Dead Man's Cove

Extract

There were two routes to Laura’s school. One took ten minutes and meant she could have an extra half hour in bed. The other took four times as long. It was this route she always chose. To her, it was worth every second of lost sleep.
She’d start by walking down the hill to Porthmeor Beach. There, she’d linger on the pale gold sand, letting the soothing swish of the waves and cries of the wheeling gulls fill her ears. She’d search for shells or interesting bits of driftwood, or wake herself up with a splash of icy seawater. After that, she’d take the path that followed the rocky shoreline of the Island and climb up to the lighthouse station. From there the town was a patchwork of pastel cottages and yellow and russet-stained roofs, flanked by the glistening sea.
Next, she’d skip down the steps to Porthgwidden Beach and round the point past the museum and lighthouse, before making her way along the harbour and up pretty St Andrews Street. The best bit came last – glorious Porthminister Beach.
Senses filled with nature and freedom, she’d tear herself away to scale the high, steep steps that led to St Ives Primary School, with its bells, rules, routines and corridors reeking of disinfectant.
This particular Monday she’d left especially early. Thanks to her uncle, she was in a much better frame of mind than she had been on Friday after the scene at the North Star.
The day before she’d woken to find Calvin Redfern absent once again, so she’d carried a bowl of cornflakes back to her room and lain in bed till noon reading The Secret of Black Horse Ridge. At lunchtime she’d heated up the quiche left by Mrs Webb (much as she disliked the woman, Laura had to admit she could cook). Late afternoon she’d taken a long bubble bath with strawberry scented bath gel given to her as a leaving present by Matron. She’d been on her way downstairs in search of supper when her uncle came in carrying two big bags from the Catch of the Day. They’d eaten fish and chips, copiously sprinkled with salt and vinegar, straight out of the paper it came in.
He’d been in a good mood so she’d plucked up the courage to ask if there was any chance she could have a dog of her own, because she knew of one who needed a home. She didn’t tell him that Skye was a Siberian husky. He was less likely to agree if he knew that the dog she wanted was a very large, very powerful wolf dog with hypnotic blue eyes. Not altogether surprisingly, he refused to entertain the idea. He’d just smiled and said: ‘I think Lottie is more than enough dog for both of us, don’t you Laura?’ and the subject was closed. 
Now, as she strolled along Porthmeor Beach to school, Laura thought how far removed her life was from her time at Sylvan Meadows. The previous eleven years of her existence seemed like something that had happened to someone else in another lifetime. She might be friendless in St Ives and not allowed to have a dog of her own, but at least she was near the ocean and with her uncle. She would have preferred a different housekeeper, but already Calvin Redfern felt like family to her.
She’d changed her mind about investigating him. Where he went or who he saw was none of her business. He trusted her and she should trust him. She couldn’t help wishing he was around more, and not locked away in his study when he was at home, but she was still a thousand times more content living with him than she had been anywhere else.
At the end of Porthmeor Beach, Laura climbed the stone steps to the Island and took the path that curved around the edge of it. There were benches dotted along it, and a red plastic box containing a life-rope. Laura had her doubts that the latter would be effective in an emergency. The current that surged up to the black rocks was so brutal that anyone unlucky enough to fall in would be sucked out to sea before they had time to draw breath. Dead Man’s Cove had been deadlier still. Laura felt again the magnetic pull of the ocean beneath the black cliffs, and goosebumps rose on her arms.
On the North side of the Island, the headland screened out both the town and the beaches. Laura would stop there sometimes and gaze out to sea. If no one was around, she liked to pretend she was alone on a desert island. Today, however, the path had an eerie feel. In the short time since Laura had left the house a sea mist had rolled in, obscuring everything except the grey silhouette of the hill topped by St Nicholas’s chapel with its twin crosses. The tide was in and in two or three places violent waves splattered the path. More than once, Laura had to leap to avoid a drenching.
She might have stepped on the bottle had she not been skirting a puddle. It was an ordinary glass bottle – the kind used for concentrated juice syrups, but the label had been removed and it had been scrubbed clean. It was lying in the centre of the path, almost as if it had been deliberately placed there. Even before she lifted it, Laura could see there was a note in it.
She almost didn’t pick it up. The idea of finding a message in a bottle seemed ridiculous, like a joke or something. But curiosity got the better of her. Before she picked it up, she took a good look around in case the person who’d left it there was hanging around to have a laugh. But she was alone.
She bent down and studied the rolled piece of paper through the glass. There was something written on it. Before she removed the lid, she glanced up at the chapel. There was a sudden flash of white, although whether it was someone’s shirt or the wing of a gull Laura couldn’t tell. For two full minutes she stared upwards, but saw nothing else.
What sort of people put messages in bottles? Pranksters and marooned ancient mariners were the only two categories Laura could think of. Since the bottle was shiny and new and had obviously never been in the sea, the latter could be ruled out. That left a joker with too much time on his or her hands.
The lid twisted off easily. Retrieving the note was trickier. Laura managed it with the aid of a stick. She unrolled the paper, a cream-coloured parchment. There was something old-fashioned about the handwriting, as if the writer had a calligrapher’s skills and had used the quill of a feather and a pot of indigo ink. In long, artistic letters were the words: CAN I TRUST YOU?
Laura looked around again. The path was unusually quiet for this time of the morning. Most days it was teeming with dog walkers. She put down the note while she zipped up her coat and pulled her scarf tighter. The mist had whited out the coastline. Clouds of it rolled across the sea, muffling the sound of the waves.
If she had any sense, she’d toss the bottle into the nearest litter bin, hurry along to school and forget she ever saw it. But what if? That’s what the voice in her head was saying. What if the writer was someone in real danger? Someone who needed her help? What if she was their only lifeline and she ignored them and walked away?
Laura opened her school bag and took out a pen. Beneath the question, ‘CAN I TRUST YOU?’, she wrote in bright red capitals:
YES.