Suddenly, Ben grasped his arm and pointed to something illuminated in their dive lights. They hung suspended above the wooden spar he’d seen Ben clinging to before. They all three descended more and held onto it, swam around it, examined it. It was wood and it stuck out of the seabed; there wasn’t much more to say. Whether it looked five hundred years old was debatable, but as they fortunately couldn’t communicate with each other, he wasn’t forced to defend his view that it absolutelydid. Ben indicated he was going to swim further out and search. The moron began to scrape away the sand around what wasobviouslythe bow of this great medieval sailing ship. He half-expected to see its figurehead appear beneath the idiot’s fingers. Ben returned, shaking his head and began to assist with the removal of sand. After a few minutes more, Ben made up gestures, and when he refused, grabbed his arm and drew a very understandable line across his throat. They surfaced at the same time, bobbing in the waves fifty yards from their companion, who was staring down into the ocean holding a fork. He seemed overly relieved when they hauled themselves from the water and shed their gear.
Stripped to the waist to enjoy the rare winter sun, Aleksey hunched annoyed over his tea and sandwich, listening to the other three debating their spectacular lack of success. There had been nothing: no gold, no jewels, no silver, no blood-soaked sacrificial daggers.
The moron seemed to sum it up for the three of them when he pointed out gloomily into the little flames of the bluey they’d brought for their tea, ‘Not even any bloody feet.’
Suddenly, Ben sat straighter. ‘Maybe it’s all washed further down on the currents to the island. Maybe it’s all heading there.’ Aleksey narrowed his eyes, picturing, like a march of crabs on the seabed, all the gold coins and jewels scuttling along on their own. ‘Well, some of it has, hasn’t it! Maybe the rest is just on its way there!’ Even the moron looked sceptical at Ben’s idea, which was worrying, but agreed with him it was worth a try. They suited up again. Squeezy handed Tim his fork once more and nodded to the seriousness of his shark-watch job, and they plunged back into the ocean. This time, when they reached the spar, they checked their compasses and began to swim in an easterly direction towards Light Island. Spread out, six feet apart, they moved methodically over the sand and rock, occasionally stopping to scoop up handfuls and let the grains trickle out between their fingers. After fifteen minutes or so, Aleksey caught Ben’s attention and indicated they should go back, but Ben held up his fingers for five more minutes. He and Squeezy moved slowly away, but Aleksey turned to view the ground they’d covered, intensely annoyed now and disappointed. Deciding he’d had enough, he began to surface.
He didn’t notice the vast dark shape above him until he was almost upon it, but even then this was not the thing that made him reel back in shock and horror. Eliam Colter was standing watching him, a few feet away, arms folded and smoking a cigarette.
For one moment, Aleksey could not compute this apparition. Once his heart had returned to normal after the shadow had screechedgreat whitestraight into his brain, the cognitive dissonance of seeing this man standing alongside him in jeans and a shirt and smoking was almost worse. Then the man gave a sarcastic, smug waggle of his fingers in greeting. Aleksey hung suspended in the wateralongside the hydrosphere. He tipped his neck back and saw the vast bulk of the dual-hulledRogue Waveabove him. He returned his attention to Colter, who was laughing quietly to himself. Their relative positions, which had been established during their small encounter on the island, were now reversed, and Aleksey felt this acutely. He was also one hundred percent sure that this man knew exactly what the three of them were doing. Had this professional treasure hunter got here first? Is this why there was nothing to find? Colter wasn’t giving him any answers. He appeared to press one of the seats, and the sphere began to rise. It was almost too surreal to believe. The cylinder sealed itself back between the hulls, and the dark shadow began to move away. Aleksey exploded once more to the surface and could only watchRogue Wave’s departure as it moved lazily off. Colter, now on deck, was standing watching him. Aleksey ripped off his mask, sculling to stay afloat, his dive weights pulling him back under. He squinted against the sun and salt in his eyes and the chop in his face but could not say for sure which direction the boat was heading. But he would stake his life on the fact it was sailing due east.
* * *
Chapter THIRTEEN
‘Just run it past me again, professor. I am highly entertained. He appeared from the west and came right up to you on the rock—I like that bit, start there.’
They were back in Kittiwake, essential tea made and the burner blazing.
Tim prissily adjusted the position of his mug on the table. ‘Naturally, I was surprised.’
‘Of course. Only natural. So you said?’
‘Hello.’
‘Excellent start.’
The moron was nodding encouragingly at his boyfriend. It was one of his most irritating quirks that only he was ever allowed to torment, torture, or attack Timothy Watson in any way, and so once he’d surfaced and foundhimberating the younger man, Squeezy had immediately become his boyfriend’s chief supporter. ‘Tell him what you said then, Timbo. Sheer genius.’ Tim smiled weakly.
Ben, stony-faced, muttered, ‘Don’t forget the bit about admiring his sausage.’
‘I admired hisboat; Iofferedhim a sausage.’
‘Nice obfuscation. Well done, Son of Wat.’ Tim’s eyebrows rose slightly. Not only was his boyfriend taking his side, he was doing it with long words.
‘Yes, professor, but then he asked you what we were all doing, and you said? Go on—this is my favourite part.’
Tim shifted uncomfortably in his chair and then admitted in a rush, ‘I know. But I panicked a bit. I mean, I didn’t know who he was or anything about him, because obviously no one ever tells me anything, and I always get the feeling something is happening around me that I never find out about, but I did think I’d better be careful what I let slip, just in case, and so I thought, I know, I’ll double-bluff him, totally put anyone off the scent, so I said—’
‘—treasure hunting. You told him we were looking for a sunken treasure ship.’ Aleksey mock clapped as he helped the professor out. Ben’s scowl deepened, and he folded his arms, which was a pretty severe rebuke from him, as Aleksey could not recall him ever being angry with his friend before.
Squeezy was shaking his head at the outstanding brilliance of this double-bluff tactic.
They sank into gloomy silence, working their way through plates of food. Ben was on his phone, apparently engrossed in something. Tim pulled his out and swiped and muttered. The moron appeared to be deep in concentration writing something, which as he had no pen and there wasn’t a piece of paper, struck Aleksey as something designed to annoy him. This suspicion was then cemented when the fool kept giving him furtive glances and apparently correcting and altering the things he wasn’t actually writing. After a few more minutes, Ben nudged him and showed him his screen. ‘Mol Mol’s been to the zoo today. Look.’
He duly put his glasses on and studied the picture. ‘Which one is your daughter?’ Ben snatched the phone back, but he plucked it away again. Molly was sitting alongside a monkey. They were both posing nicely for their photo, both grinning.
‘Have they been to the palace yet?’
‘Tomorrow, apparently.’
He nodded, blew out his cheeks and checked his watch.
‘Right! Put that away, Ben. Get a proper bit of paper, Michael, and stop being an idiot. Anyone got a pen? Is Harry coming?’ Tim Watson ignored the slightly stunned reaction he got to his sudden hectoring tone and continued, ‘I am sick and tired of being made out to be a total fool by you three complete ignoramuses. Not a single qualification between you for anything, and I’ve got a fucking doctorate. Do you know what that means? Besides actually having a brain? I can doresearch. I think about things. All of Harry’s story about the Frobisher curse is completely irrelevant other than for contextual background, except for one thing. One event you all glossed over. Well, I actually sat on that rock today, waiting for you all to be eaten by sharks, andIthought about it.’ He paused, unnecessarily dramatically, because not a single one of them was moving a muscle or not focusing one hundred percent on his outburst. Even the moron was poised with the pen he’d been thrust, observing his boyfriend as he might have a monkey at the zoo who had not only posed for his photo but had requested a soft-focus filter first.
‘Come on, all you brilliant brains, mocking me tirelessly, suggestions?’
Finally, Ben, who usually was the peacemaker, offered quietly and extremely meekly, ‘The feet?’ and Aleksey snorted, because he’d suddenly had a vision of Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen at school being asked a question during his infamous EmmyLou Pantsdown’s lessons on how she’d contributed to votes for women.
