Raft of Lies

B. Kennett D.

Description

In the mid-Atlantic the Clerkenwell family yacht goes to the aid of a drifting life raft. Minutes later, Steve Clerkenwell lies dead in his wife's arms, and their son, Adam has killed his father's murderer with a boathook. In the raft is a bound-and-gagged woman. Back in Falmouth the woman disappears and Adam is seemingly thwarted by the police, prompting him and his father's best friend, Tom, to start their own investigation. They find themselves drawn into a web of deceit and corruption in high places at home and abroad, and Adam soon loses his youthful innocence as he and Tom battle for justice and retribution.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780722343760
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title page
RAFT OF LIES
D. B. Kennett
ARTHUR H. STOCKWELL LTD
Torrs Park, Ilfracombe, Devon, EX34 8BA
Established 1898
www.ahstockwell.co.uk



Publisher information
2014 digital version by Andrews UK
www.andrewsuk.com
© D. B. Kennett, 2014
First published in Great Britain, 2014
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
This is a work of fiction.
The events described here are imaginary.
The South American settings and boat names and all characters are fictitious and not intended to represent specific places, boats or persons living or dead.



Chapter 1
Jenny cursed her good eyesight.
Those eyes, washed by months of tears since Steve’s murder, had – like her life – become full of emptiness. But now, those sleep-hungry eyes were increasingly haunted by desperate, gnawing fear for the safety of their only child.
Adam still insisted he must find out whatever was behind the killing of his father. So did Tom, but that was different. Tom was not family, although he was Steve’s best friend. A much younger man, and an experienced sailor, he just happened to be crewing their yacht on that fateful voyage. When he was a child, Adam had admired Tom. He had thought of him as a young uncle, an adult who had time for him. They had shared many camping and sailing trips together, and there was no way either of them was going to let the other down now, whatever the stakes.
In Adam’s mind there were no stakes. Fresh from college, with a good mathematics degree, he was clever, naive, and vulnerable. Not so Tom. Eighteen years his senior, Tom had been a newspaper reporter before he combined work and hobby to become a freelance photographer. He had seen and photographed many bloody scenes, but never before captured a murderous act on film – even if it was by chance. It was this act that tormented Jenny nightly.
Try as she might, she could not put the horrors of that day behind her. She kept telling herself it was all her fault. If she had not seen that speck on the bumpy horizon, they would never have altered course to take a closer look at what she thought was another whale. Steve, Adam and Tom did not see it until they were much nearer. The weather had been slowly improving after three storm-battered days, and at last a hazy sun gave some colour to the previously grey sea. The previous day’s huge breaking waves had given way to a mighty ocean swell, which in its never-ending motion caught and reflected the brightening sun. They had been relaxing on deck, coffee mugs in hand, thankful to be safely on the other side of the storm, and happy to be able to relax and absorb this majestic scene.
By the time Tom got back on deck with a new film in his camera, Steve could just make out through his binoculars that it was not the fin of a whale after all, but an older type of life raft – all black, with no orange on the canopy.
The sun emerged from cloud as they headed closer, making them squint. They could just make out that somebody was weakly waving an arm to attract attention. Then they could see that the other arm was bandaged and supported by a sling. Steve started the engine, and headed the heavy wooden ketch into the wind close by the life raft. Tom hauled the mainsail and then mizzensail tight to stop the dangerous swing of the heavy booms, hoping that the flat sails would also help reduce their rolling as they stopped in the heavy swell. The foredeck was pitching and washed by waves as Jenny and Adam lowered and lashed the flapping foresails. Adam unlashed a ten-foot boathook and got ready to hold the life raft, and Jenny started to get the rope boarding ladder from a deck locker.
As she turned she caught sight of Steve coming out of the wheelhouse, his hand shielding his eyes against the sun. Then he stopped. Jenny did not know what he saw in that instant, but it made him give a loud, unintelligible shout as he turned sharply back and rushed towards the helm – to engage gear and motor away, she thought.
Suddenly, the bandaged arm was swiftly withdrawn from the sling, and a shot rang out. And then another. Steve collapsed and sprawled on to the heaving deck, which rapidly turned red. Jenny fainted, an involuntary act that got her out of the way of the third shot and may well have saved her life. Adam’s adrenalin-crazed eyes fleetingly met the assailant’s as the ketch plunged and the life raft rose. The motion was rapid – violent even. The shot missed Adam. The boathook was now in full swing from way above his head, powered by a primeval strength that was compounded by the opposing motion imparted to each man by the sea. The solid bronze hook at the end of the wooden pole smashed into the assailant’s skull with a sickening crack. The gun fell into the sea. The assailant crumpled and then tumbled out of the life raft, his motionless body immediately consumed by the heaving ocean. He was not wearing a life jacket.
The life raft was now drifting away from the ketch. Tom shouted at Adam to hook it. Adam hesitated. Tom screamed at him. At the third attempt Adam just managed to catch the boathook on the rope loops around the life raft. Tom had noticed slight movements within the smooth curve of the thin canopy that covered it. Cautiously they got the life raft close alongside and hooked the flap back from its opening.
It was the sheer terror in the eyes of the woman as she stared back at them that they remember most, not the fact that she was bound and gagged.
Jenny remembers little of that now. She remembers regaining consciousness, her bruised head a few feet from Steve’s dead body, his blood in her hair.
Often her fitful sleep is overtaken by the memory of subsequent events, which she relives in vivid nightmares. With the passage of time, these had become a miserable meld of actual experience, half-heard conversations and photographic images.
In her waking hours she knows that the drama is not yet over. She dreads its end with the same gnawing trepidation that she feels at night.
That night was to be no different.



Chapter 2
Tom and Adam had removed the woman’s gag, and put a lifting strop under her armpits. They were hoisting her on board with some difficulty. Her limbs were useless – numb from bondage and inaction, they thought, or maybe she was drugged. She was filthy and stank. They untied her hands and laid her on deck. She tried to speak. No words came. Tom insisted that they get the life raft on board as well. Adam was too emotionally drained to argue. He just wanted to quieten the entire scene by getting the yacht sailing again as soon as possible. The wind-filled sails would ease the unpleasant rolling motion and get them away from this malevolent area of ocean.
Adam knelt and tried to comfort his mother, who was in deep, silent shock as she sat on the blood-slippery deck, cradling his father’s lifeless head in her lap. The realisation not only that his father was dead, but that he had just killed a man, made him tremble uncontrollably. He turned away, trying to get up before he vomited. He failed. He saw his vomit mingle with his father’s blood just before he fainted and slumped to join them briefly.
Tom knew the old ketch well, and naturally assumed command in all this mayhem. Soon they were sailing again. The world was suddenly quieter, and the ocean once more vast and empty.
He propped the woman up against the mainmast and held a mug of water to her parched lips. Some of it splashed over her face; some of it helped to quench her thirst.
“Do you speak English?” he asked.
She gave an incomprehensible croak, then a small movement of her head, and half smiled before she slipped out of consciousness – utterly exhausted. On impulse he photographed her. Then he took a bucket of warm soapy water on deck, gently removed her vomit-and-excreta-caked clothes, and cleaned and bathed the deeply breathing but otherwise lifeless body. He dressed her in a T-shirt and shorts before resting her in a more comfortable position on a pile of sail bags. He noticed she had a large scar above her right buttock.
He had not seen anything in the life raft when lashing it on the cabin top, and that made him uneasy. There was no waterproof bag containing passports. There were no passports. And the life jackets: neither of them was wearing a life jacket and there was none in the life raft.
“Passports and life jackets are part of emergency procedure,” he muttered to himself.
He got a powerful flash lamp and searched every inch inside the dark, smelly life raft. Eventually he found a small black polythene bag, but a bit larger than he had expected, and it was folded over, making it difficult to see, wedged between the black buoyancy tubes and floppy black floor. But that was all there was – no emergency water or food or the usual survival things in a life raft. After wiping the packet clean he put it in his cabin to deal with later.
Jenny’s vacant eyes paid no attention to the magnificent sunset astern. She had not moved all afternoon. The heat of the day had eased, and although the evening was very warm she gave a nervous shudder as the sun went down. Tom and Adam gently unwound her cradling embrace and led her, zombie-like, to her cabin. Adam sat with her for a while. Neither of them spoke. He got some sleeping pills from the medical kit. She took them from him without question and soon fell asleep. He joined Tom on deck.
“What about the woman?” asked Adam.
“Too weak to cause trouble – for now at least. Let’s get her below decks. At least she isn’t armed.” A f