Safe Harbor at last

1. Kempton

1

Kempton

Meredith

THE CAPTAIN GLANCES AT ME. “Meredith, what is this? Who is this man?”

Kempton grunts. A look of animal cunning crosses his face as his eyes narrow. “Meredith, explain the situation, if you can.”

But I can’t. I don’t know what’s going on. And my legs are trembling. It’s taken all my nerve to show an unfazed front to Kempton while I waited for the Captain’s return. I have nothing left.

The Captain dashes over to me and leads me to a chair. “Sit down, Merry. You’re as white as a ghost. Don’t you want this man here?”

I look up and shake my head only to find that Kempton has crept up behind the Captain and is leering over the Captain’s shoulder at me.

“Go on, explain, Meredith,” he hisses.

The Captain spins round catching Kempton in the solar plexus with the thrust of his elbow. He follows the blow up with a mighty shove knocking Kempton off his balance. Kempton lands on the floor with a thump, his hands clutched to his belly while he tries to draw in his breath.

The Captain moves in with a swift kick to Kempton’s flank. “Get up, you bastard. What have you done to Meredith? And who the hell are you?”

Kempton scrambles to his feet anxious to avoid another kick. He backs off to the door, still holding his arms around himself and wheezing. “You really don’t know? Well now, that’s interesting, isn’t it, Meredith?” he croaks out to me.

I must be going mad. I’m lost in a crazy parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Kempton’s alive against all odds. I’m taking part in a play where the actors are reading from different scripts. I can only stare from one to the other in bewilderment.

The Captain asks me, “Meredith, do you want this man gone?”

Before I can answer Kempton interrupts, “Let’s not be hasty, Captain. We have much to talk over here. I’ve come to collect my daughter, Susan. The child you call Sukey.”

The Captain turns away from Kempton and looks at me. “Sukey? This is about Sukey? Meredith, is this the swine who kidn*pped you both in South Africa?”

I’m even more confused now. Why doesn’t the Captain know? Am I the only sane person in the room. “Captain, you know it’s him. Kempton. Back from the dead. You untied his hands, remember? Your mercy allowed him to make his way to the shore. And now he’s back to plague Sukey and me again.”

“Oh no, he’s not,” bellows the Captain advancing on Kempton with his fists up. “Get out this minute before I make it impossible for you to leave on your own two feet.”

Bully and coward that he is, Kempton casts a vicious look my way before stumbling to the doorway. He stops on the threshold and calls back over his shoulder, “You haven’t heard the last of me, Meredith. You and your precious captain. There’s something funny going on here and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. You’ll see.”

The Captain crowds up behind him. “I said, Get out.”

Kempton thumps off down the corridor with the Captain chasing him, leaving me to make sense of what’s happened. I can’t stop shivering as the delayed shock of seeing Kempton rise from the dead hits me full on. Held back while I played it cool, it rolls over me wiping out coherent thought.

I’m not sure I can believe what my eyes saw or what my ears heard. Kempton recognized the Captain, but the Captain didn’t seem to recognize Kempton. Was that what happened, or was my take on things colored by the shock of seeing Kempton again?

A cacophony of barking dogs and angry blustering reaches me from downstairs to be cut off as the front door slams.

I’m still taking deep breaths to control my panic when the Captain comes back into the room. He comes straight over to me. His face is strained and his eyes anxious. For the first time in weeks he rests his hand on my shoulder.

“Merry, come down to the kitchen with me and we’ll fix you a drink. You’re in shock,” he says, as he puts his hands under my arms to raise me from my chair.

I stagger to my feet and sway against him. I can’t believe that Kempton is back in my life and threatening to take Sukey away. Shocked as I am, I know he won’t have the legal right to do that. Not here in England. This isn’t Vermont. But the panic in my gut is not listening to my head. It’s pulling the blood away from my extremities. My legs crumple beneath me. It’s only the Captain’s quick reaction in sweeping me up into his arms that prevents me from collapsing on the floor.

As he hurries down the stairs with me, I could swear his lips brush against my hair, but I must have imagined it because he settles me in a kitchen chair and stands back keeping his distance.

Goldie and Bijou circle me giving a nervous twitch to their tails and staring up at us, trying to read the gravity of the situation from our body language.

I’m still shaking. The Captain pours out a glass of cognac for us both. When he hands me mine our hands touch. Such a deep longing shoots through me that I can’t hold back from saying, “Oh Captain, I miss you so much.”

He takes a seat opposite me and reaches across for my hands. He hasn’t done that since his brother died.

“Merry, be patient with me. I’m still trying to come to terms with Mike’s death. And we have more important things to worry about now, don’t we?”

My God. Sukey. I snatch my hands away and jump up from my chair. “We must check she’s all right. Now.”

“Kempton won’t know where she is. He didn’t seem to know she wasn’t at home.”

“I didn’t tell him. I played for time until you came home, Captain. But I won’t be able to sleep if we don’t fetch her from her friend’s. There’s a chance Kempton could know. He’s employed private detectives before now.”

“Right, phone and say we’ll pick her up in twenty minutes. That’ll give her time to get dressed. I’ll call Higgins to come across and man the fort while we fetch Sukey. We’ll have a war conference when we’ve put her to bed.”

I go out into the hall to call the parents of the friend at whose house Sukey is staying for the pajama party, leaving the Captain to summon Higgins over from his flat above the stables.

When Higgins arrives the Captain and I are ready to leave. The Captain tells him that the Mr Robertson was really Kempton, the man who kidn*pped Sukey and me.

Higgins falls onto a chair and turns pale. “Cap’n, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I never met the man Kempton, and I wasn’t expecting anything like that. I just took him at face value. He had an American accent and said he was from Vermont.”

“It’s not your fault. He took us all by surprise. Meredith thought he was dead.”

That throws me. Am I the only one who thought he was dead? I know we kept what we’d done to Kempton quiet. Apart from me, only Piet, Clara…and the Captain were in the secret. What does the Captain mean?

He’s still talking to Higgins. “We’ll discuss it when we get back with Sukey. While we’re away I want you to check every window and every door. Make sure the house is secure. Switch on that security equipment we never use: the cameras, the alarms.”

“Yes, Cap’n. I’ll start at once,” says Higgins leaping to his feet, anxious to put right the mistake he unknowingly made in admitting Kempton to the house.

The Captain and I coax the dogs back into their beds in the corner of the kitchen and leave. As we roar off along the drive I have my first moment of clarity since Kempton appeared from behind the door. We have to collect Sukey to make sure she’s safe back home. There’s always the slight possibility that Kempton could turn up at Sukey’s friend’s house purporting to have our permission to take her away. Or he could snatch her. Anything’s possible with such a man. But we don’t want to frighten her. We can’t tell her Kempton is around. It took her years to get over our a*******n in South Africa.

“What reason can we give for taking her away in the middle of a pajama party, Captain? We can’t tell her the truth. She’ll be scared out of her wits.”

“Let me think.”

We’re turning down the road to the friend’s house.

“Captain?”

He pulls into the parking strip in front of the garage, sets the handbrake and switches off the engine. He reaches across for my hand and holds it in his for a few seconds, smiling at me all the while. “If you don’t mind a little white lie, we can tell her that Bijou is unwell — not drastically ill, just off color — and we think he needs her company. She loves her little dog to bits. She won’t stop and query such a reason.”

The front door opens and Sukey comes out with her friend’s mother. The Captain raises my hand to his lips and drops a kiss on my fingers. “You stay here, Merry. No need for two of us. I’ll get her.”

And with that he swings his long legs out of the Range Rover and strides across to the porch. He hugs Sukey against his thigh and ruffles her hair. She smiles up at him. The Captain thanks the hostess and brings Sukey back to the car.

“What’s wrong, Merry?” she asks me as she climbs into the back seat with her overnight bag. “We were just getting ready to have a midnight feast and you’ve spoiled it.”

I twist round to face my disgruntled daughter. I don’t blame her for being annoyed. “Darling, you know we wouldn’t want to spoil your fun. We couldn’t decide whether to come and fetch you or not, but we decided you’d want us to if you knew Bijou needed you.”

“Bijou? What’s happened?” she slides forward and clutches the back of my seat.

The Captain starts up the car and we ease out onto the main road.

“Merry? Tell me please.”

“Darling, there’s nothing seriously wrong with Bijou. He’s got a bad tummy, and he’s running a slight temperature. The vet’s been to see him and given him some medicine, but Bijou’s miserable. He’s missing you. He needs to sleep on your bed tonight.”

Sukey flops back against her seat. “Phew, I was really worried. Of course, you should have fetched me. I can stay at my friend’s any time, can’t I?”

After I’ve put Sukey and Bijou to bed, the Captain, Higgins and I sit round the kitchen table to discuss Kempton and the danger he poses.

“Well,” says the Captain. “Let’s start with making sure we’re all on the same page. Merry, why don’t you brief Higgins on the situation.”

The Captain sits back in his chair as if to say it’s my story. I’m not sure how much he wants me to tell Higgins. “Everything?” I ask. “Even the stuff about what Kempton did to me?”

The Captain shifts his position, moving forwards and resting his elbows on the table, eyes wide with attention. “At this stage, Higgins needs to be fully in the picture. Don’t you agree?”

This won’t be easy for me. I hate thrashing over that horrible stuff. I thought it had gone forever. But we have to protect Sukey and knowledge is power. With fits and starts and many promptings from both the Captain and Higgins, I relate my story to Higgins. I fall silent, all emotion drained by the memories. Higgins has sunk into his seat, the weight of my disclosures crushing his aging spirit.

“I can’t credit the evil of the man,” he says at last. “And to think he came back here tonight to try again.” He sits up abruptly. “What I don’t understand is why we don’t call in the police.”

Shivers of alarm run through me at the idea. “We can’t. We just can’t.”

Higgins looks at the Captain with his eyebrows raised. “Captain?”

“Tell him, Merry, while I make tea.” He gets up to fill the kettle.

“It’s complicated,” I say. “Clara lied about Sukey’s birth. Kempton could say he was Sukey’s father and I am her real mother. DNA would prove that. I’d never be able to go home to Vermont because he could get his hands on her there.”

Higgins frowns. “But you could stay here in England. I’m sure the courts would see Clara did what she had to do to protect you and Sukey.”

The Captain stands with his back to the kitchen counter listening to our conversation. I appeal to him, “Captain, you want me to tell Higgins the rest?”

“You have to, Merry. He has to know everything if we are to form a tight team here.”

“There’s more?” asks Higgins as he sits up straight again.

“You remember when we were kidn*pped in South Africa and the Captain rescued us while his brother Mike captained the Albion?”

“Of course, I do. It was my idea.”

I look at the Captain again for his approval and he nods.

“What you don’t know is that when we flew to the ship in the helicopter — just Piet, Clara, Sukey, the Captain and me — the Captain pushed Kempton out into the Atlantic Ocean.”

Higgins gasps. “No wonder you thought he was dead.”

“That’s the problem. Kempton could accuse the Captain of attempted murder. So no police. We have to handle this on our own.”

“But won’t he do that anyway. Accuse the Captain?”

The Captain breaks in. “He’ll only do that if he’s cornered. There’s an international arrest warrant for k********g out on him, courtesy of the South African police.”

“So, how do you want us to handle this, Cap’n?”

The Captain places a mug of tea in front of each of us and takes his seat. “We have to tighten our security. Higgins, you should move over to the house and sleep in one of the guest bedrooms for the time being. Sukey must be watched at all times by one of us. If necessary, I’ll employ a body guard for her. The same goes for Meredith. She must take extra precautions. Is that understood, Merry?”

“Of course,” I say.

We drink our tea and mull over various details of our plan. Higgins is to stay in the house tonight and move over his essentials tomorrow. We’ve had no dinner so Higgins takes a couple of pizzas out of the freezer and bakes them in the oven for us. A bottle of wine and two pizzas later we’re ready for bed.

The two men check that the security cameras are working. Leaving Higgins to double check the locks on the downstairs doors, the Captain and I make our way up the stairs. I pause at Sukey’s bedroom door and peep in. She’s fast asleep with Bijou curled up at her feet.

The Captain looks over my shoulder. “I won’t let anything happen to her, Merry. I promise.”

He puts his arm around me and leads me to my bedroom, the bedroom we used to share. My heart lifts. Maybe he’ll stay with me tonight. But he drops a kiss on my cheek, turns and leaves me in the doorway as he walks off down the corridor to his chosen guest room again.