7pm

“We’re almost at the mouth of the Helford River, Angel.”

A half hour had passed with neither of us speaking again and, although several boats passed close by, we’d made no attempt to signal to them. Looking at the nearing shore, then back across the bay towards St Anthony, I saw we were much further west than we had been, the lighthouse reduced to a white dot amongst the rocks of the headland. In front of us, above the green line of the Lizard peninsula, the sun, now a weakened and engorged orange ball, hung low in the western sky.

“We’ve drifted a long way,” I said, and, despite the stillness of the air, shivered with that slightly heat-stroked tingle you only get after a long time out in the open. “And there’s deep water here, look at the green colour.”

“As good a place as any then, Mr Sangster.” Angel opened her backpack and pulled out a sackcloth parcel.

“As good a place for what, Angel?”

“This.”

She unwrapped the cloth, and held up the dagger, no longer looking dull as it had in the sepulchre, but sparkling, the blade reflecting sunlight from the sea, catching not just the myriad Aramaic markings on the blade, but also something I hadn’t noticed before. Etched on the hilt were the intersecting twin curves of Ichthys.

“Do you think it’ll make as many ripples in the sea as it did on land?”

I didn’t answer, glancing down at Angel’s unbandaged ankle, tattooed with her glum looking fish, its nine tails oddly twitching when the girl’s calf muscle tensed as she threw the dagger from the boat. I raised my eyes, and we both watched the knife arc through the air, flashing as it went, hitting the water with the blade tip facing directly downwards, making only the tiniest of splashes before disappearing completely.

There were no ripples that I could see.