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

offered to come and work on the restoration. His great-grandfather worked on the original construction of the boat, he says.’ Hadley opened a desk drawer and took an airmail letter from it. I hadn’t known they still existed in the age of cyberspace. ‘He says that if we employ him to supervise the work, the restoration will be entirely successful.’
    ‘A crank,’ my father said, buttoning his coat, patting his pocket, I knew, for his cigar case. ‘An opportunistic blackmail attempt by some freak from New England.’
    ‘Except that I had him checked out,’ Hadley said. ‘He’s not a crank. Not according to his references.’
    ‘Then bring him over, Hadley. I’ll bankroll the exercise. But on your name and reputation be it.’ He paused. ‘I’m going outside for a smoke. Please feel free in my absence, gentlemen, to talk among yourselves.’
    Frank Hadley sat back down after my father had closed the door behind him. ‘The irony is, Martin, that I greatly like and admire your dad. He is a bully and a prima donna. But as bullying prima donnas go, he’s fair-minded and generous.’
    ‘You never referred just now to the boat he has commissioned you to restore and refurbish by its name.’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘And God help me, I never will.’
    ‘You really believe the vessel cursed?’
    He smiled. ‘Haven’t been aboard her, have you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Despite our setbacks, we’ve accomplished a lot, physically.We worked hard on her for six weeks prior to the fatality. She’s sound enough for a tour. Perhaps you ought to treat yourself to one. Maybe you could get your father to act as guide.’
    ‘Because you won’t put a foot aboard her, will you, Mr Hadley?’
    It was the second question I’d posed him that was really no question at all.
    He looked at his bank of computer images morphing, bloodless, nothing but geometric elegance in black lines on white screens. ‘I just hope that this fellow Peitersen can accomplish what he claims he can, Martin. I pray for that.’
    I looked beyond him out of the window. The glass was strong and thick and soundless. But it was rain-lashed. The weather was worsening. The wind was strengthening. I could see it in the ragged flights of gulls failing to find the paths they sought to cleave through the grey, turbulent sky. I could see it in the rising swell out beyond the estuary shallows, where whitecaps curled now in the unsteady, rising rhythm of an oncoming storm. For a moment, I found myself wishing with all my heart that the storm would gather and rise to breach the sea defences of Hadley’s boatyard and smash the
Dark Echo
to matchwood at her moorings. It was a momentary thought, but it surprised me with its vehemence and the vindictive pleasure I took at seeing teak splinters, hemp braids and tattered fragments of tarpaulin on the tideline in my mind’s eye as the old boat’s final remains washed up, innocuous at last, when calm returned.
    ‘You’re in awe of your father.’
    That made me laugh out loud. ‘As are most people.’
    ‘Not Harry Spalding.’
    ‘Who has been dead for better than seventy years. Unless, of course, you believe in witchcraft.’
    An impatient smile twitched on Hadley’s face. He lookedat me. He held my eyes with his, which were pale blue and slightly bloodshot. ‘I’ve no interest in verbal debate with the son of a lucrative client. I’ve even less interest in allowing myself to be demeaned. But I’ve a son of my own about your age. And whatever else, I would implore you to read the log before you embark on any voyage aboard that boat. Don’t suggest your father show it to you, Martin. Insist upon it.’
    My father came back in a moment later, entering on a silence so awkward it must have seemed palpable. He agreed some expenses and countersigned a few cheques. Hadley rose and shook hands with each of us and we were out and into the gathering storm.
    My father accepted a lift to Chichester. I didn’t ask what business it