Facing Justice Read Online Free

him.
    â€˜Every boat?’ Flynn asked. There were half a dozen of them dotted around the Canaries.
    â€˜I won’t lie to you – all but Orlando’s in Tenerife. Business isn’t quite as bad there, but everyone else will be out of the water.’
    Flynn went hollow.
    â€˜I know you’re ten times better than him, but Tenerife isn’t suffering as much as Gran Canaria and you’re here, not there. If it was the other way around . . .’ Castle left the words unsaid. ‘I’ll review the position at the end of January.’
    â€˜So I’m out of a job?’
    â€˜For the time being. If you want to try and find work with any of the other charters, I’ll understand.’
    Flynn scrunched up his face. ‘What about Jose? He has a wife and kid to look after.’
    Castle shrugged. Not as if to say ‘Whatever,’ but as though the whole thing was tearing him apart. ‘I’m closing down two of the bars, too. It’s like a ghost town on the Centre, but I’ll keep the Irish-themed bar ticking over. You can do the door there, if you like. And if I get any bookings for the jeep safaris you can take them out. I’m keeping the travel agency open.’
    Flynn inhaled deeply and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘You going to tell Jose?’
    Castle nodded, finished his beer and rose from the table. Flynn watched him wend his way back to the quayside, shoulders slumped, then head towards Faye 2 . Flynn ordered another beer, this time in a glass, and sipped it slowly, his mind working the angles. So for at least the best part of two months he would be ashore and effectively out of work. Chances were the Irish wouldn’t open every day of the week and the money from doing the door would be spasmodic at best.
    He mulled over the possibility of approaching another charter boat but could not convince himself it was a good idea. They were all struggling with a shortage of demand. Even the annual regulars weren’t re-booking. And he’d feel uncomfortable on another boat. He had a history with Faye 2 . She had been his choice of vessel when the original Lady Faye went up in a ball of flame and exploding gas bottles. He had worked with the replacement and knew her intimately, her foibles, her strengths, her weaknesses. And he worked well with the Spanish curmudgeon that was Jose, even though their relationship was often fraught. So even if he could, he probably wouldn’t go to another boat.
    The ice in the beer glass rose languidly to the surface. Flynn watched it as he also mulled over the financial aspects of the situation. He had very little money stashed, had recently moved to a small apartment which required him to fork out a nominal rent. Probably had about four months before he needed to start looking seriously for work, six before times would become desperate.
    He uttered a short internal laugh and took a long draught of the beer. In spite of the circumstances he felt in reasonable spirits. Things weren’t half as bad as they had been five years earlier when he’d been effectively drummed out of the cops with a very black rain cloud hovering over his head, been thrown out by his wife who afterwards had shacked up with his best friend and prevented him from making any contact with their son Craig, then ten years old. Those had been bleak times and he had come through them, more or less, even if his past had managed to creep up on him in a most unpleasant way about a year ago.
    Flynn wondered if the bleached bones of the two men would ever be discovered in that inaccessible gully near the Roque Nublo up in the mountains. He doubted it. He smiled grimly at the memory, then shrugged it off and thought that something would turn up.
    He fished his mobile phone out of his pocket, switched it on and waited for it to find a signal. It bleeped, telling him he had received a voice message whilst the phone had been switched off. There was no