Free Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton Page B

for assistance.’
    He really does expect to find something on this boat, I realize. His silences on the trip over. His sickly green colour. Shaking hands. He’s scared.
    Climbing quickly and silently for so big a man he disappears over the side and I’m alone on the ocean.

6
    I listen, for the sound of footsteps, for the voice of a small child, and hear nothing but waves slapping the hull and wind screeching around the nearby hills. I want to stand up, to follow Callum up on deck, or cast off and get back to my own boat. I don’t want to be here, tethered to this dead ship.
    How long has it been?
    I keep listening, but the wind is strong and the water pulls and sucks at the iron hull of the ship, as though trying to lift it from its grave on the ocean bed. Callum might have vanished into the night.
    How long can it take to search a wreck? The wheelhouse is above the water line but much of it has been damaged by the elements. There will be a cabin to its front that is the most likely prison for a child. All the other cabins and storage space below will be flooded. There really isn’t that much to search and I would have heard something by now.
    Some way off, my boat is rocking on its anchor. I think I can see the gleam of Queenie’s eyes on the side deck.
    He’s been gone too long. I reach into my kitbag and find what I’m looking for, then tuck my grandfather’s handgun in my pocket before reaching for the ladder. Meaning just to climb and look, I take one rung and the next until I can see over the side.
    Constant movement on deck. Water is splashing over it every few seconds and then racing back to the sea. Clouds overhead cast drifting shadows. I search, for the glimmer of movement that isn’t water, for darkness that isn’t empty. There is no sign of Callum. A big wave hurls the Endeavour to one side, almost throwing me off the ladder. Suddenly, climbing aboard seems the safer option.
    I’m on deck now, but rooted to the spot. The iron beneath my feet is covered in wet silt, rough with clinging shellfish. Weed is everywhere, some left strewn by wind, some growing of its own accord. The wreck is in the middle of a kelp field and the vegetation is trying to claim it. The wind grabs hold of my hair, pulling it up around my head. I reach into my pocket and pull out my grandfather’s pistol, hoping my hand doesn’t shake too much. I am not, particularly, experienced with firearms. My footsteps squelch as I move closer to the wheelhouse and the dank darkness of the ship seems to wrap itself around me.
    It smells vile. It smells as though the carcasses of long-dead animals are rotting here, as though unspeakable things have crawled out of the water to feed on them.
    The door of the wheelhouse is missing and I can see only blackness inside. I draw closer still and a tall figure takes form. I’m startled, have half turned to run, even as I realize it can only be Callum. He is standing upright, completely still. I see his shoulders rise and fall. His head is fixed, looking at something in front of him. Something I can’t see. It cannot be a scared but still living little boy, because if it were, he’d have bent to pick him up by now, would be carrying him back towards the dinghy, grinning in triumph, the way he always looked when—
    I’ve reached out, laid my hand on his left shoulder. He spins on the spot, knocks my hand away so forcefully I drop the gun and stagger back. The stagger is what saves me, or possibly the weed on the floor that gets beneath his feet and brings him to his knees. Without my stagger, his stumble, those reaching hands would surely have found my throat. He’s on his feet again in an instant, but I didn’t fall and have a split-second advantage.
    I’m out of the wheelhouse, racing for the side of the boat, have almost made the ladder when he catches me. I hit the deck flat out. He’s on top of me. Impossible to move