Wreckers Island (romantic suspense) Read online

  WRECKERS ISLAND

  By

  L K Harcourt

  Wreckers Island

  Published by L K Harcourt: 2014

  © L K Harcourt 2014

  All words in this novel are copyright L K Harcourt

  Photographs used as part of the cover design reproduced under licence.

  This edition: January 14th, 2014

  ALSO BY L K HARCOURT:

  And Then The Sun Came Out (a psychological thriller)

  To my wife and children for their support and patience

  CONTENTS

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter I

  ‘Here we are,’ said Louise, as she looped the rope through a rusty iron ring fixed to the island’s jetty. She cut the engine to their motor boat and stepped ashore. ‘Welcome to Wreckers Island!’

  Emma Hardy climbed gingerly from the small, bobbing boat. She was relieved to get back onto dry land, not that there was much of it.

  It was early June and she and three classmates – language students at Oxford University – had finished their second year exams the day before. They were embarking on a holiday in a lighthouse on a tiny island off the Cornish coast.

  It belonged to 20-year-old Louise Locksley’s wealthy parents. The others thought she was joking when she offered them a break there – ‘we’ll have the whole place to ourselves,’ Louise had told them, ‘it’s only small but it will be perfect for sunbathing and some peace and quiet.’

  It had taken a while to believe her but they were so hard up that any prospect of free accommodation had to be taken seriously, no matter how outlandish.

  John Comstock and Daniel Delaurier, also 20, passed her their rucksacks and other belongings before leaping out themselves. Louise’s green eyes lit up beneath her fringe of dark brown hair to see her friends safely docked on her little island which she mostly visited on her own. Even for someone headstrong and confident like her, who enjoyed her own company, it could be a lonely experience.

  At 19, Emma was the youngest. She was a thin, pretty girl with pale blonde hair and slightly nervous-looking pale blue eyes which darted about anxiously.

  Staying in a lighthouse was definitely not her idea of suitable holiday accommodation. She would have much preferred a luxury hotel with big rooms, four-poster beds and a jacuzzi in the en suite. But beggars couldn’t be choosers and she was by far the most broke of them all. John, Dan and Louise had found part-time jobs to help pay their way through college but Emma couldn’t bring herself to take the employment on offer to students – low-paid, anti-social bar work and waitressing shifts. Her debts were soaring and she worried whether she could even afford to return for her final year.

  As for her companions, they were a decent enough bunch. Emma liked Louise although found her too wild and headstrong to be entirely comfortable with. In truth, she was somewhat in awe of her. Emma fancied John with his straw-coloured mop of hair, striking, cornflower blue eyes, wide shoulders and easy grin. But she was also fond of slighter, quieter, more studious-looking Dan.

  She flinched as a huge wave crashed over the rocks, spattering her with spray. The sea was choppy and Wreckers Island was a good mile from the shore.

  Louise noted her fear and gave her a cheery hug. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘it’s fine. We’re going to have a great time!

  ‘Right,’ Louise added, pulling a big iron key from her pocket. ‘Let’s get inside!’

  They climbed the stone path to the great oak door of the lighthouse. Its paintwork gleamed brilliant white in the June sun. The key turned stiffly in the lock; it had been a long while since anyone had used it. When everyone was inside, Louise pulled the door firmly shut. It was chilly in the lighthouse so she got a log fire going.

  ‘This is a simply incredible place,’ enthused John, looking around the quaint, circular living room with small oblong windows in the rounded walls and rugs strewn across worn red quarry tiles.

  ‘You wait until you see the rest of it,’ said Louise, smiling. ‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’

  They followed her up the spiral staircase in the middle of the building. On the first storey were two bedrooms – John and Dan were to share one and Louise and Emma the other.

  Emma’s slightly worried relaxed as she walked into her sleeping quarters. ‘What a fantastic view,’ she said, gazing through the oblong window at the heaving, dark blue sea, capped with white crests.

  ‘It’s better still at the top!’ said Louise. ‘Prepare to be blown away – not literally, of course, unless you step out on the balcony!’

  Louise, Emma, John and Dan continued up the iron staircase which wound its way to the lamp room. The huge lamp was still there. Until a few years ago, it had flashed on and off every few seconds to warn ships away from the rocks of Wreckers Island. It had since been superseded by a more powerful version on the tip of the headland at the far end of the bay.

  The view was magnificent. The Cornish coastline stretched out like a shimmering line of gold in the distance. All around them was an expanse of blue, flecked with white. Seabirds soared into the sky above and cried mournfully over the roar of the ocean.

  ‘Think what it was like to live here alone for months on end as lighthouse keepers used to in the old days,’ said Emma, shivering slightly.

  Louise gave her arm a rub. ‘Sometimes it’s nice though to come here and enjoy the solitude and get away from the hustle and bustle of the world. I find it a spiritual experience to be here alone,’ she said softly.

  Emma glanced at her. Those words seemed strangely mature and philosophical coming from feisty, brash Louise, as if there was a side to her she had not seen before. Louise, a strikingly attractive young woman, looked beautiful melancholy as she stared wistfully out to sea. The four of them fell silent and several minutes passed without a word spoken as they watched the waves rise and fall and the little sailing boats bob on their moorings in the bay.

  Eventually, Louise broke the spell. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back downstairs and get the kettle on – how about a nice mug of hot chocolate or something? It always seems like the right kind of drink in a place like this.’

  The four trod their way carefully down the steep staircase to the ground floor and into the little kitchen. Pure fresh water poured out of the tap when Louise turned it – a clever network of guttering collected the rain which ran into a storage tank.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no hot running water,’ said Louise. ‘We will have to boil saucepans and kettles on the little gas stove when we need to for washing.’

  ‘But what about having a bath or a shower?,’ asked Emma, in dismay, ‘and, erm, going to the toilet?’

  ‘There’s an old-fashioned tin bath which we can use,’ replied Louise, ‘but when the tide goes out it leaves big rock pools which we can bathe in – when the sun is shining they get lovely and warm. As for the loo, we have a teens
y one near the front door with a tiny sink. We’re lucky, there was only an outside loo in the old days.’

  ‘Sounds fine to me,’ said John, chuckling. ‘We haven’t come here for luxury have we?’

  Emma looked horrified but at least, to her relief, the gas stove worked efficiently and they could eat hot food. They had brought plenty of tinned supplies with them.

  With steaming mugs of hot chocolate all round, Louise and her friends went into the living room and flopped on the comfy sofa and armchairs.

  ‘My first ever holiday marooned in a lighthouse on a desert island!’ said Dan, as he sipped his chocolate. Like Emma, he had been feeling uneasy – but the hot drink was raising his morale. ‘Think what the rest of them will say when we go back and tell them next term. They’ll never believe us!’

  ‘You didn’t believe me either at first,’ Louise reminded him. ‘You said it was the sort of thing that happens in books – only this is real. Maybe we’ll have an adventure like they do in novels. They do say that fact can be stranger than fiction!’

  Chapter II

  The four students got themselves a fun lunch based on heated-up tins accompanied by crusty bread and mugs of pure rainwater. The June sun was climbing higher in the sky. It was a perfect afternoon for a sunbathe. They disappeared to their bedrooms to get changed.

  ‘I can’t wait to see the girls in their swimwear, it’s the only reason I’ve come,’ joked John, pulling on his swimming trunks. ‘Especially Louise – I’ve been ogling her all term.’

  Dan smiled and made a ‘shush’ sign. ‘Careful they don’t hear you!,’ he said as he pulled his on too. Although a smaller build than John, he had a light golden complexion which would bronze nicely in the summer heat. John’s torso was broad and muscular but he was fair-skinned and had to slather on high factor sun tan lotion to stop himself from burning.

  They grabbed their towels and a can each of lager from the fridge. Electrical appliances could, just about, be used thanks to solar panels and a small, gas-powered generator – but Louise had warned them not to be surprised by power cuts. Plenty of oil lamps were at the ready.

  They went outside and were pleased to find a pleasant grassy patch in front of the lighthouse largely sheltered from sea breezes by a rectangular perimeter wall. From here they could look directly at the Cornish coast to which they had so often travelled in the past on holiday.

  ‘What a simply wonderful view,’ mused Dan.

  ‘Looks like the view’s about to get better,’ whispered John with a wink. The girls, who had taken longer to get ready, emerged also armed with towels and cans of lager. Louise wore a pale blue bikini and Emma, a white, one-piece swimming costume. John’s gaze flickered over their bodies and Emma, catching his eye, flushed and held her towel a little defensively in front of her.

  They lay on the grass, kept short by the regular attentions of rabbits. There had at one point been sheep on Wreckers Island, said Louise, but they had long gone now.

  ‘Why is it called Wreckers Island?’ asked Emma. ‘Did wreckers actually use this island?’

  ‘Yes, from what I know,’ said Louise. ‘That’s where it gets its name from. Ships used to get wrecked on the treacherous rocks around here, especially at low tide and that’s why they built the lighthouse. Before that, a great oil lamp was lit off the headland – over there I think,’ she pointed to a rocky outcrop on the shore. ‘But the wreckers used to move it to another part of the coast, to trick ships into coming in too close, then guiding them onto the rocks.

  ‘They would hold their lanterns aloft and follow narrow paths to the shore, rub their hands and wait for the wreckage to wash up on an incoming tide and loot whatever they could find – gold, silver, cases of whisky – all sorts of things, some of it was bootleg goods destined to be smuggled through the little-known coves of the Cornish coast. Many of the people on these ships were themselves crooks, but they perished at the hands of men far worse.’

  The others shivered. They looked in awe at the jagged coastline with its hidden rocks and reflected on the terror those crewmen must have felt when their vessels ploughed into them, their wooden hulls ripped apart. The lonely mewing of a gull overhead sounded like a scream from centuries past. For a moment, the sun disappeared behind a cloud and the sea looked grey and cold.

  ‘It’s in the distant past now though,’ continued Louise. ‘Once this lighthouse was built it spelt the end of the wreckers’ evil trade. Now the big one over there can be seen for miles and miles around. All boats these days have satellite navigation and charts showing the danger spots, of course.

  ‘Now does anyone fancy a bath, because the tide is out and the rock pools the other side of the lighthouse should be nice and warm.’

  ‘I would,’ said Emma, who was beginning to feel hot and sticky.

  ‘Right,’ said Louise. ‘Girls get to go first – and no peeking, ok boys?’

  John and Dan nodded in agreement and Louise and Emma picked up their towels and disappeared into the lighthouse to fetch some soap and shampoo. Louise was right, the trapped sea water had warmed nicely in the sun and the deep, hollowed-out fissures in the rocks made for surprisingly luxurious, roomy bath tubs.

  ‘You see Emma,’ said Louise, triumphantly, as she slipped into the water, ‘this is even better than you’d get in a five-star hotel.’

  That evening, as the setting sun sent forth a golden finger rippling across darkening, purplish waters surrounding Wreckers Island, a fire blazed in the hearth and the four undergraduates, glasses of wine in their hands, chatted as they dined on a meal cooked by Emma. Despite the fairly primitive surroundings, she was pleased to find that she could actually knock up quite a creditable plateful of pan-fried chicken in a creamy, white wine sauce, served with some surprisingly good croutons.

  If she was still worried about being stuck on this island with its basic washing and toilet facilities, she didn’t show it. The four of them had an enjoyable time, with plenty of good wine to wash down Emma’s excellent food.

  ‘I would love to know,’ said John, sprawling out over the sofa after they had finished eating, and slurring his words slightly, ‘I would love to know about the history of this stretch of coast. I wonder what happened to the wreckers’ loot, all their ill-gotten gains. I suppose they turned it into hard cash and got drunk on the proceeds.’

  ‘I only wish I knew more,’ said Louise. ‘There was talk of some of the goods being hoarded in the underground caves you get round here but no-one ever knew for sure where. No doubt if the wreckers did leave any loot behind, someone will have been along to lay their hands on it – another villain probably.’

  ‘All the same,’ said John, ‘it would be fun to go and search the caves in our little boat.’

  ‘Sounds good to me if the weather holds,’ replied Louise.

  Emma went to bed earlier than the others that night – she wasn’t one for late nights and excessive partying. Louise, on the other hand, was happy to stay up drinking with the boys. In some ways, she was more of a ‘lad’ than the likes of Dan. When he also headed up the spiral staircase, she and John bantered and joked under the flickering light of oil lamps and a hearty fire until the small hours.

  When tiredness did finally catch up with her, Louise tiptoed into the bedroom anxious not to wake her roommate. There were no actual beds but both had a mattress, a duvet, a couple of sheets and several blankets each. It could get quite nippy in the lighthouse at night.

  Ghostly moonlight filtering through the oblong window revealed which side of the room Emma had chosen. Louise found a nice spot on the other side and crawled gratefully under her covers, pulling them tightly around her.

  Chapter III

  The following morning, the girls were awoken by a knock on the bedroom door. John walked in with two steaming mugs of tea.

  ‘We’ve got some sausages and bacon already frying. It looks like it’s going to be another nice day.’

  ‘John, I was having the most lovely dream,’ said L
ouise, reproachfully. ‘Thanks for the tea, though.’

  ‘What a wonderful feeling waking up in a lighthouse,’ said Emma, sitting upright and cradling her hot mug. ‘You know something, I could do with a nice holiday lie-in this morning.’

  ‘You won’t say that once the smell of breakfast wafts up the stairs,’ said Louise.

  ‘Right!’ mumbled John a few minutes later, his mouth half full of sausage. ‘What are we going to do today? Why don’t we go out in the boat and explore the coast? I feel like achieving something after a lazy afternoon yesterday. Plus the fact that I think the weather won’t be so great tomorrow.’

  ‘Also, we could do with getting to the mainland and buying some more supplies,’ pointed out Dan, ‘especially if the weather forecast is bad.’

  ‘Ok, how about we do our shopping, get ourselves a picnic lunch and motor along the coast and explore some of the wreckers’ caves?’ suggested Emma.

  ‘You never know, we might even find long-lost treasure,’ chimed in Louise, her eyes sparkling. ‘Now that would be like something out of a book, wouldn’t it? No, I’m joking! We won’t find treasure. We’re at least two centuries too late. But we’ll have fun looking!’

  A full English breakfast was rounded off with coffee and toast and marmalade after which the four students felt satisfactorily stuffed.

  ‘I could loll here all day, reading my Kindle and staring out at that awesome view,’ said Dan, approvingly.