The reporter was standing on a Cornish quayside that Bovis had visited as a child. It looked inviting with its festive lights. Bovis was ready to swipe on to the next story, only something stopped him.
The reporter handed over to a young man in a zipped-up jacket. An older man, who looked like the youngster’s father, stood behind him with a protective hand on his shoulder and a furrowed brow. The man, introduced as Ben Thomas, was pleading into the lens, ‘Alex, please let us know you’re all right. We’re all missing you so much. Please, just come home for Christmas.’
‘What state of mind was Alexandra in when you last saw her?’ the reporter asked, jabbing the microphone closer to the young man’s face.
‘Well,uh, she was… fine. Happy? Looking forward to Christmas.’
Bovis knew a liar when he saw one and this lad was terrible at hiding it, gulping and tugging at his jacket collar like it was choking him. He really did appear to be worried, though more for himself maybe than his missing girlfriend.
‘Had you quarrelled at all?’ the reporter wanted to know. They too seemed to know there was more to the story than he was letting on.
‘I wouldn’t say we’d beenquarrelling, more that… she got upset, and she ran off. Spur of the moment sort of thing.’
‘You only reported her as missing yesterday. Why?’
Panicked, he spoke quickly. ‘She’d been spotted all along the coast so we knew where she was, and she’s a good sailor. We all thought she’d have turned back by now.’
‘Yet, there have been no sightings of the ferry known as theDagaliensince the seventeenth of December, and no radio messages at all. We understand that the search was initially planned for Christmas Eve but has been brought forward to start later today due to the storms. Will it find her, do you think?’
‘I hope so,’ the man gulped, and his eyes swam with tears.
Bovis wondered if it wasn’t just the wind whipping at the lad’s face doing it. He didn’t like the look of him one bit, but he felt sorry for the older man standing behind him, visibly anguished.
‘Ben Thomas, thank you very much.’ The reporter turned back to the camera, telling of the mounting Storm Nora that was expected to make landfall in the next twenty-four hours and how if the search didn’t turn up any clues as to the missing ferrywoman’s whereabouts soon, there’d be little chance of finding her until after the storm passed, which could, the reporter warned, be many days.
Bovis peered at the still image of the missing blonde woman on the screen, angling his body so he could compare it with the woman wiping down the counter and singing a song to herself. His eyes narrowed.
Wordlessly he stood, flicking the news site shut. As he left through the café door, making the five-pound notes on the table flutter to the floor, he talked into his phone. His words were caught up in the wind and carried away, out of Alex’s hearing.
‘Coastguard? The runaway girl? She’s ’ere at Clove Lore.’
Chapter Sixteen
The Calm before the Storm
‘So maybe we didn’t make a fortune,’ Alex said, counting out her profits and adding them to the bookshop till’s takings. ‘But it was fun, right?’
Magnús didn’t want to say he had loved every second. ‘We did well. Sixty-three pounds and seventy-five pence. It’s still a profit.’
There were many days back at Ash and the Crash where he’d have given anything to have banked that much. Meanwhile, Alex could make three times that amount on a busy day’s sailing, but she kept that to herself.
‘Have you turned the sign?’ she asked.
Magnús strode round the counter and displayed the word ‘closed’ to any passers-by crazy enough to step out in this rain, now falling at a slant and drumming upon the cobbles.
Bovis had been the café’s last customer of the day and he’d left over an hour ago. The rain and winter darkness had chased everyone else back indoors.
Under its thick blanket of cloud, Clove Lore smelled of chimney soot, wet sand and hearty meals being cooked in cosy homes. Somewhere nearby, a winter garden bonfire had been snuffed out and the resinous smoke still lingered around the rooftops. The scents insinuated their way into the bookshop, mingling with the heady aroma of fir tree warmed by the log fire.
Magnús surveyed the shelves, wonderfully illuminated by the tree’s twinkling lights – red, blue and green. The star on the top branch, attached by a perilously thin vintage cord to the mains, gleamed gaily, casting a gentle glow over the wonky-beamed ceilings.
He had kept the firewood topped up all afternoon, just as Jowan instructed, so the edges of the room were finally warming to a comfortable temperature. The sounds of raindrops pattering on the roof and the windows only made the place cosier.
‘Did you enjoy your day?’ Magnús asked, as Alex dropped the coins into the till and locked the drawer with the key.
She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll be honest with you. It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.’ She shook her head and repeated the words. ‘Alongtime.’
‘Me too.’ He really meant it. ‘Thank you for helping me. I think we’re good at this.’
