Authors: Jane Finch
Due Process (12 page)
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Twelve special agents flew to Jamaica in a private plane, arriving just as darkness fell. Two six-seater vans met them at the airport and within twenty minutes they arrived at Samuel King’s mansion. They were dressed in black trousers and black tee-shirts, balaclavas, and carried an assortment of weapons. No-one said a word, they all knew what they had to do.
Despite the secrecy, Samuel King knew they were on their way. He barked out orders, seal the outside doors, double up the guards, close all the shutters. He and Julius stood by the staircase and waited.
“Ain’t no way I goin’ back ta prison,” he declared.
Julius nodded.
“I understand, brother.”
“It was good,” Samuel whispered.
“It will be again.”
“Na, this is the end. Keep me on Jamaica, brother.”
They stood together as the echo of gunshots sounded outside. They waited as the door was pounded, and then came crashing down. At the same time windows were smashed and the shouting of the agents, the splintering of wood and the fearful cries of the house staff mixed with the shattering of glass. Samuel looked at his brother and they nodded to each other. As the first agent rushed through the door Samuel raised his gun and took aim. The agent took him down with a single shot to the chest and he died instantly. Julius was still crying as they led him away.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Amanda thought she would never sleep again. Her mind was whirling with everything that had happened in the last twenty four hours. The team had arrived within minutes at the bank and confiscated all the deeds and documents. She knew they would use them to trace the transactions and follow leads to any number of illegal activities, and ultimately to Samuel King’s gang of fraudsters and drug runners and dealers. For the moment his brother Julius had been detained for his part in the attempted fraud, and Amanda knew that once again she would find herself giving evidence against the King family. But this was only the start, a sprat to catch a mackerel, as the British said. Now they had a trail and eventually they would gather the evidence they needed to put a lot of bad people away for a very long time. Julius would also be implicated in the murder of Sarah Greenwood, as they had matched him to the hotel CCTV from the corridor outside Sarah’s room.
It might take a while, due process always did, but they would get there in the end.
EPILOGUE
She had been asked to go to Miami to de-brief, and she was accompanied by two agents identified only as Paul and Ian. As they stepped into the arrivals hall Ian took her arm and the three of them hurried through a separate channel for passport control and security. No-one checked her bags or her passport, which was just as well as the only one she had with her named her as Amanda Buller.
They went down a long corridor and into a room at the end. She could hear a group of people talking and it was only as she entered the room that the group turned to greet her. Jenny came first, rushing into her arms. Tears fell to the floor as mother and daughter embraced. Eventually Amanda looked up and her eyes met Tony’s. He hurried forward and the three of them held each other for a long time. It was Jenny who finally took her mother’s hand and led her to another lady who was standing nearby, watching silently.
“Grandmother,” Amanda sobbed.
The two agents backed out and slowly closed the door, leaving the family to finally be together.
About the author:
Jane Finch lives in England and is the author of a number of crime novels and children’s books. Details of her other books can be found on her website
Other Books By Jane Finch all available from amazon as ebooks and many also in print
Curse of the Dogwood:
Legend says the dogwood was cursed when it was used to make the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Once a tall and strong tree its branches withered so that it could never be used to make another cross.
So did the dogwood’s curse strike on Clancy’s land?
A young couple battle against prejudice and vigilantes to survive in the mountains of Virginia in the 1880’s. Disowned by their families they struggle to survive on a remote hillside alone and afraid.
Sarah and Clancy pay the ultimate price for their love when their child, Thomas, is born out of wedlock. In an effort to bring the families together, Clancy tries to find a preacher that will marry them, but the scandal is so great that they are turned away from the church and ultimately by the ones they love.
Clancy was warned about the dogwood tree and that his land might be cursed, but he is blinded by love and ignores the warnings, until it is too late.
Thomas brings hope and joy into their lives, but a tragic accident brings further despair to the family, leaving young Thomas to survive alone. When eventually he learns of his parents’ troubled past he manages to overcome every obstacle that comes his way, until the curse finally catches up with him on the day of his wedding, threatening to destroy his happiness as it did that of his parents.
*
The Black Widows
Three women from different backgrounds, brought together by their determination to make a fortune from their unsuspecting husbands. Carefully selected, the men are lured into the widow’s trap, completely beguiled, until their ultimate disposal.
The women meet regularly to discuss their progress and compare notes on new methods of termination. It seems they are invincible.
Jessica’s husband made a secret Will and left her nothing. In her rage Jessica falls ill and is left with tinnitus. As she learns to control the constant noise in her ears, she discovers her hearing is so acute that she can hear conversations in adjoining rooms. She quickly uses this to her advantage as she takes on the family and lawyers of her deceased husband to fight for his estate.
Caprice is getting tired of trying to stay young, of lying about her age, and constantly deceiving. Her last husband left her a successful business with the expectation that she would sell, but she gets caught up in the excitement and buzz of running the company and has a difficult decision to make. She decides the next conquest will be her last, but although she thought she had done her research well, Otto turns out to be completely different from what she had expected as he turns the tables on her scheme.
Suzannah is on husband number two and having to work hard to keep him away from his ex-wife and family. Despite his assurances she is well provided for, she discovers he has left everything to his son. She devises a plan which includes falsifying the Will and making herself sole beneficiary, but first has to convince his suspicious family that they have a good relationship. As she schemes to win back her husband’s affections, she finds herself falling in love with him. But when she discovers his infidelity, he faces the ultimate cost.
A journey back in time gives the reader an insight into the women’s past and the reasons for their determination to seek revenge on the men they marry.
But even in death, all is not as it seems.
*
After Batavia
In 1628 the Dutch Merchant Ship,
Batavia
, set off from the Netherlands loaded with gold, silver and jewels. Also on board were several hundred passengers bound for a new life in the East Indies. Her destination on this, her maiden voyage, was Java. However, blown severely off course, and with a Commander reluctant to admit he was lost, the ship ran aground off the Western coast of Australia. The unfortunate survivors were stranded on a small group of coral islands with a band of wild and dangerous crewmen who had been planning a bloody mutiny just prior to the shipwreck. To make matters worse, they had no food, water, or shelter.
The Commander (or upper-merchant) of the
Batavia,
was Captain Francisco Pelsaert. An indecisive man he was somewhat naïve regarding the unrest and grave characters of the crewmen around him. He left the survivors and crew to their fate on the islands, and with a small band of trusted employees took the ship’s only longboat and headed for Java to summon help, little knowing he had a journey of 1800 miles ahead of him.
What happened in the weeks that followed became Western Australia’s most gruesome historical event, and an unwanted claim to fame. A group of desperate and bloodthirsty men systematically slaughtered over 100 men, women and children. Victims were chosen at random and suffered horrific injuries prior to death. Most were hacked with knives, strangled, battered over the heads, or mutilated and then drowned. Women were repeatedly raped and if they would not submit willingly they, too, were slaughtered.
A small group of survivors managed to reach a neighbouring island and there they listened in horror to the screams and blood-curdling cries from across the water.
When eventually Pelsaert returned on the ship
Sardam
he was just in time to avert a final massacre as the remaining group of mutineers were planning a fatal attack on the survivors on the small island.
Pelsaert wasted no time in trying and convicting most of the murderers. The ring leaders, as was custom, had their hands chopped off, and were then hung from hastily erected gallows. Others were to return on the
Sardam
to face trial back in the Netherlands.
Two men, Wouter Looes, a former soldier, and a cabin boy named Jan Pelgrom, managed to persuade Pelsaert to show them mercy. They were to be abandoned on the mainland and left to fulfil their own destiny. They were marooned on a desolate beach known today to be near Wittecarra Gully, just south of the mouth of the Murchison River near what is now Kalbarri. For some reason Pelsaert showed them considerable compassion, even though Jan Pelgrom had been seen actively taking part in mutilations and murders. He was known to have become somewhat deranged in his behaviour and it is probable Pelsaert took pity on him, perhaps because of his age. He was 18 years old. Wouter Looes had shown kindness towards some of the female passengers and it was thought this was the probable reason he, too, was spared. They were supplied with a small boatload of equipment together with beads and trinkets with which to barter with the natives.
At the same time as this was taking place, other members of the
Sardam
crew were salvaging what they could from the broken
Batavia
. Pelsaert had sent a group of men in a small boat on a quest to find any floating debris such as barrels of wine or vinegar. Among them were Jacob Jacobsz, the
Sardam’s
skipper, Pieter Pietersz, Ariaan Theuwissen and Cornelis Pieterszoon. Unfortunately, it was October, the time of the spring monsoons. A fierce storm arose that lasted for two days. The small boat was carried out to sea, and although Pelsaert sent out a search party, they were unable to find any sign of the boat or crew.
When the monsoon had abated Pelsaert headed back to Netherlands aboard the
Sardam
. Jan Pelgrom, Wouter Looes, and the crew of the small boat, were never heard of again.
This is the story of what might have happened to them.