Page 12 of Pull Me Under

‘You know there’s a manual for that.’

Tom’s voice makes me jerk, banging my head on the housing cover. ‘Fucking hell, Tom.’

‘Language.’ He’s grinning, the bastard, holding two cups of coffee from Nina’s. Tom – who is technically Tom Darcy member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, but around here is just Tom, the bloke who shows up with food when you forget to eat and opinions when you don’t ask for them. Him and Nina have been a story waiting to happen for years, a fact obvious to everyone in Sea Salt Bay except apparently Nina. ‘Thought you might need this.’

‘I need a new hydraulic system. Or a mechanic. Or a different life.’

‘So dramatic.’ He passes me the coffee, studying my pathetic attempts at repair. ‘That’s… What are you even trying to do?’

‘Fix it.’

‘By hitting it with a spanner?’

‘It’s a legitimate technique.’

‘It’s really not.’ He pauses, takes a deliberate sip of coffee. ‘So. You tell him yet?’

I focus on the engine, suddenly fascinated by a bolt that doesn’t need adjusting. ‘Tell him what?’

‘Don’t be a dick, Jude.’

‘I’m not being⁠—’

‘You haven’t told Reuben that Brynn Trelawney’s back.’

Her name sounds loud out here, like Tom’s summoning something. I glance around, but Dad’s safely out of earshot, now bothering Bill about something by the pots.

‘I’ll tell him when it’s relevant.’

‘When she shows up at a harbour master meeting, that’ll be relevant. When the whole village is talking about it by tonight, that’ll be relevant. When she’s working in that shed’—he points towards the south end of the harbour, where the old Trelawney workshop sits squat and solid against the harbour wall, its corrugated iron roof just visible past the slipway—‘that’ll be relevant.’

That shed. It’s a big stone-and-iron building – proper workshop, not some glorified cupboard – built by Brynn’s grandfather in the sixties. Trelawney Marine Services still just about legible on the gable end if you know where to look, although the paint is worn to ghost-letters by decades of salt wind. A long time after the Trelawneys left, Peter took it over – kept it running as the harbour’s workshop, oiled the hinges, maintained the electrics, stocked the shelves. The rest of us treated it like communal space, storing equipment, borrowing tools. But it was never ours. It was always theirs. We just stopped thinking about that.

‘Since when did you become the voice of reason?’

‘Since you lost yours, apparently.’ Tom finishes his coffee and sets the cup on the dock. ‘Look, I don’t know what happened between your families, and don’t give me the business rivalry line, because we both know it was more than that, but secrets have a way of⁠—’

‘I know.’

‘Do you? Because from where I’m standing, you’re playing with fire and calling it warmth. You know what your dad’s like.’

‘That doesn’t even make sense.’

‘You know what I mean.’ He starts walking away, then turns back. ‘She’s watching you, by the way.’

‘What?’

‘Ten o’clock. By the harbour wall. Been there about five minutes.’

He walks off before I can respond, the bastard, leaving me frozen with a spanner in my hand and the sudden awareness that yes – there she is.

Brynn’s leaning against the harbour wall, maybe thirty feet away, hip cocked against the stone, arms crossed. Watching me fail spectacularly at basic engine maintenance. Christ, how long has she been there? Did she see me consulting the manual like a first-year apprentice? Did she hear Tom asking about Dad?

Our eyes meet across the dock.

She’s smirking. Probably cataloguing every mistake I’ve made, every wrong tool I’ve used. Her hair’s pulled back in a messy bun that somehow makes her look more dangerous, not less. She’s dressed for work – steel-toed boots, an old flannel shirt rolled to the elbows.

I straighten up, setting down the spanner. Wipe my hands on my already ruined jeans.