s special edition Merc. Worst of all would be Flint’s black Range Rover.

  It was a relief when he reached the soggy track that led from an empty car park down to Gallister Creek. The reeds were lashing in the wind and he guessed it would be rough out on the river, though the rain might flatten the worst of it. He propped the bike against a stunted oak and used its shelter to check Xanthe’s phone. There was a text.

  Hi sis. Where u? Dad stuck at hosp again. Mum stressed. Hag and ogre both here. Anna wants out :(

  Flint and Toxic at the party! No wonder Anna wasn’t happy. It did sort of neutralise them though.

  He tried to reach Xanthe on the Ribieros’ home number but there wasn’t any answer. He hoped that meant she was serving Ben Gunn’s supper or scratching his nose. Not trapped with his teeth in her arm. He left a message to tell her to call Maggi asap.

  Another text arrived.

  Walking to PM to join pirates. Wood spooky. A says not as spooky as hag and ogre. C u later xm

  Donny was shocked. They shouldn’t be doing that. The path though the trees would be well dark. He pressed reply.

  B careful. X at home + rescue dog. Plse call her there. I have phone :) D

  He wasn’t much good at texting with wet fingers and was struggling with the hollow feeling that he’d messed up. Flint and Toxic were at the Club: the well-hards wouldn’t be out on the river in weather like this. He ought to be with Maggi and Anna in the spooky wood. Or with Xanthe and that psychopathic dog.

  He was hungry. He was tired. He’d check the junk and go straight back. Have some New Year’s Eve fun. He stowed the phone in a waterproof pouch inside the zipped pocket which was inside his wet-suit and underneath the close-fitting buoyancy aid. Xanthe had made it pretty clear that she wouldn’t accept any dinghy-capsize or similar accident as an excuse for wrecking her mobile.

  The tide was still high and Lively Lady floating where he’d left her. Vexilla too. Donny ran to the point at the edge of the bay and looked out. The River Stour was about a mile wide here but if he focussed hard he could see occasional quick flashes from the channel buoys on the further side. The rain was easing a bit – though it didn’t look as if it was going to be much of a night for fireworks. Nearer him, where the creek led towards the deeper water of anchorage, the river was completely dark. It shouldn’t have been.

  He should have been able to see Strong Winds’ anchor light, even in these conditions. He remembered Skye hoisting it this morning before they all left. Perhaps she’d forgotten to check the paraffin and it had run out. That was something he could fix. Not that there was ever much passing traffic. Let alone on a night like this.

  The wind had veered west and was blowing straight down the river. The ebb could scarcely have begun. He ran back to Lively Lady and rummaged for her old red jib. He wanted to set something small and quiet and non-reflecting. He didn’t choose to ask himself why.

  Donny didn’t have to worry about sticking to the line of the creek at this state of the tide. The withies and the small, unlit buoys weren’t easy to spot anyway. He pointed Lively Lady as directly as he could for the place where Strong Winds should have been. The wind was on the beam and the jib pulling nicely. He peered ahead for the first sight of Strong Winds’ solid shape amidst the blackness.

  Then he began to catch the steady sound of a boat engine. He felt as if he recognised it, though it certainly wasn’t the reassuring throb of Strong Winds’ motor nor the terrifying snarl of the shark-boat. It wasn’t the speedboat either.

  Donny looked all around him as Lady rode cheerfully up and over the swell. It must have been properly rough earlier when the wind and tide were diametrically opposed. He remembered what Gold Dragon had said about ‘walls of water’ coming down the Stour. Neither of Flint’s boats would have been able to reach Strong Winds. He was certain of that.

  Anyway Flint was at the party. Filling his fat face with June Ribiero’s food, no doubt. Not surprising that Maggi said her mum was stressed.

  The only time he’d seen a boat beside the Hispaniola it had been Flint’s black speedboat. Was there a maritime equivalent of the Pura-Lilly white van? He’d never noticed one.

  There were still no lights.

  And that was odd. He’d been checking the green flashes of a starboard-hand channel buoy on the far side of the river. That too had vanished. Was someone going round with a deluminator?

  The engine was getting closer.

  Or he was getting closer to it. The green light of the starboard- hand channel buoy hadn’t been extinguished. The reason he couldn’t see it any more was that Strong Winds was blocking it out. He’d arrived.

  Much too soon.

  He let his jib fly and pushed the tiller down so Lady turned into the wind and lay neatly alongside the junk’s starboard bow. No time to feel relief. The engine noise was coming from somewhere roughly amidships on Strong Winds’ port side. There were no anchor chains. The junk was moving. The unseen vessel on the far side was pushing her in a sharp starboard-hand curve. If he didn’t get out of the dinghy in a hurry, his weight in this swell might swamp her as Strong Winds was forced hard against her.

  Donny dropped the jib and sheeted it in almost a single movement. Made fast the halliard, grabbed his painter and was up and rolling himself over Strong Winds’ bulwarks before he even wondered who he might be about to meet.

  The deck was deserted. He flattened down instinctively, looked round, saw no-one then wriggled cautiously aft along the smooth teak deck between the bulwark and the coach-roof.

  There were no lights showing, either on Strong Winds or on the vessel pushing from the far side, whatever it was. Something powerful but low in the water. When he raised his head to try to look across he could see the flat top of a small square wheelhouse. Nothing more.

  Donny’s nose was close to the deck. More and more strongly he smelled diesel.

  This was really odd. Odder than the absence of the anchor light. Strong Winds carried diesel for her engine and diesel to power the generator they’d used when they were at Pin Mill. The cabin heater was also diesel but Gold Dragon was fierce about minimising the smell. Bilges were kept scrupulously clean and any spilled drop neutralised immediately. He’d never smelled anything like this all the time he’d lived on board.

  He swarmed along more swiftly. He could check if there was a leak from the fuel tank. Though maybe it didn’t have to be his first priority. It wasn’t as if diesel was easily flammable, not like petrol. What he most needed to do was slip down into Strong Winds’ engine room, get the engine ready to start, then find some way to release whatever towing ropes were binding the junk to her abductor. Then, somehow ... try to get her away.

  This diesel smell was making him feel sick and even a bit drowsy. The cabin doors seemed hard to open. The smell from below was almost overpowering. He’d have to get to the engine room as quick as possible then get out again. Through the forehatch maybe. The air would be fresher there.

  The doors opened when he put his shoulder to them and shoved.

  Gold Dragon slept in the quarter berth. It was a small self-contained berth, secluded from the main saloon but closest to the engine room and the companionway. In an emergency she could be into the cockpit taking command of Strong Winds in seconds.

  She was there now, in her sleeping bag, going nowhere. There was a pad of diesel-soaked wadding covering her face. Donny snatched it off. Her mouth was half-open, her breathing heavy. She was alive but unconscious.

  Why? Why wasn’t she safely at Erewhon Parva shivering the timbers of the kids?

 
No time to wonder.

  Could diesel fumes kill? The cabin seemed to have been saturated. Donny put his hands over his nose and mouth to try to protect himself as he lurched through the main cabin towards the fo’csle to open the forehatch and get a stream of cold fresh air pouring through the interior of the junk. Then he ran groggily back to get his arms underneath his great-aunt’s shoulders and try to pull her from her berth and up into the night.

  It was really hard. He hadn’t known how heavy even a small eighty-year-old could be when they were completely inert. Maybe she’d been drugged.

  He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get her up the ladder. Wasn’t strong enough.

  So he changed his plans and heaved her through the cabin until he could prop her up underneath the open hatch. She couldn’t die there, surely?

  What next? He didn’t think of using the VHF. Didn’t think of summoning official adult help. Instead he reverted to the only plan he had. He readied Strong Winds’ engine then scrambled gratefully out of the foul air and into the cockpit hoping that, if he loosed the after tow-rope first, whoever it was who was rushing them down the river, might not notice when he scuttled forward to release that warp as well.

  Then it would be engine on, tiller hard across and Strong Winds would take her only possible chance of escape.

  They’d almost be down to Harwich by then. He couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. A fragment of his mind was still up the River Orwell with Maggi and Anna in those lonely woods. Another was lying unconscious with Great Aunt Ellen. She mustn’t die. Mustn’t take the longest road, not tonight, please.

  Maybe, when he’d freed Strong Winds, he could get her across to Shotley marina, phone Joshua Ribiero for medical advice? Xanthe must have her dad’s number in her mobile?

  Another of those crashing kicks felled him as he reached out for the first of the towing lines.

  The attacker was strong, had trained hard all his life, knew how to use each individual muscle. He had no trouble bundling a fourteen-year-old down into the main cabin and laying him out on one of the berths.

  He was tempted of course to tip the body straight over the side. But all of this had to look like an accident. They’d been so careful how they set it up. Everyone had their alibis established. Even the boys would have been photographed by now, attending the Ipswich Vigil for Harmony and Happiness, as arranged by their Welfare worker.

  All except him. He was the shape-shifter, the man in the shadows. He did what needed to be done. Ran his businesses discreetly. His women would alibi him from here to eternity if he so much as rattled the keys to their cage. Yet he wouldn’t want to risk a murder enquiry. Even here, where he had friends.

  Very soon they’d reach Harwich International Port. The giant cruise liner Imago was scheduled to leave ten minutes after midnight on a New Year Welcome trip. By then the junk would have been pinioned beneath her jutting bow, trapped between the cruise liner’s inner hawser and the harbour wall. She would be completely invisible from the liner’s blazing windows. None of the revellers on board need be aware of her annihilation.

  It was at that moment that Xanthe’s phone went off. Not with the melodious ping of another text arriving but with the gale-force rendition of ‘Rule Britannia’ that she’d down-loaded, so she explained later, to make an ironic, post-imperialist statement. Donny never did quite understand what she had meant by that.

  The soprano thundered on and on.

  The attacker would have left it. Buried so deep in the child’s expensive clothes. But then the Dragon spoke.

  “Satellite technology, Tiger. He also has powerful friends. Those telephones can be tracked. And will be.”

  She was not where he had left her. Her voice was weak yet she was awake.

  He slapped the boy awake as well.

  “How long?”

  His voice was muffled by his stocking mask. They couldn’t even see the shape of his head in the unlit cabin. He had throttled back the engine of his own vessel but they would soon be nearing the liner’s departure terminal.

  “How long on?”

  Long? Or Lóng? Donny could think of nothing but the blows to his face. What was happening to him? What was he meant to say?

  The Rule Britannia ring-tone ceased. And almost immediately began again.

  The Tiger was infuriated. He ripped open the Velcro fastenings and the broad flat zips of Donny’s borrowed sailing gear. He was wearing gloves. There would be no prints. Found the instrument at last and threw it hard away out through the main hatch into the black waters.

  “It’s been on all the time. We’ve been texting.”

  “Sheer off, Tiger. No-one’s going to swallow your accident now.”

  The Dragon was on her feet. She was swinging a heavy leather pouch on a lanyard. She was old. He could take her easily. And the child too.

  “Dad,” said Xanthe. She’d been ringing to tell Donny that Maggi and Anna had arrived safely at the vicarage and her mother had left the Yacht Club party and would be picking them up at midnight. Her father was home from the hospital. “My phone’s gone dead.”

  “Battery?” Joshua’s face was tinged grey with the strain of the latest hygiene crisis in his specialist surgical ward.

  “Nope. It was ringing and it cut. It’s completely dead. Think about it, Dad. First Miss Walker tells the vicarage lot that she senses danger and needs to be back on board Strong Winds. So she leaves the pirate party. Then Donny gets the same feeling and I’m so focussed on the dog that I just flutter a metaphorical hanky at him. Now this.

  There’s something wrong, Dad. That phone’s been dunked.”

  “I have Strong Winds’ call sign. We established an emergency system when Donny’s mother was so ill.”

  “MTRM3 ... MTRM3. Are you receiving me? Over.”

  Donny heard Joshua Ribiero’s voice loud and clear over Strong Winds’ VHF but he was in no position to respond. He was wrapped arms and legs around the Tiger holding him back from reaching Great Aunt Ellen. She was game but shaky, whirling her rigging pouch like some sort of medieval weapon.

  Something heavy bumped and scraped its way down Strong Winds’ side. A tug hooted stridently, quite close at hand.

  The only accidents they would have now would be real.

  The attacker kicked himself free of Donny’s koala-style clasp and ripped the radio cable from its socket. He ran on deck, freed both towing lines and leaped on board his stolen ferry, taking the junk’s tiller with him. Then gave Strong Winds one last savage shove towards some unfinished construction workings at the eastern end of Bathgate Bay.

  Donny picked himself up, glanced at his great-aunt and threw himself up the companionway. The object that had bumped its way along the junks’ topsides had been a metal buoy. They were well on the wrong side of the channel now and skewing into shallow water. A hazard marker dead ahead warned boats to keep away from half- submerged concrete piles and protruding metal girders.

  He pressed the ignition and Strong Winds’ engine answered instantly. Put it gently into reverse to slow her way. Needed something to steer with. Ran forward for the boat hook.

  “At ease, Sinbad. We carry a spare.” Polly Lee was in her cockpit now and hooking a replacement tiller out from the aft locker. “Best bring that dinghy of yours aft and make her fast securely. That scurvy swab has lost me both my anchors so we’ll have to find a mooring PDQ. Or stand by to make sail. I’m not certain how much of our diesel he’s left us.”

  She was in control and turning the junk carefully away from the danger. She switched on Strong Winds’ navigation lights and headed back towards the channel. As Donny went to retrieve Lively Lady he looked out into the night after their attacker.

  No sign.

  “Availed himself of the cross-harbour ferry. The black-hearted bilge-sucker. He’ll be tied up alongside the Ha’penny Pier by now.”

 
; Fireworks began sizzling skywards and the Harwich church bell tolled. The pale superstructure of the cruise liner Imago was dappled with reflected colour as her passengers carried their wineglasses to the windows and gazed out onto the spectacular display. Two of the harbour tugs were positioning themselves to pluck the liner from the shadowed quayside.

  “Um, Happy 2007 then,” Donny said to Great Aunt Ellen. “Don’t suppose you carry a spare radio as well do you?”

  “Isn’t that the youth of today,” she tutted, pulling out a fully- charged portable VHF. “Always on the phone to someone. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned self-reliance?”

  “Laid out in a bunk with a pad of diesel wadding over her face?”

  “An accident waiting to happen. I’m obliged, Sinbad. To you and to your Allies.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Farewell and Adieu

  January-March 2007

  “How sick are you of sailing?” she asked him when he’d finished apologising to Xanthe for the loss of her mobile and reassuring everyone that he was with his great-aunt and all was well. He knew not to say more over the VHF as others could be listening.

  “Hardly done any to get sick of.”

  “I haven’t put my nose out of this harbour for the last three months.”

  “Are you saying that you want to go to sea now?” It was past midnight and he’d assumed they’d be deciding between Shotley marina for the rest of the night or a mooring on the lower Orwell. They didn’t have to. No-one was expecting them. Unless they should be taking legal advice about the accident that hadn’t happened – talking to Edward maybe?