Elizabeth Edmondson - Voyage of Innocence

ELIZABETH EDMONDSON

Voyage of Innocence

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk

A Paperback Original 2006

Copyright © A.E. Books Ltd 2006

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014.

Cover illustration © John Harris. Cover images © Shutterstock.com (border).

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Physical Edition: 9780007184880

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2011 ISBN: 9780007438280

Version: 2018-05-08

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

PROLOGUE: OCTOBER 1938

PART ONE

SEPTEMBER 1938

ONE

TWO

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

PART TWO

1932

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

1933

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

1934

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

1935

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

1936

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

1937

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

1938

ONE

PART THREE

1938

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the same author

AFTERMATH

About the Publisher

For Jean Buchanan

a friend indeed

‘Sir, it’s an emergency.’

The officer of the watch tried again, speaking more loudly and urgently. ‘Sir, Captain, sir, please wake up. It’s an emergency.’

Reginald Sherston, Captain of the SS Gloriana , passenger vessel bound for India, lifted his grizzled head from his starched white pillow.

His eyes opened, the faded blue eyes of a man who had been at sea since he was a boy of fourteen. They looked at the first officer, a capable man, not given to fuss, and across to where his steward was hovering, his uniform in his hand.

‘Tell me about it, Mr Longbourne.’

Minutes later, Captain Sherston was on the bridge.

The officers in their white uniforms went quietly about their duties, the man at the wheel, locked on its course, was alert. They were all intent on what the first officer and captain were saying.

The ship sailed on through the waters of the Red Sea. Above them the sky blazed with the brilliant stars that were the gift of ocean travel, and were reflected in the inky, gentle swell. The throb of the engines was steady, reassuring.

‘This Mrs Hotspur, a passenger to Bombay, she went ashore at Port Said?’

‘Yes, sir. For the day.’

‘Did she go on one of the tours? To the pyramids?’

‘No, sir. She went ashore with friends.’

‘But came back on board.’

‘As far as we know, sir. Her re-embarkation card was handed in.’

‘And her stewardess says her bed wasn’t slept in last night? Who is the stewardess?’

‘Pigeon, sir.’

‘She didn’t report it?’

‘It happens, sir, that a woman might …’ the first officer looked at Captain Sherston’s Presbyterian face, and he swallowed, ‘… spend the night elsewhere, sir.’

‘The dining room stewards say she didn’t take breakfast, lunch or dinner today?’

‘That’s correct sir.’

‘And this ten-year-old boy, Peter Messenger, says he saw her standing by the rail on C-deck at about nine o’clock, one hour and ten minutes after we sailed from Port Said?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell me about Mrs Hotspur.’

The first officer consulted his notes. ‘Mrs Verity Hotspur. A widow, I understand. A very charming lady, and a cousin of Lady Claudia Vere, who is also aboard – she joined at Lisbon. It was Lady Claudia who raised the alarm.’

‘Lady Claudia Vere. So this missing passenger, Lady Claudia’s cousin, will turn out to be connected to all kinds of important people?’

‘Bound to be, sir.’

Captain Sherston let out a long sigh. ‘Emergency procedures for man overboard, Mr Longbourne.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Then when the orders had been given, the first officer asked, ‘Not much chance for her, is there?’

‘None whatever. If she missed the propellers, the sharks will have got her. If not, she’ll have drowned.’

Verity came out on deck into one of those pale autumn days that hovers between rain and sunshine; a breath of wind rippling the still waters of the harbour warned that summer was yielding to autumn.

Despite the light wool jacket she wore, she shivered, both from the chill in the air which heralded the approach of winter, and from an inner cold of fear. Fear for the times, with the shadow of war looming over the country she was leaving; fear for herself. She was no longer afraid of war itself, since there was nothing she could do to prevent or prepare for that. What made her afraid? Her nightmares? Klaus, and his successor, that flat-faced man with no discernible personality? Her future, her brother’s fate?

All of those.

Gulls drifted in the sky above her and bobbed on the oily waters far below, their eerie mews a counterpoint to the whistles and hoots of tugs and the flotilla of other vessels going to and fro in the busy harbour. Vee sniffed the salty air, the dockland tang of tar and sea and smoke, and it brought a bitter taste to her mouth. The vast area of Tilbury Docks, alive with the bustle and activity of one of the busiest ports in the world, held no appeal for her; she longed for the boat to leave, for the line of water between the ship and the quay to widen and become an arm’s length, a fifty-yard gap, for the land to fade into the distance, for there to be nothing but green-grey waves and foam and sky.

By some trick of the breeze, voices floated up to her from the quayside, the words reaching her ears with extraordinary clarity. A cheerful woman’s voice: ‘I say, isn’t that Mrs Verity Hotspur up there? Looking fearfully smart? In the red hat!’

‘Who’s Mrs Hotspur when she’s at home?

‘She’s a society lady, a widow, her husband …’ the words were lost on the wind, then were clear again. ‘I expect she’s off to Egypt, for the winter.’

‘Running away somewhere safe, more like,’ said a morose nasal voice. ‘Wish I could do the same.’

‘Come on, Jimmie,’ said the cheerful voice, ‘got to fight for your country, you know. Anyhow, who says there’s going to be a war? Let’s look on the bright side.’

‘They’re all running away. One law for the rich and another for the rest of us.’