Page 20 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

She took some deep breaths in time with the water rising and falling.

Her new life was going well, she told herself, in spite of people like Jack pouring cold water on her efforts to set up tours that visitors to Heaven’s Cove would enjoy. She was gradually becoming Alyssa Jones and the old Alyssa was starting to fade away.

Thinking of Jack prompted a recent memory to surface – the warmth of Jack’s skin when he’d briefly squeezed her hand as they knelt beside Stan. And his words, ‘I’m glad you were here.’

Alyssa pushed herself away from the wall and squinted at the cliff topped by Driftwood House.She’d walk up there when she got a chance, she decided. Not to bother Rosie, who would be up to her eyes with last-minute wedding plans, but to have a good look at the house where Charity had once lived.

And if she was lucky, focusing her efforts on solving a mystery from the past would prove a distraction from her present-day troubles.

TWELVE

MAGDA

The bar of the Smugglers Haunt wasn’t busy in the early afternoon. Most tourists had finished their pub lunch and headed off to see the sights, and locals who’d called in for a pint at lunchtime had gone back to work.

Magda had almost the pick of the pub when it came to choosing where to sit. She decided on a window seat in the corner. It was far enough from the bar to be quiet, and there was a fabulous view across the sea, which, today, was like an aquamarine mill pond.

Nursing her second drink in the space of ten minutes, she stared through the window at the headland that jutted out into the water.She rarely visited the pub during the day, and she hardly ever drank alcohol, but today she needed a break – time away from her cottage where the silence only magnified her thoughts. The Smugglers Haunt had seemed the perfect place to while away an hour, and the thought of a stiff drink, even though it wasn’t long gone two o’clock, had been inviting. A vodka or two might take the edge off her anxiety which had ramped up to the max in the days since Stan’s fall.

Rosie’s wedding was keeping her awake at nights. Catering small events was easy: she’d made elaborate iced cakes and provided buffets for plenty of village birthday parties and anniversary celebrations before. But this was different. The reception had grown to include almost everyone in Heaven’s Cove, it seemed, and Magda desperately didn’t want to let Rosie down.

Her nerves hadn’t been helped by Soraya, a local girl who’d agreed to help at the wedding, suddenly deciding to go off travelling. Which meant she’d be understaffed at the reception.

And then there was Stan. The main focus of her anxiety.

‘Oh, Stan,’ she murmured, running her finger around the rim of her glass. ‘What’s to become of us?’

His fall, several days ago now, had frightened the life out of her. He was home after having ‘investigations’ carried out. But as Jack hadn’t been there when the investigations were done, and Stan was being vague about them, neither Jack nor she were much the wiser.

Magda was staring into her drink, feeling uncharacteristically sorry for herself, when a shadow fell across her table. When she looked up, Alyssa was standing there, her dark hair shining in the sunlight streaming through the window.

‘The sun’s obviously over the yardarm already,’ said Alyssa. She raised her eyebrows at Magda’s drink and grinned. ‘One of those days, is it?’

‘You could say that.’ Magda tried very hard to smile. ‘So, what are you doing in here? Are you meeting someone?’

‘I’ve been talking local history with Fred.’ She waved at the pub’s rotund landlord, who was pulling pints. ‘Did you know smugglers used to meet here, in the cellar, in the seventeen hundreds? I guess the name of the pub is a giveaway.’ She grinned. ‘Though I believe it was called something else at the time. They didn’t want to make life too easy for the king’s customs men.’

Magda gestured at the chair opposite. ‘Sit down, and you can tell me how your smuggling research is going.’

‘If you don’t mind me interrupting your session.’

‘One vodka and lime is hardly a session,’ Magda assured her, deciding not to mention the previous one she’d drunk in a few gulps. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

Alyssa dropped into the chair, her arm brushing against the gleaming horse brasses on the wall. ‘No, thanks. I’m off to Dartmoor with a tour later this afternoon, and I don’t think my customers would appreciate me being anything other than boringly sober. Though Jack might have enjoyed his tour more if I’d been three sheets to the wind.’

‘I didn’t realise he’d been on one of your tours until Stan mentioned it.’

Alyssa wrinkled her nose. ‘Let’s just say it didn’t go brilliantly.’

‘Not his thing?’

‘I don’t think my myths and legends were either scientific or evidence-based enough for him.’

‘Ah, that sounds like Jack.’ Magda took another sip of her drink. ‘He was once quite a boisterous child, but he became a very serious boy after his brother died.’

‘It must have been terribly traumatic for him.’

‘It was a dreadful time for the family, but’ – Magda drained her drink – ‘let’s focus on something more cheerful. I saw Rosie this morning, and she’s looking forward to the Big Day.’

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