I CLOSE MY EYES and take a moment to calm myself.
“It can’t be true,” I say under my breath. “Can it?”
Then I open my eyes and see that Violet’s coat is gone, as well as her mother’s boots. She has definitely gone out somewhere.
I shake my head and try to forget Lady K’s accusation.
After all, so what? Why shouldn’t she go out somewhere? She’s free to come and go, isn’t she? I’m not her keeper. But then again, where would she go? She’s still new to the town. Or so she says.
There’s no escaping the fact that I said I’d be out till lunchtime, and here I am, hours earlier than expected, and she’s not here.
And what about the cameraluna? What about the moonlight recording I saw? Violet went to see Eels before she came to see me.
Suddenly, I remember how Violet never did explain why the Boathook Man was chasing her. Was that whole episode just an elaborate way to gain my trust? Was that whole episode staged?
I grab my Lost-and-Founder’s cap with both hands, pull it up as high as I can on the elastic, and let it snap down onto my head. It stings, but it clears my head a little and helps me switch on my logic.
“There’s an innocent explanation,” I say aloud. “There has to be. And I need to find it.”
I look at the window. It’s slightly open, so Violet probably left that way. At least that means she wasn’t caught by old Mollusc. But where has she gone?”
I screw my hands into my eyes as I try to think it through.
She probably hasn’t gone to see Jenny Hanniver at the Eerie Book Dispensary, because we saw Jenny yesterday. And she probably wouldn’t dare go back to the museum. Unless she wanted to return the sea glass? But somehow I don’t think she’s ready to do that. So … where?
The beach? On her own? That’s possible.
But there’s another very disturbing possibility.
I grab my coat.
I slip two hot pebbles into my pockets, put the CLOSED sign up on my cubbyhole and run out into the snowy town.
Sebastian Eels’ tall townhouse looked grand enough built of motes and moonlight on Lady Kraken’s table, but is grander still in real life. It’s perched high in the town, its top-floor windows giving a commanding view of the bay, surpassed only by that of the Grand Nautilus Hotel below on the seafront. It is painted yellow with an imposing black door, white columns either side. Today, in the snow, it is silent, its eight large front windows empty and dark.
I check the street outside and see several tracks in the snow, including one large set of footprints that emerge from the door of the house. At a guess, I would say that these were made by Eels himself. The footprints show someone leaving but no one coming back.
At the side of the house is a wall, peeling yellow, with a garden beyond. I recognize it from the image in the cameraluna. The branch of a gnarled old tree leans over into the street. And there are smaller footprints leading to it, but none leading away.
I look up at the house to see if any windows are open. And that’s when I notice him.
Erwin.
The cat is sitting on top of the wall, watching me with his cool blue eyes.
“Did she come this way then?” I say.
P-rrrr, says Erwin, licking one paw.
“Fat lot of help you are,” I say, grabbing the branch anyway. I swing towards the wall. A moment of scrabbling later, and then I’m over the top, tumbling down into a prickly bush on the other side.
“Argh! Bladderwracks!” I cry out, as quietly as I can.
I get up and pick thorns out of my coat, and see that a ground-floor window is slightly open – just as it must have been three nights ago.
“You could have warned me about the bush,” I whisper up to Erwin, but he’s no longer there.
Through the window, I spy some kind of pantry or larder. It’s hard to see much, but on the tiles just inside the window I spot a patch of melting snow, and somehow I just know Violet left it there.
I heave myself up onto the sill and slide through the open window.
There’s a table in front of me, and I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying out when I see what’s lying there. A human body! Except, not exactly. At a second glance I realize it is actually something human body shaped.
“A wetsuit?” I say aloud.
And it is. But not the kind you might go snorkelling in on holiday – this is serious kit, complete with air tanks and a helmet with head-mounted torches. There are other things there too, strange things: lengths of old rubber hosing, a saw with long jagged teeth, harpoons.
There is also a pile of cardboard targets, like the ones you get at shooting galleries. I can’t help noticing that on each target, the bullseye is riddled with holes. Whoever fired at them is a crack shot.
And is this armour? I gasp at the sight of a steel chain-mail vest, complete with sleeves, on a hanger. I touch it and feel its shiny metal links slip between my fingers like scales.
A faint noise somewhere in the house jolts me. I mustn’t waste time. Sebastian Eels could be home at any moment. I slide the window up so that it looks closed at a glance but could be opened in a hurry, and continue into the house.
In the wide entrance hall there are small drops of melted snow at the bottom of a broad wooden staircase. My heart is pounding as I set off up the stairs, trying not to creak them.
On the first floor is a long landing with a number of doors. One is slightly ajar, and there are rustling sounds from inside. I edge towards it.
“Violet!” I whisper-shout. “Violet, is that you?”
But what if it isn’t?
What if all I’m doing is letting someone else – Eels himself, perhaps, or the Boathook Man – know that I’m there?
This is ridiculous – I shouldn’t be here. Yet, since I am here, I have to check. I brace myself to run if I need to, but take another step towards the door.
There’s a loud click! and a clunk! from downstairs. It’s the sound of the front door being unlocked and opened, followed by the noise of large booted feet stamping off snow.
“Come in, my old friends!” comes a voice I know too well, and I hear two other sets of feet enter the house. “It’s a long time since I welcomed you here.”
Sebastian Eels is home!
