She paused at the top of the steep approach to La Coupée. The cycle from the village had been short but arduous, the ascent over the last quarter of a mile relentless. She pushed forward, head down, finally getting off her bike and walking the last few feet before the main island ended abruptly in an outcrop of red and ochre rocks. Between them, the path narrowed and then dropped, sharply, a three-hundred-foot taper of land forming an isthmus between the main island and Little Sark. On either side, sheer cliffs tumbled into clear, cold blue.
She pushed her bike down onto the bridge, squeezing the brakes to hold it back as the loose, dry grit that dusted the concrete path slipped beneath her shoes. After several feet, the decline flattened. She stopped. It was impossible not to.
To the left, the water stretched to the coast of Jersey, hazy on the horizon. To the right, several boats were moored in the turquoise waters of La Grande Grève, a wide, shallow bay that met the sandy beach nestled into the bottom of the cliffs two hundred and fifty feet below. Steps hacked into the rock led down to it, a faded sign warning of soil erosion and telling visitors to attempt the descent at their own risk. There was somebody down there now. Jenny watched the tiny black speck picking its way across the white sand.
There were stories of hauntings here. The moans and screeches of the dead heard at dusk. There had been no railings until 1900. No road until German prisoners of war laid one after the Second World War. Before then, this bridge had been only five feet across, the path rough and crumbling. Children had crawled over on their hands and knees. One man, a farmer, attempting to bring his tithe of corn to the main island during a storm, had been blown clean off. Charlie had shown her, marked on a map in the bay below, La Caverne des Lamentes. That was where the eerie wailing sound came from, he said—one of the island’s many souffleurs, made by the tide sucking in and out of a narrow passage below and driving pockets of air through stone channels. Or perhaps, he had said with a smile, it was that poor farmer, looking for his scattered corn. There was nothing ghostly about the place now, Jenny thought. With the sun shining, the cliffs lush and green with heather and gorse, the spectacular view; it was a picture straight out of a tourist brochure.
There was no time to linger. La Coupée finished with a steep incline up to Little Sark, matching the descent on the opposite side. She pushed the bike up, then freewheeled down the hill. After half a mile, the road forked. A sign pointed the way to the silver mines. She checked her watch. Less than an hour before she’d have to head back to the main island if she was going to take advantage of Michael’s offer of a lift home. Plus she needed time to come up with a story about where she’d been—Michael wouldn’t be impressed if he found out she’d visited Len Mauger against his advice. But she had a job to do and could hardly ignore a lead connected to both Reg Carré and her father. Both dead, Michael’s voice whispered in her ear. She would find the house. Decide what to do when she got there. She followed the sign to the silver mines.
She soon found what she was looking for: a small, granite house with a bright red door. She set her bike against the hedge. Wind chimes hung from an apple tree in the front garden, ringing softly. On the doorstep were a pair of black wellington boots, wet nearly two-thirds of the way up, and a faded blue bucket, rim buckled. The same scene had greeted her countless times at her own house, Charlie having returned from a day on the boat with something for tea, or perhaps some ormers he’d promised a friend. From somewhere nearby, she heard a shrieking and then a laugh. Next door was a few hundred yards away, but close enough that she could see the children playing in the front garden. Close enough to run to, should the need arise.
She approached Len’s house. Peered into the bucket. It was empty save for a puddle of water and a frond of seaweed. She knocked on the door. A sharp clang. Footsteps. Then, to Jenny’s surprise, the turning of a key. Hardly anyone on Guernsey locked the doors, not even when they went out, never mind in Sark. The door opened, but only a crack. Only as far as the security chain on the inside would allow.
‘What?’ A voice from behind it. Dry, raspy.
‘Mr Mauger? I was wondering if I could talk to you?’
‘Fuck off. Keep telling you lot. I don’t need any help. Leave me alone.’
The door slammed shut. She knocked again.
‘I’m not here to help you, Mr Mauger. I was hoping you could help me.’
He was still standing behind the door, she thought. His words came through muffled but loud enough that she could hear.
‘What are you talking about? Why can’t you all leave me in peace?’
‘I don’t know who you think I am, Mr Mauger. I was wondering if you’d mind answering a few questions.’ She hesitated. This was not a man who would talk to a reporter. ‘Mr Mauger, I’m Jenny Dorey. I just . . . I wanted to ask you about my dad. About Charlie Dorey.’
There was silence. A gentle thud. The door shifted in its frame. He was leaning against it. She waited. One minute. Two.
Next door, she heard somebody call the children inside. It was still bright as noon, but the sun had dipped in the sky; the heat abated, just a little. She would need to head back to the main island soon.
‘Mr Mauger?’ She knocked again. ‘I really won’t take up too much of your time.’
A creak. A rattling of the chain. The door opened.
‘You’d better come in.’
The house smelled like a boat. Like the Jenny Wren the day after Charlie had brought in a big catch—not just fish but sand and salt, the faintest hint of tar and engine oil. In the low-ceilinged kitchen, a large pot of water was coming to the boil on an ancient-looking Aga. Next to the sink, a door led out to a back garden. It was open, but Jenny couldn’t help noticing the bolt above the handle. Still shiny. A much later addition than the scuffed and rusted barrel lock beneath it.
‘Sit down.’ Len Mauger pointed to a stool tucked under a low, square table. He reached into the sink and pulled out a chancre crab, one hand on either side of its wide, flat shell. The crab waved its front pincers wildly in the air. Len dropped it into the pot and slammed on the lid.
‘I’ll enjoy eating that little bastard. Got my thumb earlier. Hasn’t happened for years.’ He shook his head. ‘Must be losing my touch. You want something to drink? I’ve got beer. Some milk?’ He was a short man, in his sixties, Jenny would guess, a little stout round the middle, but his shirt hung loosely from his shoulders. He seemed nervous, fidgeting with his pocket as he opened a narrow door to an old-fashioned pantry. A slab of butter wrapped in waxed paper on a shelf, a loaf of bread, a carton of milk next to it, bottles arranged in a rack, a box of vegetables on the floor and too many cans to count—peas and tomatoes, sweetcorn, mandarin slices, fruit cocktail. She looked around the kitchen. No fridge. No microwave. No kettle. No light fittings. She wondered if he was some sort of survivalist, with his over-the-top security, stockpiling food in case of disaster, living without electricity in preparation for a time when the grid failed and the world was plunged into darkness. She wondered what else someone like Len might have stashed around his isolated house. Nets and rope. Tools for working on his boat. Knives for gutting fish.
The room darkened. The small windows and low ceilings typical in these old farmhouses seemed designed to keep out as much daylight as possible. She rose from her seat, stood in the open doorway, looked out onto an overgrown field with a large greenhouse at the bottom. A patch of cloud slid over the sun just as a small, bright blue La Manche propeller plane came into view, engines roaring.
‘Bloody pain, they are.’ Len appeared beside her. ‘Disturbing the peace how many times a day as they come in to land on Guernsey. Not as bad as that Monroe’s helicopter, mind you. Whole house shakes when he flies over. Don’t know who he thinks he is. Bloody helipad on Brecqhou.’ He shook his head. ‘Come on. Let’s sit.’ He motioned her back inside. She hesitated. There was a pallor to his olive skin, a frailness about him. He held on to the door frame as if he needed the support. He didn’t look like a madman. Or a dangerous one.
She followed him back inside.
‘Have you heard the news, Mr Mauger?’
‘Not if it happened in the last three days. Last time I spoke to anyone.’ He took a swig of his beer.
‘You don’t have a telephone?’
‘No telephone, no TV. No internet.’
‘Mr Mauger.’ It was not her place to break this sort of news. She spoke gently. ‘Reg Carré is dead. He was killed.’
The lid on the crab pot tremored as the water bubbled beneath it. Len sat, pale and silent, staring at her, unblinking.
‘I’m sorry. I know you were friends.’
‘Killed how?’
‘I don’t know, not exactly.’
‘Not an accident?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not an accident. You don’t seem surprised.’
He got up, angry. ‘What are you telling me about this for? I thought you wanted to talk about your dad.’
‘I did. I was asking about Reg and someone mentioned you knew him, and my dad too.’
‘Asking about Reg why? And who told you I knew him?’
She checked her notebook. ‘A Mr Malcolm Perré.’
‘Course it was.’ He looked at the notebook, then at her. ‘Are you police? Charlie never said you were police.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m a journalist. With the Guernsey News.’
‘That’s right. I remember now.’
‘Was Reg a friend of yours, Mr Mauger?’
‘He was.’ He sniffed. Wiped his nose on his sleeve. There was no sign of tears, but his voice wavered. ‘I worked for him. Years ago. Helped him out with his gardening.’ He turned away from her, carefully folded a tea towel and wrapped it round his hands before lifting the pot off the boil. He drained it and brine-scented steam billowed out. He placed the pot into the sink and used the tea towel to wipe his eyes and brow before pulling the chancre out, its shell transformed from muddy brown to fiery red, the tips of its claws black and shining. He placed it on the side, remained with his back to her, his hands resting on the counter.
‘Liked a crab did Reg. I used to take him one every now and then.’
‘Had you seen him recently?’
He turned. ‘Course I’d seen him. See everyone. Little as possible suits me, but I have to go into the village sometimes. We didn’t really talk much. Two old men. Nothing to say to each other, not anymore. We drifted apart a bit after he and his wife had a baby. That was thirty-odd years ago. Then played a bit of cards together, up at the Seigneurie.’ He stopped. ‘What is all this? I don’t want to be in the bloody paper. Don’t know why I’m talking to you. You caught me off guard, saying you wanted to ask me about Charlie. You just say that to get in the door?’ He spoke quickly now, as though agitated.
She put her pen down. ‘No.’
‘Well, good. I’m not doing an interview about Reg bloody Carré, I’ll tell you that much.’
‘I’m sorry. All the questions are a force of habit. I really did want to ask you about my dad.’
He picked up the tea towel, twisting it in his hands. ‘He was a good man.’
‘Thank you. How did you know him?’
‘He fished. I fish. Saw him all the time, unloading in Guernsey. I used to sell to some of the restaurants, same as he did. We’d chat. He’d come over for a drink, play some cards. Sometimes when he was supposed to be out working.’
‘He spent more time over here, I think, those last months before he died. Did you see more of him?’ And what was he doing, she wanted to ask, scribbling nonsense in his diary after his trips over? but she forced herself to take it slowly. She did not want to risk rattling Len again.
He shifted. Winced. ‘I suppose I did.’
‘Anything you can tell me about that time? Not for a story, obviously. I . . . I have so many questions about what happened to him. How the accident happened. You’ll know, if you ever saw him on his boat, he was better on sea than on land . . . or perhaps I’m wrong.’ She attempted a smile. ‘Perhaps I just saw what I wanted to see and you’re going to tell me he was clumsy and getting old and you’re not surprised he fell overboard.’
He stared at her for what felt like minutes.
‘I’m dying. Cancer.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I thought you were from the hospital. They’ve sent a couple of people to try to persuade me to come over for treatment.’
‘You’re not having treatment?’
‘It’s in my bones. Terminal. The doctor here can prescribe me pain medication. I’m not taking too much just yet, but they say it will get worse quickly. They say if I go to Guernsey, they could prolong my life. But that’s different to living, don’t you think? I’ve a few good months left. I want to spend them here.’
He looked her in the eye for the first time, she realised, since she’d entered his house.
‘Do you know your Bible?’
She shook her head.
‘I do. Methodist. Lapsed. No surprise I’ve been thinking on it all a bit more recently, eh? Thinking about getting back to church, making my peace with God. Asking for forgiveness. Too late, though, eh? Too late.’
‘Forgiveness?’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘For what?’
‘Too late.’ He appeared not to have heard her. ‘“He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain.” That’s me, isn’t it? Chastened, with pain in my bones. Better or worse than what Reg got? I wonder.’
‘You’re losing me, Mr Mauger.’ He was rambling, she thought. Too much time spent alone and ill—he was losing his mind. Or he knew something.
‘What did Reg get, exactly?’
‘Wait here.’ He got up, walked out of the room.
She heard the stairs creaking, then footsteps from above. She had made a mistake coming here, but she couldn’t leave, not if there was a chance Len knew something, anything about Charlie’s death. She checked her phone, wanting some connection to the outside world. No messages. No signal. She walked to the back door, held her phone in the air.
‘Here.’
He’d come back so quietly he startled her and she turned sharply.
‘This was delivered to me a couple of years ago. Slipped under my door.’ He laid a piece of paper on the table.
She stepped towards it, blinking to refocus in the dim interior after the glare of the sunlight outside.
She stared at the words. Block capitals. Black pen on grubby paper.
YOU’RE NEXT.
‘A couple of years ago?’ Jenny’s words caught in the back of her throat. ‘When exactly?’
Len’s expression was grim.
‘The day after your father disappeared.’