Part 6 (1/2)

'Good afternoon! Bronwyn, isn't it? I'm the Doctor. We met at the pub last night. Bob over at the harbour said that you might be the best person to talk to about hiring a boat!'

She gave a disdainful sniff, threw the door open and vanished back into the house. 'You'd better come in. I'm just making some Welsh cakes.'

The Doctor followed her, closing the door behind him. The inside of the house was, if anything, more of a mess than the outside. Books, ornaments and photographs covered every surface, while the floor was piled high with newspapers and magazines, and pictures hung on every wall. Among the chaos protruded furniture, the covers faded and torn. The pleasant smell of cooking filled the air from a small kitchenette.

Bronwyn waved at him from in front of the stove.

'Clear yourself a s.p.a.ce and sit down. Watch out for the duck.'

The Doctor stepped warily into the room. A large mallard eyed him from its position on the couch. Moving a box of shoes, the Doctor sat down carefully next to it.

Bronwyn bustled out of the kitchenette, a plate of Welsh cakes in her hand. She thrust the plate at the Doctor, taking one herself.

'I remember you now. Said that you were here to help.'

'That's right.'

She glowered at him. 'How?'

'Well, for starters I wanted to ask you about Nathaniel Morton. You don't seem to have much time for him.'

'He's messing with things best left alone.'

'You mean the creatures?'

'I know what I mean.' She took another mouthful of cake. 'You said Bob sent you over? So you'll be wanting to hire the boat?'

55.'That's right. Want to get out to the island.'

'Why do you want to head out there?'

'Erm. . . To see the seals?' The Doctor took a bite of his Welsh cake, ignoring the greedy eye of the duck.

Bronwyn nodded, as if that explained everything. The Doctor went on, 'I gather that the island is the best place to see them.'

'That's true. And you're in luck. I was planning on heading out there myself.'

She undid her ap.r.o.n and threw it into the corner, then fed the remains of her Welsh cake to the duck, which swallowed them greedily.

'You wait there, Dr whoever-you-are. I won't be a minute.'

She pushed her way through the tangle of boxes to another door on the far side of the room. Hoping that she wasn't collecting any shampoo, the Doctor picked up a stack of photos from the table alongside him and started flicking idly through them.

Almost all of them were in black and white, showing the village as it had been. From the look of things, not that much had changed over the last fifty years or so. The harbour was just the same, the seafront dominated by the imposing Victorian facade of the pub, the street leading up the hill still lined with the same cl.u.s.ter of small shop fronts, only the signage in the windows and the price tags visible on stalls giving the age of the photographs away. There were shots of the lighthouse in the bay, the paintwork clean and fresh, the lighthouse keepers posing proudly on the rocks at its base. There was even a photo of the rectory, its gardens neatly kept and the shrubbery that now grew wild trimmed and orderly.

As the Doctor looked through the photographs he realised that a lot of them featured Bronwyn as a young woman. She had been attractive in her youth, with long auburn hair cascading over her shoulders and a smile on her face in every picture.

One photograph showed her standing outside the beach house, a young man at her shoulder, a baby in her arms. The house was tidy and whitewashed, a line full of clean clothes hanging alongside it. Another showed the three of them on the beach, only this time the 56 baby had grown into a small boy in shorts, his knees covered in sand, a bucket and spade being waved enthusiastically at the photographer. The Doctor put the photographs down and stared around the room. Nearly all of the photos on the walls or in frames on the top of cupboards featured the boy. He must have been five or six years old at a guess.

Hauling himself out of the sagging sofa, the Doctor slipped on his gla.s.ses. A jumble of photographs of the boy in a smart school uniform sat propped up against a vase on one of the groaning shelves. He picked them up, peering at them one by one. The boy had the same bright eyes and slightly crooked smile as his mother.

'Where are you now, I wonder?' he murmured.

Plucking one of them from the pile, the Doctor slipped it into his jacket pocket.

At that moment Bronwyn bustled back into the room. She was now wearing a huge battered oilskin and had a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. The Doctor hurriedly tried to put the rest of the photographs back in their place, fumbling and dropping several on to the floor. Flas.h.i.+ng her a guilty grin, he gathered them up.

'Sorry. b.u.t.terfingers.'

Bronwyn s.n.a.t.c.hed the photographs from him, putting them back in their place. The Doctor watched as her fingers ran gently over the pictures.

'Good-looking boy.'

A flicker of a smile started to cross her face, taking years off her.

'Yes. . . '

The smile vanished as suddenly as it had arrived and she shot the Doctor a suspicious glance.

'We'd better get a move on if we're going to catch the tide,' she said.

'Absolutely. Don't want to keep those seals waiting.'

Bronwyn bustled out of the room, muttering to herself. The Doctor took off his spectacles and fingered the photograph in his pocket. Something dark had happened in Bronwyn's past, of that he had no doubt. Something to do with her son. It could not have been a coincidence that Rose had seen a child in her dream. It could also not 57 have been a coincidence that there was history between Bronwyn and Nathaniel Morton. The problem was that he was still no closer to finding out what.

He tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the arm of his gla.s.ses.

'Jimmy,' he murmured.

58.

[image]

Thereyouare!' Alipointedproudlyatalowpileofruinedbrickwork that emerged from under a sprawling holly bush.

She and the others had led Rose through the wood until they came to the high, imposing wall that bordered the back of the rectory grounds. Then they had followed the wall until they reached what had once been outbuildings serving the main house. Here the kids had scrambled enthusiastically underneath the foliage. Rose pushed her way forward through the tangle of branches to where Billy Palmer and Baz Morgan were clearing leaves from a sheet of rotten plywood. The ruined building had obviously been a coal house or storeroom of some kind. The remains of bunkers could be seen among the vegetation and ancient rusted rail tracks snaked off through the wood, vanis.h.i.+ng in the undergrowth, evidence of the industry that must have thrived in the area in the past. Grunting with effort, the two boys pulled back the plywood, exposing a dark hole at the base of the wall. Woodlice scuttled away from the light as the board was pulled back and Rose could smell the damp muskiness of decay. She peered into the tunnel. It was made of brick, about a metre wide, with a stream of murky, rust-stained orange water 59 running down a drain in its centre.

Ali hunkered down next to her and peered into the tunnel, wrinkling her nose.

'It smells a bit, but it's quite safe.'

'Yeah! Like you'd know,' snorted Billy. 'You've not been down there.'

'But you have?' Rose looked at him.

Billy nodded. 'Like I said, it goes under the wall, comes up at the back of the house, in a kind of courtyard next to the cellars.'

'How long is it?'

Billy shrugged. 'Dunno. Not far.' He paused. 'Do you want me to show you?'