Castaway Hat

James Clark

Description

The Castaway Hat is an amusing intrigue of lure and lucre, spanning two generations. A mystery of a straw hat with a faded red ribbon washed among the rocks. The finder, Edgar, by co-incidence, not that he knows it, met the owner the previous night at a book launch. Daphne and the hat were parted when a launch capsized - she swimming to an island off New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula, only to discover an old gold mining tunnel, a recently worked old mining tunnel. The author, Erica, locates the earlier, but not original diggers of that tunnel. An adventure that spans oceans and time to settle in the tiny carless town of Murren, Switzerland, during World War II.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 29 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528942010
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Castaway Hat
An Intrigue of Lure and Lucre
Clark James
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-03-29
The Castaway Hat About the Author Copyright Information Foreword Characters Chapter One 2004 Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five August 1939 Chapter Six 1940 Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen
About the Author
Clark James has had a diverse working life coupled with art and writing, including the six-volume historical novel  Wind from the West  and more recently the four-volume apocalyptic series beginning with Snowgirls.  The novel  The Castaway Hat  fits in between the two series along with  Earth’s Revenge  and  The Consequence,  two environmental/political novels. Clark is widely travelled and places characters into settings he is familiar with. Married twice, he has several adult children, step-children and grandchildren. He also has been involved in various organisations: scouting, ratepayers, performing arts, painting and writing groups.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Clark James (2019)
The right of Clark James to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528914932 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528914949 (Kindle e-book)
ISBN 9781528942010 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Other Books by Author
Wind from the West series:
Book One – Moon over the Manukau
Book Two – Neap Tide
Book Three – Storm & Stress
Book Four – Waves on the Waitemata
Book Five – Spring Tide
Book Six – Setting of the Sun
Fish, Chips and Rachmaninoff
Plantation (Earth’s Revenge)
The Consequence
Snowgirls
Depraved
Restored: A Northern Sequel to Snowgirls
With Rewa Walia; Laxmi – Odyssey of a Dancer
Foreword
When artist Edgar Harvey discovers a woman’s hat with a faded red ribbon wedged among seashore rocks, he takes it home to his studio, to be eventually reproduced in a storm scene. What he doesn’t know, he, only the night before, had met the hat’s owner, Daphne, at his long-time friend Erica Watson’s book launch. How Daphne came to lose her hat, and almost her life with it, evolves into an intrigue of lure and lucre, dating back sixty-five years to the opening days of World War II, involving two nations, a series of missed or misfortunes, leaving dead, a missing presumed dead airman, numerous lovers and gold in its wake.
Characters
Edgar Artist
Erica Author and long-time friend of Edgar
Daphne Single friend of Erica’s
Cynthia and Horace Friends of Erica. Not a happy couple
June and Raul Friends of Erica. Raul is in financial trouble
Aaron A replacement lover for Cynthia
Robbie and Malcolm (Louis) 1939 mates exploring an old gold mine
Heather Malcom’s girlfriend (1939)
Margaret Heather’s obliging mother
Freya Heather’s daughter (b1940)
Analiese Swiss girl (c1940)
Alain Son of Analiese and Louis (Malcolm)
Sid A boatie
Chapter One

2004
Driven by a stiff nor’easterly, breaking waves chased one another across the shallow estuary. Patches of blue above were not reflected in the water; this being muddy grey with numerous white horses. Late autumn, with dusk closing, the shore abandoned except for a few hardy strollers.
Edgar Harvey—archaically named after his grandfather—was in a contemplative mood, having the previous night met a rather attractive woman at a book launch. Although their conversation consisted of no more than a few words about the book and its author, he contemplated how to get in touch with her, thinking of the word ‘touch’ he had in mind, verbally and physically. She had the visual qualities he admired in a woman.
More a redhead than brunette, with slight freckles, her face exuded both charm and intrigue, as indeed did her black finely woven bodice. Perhaps he was being fanciful when he imagined women wore such garments to be alluring rather than exposing. Even so, his physical attraction was in passing, while her concise words roused lasting interest.
Her opinion of the launched book was terse. “I feel Erica has concentrated on scene setting, rather than her characters.”
“So you don’t like The Silent Daughter ?” he had questioned.
“Oh yes, but I preferred her first novel. Of course, it may be due to the success of that one she has hurried this one.”
That, the extent of their conversation, being interrupted by the publisher, who incidentally gushed over this woman, almost to her embarrassment, Edgar noted. Obviously she was not overcome by such effusiveness.
He had several feminine friends, one being the author, so was not particularly seeking to add to his collection. Nevertheless this woman, whoever she was, would be pleasant to have a meal with, one of those intimate occasions in a small but busy restaurant where they could talk of things other than what the media decreed to be topical.
A scurry of spent waves surged into the gap between a large rock and the remnants of a lava flow, diverting Edgar’s course, causing him to clamber on to the rocks further inshore than he had intended. There, wedged in a crevice was a straw hat: a rather sodden and ragged straw hat. He wrestled it from its snare, further damaging it and, having an inquisitive mind, did not immediately discard, instead analysed the object. Judging by its condition it had been blown from the wearer’s head two or three weeks earlier. So, why had it been cast ashore just that day?
The ribbon around the base of the crown was rusty brown, although the underside was redder, while the tattered label indicated that its owner was sized ‘M’. Was that ‘medium’ or ‘men’ Edgar determined? No, definitely ‘medium’, since he could not imagine a man wearing a hat with a red ribbon. Most people having discovered the hat and, knowing locating its owner would be impossible, would have—if they were opposed to littering—stuffed the relic into a rubbish bin. Edgar could not do this, because the beach had a year or two before been declared one of those beaches where you took your litter home with you, so there were no bins. Strange as it may seem, almost all beach users complied, and only flotsam and jetsam lay tangled among seaweed.
Nor did Edgar discard it on reaching his home; one of the last baches (small holiday houses) fronting this beach, the others having been demolished in preference to holiday homes or houses that were better suited to crowded suburbia than a coastal location. The amount Edgar had been offered for his patch of nostalgia would have made him rich. However, there was more to life, as far as he was concerned, than wealth, and his friends praised both the bach and his rejection of soulless developers. Many weekend afternoons, when he was trying to make something of a painting and his hands would not obey his vision, were interrupted by friends dropping in, usually with a good bottle of grape juice, so he could hardly tell them to go away, even politely go away.
He supposed he could always use the hat as a prop, and his artistic bent imagined a bedraggled woman stumbling from the surf with a grounded boat in the background. Fanciful as this idea was he was presently working on five paintings of three genres and two mediums, so he was not inclined to begin another. The hat was slung into a corner, and Edgar assessed the painting on the easel, removed it, and placed another reticent work in its place. Prior to discovering the hat he had an idea to perhaps improve this stylised scene of an art opening.
He picked up a tube of paint was about to layer a dollop on his palette when he decided to phone his author friend. Expecting her to answer the phone he was surprised when an unfamiliar voice said abruptly, as if interrupted by the caller, “Hello.”
“Um–sorry–um, I think I…”
“Do you want Erica?”
Now the concise voice sounded familiar.
“Um–yes.” In truth, it was not Erica that he wanted, rather the person who had answered the phone. He couldn’t just say that to her, could he? He did not even know her name.
“Hi,” Erica’s cheerful voice announced.
“It’s me–um–Edgar.”
“Oh, hi. Thanks so much for coming yesterday. That man you introduced me to—Alistair—has been just so, so helpful.”
“I’m glad of that.”
“Do you know I’ve had two calls from independent bookshops today wanting me to have a signing.”
“Good.”
“And Alistair said there are a couple of good shops in Wellington…”
“Good.”
“But do you think it would be worth going down? I mean, the expense?”
“They may…”
“I suppose it would, if I sold a lot and got enough interest…”
“I suppose…”
“Anyway, what are you doing right now, right this instant?” Erica insisted.
Edgar had the distinct impression she wanted him to go across, however, he really wished to add to the painting while the picture was in his mind. Then, it would only take ten–fifteen minutes to do that.
“I have this amazing friend—I can’t imagine why I have never introduced her to you—here right this moment.” While Edgar was assuming the friend was the very lady he desired to meet, Erica called aside, “Daphne, you’re staying for tea? I’m just inviting a really, really wonderful friend of mine over.”
The distinct cultured voice who had answered the phone was of the woman he had met, but the name did not match the voice. Then, whose did? Edgar did not hear her reply. His heart had won the argumen