Dark Echo by F. G. Cottam Read Free Book Online Page A

frame. His iron-grey hair was finger-combed back carelessly from a side parting. He had a sparkly look, the twinkle of a ladies’ man. In that, he wasn’t so dissimilar from my father. But his face lacked the strength of character, the firmness of jaw, the star quality, if you will, that my father’s face had alwayspossessed in such apparent depth. In isolation he would have carried a certain male glamour. In the same room as my father, this was outshone. Comparing the two of them was like comparing Peter Lawford to Cary Grant.
    My father said, ‘An unlucky vessel to a boatbuilder such as yourself is surely as the concept of a haunted house to a modern architect. It isn’t just an anachronism. It’s worse even than an absurdity. It’s an affront. An insult.’
    Hadley dragged his eyes away from his bank of screens. But he would not meet my father’s gaze. He looked down at his hands, linked on the desk. ‘My thoughts on the matter are immaterial, Mr Stannard.’
    ‘Magnus, please,’ my father said.
    ‘Magnus, then. My thoughts on the subject of unlucky boats are really neither here nor there if I can’t get the men to come through the gate for their shift.’
    ‘Get different men.’
    Hadley stood. He turned his back on us and looked out of the window at the view through the rain-bleared window, at the lowering sky and the sullen outline of my father’s prize, under its tarpaulin. ‘You were here when the fatality occurred, Magnus. You were watching the operation. I cannot find either engineer or accident investigator who can justify or explain to me why there should have been a fraction of slack in that rogue hawser.’
    ‘Rogue,’ my father repeated. He said the word in a neutral voice, as thought it were foreign and he was merely trying out the sound of it.
    ‘Yet despite the consistent and enormous tension it was under, it discovered the length and elasticity to loop around a man’s arm and severe it.’
    ‘Heavy engineering is dangerous work,’ my father said. ‘I understand a fund has been established at the yard for the poor fellow.’
    ‘It has.’
    ‘And I will contribute to it,’ my father said. ‘Generously.’
    ‘You saw his feet thrum on the deck, his dance of death in his own spreading pool of blood.’
    ‘It will be interesting to see how a man of your professional reputation deals with the tabloid press interpretation of this peasant witchcraft revival.’
    ‘Witchcraft,’ Hadley said. I think he chuckled. But I could not be sure. ‘This is not witchcraft.’
    My father said nothing.
    ‘Did you ever think to examine the history of the boat?’ Hadley had still not turned back to face us.
    ‘I was familiar with the history of the
Dark Echo
long before I acquired the craft,’ my father said. By his standards, his self-control here was extraordinary. Anger was one of his talents. Fury was one of his most potent weapons.
    ‘Where is the log?’
    ‘In a strongbox. All five volumes of it. The log is safe and intact.’
    ‘It’s customary for the log to accompany the craft to which it belongs.’
    ‘The log is safe,’ my father repeated.
    ‘Then I suggest you read it,’ Hadley said.
    ‘I have.’
    ‘And I must insist that you let me read it, too.’ Finally, he turned. I had misjudged him. He was much more Martin Sheen than Peter Lawford. He did not quite possess the raw charisma on which my father so heavily traded. But he had weight and substance. He was clearly a man of principle where the well-being of his workforce was concerned. Principle was more important to Frank Hadley than tabloid credibility.
    My father stood. ‘Is there anything else?’
    ‘The press have yet to deride me as a figure of fun. Butthey have not been slow to tag your acquisition an unlucky boat.’
    ‘Cursed, I believe, is the appellation of choice,’ my father said.
    ‘Well. I have received a letter from a Jack Peitersen of Newport in Rhode Island, where I know she was constructed. He has