In the Eye of the Storm

  IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

  By Robert Thier

  Copyright © 2016 Robert Thier

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Smashwords

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  Table of Contents

  Cold and Hot

  The Sister-Cousin-Fiancée-Secretary-Dogsbody

  Sweet Reunion on the Rocks

  Happy Homecoming

  A Study in Golden

  Oh Gentle Lady, Spare my Feet…

  To Watch for Fat and Gold

  Only a Factory Girl

  Travel Plans

  The Nice Ocean

  The Female Man who is a Woman

  The Art of Suggestive Name-calling

  The Plight of My Plighted Troth

  In Dark Alleys

  Grannyfaking for Beginners

  Suspicions

  True Fake Love

  Favours and Fires

  Explosions and Abductions

  Bizarre Bazaar

  Hot and Sweaty

  Trapped

  Camelkaboom

  The Art of Losing your Way

  Communication Problems

  Ambrose

  Special Additional Material

  Chapter Titles are a Waste of Ink

  They Still Are!

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Other Books by Robert Thier

  Upcoming Titles

  Cold and Hot

  My eyes roamed across the deck, searching. I spotted my victim about a dozen yards away, leaning against the railing. He was smoking a pipe, relaxed, quite unaware of what I had in store for him.

  ‘Captain!’

  My water-soaked boots squeaked with the kind of wrath possessed only by a girl who has just escaped drowning in the North Sea like a wet rat. He made the mistake of turning towards me with an ingratiating smile.

  I wasn’t really in the mood for smiles. My hand shot out, grabbing him by the collar.

  ‘Captain, what is this I hear about you having given the order to stop searching and turn back? Have you found him yet?’

  I knew he hadn’t before the words were out of my mouth. That smile of his, as if he were dealing with a mentally incompetent damsel who needed to be treated with care so she wouldn’t snap in half, told me all I needed to know.

  ‘Miss Linton.’ Reaching out, Captain Crockford patted my hand reassuringly - or at least in a manner he thought would be reassuring. ‘We’ve already combed the ocean for Mr… what did you say his name was again?’

  ‘Ambrose! Rikkard Ambrose!’

  ‘We’ve already combed the ocean for Mr Ambrose for five days in a row. That’s how long he’s been out here, Miss Linton, five days! Even if he managed to crawl onto a piece of wreckage somehow, a human being cannot survive longer than three days without fresh water. And if he was just afloat in the sea… well, the cold water would have killed him in no more than two hours.’

  ‘No! He must be alive! He must be!’

  ‘Even if, by some miracle, he still is, it is not my responsibility to look for him.’ For the first time, a note of annoyance crept into the captain’s voice. I barely kept myself from trying to strangle him. ‘True, the Waterguard[1] has always helped victims of shipwreck, but our main duty is and always shall be guarding Her Majesty’s coast against smugglers, not wasting our time on fruitless searches!’

  ‘I don’t care about that, Captain! Keep searching!’

  ‘I repeat, there’s nothing alive to search for, Miss Linton. Your… what is he again to you?’

  In spite of the intense cold, I felt my face flush.

  Blast, blast, blast! Why do you have to blush? Nothing happened between him and you! Nothing whatsoever! Well, except for that moment, just before the ship went down…

  No. That was nothing!

  ‘My cousin!’ I lied.

  ‘Your cousin, Miss Linton, will not be found alive. I’m afraid he is fish food by now.’

  ‘No! Never!’

  ‘Most regrettable, of course, most regrettable.’ The captain puffed out a smoke ring. ‘But you’ll have to face the inevitable sooner or later. If you’d like to sit down and have a shot of brandy, I could…’

  I told him where he could stick his brandy.

  ‘Miss Linton! That’s hardly appropriate! I…’

  ‘Oh, to hell with what’s appropriate!’ Grabbing the man’s collar more tightly, I shook him, trying to make him see with the sheer force of my stare. ‘Have you got any idea whom you are about to doom to a wet grave, Captain? Any idea how important he is?’

  The captain puffed out another smoke ring.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I’m sure he was very important to you and you feel his loss greatly, Miss-’

  ‘I don’t mean important to me, personally,’ I cut him off.

  Although he is. Oh, how very much he is.

  ‘I mean important. Think very carefully, Captain. Have you never heard the name Rikkard Ambrose before?’

  The captain opened his mouth to blow yet another smoke ring - then he choked, and coughed out the smoke through his nostrils. Underneath the tan of his weathered skin, I could see the colour slowly drain from his face.

  Ha!

  ‘Y-you don’t mean… You can’t mean the Rikkard Ambrose? The financial magnate?’

  As if there were any others like him!

  I met the captain’s gaze without flinching.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Captain Crockford’s teeth clenched down so hard, they nearly bit his pipe in half.

  ‘Well?’ I raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Are you going to keep searching?’

  *~*~**~*~*

  Captain Crockford didn’t just keep searching - he called in three more ships to help. I didn’t see them at first, the white of their billowing sails almost invisible against the white cliffs of Dover. But when men on the other ships started waving signal flags, coordinating search patterns, I realized we were not alone any longer.

  There are more of us now! And we’re going to comb the whole breadth and width of the English Channel until we find him!

  ‘Man overboard!’ The cry from the prow of the boat sent me whirling around. ‘Man overboard ahead!’

  I reached the prow just as the dinghy was lowered into the water. The men began to row, and I looked around wildly, trying to see where they were going.

  ‘Where is he? Where is he?’

  The ship’s lieutenant, who was standing beside me, also gazing after the departing men, pointed to a spot not too far away from the ship.

  ‘There, Miss!’

  I followed his outstretched arm with my eyes, and saw a man in a dark tailcoat floating in the water - floating facedown. Without warning, a feeling of nausea came over me.

  Well, look on the bright side: if you’re going to vomit, the ship’s railing is just a few feet ahead. Do it over the side and nobody will care. You might just throw yourself over the side while you’re at it, too.

  I felt like laughing and crying and screaming my rage all at the same time.

  Calm down! It’s just a man wearing a dark tailcoat! Lots of men wear dark tailcoats. It doesn’t have to be him.

  No, it didn’t have to be him. I kept telling myself that, over and over. But the question kept coming back: what
if it is?

  The men out on the water pulled the motionless body into their little boat and returned to the ship with swift dips of the oars. I stood motionless, awaiting their return. Awaiting my doom, or my salvation.

  And since when have you been so bloody melodramatic?

  The answer to that was simple. Since him, of course.

  A rope was tied around the dead man’s torso, and he was pulled up the side of the ship until he slid over the railing and landed on the deck with a wet thwack. I didn’t look. I didn’t dare to.

  ‘Miss?’ It wasn’t the lieutenant’s voice. Captain Crockford had appeared beside me, looking not half as relaxed and aloof as earlier. His face still was rather pale. ‘Miss, I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to identify the body.’

  Somehow, I managed to swallow around the giant lump in my throat.

  Get a grip and look! You owe him that. You would be dead if not for him.

  ‘All right, Captain. Step aside, please.’

  The captain did as I asked and offered me his arm for support, but I didn’t take it. I was a wreck, but I would have to feel a lot worse than this to need a man’s arm to stand upright. Lifting my chin, I forced my gaze towards the contorted figure on the planks of the deck.

  ‘Thank the Lord!’ I breathed in a sigh of relief so deep I could hardly believe my lungs had the space for all that air. ‘It’s not him!’

  ‘Are you sure, Miss?’ the captain asked, still sounding worried. ‘I mean, with his face looking like that…’

  ‘I’m sure!’

  Even with his face swollen and horribly bluish, I could instantly tell that the man on the deck was not Mr Ambrose. In fact, it would hardly have been possible to find a man who looked less like Rikkard Ambrose than the pudgy individual with the sodden black moustache that lay there in front of me.

  ‘Well, what does Mr Ambrose look like?’ the captain asked.

  A choked sob escaped me. ‘Why? Are you expecting to fish so many men out of the sea that you’ll have to pick and choose?’

  ‘Just tell me, Miss Linton.’

  With a shrug, I gave in. I didn’t have the strength to resist right now. Following right on the heels of the relief that the dead man wasn’t Mr Ambrose had come the horror of knowing that this was what he probably looked like now: blue, swollen, stiff and cold.

  Well, he’s always been stiff and cold, so at least that won’t change, will it?

  Another sob escaped me.

  ‘Tell me, Miss Linton,’ the captain insisted.

  Oh, what the hell! If he thought it would help…

  ‘He’s tall, dark…’

  …and handsome. So bloody perfectly handsome!

  ‘…and, um, dark. Dark-haired, I mean.’ I coughed, hoping that nobody was noticing my ears reddening. A drowned man was lying right in front of me, for Pete’s sake! How could I think of something like that at a time like this?

  ‘Beard, Miss Linton?’

  ‘He hasn’t got a beard. Not even a moustache.’

  The captain’s eyebrows rose. ‘No beard?’

  I shook my head. ‘None at all.’

  But a jaw you could break rocks on. And eyes, dark and coloured like the sea…

  I shook myself. What bloody use was his eye-colour going to be to them for fishing him out of the ocean?

  Focus, Lilly! Focus on what’s important!

  ‘Hm. No beard… He’s not an old man, then, Miss Linton? I would have thought to have reached his position in life…’

  ‘No. I don’t know how old he is exactly, but no more than twenty-five, I’d guess. His face is as smooth as polished granite, and as hard and unmoving, most of the time.’

  But his lips… They can be so very soft.

  Blast! I was supposed to give a description here! Clenching my hands, I bit back the tears that were threatening to spill over and concentrated on one thing, and one thing only: Rikkard Ambrose.

  ‘His figure?’ the captain enquired, taking notes in a small notebook he had snatched out of his pocket.

  ‘He’s leanly built.’

  But he has muscles, even though one doesn’t see them at first glance. And you’ve felt every single one of them.

  ‘His voice? Just in case we hear him calling for help?’

  ‘Quite deep, but most of all curt and cold.’ My lips twitched. So curt and cold… ‘If you hear him calling, he’ll probably not be calling for help but ordering you to come.’

  What wouldn’t I give to hear him snapping at me again, making demands, ordering me around. Before, it had almost driven me crazy. Now that he wasn’t here anymore, I missed the bloody tyrant! I missed his eyes, his voice, his overwhelming presence. I even missed his stinginess and gruff, biting remarks. But most of all, I missed the knowledge that he was safe and well. I missed him. All of him.

  Blast! That’s all you need! After the way he treated you, you’ve gone and become fond of the bastard!

  Although ‘fond’ might not be exactly the right word to describe the way I was feeling, I admitted to myself, my ears still burning.

  ‘Miss Linton?’ The captain’s voice pulled me from my reverie. ‘Miss Linton, are you all right? You look a little unwell.’

  ‘It’s just… seeing that poor, unfortunate soul,’ I lied, gesturing to the corpse on the floor, from which any remnant of a soul already had departed.

  ‘Oh, of course, Miss Linton. How thoughtless of me. Men, wrap him up and carry him away! Now!’

  ‘I… I’m sorry, Captain. It’s just… I’ve never seen a dead man before.’

  My goodness, you’re good at lying today, aren’t you?

  The captain made an impatient gesture. ‘Lieutenant! Fetch a glass of brandy for Miss Linton! And signal the other ships to keep looking.’

  ‘Aye aye, Sir!’

  When the brandy came, I didn’t say no. On the contrary. I tossed the whole contents of the glass back in one large gulp. When I lowered the glass, the lieutenant was looking at me, wide-eyed, as were all other members of the crew in the vicinity.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Never seen a lady take a sip of brandy before?’

  ‘Not quite like that, Miss, no.’ The lieutenant bowed. ‘If you’ll excuse me… I have to get back to my other men, to oversee the search.’

  And so we continued around the white cliffs of Dover and past beaches and bays. For hours and hours and hours we scoured the water and the coastline, now and again exchanging flag signals with another ship, but mostly just staring into the water, searching, always searching. The monotony was almost as bad as the bone-deep fear.

  And when the monotony was interrupted, that was even worse. Because the only possible interruption was another corpse.

  ‘N-no. That’s not him, either.’ Shaking my head, I turned away from the dead form on the deck. ‘Please… take him away?’

  ‘Of course, Miss Linton. Remove that thing at once, men!’

  ‘Aye aye, Sir!’

  And again, hours of staring into the blue-grey sea would follow. If only the sea weren’t exactly the same colour as his eyes. Maybe, just maybe that would have made it a little easier. That blasted man had to have eyes the same blasted colour as the blasted ocean he was probably drowning in at this very moment!

  ‘Captain! Miss Linton!’

  The shout from behind me made me turn. It wasn’t the usual shout of ‘Man overboard’ that heralded the finding of another corpse. It wasn’t even one of the search party who had called. No, the ship’s signaller, brightly coloured flags in hand, motioned for the captain and me to join him.

  ‘What is it, Watkins?’ the captain demanded, marching towards the man. I was only a few steps behind.

  ‘Signals, Captain! From one of the other ships! And not the usual signals about search patterns, either! They’re sending a message!’

  Shielding his eyes against the sun, the captain stared off towards the ship to which the signaller pointed. I, too, followed the man’s arm w
ith my gaze, and saw nothing more than a few spots of colour in the distance.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I demanded. ‘I don’t know flag signals!’

  The colour in the distance changed. ‘That’s an M!’ The signaller shouted.

  ‘An M?’

  ‘Messages are sent in colour-movement combinations. Every combination stands for a different letter in the alphabet. That’s an A! And that’s and N!’

  M-A-N…

  ‘Man! They’re sending a signal about a man!’

  Or maybe a mantis…

  ‘What kind of man?’ I demanded, telling my stupid inner voice to shut up. ‘Is he all right? Where’s the signal coming from?’

  The signaller ignored me with the thoroughness of a man who does nothing but swing flags all day. Full of concentration, he stared into the distance.

  ‘W!’ he shouted. ‘A-S-H-E-D…’

  Man washed? What the hell…? Had Mr Ambrose had taken a bubble bath?

  ‘A-S-H-O-R-E…’

  My heart made a leap! Man washed ashore! Of course! Oh God… if he had been washed ashore, did that mean he couldn’t swim by himself anymore? Did that mean that he couldn’t move at all, that he was stiff and cold and…

  No! Please, Lord, let him have escaped! He can’t be… He just can’t!

  I was just about to open my mouth again, to demand to know more, when the signaller’s next yelled letter hit me in the stomach like a sledgehammer.

  ‘A!’

  My mouth was open, but no sound came out.

  ‘L!’

  Oh God… could it be?

  ‘I!’

  Yes, please! Please let it be true!

  ‘V!’

  Yes! Yes! Yes! Just one more letter and…

  ‘E!’

  Yes!

  ‘He’s alive?’ Crossing the distance between myself in the signaller in the fraction of a second, I grabbed him by his lapels and shook him. ‘He’s alive! Tell me, where is he? Blast you, tell me where he is!’

  The Sister-Cousin-Fiancée-Secretary-Dogsbody

  I reached the small village of St. Margaret's at Cliffe that same evening, just as the sun was setting. A dinghy set me ashore on the beach, beyond where the cliff ended.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to accompany you up to the village, Miss Linton?’ the captain asked. He had insisted on coming ashore with me. ‘If the gentleman needs anything, or if you can’t find the way…’