Read Flight Path: A Wright & Tran Novel for Free Online Page A

asked.
    “Yes, all of it. I just don’t like the press looking about the town. The way they muckrake is bad for business.”
    “Is there anything to muckrake?”
    “I don’t know about that necessarily, but the only thing Francis Amberley ever did to be of interest to passing strangers is to be on a boat when a man fell off it. A man who swindled a lot of money from some very sick children, so I can’t imagine any stories surrounding him would be positive.”
    “Fair enough,” Kara said. “We’re just here to make sure that man really did fall off that boat.”
    Daphne considered what Kara had said. She glanced over to Tien and Jacob. Then she looked up at the ship’s clock on the wall, “Well, if you leave now you’ll more than likely catch him at the Old Seafarer. I wasn’t lying when I said he drops into a pub for a drink on the way home. Though I’m not sure who told you he was part of a quiz team. Francis Amberley has never been on a team in his life. He takes part in the quiz at the Seafarers on his own. Always on his own. Wins more than he loses, or so I hear. Our quiz is for teams of four or more. Same with the one at the Angel. That’s why he doesn’t play our quizzes. But the Seafarer let him be on his own.”
    “Thanks Daphne. I appreciate it.”
    “Just one more thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “If you want to be discreet, I’d leave Tien outside.”
    “Pardon?” Kara said, feeling the instant spike in her temper. If there was one thing certain to rile her it was someone discriminating against her friend.
    “This is Suffolk, dear. Not London. And rural, coastal Suffolk at that. Take a good look around you as you walk down the street and count how many non-whites we have here. I’ve run this pub for a lot of years and I can tell you that a non-white person is going to attract attention. We’re not racist, but we will notice.”
    Kara’s temper subsided as quickly as it had threatened to rise, “I owe you more thanks Daphne. You sure you’ve always been a landlady?”
    “Since I was twenty-five dear. Before that I was a secretary, before that a schoolgirl and before that an evacuee from Hackney sent up here during the blitz. Came back here and ran this pub with my Terry, God rest him, after we got married. He’d been an evacuee here too. What made you ask that?”
    “You have a particular skill for reading people and the situation surrounding them,” Kara smiled.
    “You don’t run a pub and not acquire that dear, but off you go now or you’ll miss him.”
    “Thanks Daphne. When we get back, you and Tien can catch up. She’s born and bred in Hackney.” Kara turned away but not before she caught the surprise on the old lady’s face.

Chapter 5
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Woodbridge, Suffolk.
     
    Jacob and Kar a sat on either side of the Old Seafarer’s main bar. The exposed timber beams testified to the building’s Tudor heritage, and although it had been considerably expanded over the centuries, the main bar was still the original heart of the place. A long L-shaped counter looked like it was crafted from one of King Henry’s ships of the line. A solidity emanated from it that anchored the rest of the room. The left hand edge of the long leg of the bar disappeared whole into a bulbous deformity in the whitewashed wall. Halfway along that wall and midpoint down the length of the room, was a huge fireplace with a mantle six foot high. What looked like half a tree’s worth of logs nestled in a heap of brown and grey, orange and scarlet. Occasionally the random lick of a yellow flame cremated a small piece of unburnt bark to a wisp of ash. The smell of wood smoke and the gentle babble of voices gave the pub a homely, comforting feel.
    Jacob sat at a corner table between the fireplace and the front wall of the building. His view commanded all of the bar area with its six small tables which could sit three or four people each and currently had nine patrons in total. To his right, the main