Ghosting Home (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  “We’re putting in all the places where we’ve seen Flint or Toxic and who we’ve seen them with. Like the kids who gave Skye the plastic bottles with the vodka to make her an addict. We saw them in the town with Toxic. The day Xanthe rescued that dog.”

  “The night I was trussed like a chicken in my own saloon. You’re putting that in, I hope?”

  “Would you be okay with testifying?”

  “I’d be better seeing all three of them swinging from my yardarm. But yes.”

  “Then you’re the only adult we can rely on. Except for Mum and no-one ever listens to her.”

  Donny sat down on Gold Dragon’s berth with a thump. Peered harder at the chart. Accepted that she was going to sit up and peer at it with him.

  “Point Horror was an accident, no-one planned for that container to fall over board in that storm and then be washed up exactly there. So it’s not going to tell us all that much. I mean obviously the police and the port authorities will be checking where it came from. But they don’t know about the special mark. The Welcome Mark that Bill was paid to look for on the crooked containers. And they also don’t know that I left the same Mark, by accident, on board the Beckfoot. That weekend we were attacked she went up the river as a schooner then out to sea as a gun-ship. Now she’s back on her mooring as a schooner again and I want to find out why. She’s my iceberg on the equator. What’s she doing there?”

  Her blue eyes had regained their sharp and steady focus.

  “You’re telling me this because ...?”

  “Because it helps me say it aloud. I’m still missing something, I know I am. Also I might need to go on board again. Zhang’s sign says trespassers will be prosecuted but if she’s sort of your ship really, and you say it’s okay, then I’m not trespassing, am I?”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then it’ll probably be Xanthe who scrambles up the bobstay. She’s desperate for action and she’s not as hung up as she used to be about telling her parents things.”

  Gold Dragon smiled. But the smiling made her cough, and it was a while before she could catch enough breath to speak clearly again.

  “I wouldn’t want to prove ownership in an Admiralty Court. Speaking strictly as your great-aunt, I want you to promise that if you go on board again, you’ll take an adult with you. Young Ned’ll be keen enough. He seems a handy lad.”

  “Okay,” said Donny. “I promise.”

  He hadn’t forgotten the Tiger kicking him backwards into that cupboard, driving at him in his van and jumping him in the dark lane. Or the way he’d nearly killed Gold Dragon. He remembered his killer’s knife too and the slashed flag. He was no schoolboy secret agent – he wouldn’t have any problem inviting his uncle along.

  From the deck above he could hear the shake of canvas and a rattle of battens. Strong Winds seemed to hesitate for a moment before she settled to her new course.

  Donny stood up. He’d better go check all was well.

  Great Aunt Ellen’s breathing had speeded up while they’d been talking; she was sweating slightly and her hand trembled. He helped her back onto her cushions and asked whether he should fetch some of her medicines but she shook her head. She looked uncomfortable and all the wrong colours and he stood there wondering whether he should try to insist. He didn’t suppose she’d take any notice.

  They both felt Strong Winds’ motion fell into a regular pattern again. He heard her sigh as her eyes closed. Then he went up into the cockpit to talk to Defoe.

  Anna went into the cabin when they were closing the Woodbridge Haven buoy. She was going to ask Ellen whether she wanted to come on deck to pay her respects to Oboe, the man she’d loved, whose ashes she had scattered there. It looked as if she was sleeping so Anna turned and tiptoed back on deck without waking her. Said she’d looked okay, just really pale.

  They had arrived at the River Deben entrance with a good couple of hours of spring flood under them. Crossed the bar without incident.

  Strong Winds’ speed was exhilarating as the tide caught her and whirled her through the shingle banks. A few miles further up river the wind died. The flood still carried them onwards while the sails hung flaccid and dull.

  Then Skye found that Ellen too had gone. She wasn’t sleeping any longer: she was dead.

  At the moment of Skye’s discovery the channel swung round into a wide and open reach. Strong Winds’ sails filled and she heeled slightly offering them all just a few moments of the most perfect summer sailing. Then momentum slowed: the sails sagged: the bereaved vessel continued floating up the pretty river as if she were a log. Strong Winds had known Gold Dragon for so long: they had depended on each other, explored the world together. She should have stopped, quivered, spilled her last faint breath of wind in grief.

  Angrily Donny pushed the tiller away from him, forcing the junk to luff. They should start the engine, drop anchor, take the sails down, row for help: do anything except continue to ghost placidly up the river with the tide

  “No,” said Defoe, returning Strong Winds to her original course. “She trusted her boat to you. You have to finish the voyage.”

  Tears were streaming down his uncle’s cheeks and Anna’s too. Donny forced himself to take the helm again and look ahead. Skye turned and went below and sat with Great Aunt Ellen as her body stiffened and her boat drifted onwards into the evening light.

  Harwich Harbour, June 2007

  Silence is my only refuge. I hate the poison queen but I do not fear her. When she takes my photograph I understand it is because she needs to prove I am alive.

  I hate and fear the fat man because he hurts me. I understand that there are reasons why he cannot kill me – yet.

  Because I do not answer them they think that I am stupid. Silence and understanding are my weapons as well as my defence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Dead Men Don’t Move Boats

  River Orwell, Sunday 1 July 2007

  They didn’t stay long in Woodbridge. Joshua knew two doctors who lived on the Tidemill quay so Donny and Defoe moored Strong Winds alongside while the death certificate was dealt with and the local undertaker contacted.

  Polly Lee slept one more night aboard her ship while the kindly medics made space for her family in their flat and Anna went home with Maggi and Xanthe. Then, early on the Sunday morning, her body was taken away and Skye, Donny and Defoe cast off to return to the Orwell. It was a harsh, blustery day and they saw several of the racing dinghies in trouble. There was no sign of Flint. But, just for now, who cared about him anyway?

  Erewhon Parva, Monday 9 July 2007

  Great Aunt Ellen’s funeral was quite different from her sister Edith’s. The vicar knew the person she was talking about and the first few rows of the small crematorium chapel were comfortably filled with family and friends. Ai Qin from the Floating Lotus was there and Donny’s tutor Mr McMullen. There were people from Shotley marina and the Pin Mill boatyard. Even Sandra, Donny’s ex-social worker. He froze a bit when he saw her but she hurriedly explained that he’d finally been signed off the register at yet another of those meetings which no-one had told him about. She had come because she’d wanted to say goodbye and wish him luck. Maybe this wasn’t the place but otherwise she wasn’t sure that she knew where he’d be?

  Donny wasn’t sure that he knew either: at school he supposed, until the end of term, but then?

  The doctors who had helped them in Woodbridge came and sat unobtrusively at the back together with the Commodore from the Royal Orwell & Ancient and a man in a blazer and official tie who turned out to represent the Port of Felixstowe and Harwich Haven. Xanthe, whose mind kept working even when she was emotional, went and spoke to him as he was heading off to the car park afterwards and got herself an invitation to his office. He didn’t look too shocked when she asked for sponsorship but gave her his card and said she should telephone when convenient and ask for Mr Hutchinson Bennett.

  Rev. Wendy had dug out some good hymns and readings. There was o
ne about a ship disappearing over the horizon with everyone waving goodbye, then arriving somewhere out of sight with a new set of people waving hello. There wasn’t really a speech, but some of the adults said things, and Xanthe did a reading while Donny signed. He’d wanted to find something from Sailing, Great Uncle Greg’s book, but there wasn’t anything quite right. He’d seriously considered a section called ‘Management of a Yacht in a Rough Sea’, but in the end he chose the description of the hidden harbour from Swallows and Amazons.

  When they were standing around afterwards, Defoe told him that that was one of the passages he’d read when his own parents had died, together with a section from Hiawatha about travelling to the Kingdom of the Hereafter.

  “Mum would have liked that. When Granny Edith died Mum made a totem and burned it. She burned pretty well everything so Old Nokomis could travel without burden to the Land of the Hereafter. I know she was right and we had to let go – but I don’t want to burn everything that was Gold Dragon’s.”

  Being at the crematorium had reminded Donny startlingly of all that had happened before he and Skye left Leeds.

  His uncle nodded. “I burned my father’s Houdalinqua. I knew I would not stay in Costa Rica and I couldn’t take her with me. I wanted her to end going upwards in flames rather than subsiding into rot.”

  “You and my mum are so alike. But I’m not. And I don’t think Gold Dragon was either. When her brothers had drowned and Eirene left and she’d quarrelled with Edith, she was miserable because she didn’t have anything to help her grieve. That’s how I feel. I don’t want to burn Strong Winds and I don’t even want to scatter Great Aunt Ellen’s ashes out at sea like we did Oboe’s. I want to keep something. More that just memories.”

  Defoe made that special sign of peace.

  “Strong Winds is yours,” he said. “We cannot burn her, even if we wanted to. When Edward visited Ellen in Rotterdam, he drew her up a Deed that gave the boat to you, with my sister and I as her keepers until you reach eighteen. That’s why she insisted that you should be skipper when we brought her back. It’s why I made you carry on.”

  He couldn’t take it in.

  “Did Gold Dragon know she was going to die? Before we even got here?”

  Yet again Donny thought over his last conversation with his great-aunt – the bit about the grave mound was definitely okay, because she’d said that, but should he have told her all that stuff about the map and Point Horror?

  “She knew as much as we all do ... and a bit more. She told Edward that she’d enjoyed this last gust of family life more than all her voyages but it had blown too many holes in her canvas. She said it more than once. She was very tired. You must have seen that.”

  Defoe looked tired too. Donny realised how sad it was for him. He’d only just met Gold Dragon: never seen her when she was properly in action.

  “She was amazing, you know. Were you there when she sailed Strong Winds through that gorge? When it was inky black and there were whirlpools on every side ”

  “In our dreams I was.”

  Then it was back to the vicarage for sandwiches. The wellwishers stayed for a while, then said their goodbyes and left. Hawkins the canary flew free and the families sat down.

  “Memories are all very well,” announced Xanthe suddenly. “But revenge needs eating hot. We wouldn’t have to be having a funeral today if the Tiger hadn’t driven an ex-gunboat straight at Gold Dragon – and at Donny and Skye and my Beloved Mother. And Strong Winds wouldn’t have been fleeing across the North Sea were it not for the unremitting persecution meted out by Flint and Toxic and their criminous associates.”

  “And Zhang would not have considered it safe to attack had not I, that very morning, confirmed to the hospital authorities that I had accepted the termination of my contract and would be withdrawing from the area, taking my family with me. Including the Beloved Mother of my troublesome daughters who had begun asking too many questions about the activities of the Pura-Lilly Cleaning Company – managed by that same Mr Zhang but owned, June is almost certain, by the fragrant Denise Tune.” Joshua had stood up and moved to the centre of the room to say all this – almost as if he were making a forced confession in some dread House Meeting. “This was a cowardly action for which my family have been making me suffer ever since.”

  “Too right we have,” muttered his oldest daughter.

  “Under this domestic pressure I caved in yet again,” Joshua continued. “I checked the small print of my contract and spent time talking to colleagues in other Trust Areas. I discovered that the hospital had a duty to afford me all reasonable support to carry out the advanced neuro-surgical operations for which I was engaged. So I went back to the management and told them that a clean ward was among the facilities I was entitled to expect and I was therefore withdrawing my resignation.”

  “Go DAD!” shrieked his daughters.

  “They understood at once – they are decent people – and mounted an immediate enquiry into the allocation of cleaning contracts.”

  “So, have they got Zhang?” Xanthe wanted results.

  “Mr Zhang is dead. After being admitted to hospital with injuries sustained in some form of ... accident involving a collision flare, he caught MRSA. His ward was cleaned by his own company – and he never left it.”

  “And Toxic? Have they got her too?”

  “Do you know who they’re talking about, dear?” whispered Gerald to Wendy. “I know about the cleaning company, but who is ‘Toxic’?”

  “I’m very much afraid, dear, that they may mean Denise Tune, our Welfare Supremo.”

  “Oh!” Gerald looked rather shocked but Rev. Wendy, Donny was surprised to see, appeared to be taking this in her stride. In fact, with her eyes narrowed and jaw set like that, she looked tougher than he’d seen her for ages.

  “Not yet. But with the close attention now being paid to everything connected with Pura-Lilly, I am certain that it is only a matter of time.”

  “Especially if someone like me comes forward and explains how I was pressurised into working for the company when I was desperate. And how I was paid and how I was treated.” Lottie spoke out eagerly. “If the Tiger Zhang is dead there’ll be no retaliation on my work-mates. So I’m not frightened any more.”

  “No more am I,” said a new voice and Bill Whiting came out from Rev. Wendy’s study. “We got your news, Anna, when we was at the festival. Lottie and I came to a decision that if an old lady like Miss Walker could take ’em on – and lose her life as a result – then it didn’t suit very well that I should be on the run.”

  The prison grey had gone from Bill’s cheeks and his body looked broad and strong again. Ready to haul in a net or hold the wheel in a freezing sea. Now that he’d taken off the black woolly hat, you could see that his hair was as springy and abundant as Luke’s blond mop but as carrotty red as little Vicky’s.

  “What did you say, son, when we was talking?”

  “I said let’s not dodge ’em any more, Dad, let’s fight ’em,” repeated Luke.

  “And I agreed. I’m ready to tell my tale as and when required. Meanwhile, so we has the advantage of surprise – and for no other reason – I’ve chose to park the van up at Swallow’s End, Mrs Everson’s place. I’ll be handy there when called upon.”

  Now they might, just might, get Flint.

  “I wish Edward had stayed to hear this,” said Anna.

  “I’ll call him tomorrow,” promised Lottie. “And arrange a meeting with the defence team next week.”

  “I’ve filed a request for a large amount of paperwork from Companies House,” said June. “That should give us final proof of the ownership of Pura-Lilly.”

  “And we’ll go see Mr Hutchinson Bennett and get a photo of the container with its serial number as well as the Mark,” said Maggi.

  “Actually,” said Anna, “Liam remembered the number. He worked it into a football routine. Turns out that’s what he does. He makes a pattern with his moves. So I tracked it on
the Internet. That container was loaded in Rotterdam.”

  They didn’t need him or his map, thought Donny. Everything was going really well. He’d even realised that it must have been the Tiger, or one of his associates, who had stolen Granny Edith’s diary from the bungalow – way back when the campfire kettle was still the place they kept their front door key.

  “This may not be the right moment to make our own small announcement.” Rev. Wendy was looking pink and ... fluttery. Was this the woman who was managing six parishes and had been recommended for Rural Dean? “But my husband and I,” Gerald had moved closer and was holding her hand. She began to gabble. “Have decided to tell you that we’re going to have a baby and because I’m so ... elderly ... I’ve had to go for all sorts of extra tests and we have discovered that the ... baby I’m expecting is a little girl. If it, I mean he, had been a boy we would have called him John – because of Zacharias and Elizabeth in the Bible being so ... elderly and getting such an unexpected ... surprise. But she isn’t. A boy I mean, not a surprise. She was certainly that!” She’d utterly lost her grip on whatever it was she was trying to say.

  “So, if no-one has any objection, we’re planning to call her Ellen,” finished Gerald.

  Donny’s hands fell over one another as he signed this news to Skye.

  “I saw. She has been feeling her body change for many weeks.”

  Although Skye had noticed, no-one else had. After the immediate silence there was a hubbub of question, exclamation and congratulation. Liam was clearly heard insisting to Luke that vicars don’t have babies and Gerald wasn’t God.

  Fortunately Gerald missed that bit because he’d disappeared into the kitchen to fetch a bottle of pink frizzante which he had ready-chilled and which was served to all the adults, except Wendy, with much flourish and hilarity.

  In the bursting pride of fatherhood he forgot that he shouldn’t give any to Skye but it was okay, she gave it back.