‘There. I knew it.’ Ben pointed. They were at the western extent of the island. Here, they could see the old children’s home from an angle not possible from the land. It was not a flat U-shape at all, but had another, smaller wing forming a T off the southern arm of the U, and this was separated on the outside by a much smaller courtyard. Most telling, this extra wing was split-level and had been built into the rock—it had been constructed to make use of the shape of the island, possibly to give it more shelter. What was top floor became ground floor and ground floor ended abruptly—no stairs needed. ‘I knew it wasn’t me.’ Ben needed to believe in his own sense of direction, his own physical abilities. Aleksey realised with a private smile that whilst he’d been dwelling on grinning monkeys and lobotomy tables, Ben had been puzzling out the logistics of going between floors without apparently needing stairs. They made a good team—in more ways than this, but this was good to know too. Ben needed to get to the heart of things as well, only he used handbooks and technical specifications.Hehad been chasing ghosts. Ben had been mapping and calculating. He cupped Ben’s neck and kissed into the side of his cold, sea-damp hair.
Just as interesting as the revealed shape of the asylum was the wooden dock they discovered built into a sheltered inlet in the rocks. It made sense that some of the staff would have arrived and departed by boat rather than waiting on a variable tide or the availability of the tractor. The jetty was slung with tyres for cushioning, and then some steps had been cut into the slippery rocks leading to the back of the home. Aleksey wondered whether, if he went close enough, he’d see bright blue paint scraped along one of the tyres.
Once they arrived at the small settlement on Benhar main, they went straight to the churchyard.
It was an idyllic spot, nestled beneath the sandy heath, above which a lone red kite circled on a thermal. Jenna’s grave was by the back wall. She appeared as alone in death as she had been in life.
‘She must have died in childbirth or shortly after of complications. Her mother and father were dead, so she was an orphan. Perhaps this is where they had lived as a family, and when they sacked her, she came home, hoping someone on the island would help her. Her father was a fisherman.’
Ben nudged him. ‘Let’s find the cottage where the old woman was killed, seeing as we’re here.’
Aleksey nodded and they walked together along the front of the harbour. The place was still achingly pretty but now he felt entirely separate from it, as if he were an intruder in toy town and all the little folk were cowering at his presence. It had always been a feeling he’d enjoyed, but now it made him melancholy. It could have been other things, he supposed, making him sad.
The cottage was easy to find. It still had crime tape fluttering around it. They ignored this as they’d ignored the danger signs for the causeway, stepping over it and shouldering the door.
It was tiny—barely room for both of them. It smelled foul, a combination of unaired stuffiness and dried blood. And possibly fear and pain. Did you regain lucidness at the end? Aleksey had often heard that people did. He hoped this had not been the case with this old woman and that her dementia had been her saving. But pain was pain, and fear was fear, and no internal confusion could lessen those evils.
There was nothing to see.
Except for the bear.
He was sitting on the sideboard on a circle of lacy material next to a little china egg cup and matching spoon.
Grimacing, Aleksey picked him up. If buildings could retain memory, soak in atmosphere, then could not a toy such as this tell his own story? He wished the bear would speak. He sensed Ben staring at him, so murmured, ‘It was in the asylum. I didn’t tell you. I saw it in there.’
‘You think Billy took it there from the lighthouse?’
Aleksey nodded. ‘Yes. And now it’s here.’
‘Huh. Why? What’s the connection? I don’t get any of this.’
Aleksey shrugged. He didn’t know either, and the teddy wasn’t talking.
‘You think Billy’s in danger, don’t you? The bear links him to this old woman, and she was murdered.’
‘Yes.’
He took the bear with them and they returned to their boat.
Neither of them wanted to go into the café when, as they headed towards the dock, they saw the proprietor behind aclosedsign, on her phone and talking with someone as she was watching them.
Ben motored a little way out. ‘Where to?’
‘There is more to this that we’re not seeing. Jenna spoke of lighthouse keepers other than William and one of them was called Oily. I knew that name already—someone told me to ask for Oily Penrose. I should have found him then, when I had the chance. I let it drop, and it was a mistake. We need to return to St Mary’s and find him. It must be the same keeper Jenna knew. I think he works on a commercial fishing trawler now, and I think I know which one. Head for the fishing fleet dock on the south coast.’
Ben nodded and set the course and they pulled out of sight of the island of Benhar. Aleksey shivered and felt eyes on him like tiny spiders making his skin prick.
After an uneventful crossing, where they were mostly silent and lost to their own thoughts, Ben steered them in through the study walls which formed and sheltered the basin for the fleet. Still carrying the bear, swinging him thoughtlessly by one arm, Aleksey jumped out onto a swaying walkway and heaved Ben after him. They naturally attracted a lot of attention, and many workers stopped what they were doing to observe the strange pair. This was proper fishing territory and tourists weren’t encountered very often.
They walked up and down the pontoons and read boat names until they found the one they wanted: Glaswyn Mor. Three men were unloading the day’s catch, two hefting crates onto the wooden dock and one swilling down the deck with a hose. Aleksey went up to the nearest one and waited until the man glanced up. ‘I’m looking for Oily Penrose. I was told you would know where he is.’ The man glanced down at his two companions in the boat, and Aleksey then saw a resemblance between them all. Father and sons? The elder, the one he’d addressed, folded his arms and blew out his cheeks, considering. ‘Aye, well. It’s our turn now is it? Had to come, I suppose. Time to end this. Oily’s on gutting today. He’s in the shed. What you want with ‘im? Mayhap I can help.’
‘What shed? Where?’ No time for politeness now. He felt the bear heavy in his hand, weighing him down.
Ben was standing close, his eyes switching between the older and younger men. The man they’d spoken with nodded to the younger ones and said something rapidly in a strange language neither he nor Ben understood, but Ben murmured in Danish, ‘No guesses what that is.’
The fisherman wiped his hands on a rag and removed his oilskin coat, revealing a worn jersey. ‘This way.’
He went back along the wooden walkway towards the big warehouses where the commercial trawlers unloaded their catch, skirted between two of them to a much smaller building in the rear. It was busy inside, a dozen or so men and woman in white coveralls working both sides of a long bench. Above this central trestle table hung hooks held on thick ropes, and one or two larger fish, possibly sharks, were suspended by their gills, swinging gently. Boxes of smaller fish and shellfish were stacked high and packed in ice on one side of the space. They had names of towns in Cornwall stencilled on the side: Truro, Penzance, Launceston. One woman was counting the boxes, on her phone, nodding. Her gaze flicked quickly to them when they came in. The workers were wielding boning knives with a speed and dexterity that spoke of lifetimes buried deep in fish guts. They probably lived with the smell of fish ingrained in their skin, and had tiny silver scales trapped forever in folds of their clothes. The floor was littered with the cast-offs of the boning: entrails, heads, eyes, tails—and all of these unwanted parts of dead fish were being constantly sluiced by hoses into a central drain. The floor was awash. The smell was overpowering.
