THE SHIPPING MURDER an addictive crime mystery full of twists (Eric Ward Mystery Book 6) by ROY LEWIS

Author:ROY LEWIS [LEWIS, ROY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JOFFE BOOKS crime mysteries and thrillers
Published: 2019-11-18T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

When the sun dropped below the ragged outline of the mountains inland, the moon lifted and the sky shaded in red and gold, fading through tones of rose to a pale lavender. As the moon climbed it brightened, transmuting the sea into molten silver, the spray glittering as it blew aft, bright against the dark land mass of the Costa Blanca. The lights of the harbour at Alicante, picking out gleaming yachts and work-scarred fishing-boats, had long since faded behind them, and the white beaches and rocky cliffs northwards were blurred into darkness. The breeze was warm on Eric Ward’s face and the sound of the rushing water beneath the bows susurrated soothingly in his ears. He stood on the deck, holding the rail and he smelt the salt wind, tangy and sharp.

‘La Encantada. The Enchanted One. On an evening like this, all is enchantment, is it not?’

She was tall and slim, her dark hair straight, shoulder-length, curling softly at the nape of her neck. She wore a sheath dress, virginal white, deep-shadowed where it was cut to the curve of her breast. Her eyes were violet in colour, he had noticed, deep in their intensity, and she moved with a feline grace, a long swing of the hip that demonstrated agility, litheness and an overt sexuality that would fire any man. She was called Elaine, and she was perhaps twenty years of age.

Halliday Arthur Lansley hadn’t changed, Eric thought. He recalled his first meeting with the man. It had been on board the Alouette, in the harbour at La Canebiere. On the after-cockpit of the white, shark-like craft, Lansley had been waiting, sixty years old, sixteen stone in weight, and no more than five feet three tall. There had been three girls on board on that occasion: Catherine, Villette and Jeanne-Marie. They had been blonde and lissom, unostentatious and available. They had caused Eric a sleepless night. Lansley had caused him more than that.

He had heard of the man before he had met him. Lansley had been a property developer in the North-East when there was money to be made, quickly, and on the edges of legitimacy. When the corruption scandals had broken he had not emerged cleanly: indicted on several charges of fraud and corruption, he had been sent to prison but had not served the full term. By a judicious movement of funds and holdings he had managed to avoid the loss of all his ill-gotten gains, and a deal with the authorities together with heart trouble, had led to his early release.’

It was his involvement with Morcomb Estates and a land charge in El Centro that had caused his path to cross Eric’s, but thereafter they had found their interests coinciding not entirely to Eric’s benefit.

The man was an incorrigible rogue. His last words to Eric had been that he hoped they would meet again. Eric had replied he hoped otherwise. And yet here he was once more in Lansley’s company and aboard one of Lansley’s playthings, the motor yacht La Encantada.

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