Page 103 of The Rising Tide

Abraham can’t speak again. There’s a pad on the counter. He scrawls down the Lexus’s registration number.

McKaylin tears off the top sheet. ‘Seriously – you want me to call a doctor?’

He shakes his head, points.

Going behind the desk, she opens her ledger and searches through it. ‘Oh,thisguy. He’s been here a while. Said he came here to paint.’

‘Name?’

‘Manning. Richard Manning.’

That’s not the name on the Lexus’s logbook. Through the window, Abraham counts two pitched tents and a single caravan. ‘Where do I find him?’

‘Not in any of those,’ McKaylin says. ‘I rented him that.’

Abraham follows the direction of her finger all the way to the sea cliff, and the Georgian-built lighthouse standing upon it.

THIRTY-NINE

1

Lucy has chosen every single painting that hangs on these walls. The collection represents a passion stretching back to adolescence, to a time before Billie and long before Daniel or Fin. In recent years it’s spilled out of this room, marching into the hall, up the stairs, to other parts of this huge, old house. But the paintings in here have the longest history.

And she sees, now, that one of them is new.

It hangs on the wall furthest from the mullioned windows, near the bookcase where she found the Samsung tablet. It’s a drab watercolour of Skentel’s harbour – the kind of painting that clutters countless charity shops and gift shops.

As Lucy draws closer, she notices something that clearly wasn’t part of the original work. The addition is tiny but cleverly done. Out beyond Skentel’s breakwater floats theLazy Susan. The bow is submerged, the stern angled up. Beside the boat float two abandoned lifejackets.

Lucy snatches the picture off the wall. She turns it over,half expecting to find a message scrawled on the back, some kind of instruction or taunt. But all she sees are the canvas’s wooden battens.

And then she hears music.

In her pocket, the phone vibrates against her leg.

2

Not a call, this time, but a text message.

WANT TO SEE FIN? Y/N

Lucy blinks at the screen. Her brain has slowed down again. She forces more oxygen into her lungs and texts back:Yes.

Almost immediately, the phone buzzes with a response.

PREPARED TO MAKE A SACRIFICE? Y/N

Lucy textsYes.She pauses, then types:Tell me why. She hits send, waits. Half a minute passes before the response arrives.

KATHARSIS.

I don’t understand.

RENEWAL.

What does that mean?

A longer pause. Then:

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