Follow a Star (28 page)

As the green country lanes unravelled behind him, giving way to the subtle greys and golds of the coastal plain, Bill looked forward to getting home. A few days away, tacked on to the tail end of his site visit, should have recharged his batteries. But no matter how many stars the White Hart had been awarded or how highly commended the food, there was nothing like the thought of his own bed. A damn comfortable bed it was too; so perhaps he’d finally catch up with the sleep which was still eluding him. Some recreational activity before bedtime would probably help. Except the playmate he had in mind was May. The idea of anyone else taking her place only made him feel sad and weary, and how long had it been since the other half of his bed had been occupied anyway?

Instead he’d get in, open a beer and enjoy the peace unbroken by Cecil repeating the same old nautical stories. That one about crossing the Channel to see the eclipse in Cherbourg, for example, grew with the telling, he’d noticed. Even sharing the house with Cecil reminded him there were compromises to be made when anyone else was involved. So he was happy living alone with no one to moan at him about working erratic hours, trooping mud from construction sites across the floor or complaining about his snoring if he fell asleep on the sofa at the end of a long, hard day.

May wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty and putting a bit of effort in. She’d pulled her own weight on the boat and hadn’t expected him to do it all for her. And she hadn’t complained about his snoring once. Although she could give nearly as good as she got in that department. He grinned to himself recalling the little puffing sounds that signalled when she was fast asleep. If only his temper hadn’t got in the way of their night together, he might have had some fun teasing her about that.

Despite what people said about redheads, it took a lot for him to blow his fuse. Like discovering the woman he thought he knew so well didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth about herself. Even then he could partly understand why May had been so careful about guarding her privacy. It still hurt, though, to think that after everything they’d shared she could withhold something so important.

If he turned right at the next junction, he could detour to the boatyard to see if she was still about. But who would he find if he pointed the van in that direction, May or Cherry? He slowed down and weighed up the options. Home lay straight ahead, empty, silent and cheerless. Watling’s to the right, with May, a smile in her honey-brown eyes, laughing perhaps, with Harry and Matthew, Georgia snuggled in her arms.

Bill was turning the wheel in the direction of the boatyard when his mobile rang. He pulled over to take the call.

‘Harry? This is a pleasure. Is everything okay?’ He braced himself and waited for Harry to tell him that May had packed up and gone. If only he hadn’t been so pig-headed, he might have stopped her. He might, at least have salvaged friendship from the wreck of what they’d shared. How much harder would it be to apologise for his behaviour if she was halfway back to her old life? What if he never saw her face again, except as a remote figure on MTV?

‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ Harry said, sounding distinctly unsure. ‘I wondered if your uncle had been in touch, that’s all. He took his boat out yesterday morning without letting anyone here know where he was going or how long he’d be away. Do you want me to take the skiff out and have a quick look around?’

Bill went cold thinking of the warnings he’d been given by the hospital about the possible side effects of his uncle’s operation. What if the stent graft had leaked, increasing the pressure on the aneurysm? Was Cecil out there now, alone, frightened and bleeding to death? Or unconscious and drifting helplessly out to sea?

‘I’ll be there in five minutes. I’m coming with you.’

He stopped the van in Watling’s car park, his temples throbbing as if his head was being squeezed in a vice. Inland, the weather had been clammy and humid, but it wasn’t much cooler on the coast. Black clouds hung stubbornly above steely grey choppy waters, resisting the efforts of a gusty wind to move them along. Whipping instead at the proud club burgees streaming from rigging shrouds, it threatened to shred them to tattered rags at any moment. Bill scanned the horizon, searching in vain for the needle of a mast piercing a pewter sky. When he opened the van door, the heavens opened as the tension which had been slowly mounting all day finally gave way. Hollows in the gravel surface formed instant pools, soaking the bottom of his jeans as he raced towards the pontoon where Harry was waiting. A cloud of white smoke rose from the stern of the skiff as she spotted him and started the outboard engine.

‘Let me take over,’ Bill roared above the noise.

‘Barber or butcher?’ Harry shouted back, nodding at his hair as she passed him a life jacket.

‘Very funny.’ He rubbed his shorn head with regret. It was obvious to him now that cutting off his hair because he suspected May didn’t like the colour was a pretty futile gesture. One she’d never even know about, too. Then, a low grumble of thunder made them both look up.

‘Harry, go in. I can do this by myself. Matthew won’t be happy if you get struck by lightning.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Bill, I’m not some helpless little woman. The search will be easier with two pairs of eyes.’

‘You have
never
,’ Bill said emphatically, ‘been “some helpless little woman”. But you
are
a mum. What do you want me to tell Georgia when you’re recovering in hospital if you get hit by three hundred thousand volts of electricity? Assuming you’re still alive, that is.’

Harry gave him a scowl as black as the clouds above their heads. ‘I won’t
ever
forgive you for pulling that one,’ she growled, clambering on to the pontoon.

‘No, and Matthew wouldn’t forgive me if I hadn’t.’

The rain lashed against his face, half blinding him as he made sure Harry was safely back on the pontoon. And then he noticed she’d been joined by someone else in a yellow oilskin that was far too big for her.

‘May,’ he bellowed, ‘what are you doing here? Go back to the caravan for crying out loud before you get drowned.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ she shouted above the noise of the engine. ‘I want to help find Cecil and Harry’s right, it’ll be quicker with two of us. Please?’

‘What good do you think you’d be? You’re not playing
I’m a Celebrity
 …
Get Me Out of Here
now. Cecil might be seriously injured.’ And
he
would be seriously distracted. The last time he’d been distracted by May on a boat, he’d almost got himself killed by the boom.

‘But I feel responsible for his disappearance. My mum’s been helping out at the antiques shop. He wouldn’t have been able to go sailing if she hadn’t been there to free him up.’

May’s mother was in Little Spitmarsh? What was this, the Starling family outing? Bill shook his head. ‘That won’t work. It certainly wouldn’t have stopped Cecil taking off in his boat if he was so minded. The trouble is he’s become too confident too quickly. It’s not your fault May so consider your conscience cleared and get back in the dry. I can handle this by myself.’

Before he could stop her, May scrambled in and squatted on the wooden seat opposite him. ‘Swallow your pride, Bill,’ she advised. ‘You know what a good team we make on a boat. Stop wasting time and let’s get going.’

Harry looked from one to the other then quickly untied the painter which was wrapped around a cleat and handed it to May.

‘Good luck the pair of you. I hope he’s all right.’

The labyrinthine nature of the creeks made it a tortuous search. As the navigable channels of one tributary after another grew thick with reeds and matted with marshland, Bill was increasingly aware of his uncle’s fragility.

‘We’ll find him,’ May smiled, peering at him under the curtain of rain dripping off her hood. ‘He’s probably tucked up somewhere safe, quite unaware he’s raising concerns. I’m sure he didn’t mean to worry any one.’

‘That won’t stop me giving him a piece of my mind when we find him.’ Bill stretched his aching shoulders. ‘How come you’re still able to smile?’

‘I was thinking about the regatta and how cross Cecil was not to win first place outright. He insisted afterwards we’d gone wrong in Peregrine Water, kept telling me that would have been the best place to take advantage of
Lucille
’s speed against
Rose of Grimsby
’s manoeuvrability.’

‘No.’ Bill shook his head. ‘He’s wrong about that. It was too tight an angle round Little Tern Island.’

‘He reckoned if he had another chance he could outpace all the competitors …’ May paused and gave him an enquiring look.

Surely not? Had they missed the obvious? It was worth checking, but another rumble of thunder creeping closer reminded him he was putting May in danger every minute they stayed out there.

‘We’ve come this far,’ she urged, sensing his hesitation, ‘what are you waiting for?’

The rain was lashing down as they turned into Peregrine Water. Lightning flashed, still some way off, but close enough to illuminate May’s pale face beneath the yellow hood of the borrowed oilskin. It was time to get them to safety, he decided, when May gave a triumphant shout. There, riding out the storm, securely anchored in the shelter of Little Tern Island, was
Lucille
.

Bill felt inclined to thank the heavens even though they were pouring vast amounts of cold water all over them. Through the heavy drizzle, he could see the gold glow of the gimballed lights flickering from the cabin. It was a comforting sight on many levels, but his relief that the outward signs gave every indication that all was probably well on board fuelled his growing anger at his uncle’s irresponsibility. May could have been electrocuted in the hunt for the selfish bugger, all for the sake of one quick radio call.

Slowing the engine so that they didn’t create a huge bow wave which would rock Cecil’s boat before he could rock it himself by giving his uncle a severe dressing down, he putt-putted closer. Abruptly, the torrential rain eased and as Bill’s ears adjusted after the constant din he was stunned to hear music and laughter. He was even more surprised when he heard the sound of the doors that kept the cabin watertight sliding open, and suddenly there was Cecil, his head and shoulders popping up in the companionway. Another peal of laughter with a distinctly female ring followed, then he watched his uncle grapple with a bottle until there was a dull explosion and the soft plop of a champagne cork landing in the water.

Someone else squeezed up beside Cecil.

‘Thunder’s …’ stuttered May, struggling to believe the evidence of her own eyes.

‘It’s all right, I think we’re safe. The storm’s passed now,’ he assured her, boggling at the sight unfolding in front of him.

‘No,’ May whispered, ‘I think it’s only just beginning. That’s Thunder’s sister, Janice.’

‘Jeez!’ Bill muttered.

A shaft of evening sunshine had fought its way through the clouds after the rain and was lighting up Bill’s brutal new haircut. If there was any heat left in it this late in the day, he’d have steam coming off his head soon, although judging from his expression he was already close to boiling point.

‘Put your hood up and let’s get out of here before they recognise us,’ May urged him. And before Bill started wondering what might be going on over there. He had, May observed, a rather idealistic view of his uncle.

‘I put your life in danger, just so Cecil could get laid!’ He shook his head in disbelief.

Ah, too late.

‘Slight exaggeration, Bill,’ she observed. ‘I’m alive and kicking and as for Cecil? Well, I’m not brave enough to break up the party, are you? You don’t know for sure what’s going on over there, but it’s not going to do any of us any good to go over and poke our noses in where we’re not wanted,’ she pointed out. Presumably though, Cecil hadn’t sneaked off with Janice simply so she could trim his sails. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

To her relief, Bill obeyed and even kept the drum of engine noise down as they thudded back again in the direction of Watling’s.

‘Is nothing what it seems anymore?’ he complained when they were back in the main channel. ‘I don’t know where I am with anyone. I mean, who’s with me today; May or Cherry?’

‘Oh, don’t give me that!’ she said, glaring at him in exasperation. ‘There is no Cherry, she’s just a fabrication. You know who I am, we’ve spent enough time together!’

‘We’ve done that all right,’ Bill agreed. ‘Enough time for you to decide that I might have seen a little too much of you. Enough time to decide I was an embarrassing mistake. Enough time for you to decide you were better off with your influential, two-timing snake of a boyfriend.’

‘Do you know, Bill,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘that’s one reason why I should be pleased you walked out on me. Because you always assume it’s about money or influence with me! That’s why my face didn’t ring any bells with you when we first met, because you assumed I was some cheap little opportunist who was after your uncle’s money!
Then
you decided I was making up to Thunder for his millions, and
finally
you accuse me of getting back with someone I never want to see again!’

The outboard coughed as it caught some seaweed, but May was still in full throttle.

‘I was thrilled to bits,’ she hissed, ‘that you’d apparently been living under a rock for two years and had never even heard of Cherry. It gave me the chance to feel that we were just two ordinary people making a delivery trip, and I was grateful for a reprieve.’

‘May,’ Bill scoffed, ‘we weren’t exactly strangers by the time we reached Little Spitmarsh. Don’t you think you could have trusted me with your secret by then?’

She rolled her eyes at him. ‘You’ve seen how silly Matthew went when he spotted Thunder! Can you blame me for wanting to let sleeping dogs lie? Would you have treated me the same if you’d known? Most men don’t. Either they can’t see past the fantasy or they think I’m a gold mine.’ She shot him an accusing glance. ‘And besides, you let me take you at face value too. You were happy to let me go along with the illusion you were some sort of manual worker.’