“You have my every sympathy.” Dominic skimmed another pebble. He must have known exactly what bereavement was like given the pained expression on his face and the catch in his voice.
“While it pains me to admit it, to do James credit, I’d have dissolved entirely if he hadn’t been so . . . sensible.” And he had been, helping to sort out Dad’s monetary affairs, locating the stashes of money in different accounts. Dad had been as much a serial investor as he’d been a serial hobbyist, and he’d been the one firmly in charge of anything financial, so Morgan’s mother hadn’t known where to start.
Morgan gave Dominic a brief account of James’s financial caretaking, including the farcical aspect to straightening out the affairs of a man who’d always sworn he was uncomplicated. “But,” he finished up, “we had to return to London eventually. There’s only so much leave you can take, compassionate or otherwise. Mum said she’d be fine and we should just leave her to it.”
“And you feel guilty about that?” Trust Dominic to get straight to the heart of the matter again.
“Of course I do. I can’t help thinking that if I’d stayed on here, if I’d jacked in the old job and concentrated on family matters for a while, then either she wouldn’t have got ill or the progress of the disease would have been slower.” Morgan found weighing the stones in his hand surprisingly soothing, like they were prayer pebbles. “Think about that sudden weight of responsibility she had to shoulder, on top of the shock of bereavement. I could have helped her to cope better. And maybe she wouldn’t have had the fall if I’d been here to keep an eye on things. She took a tumble—in the kitchen, of all places. The room she’d made her domain.”
“It would probably have made no difference, you being here or not. She could have taken a tumble in the supermarket or anywhere. I’m afraid it often starts with a fall, the descent into forgetfulness and deterioration.” Dominic put his hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “I think I’m beginning to see the big picture.”
If Dominic really did see some bigger picture, then he was either a step ahead of Morgan or he was about to unleash a pile of platitudinous twaddle. Morgan shrugged the hand away. “And what is the big picture?”
Dominic, who didn’t seem offended at the brush-off, chucked a handful of pebbles into the sea, as though enumerating his thoughts. “That you liked James a hell of a lot. That maybe you loved him, and you definitely expected more from him. That you’d really like to hate him now, but it’s harder than expected. You could find closure easier if you loathed his guts.”
Morgan, taken aback, let the little stones slip out of his fingers. “Bloody hell, do you read minds?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Dominic turned, smiling shyly. “When you’re used to being among the spectators, you pick up the knack of seeing what the players miss.”
“You’ve got the knack, all right.” Morgan rubbed the sand from his fingers; he’d had his fill of opening his heart to public view. “We should walk along to the next bay, around the point, before the tide turns.”
“Lead the way.” Dominic smiled, happily. A low-maintenance guy, which made a pleasant change.
They walked along the water line, rounding one set of rocks dry shod, then through shallow waves around another, moving circuitously towards the tongue of cliff which pointed out towards the Anvil, beyond which any sane person wouldn’t attempt to go except via the cliff path.
“Isn’t there a risk we’ll get cut off?” Dominic, trying to keep his balance on a jagged boulder as they approached the last bay, seemed to be having second thoughts.
“Not if we make sure we get onto this next little beach. There’s another path up.” Morgan had kept them moving, pointing out the locations where he’d skinned his knees as a child and the place where they’d had to rescue some stupid holidaymakers who couldn’t, or hadn’t bothered, to read the tide tables.
They reached the last bay safely, ensuring that their access to the path was clear. Dominic scanned the view, wide-eyed, obviously taking everything in. “We never came down here. What a stunning place.”
“Nice, isn’t it?”
“Not sure I’d use the word ‘nice.’ Dramatic, I’ll grant.” Dominic took another sweep of the bay. “Is this place haunted?”
Morgan couldn’t hide his reaction, the almost palpable sensation of a slap to the face. Before Dominic could say anything, he replied, “I’m not sure. I’ve honestly never come across any ghost stories for these particular bays, which is odd in itself. Standard fare for the books tourists like to pick up, so you’d have thought if there was anything to say, somebody would be making money out of it. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I believe in a sense of place. Of something remaining that resounds in the air.” Dominic studied the Anvil again, that great jagged grin of rocks still seeming to mock them. “Or maybe people bring that resonance with them. Some invisible load they carry.”
Morgan bridled. This was all too close to home. “That sounds ridiculous. Like the kind of thing they’d have believed in the middle ages.”
“DNA would have sounded ridiculous in the middle ages. And electricity.” Dominic’s elegantly waving hands illustrated his point.
“Steady on.” Morgan pointed up at the cliffs. “Anybody sees you from up there and they’ll think you’re waving for help. We’ll have the lifeboat out any minute.”
“Sor— Okay. Getting carried away.” He clamped his hands to his sides. “Anyway, electricity. A stream of particles, too small to describe, and impossible to define in terms of their size and position at the same time. Powering everything from a light to a train.”
“Bugger me.” Morgan smiled, despite his discomfort. “That’s quite right; I’d never considered it.”
Dominic smiled, knowingly. “There are more things in heaven and earth than you’ve dreamed of.”
“‘Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Morgan said, automatically. “Don’t quote Shakespeare at me unless you’re going to quote it accurately. Tell me about your sense of place.”
“Oh, I’m no expert. No firsthand experience to offer in evidence, except for times when I’ve been somewhere—there’s a church at St. Brelade’s Bay on Jersey for example—and I’ve felt the years resonating through the stones.”
“I can agree with that.” Morgan tried to pick his way through a minefield of words, any of which might raise an awkward question. “We’ve been to Jersey. And there have always been odd occurrences here too. Not all the weird stuff in Quick’s yesterday is a load of cobblers invented for the benefit of tourists.”
Dominic laughed. “Just ninety percent, I guess?”
“Something like that.” Morgan returned the grin. “But a lot of it’s in the mind. I was driving home one night along the back roads and ended up almost crapping myself. There was something huge ahead of me, nearly twice the height of the average man, and it kept glowing in the headlights. Intermittently, which was worse still.”
“And?” Dominic’s eyes were wide now, full of anticipation.
“It was only someone out on a late horseback ride. Got both themselves and their mount covered in those reflective safety strips. I felt a complete idiot.” Morgan laughed. Keep it light and he might steer clear of making an idiot of himself again. “Stupidly mundane, a product of my susceptibility and overactive imagination. I keep thinking that if I’d turned off the road before I’d established what the cause was, all the rest of my life I’d have believed I’d seen a ghost. Maybe my story would have ended up in the museum too.”
Dominic smiled. “I suppose there are plenty of things that spook people for which there’s a rational and boring explanation. Will-o’-the-wisp. Ball lightning. But do you believe in ghosts?”
“I’ve no idea whether I do or not,” Morgan said, hoping that they’d get off this bloody subject soon. “Can we just leave it for the moment? I’m not in the mood to discuss superstitious nonsense.”
“I’m sor—” Dominic theatrically slammed his ha
nd over his mouth. “I’ll stop flushing elephants out of the bush, okay?”
“Okay. You’re all right.” Morgan patted his shoulder. No need to make the bloke feel worse than he already did. “Come on, we should be getting to the top before the tide comes in or the wind strengthens.”
Dominic eyed the cliff face up and down. “I can’t help wondering if John Lawson could have got up there with the wind blowing a gale and the rain lashing.”
“John Lawson?”
“Our midshipman. The one who might just have survived. Remember?”
“How could I forget?” Although that name had slipped Morgan’s mind for the moment, probably because of all the other thoughts flooding his consciousness.
Dominic ran his slender fingers through his wind-tousled hair. “He must have had help, given the terrain.”
“What if somebody saw the ship foundering and came down to help?” Morgan shivered, even though the sun was warm on their backs.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” How long was he going to be able to get away with pretending?
“I know it’s bloody rude, but it strikes me that you’re not fine. And it’s not about your dad or your mum or ghosts or anything remotely like that.”
Morgan opened his mouth, then shut it again. What would it achieve giving Dominic a gobful of defensive abuse? The guy must have noticed the odd enigmatic remark and would have started constructing the crossword from the little clues, putting in all the right answers. He was too shrewd by half.
“I can see you’re angry, but just listen to what I have to say. I promise that if you shout at me, or go so far as to smack me one in the gob, I won’t think any the worse of you.” Dominic looked pained and sounded as awkward as he’d done during that first phone call. “Something about Troilus bugs you. Really bugs you.”
The predictable topic still made Morgan wince.
Dominic frowned. “See? That’s exactly the kind of thing you do every time I mention it. I’ve been pretending not to notice, but I can’t any longer.”
Morgan considered arguing, but what was the point? He took a deep breath, blew out his cheeks. “Am I that obvious?”
“Too right you are. Sometimes you flinch and sometimes you simply put the shutters down behind your eyes. If that makes any sense.”
“It does.” Morgan sighed. “I just don’t want to talk about it at the moment. If ever, to be brutally frank, but that would bugger up your research and I said I’d help.”
Dominic frowned. “Okay, I take the hint. Should I clear off and take my research with me?”
“Don’t be sodding stupid. You keep offering to treat me—why don’t you get dinner?”
“Great idea.” Dominic’s face brightened. “Hint taken. Subject officially changed. And I’ll drive. You’ve earned being chauffeured.”
“Only if you let me direct you down the short cuts. I can’t face the holiday traffic.”
“Deal.”
And please God they wouldn’t encounter anything on the way to remind them of ghosts or ships or nightmares.
Morgan heard the house phone, as it bleated out through an open window, as soon as they reached the garden, but he wasn’t quick enough to reach the thing. The fact there were two answer phone messages already suggested that someone desperately needed to get hold of him. Heart sinking, he felt his pockets, realising he must have left his mobile on the hall table. The messages—as he’d already anticipated—asked him to ring the nursing home.
“Sorry, got a call to make.” He made an apologetic face at Dominic, who, with a sympathetic smile, headed off towards the kitchen.
The news from the home wasn’t good. His mother had suffered a fall, if only a minor one, as the sister reassured him, which was no reassurance at all. If the incident was so minor, why the string of messages, both on the home phone and—he saw as he checked it—the mobile?
“We’ve popped her down to Newquay hospital for an X-ray, but it’s simply a precaution.” Christine, the sister in charge who Morgan often saw when he visited, sounded her usual breezy self, although it didn’t allay his fears.
“Do you want me to get down there?” Guilt at not having been in the house to answer the phone, and having left his mobile behind, fought with guilt at hoping Christine would simply tell him not to bother.
“No, we just wanted you to know what had happened, in case you came visiting and found she wasn’t here. Didn’t want to have to rush you to the hospital with a heart attack because of the shock.” The forced jollity in Christine’s voice alarmed Morgan more than her words did. “We’ll ring you if anything changes. I tried your mobile, but I couldn’t get a reply on that either.”
“I know. Sorry. I went out for a walk; must have forgotten it. Been a bit preoccupied.”
Christine’s voice changed to one of professional concern. “That’s all right. We understand. Your mother wasn’t at her best yesterday when you saw her. You must have been upset.”
“Yes.” He’d leave it at that. “You promise you’ll be in touch straightaway if I’m needed? I’ll make sure I have my mobile phone with me all the time.”
“Of course. Go and make yourself a cup of tea or something. And don’t worry.”
Don’t worry? Might as well ask that tide not to come in.
“I’ve put the kettle on, if that’s okay. Everything all right?” Dominic asked, poking his head out from the kitchen.
“Yes. No. God knows.” There seemed no alternative to explaining what the call had been about. Morgan finished up his account with the question that bugged him. “If they’re insisting the situation isn’t serious, then why did they keep trying to ring me? I can’t help thinking that they’re lying.”
“Unless they were covering their backs. In case you’d have thought about suing them if anything had happened and you’d been the last to know. Compensation culture and all that.”
“You could be right, but I’m not convinced.” Morgan glanced at the phone again; the instrument seemed to be mocking him, piling the guilt on.
“If you’d rather not go out to dinner, I’d understand.” Dominic looked around the hall. “Let me get my gear together and I’ll head back to the hotel.”
“No!” That had been too loud, too desperate. “No. Let’s have that cup of tea. Help clear my head a bit.”
“Yes,” Dominic said, clearly needing no further explanation. “Maybe some biscuits would help too.”
“I’ll go have a rummage in the cupboard.”
Dominic had the leaves in the warmed pot, and Morgan had run a decent packet of biscuits to ground when the house phone went again. Morgan ran into the hall to grab it, his stomach sinking before he even registered Christine’s voice at the other end. Once he’d heard everything she had to say, he turned to find Dominic hovering in the kitchen doorway.
“The nursing home?”
“Yeah.” Morgan gave a helpless shrug. “I have to go down to the hospital. This fall’s shaken Mum up badly, and she keeps asking for me. That tea will have to wait.”
“I’ll run you down there.” Dominic moved across to the table where he’d left his keys along with his camera. “I can wait and bring you home, or you can get a taxi back. You’ll be in no state to drive either way.”
Morgan, about to argue, suddenly realised there was nothing to fight about. His hands were shaking, and he didn’t feel too steady on his feet. Why not, for once, take a well-meant offer? “You’re on. Get your stuff together first, though. I’m not trying to get rid of you, but it could be the middle of the night before I get home, and you don’t want to forget something.”
They occupied themselves with domestics, making sure Dominic had collected all his gear, that Morgan had cash, cards, and mobile—and a coat in case he had a long stay, coming out into a cold night. Concentrating on the practical rather than what really occupied his mind: what would the situation at the hospital turn out to be?
Once in the car, they focussed on nego
tiating the back roads, avoiding the tourist trail, and trying not to knock any grockles off their bikes. Dominic seemed as determined as his host not to discuss the present crisis. They eventually pulled up near the hospital, after what seemed an age of short cuts which had turned out to be anything but.
“You’ll be all right?” Dominic asked, eyeing the emergency department entrance.
“I’ll be fine, honest. I’m sure things can’t be as bad as my brain’s trying to tell me they are.” Morgan forced a grin.
Dominic touched his arm. “I can be flexible with flights. If it would help to have someone around to fetch and carry or whatever, given that you can’t be sure what’s happening. I won’t get under your feet at the hospital, but I could stay in the area and be your spare pair of hands. Seriously.”
Morgan flipped a mental coin. Heads: Insist he’d be fine, say that Dominic should go home to London and he’d be on the blower when he had some news. Face this on his own as he’d got used to facing stuff on his own. Tails: say, That’s what I need right now—been a long time since anyone’s looked after me.
Tails it was.
“I can’t think of any jobs for you to do at the moment, but I’d be really grateful to have someone here. To help prop me up.” There, he’d committed himself. And it felt good. “You won’t have a problem reorganising flights, if you need to?”
“I doubt it. My father happens to be on the board of the airline.”
“Is he?” He’d kept that quiet. “Magic. Thanks.” Morgan had opened the door and was halfway out of the car before he remembered his duties as a host. “I don’t know how the hotel’s fixed for accommodating you another night, but it seems a shame to put you to extra expense when I’ve got a spare room. Come and stay with me tomorrow. We might be able to get out for that meal, if everything’s hunky-dory in there.”
Broke Deep (Porthkennack Book 3) Page 7