Black Waters (Strong Winds Series Book 5)

by Julia Jones

  Gareth was exactly where she’d expected. He was hidden on board Igraine, waiting for the tide to turn so he could cast off her warps and let her drift free on the ebb.

  “I spotted her here, must have been Friday. Would have taken her last night except there was too much going on. They’d caught that South African chap, Dominic’s policeman, and Artie Gold was coming and going all night with the dratted Miranda of his. So I pushed off early and picked my quota, then I made sure I got some kip before I were back here again.”

  “You should have told Martha. She’s been really worried.”

  “Couldn’t exactly leave my phone on, could I?”

  “You could have sent her a text. She’s had total responsibility for the kids without Jonjo there and there was an explosion on Godwyn and she hasn’t even been able to admit that she’s been worrying about you.”

  He looked a bit ashamed. “Knew they was up to something last night. Didn’t know it were an explosion. Kids okay, are they?”

  Xanthe nodded and sent Martha a quick text herself.

  “I was angered when she started playing policewoman over that pennant. They could have taken a photo. I weren’t going to run away with it.”

  “But now you’re going to run away with the smack?”

  They were whispering in the darkness.

  “Too right I am. Thought I’d buried this piece of trouble nigh on thirty years ago. Cousin Dom and I swore a solemn oath we’d never tell anyone where we’d sunk her. He must have cracked.”

  The noise of the boat’s hull against the fenders and the tugging of her warps had changed.

  “Tide’s turned,” said Xanthe. “And we’ve only a couple of hours before it’s light. Were you planning to put a headsail up here or wait until she’s drifted off? Where are we going, anyway?”

  “I didn’t ought ter let you be saying ‘we’. You’ve enough of yer own problems.”

  “Not yet I haven’t. And I need a boat to get away from here. Without your workboat I’m stuck. I’d been going to tow one of the Picos across but they’re so white. I might perhaps have misled Jonjo about that.”

  “So we’ll both be eatin’ humble pie for breakfast – if we get any. Let’s slip them warps and then we’ll see what you think about headsails. I’ve always worked with engines myself but she ain’t got one. Ain’t much of a sailor.”

  “You own Fritha!”

  “She’s a different story. Reckon we’d best get going.”

  The tide was making an eddy on the downriver side, pinning Igraine tight against the pier. Xanthe eased the staysail up without so much as a rustle and held it aback until the bows swung silently away. Then they were out in the main stream and Xanthe was working out by feel where the main and peak halyards were. It wasn’t until they were half a mile down river, sailing smooth and fast, that either of them spoke again.

  “Where are we heading?” Xanthe asked.

  “There’s a little cut round the back of Meresig, right far up that Coldlight Creek. Goes up into the marshes to a farm. There’s an old barge quay. But it do get shallow.”

  “What does she draw?”

  “I’d reckom about four foot six”

  “That’s almost a metre and a half. We’ll never do it in the time. How legal is this, Gareth? Whose boat is she really, Farrans or Golds? And how was Dominic involved?”

  “It were thirty year ago and I were that distraught. I were fifteen and my dad had died and Eli were in prison, so I took it out on the boat. Cousin Dom helped me sink her. I didn’t exactly question his rights. He and his dad…”

  “Didn’t get on,” Xanthe finished for him. “I know, I know. I think it’s hideous. He’s been standing guard over Godwyn expecting a snatch attempt by his own father. So don’t get me wrong, I’m on for taking anything that’ll upset the Commander. But with this wind and tide we could be out to sea and down the coast. That was why I was asking whether we were legal. Because I was beginning to wonder what my parents would think if we arrived home with Igraine for breakfast at the club?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Black Flag

  Monday June 3, lw 0900 hw 1508 lw 2108 hw 0330

  There was a glimmer on the eastern horizon soon after they’d passed the entrance to the River Colne and by the time they were half way down the Essex coast it was daylight. Xanthe had spoken to Dominic at about four in the morning when she knew that the tide would have turned and the threat to Godwyn had passed for another night.

  “Listen up, Dominic. You told me that you had, like, a nuclear option. You said that there’s something you could say to your father that would totally keep his hands off Godwyn. I want you to use that, now, for Gareth and Igraine.”

  “Where are you Xanthe? Jonjo told me you were using one of the Picos to take the workboat back. You’ve been far too long”

  Dominic sounded tired and cross. Gareth took the phone.

  “Xanthe’s been helping me remove the smack, Cousin Dominic. We’re out of the river now and I’m a-looking due east, where that old sun is a-coming up, red and bloody, behind the Gunfleet Sands.”

  “The Gunfleet!”

  “Where our uncle Eli drowned hisself not a week ago.”

  Xanthe sat stock still, hardly bothering to put her hand on Igraine’s tiller. They were towing the workboat aft, the breeze was on her quarter and the smack was so well balanced she was virtually sailing herself. No-one had told her where Eli died. OMG! All the way out here!

  “Them sands don’t look quite as they did back then – that night you’ll remember…”

  “I understand your reference, Gareth Farran. I don’t forget the Gunfleet Sands. Neither do I break my word. We promised each other we would keep silent for ever.”

  “That we did. So why did you tell your old man?”

  “I have told no-one where we scuttled the Igraine. Certainly not my father. If I knew the date of Judgement Day, I wouldn’t tell him.”

  “Then how did he get his greedy hands on her?”

  “I have no idea.” There was exhaustion in Dominic’s voice. “Unless the surveyors found her when they were building that wind farm.”

  “An’ if they did, why would they tell the Commander? She was never his property. Igraine belonged to Farrans. Look at the work Eli put into her.”

  “Farran sweat, Gold money. Did you ever ask yourself Cousin Gareth, why I helped you sink her?”

  “We were kids. You were on half term from your posh school. You probably thought it were a lark.”

  “If only that were true. It was A-levels and I was desperate to apply to university to study theology. My father wouldn’t even discuss it. It felt as if he was going to dictate my life forever. Then I discovered that he’d been lending Uncle Eli money. Not out of kindness – I knew my father better than that – it was to make Eli do something in return. He’d made Eli pledge the Igraine against his debt.”

  Even Xanthe knew that this pretty fishing smack had been the most important thing in Eli Farran’s life.

  “Eli went to prison after your father died,” Dominic continued. “It was probably my father who put him there. He was obviously broke and he owed your mother compensation, which he would never have been able to pay. The Igraine had been pledged so that when you came up with your crazy idea, I saw my first chance ever to stop my father getting something that he wanted.”

  “Dunno why I ever thought to ask you.”

  “I was glad that you did – though she’s a Gold boat properly.”

  “No she ain’t.”

  Xanthe took back the phone.

  “Don’t start that again – Farrans and Golds! It’s so totally immature. The point is, Dominic, that your father is planning to use Igraine as the showpiece for today’s event. But we’ve got her and as soon as anyone wakes up at St Peter’s they’ll see that she’s gone.
However, because Jonjo has also escaped, your father will assume that it’s him who’s taken her and that he’s working for you. I want you to call him and sound like you’re the mastermind. Then you tell him that if he tries to get her back before all the legalities of her ownership and Godwyn’s are sorted out, you’re going to go public on whatever it is that only you and he know. He’s high profile. It’ll hurt.”

  There was silence. Then Dominic disconnected.

  But no-one came after them as the red dawn lightened and the billowing low clouds cleared. They shared Xanthe’s mint cake and took turns to sail and catch up on sleep.

  “How did Eli die?” Xanthe asked Gareth at one of their handovers.

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  “I asked but they offered me counselling instead.”

  “Took his little flat dinghy out ter the sands. Anchored as though he were fishing, waited until dark, then he overturned her. He tried to make it look like an accident except everything were properly fastened and she don’t overturn easy. He couldn’t swim. Probably filled his boots and went straight down. Wind farm patrol boat found the dinghy first thing. Body weren’t far off. Fetched up against one of them turbines.”

  She thought about it for a while.

  “You’d think he chose to die out there because he was trying to get back to Igraine. Which would be why he left you her pennant. He obviously didn’t know that she’d already been salvaged – but how would he have known that she’d been sunk there in the first place?”

  Gareth looked a bit awkward.

  “Well, don’t tell Cousin Dominic but…I let on ter him. Once I’d grown up a bit and I’d stopped feeling so angry. Poor old beggar, he loved this boat. I knew he couldn’t do anything about it – he hadn’t got the money to have her raised or anything – and I reckoned he needed somewhere to look out and grieve.”

  Watching the grave? She remembered Donny’s Great Aunt Ellen saying something like that.

  “What about you? Your father drowned. Did you have anywhere to think about him – anywhere special, I mean?”

  She thought he wasn’t going to tell her, but he did.

  “Should you ever happen to be passin’ quite close in to Colne Point, near where the chart marks an old wreck, you might see a scrap of black flag on the end of a stick. You’d likely think it were marking an old lobster pot. But it ain’t. That’s where my dad died. Only Martha and my mum know that. An’ Uncle Eli of course.”

  They didn’t talk to each other, these Farrans: they left signs. As the smack sailed them along the coast, Xanthe told Gareth about the broken teapot and the trampled sampler at Rebow Cottage and she described finding Iris’s walking stick by the landing stage in Broad Marsh Creek.

  “It was almost like he was leaving a trail – which started at Rebow Cottage and ended up at your oyster racks – and then the Gunfleet Sand. I even heard something smash in the night. But I still don’t know how he’d got in. I’d done what Iris wanted, I’d locked and chained the door.”

  Gareth laughed. “Elijah Farran were a crafty old beggar – and that cat were his accomplice.”

  “Joe?”

  “Named for my dad an’ friends with everyone. Except he don’t like Artie Gold –I’ve seen him spit. Anyways he an’ Eli worked out a little routine when Eli got locked out by the missus. He’d bring Joe a bit of something tasty – cod’s roe or whatever – and come up the back path to that cat flap. Then when Joe hopped out to get his treat, Eli would nip a pole in quick to stop the flap from swinging back. He had an old bamboo flagpole ready to reach through and wriggle off them chains and bolts. And put ’em on again after. I don’t reckon she ever suspected a thing.”

  It was a good story: it made Eli seem more human. As if he was someone who might have once been a boy.

  “Why do you think he did it? Breaking those things and throwing her stick in the creek?”

  “Expressin’ his feelin’s? Auntie Iris used to say as he were a bully, but I allus reckoned she had him well under her dainty little thumb. He wouldn’t have been no good with words but I reckon there’d been something that night that had pushed him over.”

  “That could have been me. He told her she’d brought a darkie into his parents’ house.”

  It had shocked and upset and angered her then. Now, explaining to Gareth, didn’t bother her at all. Except, if had been so bad that it’d driven Eli to kill himself…she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  “Don’t reckon it were that. Not that finally tipped him. I saw him that night you first came. He came down through Broad Marsh on the tide, then round the back of Meresig into Coldlight. He were upset right enough but he were only going to spend a bit more time in his boot-room and out around the creeks until you’d gone. We had a bit of a chat like. That’s why I were so took aback when I heard he were dead. There must ha’ been som’at else. Danged if I know.”

  Gareth went below, then, for a couple of hours sleep, which gave Xanthe more time to think as the waves heaved and surged and the ebb tide hurried them past the sunshine coast. By the time they were rounding the Naze and Gareth was on watch again she had realised where she’d been going wrong.

  “I think Iris hit Eli with that stick after they’d had that quarrel. I even heard her. But I was just totally sexist – and angry – I assumed it was the other way round. I thought he’d hit her when she called him a sot.”

  “In ’er dreams! Poor old boy hardly never had enough money to drink more’n a half pint unless I treated him for shaking out my oyster sacks. But you might be right about the hitting. I did the identification and there were a mark across his face but I didn’t think nothing of it. It would have been a terrible blow to his pride. She might as well ’a finished him there and then.”

  “Will you say so at the inquest?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Because there’s things that’s best not mentioned if you want to live together for the next two hundred years. I don’t actually believe that. I’m quoting.”

  “And I’m agreeing. That-a-ways you can still say a civil good morning to folk or accept if they want to buy you a pint in the pub. Eli’d had a pint or two that night – more’n he could usually afford.”

  “Mrs Farran might have thrown him some money. I think he was threatening Commander Gold. He said he knew something…”

  “Did he now?”

  “Yeah – but he didn’t say what, and obviously there’s some questions best not asked.”

  “It don’t suit you, being sarcastic like that.”

  She wasn’t below for an hour before she was needed on deck again. They were approaching Harwich Harbour and the tide had turned.

  “I know I said we could go to the club – but I’m not so sure. I’ve been thinking about the race this afternoon and my stomach’s tying itself into double granny knots. I don’t think I can face any of those people – even my parents – until after I’ve gone head to head with Madrigal. And, ideally, beaten her.”

  “D’you want to jump?” Gareth asked. “You could use the workboat an’ take off. I’m grateful that you shipped along but I reckon I’ve got the hang of the sailin’ now. Nice little boat.”

  “Iris called her a death-ship, which does seem harsh. It’s been the people that have caused all the trouble, not her.”

  “I won’t be asking Cousin Dom to scuttle her again, if that’s what yer thinkin’.”

  “Right now, all I’m thinking is where we should leave her here she’ll be safe. I’m thinking of somewhere that’s less public than my parents’ club. My friend Donny’s got a mooring off Gallister Creek. It’s up the River Stour and he lives there on a Chinese junk with his mum. They went to Holland for half term but they’ll be back now. It’s GCSEs. We could leave the smack alongside Strong Winds, then I could take a taxi back to Flinthammock in time for the race. I’ve got some money.�
�

  “Y’re avoiding y’r own family.”

  “Only until this evening.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Black Star

  Monday June 3, lw 0900 hw 1508 lw 2108 hw 0330

  The stretch of water between Shinglehead Spit and the Saxon Shore was crowded with boats. There were neat, white, modern yachts and woody old timers – big, black Thames barges down from Fishling with their rich tan sails, and rakish smacks from Meresig with flying jibs and topsails set. Although half-term was over there were scatters of dinghies in every direction. They must be from local sailing schools, Xanthe supposed.

  Igraine had been left in the Stour, safe alongside Strong Winds and Gareth had set off back up the coast in the workboat.

  “I’m going to need her, anyways. I’ve still got me livin’ to earn.”

  Dominic had been the only person around when Xanthe had reached Godwyn and she had yelled at him. She was late and tired and strung out. She would have yelled at anybody.

  She wanted him to help her get Fritha back into the water – as soon as there was any water – and he couldn’t see why she needed her.

  “I thought you said that your Laser would be there – Spray, isn’t it?”

  “I need to get across, don’t I?”

  “All the Picos are down by Fisherman’s Hard. They’re accessible. Or I could lend you the RIB? I don’t understand your obsession with that Firefly.”

  She didn’t either – which was one of the reasons she was cross. She had all that time with Gareth and she’d never asked him what it was that made Fritha special.

  “You’re an obsessive, Dominic. You do stupid, unreasonable things because you think they’re right. No-one has a clue what makes you tick and you don’t seem to care. Look at the way you treat Martha.”

  “Martha? Martha’s my cousin. She’s almost like my sister…”