Читать книгу The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection - Lauren Child - Страница 114

Chapter 26.

Cerebral Sounds

THE DINNER CONVERSATION WAS OF COURSE LIMITED to the subject of pirates, rescue and lost treasure.

‘What gets me is why the coastguard didn’t pick up my mayday call,’ said Sabina.

‘Yes, that is a mystery,’ agreed Brant.

‘And Bernie sent message after message when our engine went kaput, but no one responded,’ said Eadie.

‘It was pure chance that we got rescued – the guy in the chopper just happened to be flying by,’ said Bernie.

‘Shame, it was a lovely spot,’ said Brant. ‘We were really having a high old time, weren’t we darling?’

‘Oh yeah,’ replied Sabina. ‘A swell time.’

While her parents and the Runklehorns laughed, Ruby was beginning to put things together in her head. She was sure that the pirates had to be responsible for the lost mayday calls: it made sense; this way they could rob and hijack vessels without being disturbed. But how were they doing it? From her mother’s description they didn’t sound like the most sophisticated villains at sea and surely, if they were going to all the trouble of blocking mayday calls, they must have a bigger target in mind than cruise boats and cash.

Like Blacker said, it wasn’t like many pleasure boats sailed in those waters.

‘Sabina was so heroic.’ Brant gripped her hand and smiled. ‘You should have seen her out there, quite an inspiration.’

Her mother’s family had always had confidence, but what they were famous for was their guts, the kind of courage that inspired awe – after all, there were legends about it. No one could be sure that these weren’t just tales told by drunken sailors, but Ruby chose to sort of believe them; they sounded just far-fetched enough to be true. And it wasn’t impossible that her mother had a pirate relative, though when she looked across at Eliza’s great-great-great-granddaughter, sitting there in her cerise Marco Perella evening dress, it did seem unlikely. Sabina Redfort might not have inherited her great-great-grandmother Martha’s brains, but she had certainly inherited her courage. Sabina Redfort was no wuss, no siree.

Later, when dinner was over and Ruby’s parents were sitting chatting with the Runklehorns, she went upstairs to her room and pulled out the list and the spider-map. It seemed likely that the dead couple, the couple who turned out not to be Ruby’s parents, were also the victims of the pirates, judging by the state of their yacht, the Swift, which had been ransacked. They too had been thrown to the waves, but they were not such able swimmers and with no ambassadorial luggage to cling to, drowning was their fate.

Ruby added their names under the heading, pirate attacks.

The facts on the piece of paper were growing and things were beginning to add up. Though she still wasn’t sure to what.