‘Oh, no, Eliam said for me to tell you—no hard feelings whatsoever. He particularly extended the invitation to you both.’
‘Huh.’ He was clearly losing his touch. Then something occurred to him, and he asked,
‘Did Colter approach you about the survey initially or was it the other way around?’
‘I went to him as soon as I had your offer of additional funding.’ This was not what Aleksey had expected. He’d been so sure his theory about the treasure hunter circling theNicholas, waiting, watching, had been right. ‘Well, I mean, he contacted me initially, obviously. He’d read Morwenna’s article in the paper, apparently. He subscribes toScilly News, which is nice. I wish more people did, for Morwenna’s sake. Yes, so he emailed me, offering his services a couple of months ago. June? July? I don’t remember exactly. At that time I barely had enough funds for the minibus, let aloneRogue Wave, but after your visit, I thought…why not? You seemed very genuine in your offer to help, so I emailed him back and accepted.’
Aleksey nodded, toeing the carpet. He almost smiled, knowing now he had a competitor in the hunt, one that was bold, confident. What had Eliam admitted at their first meeting on the Hoe?Emerald’s my first quarry… and silver and a vast hoard of Aztec gold it seemed.
Aleksey glanced at Ben and could see the repressed excitement in his eyes. His green orbs were as beautiful as the translucent sub-tropical waters of Light Island sloshing inside treasure-filled sea caves.
* * *
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Rogue Wavewas more impressive than Aleksey had expected from seeing it in the promotional video—not that the catamaran was larger in person or more glamorous or smacked more of excessive wealth, quite the opposite. It struck him viewing it in real life, without the gloss of the artful marketing material, as a very utilitarian vessel—it would do what it said on the box, and do it well. It was clearly not a boat to just take a luxury leisure cruise upon, but one designed for the sole purpose of ferrying dedicated divers to inaccessible wreck sites, contending with rough weather if it was encountered, all the while ensuring the very best of everything was offered. For a start, Colter had brought the boat into the commercial harbour on the south side of the island, where it floated amongst the trawlers and the smaller merchant ships. This choice of berth emphasised somehow that the man viewed his boat as a tool, and that this was hiswork, this game of treasure hunting for the wealthy.
The forward pontoons had been utilised to berth two zodiacs, which were now suspended on purpose-built winches, one each side of the boat. These were very different creatures from the small inflatable Colter had brought to Light Island. They looked as if they could take on Antarctic sea ice and survive. For smaller explorations, the rear pontoons held a rack of kayaks, their brightly coloured paddles leaning against them.
But Aleksey knew none of them were looking at the rigid raiders or the canoes. All three of them were staring at the almost surreal structure between theRogue Wave’s rear hulls—and Colter clearly knew it as he greeted them on the dock in some fleeting January sunshine.
This third meeting between him and his rival in the hunt was tense. Wonderboy had wanted to stop in and visit Morwenna briefly, so he was not there as a buffer between them. Although he was now a perfect man, Aleksey had to admit that he did still have one or two idiosyncrasies that might, by less generous people than Ben, be termed flaws. One of these minor quirks was his tendency to suspect that everyone was trying to kill him. It didn’t make for easy first meetings. However, having gotten off on the wrong foot with Colter on the Hoe, which had then led to him being a less-than-generous host on his island, he now had actual reason to dislike the man—they were after the same quarry. Aleksey didn’t share well. He never had. Another tiny blemish on his otherwise faultless character, he supposed. That the man was following an agenda that had nothing whatsoever to do with helping Cambridge students study was cemented in Aleksey’s mind when Ben, frowning, asked Colter, ‘Have we met before? I recognise you from somewhere.’
‘Don’t think so, mate,’ came the quick, cheerful reply. Which was obviously untrue—he’d been clocked by the moron deliberately monitoring Ben’s purchase of the diving equipment.
But Aleksey was good at reading people, and despite this outwardly genial manner, Colter was stressed. And this, he was sure, had something to do with the man’s changed appearance. He now sported a large bandage wrapped around his right forearm and extending down well below his knuckles, leaving just the tips of his fingers poking out.
Miles, upon spotting this, asked slightly anxiously (as was his wont with anything related to health and safety), ‘Did you get bitten by a shark? That looks awfully painful. Did you know that only eighty people got bitten by sharks last year in thewhole worldbut almost six million people got bitten by snakes?’
Colter rubbed his bandaged arm mindlessly. ‘Yeah, but nearly eighty million sharks get killed each year by us, so I’m thinking they’re kinda owed a nip or two.’ On seeing Miles’s puzzled expression—he didn’t like being outmanoeuvred by other people quoting facts—the injured man just laughed and indicated to the large selection of weaponry—shark spears and knives—which were laid out on the deck, where it appeared he’d been hosing them down.
‘My old mum warned me never to play with knives—I should’ve listened to her.’ But Aleksey read an entirely different scenario in that bandaging. He thought a more relevant fact Miles might have spouted was the number of people injured by dog bites each year. He had no idea how many that might be but suspected it was considerably more than from sharks and snakes combined. He’d left his hellhounds of the apocalypse with Harry over the two days of the funeral and had told the old man to let both dogs roam free. He suspected He Who Guards Against the Wolf in Man was living up to his self-appointed name.
As soon as Colter waved them graciously up the gangplank, they all three made their way along one of the floating hulls to examine the hydrosphere at the stern. Now Aleksey could see that calling this diving platform a sphere was a slight misnomer, as it would be more accurate to describe it as a cylinder with a domed top. The device was large enough to hold half a dozen people very comfortably. It appeared to be cradled between the port and starboard rear hulls of the catamaran, rather like a bubble held cupped in a child’s hands. But this unique bubble could slide down below the ship into the water, where it then provided an unparalleled viewing experience for its occupants. Colter left them peering through the glass sides into the interior and climbed a short ladder fastened to the back of Rogue Wave’s superstructure up to a little deck area that had a control panel on one side and on the other racks of more dive knives and shark spears that divers entering the hydrosphere might want to take with them. This deck, which had once possibly been a sundeck with a door off it leading into the interior of the catamaran, was level with the top of the domed top of the hydrosphere. Consequently, those wishing to use it could merely step from the sundeck to the hatch and then easily descend the sphere’s internal spiral staircase. Colter now gestured towards this opening invitingly. Ben (not at all surprising to Aleksey), sprang for the ladder and was up and inside the bubble beforehe’dhad time to shake his head, declining the offer. He kept his grin inside, however, as Ben dropped lightly down from the stairs and then knelt on the leather bench seating, smirking out at him, palms pressed to the glass.
Glancing up once more to the little platform, Aleksey watched as Colter inserted a key into the control panel.
‘Can this thing be worked from the inside as well?’
The other man nodded down at him. ‘Sure can. The controls are hidden under that seat Ben’s kneeling on. But those can be overridden from this master set, and the hatch only opens from the outside. I didn’t want some drunken idiots messing around when they were down and forgetting the fucking floor was open.’
On hearing this, Ben glanced down at the glass bottom, frowning, and in a puzzled voice, only slightly muffled by the glass, asked, ‘The floor opens? Underwater? So…we’ve got to, what, wear scuba gear inside? What’s the point then?’
Aleksey heard a small sigh from the shorter of his two companions, and Miles shouted through the glass to Ben, beginning to explain the concept of air pressure. Ben cut him off, gesturing he couldn’t hear, but then said distinctly enough, ‘Come in and show me.’ Aleksey could have kissed Ben in gratitude for this small deceit. Ben knew Miles’s odd quirks and fears only too well. The boy was happiest in the theoretical, so when explaining kilopascals, he appeared like any other bright, enthusiastic lad. But faced with anything physical, even this seemingly simple task—to try out the hydrosphere—he was intensely fearful. His physical limitations mocked him. He nodded to Ben’s request, but it wasn’t his most enthusiastic agreement to anything.
Putting his large overnight bag down alongside the ones which they had been carrying, Miles tightened his grip on the straps of the small rucksack he was wearing, as if about to parachute into enemy territory, and started to make his way to the ladder. At the top, he hesitated noticeably but then stepped onto the glass dome and shuffled extremely carefully to the open hatch, where Ben, who had sprung back up the stairs, was waiting to help him in. When the boy was safely stowed inside, standing at the bottom and staring around in wonder, Colter closed and sealed the hatch on them.
Aleksey folded his arms expectantly.
Colter pressed something on the panel, and the bell jar containing its two human specimens began to lower silently and elegantly between the hulls into the harbour waters beneath them. Without their audience, one young and one irritating, Aleksey might have given his other half the finger and made a suitable comment about Ben going down on him, but as it was, he had to restrain himself and try to look coolly unimpressed.
Colter stopped the descent before the cylinder was fully down and then brought it back up to its previous position, as the harbour waters were too shallow for full extension. He released the top hatch but without waiting for the intrepid explorers to exit, swung nimbly down the ladder once more and picked up the three bags lying at Aleksey’s feet.
‘I’ll stow these in your cabins.’ Aleksey, watching Ben help the boy out, nodded absentmindedly. Apparently not getting the response he’d hoped for, Colter prompted, ‘Impressive, isn’t it—if I do say so myself.’ He ignored Aleksey’s jaw clench, adding cheerily, ‘We’ll give it a proper test later. Maybe head over to that finger of rock again? That was an interesting sight—really weird undersea creatures bobbin’ about.’
Aleksey didn’t rise to it but only replied mildly, ‘Yes, dangerous ones, I think you’ll find. But we all thought it an extremely interesting place, too. I learnt a great deal that day.’
* * *
