Chapter Seven
The next morning, waking warm and relaxed in Ben’s arms, Aleksey watched the bright light of a new day sparkling on the ocean beyond Kittiwake, until he felt a hot figure stir alongside him. He rolled his head on the pillow, and his beloved green eyes were watching him—but without their usual predatory intent. They were instead bright with expressed excitement for something else. Aleksey laughed and turned back to face the sea once more.
‘I suspect today will be one of great disappointments to you,min skat. This will all be tall tales and nothing more—the family moron is involved for a start. I have begun to understand where some of his bizarre enthusiasms come from.’
‘Do you genuinely think you’re fooling me?’
He suppressed a smile. ‘What? I’m being serious. I think we’re being led to believe that our arthritic and slightly incontinent dog has discovered the lost treasure of Montezuma. So, yes, I’m sceptical and prepared to—’
‘He found a sacrifice to an ancient god buried on Dartmoor, and he saved us all from that cult’s self-appointed high priests.’
‘Yes, that’s as maybe. He dug up something foul on the moors. I accept that is within his skill set, as you would no doubt term it, but finding—’
‘He’s already found treasure.’ He rolled his head back at Ben’s sly comment, and at his puzzled expression, Ben continued triumphantly, ‘He foundyouin that fucking shed on Aero and saved your life.’
Annoyed now—being outsmarted by Ben was genuinely worrying—he shuffled away, pushing Ben’s arms off. ‘Do not swear at me. How many times do I—Oh, what are you doing?’ It appeared that, being treasure, he was now being shown just how precious he genuinely was.
* * *
Tim and the moron arrived later that morning with similar expressions on their faces as the one Ben wore. It could have been the excitement of treasure hunting giving them all this revitalised, glowing energy, but he suspected that it was more the consequence of being four men very well fucked. Fortunately, he and Ben had left spare clothes at Kittiwake and so appeared and smelt their usual selves. Tim, however, was wearing some of his boyfriend’s stuff, which gave him the look of a schoolboy in new uniform, an impression not helped by the way he pushed his glasses up in expectation as Harry arrived with Snodgrass and Billy in tow.
Billy immediately came up to him and hugged him, a fierce seize around the legs, which is as far as he could reach, and then hugged Ben the same. He looked shockingly frail, most of his wispy grey comb-over now little more than strands of fluff. As soon as he squeezed in between the two big dogs on the sofa and patted his lap for his precious white scrap to jump up, he began to cough, an alarming sound that none of them knew how to help. Harry just took him a glass of water and made no further issue of it. The glance he gavehim, however, was telling. There were conversations to be had, Aleksey realised, and not pleasant ones.
Sitting there, however, small and frail, but surrounded by fur and friends, their little King of England seemed remarkably happy. Aleksey wondered if the pretender could say the same. Sometimes, less was indeed more, as he was coming to see only too well.
He pulled his attention back to the meeting and accepted an essential mug of tea and a slightly stale croissant from the moron. As he was inspecting this last, inevitably fending Ben off it, Squeezy prompted Harry, ‘Go on, tell him your idea.’
Harry waved this away calmly. ‘Presumptuous, son. Not my place.’
Intrigued, Aleksey asked, ‘What? What idea?’ He ignored the poke from Ben and added, ‘I like ideas.’
‘Well, it occurred to me over the Christmas holidays how splendid it would be to have the old boat service restored around the islands. I was chatting to Mrs S in the Slope over a slightly stale bun—bonny widow, that one— and she was bemoaning the fact that there used to be a chap who went from island to island daily delivering fresh supplies—father and son then grandson, apparently. Until recently.’
‘Boatman…yes.’
‘There you go. I was thinking we could bringBoatmanback—not from the dead, you understand. Only a rare few of us can achieve that great feat, and only then by the grace of God and the kind auspices of a rather wealthy and good-hearted chap.’ Aleksey felt himself colouring with pleasure, which was uncharacteristic, so attempted to hide this with a frown. ‘But upon examining my idea, costing it up so to speak, it seems entirely fanciful. No profit in it for poor Boatman—unless I could think of a philanthropist who might consider subsidising such a venture…’
Aleksey turned to Ben, and Ben murmured dryly, ‘I’ll translate for you. I think that’s you.’
‘Ah, that’s what I got too.’
Harry warmed now to his theme and started gesticulating. ‘We buy the boat—which would be the most expensive part of the investment. Then we recruit a likely Boatman on asalary—I was thinking a retired fisherman, someone past that taxing work who’d like a bit of easy retirement. Or, and I like this idea almost as much, we employ a young lad who otherwise couldn’t afford to stay on Scilly. Give back a bit to the locals, to the islands. Then Boatman buys all his produce local from Tre Huw, which helps them as well, and toodles around selling his wares on the various outlying islands. What do you think?’
Aleksey began to rearrange one or two of the items on the table. ‘I think you should have both—an old fisherman and a young apprentice for him, so you have some continuity to this wonderful new service you will offer.’ He saw the pleasure on the old man’s face at his ready acceptance of the scheme, but also knew that Harry hadn’t noticed his subtle switch of pronouns.
Ben pointed out, in a deceptively sincere tone, ‘You should consult your girlfriend. She’ll likely know people for both jobs.’
Aleksey curled his lip. ‘I have not formed a particularly good opinion of the people she knows—and we are not having a dumb Cornish name for our new boat.’
‘Speaking of boats, son, shall we return to the tale of theNicholas?’ Harry laughed a little at their eager expressions, the folding of arms, the settling in.
‘Well, at least I know where to start this time. With our retired Admiral Hawkins. Remember, promotion was swift in those days for successful privateers. Elizabeth was a very generous monarch to those who pleased her. John Hawkins was only in his mid-forties when he commissioned a house to be built on the hills overlooking the Dart—part of it is still there, a Tudor wing on its newer Victorian additions. He was a vigorous man, used to a life of adventure and sail, and so took up some local work, becoming a Member of Parliament and a local magistrate. It was in this latter role that our tale becomes rather dark and mysterious, for one day he was called upon to try the case of a Cornish landowner accused of murder—this was in 1587. He recognised Frobisher right away, although it had been nearly thirty years since they had last seen each other, and this man was calling himself Farrier—’
‘—That’s not possible.’ Tim pushed up his glasses. ‘That would have made this John Hawkins only—’
‘Only fifteen, possibly sixteen when he commanded that ship across to Jamaica? Indeed. Remarkable. But these were very different times, son. When theWagerwas lost in 1741, it had six-year-old boys in the crew list. But perhaps this also gave him doubt—that he knew he was recalling events from when he was so young and traumatic events at that. He did challenge Farrier, but the man stoutly denied that he was this missing officer. But when you doubt, you weigh arguments on both sides, and not only was this man the right age, the most telling thing for Hawkins was that the man he was accused of murdering was a Scilly fisherman—from St Mary’s. A very well-known local man who ran a small congregation of radical Protestants. They were Lollards, you see, so having been driven out of the English mainland during Mary’s reign, they had retreated west as far as they could go in those days—to Scilly.’
Aleksey had entirely lost the thread of logic now, not being able to translate this term very well. He had an image in his mind of very lazy people sitting around in the sun being unpopular. He glanced across at Ben, hoping he’d do the necessary, but for once Ben let him down, so he was forced to ask,
