Jess was still thinking about her mum being from New Zealand, and about Blakeney Park. As she absently threw a ball for Sam, she wondered if the stately home was anything like Downton Abbey. Was it terribly grand and romantic, or was it a Gothic mansion with castle-like turrets and spider-filled attics?
‘Our dad died saving his best friend,’ Jude informed the policeman, not without pride.
Detective Trenton said carefully, ‘Jude, it may be that not everything your guardian told you was strictly . . . accurate. The fact that your mom left no ID or personal belongings suggests she wanted to erase her past.’
He paused a beat before continuing.
‘I did manage to find a newspaper report from that time. There was an accident near the estate in heavy rain. Part of a bridge collapsed. That much I can confirm. As you already know, your father sadly passed away, and his employer, Robert Blakeney, also lost his life. The coroner ruled it an accidental death. If your mum says your dad died a hero, I’m sure he did.’
If the detective was concerned that this news might distress them, he needn’t have been. After a lifetime of being kept in the dark about anything to do with their parents’ past, each precious gem of new information – even the painful bits – lit up their universe like a star.
The twins were reeling. It was incomprehensible to Jess that the birds kept on singing. Didn’t they realize how momentous it was for the twins to finally learn their dad’s name and know where he and their mum had been born?
‘Apologies for interrupting, Detective,’ said Nurse Jones, walking over. ‘I need to get these children back to the ward. Jess, Jude, say goodbye to your dog.’
‘Forgive me, Nurse Jones, but there is one more thing I have to discuss with the twins. The most important thing. Would you give us five more minutes?’
‘There’s more?’ Jess couldn’t believe it.
‘The current owner of Blakeney Park, Clifford, is the son of your dad’s former employer, Robbie. He inherited his father’s newspaper business after Robbie’s death. When Clifford and his wife Marina learned of your plight and the connection to their estate from my Metropolitan Police contact, they were moved to tears. They have three children of their own, you see. Within twenty-four hours they’d contacted us. They wish to offer you a home . . .’
‘A home?’ Jude was stunned.
‘At Blakeney Park?’ Jess said faintly, picturing anew the Gothic mansion. Why would total strangers offer to take them in? It seemed too good to be true. Did they like dogs? Would they consider offering Sam a home too? What if they didn’t?
Detective Trenton was studying them for a reaction. ‘Obviously, child protective services will have to run stringent checks on the family. And you’ll have to meet Clifford and Marina to see if you like them and would get along. But if you’re amenable to the idea of moving to a country estate in the United Kingdom, the Blakeneys have promised to foster you and take care of you until you come of age.’
He smiled. ‘Look, this is a lot to absorb all at once. I’ll let you mull it over for a day or two before we speak again. Meanwhile, I printed out an Instagram photo of Blakeney Park. Thought you might like a glimpse of the estate where your parents worked – and your potential new home.’
The following morning, a bodyguard was posted at the door of the twins’ hospital room.
‘Courtesy of the Blakeneys,’ the head of the hospital explained to Nurse Rolle. ‘The family are concerned that if news gets out that they might foster Jess and Jude, there’ll be a media storm. I agree. I’ll thank you to make Ivan welcome, Nurse Rolle. He’s here for your benefit, as well as that of your patients.’
From then on, the twins were never alone. Ivan even accompanied Jess down to the garden. He watched from a distance as she chatted to Barbara and threw a ball for Sam.
In the pocket of her pyjamas was the picture of Blakeney Park. Jess couldn’t stop thinking about it. Bathed in sunshine, the stately home was built in honey-coloured stone. It gazed out across rose gardens, lawns mown in stripes, and paddocks full of glossy horses.
‘A little bird told me your news,’ said Barbara, beaming at Jess. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m sworn to secrecy. What a fairy-tale ending for you and Jude.
You’ll have heard of Clifford Blakeney, no doubt. He’s a media mogul like Rupert Murdoch, only not quite so fabulously wealthy. Millions not billions.’
Jess had never heard of the Blakeneys in her life, and Clifford being a media mogul was the least of her concerns. ‘But are they kind – Mr and Mrs Blakeney?’
To Jess, kindness was a quality infinitely more essential in a prospective foster family than any number of newspaper empires or millions and billions.
‘Clifford’s one of a kind, sure!’ Barbara laughed. ‘And Marina’s a famous beauty. From what I’ve read, they have a gorgeous stately home and the best of everything. Cars, horses, wall-to-wall luxury. You’ll want for nothing.’
She cast an admiring glance at Jess, as if Jess had personally engineered the quirk of destiny that might catapult them to Blakeney Park.
‘From orphans to fortunes. You’ll be the luckiest children in the world!’
11
THE LUCKIEST CHILDREN IN THE WORLD
In Florida, Jude’s best friend had been a boy who didn’t believe in magic.
‘No such thing, dude,’ Aaron had informed him. ‘When Houdini vanished an elephant, or David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, d’you think they had some invisibility superpower? Or when Dynamo walks on water or fully levitates above a tower, d’you think he’s channelling Jesus? No – that’s some next-level trick engineering or special effects. It’s smoke and mirrors, man.’
The way Aaron explained it, illusionists were like sneaky politicians. His father had worked in the mayor’s office, so he considered himself a semi-authority on the subject.
‘Corrupt politicians, their whole gig is distracting you. They start a dumpster fire on one side of town and get everybody freaking out, blaming each other and trying to round up a fire hose. Meantime, the politician’s long gone. They’re off nuking innocent civilians or gifting a polar-bear wilderness to a bunch of fossil-fuel cowboys. Same deal with magicians. If we can get you focused on this shiny gold watch here, you won’t notice us leading an elephant onstage over there.’
Aaron’s ambition was to be the creative whizz behind a famous illusionist. To this end, he spent hours studying Houdini’s great escapes. He’d given Jude a blow-by-blow account of how the great magician – handcuffed and in leg irons – had escaped an underwater crate in New York’s East River. Jude, who had a fear of being trapped underwater, had had nightmares for days.
When he was seven, he’d disobeyed Gabe and sneaked off to the beach alone with his new bodyboard. A barrel wave had blasted him off his feet and treated him to a white-knuckle ride on an underwater roller coaster. Jude had been out of fight and nearly out of air by the time he was saved by a surfer.
Gabe had been apoplectic.
‘Respect the sea or she’ll disrespect you to death,’ he’d ranted. ‘I’m glad you’re OK and I love you, kid, but I need you to promise me that you’ll remember this. Four minutes without oxygen is all it takes. Any longer and you’re history.’
Five years on, disrespecting the sea again – being over-confident that he could sail a yacht safely to Anegada when thousands of experienced sailors had failed – had almost cost Jude his life.
Worse, he’d almost killed his sister and dog too.
Not surprisingly, his nightmares had returned with a vengeance in hospital. Night after night, inky water closed over him and fishing net bound him as effectively as Houdini’s manacles.
But on the morning of December 17th, he was woken from a bad dream by a bright light. Once, twice, three times, it flashed.
Jude blinked. A monstrous eye glowered down at him. He let out a yelp and retreated into the pillows. The cyclops tilted to one side, revealing a rumple-haired, stubble-faced photogr
apher behind it.
Unabashed, the man adjusted his settings and fired off another couple of shots.
‘Nurse!’ yelled Jude. ‘Nurse, help!’
‘Don’t worry, I have permission – you and Jessica being minors and all,’ said the photographer. ‘The nurse was going to chaperone, but she’s had to step away to take a call. Some emergency. She’ll be along any second. Don’t stress. Ivan is watching over you.’
He nodded at the bodyguard filling the doorway, inscrutable behind his dark glasses.
Why Ivan needed sunglasses in a dimly lit hospital room was anyone’s guess. Jude doubted anyone was bold enough to ask.
The photographer extended a hand before realizing that Jude was unable to shake it. ‘Adam Buckley, Daily Gazette, London. Great to meet you, Jude. I’ll be covering you and your sister’s story on an exclusive basis for our paper.’
‘Our story?’
Jude wondered if he was in a twilight zone between dreaming and waking.
‘Surely you know that you and your sister are about to become one of the biggest stories anywhere? Twelve-year-old twins found abandoned on the high seas being taken under the wings of one of the most famous families in Great Britain. From desert island rags to glamorous Gloucestershire estate. Trust me, you’re the luckiest children on earth to have the Blakeneys looking out for you. Stop the vultures circling. Wait till you clap eyes on your new home.’
Adam switched on a lamp and flooded the room with glaring light. ‘Mind if I take a few more snaps?’
Jude minded a great deal but didn’t know how to say so. He wished the nurse and Jess would return.
‘Sure. Whatever,’ he mumbled. ‘Uh, why don’t you wait till my sister comes back? She’s probably out walking our dog, Sam. Maybe he can be in the picture too. He can’t come into the hospital but, you know, in the garden somewhere.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said the photographer, training a wide-angle lens on Jude’s bed and clicking three times. ‘You’re in charge. Just trying to get on top of my game before the big guns arrive. Mrs Blakeney’s already on her way.’
Jude’s head was still fuzzy. He wasn’t sure what the man was talking about. The twins had been told that Clifford and Marina were planning to fly out from the UK to visit them, but he hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon.
‘I hope Mrs Blakeney doesn’t arrive before the doctor takes off my bandages and I get a chance to take a shower. He told me he’d remove them yesterday, but I guess he forgot.’
Adam gave a dry laugh. ‘Donations from the Blakeneys tend to play tricks with people’s memories.’
‘Excuse me?’
The photographer was over by the window, adding a filter to his lens. ‘Like I said, we definitely want the “before” photos, if you catch my drift. Nothing says “survivor” like a head bandage with a smear of blood on it. Push up your left pyjama sleeve. How did you get that epic bruise?’
To Jude’s immense relief, footsteps squeaked on the corridor linoleum.
‘Lord have mercy, WHAT is going on here?’ demanded Nurse Rolle. ‘Ivan, I thought you were here to protect these vulnerable children. Why haven’t you put a stop to this?’
She swooped on the light switch and killed the glare. ‘Didn’t I tell you NO PICTURES and to sit motionless in a chair and keep your camera locked in its case till I could supervise, Mr, err . . . What was your name again?’
‘Buckley, Nurse. Adam Buckley,’ grovelled the photographer. ‘As I explained, I’m from the Daily Gazette. Apologies if there’s been a misunderstanding. I thought you told me I could start setting up my equipment in preparation for—’
‘That phone call was a hoax,’ interrupted the nurse. ‘Don’t s’pose you’d know anything about that, Mr Adam Buckley?’
A young receptionist dashed in, steering Jess before her. ‘Mrs Blakeney’s on the way! Doctor said to have the twins ready, make the hospital proud.’
The photographer and bodyguard snapped to attention as if they were in a military parade. Nurse Rolle moved smoothly to conjure order out of chaos, straightening Jude’s pyjamas and sheets with one hand and restoring pristine order to the room with the other.
Attempts had been made to brush Jess’s hair, but it had resisted taming. A hospital gown disguised Sam’s muddy paw prints on her freshly laundered pyjamas.
Jude watched his sister wriggle into her hospital bed and sit up primly. She looked both petrified and hopeful.
He felt as if they were on a runaway train with no driver. Up ahead, there was a promising light, but the tracks were loose and threatening to derail them at any moment.
Final destination? Unknown.
12
TRICK OF THE LIGHT
The sterile air of the hospital room parted with a sigh, giving way to a scent as exotic as the gardens of the Taj Mahal at midnight.
Marina Blakeney entered in a swirl of azure silk shirt and white linen trousers. An eager assistant scampered after her. A harried doctor hovered in the doorway.
At the sight of Jude, his head swathed in bandages, she cried, ‘Oh, my dear boy. You look like a wounded young soldier from the First World War. And, Jess, my goodness. What you’ve both been through. So courageous. It’s a wonder you’re still alive. But I’m getting ahead of myself, as usual. I’m Marina Blakeney. It’s my great honour to finally meet you. My husband and I have been captivated by your adventures. We’re a little in awe of you – well, us and half the planet.’
She laughed, and the twins – who were overawed themselves – laughed nervously with her.
‘May I sit here?’ she asked, perching on Jess’s bed without waiting for a reply.
Tenderly, she took Jess’s left hand between her cool, satiny palms. Up close, her auburn mane glowed like an autumn fire. Combined with flawless skin and mesmerizing lilac eyes, the effect was quite dazzling.
‘What pretty hair you have, Jessica.’
‘It’s Jess,’ Jess mumbled shyly. ‘So do you, Mrs Blakeney. Have lovely hair, I mean. Yours is stunning.’
‘Why, thank you, Jessica . . . Jess.’ Marina seemed enchanted, as if she only rarely received compliments.
‘My husband, Clifford, sends his regrets that he wasn’t able to accompany me. He’s dying to get to know you both but was held up by some business crisis or other. The media world is so relentless. Everybody wants a piece of him. He has a million staff but, honestly, some executives are as helpless as newborn lambs.’
She looked absently at the plum-coloured nails on her free hand before turning another radiant smile on the twins.
‘Thankfully, Clifford came up with a solution – as he always does. He begs your permission to record our first meeting. He wants to feel as if he’s here with us. Our readers would love that too. Very informal. Adam, who you’ve met, will take a few snaps and jot down a couple of quotes. Astrid, my assistant, will do her best with the video camera. Would you mind terribly, Jess and Jude?’
Jess heard herself gush: ‘No, of course we don’t mind, do we, Jude? We’re so grateful to you for offering us a home.’
Jude nodded dumbly from the next bed. ‘We were worried we might end up in a home for unwanted kids.’
Marina was moved. ‘My dear boy, how could we not offer you a home? When Scotland Yard contacted Clifford to tell him that the DNA of two children saved from a sinking yacht in the Caribbean matched that of a former head groom at our estate – a man who died over twelve years ago – we could hardly take it in. It was like something out of a movie.’
‘Sure is,’ said Nurse Rolle.
Mrs Blakeney glanced sharply at her, but the nurse was absorbed in checking notes on a clipboard.
Marina returned her warm gaze to the twins. ‘My husband places a high value on loyalty, as did his father, Robert, before him. In the years that Jim Gray was employed on the estate, Clifford was in London full time, working flat out to build the business. He only met your dad once or twice in passing before his, uh, unfortunate, accident.
But, by all accounts, he was an outstanding groom. Devoted to horses. He especially liked the difficult beasts. Personally, I consider that a most admirable quality.’
She smiled up at Astrid, who was videoing the conversation.
‘But I digress. To cut a long story short, our hearts went out to you when we heard of your plight. That you were homeless and penniless. We’re fortunate enough to have a comfortable house with ample room. We wanted to welcome you into our home, give you hope and opportunity. Send you to excellent schools, if that’s acceptable to you both.’
‘I’d love that.’ Jess glowed at the mere thought. ‘Wouldn’t you, Jude?’
‘So much,’ Jude said insincerely, adding belatedly: ‘Thank you, Mrs Blakeney.’
‘Call me Marina. Of course, our motives aren’t entirely unselfish. We were thinking of Caspian, our son.’
Jess was confused. ‘I thought you had three kids?’
‘We do, but Mark and Racine, my husband’s children from his first marriage, are grown up and work in our media business. Caspian is thirteen, close to your own age. He cannot wait to have some kid company and ready-made friends at Blakeney Park. “Make a welcome change from all the old farts around here,” is what he told me.’
Jude snorted. Jess stifled a gasp.
Neither of the twins could imagine talking to an adult that way.
Marina didn’t seem offended in the least. She laughed gaily. ‘He’s such a character, Caspian. Full of mischief and fun. Exactly like Clifford when he was a boy, from what I’m told.’
The photographer said, ‘Any chance you could sit on the chair next to Jude, Mrs Blakeney? It would be fab to shoot you from a different angle.’
Marina did as he asked, smoothing her metallic-blue silk shirt and turning her attention to Jude.
Wave Riders Page 8
