there was no knowing how much of a head start she had on them.
Nathan’s eyes were far better than his. He stood on the foredeck beside him, probing the gently rolling sea for the telltale line of white trailing suds, or the dark outline of the small dinghy.
Jacob couldn’t believe she could do this. Just up and leave him, leave Mum. He couldn’t believe it, but had somehow half expected it. Hannah had always been her argument for not returning to the mainland yet. Hannah was the reason she wanted to make their life aboard the rigs. And she’d never needed to explain to Jacob why, because they both remembered that winter morning the men came and did what they did.
But Hannah was gone now. Half, if not most, of her reason for staying gone.
But there’s still me . . . and Mum, Leona.
It stung that she’d just bailed out on them.
‘There’s Bracton!’ shouted Nathan; nothing more distinct than the pale, feathered silhouettes of rows of loading cranes, the outline of several small commercial freighters still securely moored at the quayside. William, Howard and Helen - those who’d hastily volunteered to come along and help Walter and the boys search for Leona - craned their necks port side to get a better view around the mast. There had been dozens more who’d offered to come, but Walter had been wary of overloading the boat with the well-intentioned and slowing it down.
‘See any sign of her ahead?’ shouted Walter.
Nathan squinted and shaded his eyes against the glare of the white sky. ‘No.’
Half an hour later, they were tying up at their usual spot, right next to where the dinghy bobbed and bumped against the concrete, secured to a mooring cleat by a careless half hitch and a loop that would have unravelled itself eventually.
Jacob was the first onto the quay. ‘LEONA!!’ he shouted, his voice bouncing back at him off the warehouse walls across the way.
‘LEONA!!’ His echo filled the silent waterfront.
Walter stepped ashore. ‘Right, there’s six of us. We’re not all splitting up and going in different bloody directions. Two groups of three, one gun each and we meet back here in one hour, all right?’
The others stepped ashore.
‘Nathan, here you go,’ he said passing him the army issue SA80. ‘You and Jake and—’
‘I’ll go with them,’ said Helen.
‘All right.’ He turned to the other two men. ‘William, Howard and me then. Don’t go any further than the commercial area; the warehouses, the loading points, the offices. Okay?’
Everyone nodded.
‘And back here in precisely one hour. No later.’
Twenty minutes later they were out of sight of the others, walking amongst the low industrial units of the port authority buildings, when it occurred to Jacob he knew exactly where his sister was; or at least where she was heading.
‘She’s going home.’
‘What?’
Jacob turned to look at Nathan and Helen. ‘Going home. London.’
Helen’s eyes widened. ‘London?’
‘Why’d she do that, Jay?’
Jacob shrugged. ‘I don’t know, just a feeling. She’s talked about wanting to see our old house again.’
Both boys looked at each other in silence; an entire conversation within a glance. They’d discussed, fantasised many times about taking the opportunity one day. It was Nathan who spoke first. ‘Jay, what about now? What if we go now?’
Helen had never been part of the plan though. He glanced at the girl. ‘Nathan, we can’t just leave her here, and she’s too young to come with—’
‘I know about it,’ she cut him off.
‘Know about what?’
‘The lights,’ she said. ‘I know about the lights in London.’
‘What? How?’
She glanced at Nathan. ‘He told me.’
Nathan shrugged guiltily. ‘Sorry, Jay, I know it was like a secret, but . . .’
‘I bribed him,’ she finished with a cunning smile. ‘I let him have a feel-up.’
Nathan looked down at his feet, shamefaced. ‘She knew somethin’ was up.’
Jacob shook his head. ‘Oh shit, Nathan!’
‘Anyway,’ continued Helen, ‘I heard some of it, you two and Mr Latoc talking at the party. I know he seen something. I knew it. I knew he wasn’t telling us everything he seen. I saw him telling you two, and I heard some of it.’
‘Well it doesn’t matter, you can’t come, Helen,’ said Jacob. ‘It could be dangerous.’
She snorted derisively at him. ‘Piss off, I can look after myself as well as you two idiots.’
‘Look, man, are we really going to go, Jay?’ asked Nathan. ‘I mean, really? Right now?’
Jacob knew he was. He realised, for him, there was no choice in the matter. ‘She’s all I got, Nate.