Mydworth Mysteries - Fool's Gold E-Book

Matthew Costello

• Herausgeber: Bastei Entertainment
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Cosy Historical Mystery Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 161

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

From the authors of the best-selling series CHERRINGHAM

When young Ewan Mackay - on a dark stormy night - sails his little dinghy out to a mysterious wreck site some miles offshore from Littlehampton, he never returns. The police assume he drowned at sea - but Ewan’s father is not convinced and asks Harry and Kat to investigate. Soon, they learn there are not only dark secrets about the night Ewan disappeared, but also plenty of people who wished him harm. And as they dig deeper, they too find themselves in grave danger both on land and sea...

Co-authors Neil Richards (based in the UK) and Matthew Costello (based in the US), have been writing together since the mid-90s, creating innovative content and working on major projects for the BBC, Disney Channel, Sony, ABC, Eidos, and Nintendo to name but a few. Their transatlantic collaboration has underpinned scores of TV drama scripts, computer games, radio shows, and the best-selling mystery series Cherringham. Their latest series project is called Mydworth Mysteries.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Mydworth Mysteries

About the Book

Main Characters

The Authors

Title

1. Last Call

2. On the Quay

3. A Garden Party

4. A Surprising Event

5. Littlehampton

6. Revelations

7. A Strange Night at Sea

8. The Littlehampton Sailing Club

9. The Crown and Anchor

10. The Fight at Roper’s Farm

11. Home to Mydworth

12. A Surprise Visit

13. The Wreck

14. Jaggers’ Secret

15. Midnight

16. Last Act in Stoke Manor

17. The Boreas

Next Episode

Copyright

Mydworth Mysteries

Mydworth Mysteries is a series of self-contained novella-length mysteries, published in English and German. The stories are currently available as e-books and will soon be available as audiobooks in both languages.

About the Book

When young Ewan Mackay – on a dark stormy night – sails his little dinghy out to a mysterious wreck site some miles offshore from Littlehampton, he never returns. The police assume he drowned at sea – but Ewan's father is not convinced and asks Harry and Kat to investigate. Soon, they learn there are not only dark secrets about the night Ewan disappeared, but also plenty of people who wished him harm. And as they dig deeper, they too find themselves in grave danger both on land and sea...

Main Characters

Sir Harry Mortimer, 30 – Born into a wealthy English aristocratic family, Harry is smart, funny and adventurous. Ten years in secret government service around the world has given him the perfect training to solve crimes; and though his title allows him access to the highest levels of English society, he’s just as much at home sipping a warm beer in the garden of a Sussex pub with his girl from the wrong side of the tracks – Kat Reilly.

Kat Reilly –Lady Mortimer, 29 – Kat grew up in the Bronx, right on Broadway. Her mother passed away when she was only eleven and she then helped her father run his small local bar The Lucky Shamrock. But Kat felt the call to adventure and excitement, first as a nurse on the battlefields of France, then working a series of jobs back in New York. After finishing college, she was recruited by the State Department, where she learned skills that would more than make her a match for the dashing Harry. To some, theirs is an unlikely pairing, but to those who know them both well, it’s nothing short of perfect.

The Authors

Matthew Costello (US-based) is the author of many successful novels published around the globe, including Vacation (2011, in development for film), Home (2014) and Beneath Still Waters (1989), which was adapted by Lionsgate as a major motion picture. He has written for The Disney Channel, BBC, SyFy and has also designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed The 7th Guest, Doom 3, Rage, Pirates of the Caribbean, and, with Neil Richards, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier.

Neil Richards (based in the UK) has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 30 video games including The Da Vinci Code and Planet of the Apes, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.

MATTHEW COSTELLONEIL RICHARDS

Fool’s Gold

1. Last Call

Ewan Mackay, sitting at a table by himself, in a corner of the Crown and Anchor, looked around the pub.

Busy night – it being Friday, and many of the lads having been paid – drinking and laughing as if they’d never have to face another tough day on the farm, or a cold early morning out at sea.

Pick your poison, Ewan thought.

These jobs were dead-end – just hard work and sweat leading nowhere.

Whereas he, as he’d thought so many times... already on a completely different path.

His future? Bright and beckoning.

But he had other things to think about. The present, not the future.

He took a sip of his beer and scanned the crowded pub.

Yes – there she was.

Pushing through the throng on the far side of the bar, a tray tucked under her arm, a young woman with – yes –sad eyes.

The reason for Ewan coming to this rough and rowdy pub tonight, rather than any of the others that dotted Littlehampton.

Sally Mason.

He had asked her name a few visits earlier – and now she also looked over at him as she moved from table to table gathering empty glasses and stacking them on her tray.

A gentle, sweet smile. Those beautiful eyes – were they a dark green? – looked around the room.

She was careful with that glance with her husband – Clyde Mason, the publican – manning the beer pumps only yards away.

Ewan guessed that this bruiser of a man – tall, with bulky arms that were more than a match for a night’s endless pulls on those pumps – wasn’t aware of how lonely his wife was looking, standing there, in the crowded pub.

Ewan watched as Sally’s husband left the bar, went over to the table behind his wife, and banged on it with his fist, startling her. Then he actually grabbed her upper arm, yanking her round.

No one – it seemed – dared watch but Ewan.

With a nod of his boulder-like head, Clyde rammed a cloth into her hand and indicated she should get those damn tables wiped soon as the glasses were out of the way.

Ewan knew that Sally was trapped here.

Cleaning, wiping, washing.

The glasses. The tables. The floors. An endless round.

What a life.

Tonight, he felt that loneliness, that lost look in her eyes, even more than he had ever done before.

And watching the publican treat her like that?

Too much, Ewan thought.

So when Sally took the glasses back to the bar and returned to the tables with a cloth, ignoring the drunken comments from some of these late-night drinkers...

All that roused Ewan to do something this night that he hadn’t done before.

The pub was still thick with working men, downing their pints... what he was about to do might go unnoticed.

He stood up and walked over to Sally as she cleaned.

*

Her eyes widened as he slipped close to the table she was cleaning and leaned against a pillar.

“Well, I must say... Sally, isn’t it? You look more bored tonight than I’ve ever seen you look.”

Sally shrugged.

“Just a Friday night. Same as ever. All the lads putting it away.”

“I can see that,” Ewan said, smiling. “Though I think with ‘last orders’ at any minute, it’ll be hard to get them all to clear out.”

Ewan kept his eyes on Sally. This chat – about to get risky.

“Saw your husband just now. What he did. You know – it shouldn’t be that way.”

Sally seemed confused by the statement.

“What do you mean. That way?”

“Treating you like he owns you. Grabbing hold of you like—”

“Shh! Quiet. What do you think you’re saying?”

Ewan paused.

“You don’t deserve this life. With him. No one does.” Then he hazarded a guess. “Bet you’d like to leave. Have I got that right? Maybe even right now? Just go away somewhere... anywhere?”

She took a moment, then nodded. Ewan had guessed right.

But then, reality: “I have to work. Don’t have a choice. Cleaning’s got to be done tonight. Can’t be left till morning.”

“Well, I won’t lie. I’ve been watching you... him. And if you ever need someone – to just talk to – I can listen. You should be listened to.”

He meant it. The situation made him angry. In this day and age? Bullish husbands had no place.

“You deserve better than this, Sally.”

Sally hesitated, then shook her head as if the whole idea that there might be a different way for her to live her life was just too much to imagine.

And then, Ewan saw Sally’s eyes drift to her right, then up.

As luck, or fate, would have it, Ewan guessed who had just appeared behind him.

*

“What the hell do ya think you’re doin’?”

The accent was as thick as one could imagine for a mix of working man’s Sussex and local seaside mumble.

Ewan saw that those same arms that had been working the beer pumps, were now folded across his chest. On display.

Meaty looking things, Ewan thought.

“Just having a little chat, that’s all. You were a bit rough with her before, eh, old chap? Big fella like you. That’s not right.”

Ewan hesitated about his next words but then, what the hell. “Sally here... maybe she deserves better than spending her life in a smoky pub with you ordering her around.”

Ewan looked down to Sally, whose face now showed only horror.

Making Ewan think, Should I be more worried about this than I am?

And when he turned back to Clyde, to see how their next exchange might go, he saw instead, a thick fist flying right at him, no time to duck, bob or weave or any of that stuff he’d learned at his university’s boxing classes.

No. That fist landed squarely – and hard –on the left side of Ewan’s mouth, knocking him to the ground, his fall backwards broken by a few of the men who had gathered close, their anticipation high.

A pub fight at hand.

*

Ewan could feel a wetness – his lip open, bleeding. His head wasn’t feeling too good either. He got to his feet as quick as he could.

He saw – out of the corner of his eye – Sally glare at her husband. This – maybe not the first such encounter she had witnessed. Then she disappeared towards the side door of the pub, past the lounge bar used by ladies who liked their beer as well.

So now, it was just him and this burly bear of a man, Clyde Mason, who’d caught him – no contesting that point –talking with his wife. Telling her to think... maybe about getting away.

Man has a reasonable case, Ewan thought. But such largesse and understanding now needed to be replaced with a more primal urge: self-defence.

Ewan raised his fists and, wasting no time, sent a few punches flying back at Clyde. That first volley mostly not landing, save one that made a solid hit on Clyde’s brick-like left shoulder.

Not enough to send the man down, but the publican did stagger back some, a real fight engaged. But now Clyde unleashed his arms for full battle. Ewan realised that if another blow from one of them landed anywhere near his head, that would definitely not be good.

They kept throwing punches as the men around them shouted until—

Someone came and stood between them – a wiry man, as lean as Clyde was bulky.

“Clyde, copper’s coming. I’d call time! Come on, now!”

Then the wiry man, no acquaintance that Ewan knew, looked at him.

“And you? You better get the hell out of here.”

Which, all things considered, sounded like a good idea.

But he couldn’t resist, as he lowered his arms, a last word to Clyde.

“Later, eh? This isn’t finished.”

Ewan, feeling honour intact, threaded his way through the sea of drinking men to the door.

He couldn’t see Sally and realised she must have run outside during the fight. Probably fed up with her husband starting a fight every time some chap looked at her.

She can’t have gotten too far away, Ewan thought.

Maybe he could catch up with her. Talk some more...

About the future, about all the possibilities ahead, about the world changing!

And the idea that, these days, you don’t always have to stay.

2. On the Quay

Sally Mason hadn’t gone too far from the pub, walking determinedly in the direction of the seafront, threading her way through the dingy backstreets of Littlehampton.

A nasty wind had sprung up: a storm coming, Ewan was sure.

He’d spent much of his youth messing about on a boats, and couldn’t help taking a reading of the weather any time he stepped outside.

This gusty, cold night meant that the streets were empty – so it didn’t take Ewan long to spot Sally and catch up with her.

Hearing steps behind her, she turned back to face whoever had followed her. A nervous look... then, recognising him, she slowed her pace.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she said.

And as she kept walking, Ewan fell in beside her. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay. Seems I made your husband a tad upset.”

“I’m okay – but looks like he clipped you a good one, right on your mouth.”

Ewan wiped at his lip, already the blood slowing; nothing he wouldn’t have got a dozen times on the rugby field.

“Oh that? Takes more than that to dissuade me.”

“Dissuade you... From what?”

He now – gently – touched her elbow, making her stop. “Where are you going? Home?”

“Got a funny idea about my life, don’t you? Home’s three rooms above the pub and one of them’s storage.”

“So what – you just walking?”

“Walking. Thinking.”

“How about I come with you? A little walk along the Esplanade, right by the sea, the boats? Why, I bet it’s amazing tonight. Wind like this. Waves crashing that will take your breath away!”

“I don’t want my breath taken away.”

Ewan laughed. “All right. How about you talk, and I’ll listen?”

Sally looked right at him, Ewan noted. But he also observed she didn’t exactly say “no” straight out of hand.

“You’re mad. I’m a married woman, and I’m having a walk on my own. Least I’m out of that smoky pub!”

“Look, Sally, your husband will be busy for a quite a bit longer. Right? Think of it this way: you can escape for a few minutes – nice quiet walk in the dark. What do you have to lose?”

Then he saw it – a wavering in her eyes.

Indeed, Ewan thought, her daily life must be a grind, and perhaps his choice of the word “escape” was exactly the right one.

A last little nudge – a smile. “Why not, Sally?”

Finally, the woman smiled – and that looked wonderful, Ewan thought.

“All right. Just a quick walk. The air will be good. Quick, yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

Then he took her arm – selecting a path through the dark streets, the wind whistling, the residents probably in bed already.

Ewan led Sally down to the Esplanade, wondering...

Was it wrong of him to suggest to her that a different life could be found?

*

“Beautiful, eh?” he said, both he and Sally leaning on a railing by the old bandstand, and just below them, on the beach, a line of small boats and dinghies pulled up, safe from the crashing waves.

No moon, so it was dark, the stars twinkling brightly between scudding clouds.

“Yes,” Sally said, her voice loud enough that he could hear it over the smashing waves and the keening wind blowing through all the boats’ rigging. “But that sea out there? Always frightens me when it’s like this.”

“Doubt there’ll be anyone out there tonight.” He turned to her. “Looks like we got all of it to ourselves.”

He waited until she took her eyes off the sea, a sudden gust kicking up a flurry of foam that caught the scant light.

Then Sally turned to him.

“Talking to you... it’s different. You listen to me, you know?”

“I would hope so. I don’t want to stir up any trouble, but I’ve seen you... these last few nights.”

A small smile from her. “I know. Looking none too happy.”

“Not at all.”

She remained motionless, facing him with those beautiful forest-green eyes – now looking so dark.

But he genuinely was concerned for her, so he held her gaze, nothing more.

Ewan didn’t even have to say it: I’m not like the others.

Sally seemed to understand. Then she said, perhaps even with a hint of disappointment: “I—I’d better go. Getting late.”

He nodded as if in agreement, and turned to the sea. “Yes. I can walk you back to the pub. Glad we came here, and—”

But then he saw something.

“What the—?”

“What’s wrong? What do you—”

He raised his arm and pointed.

“See? Out there. A mile or so out. A boat with no running lights.”

Ewan kept his eyes on that shape, almost impossible to make out on the choppy sea.

“I don’t see – oh, yes. There!”

Ewan pointed. “That spot there? I know it well. That’s the site of the wreck of the Occitania. Marked with a buoy and everything. No one has any business going there. Dangerous as hell if you get too close.” He turned to her. “But also. People around here, well, they think that site... it’s almost sacred. All the souls lost, so close to shore.”

“It’s cold,” Sally said. “I should go...”

True enough, that wind was blowing even harder now, but Ewan felt worried by what he saw: a boat, middle of the night, going where no boat should go. Mysterious.

“Maybe they’re in trouble,” he said.

He turned to Sally, and excitedly grabbed her arms. “My dinghy is just down there on the beach. I could sail out there; see if they’re all right; ask them what they think they’re doing?”

Sally fully stepped away, shaking her head.

“No. Sail out there? Now? You’re mad. Storm like this? And I even heard that wreck is haunted.”

Ewan laughed.

“All the better then! Don’t want some interlopers disturbing whoever haunts a sunken ship, now do we?”

Sally took another step back. “Inter—? I don’t know what that means. A—and you shouldn’t go out there either. Not safe. And I have to go. Now!”

Ewan looked again out to sea. Yes – still there – the dark shape of the boat just yards from the buoy.

“I’ll be fine, and, yes, best you head home. Safe and sound. Tell you all about it... next time I see you.”

“What next time?”

“There can be a next time, Sally. No. There will be a next time. Will you be all right getting home?”

She nodded.

Ewan put one hand on her arm and looked into those dark eyes. Then he turned and ran along the Esplanade to where he knew his dinghy was beached.

Yes, there she was! Good old Tuppence!

As he dragged her across to the slipway that led down from the beach, off the stones and into the crashing waves, he looked up at the Esplanade.

Sally still stood, watching him. He gave her a quick wave.

She waved back – but then disappeared from view behind the railing.

Gone back to the pub, he assumed and, for a second, he wondered if he was doing the right thing here.

Did he really care about that boat out there? Or was it just to show off to Sally?

No, he knew this was a duty. The lifeboat station just along the beach had closed years ago. No time to alert the lifeboat at Selsey.

If the boat was in peril, he might be the only one who could help.