Page 110 of The Rising Tide

Lucy grabs a baseball cap from behind the bar and screws it on to her head. Grabbing her rucksack, she takes one last look around.

The Drift Net.

So many memories.

Again, she touches the bar top’s oak slab, feeling the grain and the varnish. Then she wrinkles her nose. It’s just a piece of wood. This place is just a bar; a gallery; a music venue. Part of a life that no longer exists. Old news.

But there’s one thing she can’t leave behind.

When the Drift Net first opened, Billie was twelve years old. To celebrate its first night, she drew Lucy a picture of the venue. Billie’s Drift Net is populated not with humans but with sea creatures. In it, pufferfish and manta rays nurse pints of seawater. At the pool table, two purple octopuses wield cues while a couple of great whites serve drinks behind the bar. Onstage, the band features a starfish on drums, two lobsters on guitar, a turtle playing keyboards and a singing seal. Sea urchins, clownfish and hermit crabs form the crowd.

Daniel framed the picture using driftwood gathered from Penleith Beach. Lucy hung it over the bar, where it’s lived ever since.

Now, unhooking it, she stuffs it into her rucksack. Then she lets herself out through the fire exit.

The back alley is deserted – just a few commercial-waste bins and a stack of broken pallets. Halfway along it, a walkway between the Watsons’ pharmacy and Wayland Rawlings’ hobby shop leads back to the waterfront.

Lucy emerges into the midst of a growing crowd. Not just Tyler and Emil and the others she ejected from the Drift Net. Upwards of thirty people are standing on the quay, with more swarming on to it from the high street. Everyone is gazing up at Mortis Point.

The peninsula’s granite cliffs rise hundreds of feet, forming a natural boundary between Skentel to the south and Penleith Beach to the north. Up there, above the coastal trees crowning the summit, a column of black smoke gushes into the sky.

Wild Ridge is burning with a savagery hard to comprehend. The flames aren’t orange but a deep, sooty red. Already, half the building is alight. Fire twists from every window on its southern side.

Even though she expected to see it, Lucy can’t tear her eyes away. The fire she started in the hallway has spread much faster than she’d anticipated. She thinks of everything inside – the scarred furniture, the chipped crockery, the art on the walls. She thinks of all the life lived inside those walls; all the laughter and music and love.

Oddly, it doesn’t affect her too acutely. Perhaps she’s too numb to express any more sorrow. Before others on the quay notice her presence, she finds Tyler and pulls him aside.

‘I know you think I’m crazy,’ she tells him, ignoring his startled look. ‘Maybe the truth’ll come out. Maybe it won’t. But Daniel didn’t drown Billie and Fin’s not dead.’

‘Luce, are you—’

‘No time. Here, take this.’ Into his hands she presses the letter she just wrote inside the Drift Net. ‘This needs to go to Detective Inspector Abraham Rose. Big guy, craggy face. I’m sure he’ll be down here soon.’

‘I know him,’ Tyler says. ‘He was down a few days ago asking questions. Luce, you’ve—’

She shakes her head. ‘I need one more thing. And please, Ty – Fin’s life might depend on it. Don’t say where I’ve gone, OK? If anyone asks, you didn’t see.’

Lucy knows from his eyes that she can trust him. She kisses his cheek and jumps from the quay to the floating dock. When she clambers aboard Jake’s yacht, she sees that the hatch is already unlocked. A key has been left in the ignition.

Lucy throws down her backpack and casts off the mooring lines. She flicks the ignition key to the left, heating the glow plugs. Then she twists it to the right.

Nothing on her first two attempts. On her third, the engine thrums beneath her. Engaging the throttle, Lucy spins the wheel. The boat responds, edging out from the dock. She glances back at the quay. The crowd is too engaged with the fire on Mortis Point to payHuntsman’s Daughterany attention. Fanned by the wind, those crimson flames reach higher. The entire roof is burning now. Greasy black smoke churns into the sky.

Once the bow has swung around, Lucy throttles up. Jake’s yacht follows the breakwater wall, heading for open sea.

FORTY-FIVE

Abraham Rose rockets along the lane that winds over Mortis Point. The smoke from the house fire blows east towards him. Within moments it starts seeping into the car. He tastes it when he breathes, feels it scratching at his throat. When he rounds a bend, he can hardly believe what he’s seeing.

Wild Ridge is a grand old house, Georgian in roots. Two centuries of modifications have added a hotchpotch of styles. A Victorian turret room wears a witch’s-cap roof reminiscent of Carcassonne. An Arts and Crafts-style wing branches off along one side.

The building is an inferno. Smoke like boiling tar rolls thick overhead. When Abraham opens the car door, he feels the heat on his face. He hears timbers cracking, glass shattering, structures inside the house starting to collapse. As he watches, a portion of the roof falls in. A huge gout of flame licks out.

Doubtless Cooper will have raised the alarm, but Abraham can’t hear sirens. The fire station in Bude is fifteen miles south; Barnstaple’s is even further. On theseroads, even if they blue-light it, they’ll arrive just in time to stamp out ashes.

Abraham turns the car around and accelerates back down the lane. His flesh smells like dead poultry and his lungs are sprayed halfway across the windscreen. And yet he feels oddly invigorated.Lucy Locke, he thinks.She’s your task. She’s why you’re still alive. Whatever the truth of this, Lucy Locke needs your help.

In his rear-view mirror he sees the entire south wall of Wild Ridge bow out and collapse, releasing a torrent of sparks and ash.

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