The Sinister Coast Boxset Page 2

  "No. 'Course not." She gave me a funny look. "We've only just got here."

  I frowned. If only I hadn't gone to get a cookie, she wouldn't have caught me. I thought about going into cottage two and trying to connect from there, but I thought the girl would probably try to come with me. And it would be quicker if I could connect to their router with a cable.

  "I'll have to come in. I need to plug into the router. Is that alright?" Part of me hoped she'd say no, but she didn't. The girl - I didn't know her name was Olivia then - swung her arm out and around like she was doing theatre or something.

  "Be my guest."

  She did have a very pretty smile actually.

  The router in cottage number one is on the sideboard next to the kitchen table. I could see right away the LED was flashing orange, when it should have been glowing steady green. It's all open plan, in the Seaview cottages, and the girl's dad was there too. He was putting groceries away in the fridge.

  "Hello there!" he said to me as I walked in, but I didn't have to say anything because the girl answered for me. "It's alright, he's just here to fix the Wi-Fi."

  I put my laptop down on the table and poked in my bag for the network cable.

  The dad put more stuff away, but I could tell he wanted to say something. Eventually, he did.

  "You're very young to be fixing computers," he said. He had the kind of voice adults use when they’re being patronizing to kids. I turned slightly away and didn’t answer.

  "You know, it doesn't matter if you can't get it working," he went on. "We'll be on the beach most of the time anyway, won't we, Livvie?"

  "Duh. Yes, it does matter," the girl cut in. "It might not for you, but this place was advertised as having Wi-Fi. What if you got here and there wasn't a bathroom, but it was advertised as having a bathroom? You wouldn't like that, would you?"

  "It's alright," I said. I didn't want to hear them arguing. "It does this sometimes, but if I reboot from the admin panel, it solves the problem." I sounded more confident than I was, though, because I wasn't sure why it kept breaking like that.

  "Well, I'll be very impressed if you're right. And Olivia will be very grateful." He paused, and I hoped he might go away, but he kept on filling the fridge.

  "So you're the Silverlea computer expert?" He said it like he was pretending it was a real job title or something. "You hear that Will?" He spoke louder, trying to attract the attention of a boy, about fourteen, who was at the other end of the living room, fiddling with the TV. The dad turned back to me. "We can hardly get William out of bed in the mornings, let alone working a responsible job!" The dad laughed and I took the opportunity to ignore him.

  I got the admin panel up on my screen, and I could see I was right, one of the settings had got corrupted. It was an easy fix but I still didn't know why it kept happening. I fixed it and made a mental note to google the problem later. Then I rebooted the router. I wanted to leave right away, but I knew I should wait until it came back on, just to make sure it was working now.

  "So, what is there for young people to do around here?" the dad asked me, still with his ‘friendly’ voice.

  I don't like it when tourists ask me questions like this. Like I said, I'm a little different, so it's hard for me to know what they like doing. This one time, a tourist asked me, and I started telling them about my project counting the eggs of greater black-backed gulls on the cliffs. They looked at me like I was crazy. I tried to tell them they're the biggest gulls in the world, with a wingspan the size of an eagle's, but I could see from their face they just thought I was weird. So I wasn't ever going to tell Mr. Curran about my crab project. But I had a moment of inspiration. I thought about some of the posters I'd seen around town.

  "There's the Surf Lifesaving Club Disco next Saturday," I said. "It's the end-of-summer one."

  "Ah. The Surf Lifesaving Club Disco," he said, like that was just the sort of event he was expecting to happen in a small town. "You see, Livvie, I told you there would be things to do."

  She rolled her eyes, but she turned to me too.

  "Do you need to get tickets?" she asked, sounding surprisingly interested.

  "I don't know." I knew I didn't have to, I'm a local. But I had no idea about tourists. I was saved from answering, though, because just then the router's green light came on.

  "You can check it now," I said to the girl. She already had her phone in her hand. She'd had it there the whole time, like she couldn't wait to get it connected. And now, she poked at the screen for a few moments.

  "Hey, it works," she said, not looking up. For a minute, she continued, typing something into the screen with her thumbs. Then she looked up suddenly.

  "Here you go. Silverlea Surf Lifesaving Club End-of-Summer Disco. Tickets available in advance or at the door."

  Then she looked at me with a proper big smile on her face. "That's pretty cool, thanks." She really was pretty when she smiled.

  I told all this to the police, apart from her being pretty of course, I kept that to myself. Even so I was worried it might have got me in trouble. After all, if she hadn't gone to the disco that night, then she couldn't have disappeared from the disco. But the detective who took my statement didn't seem to think it was important. She said Olivia would probably have heard about it anyway, from all the posters up in town and everything. But then, she wasn't a very good detective. She can't have been, since she didn't notice when I lied to her.

  But I guess that explains why I've felt kind of involved in the whole Olivia Curran thing somehow. Right from the very beginning.

  * * *

  I'm pretty close now to the group on the beach. It's grown just in the time it's taken me to walk here. There's now a police car and a Coast Guard truck parked up either side of the body. And this close, the wounds look pretty shocking: they go right through the skin, and you can see the layer of fat. I walk closer, to get a better look at the wounds. I want to see how she might have died.

  "Hey Billy," a voice calls out, and someone steps in front of me, trying to cut me off.

  2

  "Hi Dan," I say, not enthusiastically because I don't much like Daniel Hodges. He works as a lifeguard. He knows Dad quite well because they go surfing together, but I don't think even he likes him much. The reason I don't like him is because he acts like he owns the beach, like now, where he's trying to stop me getting to the body.

  "I'm not sure you should see this, Billy. It's pretty grim."

  "Is it dead?" I ask, and I'm immediately annoyed at myself. It's totally obvious it's dead, but sometimes, things come out of my mouth that I didn't mean to say.

  "Yeah, it's definitely dead, Billy." He says, smirking.

  I try to peer around him, and I'm close enough now to hear the other conversations going on. A man I don't know is talking to the police officer.

  "Do you know what species it is?" he asks. He sounds like a tourist. There aren’t many here in the winter, but you still get some.

  "We're not sure. We've got an expert from the mainland coming," the policeman replies. He's wearing his uniform. Police uniforms always look so strange in real life. Really impractical. "They might be able to tell us."

  I interrupt at once, glad for a chance to step around Dan.

  "It's a minke," I say.

  The policeman starts saying something about waiting for the expert, but the tourist turns to me.

  "How do you know?"

  "You can tell by the distance between the dorsal fin and the blowhole, and how upright the dorsal fin is. It's a female. A young one too."

  "Yeah, well," the policeman says. "Like I say, we'll see."

  "Minke whales usually only occur in the northern hemisphere, but you do get dwarf minke whales in the Southern Ocean and around Antarctica. But this isn't a dwarf one because they have different markings, so this is a just normal one," I go on. I was fairly sure about my identification when I first saw it, and up close, there's no doubt at all.

  Dan moves back now to let me loo
k at the body more clearly. Just behind its head is a large open wound cutting into the flesh. It’s dark red near the skin, but deeper in the color is brighter. It's sitting in a depression in the sand, filled up with a mixture of seawater and blood. It's pretty small for a whale, not much longer than the Coast Guard truck.

  "What do you think happened to it?" the tourist asks. "Do you think it was a shark?" He sounds thrilled by this, in his mainland accent. That's how I know he's a tourist, his accent. Plus tourists are always going on about sharks.

  I look closely at the wound. "No. We don't usually get sharks around here big enough to take on a whale, even a baby one. And it doesn't look like a bite mark, more like a propeller injury. Probably it got separated from its mother when it surfaced near a ship."

  "You seem to know a lot about whales," the man tells me.

  "I know a lot about all the animals on Lornea Island," I tell him. "I'm going to be a marine biologist when I'm older. I'm already doing experiments." I'm suddenly feeling confident, so I ask the policeman, "What time is the whale expert coming?"

  I'm hoping I might be able to stay long enough to meet him or her. They might be interested in my hermit crab study. Unless they're just whale experts. Sometimes, you get scientists specializing in just one species, or one genus. Others are more general. So they might be interested, or they might not be. It just depends.

  "The guy's coming on the ferry now. He should be here around lunchtime," the policeman tells me, and I check my watch. I have to be back at Dad's truck at ten. I can wait for a little while, but not that long.

  3

  I stay for as long as I can, and the policeman lets me take photographs of the whale, but then I have to go. I jog back, my bag thumping against my back. I’m looking to see if Dad is still in the water. He'll be annoyed if I'm late. But I should be OK. The waves are still good, so it's more likely that he'll be in longer than he said.

  As it turns out, I get back to the truck just after him. He's got the door open and music playing into the parking lot, and he's drying his hair with a towel, his wetsuit peeled down off his chest. He's smiling and whistling, so I guess the surf worked for his mood.

  "There's a dead whale on the beach," I say to him. "Down by Littlelea. It's a minke whale."

  "Alright, Billy, how are you?" Dad says; he's being sarcastic, telling me I didn't say hello. "Have you had a nice time?"

  "Hello, Dad," I reply, starting again. "Yes I have, thank you. There's a dead whale on the beach."

  "So you say." His smile's gone already. "I wondered what was going on. I saw the police cars on the beach." He doesn't say anything else, but a look comes over his face. He doesn't like the police much. He never has.

  "It's a female. A really young one too," I go on.

  "You want to get some breakfast?" Dad asks, ignoring what I say. Dad's not that interested in wildlife. He goes to work, and he likes surfing, and that's pretty much it. But I don't mind too much. If he hadn't said anything, I was going to remind him about going to the café. I'm almost always hungry, and even if I’m not, I always want to go to the Sunrise Café.

  The café is open now. It's actually the upstairs part of the Surf Lifesaving Club, and from up there, you get a really good view of the ocean. When Dad's changed, we climb up the wooden steps and sit by the window where we always sit. There are photos on the walls of people surfing on days when the waves are really big. Dad's in a couple of them, although you can hardly see who it is because his body's so small against the wave. The photos are all for sale, so that sometimes, tourists buy a photo of Dad and put it on their walls at home, like he's a famous person. You'd think he wouldn't like that, but he doesn't seem to mind. I don't notice them today, though. I get my camera out of my bag, ready to show off my whale photos.

  "Hey guys, what can I get you?" I stop what I'm doing when I hear Emily's voice. She comes over to us with her little notepad and pencil. She smiles at me, and I can smell her perfume. Like warm flowers. Emily works at the Sunrise Café, but she's not just a waitress. She's only there to earn money while she does her doctorate. She's studying marine biology. She's a real scientist. I like Emily. I like her a lot.

  "You can get me a full breakfast," Dad says, rubbing his stomach. "And coffee."

  "Good surf this morning, Mr. Wheatley?" She smiles at him, but not for long; she's only being polite. Then she turns to me.

  "And Billy. You having your usual?" That's a white roll with two sausages in it and lots of ketchup.

  "Yes, please, Emily."

  "And coffee?" she asks. She doesn't wink, but she gives me a secret look. I once asked for a coffee, I kind of wanted to impress her, and then I didn't like it. She realized and went and got me a hot chocolate instead. So now she always says it like this.

  "Yes please. Have you seen the whale? It's a minke, a baby one."

  "I've heard about it," she says. "Haven't had a chance to see it yet, though."

  "I've got some photos. They're sending a whale expert from the mainland. He's going to be here this afternoon. Maybe Dad could drive us all down later on? Once Emily finishes her shift?" I look at Dad hopefully. It's a long shot, but you might as well try when he's in a good mood.

  "Sorry, Billy. I've got to work. Window frames to paint."

  Sometimes, I don't get adults. What's the rush? It's almost winter. There aren't any bookings for that cottage until next year. Surely he could paint when there isn't a whale expert in town?

  Emily senses my disappointment and tries to make it easier. "I've got a few things to do here too, I'm afraid." She glances at Dad, like she's trying to communicate something.

  "Dan'll be there, though, Mr. Wheatley. If you wanted someone to keep an eye on Billy, I mean?" Her face is bright and open. Optimistic.

  You remember Dan Hodges, the lifeguard? Well, there was something I didn't tell you about him. He's sort of dating Emily. I guess that might be a little bit why I don't like him much. It's not serious, though. She's only with him because there's no one better around here. I'm sure when she's finished studying, she'll marry a famous scientist, not some stupid lifeguard. Maybe she'll even marry me when I'm a famous scientist. We can do research together.

  Dad thinks for a moment. "OK. You can go down there if you like, Billy. See this whale guy, and then run on home from there?"

  I'm disappointed that Emily can't go with me, but not that surprised. And I'm not too unhappy since it's a lot better than helping Dad to paint. He makes me do the sanding bit, which isn't as fun as painting.

  "Just don't get cut off by the tide will you? You know when high water is?"

  "I can look it up if you want," Emily says, pulling out her cellphone. She's got an app that tells her the tide times. I don’t need an app. I've lived by the beach so long I've got a sense for the tides.

  I turn back to Emily, who's smiling because she likes helping me out.

  "It's alright." I say. "I've got some photographs of the whale. Do you want to see them?"

  "Sure. But hold on. I'll get your order first."

  Me and Dad both watch her walk back to the kitchen. She’s wearing black pants and you can see the outline of her butt. When I turn to Dad, he's still watching.

  "There was a tourist there who thought it might have been killed by a shark," I say when she comes back with the drinks. "But I told him we don't get that type of shark here. I reckon it was hit by a ship or something."

  Emily laughs at the idea of it being a shark. Clear, fresh notes that ring around the room, and make people turn towards us. That's what I really like about Emily. She knows the sharks we get here are too small to attack a whale. She knows almost everything about the wildlife of Lornea Island, even though she’s not a proper local. Emily’s like me and Dad – she lives here now, but she wasn’t born here. She used to come for vacations and stay with her grandma, until she died, and now Emily lives here all the time. Maybe that’s another reason I like her. We’re both not proper locals, but we know more than they do about
the important things.

  "It could be the sonar from the submarines that confused it. I read about that," I say. "How it makes them muddled up. Then it could have surfaced too close to a ship and got hit by the propeller."

  She thinks about this for a moment.

  "Yeah, it could be," she says. "Maybe they don't need that whale expert after all. You've got it pretty figured out."

  I'm a little bit proud at this. Then the kitchen guy calls her name because our food is ready.

  Dad's not watching this time as she walks away. Instead, he reaches for a newspaper that someone's left on the table. It's the Island Times. I once saw they printed a photograph of a dead dolphin that washed up at Northend. The woman who found it was in the shot too. That's why I wanted to be the one to find the whale, because I could have gotten in the paper. Although, thinking about it, the Island Times has gone a little crazy recently over the whole Olivia Curran thing, so maybe they won't bother putting in a picture this time. The headline in this week's paper is about Olivia again. It reads:

  Olivia - Three Months and Still No Sign

  I don't think that's a very good headline, since it sort of tells you they don't have anything new to say. They might as well say, "No news today!" But that's the kind of thing they've been printing every week. Olivia - could she still be on the island? Olivia Case: Police believe she drowned. Olivia mystery: Police search continues. Dad opens the paper and quickly skims the first three pages, which is all Olivia stuff. I flick through my photos on the back of my camera. Zooming in and out. Then Emily comes back, this time with our food.

  "Here you go." She puts Dad's down and then mine. There's tons of ketchup in there, and the butter is spread thick and melting where the sausages are touching it. She sees Dad has the paper open.

  "Anything new?" she asks.

  He looks up at her, surprised, then shakes his head. "No. I don't know why the police don't just accept she drowned." Dad always says this. He thinks Olivia Curran decided to go swimming that night and got into trouble.