Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean (3 page)

It was only as the door creaked shut behind her that Mrs Crabtree’s warning came back to her: ‘There’s a reason people often put “trouble” and “paradise” in the same sentence, you know. The two words tend to go together.’

‘WE’RE NOT GOING
and that’s final,’ said Calvin Redfern.

Laura stared at her uncle in dismay. The moment he’d walked in the door, she’d pounced on him and told him the good news. His face was lined with exhaustion, but she’d fully expected him to whirl her off her feet and do a dance of happiness at the prospect of a free holiday. Instead he’d reacted as if she’d set her mattress on fire.

‘But why? I don’t understand.’

He ticked off his objections on his fingers. a) It was too sudden. What kind of travel firm expected them to pack their bags and depart on an ocean voyage with only two day’s notice? b) Who would look after Skye?

‘Tariq!’ Laura said triumphantly. ‘I’ve already checked with him and he said he can’t think of anything nicer than looking after his favourite husky for a couple of weeks. You know his foster dad is a vet so Skye will be in very good hands.’

Her uncle continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

‘And c) I couldn’t possibly take leave from work. This is our busiest time of the year. We’re worried about the rise in illegal bluefin tuna imports.’

Laura said nothing. She had only been in Cornwall for a little over three months but it seemed to her that every week was the busiest of the year in her uncle’s job. She’d never known anyone who worked so hard.

‘Anyway, as I’ve said before, there’s bound to be a catch,’ he continued. ‘The
Ocean Empress
will turn out to be a rubber dinghy with a leak. If you check the small print you can be sure you’ll find dozens of hidden charges on the trip.’

He refused to relent even when Laura produced vouchers and documents guaranteeing payment for all meals, accommodation, flights for the whole two weeks of their journey, plus a travellers’ cheque with $200 spending money on it – a gift from the competition organisers.

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Calvin Redfern.

‘Why?’ demanded Laura.

‘Laura, try to understand that I’d love to go as much as you would. It’s just that we’re having a crisis at work at the moment and I can’t be spared.’

There was a tense moment as they faced each other across the kitchen table. Surely the bluefin tuna could manage without him for a week or two, Laura thought, and then immediately felt guilty for being so selfish.

She had a flashback to the stormy winter’s night she’d arrived in St Ives. She’d never forgotten her first impression of her uncle. He’d been silhouetted in the doorway of 28 Ocean View Terrace with his wolfhound at his side, exuding a barely controlled strength. She’d been terrified. However, she’d quickly come to realise that he was the kindest man on earth. Now she loved him like a father – her real father, said to be an American, having vanished without trace after a brief romance with the mother she’d never known.

But as nice as he was, Calvin Redfern was a grown up and grown ups quite often put practical considerations ahead of fun. They liked to say things such as, ‘Life is for living. It’s not a dress rehearsal.’ But that only applied if they weren’t thinking about their taxes or the mess in your room. Or the many reasons why they couldn’t go on a dream holiday to the Caribbean.

The telephone trilled, making them both jump. Calvin Redfern picked it up. The conversation was brief and Laura knew what her uncle was going to tell her even before he hung up.

‘As you’ve probably gathered, that was Tariq’s foster father. A relative is gravely ill and he and his wife have to leave for Delhi on the first available flight. They’re not sure when they’ll be back and they’ve asked whether it would be possible for Tariq to stay with us for the holidays. Naturally, I said yes.’

He opened the oven and took out a dish of macaroni cheese. ‘We can think of some fun things to do around Cornwall,’ he said, ladling a steaming portion onto a plate for her. ‘Maybe we could have a day out at the Eden Project.’

‘Does that mean we’re not going to be sailing away to the Caribbean after all?’ Laura was so crushed she could hardly breathe.

‘No, Laura, we’re not going to be sailing away to Antigua.’ Her uncle put an arm around her. His eyes were sad. It hurt him to hurt her. ‘I’m sorry. I know how disappointed you are and it makes me feel ill to let you down. Unfortunately, duty calls. But I give you my word I’ll make it up to you.’

Laura could tell that he’d made up his mind and it was no use arguing. She dug her fork into her macaroni. ‘It’s fine, Uncle Calvin. Really it is. It’ll be wonderful to spend time with Tariq, and I’ll get over it.’

But she knew she never would.

That night, Laura couldn’t sleep at all. She tossed and turned for hours. At 2.10am, she wept on Skye’s shoulder. Ordinarily, she would have been over the moon about having Tariq to stay for a couple of weeks. It’s just that dream holidays don’t come along every day, and she was devastated that her uncle had turned it down. She’d thought of suggesting that maybe she and Tariq could go instead, but guessed that wouldn’t go down very well. Besides, who’d take care of Skye?

She was still awake at 2.48am when she heard the faint bleep of an incoming text on her uncle’s mobile. Skye heard it too. Ears pricked, he jumped off the bed. A minute later, Laura heard the click of the front door. She flung off her duvet and peered through a slit in the blind.

When she’d first arrived at 28 Ocean View Terrace, the house had been full of secrets and her uncle had been a mysterious figure, haunted by his past and prone to taking midnight walks. Now they shared everything. Or did they? Where was Calvin Redfern going on such a wild, rainy night?

But he didn’t go far. Coat collar turned up against the gale, he crossed the road to the graveyard, opened the gate and was immediately swallowed by the black shadows of the twisted pine. Nothing happened for a long time. It was too dark to make out what, if anything, he was up to, and Laura was about to return to her warm bed when she spotted an orange glow. Her uncle didn’t smoke, which could only mean one thing. He had company. But who could he be meeting at 3am in the cemetery of all places?

Before she could ponder the matter further, her uncle swept through the cemetery gate, checked to see that he wasn’t being observed, and hurried back into the house. Laura stayed at the window for a few minutes longer but no one else appeared. Somewhere in the night she heard a car engine rumble.

At length she fell into a disturbed sleep, waking bleary-eyed when her alarm went off at seven. Her uncle, usually long gone by the time Laura came down for breakfast, was in the kitchen making coffee. He seemed oddly cheerful.

‘Good morning, Laura, I’m so pleased I caught you.’ He handed her a mug and popped a slice of bread into the toaster for her. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to meet you when you finish school today. We have a lot to do and not much time to do it.’

Laura’s eyes were open but her brain was still asleep. She tipped cornflakes into a bowl and stared at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry, what is it we’re supposed to be doing?’

He grinned. ‘Laura, you have a very short memory. Surely you can’t have forgotten that you’ve won us a trip and we’re going to the Caribbean?’

It took a couple of seconds for the words to sink in, but even then Laura didn’t get excited. She didn’t trust what she was hearing. ‘What’s changed?’ she asked warily. ‘I thought we couldn’t go because you have a crisis at work, and the travel company didn’t give us enough notice, and the
Ocean Empress
might be a leaky raft.’

Calvin Redfern held up his hand. ‘I know what I said last night, Laura, but I was being unduly pessimistic. Exhaustion does that to me. It clouds my judgement. I called my boss first thing this morning and he has no problem with me taking leave under the circumstances. I also did some Internet research. The
Ocean Empress
looks quite impressive. In addition, I’ve checked with Tariq’s foster parents and they’re more than happy for him to stay with Skye and Rowenna, especially since you’d already mentioned that as a possibility. Don’t worry about any of the details now. The main thing is, you’re going on your dream holiday.’

Laura’s head was whirling. The previous night her uncle had been dead set against going to the Caribbean. This morning, just hours after his secret mission in the cemetery, there was this sudden change of heart. What was going on?

She shook herself. She was being paranoid. Winning the competition was a random, one-in-a-hundred-thousand thing. Whereas her uncle’s meeting was probably something to do with bluefin tuna smugglers. What did it matter why the impossible had become possible in the space of a few hours? She’d got her wish. Within days, she’d be swimming with dolphins and sipping coconut milk in hammocks beneath pearly blue skies.

Then why did she suddenly feel so uneasy?

THE SHIP LOOKED
like a floating wedding cake. That was what went through Laura’s mind when she first caught a glimpse of it on their approach to Falmouth harbour. But nothing prepared her for the sheer magnificence of the vessel up close. The
Ocean Empress
was so tall that Laura got a crick in her neck staring up at her. She was a skyscraper of a boat, white as a swan with a single orange band lining her sleek side. Watery patterns of light danced around her prow.

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Tariq in awe, ‘is how something that big stays afloat. But,’ he added hastily, ‘it definitely will.’

Laura barely took in what he was saying. She was a bundle of nerves. In little more than an hour the
Ocean Empress
would set sail for the Caribbean and Laura was determined to ensure that nothing should happen to prevent her and Calvin Redfern from being on board when that happened.

Her fretting was justified. It had been a fraught forty-eight hours since her uncle had changed his mind and agreed to go to the Caribbean after all. There had been packing to organise, swimsuits to buy, arrangements to be made with Tariq’s foster parents, and mountains of work for Calvin Redfern to get through in order to justify taking two weeks away from his job.

Laura was particularly jumpy because already that morning a whole series of things had gone wrong. She and her uncle had woken to discover the boiler was broken and there was no hot water – not good news when it was already so unseasonably cold that Rowenna had begun the day by chipping ice off the birdbath in the garden. Calvin Redfern’s old car had delayed them further by refusing to start until he climbed out and pushed it, and a misunderstanding over where Tariq’s foster parents would be dropping him off in Falmouth had made them later still.