A Knight in Tenerife

By Graham Hutton

It’s the 1980s and Terry Hunt works hard as an accountant entrepeneur so a holiday on the lush island of Tenerife sounds just the ticket - except a chance encounter with a desperate mother who fears her daughter is being held against her will turns the tables. An old-fashioned gentleman, Terry offers his assistance and together they hit the streets of Puerto de la Cruz, little knowing that the hunters could well become the hunted.

Against a backdrop of stunning scenery, Terry assembles an unlikely group of women to aid him in his quest as he battles criminals, white slavers and drug dealers to find the girl before time runs out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Aug 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781838598952

Book preview

A Knight

In Tenerife

Graham Hutton

Copyright © 2019 Graham Hutton

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1838598 952

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

This book is dedicated to my long-suffering wife Christine who has been a constant source of support to me, also special thanks to Cornelia Chaplin without whose help this book may not have been written.

Contents

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1

Every mother’s fear is to be faced with a sudden call from a child in danger, especially when they are far away. This was the dilemma facing young widow Sandra Hurst. It was Friday morning in May 1988; Sandra was having breakfast when she heard the mail drop through her letterbox and onto the floor. She got up, walked down the hall and picked up the post which, she concluded, was mostly junk mail. Amongst the bundle of mail however was a glossy postcard showing a large water fountain in an idyllic paradise. The card also identified where that paradise was… Puerto de la Cruz, although it didn’t specify in what part of the world that was. She turned the card over expecting to find best wishes from some friend on holiday but found four chilling words, ‘Help Mum In Danger’, it was signed Melanie.

Melanie was Sandra’s seventeen year old daughter who had suddenly left home without warning the previous January to seek fun and excitement. Sandra had lost her husband the previous November and due to her own grief had not recognised the pain suffered by her daughter, who had always been a Daddy’s girl. Sandra had thought that eventually her daughter would return, broke and with her tail between her legs, and as such she had not unduly worried about her suddenly leaving. After all, her daughter was not alone having run away with her best friend, Natalie. Now, in her hand was evidence that the situation had changed; now she did need to worry, and Sandra was in a panic. What should I do? she wondered, wishing that her late husband was there to take charge. He had always been the decision maker in the household and could always be relied upon to make the right decision. Sandra immediately phoned Natalie’s parents to see whether they could throw any light on the whereabouts of the two girls. Natalie’s mother answered the phone and although about to leave for work, recognising the panic in Sandra’s voice, decided to call in on her. Ten minutes later the two women were sitting at the kitchen table studying the card and trying to decide what needed to be done. Natalie’s mother told her she had to leave, or she would be late for her job as a school cook, but invited Sandra for tea so that they could decide what to do when Natalie’s father would be home from work.

Later that morning Sandra drove into Bishops Stortford town centre, parking as near as she could to the travel agent. There were two members of staff in the travel agents, one an older woman and the other a young man who Sandra judged to be about twenty five. The lady was on the phone but in spite of this Sandra took the chair immediately in front of her. The young man made his way over to Sandra.

‘Can I help you Madam?’

‘Puerto de la Cruz?’ Sandra queried.

The answer seemed to have taken him by surprise, not used to clients knowing exactly what they wanted. The lady on the telephone having heard what Sandra had said whispered, ‘Tenerife.’

Sandra replied, ‘And where is Tenerife?’

The lady then put down the phone, ‘Tenerife is part of the Canary Islands, situated off the West Coast of Africa.’

Sandra’s mouth dropped open at the thought that her daughter was in trouble in such a far off place and began to cry bitterly. The lady left her seat and went around the desk to comfort her customer. She suggested that they adjourn to the small staff room which was situated immediately behind them. Sandra followed the lady like a sheep being led to the slaughter, wishing that the world would suddenly open up and take her out of this horrible predicament. Once in the staff room she asked Sandra exactly what the trouble was. Sandra told her about losing her husband, her daughter running away and the postcard she had received that morning. The lady took the postcard and read it carefully.

‘In all probability this postcard has been smuggled out, possibly by a tourist returning to the UK as there’s no Spanish stamp on it.’

Despite examining the postcard all morning Sandra hadn’t even spotted that.

‘So, what do you intend to do to help your daughter?’ the woman asked.

‘Well I need to travel to Tenerife to search for her and her friend of course.’

The lady nodded sympathetically but warned Sandra, ‘At this time of the year the island will be busy with tourists and your daughter may not be living actually in Puerto de la Cruz at all. When do you want to leave, I presume you already have a valid passport?’

A passport? thought Sandra, she’d never needed one as the family had always spent their holidays in either Scotland or Cornwall.

Seeing the blank look on her face the agent gave some helpful advice, ‘You must apply for one immediately but at this time of year that might take some weeks, unless of course you’re prepared to drive up to the passport office in Peterborough or go to Holborn? What about work? Can you suddenly take time off to travel to Tenerife?’

Luckily Sandra had been left well off following her husband’s untimely death and therefore money would be no problem.

Recognising a prospective customer, the sympathetic woman then made Sandra a cup of tea and told her she needed to leave her for a few minutes. She returned ten minutes later carrying a brown envelope which contained a passport application form.

‘You’ll need a photograph to accompany the application of course; there’s an automatic photo booth at the end of the grocery store next door. Once you’ve got your passport, come back here and I’ll book a suitable flight from Stansted airport for you.’

‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Sandra said clasping onto the woman’s hand.

She left the shop carrying the brown envelope and spent the rest of the morning getting her photograph taken and doing some grocery shopping before returning home.

Later that afternoon Sandra found herself on the doorstep of Natalie’s parents’. She rang the bell and was met at the door by her friend, Natalie’s mum, who showed her through into the lounge. Entering the lounge, she reminded her husband who Sandra was and what she was there for. Her husband was an older man, overweight and in Sandra’s opinion rather scruffy. He was lounging in a large leather chair, dressed in corduroy trousers and a string vest. Sandra began by telling him not only about the postcard but what she had found out at the travel agents.

The man looked at Sandra and with more than a hint of annoyance in his voice said, ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

Rather taken aback, Sandra replied, ‘We must go to them as soon as possible and rescue them from whatever trouble they’re in.’

‘She’s made her bed and now she must lie in it. If you had any sense, you would take the same attitude,’ he replied rather cruelly.

Sandra persevered, ‘Whatever’s happened, it’s our daughters we’re talking about and as parents we’ve a duty to do something.’

The man’s voice grew angrier, ‘Listen here, before Nat buggered off she nicked £500 from my desk. I’m treasurer to the local darts team and it belonged to them. I’ve had to take out a loan to cover it and when she comes home with her tail between her legs I’m going to take every penny out of her hide with my belt.’

He went on to try to excuse himself by telling her that his daughter had broken the ten commandments which laid down, ‘Thou shalt not steal’ and ‘thou shalt honour thine mother and father’.

‘In my opinion Nat’s nothing but a lying, thieving bitch who deserves everything that’s coming to her.’

Sandra couldn’t believe what she was hearing, ‘If that’s being a Christian then I would change my allegiance to the devil.’

The man got out of his chair and stepped towards Sandra, invading her personal space as he did so; Sandra leaned back as he leaned his face in toward hers, ‘Leave this house and never darken my doorstep again!’

Stony faced, Sandra turned and left the room trailing her friend in her wake. When both women arrived at Sandra’s car her friend broke the silence, ‘I’m so sorry the way he is but deep down he’s a good man.’

Still shaken, Sandra replied passionately, ‘He’s not a good man at all; he’s an oaf and a bully.’

On the way home Sandra remembered she had not eaten and therefore stopped off at the local fish and chip shop and bought her supper. That night as she lay in bed she wept and asked her husband why he had left her and why he wasn’t at her side when she needed him most. It was a long restless night.

*

Sandra was born in March 1953, the year of the Coronation, and she had been brought up in the County town of Chelmsford. There was a big difference in age between her mother and the man she called her father, due to the fact that her mother had become pregnant by an American airman from the nearby Wethersfield airbase and he had subsequently returned to the States. Her mother and father, shocked at her behaviour, kicked her out of the family home and she was subsequently taken in by a friend of the family who was single, with his own house. Even though he was forty years of age and old enough to be the girl’s father, he nevertheless married her in order to give the child a name. Sandra was well educated and did well at school, joining a bank at sixteen. She had met her future husband, Mike, two years later and after a whirlwind courtship they were married. Her husband was fourteen years older than her and had become well established as a merchant banker (now known as a casino banker). They lived in a large four bedroomed house in Bishops Stortford. Their daughter Melanie was born ten months after they were married and almost immediately became a Daddy’s girl. In her husband’s eyes, his pretty young daughter could do no wrong and he left any discipline to his wife. Looking back Sandra began to see that her husband’s soft approach and generosity had probably spoiled her; she could always wind her dad around her little finger.

She remembered one occasion when Melanie had been brought back to the house at the age of fourteen by the police, very drunk, heavily made up and with her skirt so short it left little to the imagination. Once the police had left, Sandra had begged Mike to put his daughter over his knee and dish out the appropriate punishment, but he refused, telling his wife that she would suffer the results of the night out with a hangover the next morning and the matter was left to rest. Mike was however a good husband and good provider, and he was always ready to take any major decisions in the household. He suffered his first heart attack in 1985 and succumbed to a second and final major heart attack in December 1987. Sandra felt she was totally alone as she had lost both her parents some years before and had no other family. Melanie took her father’s death particularly hard and refused to go to the funeral. In hindsight Sandra knew she should have been there for her daughter during this time but was so taken up with her own grief that she had not recognised the hurt still felt by her daughter. Then, after a very sad Christmas, her daughter suddenly and without warning left home, using money left to her by her grandmother.

The passport took three weeks to arrive, during which time Sandra was able to arrange time off from her part time job. She’d taken the post in a wages office in January to get her out of the house.

The flight to Tenerife was booked for the last Friday in June leaving at 8:30 in the morning. Sandra had checked and double checked her passport, money and clothes the night before, as well as booking an early taxi to take her to the airport. Deep down she was terrified at the mission she was undertaking and was only driven by the need to go and rescue her daughter.

2

Thirty five miles south east of Sandra, another person was packing his bags for a journey to Tenerife on that 8:30 Friday flight.

Terry Hunt was thirty one years of age and known as Slick to his friends. This name had been gained for his love of smart clothes. He had led a topsy-turvy life which had left him scarred and unable to make relationships with people, especially women.

He had been born in November 1956, to upper middle class parents. His father was a self-made engineering manager and was forty years old at the time of Terry’s birth. His mother was twenty years her husband’s junior and had given birth to Terry only nine months after they were married. She only took six months off from work after he was born and then returned to her job in the accounts department of a hotel chain. Up to the age of five, young Terry was looked after by a series of foreign au pairs and he saw very little