Dead Men's Harvest

Chapter 48

Hartlaub was my first priority. I unhooked him from the winch and laid him out on the deck, away from the other dead men. His eyelids had peeled apart, and I gently pressed them shut with the pads of my thumbs. All the while, I listened for anything that would warn me of an impending attacker. As far as I could tell, though, everyone here was dead, and the Queen Sofia was indeed a ghost ship. Looking down on the dead agent’s face, I whispered my stepfather’s wise words, ‘Mocking is catching, Hartlaub.’

They weren’t exactly true. Hartlaub hadn’t invited bad luck, it had been forced on him the moment he’d turned up at Imogen’s house in Maine. From that time on his days had been numbered. It’s what came of being dragged along in my undertow.

I loaded him into the lifeboat and set the winch-motors running so that it was lowered to the sea. The fury of the storm had passed by then, and the boat only made a faint knocking sound against the hull of the ship. I went down a rope ladder. Before I could start the outboard, a different engine roared and from around the stern of the Queen Sofia came another vessel. It was low in the water, with inflatable cushions and a single cabin perched near the front.

‘Hunter! Over here, buddy!’

I recognised Terry’s voice. I stood up in the lifeboat and watched as he steered the inflatable boat towards me. Someone was at the prow; at first I thought it was Lassiter, but then I noted there were two heads watching from inside the illuminated cabin.

I looked again at the figure in the prow, and couldn’t believe my eyes. Standing there, hugging a hand to her chest, was my sister-in-law. Lassiter and Terry had done exactly as promised: they’d been there waiting for when Jenny got off the ship, and had plucked her safely from the water.

I’m not a praying man, but at that moment, I closed my eyes, leaned back and thanked God in heaven for all of my good friends, old and new.

Terry steered the inflatable alongside the lifeboat, and I pulled them close and tied the boats up to each other. I scrambled over the side, to be greeted by Jenny as she threw herself into my arms. We held each other for a long time, and it wasn’t just Jenny who cried.

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ I said to her. ‘I wish I could have got here sooner.’

‘You came, that’s what’s important,’ Jenny said.

Something in her voice told me her words held a deeper meaning. ‘If he could have, John would’ve come too,’ I said.

She looked up at the freighter towering over us, as if expecting John to come scrambling down the ladder at any second.

I took her face in my hands and tilted it up. She had a cut under her eye, but it was the least of what she’d gone through. She had suffered enough for now — or for any lifetime — and I decided to spare her my conclusions about John’s fate. I just looked at her, and by the way her face folded in on itself she knew. I pulled her into my embrace, whispering in her ear, ‘John told me he still loved you and the kids, Jenny. Very much.’

She sobbed against my chest, and I allowed her to. I would have cried as well, but the tears wouldn’t come again, maybe because the truth had been troubling me for so long now. Perhaps Jenny was crying for her children, that they’d never again see their father, or maybe, for all that he’d put her through, she still loved John too. After a while she stood back, mopping her face, but it was awkward for her. I took Jenny’s hand in mine. I was very gentle, because she was in pain. ‘Cain did this?’

She’d swaddled the stump of her finger in a dressing supplied by one of the crew. Her bottom lip trembled, but her eyes were drier now. ‘He told me that he’d go after my children. For them, I’d have given both my arms.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘So would John given the chance.’

‘I know that, Joe.’

I kissed her on the forehead, gave her a hug. ‘C’mon. Let’s get you home to your kids.’