“Hold on,” I said, vaguely remembering the story Dave Chambers had told me about the murder that had got Dauntless Island an official police station. “Wasn’t the last mayor the killer, and didn’t he also try to kill you?”
“That was a crazy week,” he said, eyes wide as he nodded. “Oh, and I’m also a descendant of the captain of the HMS Dauntless, so you can imagine how well that went down too!”
“Why would?—”
“Why would something that happened two hundred years ago still matter enough for people to kill for it?” He laughed. “Welcome to Dauntless, Senior Constable Miller.”
“Dominic,” I corrected him.
“Dominic,” he said, with a pleased smile. “Anyway, I told Joe he should come and meet you, since, you know, he’s the mayor, but he’s stuck on a call with some tech guys about getting this phone aerial thing put on the lighthouse, and apparently there are some issues since it’s a listed site, so now the Department of Environment and Heritage is involved too and it’s turning into a major goatfuck. Oops.” He belatedly cupped his hands over the baby’s ears. “But it already has a bunch of satellite stuff on it, so what’s a couple more aerials?”
I shrugged.
“Okay, so I’m trying to think if Amy has milk next door or not,” he said.
“I thought you lived next door?”
“Well, it’s technically my place since it comes with the museum,” Eddie said, “but I live with Joe at the lighthouse, so Amy, that’s Joe’s sister, and Baby Joe”—he patted the baby’s head—“moved in there.”
“I think I followed that.”
“Oh, also, everyone on the island has the same name,” he said. “Not just first names, but surnames. There are at least four, maybe five, John Barnses, and don’t even get me started on the John Dinsmores. There’s enough of them to start their own footy team.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, yeah.” Eddie grinned. “I’m writing a paper on it. There are like three hundred people on the island, and a pool of about twenty-five names. It’s insane.”
The more I learned about Dauntless Island, the weirder it seemed, and the more I worried that I might be totally out of my depth here. I was great at community policing, but that was in a normal community. Not a crazy one where I couldn’t buy milk and everybody was called the same thing, and people murdered other people because of how they felt about a mutiny that had happened two centuries ago. I rubbed my forehead, where a headache was threatening to make itself known. “I actually did get milk. Well, a promise of milk.”
Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Yeah, from a guy called Robbie Finch?”
“Oh, Robbie,” Eddie said. “Yeah, he’s an odd one too. Super quiet. He and his sister, Katrina, have a farm in the middle of the island, with goats and cows and chickens. If you need eggs and milk, they’re your people.”
“He’s bringing some here,” I said.
“That’s good,” Eddie said. “Just...”
“Just what?”
“Just don’t count on it lasting.” Eddie bit his lower lip. “Like, don’t take it personally or anything, it’s just that you’re a cop, which means you’re a representative of government authority, which is everything the Dauntless Islanders despise, and so they hate you with the fire of a million burning suns.”
“Don’t take that personally?” My jaw dropped. “How is that not personal?”
Eddie winced. “Yeah, sorry. All I’m saying is that if people find out Robbie’s delivering you milk, they’re probably going to give him a hard time. He might decide it’s easier to forget the whole deal.”
“Jesus.” Yeah, that was definitely a headache starting to form behind my eyes.
“Sorry.” Eddie winced again. “It’s... it’s easier if you expect the unexpected when it comes to how things work on Dauntless, and just try to go with the flow.”
“Yeah.” I felt like going with the flow would be a lot easier on a full stomach, and if I was sufficiently fuelled with caffeine.
Eddie wrinkled his nose. “This place is looking good though!” he said in a bright tone, like a parent trying to change the subject when their kid asked an uncomfortable question. “Very official and police-stationy. Well, apart from the curtains.”
I looked at the awful floral curtains and snorted. They really were eye-wateringly hideous, and somehow, perfectly summed up my Dauntless Island experience so far. The place was just off. Despite the sunlight and the ocean breeze, it had the same jarring vibe as those towns in horror movies where small children in old-fashioned clothes recited nursery rhymes in sing-song voices right before the killings began.
A shadow flitted past the window, and for a second I thought the locals were coming for me, probably led by Mavis who would beat me to death with a milk churn. Then, when I shut that stupid thought down and remembered that this was real life and I was a capable adult and a police officer—they trusted me with a gun and everything—I figured it was probably Robbie Finch with my milk and eggs.
