Crash Course by Derek Fee (freenovel24 .TXT) 📗

inclusion. She’s already an experienced throttleman. She also has an enviable resumé in the marine world and she’s crewed on the British America’s Cup yacht. She’s been in boats since she was old enough to walk.”

“She’s also a distraction. I would have preferred another guy or a less attractive female.”

“I sensed the sexual tension. Will it affect our plan?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Don’t overplay the bastard game with David and Morweena. We don’t want David to work himself up into a state where you and he won’t be able to get along. Because then you’ll be out of the team whether I like it or not. That would ruin the whole reason I brought you here. So you’d better tone it down because believe me, Mark, nothing will get in the way of me finding the bastard who killed my daughter.”

Chapter Eleven

David Penhalion flicked on the desk lamp and held the sheaf of papers directly below the beam of yellow light. He sat alone in his elegantly furnished office. The appointed hour for dinner had come and gone and he remained sitting in the half-light as though riveted to the captain’s chair which was his great-great-grandfather’s contribution to the furniture. He looked again at the masses of figures which had been produced by his accountant. The Penhalions had always hated accountants. Boatbuilding in their tradition was all skill and craftsmanship while accountancy was the manipulation of numbers to produce a profit or loss picture. “Bloody bean counters,” he muttered under his breath as he tossed the pages aside. Thirty pages of detailed figures but only one salient point. His company was doomed. A business that had straddled two hundred years and six generations would end with him. He turned slowly and let his eyes move along the portraits which lined the office wall. Six stern-faced, bearded Stakhanovites stared back at him. Each ex-owner of the boatyard glared accusingly at him, the unasked question hanging on their lips. Why did you ruin what we had built? He had no answer to offer them. How had it happened? While he had been trying to uphold their proud traditions, the market had imperceptibly passed him by. The Japanese and the Koreans were snapping up the high end of the market and had left them high and dry. It was a new world and David was not made for it. He was a microcosm of the malaise which had affected the whole British shipbuilding industry. The two yachts currently being completed at the yard would probably be the last to bear the name of Penhalion as fabricator. The order book was empty and he would soon have to close the yard doors and dismiss the few remaining staff. He ran his hand through his thick curly grey hair before picking up the photograph which sat on the desk before him. The owner of the almost defunct business stared at the black-and-white image. It had been taken twenty-five years previously. The picture showed a smiling young officer wearing the dark blue uniform of a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy, his beautiful young wife by his side. He’d had the distinction of being the youngest ever lieutenant commander. Everybody, including the top brass, had predicted that he was going straight to the top. That was until the day his father called and asked him to take over the company’s reins. There had been no decision. The family tradition had to be upheld even at the cost of a potentially glittering naval career. It was a sliding doors moment. What might have happened if he had refused the poisoned chalice? Maybe he would have gone on to become an Admiral of the Fleet as so many of his superiors had predicted. He could feel the glares from his venerable ancestors beating down on him. The powerboat venture was his last-ditch hope of saving the business but when he considered what they faced he knew it wouldn’t work. It would be the last nail in his coffin.

He was aware that over the horizon the vultures were gathering waiting to descend on whatever flesh was left on his company. Over the past few months, he’d received a steady stream of them passing through his yard, ostensibly to look at his wares; their real objective was assessing how long he could keep afloat and how much the pickings would be worth. In the vanguard was Dinos Karakatis, a Greek merchant prince and one of his future rivals on the powerboat circuit. Karakatis had for many years coveted a big-name boatyard to build his range of powerboats and he’d heard from his merchant banking friends that the Greek was already scavenging on the outskirts of his company. He was damned if he would let his business fall into the hands of vultures and pirates.

He suddenly felt a pair of eyes on him and looked up quickly to see his wife standing in the doorway.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.” She moved into the room. “Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?”

“I’m going over these bloody figures.” He picked up the accounts before tossing them back onto his desk. “According to the bean counters, we’re in even worse shape than we thought we were.” He nodded at the row of portraits on the office wall. “Trust me to ruin everything that those poor bastards built up through the years. I’m a bloody failure.”

“Don’t talk such rot.” She moved to his side and held his leonine head to her breast. “Men are such idiots. You’ve got the body of an ox but an ego as fragile as the newest-born baby.” She motioned to the pictures on the wall. “They’re all dead so they’re quite beyond giving a damn. As to you being a failure, you can put that right out of your head. You’ve succeeded brilliantly at what really counts. Morweena and I both adore the ground you walk on, you silly fool.”

“I should have stayed in the navy. I