Cloak of Silence (Jake Harding Adventures Book 1)

Richard sat alone on the terrace, his half eaten lunch on the table. Barbara had dropped him off after they had come back from the police station before driving up into the mountains above Zengounas on the off-chance she might discover something. The chief of police had handed them back Zoë’s mobile phone and it lay on the table in front of him.

We don’t know where your daughter is, but here’s her phone back.

Thunder Bay was eerily quiet. The instructors had taken all four groups to Lassithi Island for snorkelling and diving, but Jake was around somewhere, he wasn’t sure where.

Richard wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he was now starting to doubt whether he would ever see his daughter again. These had been five long difficult days with no progress in finding her. The policeman told them that Bill Blizzard had so far not confessed. The only remotely good thing was that the course was going well after he had feared he might have to cancel it. That would have been a complete financial disaster.

‘Dad?’

Richard jumped slightly at Jake’s voice but smiled; he didn’t want anyone knowing how utterly desperate he felt.

‘Is that Zoë’s phone?’ Jake asked, sliding into a seat opposite his dad. He picked it up and turned it on. ‘It’s fully charged,’ he commented.

‘What’s the problem?’ Richard asked, sensing a stillness about Jake.

‘There was a text from Selena when I found the phone at the bench. It’s been deleted.’

‘Your mum and I haven’t touched it.’

‘That’s weird. But listen Dad, I’ve found out what’s behind the Syntagma message.’

‘Go on, then.’

Jake met his dad’s gaze. ‘Problem is, it’s Selena that told me and she doesn’t want her Dad to know she’s spoken to anyone.’

‘She’s back here, is she?’

Jake nodded. ‘She came back because she’s upset about Zoë.’

‘And let me guess – Spyros is embarrassed because he’s told everyone she’d gone away for two weeks.’

‘Yeah, I think that’s about it.’

‘Jake, look, I’ll do my best to keep her secret safe.’

Jake hesitated a moment but decided not to push things. He had to tell his dad what he knew and trying to get a better promise than that out of him wasn’t going to happen. So he recounted everything that he had found out that morning. 

When he had finished, Richard fixed him with his clear blue eyes. ‘So, let me try to sum up,’ he said. ‘Selena and this Brother Warren took a shine to each other. They were meeting at the old bench some evenings just after sunset.’

Jake nodded, and Richard went on. ‘Somehow Warren’s superior got to know and Spyros was warned, so he sent Selena off to Athens next day. Zoë felt sorry for her and went up to the bench hoping to meet Warren and let him know what had happened.’

‘Yes,’ Jake nodded again.

‘So…’ Richard’s eyes bored into Jake’s. ‘So…’ he paused again. ‘Are we saying that is the reason she’s disappeared?’

‘It’s got to be,’ Jake exclaimed. ‘She vanished where Selena had been meeting this bloke and around the time they used to meet. We know she’s not gone off by herself and nobody in the village would attack her, they’re mostly too old.’

‘What about Bill Blizzard?’

‘I’m sure he’s just a scapegoat.’

Richard pursed his lips. ‘And this Brother Warren has let slip she’s okay. So you reckon the monks have kidnapped her, perhaps thinking in the dark that she was Selena, and are keeping her at Syntagma, wherever that is.’

‘Exactly,’ Jake replied gravely.

‘But she’s okay,’ Richard repeated, as if he was trying not to sound utterly disbelieving. He stood up and went over to the railing at the edge of the terrace, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

After a few minutes, he said softly. ‘Why would they kidnap anyone, Selena or Zoë? But it’s the only half concrete thing we’ve got to go on. Selena’s secret makes it a bit trickier and the police have given the monastery the all clear, but I wonder how hard they probed. Probably not very. I’ll go and see Father Theo again myself and, with luck, this Brother Warren. Mum has told the police we’ve had a tip-off about Syntagma; they should know where it is.’

‘And Taki vanished after I spoke to him,’ Jake said. ‘I’m sure Father Theo’s fibbing about Taki going on a course.’

‘Jake, he’s an abbot,’ Richard remarked, striding towards the French doors. ‘Fibbing shouldn’t even be an option.’

Jake spread out their map of Corfu on the dining table. Each place name was written in both Greek and English and Jake ran his eye over the map, looking for SYNTAGMA. The Greek letter was relatively easy to spot on the map and he quickly found Spartera, Skripera, Sokraki, Sidari, Sfakera, Strongyli and a small island called Skialoudi.

After half an hour bending over the map, he straightened up. There was no Syntagma or anything like it.

The front door opened and closed forcefully, followed by the sound of the kettle being filled.

‘How’d you get on, Dad?’ he asked, looking around the kitchen door.

‘A difficult conversation. Theo complained he’s had the police there for two days and as soon as he’d got shot of them, we come back with more questions.’ Richard sat down at the table. ‘He did admit that Brother Warren had been seeing Selena but insisted that is now at an end. He thinks Selena is upset and is making up some cock-and-bull story to get attention.’

‘She doesn’t want attention,’ Jake protested.

Richard held up a hand. ‘And he’s never heard of anywhere called Syntagma. And, no, I couldn’t see Brother Warren as he’s a silent order monk, but he’ll convey this to him in a note. He kept coming back to Selena being bitter and even hinted that because Zoë and Selena are good friends this is something they have cooked up together.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Jake said hotly. He got two mugs from the cupboard and dropped teabags into them. ‘I know Selena isn’t making it up.’

‘Let’s see if the police find Syntagma.’

‘There’s nowhere of that name on our map,’ Jake said. ‘And Dimitris and Efi don’t know anywhere called that; only the square in Athens.’

‘We’ve been there,’ Richard commented, thinking back to happier days with Barbara, Zoë and Jake on a weekend visit to the capital.

‘Perhaps it’s the name of a hotel or taverna,’ Jake said.

‘Yes, could be. I’ll suggest that to the police; they seem to need all the help they can get,’ he added sourly. ‘I discussed Selena’s story with Mum on the phone after I left the monastery. The police obviously don’t want to believe the monastery might be involved. We’ll pursue the Syntagma angle with them first, then tomorrow tell them what Selena has revealed.’

Jake winced – that would cause Spyros and Selena real problems, but he supposed his dad was right.

Jake walked down to the village after supper as the sun was sinking over the sea and long shadows were creeping across the dusty street. Cicadas on the hillside above the cottages started their insistent calling. He had no particular plan except to go to the bench and see if he could see anything unusual.

Customers were arriving at the taverna as he walked past. Greek music spilled out of the open door and the aroma of frying fish was on the air. He longed to go in and talk to Selena again, but that was impossible.

His mum had told the police that people were trying to be helpful and someone had linked Zoë to some place called Syntagma. She spoke to an officer that she had got to know quite well and he had been sympathetic and surprisingly uncurious; he would run the name through their database.

He had phoned back an hour later to say that was no place of that name on the island but there were four businesses with the word Syntagma in their name; a bar in Corfu Town, a small hotel, a taverna in the south and a dry-cleaner. They would check them out and let her know what they had found.

The bench lay in the shadow of the tall spiky plants and Jake sat down quickly to avoid being seen from the monastery garden.

The sea shimmered blue and gold where the setting sun’s rays played across its surface but was an inky black in the shadows of trees and cliffs. A big passenger ferry had made its way through the strait between the east coast of the island and the mainland and was turning west, bound for Italy, out of sight over the horizon.

He was impatient for action, but forced himself to wait quietly and watch. Lights in the monastery came on one by one, but not in the windows of the basement which he had got to know so well.

When he felt it was dark enough, he got the key out of his pocket. The padlock snapped open with a metallic click but the gate opened noiselessly. He’d taken the precaution of putting on dark clothes; his dark blue fleece and black jeans. A couple of loose stones tumbled down the steep slope in front of him as he walked down the path but he wasn’t too concerned; all the time he had been at the bench the monastery garden had been deserted.

He joined the concrete path and the darkness became more intense as he entered the wooded area above the beach. His heart thumped as he walked along quietly, his senses on high alert. He felt under several bushes behind the store building before locating the robe, its material coarse between his fingers. He checked that it was the right way round before pulling it over his head.

Feeling almost invisible, he walked on along the path. The jetty disappeared out into the calm darkness of the bay and the boathouse sat broodily over the water. He tried the door, which was locked, so he slipped through the bushes into the clearing. It was pitch dark in there, with all traces of the remaining daylight screened out by the dense canopy of trees overhead. He remembered where he had left the oil drum and felt his way towards it, his hands outstretched in front of him.

But a sound caught his attention. He stopped dead in his tracks. Somebody was whistling. He crept back to the bushes near the boathouse door, careful not to make a sound. The whistling had stopped.

A torch snapped on a metre in front of him and he jumped back involuntarily, luckily without making a noise. The beam of light shone steadily onto the boathouse door and there was the jingle of keys followed by the sound of the door opening.

The lights in the boathouse came on, flooding through the open doorway and onto the nearby bushes. Jake froze, knowing he could be seen quite easily through the sparse foliage. But the door closed and he heard it being locked from the inside. It looked to him like two people had gone in, but he couldn’t be sure.

He raced back for the oil drum as the muffled roar of a powerful engine came from the boathouse. There was no need to be quiet now with the boat’s throbbing engine drowning out any noise that he might make. He carried the drum bodily across to the position under the knot hole which was standing out like a miniature lighthouse in the darkness.

He climbed up, holding onto the wall for balance, and put an eye to the tiny hole.

The sea gates were open and the RIB was going slowly astern out of the boathouse. A monk was at the controls looking over his shoulder, carefully manoeuvring the boat. Was he the whistling monk? Another monk was sitting on the wide bench seat across the back of the boat, his head in his hands and his elbows resting on his knees so that Jake couldn’t see his face either.

A cord hung down from the ceiling near the entrance gates and the monk at the controls tugged at it as the boat passed. The lights in the boathouse went out and the boat and its two occupants in their black robes were rendered invisible.

A moment later lights came on somewhere else and Jake jumped off the drum and raced back to the bushes at the boathouse door. Looking to his right he was surprised to see a light on the roof of the storeroom. It lit up the cross on the roof but didn’t give much light. The cross at the end of the jetty was also lit up. He shivered; that was really spooky.

The RIB was in the bay facing the open sea. The coxswain was out of Jake’s view behind the boathouse, but as the boat started to move forward the monk in the back seat looked up towards the monastery. It was as though he was taking a last look at a familiar place.

The light was poor and the monk’s hooded face was in shadow but Jake had a strange feeling of recognition in the brief moment before the boat accelerated out of the bay.

A few seconds later the lights went off and darkness seemed to roll back in to fill the space again. But the impression of that strained, haunted face remained with Jake.

It looked a lot like him, but surely it couldn’t be Taki?