How is Steffan going to pay back the bank loan? Even if he hadn’t borrowed the money, invested in the promise of what he thought The Shore could offer, how can he survive another season? He’s barely been able to pay his bills this year; once The Shore opens a water sports center, Steffan’s business is over. He’s ruined.
He stares morosely at the bar. Ceri’s left a pile of cards behind, her scribbled note on top, and he leans over to read it.Open invitation. Free bar.Curious, Steffan takes a card, and rage floods through him.
The residents of The Shore warmly invite the neighbors for drinks and canapés.
Drinks and fucking canapés. Rhys Lloyd will drink champagne while he pisses on Steff’s business—on the business that his father built up, that his grandfather founded. The invitation shakes in Steff’s hand, the black words swirling before him. It’s not enough for Lloyd to take the trade Steff could have gotten from The Shore; they’re inviting the locals to ooh and aah over the lodges. No doubt Lloyd’ll tell them all about the water sports center, offer them taster memberships, discounts, freebies…
Steffan tears the invite in half, then in half again. He tears and tears until in front of him is a pile of confetti. Then he looks up. “Pint of Purple Moose,” he says.
Alun speaks levelly. “I think that’s a bad idea, don’t you?”
Steff’s teeth clench hard, his fists itching for the feel of a glass, his tongue already working, waiting for the bitter taste of beer. “A. Pint. Of. Purple. Moose,” he repeats, each word a separate sentence.
“I’ll make you a coffee.”
“I don’t want a fucking coffee!”
A chair scrapes behind him and Steff turns around. They’re all looking at him. All of them. Gruffydd Lewis, Euros Morgan Davies. Idris fucking Evans, who gets so pissed after darts, his wife makes him sleep with the dog. All staring at him, judging him, just because he wants one fucking pint.
“Fuck you.” Steffan slams out of the pub. There are plenty of places to buy alcohol. One beer, that’s all he wants.
Then he’ll work out what to do about Rhys.
Forty-Eight
January 8
Ffion
Ffion slaps Steffan’s face. The boatman groans but doesn’t open his eyes, and she shakes him hard by the shoulders, shouting his name.
Leo pulls her gently back. “He’s out cold.” Leo’s holding his radio to his ear, and as the operator responds, he walks away from the office. “DC Leo Brady, Cheshire Major Crime. I need to report a MisPer.”
Ffion picks up Steffan’s logbook. The man’s off his face; maybe he’s confused—forgotten he’s already fixed Angharad’s boat. She runs her finger across the line logged against Angharad’s name.Taking on water. Stress cracks in central buttress.The column headedCompletionis empty.
“Sixteen,” Leo is saying. “Very upset. We believe she’s out on Mirror Lake in a boat that may not be structurally sound.” Ffion pushes past him, looking around the boathouse and beyond to the yard, where boats list on stilts, waiting for repairs. Is Steffan mistaken? Could Seren have taken out a different boat? But Angharad’s lugger, with its distinctive green hull and red sails, is nowhere to be seen.
“The helicopter can’t take off while the weather’s so bad,” Leo tells Ffion when he’s off the phone. “Control room’s contacting Search and Rescue, but the nearest team with a boat is twenty miles away.”
Ffion’s back in the office, rifling through the drawers in Steffan’s desk, scanning the boards on the wall, where a handful of keys hang, each with a brown label bearing a customer’s name. She shakes Steffan again—“Where the fuck are your keys?”—but there’s no response. Ffion checks his pockets.
“Does Steffan work with anyone?” Leo says. “Maybe they could—” His radio crackles, the operator giving his call sign. Ffion finds what she was looking for: a single key attached to a large cork fob. She grabs a searchlight from the rack on the wall and runs.
“The fire service has a water rescue capability,” Leo shouts, running after her. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“We don’t have ten minutes!” Outside, snow as hard as hail stings Ffion’s face as she runs toward the jetty. Steffan’s motorboat jerks against the fenders as though the engine’s already running. It’s senseless calling Seren’s name, but she does it anyway, the wind hurling it into the blizzard.
She’ll be fine, she keeps telling herself. She’ll have moored up somewhere. She might even be off the boat by now, sheltering in the woods.
Leo catches up with Ffion on the jetty. A fierce gust almost throws him off-balance, and he braces himself—knees bent—against another attempt. “This is crazy. We have to wait for a specialist team.”
“She might die!” Ffion jumps into the motorboat, and it rocks precariously. The cockpit’s open, a low windshield the only protection from the elements, and water sloshes around the bottom of the boat. A wave breaks over the bow, crashing inside. Leo is ashen, his feet still stubbornly planted on the jetty.
“I can’t…” His eyes close briefly, a look of intense shame on his face. “I can’t swim.”
Ffion thinks of Seren out there in the blizzard, in an unsafe boat. She looks at Leo, fear and panic combusting into anger. “Then don’t fucking fall in.”
Leo doesn’t move.