Page 37 of The Sunken Truth
“You’re always leading me astray,” Flynn muttered as he joined her.
Lowen pushed the boat out a little further, then headed back to his studio, leaving them to navigate the archipelago alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Without any discussion,Lily took control of the boat. Lowen was right that it was easy to handle, and with the crystal-clear water she didn’t have any concerns about submerged obstacles. She was also surprised at how familiar the archipelago was to her, despite only having been on boat trips with Seren and Kit a few times.
“It was weird what Lowen said about Eustace,” she said while the wind whipped at her hair.
“Which bit?”
“About the pirates. I wonder why Eustace didn’t mention that to us. He told us an entirely different version of events.”
“Because it’s not true. It’s just stories.”
“I don’t think he’d lie about his grandad being the captain of the ship. That’s probably easy to verify.”
“I’m not saying that part isn’t true. It’s the gold smuggling I don’t buy. And I’m not saying he’s lying. Maybe his grandfather liked to embellish stories for him. It probably didn’t even occur to him that he’d believe it. Or that he’d continue to believe it in adulthood.”
“You might be right,” Lily mused, pulling strands of hairfrom her mouth. “I think I’m like Lowen – I want to believe his stories. There’s something magical about them.”
“He should really get his story straight if he wants people to believe it,” Flynn said. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway. I only had to ask him to stop offering rewards. Now we need to focus on figuring out who cut Ryan’s air supply this morning.”
Lily nodded and they descended into silence. It took ten minutes at a slow pace for them to reach St Martin’s. Following Lowen’s directions, they found the quay easily. It helped that it held a flag advertising the dive school, and the office was also visible at the top of the quay.
“The dive boat’s here,” Flynn remarked, while Lily slowed them and levelled out alongside the concrete jetty. When the boat kissed the quay, Flynn hopped out and tied up.
The sun was still high in the sky as they strolled towards the dive centre, tucked at the top of the quay and overlooking a long sandy bay where the turquoise sea lapped gently against the white sand.
At the side of the squat, white-washed building, the woman from their morning dive hosed off wetsuits and hung them to dry on a rail. Along the wall, dive tanks stood in a neat row.
“Hello, again,” she said, turning the hose off when she noticed them. “I hope your day’s going better than mine.”
Flynn frowned. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. But the site of the shipwreck has been closed to the public. We had a tour group out there about to enter the water when we were told no one else could dive there. They’re demanding a refund.”
“Couldn’t you have taken them to dive elsewhere?” Flynn asked.
“We did, but afterwards they insisted they’dspecifically booked a dive of the shipwreck and anything else wasn’t good enough.”
Lily inhaled the scent of neoprene and seaweed, which hung in the air. “Surely they can’t refuse to pay when it wasn’t your fault the dive site was closed. Especially if you moved to another dive site.”
The woman reached for a coat hanger and deposited the wetsuit onto the rack. “You’re assuming all people are reasonable, which is unfortunately not the case.” She sighed heavily. “Things are hard enough without people threatening bad reviews if you don’t give them their money back.”
With a quick shake of her head, she switched her attention to Lily and smiled warmly. “Sorry. Here I am complaining and we haven’t even met properly. I’m Nat.” She offered her hand. “You own the ice cream shop, don’t you? Lily, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She shook her hand as a door opened at the side of the building.
“I thought you were talking to yourself again,” Harry said, resting a hand at Nat’s back as he came to stand beside her. “Hi, again,” he said, shaking hands with Flynn and then Lily. “If you’ve come to ask me more about what happened this morning, I’d really like to know, too.”
“It’s certainly worrying,” Flynn said flatly.
“The most worrying thing is that while Ryan believes it was me, he won’t consider the possibility that it was someone closer to home.”
“Harry!” Nat hissed. “I told you not to accuse people. You don’t know who it was.”
“Except I was in the water this morning and I can tell you exactly who it wasn’t. And by that process of elimination, I can also tell you who it was.”
