North of Nowhere (13 page)

“Sal,” I said, staring at the compass.

“What?” Sal asked.

I held the compass out to her, pointing at a lever at the bottom of the dome where you hooked it into place on a matching part. A matching part that we didn’t have here. A matching part that I now knew I had definitely seen before — and not at the pub.

I shivered as I spoke. “I know where I’ve seen this before,” I said. “It’s the compass from Dee’s dad’s boat. And it was
definitely
on the boat when I last saw it. We just need to find the boat and then, hopefully, we’ll find the first clue to what’s happened to Peter.”

We walked along the coast path, heading back toward town and the beach and the old jetty where the boat was usually moored. Maybe it was there. If it was, surely we’d be on the way to solving this puzzle, wouldn’t we?

Sal was first to break the silence. “Do you think we should go back to the pub and tell our families everything first?” she asked hesitantly.

“Do you want to?”

“Do
you
?” She held my eyes.

How should I answer? With what I wanted to do, or what I thought we
should
do? Truth was, I couldn’t say for sure I knew what was the right thing to do for anyone anymore. I decided to go with my gut feeling.

“No, not yet. Not till we can offer them something more than a hundred bits of information that don’t add up.”

She breathed out. “I agree.”

“OK, good,” I said, scanning the coastline below us as we walked. “Come on, let’s just see if the boat is at the —”

I stopped talking
and
walking. Something had caught my eye in the cove directly below us.

“What’s up?” Sal asked. “Why’ve you stopped?”

I stared down into the cove so hard my eyes began to water. There was something bobbing down there. A boat. It wasn’t tied to anything, but was drifting in and out with the waves, almost beached but still just afloat.

As I stared down at it, I became more and more positive that it wasn’t just any boat. It was
the
boat! My throat clogged up and tingles pricked at my scalp.

I held a shaky hand out to point to it.

“That’s — that’s it!” I gasped.

Sal stopped walking and followed the line of my hand. “That’s what?”

“Dee’s dad’s boat! The one Peter wanted to go out on! The one I was heading to the harbor to see if we could find. It looks like it’s been washed up in that bay.”

Sal turned to me. “You’re kidding!”

I squinted and stared hard at the boat. It was the same shape; it had a wheelhouse in the center that looked identical; it was the same color. But then, how many boats in the harbor were more or less identical to this one?

“I . . . I don’t know,” I said, suddenly losing my confidence. “I can’t be sure.”

“But it could be?”

I chewed at the inside of my cheek. “Yes,” I said finally. “It definitely could be.” Then, without giving it any more thought, I left the coast path and headed for the path that led down to the bay.

“What are you doing?” Sal asked, half running to keep up with me.

“Going to check it out,” I answered without slowing my stride.

We reached the edge of the promontory and looked down at the stony path — what there was of it. It looked as if there’d been multiple landslides that had eroded the path. Stones were scattered all around and the ground looked rough and slippery — and so steep it was almost vertical.

Sal looked down. “Do you think it’s safe?”

It looked a
long
way from safe. But what other options did we have? If that was Dee’s dad’s boat, we might only have minutes to get to it before it was washed back out to sea again.

“I’ll go first,” I said. “Just follow me and take every step carefully. We’ll be fine.”

Sal nodded and chewed on a fingernail. “I’m not great with heights at the best of times,” she said, her voice a pitch higher than usual and her breath short and raspy in between her words.

“I know. Me neither — but your brother could be down there!” I said. “This is our best chance of finding Peter, or at least finding a clue to what’s happened to him.”

Sal stopped chewing her nail. “You’re right,” she said firmly. “Come on, then.”

We lowered ourselves carefully onto the start of the path.

“Mia.”

I turned back to Sal. “Yes?”

“What if . . . What if we climb all the way down there and find it’s a different boat?”

I held her eyes. “We’ll deal with that when we get there,” I said. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

She nodded and gave me a tiny smile. “OK,” she said. “Let’s go.”

After that, we didn’t say another word as we picked our way carefully down the steep, gravelly path to the deserted cove below.

“It’s the one, I’m sure of it,” I said as we waded up to our knees to get to the boat. We’d taken off our shoes and rolled up our jeans. Holding my shoes in one hand, I ignored the freezing cold of the water as I examined the boat. “It’s
identical.
”

“You’re positive?” Sal asked, standing shivering beside me. “You did say they all look the same.”

“No. Look at this.” I pointed to the back of the boat. “See those two black lines? Dee’s dad’s boat has those.”

“But wouldn’t any boat have something like that if it’s kept alongside a jetty? From rubbing against it?”

She was right. I couldn’t honestly say I was absolutely positive. And, in fact, as well as the black lines from rubbing against a jetty, this one seemed to have far more marks and gashes and scratches than I’d remembered. Its registration number did begin “PN” like Dee’s dad’s — but I couldn’t remember the rest of the number.

“Peter isn’t on board, anyway,” Sal said flatly. “Although, at least that’s better than finding him here and discovering he’s —”

“No.” I stopped her. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything like it.” I tried to pull myself up so I could get onto the boat. From this angle, it was proving difficult, especially as it kept on swaying against me and then away again with the waves.

“Look, give me a leg up,” I said. “Let’s get on board.”

I bent my knee and Sal heaved me up till I could clamber over the side. Then I reached down to help her up. We dried our legs with a couple of rags and put our shoes back on.

“Do you see anything that confirms it either way?” Sal asked as we stood on the deck, holding on to the wheelhouse to keep steady while we examined the boat.

Mostly what I saw was mess everywhere. The boat was full of seaweed and stones, and the deck and benches were wet. The ropes were strewn around in a sandy, tangled mess, and the cabin door was swinging open, with crab pots lying on their sides in front of it.

“Well, it’s got crab pots,” I said. “Dee’s dad had them.” Then I thought of something else, something that would tell me for sure. I carefully made my way to the back of the boat. The back locker had a pile of ropes and seaweed in front of it. I moved them out of the way and opened the locker.

Dee’s diary was there!

I pulled out the book and held it up, beaming as though it were a gold medal.

“What’s that?” Sal asked.

“Dee’s diary! Now I’m
positive.
A hundred percent. This is
definitely
the right boat.”

I sat down and flipped through the pages to see if there was anything new that could help us figure out what had happened. But the last entry was the one I’d read yesterday — which meant Dee almost certainly hadn’t gotten her diary back, so the boat probably hadn’t gotten to her. And
that
meant . . . that meant . . . what? That Peter hadn’t taken the boat, or that he’d taken it but never reached Luffsands?

“Something terrible has happened to Peter, hasn’t it?” Sal said, echoing the dark fear that was creeping through my body, prickling the hairs along my arms and scratching at my neck.

I wanted to tell her she was wrong. I wanted to reassure her, but I couldn’t. “I don’t know,” I said eventually, as I shoved the diary into my bag. I didn’t want to leave it in the locker. I wanted to keep it near me. I knew it was stupid, but it made me feel as if we were closer to finding Peter if I had Dee’s words nearby.

Sal nodded. Then she started making her way around the boat, straightening the ropes into slightly neater coils, lifting the lids on the benches.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m looking for anything that might tell us if Peter was here. Maybe he left a clue behind. He might have even written us a note or something.”

In my heart, I didn’t really think we’d find anything. If he was going to leave us a note on the boat, why would he have gone to the bother of leaving the package at the shop? But it was better than doing nothing, so we searched the boat together.

Then I had another thought. I lifted the back bench seat.

At first, all I could see was a couple of buckets full of fishing hooks and bait and tools, and a crumpled-up fisherman’s coat like the one Peter had just bought, only older and grubbier. I searched through it all, looking for the key.

It wasn’t there.

I decided not to tell Sal. After all, it didn’t mean anything. Peter could have taken the key with him when he left — if he’d been here at all. Then I had another thought: the wheelhouse.

I went inside, and my heart leaped as though it had a flying fish inside it.

The key was in the ignition.

Sal was behind me. She stopped in the doorway. “What is it?” she asked.

“The key . . .” I didn’t know what else to say.

Sal looked where I was pointing. “It’s still here,” she said. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, trying to keep my voice calm and soothing. “But, look, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad. We still don’t know Peter took the boat out.”

Sal had turned away. Suddenly, she pushed the door closed and reached down to pick up something that had gotten trapped behind it. She looked at me, her face as white as the waves spraying onto the beach. She was holding something I’d seen only yesterday.

A coat. Similar to the one I’d just seen in the bench seat — only this one was brand-new. It was Peter’s coat. And he had
definitely
been wearing it when I last saw him.

“I think,” Sal said, “that perhaps, now, we do.”

I swallowed. “He’ll be OK,” I said. “I’m sure there’d be something more obvious if he . . . if he . . .”

“Don’t say it,” Sal said.

She was right. We couldn’t even entertain the thought that Peter had met with some kind of accident out at sea. However likely or possible it might be, it simply wasn’t something we could think about right now.

“OK, look, let’s think positively,” I said. “As long as we assume nothing terrible has happened to Peter, I reckon there are two options. Either he came back to the mainland on the boat . . .”

Sal shook her head. “If he’d done that, he’d have come back to see us. I’m
sure
he would. There’s no way he’d have left us worrying if he was nearby. What’s the other option?”

“That he got to Luffsands and got off there. And somehow he lost the boat. Maybe he didn’t tie it up properly, and he got stuck over there.” I thought for a moment. “And I guess there’s a third possibility as well,” I added.

“What’s that?”

“That he never took the boat out after all. Only, that would have to mean that he tied the boat up and then, for some reason, took off his coat and left it on board before getting off.”

“Why would he do that?” Sal asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

No, it doesn’t,
I thought.
None
of this made sense.

“OK, then,” Sal said. She nodded slowly, as if making a deal with herself. Then, her jaw set firm, she came to stand by my side. She gave me a tiny look, and even though she didn’t say anything, I knew what she was thinking.

I moved to one side. Sal took my place at the wheel.

As she steadied herself and looked at all the dials in front of her, I took the compass out of the bag and reached over to the stand above the steering wheel. The stand was loose, as though the compass had been pulled out of it too roughly. I tightened a screw on its side and then very carefully placed the compass inside it. It clicked firmly into place as though it belonged there.

Which was, of course, because it did.

Sal turned to me and raised her eyebrows. Still without a single word passing between us, I nodded. She nodded back. Then she turned the key. The engine sputtered to life.

Part of me was screaming,
What on earth are we doing?

Another part of me — the stronger part, and the part I was listening to — knew exactly what we were doing.

We were going to find Peter.

Sal heaved the wheel around so the boat was facing out to sea.

“You do know how to drive it, don’t you?” I asked as we motored out of the bay, heading toward Luffsands.

Sal replied without turning around. “
I
did the course too, you know. Peter might have been the one to get all the praise from the fishermen, but I think that’s only because he’s a boy. While they were all telling him how clever he was, and showing him how to prepare a line for catching mackerel, I drove the boat just as much,” she said. “And just as well!”