Aleksey nodded. He was eating rapidly as well, fuelling up, feeling the pull from the deep and fighting against it. ‘No. I think she saw something at Guillemot on her last day. After she’d hidden the diary. I think she saw or heard something—she said everyone was spying on everyone else, a houseful of people all listening to each other. She heard or saw something and it frightened her so much she wrote to William. It frightened him on her behalf and so he fetched her and tried to keep her hidden.’
‘Maybe. It would have to be something pretty bad if after all this time someone is still concerned about it.’
‘I know. I don’t understand it either. Come, it’s been a couple of hours. Let’s see if Oily remembers more.’
He went to the reception of the restaurant to pay, and the man at the desk snorted as he swiped the card. ‘I hoped he enjoyed his meal, sir.’
Aleksey narrowed his eyes, considering, then glanced down at MacArthur, furry paw still clasped in his hand. He allowed a smile. ‘Yes. I am channelling my inner Sebastian Flyte.’ MacArthur appeared to find this funny, anyway.
By the time they were pushing open the gates, they knew they were too late.
There seemed to be dozens of people milling around the bungalow they’d so recently sat within. Ben took a firm hold of his sleeve and tugged him into the shadows under some trees as he surged forwards. ‘Wait! Look.’
Sienna was sitting in a car, half in, half out, one leg dangling onto the gravel. She looked totally dazed, holding a cloth to the back of her head. Another young woman was kneeling down beside her and rubbing her knee.
Aleksey went over and squatted by the two young women. ‘What happened?’ He was fairly sure he knew the answer to this already.
Sienna began to weep, but then winced as this clearly made her head wound worse. The other woman said brusquely, ‘Don’t ask her any questions. She’s got to sit quiet. She got a right bash. Don’t remember nothing, do you, love?’
‘Oily’s dead. I remember that.’
The other young woman piped up, ‘That’s three murders we had ‘ere now, an’ we ain’t had none for years an’ years. Poor old Oily.’
‘You looked after him too?’
She nodded sadly. ‘We do all the old folks in rotation.’
Sienna said softly, ‘He had his nap after you left, and came around full of everything you’d been talking about, as if he’d been dreaming ‘bout it. He seemed quite himself. Wanted his tea. I was going off, but I said Suzanne would be along presently, prob’ly with a bit of fish from the market, if’n he were lucky. He gets it cheap, like, cus he’s still in the co-operative.’
‘Yes, I met the co-operative. They did not live up to their name.’
‘So I were just closing the front door behind me, and that were it—felt something hit me. I never been hit by nothing before. I come round with Suzanne here slapping me face and callin’ me name, and she helped me up an’ we went in and…’
Suzanne’s rubbing became almost frantic. ‘Don’t, luvie. Don’t cry.’ She turned to them. ‘He’d been beaten. An’ then they’d snapped ‘is neck, looked like. Wouldn’t have taken much force, would it?’ She burst into tears the same as her friend she was attempting to comfort. ‘He knocked over ‘is jigsaw and we’d nearly finished it.’
Aleksey rose from his squat. ‘I’m sorry for you both.’
Sienna hiccupped and squinted in pain. ‘Wait. When he woke up, he said something he wanted me to tell you.’
Aleksey’s focus snapped back to her from the milling crowd outside the bungalow.
‘It were about the stranger on the cliff—he’d remembered, he said. Reckoned ‘e was one ‘a them—a keeper.’
Aleksey frowned. He’d not expected that. ‘He said the man who pushed Jenna was a lighthouse keeper?’
‘So Oily said. Or navy maybe, cus he was very tall an’ it weren’t so good being tall in a lighthouse, he said.’
‘Why did he think this?’
‘Because that’s why Jenna come towards him—‘e offered ‘er his duffle coat—held it out all ready to put over ‘er shoulders, but when she come and turned around for it, he pushed ‘er instead. Oily had one a those issued to ‘im too—uniform duffle coat, he said. That’s what ‘e said to tell you—she were like a lamb to the slaughter, thinking he was going to wrap her up like a gentleman, but he pushed her off instead.’
Aleksey felt the blood draining from his face as he listened to her. Ben was watching his expression and came closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. Ben had not read the diary, and did not get the significance of Oily’s recollection. But he did.
Ben murmured, ‘The police have arrived. We need to get out of here…’
He nodded and followed Ben, and could not, even if put to the torture, as apparently was now in vogue on Scilly, say how they got back to the boat, but back there they were. The commercial fishing fleet was docked for the night now, and the warehouses were dark. He pursed his lips, thinking. He was not so sure now that they could back out of this, even if they wanted to.
‘What now?’
