Laura Marlin Mysteries 1: Dead Man's Cove eBook Page 8

  He’d been in a good mood so she’d plucked up the courage to ask if there was any chance she could have a dog of her own, because she knew of one who needed a home. She didn’t tell him that Skye was a Siberian husky. He was less likely to agree if he knew that the dog she wanted was a very large, very powerful wolf dog with intense blue eyes. Not surprisingly, he’d refused to entertain the idea. He’d just smiled and said: ‘I think Lottie is more than enough dog for both of us, don’t you, Laura?’ and the subject was closed.

  Now, as she strolled along Porthmeor Beach to school, Laura thought how far removed her life was from her time at Sylvan Meadows. The previous eleven years of her existence seemed like something that had happened to someone else in another lifetime. She might be friendless in St Ives and not allowed to have a dog of her own, but at least she was near the ocean and with her uncle. She would have preferred a different housekeeper, but already Calvin Redfern felt like family to her.

  She’d changed her mind about investigating him. Where he went or who he saw was none of her business. He trusted her and she should trust him. She couldn’t help wishing he was around more, and not locked away in his study when he was at home, but she was still a thousand times more content living with him than she had been anywhere else.

  At the end of Porthmeor Beach, Laura climbed the stone steps to the Island and took the path that curved around the edge of it. There were benches dotted along it, and a red plastic box containing a life-rope. Laura had her doubts that the rope would be effective in an emergency. The current that surged up to the black rocks was so brutal that anyone unlucky enough to fall in would be swept out to sea before they had time to draw breath. Dead Man’s Cove had been deadlier still. Laura felt again the magnetic pull of the ocean beneath the black cliffs, and goosebumps rose on her arms.

  On the north side of the Island, the headland screened out both the town and the beaches. Laura would stop there sometimes and gaze out to sea. If no one was around, she liked to pretend she was alone on a desert island. Today, however, the path had an eerie feel. In the short time since Laura had left the house a sea mist had rolled in, obscuring everything except the grey silhouette of the hill topped by St Nicholas’s chapel with its twin crosses. The tide was in and violent waves splattered the path. More than once, Laura had to leap to avoid a drenching.

  She might have stepped on the bottle had she not been skirting a puddle. It was an ordinary glass bottle - the kind used for concentrated juice syrups, but the label had been removed and it had been scrubbed clean. It was lying in the centre of the path, almost as if it had been deliberately placed there. Even before she lifted it, Laura could see there was a note in it.

  She almost didn’t pick it up. The idea of finding a message in a bottle seemed ridiculous, like a joke or something. But curiosity got the better of her. Before she picked it up, she took a good look around in case the person who’d left it there was hanging around to have a laugh. But she was alone.

  She bent down and studied the rolled piece of paper through the glass. There was something written on it. Before she removed the lid, she glanced up at the chapel. There was a sudden flash of white, although whether it was someone’s shirt or the wing of a gull Laura couldn’t tell. For two full minutes she stared upwards, but saw nothing else.

  What sort of people put messages in bottles? Pranksters and marooned ancient mariners were the only two categories Laura could think of. Since the bottle was shiny and new and had obviously never been in the sea, old sea dogs could be ruled out. That left a joker with too much time on his or her hands.

  The lid twisted off easily. Retrieving the note was trickier. Laura managed it with the aid of a stick. She unrolled the paper, a cream-coloured parchment. There was something old-fashioned about the handwriting, as if the writer had a calligrapher’s skills and had used the quill of a feather and a pot of indigo ink. In long, artistic letters were the words: CAN I TRUST YOU?

  Laura looked around again. The path was unusually quiet for this time of the morning. Most days it was teeming with dog walkers. She put down the note while she zipped up her coat and pulled her scarf tighter. The mist had whited out the coastline. Clouds of it rolled across the sea, muffling the sound of the waves.

  If she had any sense, she’d toss the bottle into the nearest litter bin, hurry along to school and forget she ever saw it. But what if? That’s what the voice in her head was saying. What if the writer was someone in real danger? Someone who needed her help? What if she was their only lifeline and she ignored them and walked away?

  Laura opened her school bag and took out a pen. Beneath the question, ‘CAN I TRUST YOU?’, she wrote in bright red capitals:

  YES.

  13

  CAN I TRUST YOU?

  The words went round and round in Laura’s head. Her imagination went into overdrive as she tried to picture the person to whom she had said yes. She was pretty sure it was a kid - a bored teenager most likely. Either that or it had been left there as part of an experiment or school project. Put a message in a bottle and see if anyone replies. Laura was glad she hadn’t been foolish enough to leave her name or address.

  What intrigued her was the possibility that it might be something other than a joke. For several adrenalin-filled minutes, she convinced herself that the writer was a hostage who’d been kidnapped for ransom. Then she came to her senses and realised that if someone were being held captive they’d hardly be allowed out to put SOS notes in fruit juice bottles.

  She found it impossible to concentrate at school that day. While Mr Gillbert was talking about poetry, she thought of nothing but the mystery of the note writer. She copied out the message and attempted to imitate the note writer’s long, flowing hand. In any other place, that might have been a clue. But St Ives was a town full of artists, many of whom gave classes in local schools. There were dozens of people who could have left the message.

  After school, she debated whether to return to the bottle to see if she’d received a reply. In the end she took the shortcut home. She cut through the botanical gardens, blooming now that spring had sprung. At number 28 Ocean View Terrace, she found Mrs Webb putting the finishing touches to a vegetable casserole. A freshly iced carrot cake was sitting on the table. The housekeeper had long since given up any pretence of liking Laura and most days treated her with thinly veiled hostility, but this afternoon she gave Laura one of her pug smiles and rushed to dish her up a plate of steaming food.

  Laura’s suspicions were roused even further when Mrs Webb pulled up a chair, poured herself a cup of tea and said: ‘How are you finding it at St Ives Primary School then, Laura? They’ll be a friendly lot there, I’m sure. Making you welcome, are they?’

  There was something about Mrs Webb that made Laura’s skin crawl. It was like getting up close and personal with a spider. ‘Uh-huh,’ she mumbled in a non-committal way. ‘They’re very nice.’

  She shoved an extra large fork full of casserole and rice into her mouth. The sooner she could finish her food, the sooner she could escape. She was conscious that Mrs Webb had probably heard about the Tariq debacle from the Mukhtars. If the housekeeper asked her about her ex-friend, Laura wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep herself from screaming.

  But Mrs Webb didn’t mention Tariq. She purred: ‘And how are you finding St Ives?’

  ‘It’s a great town,’ said Laura, stabbing her fork into a carrot. ‘I really like it here.’

  Mrs Webb bared her teeth. ‘Well now, is n’t that wonderful. And your uncle? You get along with him okay? He has his quirks, that one, but his heart is in the right place.’

  ‘Oh, it definitely is,’ Laura agreed, wondering where this was leading.

  ‘I wouldn’t hear a bad word about him,’ said Mrs Webb. She added three spoonfuls of sugar to her tea and slurped a mouthful noisily. ‘Only . . .’ She moved her chair closer to Laura’s. Laura had to make a conscious effort not to push her own away. ‘See . . . I worry about him. It’s none of my business
, but he seems very tired lately.’

  You’re right, thought Laura. It’s none of your business, you old witch.

  Mrs Webb slurped her tea again. ‘You seem like an observant girl. Has he been going out late at night? I mean, is it his job keeping him up all hours or has he been out walking the dog or seeing friends? Not that he seems to have too many of those, what with being a workaholic and all.’

  The casserole, which Laura had been enjoying, started to make her feel nauseous. If she hadn’t known for sure it would be a mistake, she’d have told Mrs Webb to take a flying jump and walked out of the room. It took all her self-control to remain at the table and give the housekeeper her best smile. ‘I really wouldn’t know. I’m in bed by nine every night and I sleep like a baby. A tornado wouldn’t wake me.’

  Mrs Webb’s mask slipped for an instant and she regarded Laura with dislike. ‘So you don’t know where he goes? Only, I worry about him, see. I worry he doesn’t take care of himself and that it’ll catch up with him one day.’

  Laura carried her plate to the sink and washed it. She gave the housekeeper another big smile. ‘You’re very kind-hearted, Mrs Webb. I’m sure my uncle would be touched to know that you care so much about what he might doing or where he might be going in the middle of the night.’

  ‘Now hold on a minute,’ the housekeeper said hotly. ‘Don’t you go saying anything. I’m only concerned about his welfare.’

  ‘I have to get on with my homework, Mrs Webb. Thank you for the casserole. The meal was fantastic, as usual. You should enter a competition. You’d win an award.’

  An award for cooking but not for acting, Mrs Webb, Laura thought as she replayed the conversation the following morning. She’d debated whether to say something to her uncle when he returned from work, but he’d come in at 7pm looking as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and, after a silent dinner, had retreated to his study.

  Anyhow, what would she say to him? That Mrs Webb seemed to be rather too keen on knowing what he got up to in his free time, or that she thought, but wasn’t sure, she’d seen the housekeeper going through his papers? What would be the point? Calvin Redfern had told her himself that Mrs Webb wouldn’t win any prizes for her personality or her housekeeping. He’d laughed about it. He wouldn’t appreciate being bothered with such a trivial thing when he had more important matters on his mind.

  Laura sighed as she put on her school uniform and applied gel to her short blonde hair. When her uncle was around, he was all the company she needed. When he was lost in his own world, she couldn’t help wishing things had somehow worked out with Tariq. She so badly needed a friend.

  She pushed up the blind and opened the window. A figure in the cemetery caught her eye. He was standing beside the twisted tree holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Unless she was mistaken, he was looking straight at her house, at number 28 Ocean View Terrace.

  Laura picked up her schoolbag and hurried downstairs. All her senses were on high alert. She knew better than to challenge the man directly, but she planned to get a good look at him in case he was staking out the house with a view to robbing it later. That way she’d have a description to give to her uncle or the police. She hoped very much that that would not be necessary.

  As it happened, the man made it easy for her. She was sauntering past the cemetery, making a mental note of his thinning brown hair, bird’s nest moustache, ill-fitting trenchcoat and jeans and cheap shoes, when he called out, ‘Twelve years I’ve been coming here and that’s the first time I’ve ever seen an ivory gull.’

  ‘Really?’ Laura said politely, even though she knew she shouldn’t talk to strangers. She kept her distance and continued walking.

  ‘Really,’ insisted the man. He made no attempt to approach her but held up a birdwatching handbook. ‘It’s an exquisite bird. Quite unique. Hey, I should mention to your mum and dad that you have a rare bird in the garden.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Laura told him. ‘We have a wolfhound who’s been known to eat unknown callers.’

  She virtually ran down the hill after that. St Ives was one of the most wonderful places in the world, but there was no doubt it had more than its fair share of oddballs.

  A fine misty rain was falling over the slate grey ocean. So excited was Laura about the possibility of a new note in the bottle that she was halfway along the beach before she got around to wriggling into her raincoat.

  CAN I TRUST YOU?

  Despite her resolution, she burned with curiosity to know if the writer had replied to her YES. She quickened her pace. At the far end of the beach, a dog walker and three surfers were pointing at something on the sand. Laura couldn’t resist going over to see what had caught their attention. She hoped it would be a seal - alive, of course, but maybe resting. But there wasn’t any seal. When she finally managed to escape the licks of two exuberant labradors with wet tails, and squeeze between the surfers, she saw last thing she expected. On the sand was a message, written in long, flowing letters. The tops of the words had been nibbled away by the incoming tide, but they were, nevertheless, clearly visible.

  PROVE IT.

  Laura’s stomach did a nauseous flip. She knew, just absolutely knew, the message was for her.

  ‘I reckon it’s a love thing,’ one of the surfers was saying. ‘Some guy has asked his girl to marry him and promised to always be true, and she’s told him to prove it.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said the dog walker. ‘It’s a test. More than likely it’s a message to some gang member. Could be a coded letter ordering them to perform some kind of initiation rite.’

  ‘A gang?’ jeered the surfer. ‘In St Ives? You must be a tourist.’

  Their voices faded in Laura’s ears as she walked away. CAN I TRUST YOU? the anonymous writer had asked, and Laura had replied: YES. Now he or she had had the audacity to challenge her to prove it.

  She gathered up some stones and pieces of driftwood and carried them up the beach where they wouldn’t be touched by the tide. She knew she would be late for school, but she didn’t care. When she had finished arranging them, she climbed onto a boulder and admired her handiwork from above. She couldn’t help laughing. It was like a shrine to the word that had driven Matron and so many other people in Laura’s life mad.

  WHY?

  14

  EVERY TIME LAURA thought about the pebble and driftwood WHY she’d left on the sand, she started giggling. Mr Gillbert told her off twice for being disruptive and Kevin Rutledge suggested she consider seeing a psychiatrist, only he didn’t put it quite so nicely.

  Laura paid no attention to either of them. The fact that the second message had been written in the sand convinced her that the whole thing was a game being played by a kid or a group of kids. As long as she took care not to be seen by any of them and didn’t reveal her name, she didn’t see any harm in going along with it. It might be fun. Sort of like having an invisible friend.

  She was smiling as she tripped along the cobblestoned harbour late that afternoon. As part of Mr Gillbert’s programme of introducing the children to potential careers, a trio of classical musicians had come to the school. Their beautiful music had reduced even Kevin Rutledge to open-mouthed admiration.

  The grin left Laura’s face as she drew nearer to the lonely section of the path where she’d left the bottle. Suddenly it seemed the most important thing in the world that there was a message waiting for her. She didn’t know if she could bear it if there wasn’t.

  The grass on the northern slope of the Island grew in clumps that reminded Laura of the tussocks that concealed fairies in picture books. Many had little hollows beneath them. It was into one of these that Laura had tucked the bottle, reasoning that her penfriend would understand that if she left it in its original position on the path it might be thrown away by a litter collector or read by a third party. She’d placed it in partial view near the path where it would be seen by anyone searching for it, but was unlikely to be spotted by anyone who wasn’t.

/>   The bottle was in the hollow where she’d left it. The cream parchment had been exchanged for a piece of paper torn from a school exercise book, and the ink swapped for a black biro. Only the handwriting was the same.

  WHY? she’d written on the beach. It had been a cheeky reply because she didn’t see why she should have to prove herself to a total stranger. She unrolled the paper and spread it out on the path.

  BECAUSE IF I TRUST THE WRONG PERSON I COULD DIE.

  She dropped the paper and stepped back from it. A gust of wind caught it and blew it onto the rocks. Seconds before it was washed into the sea, she snatched it up again. She looked up at St Nicholas’s chapel, hoping to see a giggling prankster or group of pranksters - perhaps Kevin Rutledge and his moronic friends - falling about because she’d been gullible enough to reply to their messages. But no one was there.