Ghost Flight by Bear Grylls Read Free Book Online Page A

gravel. It was late afternoon by now, dusk settling over the marina, cooking smells drifting across the still winter water.
    The scene – the brightly painted boats, smoke curling lazily from funnels – was all so out of kilter with the leafless, washed-out February greys of the canal basin. Three long years. Jaeger felt as if he’d been away a lifetime.
    He came to a halt at the mooring two before his own. The lights were on in Annie’s barge, the old wood-burning stove puffing and smoking wheezily. He climbed aboard, poking his head unannounced through the open hatchway that led into the galley.
    ‘Hi, Annie. It’s me. You got my spare keys?’
    A face looked up at him, eyes staring fearfully wide. ‘ Will ? My God . . . But where on earth . . . We all thought . . . I mean, we were worried that you’d . . .’
    ‘Died?’ Jaeger flashed a smile. ‘I’m no ghost, Annie. I’ve been away. Teaching. In Africa. I’m back.’
    Annie shook her head, confused. ‘My God . . . We knew you were a still-waters-run-deep type. But three years in Africa . . . I mean, one day you were here. The next gone, without a word to anyone.’
    There was more than a little injury in Annie’s tone, not to mention resentment.
    With his grey-blue eyes and dark hair worn longish, Jaeger was handsome in a chiselled, slightly gaunt and wolfish way. There was barely the faintest streak of silver to his head of hair, and he looked younger than his years.
    He’d never shared many personal details with the others on the marina – Annie included – but he’d proven to be a reliable and loyal neighbour, not to mention one who was always on the lookout for his fellow boaties. The community prided itself on being close. That was part of what had drawn Jaeger to it; that, plus the promise of having a home base with one foot in the heart of London, the other in the wide-open countryside.
    The marina lay on the River Lee, in the Lee Valley which formed a ribbon of green that stretched north into open meadows and rolling hills. Jaeger would return here after a day’s work on the Global Challenger and pound the riverside paths, running the tension out of his system and some much-needed fitness back in.
    He’d never had much need to cook: Annie was forever pressing him with home-made goodies, and he particularly loved her smoothies. Annie Stephenson: single, early thirties, pretty in a skittish, hippyish way – he’d long suspected she had a crush on him. But Jaeger had been resolutely a one-woman man.
    Ruth and the boy: they were his life.
    Or at least they had been.
    Annie – much as she’d proven a wonderful neighbour, and much as he’d enjoyed teasing her about being such a hippy – had never stood a chance.
    She rummaged around and handed him his keys. ‘I still can’t believe you’re back. I mean – it’s great to have you back. That’s what I mean. You know, Tinker George – he was just about to grab your bike and claim if for himself. Anyhow, the stove’s hot.’ She smiled. Nervous, but tinged with a hint of hope. ‘I’ll bake a celebratory cake, shall I?’
    Jaeger grinned. He could look so young and boyish on those rare moments when the darkness fell away from him. ‘You know something, Annie – I’ve missed your cooking. But I’m not going to be around for long. Few things I need to get sorted first. Plenty of time for a slice of cake and a catch-up after.’
    Jaeger stepped ashore, passing by Tinker George’s barge. He allowed himself a wry smile: typical of the cheeky bastard to be eyeing-up his motorbike.
    Moments later he climbed aboard his own vessel. He kicked away the piles of fallen leaves and bent at the entrance. The thick security chain and padlock were still very much in place. It was about the last thing he had done – chaining up the barge – before he’d left London, catching a flight to the ends of the earth.
    He gripped the chain in the bolt-cropper’s jaws, tensed his aching limbs,