The Sinister Coast Boxset Read online

  The Sinister Coast Boxset

  A collection of three standalone mystery and suspense thrillers

  Gregg Dunnett

  Contents

  The Things you find in Rockpools - complete book

  The Wave at Hanging Rock - complete book

  The Desert Run - complete book

  Coming Soon - The Girl on the Burning Boat

  About the Author

  The Things you find in Rockpools - complete book

  1

  I see the body from my bedroom window. It's lying halfway up the beach, stranded there by the overnight tide. There's nothing else breaking the sweep of pale, silvery sand, and there's no mistaking what it is, even from this distance. It's funny, I've always known I would find something like this one day, living here. You see it all the time on the TV news, bodies wash up just like this. And now I've found one.

  I grab my binoculars. They're big ones, they magnify ten times and it's hard to hold them steady. So, even though I press them up hard against the windowpane, all I really see is jerky snatches of skin, a ghostly white patch of belly, and a bright red color where a wound cuts into her back. Definitely a 'her'. I can see that. A female, young, lying dead in a puddle of blood and seawater in the middle of the beach. My beach.

  I'm suddenly conscious of my breaths, visible as little clouds in the coldness of my bedroom. Could I be imagining this? Maybe I'm asleep and this is a dream? But the rest of the room looks real. My closet’s open, I see my school uniform hanging inside. The posters on my wall look right, the periodic table, my ‘Fishes of the Sea’ chart with all the Latin names. I look closely at this, they wouldn't be right if I was dreaming because they're hard to remember. I look at the Striped Bass - Moronesaxatilis. I can't be dreaming.

  I take another ten-times-magnified look. This time I notice the gulls. Some are wheeling above the body, others are standing on it, like it's a new rock that's appeared overnight. Then I see they're not just standing, they're bending over, pecking. Tearing at bits of flesh. I see one wiggling its beak right down in the eye. I drop the binoculars and think.

  I should tell Dad. I know I should. But something makes me hesitate. Dad's been weird recently. He gets mad about nothing at all. And with something like this, there's going to be police and journalists, and Dad hates those people. If I tell him he might insist we have nothing to do with it. He might even say we're not going out this morning, and then I wouldn't get a chance to examine it. And how often do I get a chance like this? For someone like me this is an amazing opportunity. I mean it's sad too of course, but there's no point being too sentimental about these things. Mostly it's an amazing opportunity.

  So I feel a bit bad about it, but right away I know I'm not gonna tell Dad.

  I'm Billy, by the way. I'm eleven-years-old, but I'm a bit more interesting than most eleven-year-olds. Or at least, I am judging by the others that go to my school. I'm pretty sure you'd agree if you met them.

  Luckily though, it’s Saturday today, so there isn't any school. We have a pretty set routine for the weekends. First thing, Dad always goes surfing. He goes early in the morning because it gets busier later and he doesn't like going with other people. I always go with him, but I never actually surf. That would mean going in the water, and I don't go in the water. I don't just sit in the truck waiting for him, though. That would be boring. I've always got lots of projects going on. Like my treehouse project, for instance. I built it last year, from stuff Dad had left over from work. It's in the woods behind the dunes, although you'll never find it because I painted the walls in a camouflage pattern. It took ages too. I found out you can't actually buy camouflage paint, which makes sense when you think about it - all the separate colors would get mixed up in the can. But anyway that was last year's project. I've got other projects now. Better ones.

  But obviously today I'm not thinking about my projects at all. Today there's a body on the beach. I decide to get Dad up and out of the house as fast as I can. That way I can be the first to the body. I can be the one who discovers it.

  Dad usually gets up after me. He comes downstairs and makes himself a coffee. If it's not raining or too windy he always drinks it outside. He stands in our little yard on the clifftop and looks out over the beach to decide where he's going to surf that day. If there's a big swell, we go to our end of the beach, near the cliff, because the waves there are smaller and less powerful. But if there isn't much swell, we go to Silverlea, the town in the middle of the bay. It's more open to the ocean there. Obviously, if there are no waves at all, or if the wind is too strong, then we don't go surfing at all. But that's generally bad news because it means he'll be moody the whole day.

  It's just me and Dad who live in our house. I don't have any brothers or sisters. Or a mom, not anymore. And Dad won't let me have pets, not after what happened with the seagull chicks. So it's just us. And we've lived here, perched up in our clifftop cottage, for just about as long as I can remember.

  But this morning I make the coffee. And I make it in a really noisy way to wake Dad up, banging the cupboards shut, rattling through the cutlery to get a spoon. I need him to hurry if I'm going to be the one to discover the body, you see.

  We have one of those silver stove-top coffee makers that screw together with the coffee in the middle. I'm not sure how much to put in, but I know Dad likes it strong, so I fill it right up. It doesn't take long before it's hissing and frothing away, and the room smells thick with coffee. I get a cup for Dad and bang the cupboard door shut again. Then I hear Dad going to the bathroom upstairs, the long trickle he always does. When it finally dies out I shout upstairs.

  "Coffee Dad."

  Then I go outside for another look. It's still lying there, no one else has discovered it. But I realize there's another problem. It's the waves. This morning they're small. That means Dad will want to drive to Silverlea where the waves are bigger. Normally this wouldn't bother me, because my projects are kind of spread out so it doesn't matter where Dad wants to go. But the body is here, at our end of the beach. If we go to Silverlea I'll have to walk all the way back, and there's a danger someone else will discover it while that's happening. I don't want that. I want to be the one that discovers it.

  So when Dad comes outside to join me, coffee in one hand, I'm already thinking of a way to solve the problem. I look at him cautiously. He got in late last night and I think he was drinking too because he looks a bit rough.

  "What's with all the noise this morning Billy?" Dad rubs his eyes. "I thought you were being murdered or something." He laughs and takes a sip.

  "Jesus Christ. This is rocket fuel," Dad says, and I frown because I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

  Dad puts the cup on the front wall. Then he yawns and stretches his arms over his head. He's only wearing a T-shirt and jeans, which pull apart so I can see all the muscles of his stomach. He's still brown from the summer, even this late in the year. He isn't wearing any shoes either, though the grass is wet from dew. Dad doesn't really notice the cold.

  We stand in silence for a moment. Looking out at the view. Just in front of our wall is the old cliff path. It was closed a while ago because it got too dangerous, but I still know a way down. Beyond the path, there's just a big drop to the beach, all seven miles of it, stretching past the town of Silverlea, right up to Northend. To the right you can see the woods. To the left it's just ocean all the way. It's a pretty amazing view from our yard, really.

  "Looks OK, huh?" Dad says, picking up his coffee again.

  He means the waves look OK. You can see everything from up here, but Dad only notices the waves. That's why I think my plan will work. I wait a few moments before speaking; I let him watch what's happening below us
. Watch the waves roll in.

  The waves you see when you go to the beach aren't always the exact same size. They come in groups, or sets. So one minute, it might look like the waves are really big, but then, a few minutes later, they might be much smaller. Right now, while I'm letting Dad watch, it's pretty big. Actually I'm lucky, it's probably the biggest set of waves I've seen the whole morning. Perfect for my plan.

  "It looks pretty big," I say as casually as I can. "It looks small at the moment, but it looked real big just before you came out. I reckon Littlelea."

  If Dad had watched for as long as I had, it would be obvious I'm lying. It's obvious it's going to be better for surfing further along the beach at Silverlea, where it's less sheltered. But Littlelea is where the body is, so I need him to decide to surf there this morning. And to do that, I just have to convince him the waves are bigger than they really are.

  Dad doesn't reply right away. We stand there together, looking out over the ocean. The body is visible enough if only he were looking for it, but he's not looking at the beach. His eyes are scanning the horizon, watching where the approaching swells begin to steepen into real waves. He waits, sipping at his coffee. And he's patient. As the minutes pass, the waves that had been unloading pass through, and it goes nearly flat. I do my best to look surprised.

  "Looks a little small to me," Dad says finally, a funny note to his voice. "You feeling alright this morning Billy?" He turns to me, and for a moment, I'm worried he's going to get into one of his weird moods. But he's kinda smiling.

  "Come on, we'll go into town. We can get breakfast after."

  Town is what we call Silverlea. So we're going to drive two miles north, past the body, and then I'll have to run all the way back here to Littlelea to get to it. Obviously I'm disappointed. But getting breakfast afterwards is a consolation, because of where we get it. And I'll never change his mind now, so I might as well make the best of it.

  Dad drains his coffee, winces and gives me a look.

  "Leaving in five," he says then walks inside to get dressed properly. I follow, and in the kitchen I hurriedly shut down my computer. I grab my binoculars, a new notepad and my camera, and stuff it into my backpack. Dad walks past me as I'm putting my walking shoes on and he tells me to hurry up. As I step outside Dad swings his wetsuit into the open back of his pickup truck. It lands with a wet thwack on the ribbed metal base. His board's already in there; it pretty much stays there the whole time. I hesitate. When he's in a good mood he lets me ride in the back, even though it’s technically illegal. But when he's mad I have to ride up front. I take a risk and climb in the back with the board, not making eye contact. He doesn't say anything at first, just pulls open the door to the cab, then before he gets in he says: "You see any police you keep your head down, OK?"

  Then he gets in, and moments later, the engine roars to life and the truck judders. The smell of un-burnt gas fills the air. We bump down our lane to the main road, then Dad starts off down the hill, driving fast, using the whole road to smooth out the corners.

  You can't see much of the beach from the road, just glimpses through the trees. Then once you cross the river you're quite low and the dunes block it out. But it's only a ten-minute drive and we don't see any other cars. I take that as a good sign.

  We come into town the back way, crunching to a halt at the front of the parking lot by the beach. The Sunrise Café is right here, that's where we'll have breakfast, but it isn’t open yet.

  Even so, we're not the first car here. There are four other vehicles; I recognize two of them as Dad's surfer friends. I guess the others are probably people walking their dogs. I hope they've walked north, up toward Northend and not south down to Littelea, toward where the body is. You probably can't see the body from here, so I'm hopeful, but I won't know until I get down on the beach.

  "Be back here at ten," Dad says. Years ago, he used to try and make me come surfing with him. But not anymore. He understands that I don't go in the water now.

  "Sure," I say. "I'll see you later." I leave him as he sits on the flatbed of the truck to pull on his wetsuit. He doesn't bother to cover himself with a towel when no one's around.

  I walk fast down the little path to the beach. It's easy at first because there's a wooden boardwalk, but then it runs out, and my feet sink into the soft sand. Then finally, I get to the stones. There's a strip of them, big flat stones the size of dinner plates. When I get there, I stop and pull my binoculars out of my bag. Even before I've gotten them focused, I can see something's wrong.

  There are people on the beach. Right by where the body is. This far away, I can't see who, or what they're doing, but it's obvious they're standing right by it.

  I feel a flood of disappointment. It's the dog walkers. Why couldn't they walk the other way? I saw the body first, over an hour ago now, and I wanted to be the first to get there. Now I don't even know if I'll get to see it at all. I expect the Coast Guard will be there soon. Or the police. They're all over the town these days.

  I stand there for a while, feeling the disappointment wash over me, but it doesn't last long. After all, whoever turns up, they can't exactly move the body, it's a bit big for that. I suppose they might try and cordon it off, but there's no sign of that either. At least not yet. If I get a move on, I might still be able to examine it. I just need to get there fast.

  So I set off again, walking just below the high tide mark. That's the best place to walk because the sand there is always hard and flat. Plus, sometimes, you find things washed up from the tide, which is a bonus. But today I'm not looking down. I keep my eyes focused ahead, trying to make out details as I get closer. Then, when I'm about halfway there, I see a police car driving slowly down the beach toward where the body lies. I puff my cheeks and sigh.

  I know what you're thinking, it's not really normal for an eleven-year-old to want to examine a dead body washed up on the beach. But like I said, I'm not like most eleven-year-olds. I mean, probably, some of the kids at school would want to take a selfie with it or something stupid. But I don't want to do anything like that. I'm interested because I want to study it. Like a proper scientist.

  If you know about Silverlea, if you've been on vacation here or something, you might wonder too at a police car turning up so fast, and so early in the morning. But that's just the way things are at the moment. This fall they're everywhere. It's all because of that girl. The one in the news. And if you consider it's not just on the local island news but the real news, next to stories about the President and earthquakes and stuff, you can imagine what it must be like here. The whole island is obsessed with it. How could a teenage girl just disappear like that here? It doesn't seem possible.

  I met her, the girl who went missing: Olivia Curran. I might as well tell you now, since even walking fast it's going to take me a while to get there. She was staying in one of the cottages that Dad manages. She was here on vacation with her family, her mom and dad and her brother. They were staying in the Seafield Cottages. They're the expensive, beachfront ones, with views of the ocean from the bedrooms. Actually, they're just along from the lot where we parked this morning.

  I wasn't supposed to meet her. I was just in the cottage next door when they arrived. I was fixing the Wi-Fi after the guests the week before had complained about it dropping out a lot. That's another thing I do, I configure the Wi-Fi for all the vacation cottages that Dad manages. Mr. Matthews, Dad's boss, he knows I'm really good with computers, so he lets me do it.

  Anyway, I'd just finished fixing the problem as they were arriving. They had a Jeep or SUV or something and it was loaded up with bikes on the back and a roof box. I didn't talk to them, of course. All the Seafield cottages are self-catering, and when guests arrive, they get the door key from a metal box with a combination lock bolted to the wall. So I just ignored them like normal. But then I decided to get a snack from the cottage storeroom. There's a little stone shed in the yard of the cottages where we keep the spare linen and towels for the changeovers
, and there's little packets of cookies, too, for the welcome packs we put in. So there I was, carrying my laptop in front of me, going out to the storeroom to get some cookies. That's when she must have seen me. Because when I came out, still with my laptop open, this girl came walking up to me from the cottage.

  "Excuse me," she said, looking a little unsure. "Are you staying next door or something? We've just arrived and we can't get the Wi-Fi to work."

  I didn't say anything. I couldn't, I had a cookie in my mouth.

  "It's just I saw your computer. I wondered if you'd maybe figured it out." She had blond hair that was tied behind her head in a ponytail, but a few strands had escaped, and she had to brush them away from her eyes.

  "Hey don't worry about it, forget I asked." She said and she started to turn away. I pulled the cookie from my mouth.

  "I live here. I don't need to stay here. But I do configure the Wi-Fi for all the cottages that Mr. Matthews owns."

  She turned back, she looked me up and down a bit dubiously. "Oh. OK. Well that's kinda handy I guess. Since, er, it doesn't seem to work." She trailed off and smiled. She had quite a pretty smile.

  "It does work. I've just fixed it," I told her.

  "Oh... Well, erm, I just tried and actually it kinda doesn't."

  "Have you put the password in?" I asked her. Lots of tourists are quite stupid so we have to put instructions about everything in Welcome Folders - even things like how to work the electric stove. "It's in the Welcome Folder which is on the..."

  "Yeah. I found that. It connects OK, but then it keeps dropping out."

  I was annoyed at this because I'd had the same problem earlier, but I thought I'd fixed it.

  "Have you changed any of the settings?" I asked, a bit hopeful.