Page 19 of Dauntless
Probably nothing near to what they’d say if they’d seen us an hour ago on the lighthouse catwalk.
Eddie threw me a quick grin, like he knew exactly what I was thinking, and followed me into Short Clarry’s cottage.
Short Clarry’s living room was a riot of clashing floral décor, courtesy of his late wife, Enid.Enid Finch had never seen a flower pattern—whether on curtains, cushions, carpet, or coffee mugs—that she didn’t like.The bookshelf was full of porcelain knick-knacks, each sitting on its own lace doily.Short Clarry was a fussy little man with a fussy little house, but he was endlessly enthusiastic about Dauntless Island and all its residents, and I’d always liked that about him.
Hiccup sat in the doorway and stared balefully at Short Clarry’s fat longhaired cat, her one true nemesis.The cat didn’t give a fuck and continued to gaze imperiously out the window.
Clarry brought coffee and sweet biscuits, and Eddie and I sat on the couch.Clarry sat opposite us in a worn easy chair.
“Oh, it’s a bad business,” Short Clarry said at last, gesturing to Eddie.“Tourism will never take off if the mainlanders learn this is how we treat our visitors.”He flinched.“Not that this is how we treat our visitors!This is quite out of the ordinary.Isn’t it, Red Joe?Quite out of the ordinary.”
Short Clarry, like many of the older islanders, had a distinct accent that many of the younger residents had lost at boarding schools and universities on the mainland.Two hundred years of isolation had preserved a lot of the West Country in the Dauntless accent.
“Very much so,” I said, more to smooth Short Clarry’s ruffled feathers than Eddie’s.
“And you’re looking into it, are you, Red Joe?”he asked, tilting his head.“Youare?”
I hummed and caught Eddie’s interested glance.“I am.”
Short Clarry inhaled.“Well, then.Well, that’s good news.Your father would be proud, Red Joe.”
I cleared my throat, ignoring the sudden ache in my chest, and changed the subject before Short Clarry turned this moment into something bigger than I wanted it to be.“But listen, Clarry, I told John Coldwell this morning that this isn’t something for the community to handle.This is a police matter.”
“Oh, yes.”Short Clarry shook his head and tutted.“It’s terrible.Just terrible.Of course the police need to be involved, but it’s terrible that it’s even necessary.”He leaned forward, the springs of the easy chair creaking underneath him.“Now, who do you think did such a thing?Was it John Coldwell?Because you know how short his temper is!You remember when Agnes Barnes threw an egg at Josiah Nesmith’s statue?”He clicked his tongue.“No, that must’ve been before your time, but you know the story.”
That was the island in a nutshell, really.Whether a thing happened five years ago, or fifty, it was never forgotten.
“Well,” Short Clarry continued, “John Coldwell waslivid, even though Agnes was just a little girl larking about.He yelled at her up and down the length of the street for an hour, until her brother Big Johnny and your dad came up from the jetty and told him they’d knock his teeth out if he didn’t lay off.”He sipped his coffee.“Agnes still won’t sit near him in village meetings, even though it must be over thirty years ago now it all happened.”
I nodded.
Short Clarry smiled.“Oh, but she carried a torch for Tall Joe after that day!”
I’d heard that story a million times before too.How little Agnes Barnes had mooned over my dad for ages, with the intensity only an eight-year-old girl could muster.She’d been a flower girl at my parents’ wedding, scowling jealously at my mum in all the photographs.
“You didn’t see anyone going up to the point last night?”I asked.
Short Clarry’s brow creased.“In that storm?No, I shut my windows and was in bed early.”
And there was the difficulty.People had shut out the weather and pulled their curtains closed.Even if they had been looking out, who would have glimpsed anyone in that storm?The island was as dark as pitch when storms came, apart from the lightning.
“You’ve heard about the diary then?”I asked him.
Short Clarry snorted, his hairy eyebrows tugging together.“Who hasn’t?It’s a fake, of course.Everyone knows Henry Jessup died on the island.”
Eddie snapped a biscuit in half and pasted on a brittle smile.
“Probably,” I agreed.“But even if it was real, it’s just a book.Nobody should hurt somebody over a book.”
“Hmm,” said Short Clarry thoughtfully.“Tell that to John Coldwell.”
I thought back to how John Coldwell had suggested Eddie was lucky the islanders hadn’t hanged him like they had his ancestor George Hawthorne.
Short Clarry had a point.
* * *
It was cold enough that night that I lit a fire.Eddie accompanied me on my rounds of the lighthouse, and then we returned to the cottage and sat on the living room couch.The fire burned, wood cracking, and light danced and made shadows in the cavernous fireplace.Hiccup, who had no sense of self-preservation, lay as close to the screen as she could, slowly roasting herself.
