Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean (12 page)

‘What raffle?’ demanded the captain. ‘Where was this?’

‘In St Ives, Cornwall, where we’re from. A woman from a company called Fantasy Holidays sold me the winning ticket for a pound.’ Even as Laura said it, she was aware of how far-fetched it sounded.

‘You thought a one pound ticket entitled you to a luxury holiday for four, including your dog.’

Everyone laughed except Laura and Tariq.

‘I know nothing about any competition or raffle,’ boomed the captain. ‘Nothing of that kind happens without my authority.’

Tariq said: ‘If you allow us to return to our cabin, we can prove it, sir. A chauffeur in a limousine brought Laura a letter telling her she’d won. In the safe, we have tickets and vouchers and everything.’

The captain drew himself up to his full height, which was considerable. ‘A short time ago, I authorised the steward to open the safe in cabin 126. There was nothing in it. No passports and certainly no tickets or boarding passes. Now I think we’ve heard quite enough lies for one day. Viktor, call the police.’

‘Quite right,’ agreed the security manager, finding his tongue. ‘I can’t believe I was taken in by the story of the vanished uncle. Angus and Dreyton, detain these children for further questioning. We’ll hand them to the authorities when we dock.’

THE THING THAT
Laura wanted most was for Tariq to shake her awake and tell it had all been some awful nightmare. That she’d fallen asleep on the sofa at number 28 Ocean View Terrace in St Ives. That there’d never been a competition involving a holiday in the Caribbean and that she’d never won it. That Calvin Redfern was safe, and that Rowenna would be making them a cottage pie for dinner.

Unfortunately, this particular nightmare was real. Angus and Dreyton moved to grab them, but halted when Skye gave a blood-curdling growl. Tariq held tight to the husky’s collar. He gave the sailors a cool look, as if to say, ‘Come any closer and I’ll let go.’

All at once there was a commotion. The crowd parted like the Red Sea and through it came a couple dressed from head to toe in white. It was the kind of floaty cloud white worn by the types of people who never come into contact with dirt because they travel exclusively by limousine and jet and have mansions staffed by fleets of cleaners. They had matching tans, gold jewellery and celebrity sunglasses. The woman had a mane of cascading blonde hair.

‘My angels, how I’ve missed you,’ cried the woman, holding out her arms to Laura and Tariq. ‘Come to Mama.’

There was a collective gasp from the gathered passengers. Laura and Tariq were stunned.

‘Who the heck are you?’ Viktor Bland asked rudely.

The man in white gave no indication he’d heard him. He stepped forward and thrust a brown, manicured hand in the captain’s direction. ‘My dear sir, forgive us for boarding your magnificent ship in such an undignified fashion, but it came to our attention that our beloved adopted children have been the cause of a small riot. Sebastian LeFever at your service. And this is my wife, Celia. I believe you’ve met Laura and Tariq.’

Laura’s blood ran cold. She suddenly realised what was happening and she saw from Tariq’s face that he did too. The Straight A gang must have bugged their cabin and/or Laura’s beach bag. They’d overheard the stories the children had invented and the unfolding crisis over Laura’s apparently non-existent uncle, and decided to use it as a ploy to kidnap the pair in full view of everyone.

The crowd began to buzz again.

‘The children of gazillionaires. Fancy them stowing away like common criminals! What a scandal.’

The captain turned red and began to bluster: ‘I’m so sorry, Mr LeFever. There seems to have been a misunderstanding. We thought … well, you see, we couldn’t find a record … And the girl kept talking about a kidnapped uncle.’

Sebastian LeFever slapped him heartily on the back. ‘Say no more about it, my good man. We often book the children’s travel arrangements under assumed names for their own protection – to foil those who would hold them for ransom, you understand. If you check your passenger list for a couple of cabins held in the name of Fantasy Holidays Limited, I think you’ll find that all is in order. It was a bit naughty of the children to bring their dog, but you’re most welcome to invoice me at Clear Moon Estate if there’s any extra charge. Now if you’ll excuse us, we must say hello to our son and daughter. We’ve missed them terribly.’

‘Of c-c-course,’ stuttered the captain. ‘And on behalf of Heavenly Cruises, may I again express our sincerest apologies …’

Sebastian, who smelled of starch and expensive cologne, bent down and hugged Laura stiffly. Celia embraced her with an ecstatic fervour, crumpling her white linen dress.

Sebastian marched up to Tariq and held out his hand. ‘Son, how you’ve grown.’

‘Thank you, Sir,’ Tariq said politely. ‘It’s very nice to see you and Mother.’

‘But who is the uncle they were panicking about?’ persisted Rita. ‘They seemed sincerely distressed about him.’

Celia LeFever’s ice-blue eyes alighted on Mrs Gannet with the same expression with which she might have regarded a fly in her soup. ‘A much-loved bodyguard,’ she explained. ‘Regrettably, Mr Redfern was called away on urgent business and had to disembark the ship without delay and without saying goodbye to the children. Not to worry, they’ll be seeing him soon enough.’

She smiled at Laura with all the warmth of a melting glacier. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, darling?’

‘I certainly would,’ said Laura, giving her a look that would have reduced a lesser woman to a pile of smouldering ashes.

As Celia turned away, Tariq murmured in Laura’s ear: ‘Is this what people mean when they talk about being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea? Either we’re arrested for being stowaways or we allow ourselves to be kidnapped by gangsters.’

‘Those seem to be our options,’ Laura whispered back. ‘You know you’re in trouble when the Straight A’s seem like your best bet.’

Jimmy Gannet emerged panting and dishevelled from the dispersing, gossiping crowd. He had the look of a puppy that had been kicked, but it was obvious he was doing his best to ignore what he’d seen and heard and keep faith in his newfound friends.

‘It’s not true, is it?’ he said, his small, bright brown eyes searching theirs. ‘Tell me it isn’t true.’

‘Ready, kids?’ Sebastian barked. ‘Your mother and I have dinner reservations.’

Surreptitiously, Laura reached into her pocket and removed the badge she’d found on the deck after the pirates had left. She had no idea whether or not the men had dropped it, and if they had, whether it was remotely significant. But right now she was prepared to clutch at any available straw.

She reached out and took one of Jimmy’s hands in hers, pressing the badge into it. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy. We didn’t mean to lead you on, really we didn’t. It was a game that went too far. I hope you’ll forgive us in time. I would like to say something that is one hundred per cent true. If you keep dreaming and practicing, you’ll grow up to be better than Matt Walker. My advice to you would be to start immediately.’

‘Ready?’ said Sebastian impatiently.

Laura smiled. ‘We’re ready.’

‘YOU’RE IN OUR
hands now and we’re going to make you pay.’

Celia LeFever almost hissed the words into Laura’s ear as they walked along the jetty in the dusk to a waiting stretch limousine.

‘I’m sure you will,’ Laura said though gritted teeth while pretending to smile at passing passengers. ‘The way we’ll make you pay if you’ve harmed my uncle.’

She kept close to Tariq and Skye, watching for the smallest chance of escape. It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago she’d woken in her bunk on the
Ocean Empress
practically bursting with excitement at the prospect of seeing Antigua – the island paradise with three hundred and sixty-five beaches. Now she was here and it felt like a nightmare.

The end of the jetty thronged with T-shirt sellers and plump, gaily-dressed Caribbean women sitting on rainbow-bright sarongs spread with homemade jewellery. An artist appealed to tourists to buy his paintings. ‘Have pity on a starving painter; I need money for my dinner.’ A shrivelled old man with sad eyes drank tea from a glass mug in front of a pink-painted café as the last sliver of sun melted into the sea.

As they approached the limousine, the shop lights flickered on. The sky had turned violet. Night was falling over Antigua.

Sebastian and two bodyguards in black suits brought up the rear. Laura was shocked to see that the chauffeur was the same smartly dressed young man who’d handed her balloons and complimented Mrs Crabtree back in St Ives. The only difference was that he was now wearing one dangling earring made from a silver chain, a pearl and a couple of guineafowl feathers.

Skye growled at him. It was obvious he remembered him.

‘So you knew all along?’ Laura said in disbelief as she was shepherded into the limo by the thuggish bodyguards. ‘You actually stood there congratulating me when you knew all the time it was a trap?’

He shrugged and gave her the same cocky grin. ‘Only doing my job, Miss Marlin. Only doing my job. I admit I was taken aback when I found you were only a kid, but, hey, I just does the work and takes the money.’

He snapped to attention as Sebastian came round to check what was taking so long. ‘Everything going to plan?’ the man in white asked abruptly.

The chauffeur saluted. ‘Smooth as silk, Mr LeFever. Smooth as silk. Make yourself comfortable and I’ll ride the tide home.’

Skye lay on the floor of the limo between Laura and Tariq, regarding the LeFevers and bodyguards with hostile blue eyes. The children were poised to jump or run if the slightest opportunity presented itself, but that was as likely as Christmas in January. The limo doors were locked and the glass was, Celia informed them, bulletproof.

‘Just in case you get any ideas.’

As far as Laura could tell, it was not ideas that were required. It was the strength and speed of ten Olympians. One of the bodyguards was built like a wrestler and the other looked like a marathon runner. They had all bases covered. The children had already nicknamed them Little and Large.

Laura felt sick. This was all her fault. If she’d listened to her uncle and realised that winning a Caribbean Holiday for a pound was too good to be true – that there had to be a catch – they wouldn’t be in this position. Calvin Redfern would not be in mortal danger, and she, Skye and Tariq would not have been kidnapped.

The terrifying part was that it had all been so carefully calculated. Every detail had been worked out. Fantasy Holidays Ltd had always intended the winning raffle ticket to go to Laura or Calvin Redfern. The separate cabins, the tripwire that had felled her uncle, even the disappearance of their passports – everything had been planned. Their passports, including Skye’s pet papers, had magically reappeared as the LeFevers escorted them through customs before being spirited away as they exited. Their kidnappers’ presence at passport control had seemed most unorthodox, but from what Laura could make out they’d managed to forge documents identifying themselves as the children’s legal guardians.

Laura had considered making a scene in the customs hall until the police came to their rescue, but the bodyguards had taken Skye through separately. Sebastian had warned her that if she put a foot wrong she’d never see her husky again.

Outside the dark limo windows, pinpricks of light showed through the waving palm trees. Laughing boys roasted corn on a roadside barbecue, red sparks flying. Goats ambled leisurely across the road. Whole families sat on the porches of crumbling clapboard houses with plates on their laps, candles making tigerish shapes of their faces. Night creatures sang and croaked.