Black East Wind

Jack Granfers

Description

September 1943.Ten thousand American GIs descend on the North Devon coast to train for the D-Day landings, risking their lives by day, drinking and dancing by night. Hundreds die in the perilous amphibious exercises on the local beaches and Atlantic surf. As the assault training intensifies, tensions rise between local residents and the Americans. A bitter rivalry develops between one GI and a British soldier over a local girl. During the only joint exercise between British and American troops, just days before their departure for Normandy, that same GI is reported missing. His body is never found.Three decades later, at the behest of her dying father, an investigative journalist, Amy Ridd, niece of the missing GI, arrives in Devon from Boston to 'discover the truth' behind her uncle's disappearance. She retains Nick Webber, a former golf pro turned private investigator to help her solve a case colder than a New England January day.Their investigation uncovers a tragic love story and wartime secrets buried for over thirty years.A Black East Wind is the first in a series of Webber- Ridd Agency cold cases set on the North Devon Coast."Fact and fiction intertwined make this a cracking read!"

Sujets

• Historical fiction
• Devon
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803133393
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 Jack Granfers

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of historical fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


Matador
Unit E2 Airfield Business Park,
Harrison Road, Market Harborough,
Leicestershire. LE16 7UL
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks


ISBN 978 1803133 393

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd





This book is dedicated to Charlie, Evie, George
and Leo – have a great life.


Contents
Prologue

Part One
North Devon Coast

Chapter 1
First Lieutenant Jim Ridd
Chapter 2
Billy’s arrival
Chapter 3
Family comes first
Chapter 4
Tips for US Servicemen
Chapter 5
Eisenhower’s visit
Chapter 6
Glenn Miller comes to town
Chapter 7
Billy and Elsie
Chapter 8
Despair and disappointment
Chapter 9
It’s good to talk
Chapter 10
Finding Ritter
Chapter 11
The media arrive
Chapter 12
Seduction
Chapter 13
The media conference
Chapter 14
Jim Crow segregation
Chapter 15
Cardboard coffins
Chapter 16
Courtship
Chapter 17
The Wellington Bomber
Chapter 18
Military Hospital
Chapter 19
Lows and highs
Chapter 20
The making of a psychopath
Chapter 21
Plotting revenge
Chapter 22
The joint exercise
Chapter 23
The aftermath
Chapter 24
Unanswered questions

Part Two
Thirty-two Years Later

Chapter 1
From Watergate to Woolacombe
Chapter 2
Nick Webber Private Investigator
Chapter 3
A meeting of minds
Chapter 4
Tanks on the course
Chapter 5
The American Embassy
Chapter 6
Amy digs deep
Chapter 7
Lady Margaret
Chapter 8
Major Tom
Chapter 9
Tom’s Diary
Chapter 10
The American Road
Chapter 11
Breaking and entering
Chapter 12
The Red Barn
Chapter 13
Martin investigates
Chapter 14
Major Paulton
Chapter 15
Flash Harry
Chapter 16
The meeting at Cock Rock
Chapter 17
Elsie’s story
Chapter 18
Major Tom remembers
Chapter 19
Peter Webber
Chapter 20
Burden of proof
Chapter 21
Cold to hot
Chapter 22
Not my first rodeo
Chapter 23
Confrontation
Chapter 24
Chapter and Verse
Chapter 25
Message in a bottle
Epilogue
New beginnings

Historical notes
Acknowledgements
News

The next Webber-Ridd Agency cold-case investigation
Bideford North Devon 1954


Prologue
Morning of Friday 2 nd June 1944

He’s scared. No, not scared. Terrified.
As terrified as he was on his first day of assault training ten months ago. Ten long treacherous months that have done nothing to dissipate his dread of being on the open sea.
The sea has always been his nemesis, and the weather today is only making matters worse. Much worse. Thunderclouds whipping across a brooding sky. Wind howling. Menacing. Breaking waves tossing the craft around like a toy. Torrential rain soaking everybody and everything to the core.
His icy fingers grip the steel rail of the landing craft, his knuckles white from the cold. And the fear. It feels more like a bleak, freezing day in February, not an early summer’s morning in June.
Nausea engulfs him.
It’s all right for the military brass, perched above the beach, cocooned on their viewing platform, congratulating themselves on how well equipped their troops are for D-Day. Little do they know!
He despises the hypocrisy of it all; wants to shout out obscenities, scream in anger at the hundreds of lives already lost in a war that has damn all to do with him. And they haven’t yet left for France.
A dress rehearsal for Normandy? More like a goddam suicide mission!
He’d never been so fearful of not seeing her again. The deep blue of her eyes, the curl of her lips as she smiled up at him. He feels her closeness, breathing her scent, tracing the outline of her mouth with his fingers as they enveloped one another. She loves him. She wants to marry him. He’ll take her home Stateside. Keep her safe. Far away from the limey soldier who beat her up, made her life a misery.
A massive wave hits the craft broadside, almost knocking it over. Saltwater pierces his face, tears at his skin. The British major in charge is shouting at him. ‘Corporal, something’s wrong! We’re slipping off course. Get back to the helm. Alert the cox’n or we’ll be on the rocks.’
He fights his way back, hand over hand along the rail. Too late. The craft is thrown unceremoniously onto its side. Men and equipment flung into the raging sea, crashing against the granite rocks.
Someone’s behind him.
He turns. What’s he doing here? He’s not part of the crew. As he stares into the hate-filled eyes his head explodes as the vicious blow knocks him overboard into the icy water.
Waves cut through him like shards of glass, water filling his mouth, lungs burning, desperate for air. Powerful hands dragging his body deeper and deeper below the surface.
He can’t defend himself.
He can’t keep her safe.
Goodbye sweetheart.
Everything goes black.





‘I have full confidence in your courage,
devotion to duty and skill in battle.
We will accept nothing less than full victory!
Good Luck! And let us beseech the blessing
of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.’

Eisenhower’s message to his troops on D-Day
6 th June 1944


Part One
North Devon Coast
August 1943


Chapter 1
First Lieutenant Jim Ridd
Jim Ridd sat huddled together with two fellow US Army officers in the back of a requisitioned British Army sedan driven by a female corporal on its way to Woolacombe, North Devon. The journey from London had been tedious, not helped by the poor state of the roads and the absence of any road signs, taken down in case of a German invasion.
The eight-hour journey had given Jim time to reflect on how his life had changed since his country had entered the war. One minute a reporter on The Patriot Ledger, the newspaper of Quincy, Massachusetts. The next, enlisted an