Black Waters (Strong Winds Series Book 5)

by Julia Jones

  “I don’t know what carers cost.”

  “That’s totally not your problem. Dominic’s got too used to letting Iris have whatever she wants. Apparently she wanted you because of some sort of vision or something. Then she ends up using you as if you’re her household staff!”

  “But she didn’t exactly know she was going to get widowed.”

  Or had she?

  It was weird how she’d called the Igraine a death-ship – and then Mr Farran had died. But Iris was pretty weird anyway.

  “And she was insulting,” Martha went on. “I’d almost say that’s typical Gold but Dom does try, bless him. It’s excruciating, sometimes, to listen to him blundering around trying to remember what he should and shouldn’t say.”

  “About race?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Xanthe repeated.

  She got up and began looking around for her clothes. She could have told Martha about #bbarbie but it wasn’t an issue any more.

  “I need to get down to the kids.”

  “Jonjo’s getting them ready – and rigging the dinghies. He says he’s learned a lot from you. He agrees you should be living on Godwyn. He thinks it’ll be safer.”

  “There’s danger?”

  “We’re supposed to call it security. But that’s Jonjo’s department mainly.”

  “He’s a youth worker.”

  “You might want to add ‘plus plus’ to that . Our problem is that there genuinely isn’t a spare cabin on Godwyn right now. But when the current flock of birdwatchers leave – which is Saturday – then there will be. So we were hoping that you might be prepared to hang on here for just two more nights if Gareth and I do all the oldie-care? Gareth says he’ll shift his things and sleep in the boot-room so you know you’ve got someone on call.”

  That was where Eli had been supposed to sleep wasn’t it? The night that he died. On a ‘truckle’.

  “What is this boot-room? Is it that shed down the garden?”

  “One of Auntie Iris’s less appealing ideas. It used to be a stable when she had the pony but as soon as Granny Farran died – and Iris actually had to do some housework for herself – she decided that she couldn’t bear mud. Calls it ‘filth’. She’d given up on the pony by then so she made her husband use the stable.”

  “That’s where he had to sleep if he went to the pub? Where did he sleep if he didn’t?”

  “In the attic. C’mon Xanthe, you need to get going.

  Gareth won’t mind a couple of nights. Eli made it quite snug. We think he liked it in the end. He didn’t get nagged so badly.”

  “It didn’t seem like that to me,” said Xanthe, swinging her legs out of bed and grabbing her washing things. “I thought he could have stuck up for himself. And he might have hit her. Did he kill someone once?”

  Martha stopped. Her busy confidence seemed to leave her for a moment.

  “He’s gone now,” she said at last.

  “We shouldn’t speak badly of the dead?”

  “Not if you want to carry on living together for the next few hundred years.”

  “That’s what your brother told me.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you: it was our dad who died.”

  Xanthe stopped. Stared. Opened her mouth to ask when? How?

  Martha blocked her. “It was a sailing accident with no other witness. So we’ll leave it there, if you don’t mind.”

  Xanthe remembered once again that she was an outsider here. Martha and Gareth seemed normal and friendly but there was too much that was hidden under the surface of their lives. Thick and dark like the stagnant water trapped across the saltings.

  “Hi,” said Jonjo, as soon as he spotted her coming up the Godwyn gangplank. He sounded relieved. “We’ve a situation on our hands this morning. Young Siri has decided thet she won’t leave the ship.”

  “Why is anyone surprised about that? Think about it – she was hidden inside Fritha. Maybe she was even asleep and then she finds herself being towed away!”

  “Do we know why?” Jonjo asked. “Why the boat was being removed, I mean.”

  “I thought I did. I thought that Fritha was his dinghy and he didn’t like me using her so he was taking her away. But now I’m told I have that wrong. And I’m still not certain who he is.”

  “He’s a property developer. Bit of a megalomaniac. He’s organising some promotional Dunkirk event at the weekend and he was pressuring Dominic to bring Godwyn across. I mean seriously!”

  “What does Dominic say? They’ve got the same surname so I’m assuming they’re related – but I might be wrong about that as well.”

  “No comment. Pulls down the iron curtain. I tell you, Xanthe, the attitudes round here aren’t making my job any easier. I’m not sure I wouldn’t hev been better keeping these kids in London.”

  She didn’t want to stop him opening up like this but she was late already.

  “Okay – so we’ve pooled our ignorance. Let’s get back to boats. Where are you at this morning?”

  “I’ve only worked with the boys. We think we’ve got two of the Picos rigged but obviously you’ll need to check. Dominic has offered to drive the safety boat so I’ll stay back here. It could be Siri just wants a lie-in. She looks exhausted and Kelly-Jane’s not much better.”

  “Tell them I said hi. I’m doing capsizes this morning. I’ll try to think of something peaceful we could do this afternoon. I’m not leaving them again.”

  Another perfect morning, sunshine and light wind and the tides were getting later. There was a real difference in David today. He was still quiet but he seemed much more relaxed in himself. When she asked him how he’d feel about sailing with Kieran, instead of with her, he said yes straight off.

  That gave her Nelson. He wasn’t too bad when they were actually sailing. She tucked herself down as low as she could in front of the centreplate and left him to do all the work. Down the channel inside Shinglehead Spit, then round between the last two port hand buoys and up the River Blackwater with the tide and a fair beam wind. The two Pico dinghies scampered easily along and Dominic had the sense to keep a comfortable distance away.

  She was tempted to go on round Oveseye – she wanted to see where the Viking had been heading last night – but she oughtn’t let the kids get too tired if they were going to be practising capsize drills. She led them in to beach the dinghies on a flattish area of sand just near where the old pier and the railway line had been at the entrance to Mell Creek. This was where Flinthammock had once hoped to have a seaside resort. It seemed a bit deluded – the sea was miles away. Then the war had come and the pier had had to be dismantled so it couldn’t be used by invaders.

  It was hard to imagine invasion on a sunny summer’s day up a river. But you needed calm seas if you were going to go invading. Or calm nights, anyway.

  They’d built a gun emplacement here – she could see its remains – and teenage Eli Farran had hung around, trying to sell his fish to the soldiers.

  He said he was watching the grave.

  What had Iris Farran meant?

  The tide was coming up and round the ruined structure. It was like an abandoned castle on a tiny, ugly block. The river was its moat.

  “What is it about this place?” she asked Dominic.

  He startled as if he’d been miles away. And for once he answered straight. “Eli Farran and his father had sailed to Ramsgate in their smack, Igraine. They were offering to cross to Dunkirk but they weren’t needed. They came all the way back and struck a mine, just here, in their home river, off this pier. The Igraine went down and Abraham Farran died.”

  For the first time ever she felt sorry for Eli.

  “He’d have been about my age then. His father and his boat were gone. He must have been traumatised.”

  Watching the grave.

  “Pos
sibly. Eli was certainly obsessed. As soon as the war was over he bullied Iris until she married him, then he used her money to raise the Igraine and rebuild.”

  Little Miss Oy-ris, our own personal Crock of Gold. I hope you’re a-listenin, Eli, me boy.

  “Except there wasn’t as much money as they’d thought,” added Dominic, almost to himself.

  The naval watchtower looked down on them and along the river with its blank, dark windows. The boys were larking about, daring each other to climb on the ruined gun emplacement and wave imaginary flags from the top.

  “Come on, guys,” Xanthe shouted. “We’re not here for fun, we’re here for you to learn capsize drills. Life and death, you know!”

  She hoped with all her heart that these ten or eleven year-olds would never get any closer to danger than tipping over a small plastic dinghy on a sunny river in controlled conditions.

  “What goes up when the rain comes down, teacher-lady?”

  “It’s an umbrella,” Kieran interrupted him. “You told us that one earlier.”

  “But you never got my breakfast joke – the one about the butter.”

  Did Nelson ever stop?

  “Don’t let’s spread it, Mr Midshipman.”

  He grinned his irresistible wide grin and she took him off in the first of the dinghies to spill themselves into the river and scramble round the hull, loosening the sheets then standing on the centreplate to pull her upright and sail on again.

  “What did the earwig say when he capsized his dinghy the second time?” He wasn’t giving her a chance to answer. “He said earwig go again!”

  It was splashy. It was fun. It was even a little bit silly – except it was all in the cause of being safe. Both the other boys managed fine and she swapped them round again to begin the sail home. She told David and Nelson they could sail single-handed then persuaded Dominic to hand over control of the RIB to Kieran and begin teaching him some powerboat skills.

  “You’re okay, aren’t you Kieran? You can do this if Dominic shows you how.”

  They were concentrating. They were busy. Kieran was almost breathless with suppressed excitement at being allowed to take the wheel of the RIB and it was a lovely sight – so Xanthe thought – to see Nelson and David helming their two small dinghies a little distance ahead of the safety boat. And these were kids who’d never been near water just four days earlier.

  People who live in an island country should all get a chance to sail, thought Xanthe suddenly, fiercely.

  The Picos were neat and colourful in the midday sun. The breeze was blowing gently from the St Peter’s Shore. Everyone was focused on the distant marker where they would meet and reorganise before entering the Flinthammock Flete.

  Xanthe checked astern. There was some enormous structure, emerging from behind Oveseye. It was dark against the sky and being towed by two small tugs. She tensed and stared. Then came other tugs towing smaller, equally unidentifiable objects. There weren’t oil rigs round here, were there? Would this be something for the offshore wind farm they were building on the Gunfleet Sands?

  She tapped Dominic on the shoulder to ask.

  He didn’t answer or explain. He ordered Kieran to change places then he gunned up the RIB and began a wide fast circle that would put him ahead of the dinghies. Xanthe shrugged at Kieran. She had thought she was meant to be the teacher here. Kieran grinned and shrugged back

  Dominic swung the RIB in front of the Picos. Gestured violently to the boys to order them alongside.

  David’s response was wobbly but it worked.

  “Well done,” she said, as she took his painter.

  Nelson sailed straight past.

  It was no good Dominic attempting to swirl onwards and give chase now he had David’s dinghy attached to the RIB with David still on board. Miranda was streaking towards them, a red flag streaming from her varnished flagstaff.

  “What is this, Dominic? That’s the man who tried to steal Fritha. What is his problem?”

  Miranda wasn’t going for them; she was heading for Nelson.

  They were getting closer, too. David had clambered carefully on board the RIB and Dominic was accelerating. The Viking seemed to be ordering Nelson back to the shore.

  Nelson didn’t seem to have heard him. He was sailing merrily on. Had the Pico going nicely. Good straight wake.

  Now they, too, were within shouting distance.

  “Leave the boy alone!”

  “Tell him, Dominic!”

  “His name’s Nelson and he’s one of mine. Get back to your own side of the river. You’ve no business here.”

  Miranda curved gracefully alongside the RIB.

  “Rubber and plastic!” The old man spoke with utmost disdain. “And what right do they have to be here?”

  He could have been talking about the boats – or he might have meant Xanthe and Nelson and the other two kids.

  “You can’t talk about rights. You tried to steal Fritha.”

  “All’s fair in war, Miss Ribiero.”

  “But in peacetime, that’s theft. Because she’s not your dinghy.”

  “You should never have been allowed to sail her.” He looked at her with disdain. “You have disgraced British Racing.”

  “Get away from us,” Dominic hissed through clenched teeth. He was white with anger.

  The Viking laughed and sped away to where the tugs had arrived in front of the former power station. They all had SAXON painted on their sides in large white letters.

  Nelson tacked for the RIB once Miranda was gone. He was a bit slow releasing his mainsheet but Kieran and David reached out and grabbed him as he passed. He was all legs and elbows as he scrambled on board to join them and his face was vivid with excitement.

  “Why do bees hum?” he asked at once.

  “Because they don’t know the words. Gimmee high fives, Mr Midshipman.”

  He grinned his most enormous grin yet. “I was puttin’ my deaf ear to the telescope, teacher-lady. That other Nelson, he was some cool dude. Martha’s mum told us ’bout him.”

  “That man mustn’t be allowed to think he’s scared us,” she said to Dominic. “We should stay and watch. I know we’ll lose the tide but we can leave the dinghies in the Flete and use the Fisherman’s Hard. The kids and I don’t mind mud.”

  He managed a nod, though he didn’t answer her directly. Then he turned the RIB and motored carefully out into the river – though not beyond halfway. He held them there, steadily breasting the tide as they watched the tugs manoeuvring their loads into position.

  The first and largest structure was pulled to a standstill some way out from the shoreline. It had cylindrical legs at each corner and Xanthe guessed that it was being anchored into place and would then slide up and down its legs with the tide. The second group of tugs delivered lengths of pontoon that were positioned between the platform and the beach. Then a complex process was begun to heave other metal structures on top of them.

  “Blind eyes or not, I wish we had a telescope,” said Xanthe. “Or even a camera with a really serious zoom lens.”

  “Mmmm.”

  Dominic was agreeing. That must be a first!

  The boys, even Nelson, were fascinated. Miranda was constantly busy. It was clear that this entire operation was under the personal direction of the self-styled Commander of the Saxon Shore.

  “I know what those things are,” she realised suddenly. “They’re beetles and whales and…” she searched in her memory, “a Spud Pier.”

  “You know that?” said Dominic.

  “I told you I’m studying history. Those are the components – except I suppose these are more likely to be replicas – that were used at the D-Day landings to build the Mulberry Harbour.”

  “Give it to us, teacher-lady.”

  “The D-day landings were in June 1944, almost at the en
d of the Second World War. It was the Allies – which means us and the Americans and the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Free French and anyone else who was on our side (could have been your great-grand-dads) – doing our own invasion to get onto the Normandy beaches. Brilliant, flat, sandy beaches where you could drive tanks and lorries and land loads of troops. But there weren’t any harbours. Not big enough for what they needed. So they got on and made one. Towed all the bits across and assembled them – in the Atlantic swell and under attack and much, much bigger. Though that’s looking big enough from where I am,” she added.

  “He…thinks…big.” It was like someone was twisting Dominic’s arm right up behind his back to force him to say that.

  “Is he one of your relations?”

  Dominic’s thin lips were pressed firmly together. He gave no sign that he’d heard her.

  Then, from the former power station across the water came another of those wailing emergency sirens. Lights were flashing on the building site and the tall cranes, which had seemed to be in constant motion, stopped. Miranda darted away and Xanthe watched her swirl into the small creek that lead round the edge of the site. It reminded her of the way the Commander had leapt into his Polaris on their previous encounter.

  “His safety record is completely appalling!” Dominic spat out the words. “No more argument. I’m towing you back to Godwyn. Now.”

  That was okay. They were all hungry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Birdsong

  Thursday May 30, lw 0634 hw 1256 lw 1856 hw 0111

  “Hi, Siri.” she stuck her head round the door of the young girl’s cabin just as soon as she’d finished half a large baked potato with cream cheese and chives. “How are you feeling? You okay, K-J?”

  Neither girl answered. They were lying on their single bunks as if they hadn’t moved for hours. Siri was above, Kelly-Jane below, but Xanthe could see how easily the younger girl could have slipped away if the older was asleep.