Page 52 of The Sunken Truth
Flynn briefly closed his eyes, trying to keep his composure. He supposed he could take a few minutes to humour an old man. “What makes you think the gold is cursed?”
“Grandfather told me.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, his gaze fixed out in the bay. “He really was an honourable man. The only reason he took on the smuggling job was because he was in a financial tight spot. He was desperate and thinking of his family…”
Flynn made a noise of acknowledgement.
“He didn’t get far with it,” Eustace went on, studying the back of his wrinkled hands, dappled with sun spots. “They were in the Mozambique Channel when they were set upon. I suppose it’s a blessing the pirates spared their lives when they took the gold.”
Glancing towards the town, Flynn wondered if Kurt would be easier to track down today. He wanted to deal with that, not listen to Eustace’s fairy tales.
“I thought you said the gold went down with the ship,” he murmured, pointing out the flaw in today’s version of the story.
He shook his head. “There was no gold on the Fortune when it went down in the storm.”
“Not a lot of point in you offering reward money then, is there?”
“The pirates took all they could find,” Eustace went on. “Which didn’t include the small stash Grandpa had hidden.”
Flynn’s ears pricked up.
“He had nothing but bad luck from the moment they took the gold on board. First some bad weather, then the pirates, then a crew member fell from the rigging and died. Then the storm that sank the ship. But that was only the start of it…”
“Oh?” Flynn said, intrigued, despite himself.
“My father was one of six children,” Eustace said. “But after that voyage, the family was hit with one tragedy after another. Illnesses and freak accidents. My father died of an infection from a wound inflicted by his dog, who’d always been a gentle creature until that one nip that ended up turning septic. That was a few months before I was born. My mother died in childbirth.”
“That’s awful,” Flynn muttered.
“Grandfather had never been a superstitious man, but that was the last straw. He took a boat out to Bishop Rock Lighthouse and threw the gold in the sea where the ship had wrecked.”
Somehow Flynn had got entirely swept away with Eustace’s story. “Was it known that he had the gold?”
“No. At first he couldn’t say anything because of the insurance. If there was any whiff of smuggling, the insurance claim would’ve been void. The wreck’s disappearance actually benefited Grandfather. The lack of goods would have raised questions.”
“Did he have the logbook?” Flynn asked, remembering what the man from the British Museum had said about it.
“No. In the chaos of the storm, he couldn’t get to it. He only had the gold because it was in his pocket.”
“What happened after he threw it in the sea?”
“His bad luck went away. No more tragedies. He and my grandmother both lived into their eighties.”
“Why didn’t you mention this yesterday?”
“Because as soon as I mention cursed gold everyone thinks I’m bonkers. And because I didn’t want anyone to know of my plan to return the gold to the sea. But I’m desperate.” He turned on the bench, angling himself towards Flynn. “I have a son and a daughter-in-law inPenzance. Grandchildren too. I’d hate for anything to happen to them.”
“Because of the curse?” Flynn said, his scepticism kicking back in.
“Yes. Could you help me?”
“How?”
“Let me know if the gold is found, and help me get my hands on it…”
“Steal it?”
“For a good cause. You’ve already seen for yourself the havoc it can wreak.”
“How do you mean?”
