Raft of Lies

By D. B. Kennett

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A H Stockwell
• Release date: Mar 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9780722343760

Book preview

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 flicker of a smile crossed his face, a brief relief of tension.

She did not stir as they both lifted and carefully carried her below decks, gently laying her on a spare bunk.

The two men looked at each other across the wheelhouse table. Neither wanted to be the first to speak, and neither knew what to say, or – more to the point – how to say it.

Can’t stay there, can he?

No, Adam. Not in this heat.

It was late July. They were mid-Atlantic. The storm had blown them well off course, and they were at least two weeks away from land.

Silence.

Best if he goes soon. Especially for Mother.

Yes… but if we’re to carry out a burial at sea, we need to be sure about legalities. He paused. Who’s captain?

It has to be you, Tom. I’ll write it in the log.

He got up and went across to the chart table. His handwriting was usually neat, almost spider-like, and very small, but now his hand was unsteady. Tom’s had always been bolder and less controlled. Between them they recorded all of the day’s events.

Tom got up and scanned the moonlit horizon. The big old ketch had the simplest of equipment. Steve had no time for modern electronics like radar and radio transmitters, although there was a small handheld radio of very limited range – a present for his fifty-third birthday.

You know, Adam, I can’t imagine a yacht having a life raft like that. Maybe a ship up to no good picked us up on radar, and planted that raft expecting us to find it, or maybe it was intended to be the tomb of those two on board, and by chance it was our gross misfortune to come across it.

We’re miles away from any shipping lanes, said Adam, with an uncharacteristic sarcasm that was not lost on Tom.

Look – why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll carry on now for a bit.

OK… and, Tom… take – take any necessary photographs of Dad first thing tomorrow… before Mum’s about.

Adam just managed to get the words out before his voice trembled. He hurriedly left the wheelhouse, not wanting Tom to see his tears. Tom had a tough, resilient streak, and over the years had tried to instil those characteristics of toughness and resilience in Adam, but with limited success.

Tom checked the sails, the course and the horizon before going to get the black polythene package from his cabin. He wanted to enter the woman’s name and passport details into the logbook – and the assailant’s details as well.

The package was well sealed. In fact, it was heat-sealed, welded, totally waterproof. Carefully he cut it open. There were no passports. Instead, there was a cassette tape, what looked like a spool of undeveloped film, some papers, and a sealed envelope with a London address.

Tom quickly put them back in the polythene, and with great care hid the package in his cabin. Maybe the woman knew of its existence, maybe not, but only he knew that it was on board.

He intended to keep it that way.

Chapter 3

Jenny moaned in her sleep. Her nightmare was at the burial.

It was mid-morning. She went on deck with Adam. A gentle breeze ruffled and helped to dry her sun-bleached hair. She saw the shroud and froze, as though rooted to the deck. It was made from white sail bags, into which Tom had sewn Steve’s body together with some lead ballast to be sure it would sink. The shroud had been laid on a stretcher made from dinghy oars and a blue canvas hatch cover. It was covered by the faded and slightly frayed red ensign that Steve had flown over many years, and which he always intended to renew, but never did.

Adam put his arm around her.

I want you to have his ring, she whispered.

Steve’s left hand was conveniently near a ventilation slit in the shroud, and it only took a dignified moment for Tom to slide the gold signet ring off the cold finger – regretting that, weary as he might have been from shock and lack of sleep, he had not thought of this detail. It was the first time the ring had left Steve’s finger since being placed there by Jenny with such loving happiness twenty-five years earlier. The voyage had been planned to be part of their celebration of that anniversary.

Tom found the words for the service in an almanac on board. At the words of the Committal, he and Adam raised the inner end of the stretcher and the shrouded body slid from under the ensign and splashed into the ocean, sinking rapidly. They tried to say the Lord’s Prayer – Our Father… – each choking, until finally they gave up and stood in silence.

Adam wondered how the Almighty could inflict all this upon them, and was the first to stop praying. Was this how a merciful God responded to their merciful act of rescue?

Jenny, quietly composed, stood gazing at the sea for a long, long time, whilst Adam and Tom got the yacht sailing again. Eventually, as memories provoked involuntary tears that at first trickled and then streamed down her face, she went below to her cabin.

Tom then turned his attention to the woman. She had slept all morning, and was unable to move much. He helped her to sit up and drink the coffee he offered, and realised that the berth was only just long enough for her. It was three days before she achieved a semblance of normality, and could begin to move about the yacht unaided.

Between them, they slowly prised information out of her. She said she was British. Her name was Sarah Tutman, born in Chelmsford, Essex. She was thirty-five years old and single. Her birthday was 28 September. She was a PR consultant. Her father had been a quality-control engineer at a radio factory, but he had retired early owing to poor health. Her mother died six years earlier in a road accident, and – being the only child – Sarah had moved back into the area to be near her father.

Tom logged her name and address – he’d moved to Essex himself some years back – but said nothing. On the spur of the moment he asked her to sign the logbook, on the pretext that it was the correct procedure. She slowly and painstakingly signed her name, complaining about the pains in her wrist.

She said she must have been drugged, as she could not remember anything about her ordeal in the life raft, or how she and it had come to be there, or who her captor – the assailant – might have been. She hoped her memory would return soon so that she could tell the authorities all about it when they got to England. She said she was desperately sorry about their tragedy, but very thankful for her rescue.

You are going to England, aren’t you? she suddenly asked.

Probably, said Adam cynically. But it might be Spain or Portugal if we get the navigation wrong.

Tom thought she blanched – just momentarily – but perhaps not.

If the wind goes north-east, we might have to put in there. How’s your Spanish?

She smiled, in full control of herself again.

A paella would be nice, she said.

Next day, whilst Adam was engrossed in working out their position from his noon sextant reading of a cloudless sun, Tom’s rest was disturbed by shuffling noises on the cabin top just above his berth. In a few silent moments he was on deck.

Sarah was kneeling on the buoyancy tubes, her head and shoulders inside the canopy. A shaft of sunlight swept past her through the opening and on to the floor of the raft, slowly sweeping to and fro with the gentle motion of the yacht. She slid her hands quickly over every part of the interior, and then repeated the exercise.

Looking for something?

Oh! You made me jump, she said light-heartedly.

I was looking for my ring. It was my mother’s, actually. A bit too big for me, but I like to wear it. I hoped it would be in there.

Tom, unconvinced, glanced into the raft.

As life rafts go, this one is very empty, he said slowly. Why don’t you tell me about it?

I wish I could. I don’t know. My mind’s a blank. I’m sorry.

Tom remained unconvinced. He looked straight down into her blue-grey eyes. He thought how cold they looked.

Jenny and Steve saved your life. Her life is ruined now, and you are witness to his murder… His voice was menacingly calm.

I heard it. I didn’t actually see it, she interrupted quietly, avoiding his gaze.

And you think it’s OK to offer no explanation? What sort of woman are you? The disdain in his voice was clear, yet when she stood up he thought she somehow conveyed a quiet, commanding presence.

By now Adam had fixed their position, and his call to Tom that they should alter course five degrees to the north, and trim the sails, spared Sarah any need to answer.

She was not sure that she knew what the answer was.

Adam was beginning to find Sarah interesting company. They shared a mental acuity, and seemed to have similar philosophies. As the days went by, and particularly towards the end of the voyage, she would often join Adam on watch, when they would spend hours in deep discussion, but only so long as the subjects were abstract. As soon as any conversation moved towards practical realities, or the life raft, she found a reason to terminate it.

Should see land tomorrow, said Adam after a noon sight. He went below decks to get his simple ‘point and shoot’ camera, and caught Sarah unawares as she stood on the bow, watching some dolphins riding the bow wave. Laughing she took the camera from him.

Now let me take one of you.

He smiled back at her as requested, and she leant out over the bulwark rail to get the shot she said she wanted. She slipped, and in saving herself dropped the camera overboard.

"Oh! Adam. I’m so sorry. Clumsy fool that I