Black Waters (Strong Winds Series Book 5)

by Julia Jones

  “What about in fog? You wouldn’t see a light in fog but all the dangers of the shallow waters would still be there. Do you know what the lightships did then?”

  “Made a noise or something? They could have been programmed.”

  “No computers. There were men on board who lived there for months. They didn’t see their families and couldn’t phone them or message them or anything. When it was dark they had to look after the light and if it was foggy they’d be blasting a hooter for hours at a time.”

  “Does Godwyn have one of them hooters?” Nelson jumped up.

  “Unless it’s been taken out.”

  “Could we work it? Make the noise. Keep them dementors off of us?”

  She so wanted to say yes.

  “I wish! But best not. Those foghorns were really loud. The birders would go mental. You guys get ready and I’ll teach you small boat fog signals on our way to the sail lofts.”

  The kids were soon back with their outdoor kit but when she got them off the lightship, they completely froze. They only needed to walk together down the path that led across the saltings. Then they could collect their sails and come back to start rigging dinghies so they’d be ready as soon as the sun came out.

  She explained all that. But they wouldn’t do it.

  “We’ll stick to the path,” she said. “It’s straight. It’s gravel. And we’ve got Jonjo as our total safety man.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt if we were to wait a while, maybe?” He was agreeing with the kids.

  “But if we have everything ready we won’t miss too much of the tide and there’s so little time until high water.”

  She was wasting her breath. “What don’t you like?” she asked them.

  “Sorry miss, I shouldn’t have said nothing about dementors or zombies.”

  “There’s bits of that mud that can suck you in,” said Kelly-Jane.

  “I watched a film once and there was a big man come out of the fog on a marsh like this and he had chains round his legs.”

  “I saw that one too and the boy couldn’t get away. And the man caught him and bullied him and made him go nicking stuff.”

  “He was well hard. He’d been inside. My dad knows blokes like him.”

  The crew went quiet and looked at one another.

  Then they heard footsteps.

  The kids fled and Jonjo hurried after them. Xanthe stood where she was. There were no orcs, dementors, escaped convicts or zombies on this solid stretch of man-made path. There was nothing to be scared of.

  She watched the grey shapes materialising through the mist. They wore flat official caps with badges and chequered hat-bands. Their dark, belted jackets were dusted with tiny drops of moisture and their silver buttons were dulled by condensation.

  These were policemen.

  “Miss Xanthe Ribiero?”

  “Yes?”

  “We need to ask you some questions, miss.”

  She felt herself go hot and cold at the same time. Something terrible must have happened to her family!

  “We’ll use my office on the lightship.” Dominic Gold was walking with them. “My secretary can take charge of the students.”

  Her tongue felt too big for her mouth. She needed to force her voice to push it out of her throat.

  “You have to tell me what this is about,” she managed.

  “It would be better if we went inside, miss.”

  The policeman’s voice was kind. Policemen were trained to be kind on occasions like this. They’d want to sit her down. Offer her a cup of tea.

  “YOU HAVE to tell me NOW! What’s HAPPENED to my FAMILY?”

  Why had she let herself be exiled to this dead-end swamp when she could have stayed at home with her mother and father and Maggi? ‘We need to ask you some questions,’ he’d said. What if the accident – or whatever disaster had occurred – had been somehow her fault?

  Orcs and dementors and zombies!

  “Nothing at all, miss. This is nothing to do with your family at all.”

  The gravel steadied beneath her feet. Her vision cleared. She saw the policeman’s faces now, as well as their caps and uniforms: one a bit fat and middle-aged, the other one younger, probably quite new. Two ordinary people doing a job.

  “We need you to give us some information and we have to record it with a witness present. We were hoping to use Mr Gold, if you’ve no objection.”

  The summer sun was breaking through at speed. It was about to be a glorious day. Get this over – whatever it was – and she’d still have time to get the kids into the dinghies before lunch.

  Unless Madrigal’s parents had decided to press charges? They couldn’t, could they? Not after this amount of time. What would she need to do? Get a lawyer or something? Dominic would sack her anyway.

  “Okay,” she said, when they were settled in the Companion-in-Chief’s small office. “How can I help you?” She was trying to sound more confident than she felt.

  “It’s Mr Farran from Rebow Cottage. I regret to inform you that he’s met with an accident.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  That was such a lie. She wasn’t sorry at all. She was sort of dazed with relief and struggling not to show it.

  “Was it serious? Is he in hospital?”

  “Not exactly, miss. I’m afraid Mr Farran has been found dead.”

  Dead.

  It was a good thing that Martha had brought them tea and coffee. The handing round and the warmth of the mugs lessened the impact of that bleak word.

  Dead.

  Martha was offering her sugar. Xanthe loathed sugar in coffee but she took some anyway and noticed that her hand was shaking as she tried to stir it in. She hadn’t even liked Mr Farran. He’d called her a darkie and she thought he might have hit his wife. There was the way he’d looked back at the house when he’d left it that evening. She’d never know what he’d been thinking then.

  Dominic told Martha that she should go and help Jonjo with the kids. The policemen gave Xanthe a moment or two while they took a few swigs from their own hot drinks. Then they carried on.

  “Officially it’s an unexplained death. The doctors will be taking a look and then there’ll be an inquest. Our duty is to collect any relevant information and prepare a report for the coroner. So we have to ask you when you last saw Mr Farran and whether there’s anything you can tell us that might help us to ascertain his state of health. Or, indeed, his state of mind.”

  Xanthe swallowed and nodded. Her tongue had gone big in her mouth again. One of policemen had a notebook and was checking for his questions: the other would be watching her as she gave her answers.

  “We understand that you’re currently a volunteer sailing instructor with the Project and that you’re lodging with the Farrans at Rebow Cottage. We’d like you to confirm that, on Sunday May 26th, you returned to Rebow Cottage in the early evening.”

  She could do this, if she was careful and if she thought about each question before she spoke.

  “I called at the shop first,” she said.

  “What sort of time would that make it?”

  “Maybe half past six? Mr and Mrs Farran were watching TV East. There was an item about Dunkirk. They were quite…involved with the programme. I didn’t actually speak to them. I’m not sure they knew that I was there.”

  You have brought a darkie into my parents’ house.

  “So, as far as you were able to ascertain, Mr Farran was alive and well at half past six on Sunday evening. That’s very useful, miss. And what happened next?”

  That was it, she had no idea.

  “He went out after the programme. I’m not sure where. He might have said something about the Plough and Sail…?”

  She rubbed her face. She was trying to remember. The shock of death seemed to have blotted out everything else.
Except for that overpowering impression of mutual hatred. And possible violence?

  “Did you see Mr Farran again? Or hear him come home?”

  “No, I didn’t. After he had gone out Mrs Farran went to bed. She came to my room first but she wasn’t feeling well. Then, later, she asked me to lock up. She said her husband would sleep…somewhere else. It sounded like it was normal. I didn’t see him before I left in the morning and I don’t think he was there last night.”

  The policemen nodded as if this fitted with what they already knew.

  “Am I allowed to ask what happened? Was it a heart attack or a road accident or something? Where was he?”

  “How old are you miss?”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  “You might want to phone your family after we’ve gone. Or we can give you the number of our youth support team. We can’t discuss any details at this point. There’ll be a statement later to the local press and the coroner’s report will be on the public record. We may need you to repeat your statement at the inquest. That’ll be in a week or two if there are no complications. If the cause of death isn’t clear, however, we may be directed to take it further.”

  “Okay.”

  She’d told her family she could cope on her own. Now she was going to.

  Martha had left her a glass of water as well as the coffee. Xanthe took a mouthful and got ready to begin answering their questions again. Her memory was better now. She didn’t have to tell them the word he’d used about her but possibly she should say something about the Farrans maybe having a row? It wasn’t that sinister. Plenty of married people had rows.

  Except that one of them didn’t necessarily die soon after.

  And there was the hitting. Which she hadn’t seen and totally wasn’t sure about.

  And the stick? Which might not even be the same one.

  Could she possibly explain the weird things Mrs Farran had said about the Igraine ‘coming for’ her husband? Should she even try?

  She had heard nothing in the night except the cat breaking a teapot and exiting through its flap. And the next day Mrs Farran had left out her supper and a note and had gone to bed.

  She hadn’t left any food for Mr Farran. Maybe she already knew he was dead? When had he died?

  One of the officers showed her that he had an audio recorder. As he put it on the desk between them, Dominic Gold leaned forward, shuffled, cleared his throat.

  “Miss Ribiero has only been with us for three days. She may not be aware that Mrs Farran is my aunt.”

  The blue eyes, the cheek bones. Square, determined faces – delicate in her case, stern in his. Probably Mrs Farran had had fair hair when she was younger. Mags would have spotted it at once.

  Look out for the half-tide rocks.

  “So Mr Farran was your uncle…?”

  “She married him.”

  There was something odd and angry about the way he said that. Xanthe made up her mind to repeat exactly the words she’d already used and not add anything at all. Then Dominic could fetch her stuff and she’d never have to step inside Rebow Cottage again.

  “My aunt wants you to stay with her.”

  The police had gone. She and the Companion-in-Chief were still in the office on board the lightship. She hadn’t had a chance to tell him what was on her mind.

  “I offered to sleep in Rebow Cottage myself,” said Dominic. “During the day my presence is necessary on Godwyn but I would have sent Martha to sit with her.”

  Martha seemed like his answer to everything. Watch out for the kids, run the office, sit with the aunt. Did Martha have a life?

  Did she have a life, come to that?

  “Sorry, but I’m a sailing instructor not an aunt-minder. I’m not comfortable in Rebow Cottage. I’d prefer to move onto Godwyn straight away. I was going to ask you before any of this happened.”

  “There isn’t any space.”

  “I’ll stay somewhere else then. There were bed-and breakfast adverts in the shop. I’ll sleep in the sail lofts if I have to.”

  “My aunt tells me that she needs you. That she hopes you like the special food that she bought you and you’re not to worry about breaking the teapot. I couldn’t understand what she was saying.”

  “It was the cat.”

  He looked at her and frowned.

  “The cat broke the teapot. I’d locked all the doors as she’d asked and they were all still locked in the morning. The cat flap opened outwards so once the cat had gone out it couldn’t come back in again until I released the catch. I swept up first.”

  He wasn’t listening.

  “She must be in shock. I can’t think why else she wants you to stay. He’s gone now.”

  Then he realised what he’d said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t put that very well. I’m going to have to ask you, out of kindness…to continue living in Rebow Cottage.”

  He wasn’t finding this easy. Good. Because she hadn’t yet forgiven him for the way he’d towed her back to Godwyn on her first day and banned her from sailing alone.

  “My aunt is a very private person. There’s no-one else I can ask.”

  “No-one at all?”

  Neighbours? Friends? Other family members? Martha?

  He’d been going to ‘send’ Martha – not ‘ask’ her. She didn’t like Dominic Gold. She didn’t see any reason she should help him out. Mrs Farran wasn’t her aunt.

  “There’s…no-one.”

  There was a hesitation in his voice.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She had nothing to lose by challenging him. Did she?

  There was her job. Xanthe didn’t want to get sacked. She liked her crew – those awkward, frightened kids. She’d promised to teach them to sail.

  There was her personal pride as well. She’d been chucked off the training camp. Now she imagined herself going home, telling her parents and her teachers and Maggi that she’d been sacked for refusing to help care for some bereaved old lady who hadn’t any friends.

  “I’m not completely saying no.”

  Dominic looked smug too soon.

  “But I definitely haven’t said yes. I don’t understand why your aunt wants me when she can’t even remember my name. She calls me ‘girl’. It’s as if she thinks I’m the parlour maid or something. That’s when she’s not treating me like something from another planet because of the colour of my skin.”

  Dominic opened his mouth. And shut it again. Xanthe carried on.

  “Also I may as well say that I’m still incredibly angry about not being allowed to go sailing on my own in my own time with no good reason given.”

  The Chief Companion’s office was in the deckhouse of the former lightship. Only the light was above them. The tide was high and it was perfect weather – sunshine and a light but steady southerly breeze. She should be out there with the kids.

  They were surrounded by strong, square windows. Xanthe glimpsed white sails on the Flete, birds wheeling above the marshes, boats rocking with delight at being lifted from their dreary mud-holes. She could see across the main river to St Peter’s and all along that pale gold coast to the chapel and the open sea. She caught her breath with longing.

  “In fact that one’s non-negotiable. If I’m not allowed to go sailing by myself in my own time, I’m not staying any longer anyway.” It was her life. “I heard your aunt say that Mr Farran had a brother. I don’t think you’re being straight with me.”

  His face went slack with surprise. Then he was climbing down the twisting metal stairs as if he couldn’t care less.

  “There’s a community support worker waiting with my aunt,” he called back. “And I’m expecting the doctor to visit. Collect whatever you have here in your locker and walk with me to the cottage. We can talk as we go. My aunt has asked you to remain but if you’re not ab
le to help her, then I’ll get Martha to ring your parents or call a taxi while you pack the rest of your possessions.”

  “She can call them right now if you’re not letting me have the use of a dinghy to go sailing in my own time.”

  “Please,” he said, “Allow me to explain as we walk.”

  He had – finally – said please.

  Chapter Eight

  Little Miss Iris

  Tuesday May 28, lw 0500 hw 1140 lw 1740 hw 2354

  So now she was sitting with old Mrs Farran in the same back room where Mrs Farran had been sitting with her husband watching TV East only two days ago.

  She’d agreed to carry on lodging at Rebow Cottage until the end of the week when there would be cabins available on Godwyn. That would give Dominic time to sort out longer-term care for his aunt. He’d asked Xanthe to have supper with Mrs Farran and keep her company in the evenings. She’d work with the kids whenever the tide was good – and she could choose what she did beyond that.

  “I have to be able to sail by myself. I can’t be trapped every day. I’ve made a decision while I’ve been here and I’m going to get back to racing as soon as I can. So I need to think about my fitness.”

  He had tried to tell her that it wasn’t possible. That she couldn’t use the Project boats and there wasn’t anything else. She’d kept her face completely stony and shrugged her shoulders. He’d sighed and given in.

  “I’m going to introduce you to my cousin. I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me but he’ll lend you a dinghy and you can moor it in the Flete off Fisherman’s Hard. Go where you like in your own time but please, stay safe.”

  That was twice – the p-word twice.

  “My mother left me here after my father died at Dunkirk.”

  Mrs Farran sat gazing in front of her, her hands folded on her lap, a slight crease, not quite a frown, between her faded eyebrows. She moved one hand and shifted slightly. She didn’t look at Xanthe as she talked.

  “One of the maids told me afterwards how she waited in the drawing room of our big house on Broad Marsh for all of that terrible week. We had officers billeted indoors and troops camped in the grounds. I was placed here, in this cottage, with the Farrans, to keep me out of the way. Then, when he came and told her that my father was dead, they left for Scotland. It was safer there.”