Wreckers Island (romantic suspense) (14 page)

For several seconds, no-one spoke.

Then John said: ‘Girls, Zak looks like he’s
out for the count. I will go down to see what’s happened to poor Dan. Let’s
stay silent for a minute to see if Jake turns up or if there’s any sound from
Zak.’

They could hear nothing. Emma was sobbing
and distraught but Louise was determined to stay calm. John took one of their
powerful new torches and shone it into the shaft. Zak was lying where he had
fallen. John climbed down, still holding the torch in one hand. He had mastered
the tricky rungs by now.

He swept the beam along the passageway. No
sign of Jake. Dan lay trussed like a Christmas turkey, as the others had been,
with Zak’s strong adhesive tape. He was alive! Zak had played a cruel trick telling
them that he had stabbed and killed him.

John looked around for the cutlass to
release Dan. He flashed his torch at Zak and saw it lying alongside him. Blood trickled
from Zak’s head forming a small pool in a dip in the tunnel floor. John trained
the torchlight directly onto his wound. The sight made him shiver. That was one
heck of a blow Emma had delivered. John picked up the cutlass and deftly began
to chop his way through the tape binding Dan’s ankles and wrists. He unwound it
carefully from Dan’s mouth.

‘Am I glad to see you,’ said Dan, grabbing
John’s arm and giving it a squeeze.

‘Come on,’ said John. ‘Let’s get straight up
the shaft and push the flagstone over this hole double quick. Sorry, I should
have asked, are you ok? Are you ok to climb the rungs?’

‘Yes I’m fine,’ said Dan. ‘Better than that
big lump anyway,’ he said, glancing towards Zak. ‘Do you think we ought to
check if he’s ok?’

‘No,’ replied John, firmly. ‘He’s knocked
out and he’ll take a while to come round. When he does, he’ll have an almighty headache
and serve him right too. Jake can mop his brow when he turns up, and that could
be any time.

‘Let’s not spend a second longer down here.
The girls are our concern, not him. They were distraught when Zak’s ugly mug
peered over the top of the shaft instead of yours. He told us you were dead,
the vile creature. Emma is beside herself with grief.’

‘Poor Emma,’ said Dan. ‘So what happened to
Zak? Did he lose his footing and fall?’

‘More or less,’ said John. ‘Come on, we can
talk later. Let’s get out of here fast. I’ll go first so I can help lift you
out the other end.’

Dan was not in as good shape as he claimed.
He was weak and bruised and his fingers struggled to grip the iron rungs. He
could barely manage it – but the thought of falling down the shaft into the
tunnel alongside an angry, injured Zak propelled him upwards. As he reached the
top, he put his hands out on either side to heave himself from the hole and
couldn’t do it. John reached under his armpits and dragged him.

‘Dan my love, oh my love,’ squealed Emma with
delight and relief, tears rolling down her cheeks. She flung her arms round
him, only he was too stiff and bruised to hug her back. ‘Dan, that miserable
brute said he’d killed you. Oh my love, I thought I’d lost you.’

While they embraced passionately, John
forced the lid over the shaft before turning to them apologetically, ‘I’m sorry
to interrupt but we have work to do. We’re still in danger. Dan if you’ve got
any strength left at all, can you help me with this flagstone? It weighs a
ton.’

Dan broke away and pushed his tired muscles
into action again. Louise also lent a hand and between them, they dragged it
into position.

‘It’s good that it’s so heavy,’ panted John.
‘It means that there will be no way those pair of thugs will be able to lift it
from the shaft below – not even their hefty arms will be strong enough.’

‘Just to be sure,’ said Dan, ‘let’s drag a couple
of heavy boxes over the spot – that way, if we need to go back down, we can
easily see which flagstone to move.’

The slightest physical effort was painful
for Dan and he winced as they moved boxes and general clutter over the
flagstone. Emma saw the physical pain he was in and yearned to hug and kiss him
again. But she knew that the serious business was not over. The treasure was
still in danger and so, potentially, were they.

‘We need to get the treasure to the
lighthouse and store it as securely as possible. ‘Is there somewhere safe we can
put it, Louise?’ asked John.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘The lighthouse safe to
be precise. It’s difficult to find and very robust. I would guess there would be
room in it to store the ingots and coins at least.’

Louise and Emma went ahead to open up the
lighthouse. As they stepped from the outbuilding into the bright daylight and smelt
the fresh sea air with its tang of salt and seaweed, they looked at each other,
and hugged.

‘I’m so glad that is all over,’ said Emma to
Louise. ‘I feel shaky with it all. I’m still in shock from what that evil man
said about Dan. Thank heaven it wasn’t true.’

‘Come on,’ said Louise, ‘putting her arm
through hers, everything’s going to be fine now. Let’s do as John says and get
the lighthouse open, kettle on and once we’ve got the treasure safely stowed
inside we can relax.’

John and Dan set about moving the two
brimming crates. They were surprisingly heavy, but so much of it was solid gold
and silver, of course. Dan was sore and weary beyond words but a good feeling
was creeping over him. He too felt a cheer in his heart as he stepped from the
outbuilding. The breeze felt heavenly as it ruffled his hair and sent bracing sea
air flooding into his nostrils. His heart rejoiced at the glorious daylight and
vast expanse of sea all around, so wonderfully open and free after the dark
claustrophobia of the tunnel.

Perhaps it was the rush of oxygen into his
lungs or just his rising morale, but Dan’s desperately weary arms seemed to
find new strength as he staggered along the path with John, holding a crate
between them. As they returned for the second one, he reflected on how a day
which was twice poised to end in disaster seemed to be turning out well after
all.

Inside the lighthouse, Louise opened a cupboard
in the kitchen and poked about. The others had never noticed the secure metal
door to a safe, controlled by a combination lock.

‘Fortunately,’ smiled Louise, ‘I know the
combination, my parents made me memorise it. Right, those big crates won’t fit
in. Let’s transfer the ingots and coins into cardboard boxes, that will have to
do for now.’

Their hearts fluttered as they sifted through
the precious metal. The shiny gold and silver coins and dull but rich yellow of
the gold ingots were an incongruous sight now that they no longer lay in an old
ship’s chest alongside the belongings of a ship’s captain. The treasure looked
strangely out of place.

‘It belongs to a different era, not to our
own,’ said Louise, mystically.

‘More to the point,’ said John, ‘it belongs
to us. We are the finders and have taken ownership. Now at last we have brought
it to safety.’

There were other miscellaneous artefacts
too, which they had not had much chance to look at, salvaged by Captain Felipe
from the stricken ship: a couple of pewter tankards, what looked like old,
heavy dinner plates, bangles and various other trinkets – even metal coat
buttons. These sundry items would have some value, not as precious metal but as
fascinating curios from a long-lost wreck. They put what they could in the safe
but not all would fit in.

‘Let’s leave the rest in a box in the middle
of the lounge as a decoy,’ said Emma. ‘That way, if anyone breaks in to look
for the treasure, they might think that was the lot and make off with it, not
realising the far more valuable stuff has been locked away.’

‘Clever thing,’ said Louise, rubbing her
shoulder.

‘I don’t feel very clever,’ replied Emma. ‘I
just feel like a cup of tea and a biscuit and try to get back to normal.’

‘Let’s do that,’ said John. ‘Our final task
is to move the rest of the items into the lounge as Emma suggested. ‘Then why
don’t we take a pot of tea and biscuits into the lamp room and relax for a while?
It would also be a good vantage point to watch out for anyone seeking to get to
the island by boat.

‘Not that I think that’s likely,’ continued
John, noticing the girls’ alarmed faces. ‘My guess is that Zak will take a
while to recover from his clobbering and Jake seems to have run a mile from the
scene.’

Dan smiled. ‘Yes, I think Jake’s pretty
certain that those tunnels are haunted – I doubt he’ll be back for a while. Zak
may no longer believe in the ghost of Captain Felipe, but I think Jake will
take a lot of convincing that I was just a rather bad fake.’

‘Nonsense, you were a very good pretend
phantom,’ said Emma, giving his arm a squeeze. ‘And the most adorable, handsome
one I’ve ever known.’

Never had the noise of a kettle boiling and
the gurgle of steaming water filling a teapot sounded more welcome to John,
Dan, Louise and Emma as it did right then. They took their brew up the spiral
staircase to the lamp room, Dan leaning heavily on the rail as he did so.

Emma ached to take him in her arms; she had
still not had a proper chance all day. Her beloved Dan had survived a dreadful
ordeal and she did not intend to let him out of her sight from now on.

As they entered the lamp room, that sense of
wonder at the ocean’s vastness swept over them. For a moment, they forgot the
trials of the day and lost themselves in the spectacle.

The four turned to each other and saw the
same look of weariness mixed with a slow-burning exultation. They hugged each
other tightly. The danger they had shared and the emotions experienced had
brought them closer. Emma reserved her most affectionate hug for Dan. Slowly
the horror of thinking that he had been killed was sinking in and upsetting
her, even though it had mercifully proved to be untrue.

‘Oh Dan, it keeps going round and round my
head what that monster said he’d done to you. When he said that, so calmly and
matter of factly, my world just ended,’ she said to him, sobbing on his
shoulder. ‘What a hero you were, what a genius, to put on Captain Felipe’s
clothes and scare the living daylights out of them and rescue us. How did you
manage to think of that?’

‘You were amazing, Dan,’ chimed in Louise,
‘they ought to make a film about you.’

John grinned and nodded his agreement to the
accolades.

Dan said nothing, a lump was forming in his
throat and he was feeling emotional too. He stroked his girlfriend’s back
gently, and nuzzled her neck with his nose.

Eventually he found his voice and he said,
modestly, ‘I was also the world’s biggest clot for going back down there on a
sentimental errand which I should never have risked,’ he said. ‘I undid all my
good work.’

‘No you didn’t. Don’t think like that. You
acted out of principle and decency and we admire you for that,’ said John. ‘Come
on, let’s drink that tea before it gets cold and maybe we’ll have something
stronger later on, I’m feeling like we have earned it.’

After a day like that, being up there in the
lighthouse lamp room, gazing out at the ocean with the knowledge that the
treasure had finally been recovered and safely stowed – it was the finest, most
perfect cuppa you could drink.

John strolled over to the huge windows and
looked towards the mainland. It was already nearly 6pm and the sun was heading
westwards. The water was reasonably calm with a light swell on its surface.

He noted with satisfaction the absence of enemy
craft heading in their direction and he doubted there would be – not that night
at least. After all, Jake had fled in terror and as for Zak . . .

As the girls fell into deep
conversation, Dan joined him at the window.

‘It looks all clear, doesn’t it,’ said John.
‘Not that I’m surprised, I wasn’t expecting any trouble this evening.’

‘I don’t know how you can be so sure,’
replied Dan. ‘We can’t relax until the treasure is properly reported to the
authorities and handed over.’

‘I agree, that’s our next move,’ said John,
twiddling the handle of his now empty mug. ‘However, I don’t see Zak and Jake
as much of a threat any more.’

‘Perhaps not tonight,’ said Dan, quietly. ‘But
once he’s recovered from that bump, Zak will be on our trail again. He’ll find
out that we’ve blocked up the shaft, so his only other option will be to seek
to land on the island directly, and that’s got to be a big worry. We need to get
the treasure ashore very soon, into the safe keeping of a museum, under lock
and key. I would suggest we try and take it over this afternoon but everywhere
will be shut by now. It’s not safe here and frankly, nor are we.

‘Come to think of it,’ added Dan, ‘surely
there’s a danger that Zak and Jake will get their mates on to us tonight? Maybe
we ought to take everything over right now.’

‘No,’ said John. ‘To do so could be to walk
into an ambush. We might encounter Jake or any number of their accomplices as
soon as we step out of the boat.’

‘Well if we are going to stay in the
lighthouse tonight, why don’t we at least check on our jetty and see if there’s
any way we can prevent boats from coming in. It might be worth a try.’

‘I don’t think that’s possible somehow, and
more to the point I don’t think it’s necessary.’

‘Why don’t we go and take a look at least? Hey,
why don’t you think it’s necessary? We can’t afford to be so complacent, John.’

‘Listen, we’re both agreed that Jake’s not much
of a threat,’ said John, in a low voice. ‘My point is, Zak may not be either. Certainly
not tonight and probably not tomorrow, and possibly not the day after that.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Hey you pair, what are you whispering
about?’ called Louise as John was about to answer.

‘Erm, Dan and I were saying we wanted to go
to the jetty to check the boat is ok and the outbuilding is locked properly and
everything is in order,’ said John.

‘Oh leave Dan with me,’ purred Emma, coming
over and running her hands along Dan’s bruised arms. ‘It doesn’t take two of
you.’

‘It does take two,’ insisted John. ‘You
womenfolk choose to go to the loos in pairs, we men do this sort of thing
together. Come on Dan.’

Dan realised that John needed a chat without
the girls hearing. They clambered over the rocks to the small wooden jetty. The
boat was there, no different from how they had left it. Mercifully, it didn’t
have company.

‘That’s good,’ said John, turning to Dan. ‘Pick
yourself a flat rock and let’s have a boys’ chat about what has happened and
what we’re going to do. The girls are chilling out now, thinking that
everything’s all right, let’s keep it that way. We don’t want to worry them but
you and me need to decide how we tie up a few loose ends, so to speak.’

‘Is there any way we can secure this jetty
to prevent another boat landing? My guess is that Zak is now nursing a very
sore head and plotting his next move,’ said Dan, choosing himself a comfortable
rock.

‘I disagree,’ said John, his blue eyes
filled with worry rather than their usual sparkle. ‘What I was about to say in
the lamp room was that I fear Zak may not be getting up off that tunnel floor
any time soon – possibly not ever.’

‘Don’t be crazy, John,’ said Dan, finally
understanding what John was hinting at. ‘Whatever makes you say that? If I can
fall down that shaft with no more than a few bruises, so can he. Mind you, I
did land on top of his fat belly, which helped.’

‘Look, I think we need to face facts,’ replied
John. ‘Zak may well be dead. I’ve never seen a dead person before, but I’d
guess they look like Zak. His eyes had gone. They were wide open but his pupils
had rolled leaving only the whites showing. His tongue was hanging out and
blood trickling from his head. It was a horrible sight. I shone the torch on
him and took a good look.’

Dan admitted he had done no more than glance
at Zak. He fell silent for some while, watching the hypnotic rise and fall of
the sea swishing against the rocks.

‘Come on, I can’t believe he’s dead. Even in
the unlikely event that he is, it’s not our fault,’ he eventually replied,
staring, as if in a daydream, at a cormorant preening its long black feathers.
‘If he lost his footing on those rungs and crashed to the ground and fell
badly, that’s a genuine accident. We are blameless.’

‘I agree we could be considered blameless
for what happened,’ said John, trying to find a tactful way of telling Dan
something he would not want to hear. ‘That man threatened not only what was legitimately
our property but our lives by attacking you then climbing the shaft, waving
that cutlass above his head and wearing your hat – well, Felipe’s hat.

‘Before frightening the hell out of you all by
claiming he’d killed me,’ said Dan. ‘Serve him right if he fell and hurt
himself. He’s such a big, ungainly bloke, I’m not surprised he lost his footing
on those old rungs, to be honest.

‘Listen John, we’ve done nothing wrong,’
continued Dan. ‘We found that treasure thanks to an antique diary sold as part
of the chattels pertaining to this lighthouse belonging to Louise’s family in a
tunnel leading directly to this island which they also own. We have the right,
as finders of that treasure, to be considered its legitimate owners, or at
least, co-owners with Louise’s parents. Two totally disreputable local crooks
get wind of it, assault us, kidnap us, threaten rape, and do their best to
steal the treasure from us. In the process, one of them hurts himself entirely
through his own clumsiness. We have nothing to hide.’

‘Apart from a body,’ retorted John. ‘That’s
rather embarrassing Dan, don’t you think? A corpse is possibly lying in the
tunnel leading to the spot where we have found treasure and when we contact
Cornwall Council and the Coroner to report the find, it’s not going to be a
pretty sight when they send their history people down there, is it?’

‘Firstly,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t believe that
Zak’s dead, just badly concussed, and secondly, whatever happened to him he
entirely brought upon himself.’

‘Unfortunately that’s not quite the case,’
said John, as gently as he could. ‘When Zak taunted us that he’d killed you it
rang true, since he had clearly taken the cutlass and the sailor’s hat off you.
We were incredibly upset.’

‘You were bound to be,’ said Dan, ‘I’m a likeable,
popular guy.’

‘Yes,’ said John, smiling at Dan’s little
quip, ‘and Emma was particularly distraught, as you’d expect, because she is so
madly in love with you.’

Dan grinned. ‘I’m madly in love with her,
she’s my wonderful girl.’

‘Quite so, and we don’t want her to get into
trouble over this, Dan.’

‘Into trouble?’

‘You see, as I was saying, Emma adores you
and she was desperately upset and cold with anger at Zak for saying he’d killed
you,’ continued John, pausing as he tried to work out the best way to phrase
things. ‘Anyway, she grabbed one of the iron spades in the outbuilding that we’d
used to prise up the flagstone. They are heavy, as you know and . . . ’

‘Get on with it, John, what did she do with
the spade?’ interrupted Dan, impatiently, dreading the answer.

‘She whacked him with it,’ said John. ‘She
hit him with almost superhuman force, she was so outraged and grief stricken. It
was sufficient not only to send him tumbling down the shaft but, I am certain,
to have fractured his skull. If he’s dead, and I believe he may well be, he will
have died from a catastrophic blow to the head, not from a fall and a police
post mortem would be sure to reveal that.’

‘I thought you told me Zak slipped and fell
and that he was unconscious and would take a while to come round?’ said Dan, looking
at John in horror, hardly able to believe this revelation.

‘No Dan, you asked me if he fell and I
replied “more or less”. What else was I supposed to say at that particular
moment, when our priority was to get straight up the shaft to safety? At the
time I assumed he was knocked out but what I’m now saying is he may be knocked
out for good. I didn’t know or care in that tunnel, I just wanted us to
escape.’

‘So if your hunch is correct, Emma could get
done for murder?’ said Dan, slowly.

‘No, I would hope not,’ replied John. ‘But
the police might well see a case for bringing a charge of manslaughter on the
grounds that it was an unlawful killing. The question is the amount of force
that was used. Did she use the minimum necessary in self defence or grossly
excessive force out of fury at what she thought he’d done to you?’

‘Any jury, when acquainted with all the
facts, would side with her, and would understand why she did it,’ reasoned Dan,
‘and that she was in fear of her life, and for the lives of you and Louise, not
least because she thought I was dead. Wouldn’t they acquit in those
circumstances?

‘I can’t believe we’re holding this
conversation,’ he added, before John had a chance to reply. The full enormity
of what John was telling him was beginning to sink in. ‘Emma would never hurt anyone
like that, she’s not capable. I don’t believe Zak’s dead either. This whole
situation is like a nice dream turning into a total nightmare. Please tell me
we’re not seriously suggesting that my lovely, gentle girlfriend has actually killed
someone.’

‘No, not on purpose anyway. If Zak is dead,
we have to appraise where that leaves us all,’ said John. ‘I certainly don’t
see it as murder, and nor would any jury in their right mind. There must be a
possibility that they would convict on manslaughter. Who knows? Maybe the Crown
Prosecution Service wouldn’t even bring the case to trial but we have to
remember that the treasure is tied up in this. It may be seen as in the public
interest to put the case before a jury to decide.

‘We may, in the eyes of the authorities, and
indeed a jury, seem less innocent somehow when they know that, prior to the
death of Zak, we had got our hands on long-lost treasure and wished to guard it
at all costs. If any criminal action arises, we could lose our title to its
value. We almost certainly would if either Emma or any of us for that matter
were convicted of a criminal offence relating to it.’

‘That would be so utterly unfair,’ said Dan,
miserably. ‘Above all, on poor Emma when she’s the sort of person who wouldn’t harm
a hair on someone’s head.’

‘Precisely,’ said John seeking to quickly move
the conversation on from that unfortunate turn of phrase. ‘Your Emma isn’t the
villain in this, she’s been a hero today, Dan, as much as you have. Without her
prompt, decisive action, Zak would have climbed out of that hole and we would
have been at his mercy.

‘I like to think I would have coshed him
with the spade, albeit not landing quite such a heavy blow, but I have to admit
that Louise and I were sort of struck dumb by him saying he’d killed you. We wouldn’t
have reacted quickly enough to prevent him from getting up into the
outbuilding. But Emma exploded, she went off like a rocket. I’ve never seen her
like that before. She has, effectively, saved us and the treasure.’

‘God, what a mess, just when things looked
to be going our way.’

‘All is not lost, Dan. In fact, nothing is
lost, save for that miserable life at the bottom of the shaft. The question is,
what are we going to do about it?’

‘There are two issues at stake here,
assuming you’re right that Zak is dead,’ said Dan, thinking it through. ‘If we
tell Emma it will cripple her. She’s not emotionally strong enough to deal with
this sort of thing. The sense of guilt and remorse will overwhelm her, she won’t
cope. She might go and tell the police and choose to “face the music”. That
could wreck her university course, even if things went her way in the end.

‘The other aspect is the fortune that we
will potentially stand to lose. Emma’s cut of it could make the difference
between her being able to keep studying at Oxford and having to give up. That kind
of money would be life-changing for us all. But it’s not what happens to the
treasure so much that bothers me, it’s what this is going to do to poor Emma psychologically.’

‘The only way to protect Emma and our claim
to the treasure is not to tell her what has happened, or may have happened, to
Zak,’ said John.

‘If Zak has died, she must not find out
about it,’ agreed Dan. ‘If one life, and a useless one at that, has been
destroyed, why should a good life like hers be ruined because of it? Above all,
Emma did what she did for the love of me and for us all.’

‘My thoughts entirely,’ said John. ‘Well
there’s only one way to find out for sure whether Zak’s alive or dead isn’t
there? We need to take a look down the shaft.’

Dan shivered. ‘I don’t want to be doing that.’

‘Listen Dan, you’ve got to get real on this.
We have to find out if we have a dead body down there,’ replied John. ‘If so, we
don’t want the world to know about it. You know what that means? We’ll have to
move it. Otherwise, as soon as he is reported missing it isn’t going to take
long before the police will be walking up that tunnel and finding him. I’m
guessing he and Jake smashed open the shoreline entrance to the tunnel if it
was blocked up. If the police don’t find him, the archaeology boffins certainly
will when they turn up after we’ve reported the treasure.’

‘Couldn’t we leave the body where it is and
claim we found the treasure somewhere else, in a different tunnel, or I don’t know,
in the ground or something?’ argued Dan.

‘That’s nonsense and you know it,’ objected
John. ‘We would have to commit fraud on an industrial scale to get that to
stick – lying about the actual location of the treasure, which archaeologists
with their expertise would see through straightaway, then pretending we knew
nothing about a rotting body found in an undersea tunnel leading directly to
the island we’re staying on. It’s bound to be discovered soon enough,
especially as the shoreline entrance has so recently been unblocked. It will be
immediately apparent to Emma that Zak had died from the blow she struck him.’