‘Hello.’ I call down at the boat, impatient to see if Cody is there. The cabin door is closed so I carefully head down the stone steps and call again. Just as I lean over to peer through a porthole of the fishing boat, he steps out onto the deck. I didn’t appreciate how weathered he looked earlier when the sun was bouncing off his sunglasses, but now I see the tired deep creases that surround his eyes and the large open pores in his nose. His hair is thin but covers his whole head.
He holds a calloused hand up, no doubt from tying ropes and being out in rough weather. ‘Hello, err, sorry I forgot your name.’
He hasn’t forgotten my name. He knows exactly who I am otherwise he wouldn’t have scarpered out of the pub when he saw me. ‘Kate.’
‘You’re booked in for a trip tomorrow. Everything okay?’
I’m sure that he’d love it if I just went away but I won’t make it that easy for him, however much I don’t want to go on that boat at eight in the morning. I checked and the weather is going to be drizzly with a breeze. What a surprise. I’m dreading it but the girls are beyond excited. ‘I just need a word.’
‘Oh, about?’ He looks almost smug, like he’s playing a game with me.
‘Let’s cut the crap. You know who I am.’ I need him to think I can stand up for myself, that I won’t leave until I have answers.
‘I can’t say that I do. We see many tourists around here. It’s hard to remember everyone so if we’ve met in the past, I apologise for not recognising you.’
‘In the pub yesterday, why did you run off when I was trying to get your attention?’
‘Run off?’ He scrunched his nose. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
I shake my head. ‘I know that you’re Will.’ I let out a huff of a laugh. ‘Will Wilcox. That’s original. I guess all you’re missing is the pirate hat. You got me here to tell me something, so please stop playing games with me. Do you know how much it hurts? I have a right to know what happened to Jess.’
He exhales and pulls a cigarette from his pocket. ‘Want one?’
I haven’t smoked for several years but I feel I should smoke with him, build some sort of a rapport. Maybe I’ve gone in a little heavy here. Actually, I know I have. ‘Thanks.’
I take one. He lights his, then mine and he takes a long suck on the cigarette. I ingest the tiniest amount and let out a small cough. The nicotine instantly gives me a pleasurable hit and the tremble in my hands that I’m trying hard to hide is calming down.
‘Can we start again?’ I smile. ‘Why did you run from the pub? Please, I need to know.’
He leans on the rail around his boat and puffs out some O shapes. ‘Okay, I recognise you from your Facebook photo and that page. Now and again, a local story runs and it mentions the dangers of the sea and leaving children unaccompanied. Your little sister is always brought up and used as a lesson. Everyone here knows you. I’m sorry I pretended that I didn’t recognise you. It’s just, what happened hangs over this town and it’s painful for us too.’
‘Why did you leave the pub instead of speaking to me?’
He doesn’t answer my question. I don’t know whether he’s trying to avoid lying by not answering at all, or whether he has a plausible excuse. I take another drag on the cigarette and this time I enjoy it a little more. My heart rate is more relaxed.
‘It’s my father. He’s in a home and I got a call. He had a fall yesterday so I went to check that he was okay. He was fine when I got there. Not a scratch on him. He couldn’t even remember falling but that’s another story.’
‘What do you know about, Jess?’
His stare pierces through me as he continues to smoke. ‘That summer, I was back home after finishing uni so I helped my dad on the boat. He’d been in an accident so I picked up the slack. The day your sister went missing, he’d been with me on a trip but he wasn’t himself, not since that accident. He’d get facts and all manner of things mixed up.’
‘Would you mind telling me about it?’
‘It has nothing to do with your sister.’
‘Sorry.’
He blew out more smoke and sighed. ‘It’s okay. Everyone around here knows what happened. It’s not exactly a secret. He was in a crash with another vehicle and a large van. He ended up in a ditch, suffered terrible head trauma, which caused him a lot of confusion after. He saved a toddler from the other car and helped the parents out, just before their car slipped down a steep hill. He was a bit of a hero that day. Anyway, at first he seemed fine but very soon, he was suffering with an awful concussion, caused him amnesia too sometimes. That was about a month before your sister drowned. After that, I had to be on the boat with him all the time. He still loved it but he’d blank out here and there, which meant he wasn’t safe alone.’
‘Maybe he saw something that has never been said to the police.’
‘I thought that when I first heard what had happened. I left him for awhile. I think I went to grab some food and when I got back he was asleep in the cabin. I don’t for one moment believe he went out on deck and saw anything.’
‘I remember a man in a pirate hat with a pixie necklace.’
‘That would have been Dad. He used to wear that piskie around his neck all the time. He reckoned that Joan the Wad used to protect him when he was out at sea. All supernatural claptrap. But he did used to wear that pirate hat a lot. The kids loved it.’
‘There was another man who wore a pirate hat.’ I have this faint recall of another man in a hat.
