Wreckers Island (romantic suspense) (16 page)

‘I wonder how their fishing trip
is going,’ said Louise glancing out of the lounge window. ‘Oh that’s them over
there, I think. I can see a boat chugging across the bay and it looks like
mine. Strange, there’s some long blue object in it – like a tree trunk wrapped
in a tarpaulin.’

‘That could be their fishing rods and gear
that they’ve bundled together,’ said Emma, more interested in her glass of
crisp, tangy Chenin Blanc than tracking the boys’ progress across the bay.

‘Actually,’ added Emma, ‘as it’s been a warm
day today and the rock pools will have warmed up, I’m going to take my wine
outside and have an open-air bath. If we’re going out tonight, I could do with
freshening up.’

‘That’s a good idea – any room for me in the
tub?’ replied Louise.

‘Yes of course,’ said Emma. ‘Let’s go and
get ourselves nice and clean.’

They walked down the stone steps leading to
the lighthouse with their towels, wash bags and wine glasses, round to where
sea water at high tide would get trapped in big, luxurious natural hollows in
the rock which under a hot summer sun, would be deliciously warm by early
evening.

‘Let’s try this rock pool for a change,’
said Emma, ‘we can just about see the boys messing about in boats from here.’

They stripped off and jumped into the water.
It was almost as warm as if they had run a bath at home only with loads more
room. It was deliciously relaxing to recline with a glass of wine in their
hands, sea air in their nostrils and the lightest of breezes to nuzzling their
necks.

When Emma finally stepped out onto the rocks
she wrapped a towel round her and looked out into the bay, hoping to catch
sight of the boys but she couldn’t see their boat anywhere.

~~~~~

‘Ok let’s have a think,’ said Dan, aware
that John was getting irritated that he wasn’t helping more with the
decision-making. Dan was exhausted after the day’s events and his body and
brain were finding it hard to keep going. He ached to flop into an armchair
with a beer in his hand and for everything to go back to normal again.

‘I think it’s potentially risky to dump the
body out to sea, we might easily be spotted from the shore and if we are, we’re
done-for,’ he said eventually, striving hard to say something meaningful. ‘Why
don’t we motor into that ravine Louise showed us the other day, the one where
you can row the boat right into the underground cavern, and drop the body
there?

‘That’s not such a bad idea,’ agreed John.
‘Assuming there’s nobody in that cavern, no-one will see what we’re up to and
it might well take a few days for it to be discovered, by which time
decomposition will have set in. The longer it is before any forensic
pathologist gets a chance to examine Zak’s skull the better.’

Dan shivered slightly at John’s clinical
assessment. He couldn’t bear to think that someone as wonderful, sensitive, kind
and thoughtful as Emma might ever be dragged before a court over something like
this. Nor could he bear to think that she had actually caused such an injury in
the first place, but she had of course been terrified. Who knows what might
have happened if she hadn’t acted as she did?

No, what he and John were doing was right –
or at least, wholly justifiable, reasoned Dan as they motored over to the coves
in search of the ravine. It was a tragic accident triggered by that most basic
of human emotions, self defence against someone you believe to be a killer and
who might well kill you. Emma most certainly did not deserve to suffer as a
result.

‘Ah yes, it was around here, I seem to
recall,’ said John. ‘Yes, you can see the sandbank over there, where you and me
got out and jigged about the other day.’

John cut the engine as they approached the
fissure in the rock face through which sea water flowed and formed the deep,
partly submerged ravine.

There was no merit in following the ravine
deep into the cavern. They just needed to be far enough along to ensure that
no-one would see them as they undertook their task.

‘How about here,’ said John and Dan nodded.

They were still in fairly deep water, but it
was calmer than out to sea. Huge boulders, like sharp black teeth, jutted out
of the water and waves would break with an explosion of spray and foam over their
tops.

‘He could have sustained that wound by being
hurled against those rocks in that great storm,’ said John. The force of
smacking straight into them in appalling weather with 12ft high waves could
equal that applied by the spade.’

‘I’ve thought of something,’ said Dan,
anxiously. ‘That safety harness. He’s still wearing it, we never took it off
him.’

‘You’re right,’ said John, his brow
furrowing. ‘Why don’t we leave him wearing it? That way, it will suggest he was
swept off the deck of a boat or ship – perhaps during that very storm. As a
local man who’s grown up on the coast it would be nothing unusual for him to
take casual work crewing for passing ships.

‘Ok,’ said Dan. ‘So are we going to roll him
out of the tarpaulin over the side? We obviously mustn’t leave him tied up in
it or anything.’

‘No, and I’m afraid we will have to take the
tarp with us,’ said John. ‘It will probably smell as well, yuck. Anyway, no-one
can see, let’s do the deed.’

John and Dan took one final glance around
before undoing the coils of rope wrapped tightly around Zak’s body. ‘Now let’s
lift him over the side together, keeping hold of one edge of the tarpaulin as
we do so,’ said John, ‘and his body should roll out.’

It was a chilling sight as Zak’s now
stiffening corpse slid into the water, horizontally at first before suddenly
up-ending and ghoulishly bobbing up and down.

‘God, that’s revolting,’ said John, rolling
up the tarpaulin. ‘Let’s get away from here.’

Dan stared at Zak in macabre fascination, then
leant over the other side of the boat and was violently sick.

‘That’s not helpful Dan,’ said John,
unkindly. ‘You’re keeping us at a crime scene and you’ve just gone and
deposited evidence. We better hope your vomit gets dispersed by the sea pretty
quick.’

‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it,’ said Dan as
he wiped his mouth with a tissue. John got the motor going and they roared
away.

‘Let’s get back as soon as we can,’ said
John, glancing at the sinking sun, now sending its familiar golden finger of
evening diagonally across the water.

‘Ugh, I can smell him,’ said Dan. ‘That tarpaulin
whiffs. We’ll have to be careful what we do with it.’

‘We’ll dunk it in that mini lagoon near the
jetty,’ said John. ‘If we stick a big rock on it, it won’t wash away, but the
ebb and flow of the tide should clean off any traces of Zak. Am I glad to be
rid of that body. It was starting to pong wasn’t it? Mind you, Zak was the sort
to smell anyway. When he ripped his clothes off in the cave hoping to get lucky
with Louise, he reeked of rancid sweat. He’s hardly going to smell any sweeter
in death is he?’

Dan allowed himself a weak smile. ‘Please,
let’s not even think about it,’ he said.

‘You know something,’ said Dan, as he and
John chugged into the mini harbour of Wreckers Island and moored alongside the
jetty, ‘I am not convinced how wise it is for us to go out in Porthlevnack
tonight.’

John, pushing his mop of blond hair out of
his eyes, looked at him, puzzled. ‘Come on, we’ve had this conversation. I
thought we agreed it would look more natural if anything were to kick off – you
know, a sort of alibi?’

‘True,’ said Dan. ‘Yet I can’t help but feel
that to place ourselves visibly somewhere else from the scene of the death
would be the sort of thing we’d do if we were actually involved. It would also
strongly suggest that we no longer felt we had a reason to be scared of Zak or
Jake. You see, if Zak were still around, bearing in mind our brush with him in
the tunnels, the last thing we’d do would be to risk bumping into him ashore,
with the island unguarded. And we certainly wouldn’t want to go drinking in his
local pub.’

John nodded thoughtfully. ‘Also, the wind is
strengthening again, it’s blowing my hair about like I’m a scarecrow. I
wouldn’t want to risk being stranded and unable to get back to the island. Perhaps
we should stand guard over that treasure. When you think of what we’ve gone
through to secure it, it does seem wrong to leave it, even in a locked safe.’

Their minds made up, John and Dan alighted
from the boat. John carried the tarpaulin under his arm. He took it to one of
the more remote rock pools, unravelled it and dropped it in – the pool would easily
be replenished with fresh sea water at high tide and unlikely to be one they
would actually choose to bathe in. They found some heavy stones to weigh it down
so it could not be swept out to sea.

‘Can I suggest before we go inside,’ said
Dan, ‘that we both leap into another rock pool and get ourselves clean? We don’t
want to risk going indoors smelling of you-know-what.’

John agreed and the pair stripped off and
threw themselves into an adjacent pool. It got less sun than the ones they
usually bathed in and was cool but not freezing. They both heartily wished they
had some soap to scrub themselves properly but a good soak would have to do.
They got out and ran about naked for a couple of minutes to allow the sea
breeze to dry them. They felt much better after that, quite literally cleansed of
something unpleasant.

‘Let us hope that we will never need to hear
the name Zak again,’ said John, as they walked up the steps to the lighthouse to
rejoin the girls.

Louise and Emma were in the
lounge, enjoying the final dregs of their wine bottle when the boys walked in.

‘Do you know what I feel like?’ asked John
with a glance at the girls’ wine glasses, ‘I feel like an ice cold, very strong
lager after the day we’ve had. Only you know something, I’ve got a nasty
feeling we forgot to chill any.’

‘If you recall, we were supposed to be
taking the boat ashore and going out tonight. But Louise and I had a kind of
sixth sense that having been out for your fishing trip you might prefer to stay
in the lighthouse and relax,’ said Emma. ‘I have therefore put your favouritest
beers in the fridge: John a top quality strong Belgian lager and Dan, a German
wheat beer. Both in the ice compartment. Better drink them before they freeze.’

‘Fantastic,’ said Dan, brightening up,
‘haven’t I got a kind, loving girlfriend?’

‘Mind you,’ chipped in Louise, ‘those beers
are conditional on you having brought us some fish for our supper. Did you
catch anything?’

‘Erm no,’ admitted John. ‘To be truthful, we
decided not to go fishing in the end. We settled for a nice little saunter
about in the boat, over to the headland.’ John pointed vaguely.

That answer puzzled Louise. What then, had
they got wrapped in that tarpaulin and how come she had seen their boat travelling
in the opposite direction? Perhaps they were going fishing but changed their
minds.

A thought struck her. ‘I know we’ve got the
treasure safely locked up here,’ she said, ‘but I do feel strongly that we must
get it reported properly and handed over to the authorities. The sooner it is
out of our possession the better. I’m scared that the likes of Zak and Jake
will launch some kind of attack on us soon. I’ll feel much happier when it’s no
longer in this lighthouse.’

‘Dan and I have already talked about that,’
said John. ‘It will be the first thing we do tomorrow morning. In the meantime
the treasure is as safe as we can make it.’

‘What if they come over by boat?’ asked
Louise.

‘Jake is petrified that the treasure is
guarded by a ghost, so he’s unlikely to want to come sailing or tunnelling to
this island and Zak’s got one heck of a headache,’ replied John, a touch
brusquely.

‘Do you suppose Zak is ok?’ asked Emma,
suddenly. ‘I did give him an awful whack with that spade. It won’t have done
him any permanent harm will it?’

John and Dan looked at Emma in alarm. Dan
looked as if he was about to stutter an unconvincing reply so John cut in quickly.
‘Emma, don’t worry about Zak. He will be fine. The blow knocked him out, that
was all, and allowed us vital seconds to rescue Dan and get him out of that
shaft.

‘By the time he came round Zak would have
found the shaft lid firmly shut and the flagstone back on top, impossible to
budge from below. My guess is he limped through the tunnel to the shore and is
right now in the Smugglers Tavern as we speak, curing his headache with several
glasses of ale.’

‘That being so,’ said Louise, toying with
her glass, ‘we need to act fast. Zak will be plotting his next move as he sups
his beer and he’s certain to strike soon. We can’t afford any delay. He may be
watching Wreckers Island from the shore and looking out for any comings or
goings.’

Emma shivered. John and Dan nodded, unable
to explain to the girls that the situation was no longer so dangerous as they thought
– at least, not in the way they might imagine. Nonetheless, those gold and
silver coins were burning a hole in their pockets, too. They wanted the treasure
brought to safety as much as the girls did.

None of them felt like cooking that evening,
they were too tired, so they feasted on a couple of tinned pies in the
cupboard. They were surprisingly good with boiled potatoes bought in the
village the previous day.

Washed down with beer and wine, the students
spent an enjoyable enough evening together, but without the elation and
over-exuberance of the previous night in the pub when their eyes had sparkled
almost as brightly as Felipe’s wonderful hoard. The pleasure of discovery had
been somewhat diluted by the circumstances of its retrieval and the ongoing worry
over Zak and Jake.

For John and Dan came the uncomfortable
realisation that they had acted in a way which, however well intentioned, was absolutely
illegal and might have severe consequences were their secret ever to come to
light.

They were not late to bed that night and although
convinced they wouldn’t sleep a wink they were exceptionally tired. It felt odd
at first to Emma that she should again find herself sharing a room and a bed
with Dan – she wasn’t used to having a man with her at night and she found
herself suddenly feeling shy.

Her nerves soon dissolved as she snuggled up
with him under the duvet. Dan held her tightly and protectively to his chest
and stroked her neck. Thank heaven she does not know what actually happened to
Zak, he thought.

Dan lifted her chin gently and placed his
lips against hers. They kissed, not passionately, but with the slow, deep
affection of two people, both in their own ways rather vulnerable, who had come
together and found each other.

As they embraced, that bond between them
grew stronger. Their hands caressed each other’s bodies in a loving way – the
kind of touch which said that what they had was more than mere physical
attraction. Drifting to sleep in the arms of her lover and soulmate, Emma felt
content and secure. With his eyes closing, Dan felt relief that he and John had
taken such swift action earlier – unpleasant, frightening and risky but done
for the right reasons, to protect a good, sweet person.

In what was now John and Louise’s bedroom,
the only sound to be heard was the heavy breathing of deep sleep. Wearied after
such a long, strange day, their eyes had closed within seconds.