Ghosting Home (Strong Winds Trilogy) by Jones Julia

Author:Jones, Julia [Jones, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Golden Duck (UK) Ltd
Published: 2012-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Desolate Shores

Rotterdam, Saturday 26 May 2007

“You’re saying that Tiger Zhang is dead?”

Yu Wan, ship’s cook on the bulk oil carrier that had brought Min to Rotterdam, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He bought his informant another beer and one for himself and Min as well. Min didn’t like beer. He left it untouched beside him. Yu Wan would drink it quick enough. He needed to listen and understand what they were saying.

It was crowded and noisy in this bar. People were drinking and gambling. It was the sort of place where deals would be done. The sort of place where he’d rather not be. So lonely. So far from home.

“That’ll be good news for Hoi Fung, if it hasn’t come too late. The Tiger had a contract on him. How did it happen? Fight?”

“Accident at sea is the official line. Then he went into hospital in England and died from an infection. Shockingly low standards over there.”

“And what do the wise men say? Unofficially.” Yu Wan took Min’s beer and pushed it towards the other man.

“They say,” the man lowered his voice and looked from side to side, “that the attacker was Jin Lóng and that she has moved into his territory on the other side.”

“That can’t be good for the she-tou.”

“Tiger Zhang was only a manager,” said the informant, hurriedly. “His boss lady’s been over here since. She’s a gweilao. It’s business as usual their end and no concessions. She wants the throughput stepping up. They’ll be using agency carriers to clear the backlog.”

It was people they were talking about, Min realised. Human cargo. Like him.

Walton Backwaters, Essex, Saturday 26 May 2007

The five children and Skye had been walking and playing and paddling on this strip of wet sand for almost two hours. It wasn’t sunny and there was a brisk on-shore breeze, which took their breath and slapped their faces as they leaned into it. It must have been some time between six and seven o’clock in the evening. Tea was hours ago but no-one had suggested that it was time to begin thinking about supper. This sand felt like a sort of miracle, which you needed to enjoy while you could, because you knew it wouldn’t last.

It hadn’t been here when they arrived. Or, Donny amended mentally, it hadn’t been on show. The sandbank had been underwater, waiting for the ebb. Probably it had existed for centuries guarding the entrance to these creeks.

In some places the sand was rippled by the prevailing tide and in others it might give a little as you trod on it. Mainly it was smooth and hard. If a ship grounded on this sand with a high wind blowing and a falling tide she would be pounded to pieces as surely as if she’d struck any of the other shoals that had built up along the coastlines of the Southern North Sea.

Donny thought of the Long Sand where Strong Winds had waited for Snow Goose, or those ragged underwater banks off the coast of Belgium where the Pride of Macao had caught them.

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