Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
I stared wide-eyed with apprehension at the old boat, which belonged to Logan’s friend Robbie Dewar. Its name, Dua Lipa , skipped along the side in italic pink paint.
My attention lingered on the shimmering water, which was licking the shore of the Coral Beach.
Dua Lipa was a mottled cream and moss-green wooden affair with a small cabin.
I thought about the water closing over my head the other morning and the frantic wriggling of Flipper beside me. The sea had been contorting and churning, as though it were pulling at my limbs. That was until Logan came to my aid.
‘Can you tell Robbie’s got a bit of a thing for a certain pop star?’ whispered Logan with a grin.
I blinked back more mental pictures of myself flapping around under the choppy waves. ‘I would never have guessed.’ I eyed the boat again with trepidation. ‘So, we’re going out on the water in this?’
Logan dropped his voice and glanced over at Robbie, who was faffing around in the cabin. ‘Well, we’re not walking there. And anyway, Robbie’s been conducting these sorts of boat tours for years. He knows what he’s doing.’
Logan stepped aboard and gallantly shot out his hand for me to take.
My fingers furled around his. My heart clattered in my ears.
I clambered in and as soon as my feet hit the boat deck, I let go of his hand, not daring to look at him.
‘Apart from Dua Lipa, Robbie’s always had a bit of a thing for my sister,’ he confided in a hush. ‘He was gutted when she married that eejit, Theo Carrington.’
Robbie waved out of the cabin window. He looked in his mid-thirties like Logan and was attractive in a burly, blond bear kind of way, with cheeky light blue eyes.
I wanted to ask Logan more about Iona’s ex-husband but didn’t get the chance.
Logan introduced us and Robbie shook my hand. ‘Very nice to meet you, Darcie. I’ve known this reprobate ever since we were at primary school together,’ proclaimed Robbie, eliciting a weary eye roll from Logan. ‘He always was the clever one.’
‘Och, don’t be daft!’ Logan laughed.
‘It’s true. And I used to be the better-looking one out of the two of us. Talk about a swotty ugly duckling morphing into a swan.’
Logan let out an awkward snort. He appeared momentarily discomfited. ‘OK, Dewar, enough of the trip down memory lane. We’re supposed to be showing Darcie the varied array of wildlife on Skye, not reducing her to tears about my boring schooldays.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I teased, as the boat creaked under my feet. ‘I’d love to hear about what you were like back in the day. I bet you looked sweet in short trousers.’
Logan made a sarcastic tut. ‘Don’t encourage him. Please.’
I peered over the side of the boat at the water and took a seat on a nearby bench. I shrugged on the safety jacket that Robbie handed to me.
‘Here. Let me,’ offered Logan. He gestured for me to stand up. My neck prickled at the sensation of him standing so close as he fastened my life jacket. ‘There you are. Good to go.’
I got a cloud of the fresh, zesty aftershave he was wearing.
‘Can you return the favour now, please?’ he asked, pointing to his life jacket.
I stepped closer to him. He smelled delicious. Looked it too.
I tied his jacket as fast as I was able, so I could move away from him. ‘Done,’ I croaked.
As we bobbed there, ready to set off, I took in the surrounding hills, which were draped with sweeps of heather.
Logan and Robbie were exchanging a series of jokes and general banter when my phone rattled in my rucksack.
I bent down and found it.
It was Justine. ‘How’s it all going, darling?’ she crackled down the line. ‘Enjoying yourself?’
I stood up. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve been drenched; I’ve been getting up at the crack of dawn; I ended up rescuing a stranded dolphin at five in the morning and I’m now on the Titanic.’
‘Good. Good,’ she oozed, not listening to a word I was saying. ‘That’s my girl. I just wanted to check that our Scottish cousins were treating you well.’
My eyes drifted over to Logan. He was laughing at something Robbie was telling him but he must have sensed me watching him because he angled his head round and glanced in my direction.
I discovered a chipped bit of paintwork down by my feet and focused on that instead. ‘Yes, fine, thanks. I’m just counting down the days till I get back to London.’ The words contained a hollower sound this time around. I decided not to dwell on it.
‘Ever the city girl,’ remarked Justine with a sigh. ‘Just like me.’ Then she asked, ‘So, what are you up to today? Research for this best-selling travel guide going well?’
There was a sudden roar from the boat engine and a lurch. My feet felt like they were too big for my walking boots and I began to stagger.
‘Hey! Be careful there.’
Logan was over in a flash, steadying me by placing both his hands on my upper arms.
For a few moments, I forgot Justine was still babbling away at me through my mobile.
Logan’s attention stayed locked on my face, before I realised his hands were still holding onto me. His eyes trailed down to my mouth. ‘Don’t want you falling in.’
‘No. Er. No. Of course not.’
I thrust my mobile back up to my right ear. My voice was squeaky. ‘Hi. Sorry about that, Justine. Logan and I are just about to be taken out on a wildlife boat trip.’
‘Excellent. Get as much good material on that camera of yours as you can, OK? We want this book to blow River’s exploits out of the water.’ She chuckled to herself. ‘Ha! See what I did there? Out of the water?’
I buried a sigh. ‘Yes. Alright. Will do.’
I rung off and panned around to take in the swell of the mountain ranges and the rippling expanse of water. It reminded me of a polished mirror.
Robbie grinned out at me from the cabin, from where he was steering the boat. He popped his head out. He had a sliver of a gap between his front teeth. ‘I bet London doesn’t have anything like this.’
I noticed the gulls, fluttering like white and grey kites above our heads and stopped taking pictures for a moment. ‘No, it doesn’t,’ I conceded. ‘But it has shops, art galleries, museums…’
‘The rat race; people bustling everywhere, looking exhausted; endless streams of traffic,’ supplied Logan with a gleam in his eyes as he appreciated the skyline. ‘I couldn’t cope with all that.’
‘Me neither,’ agreed Robbie’s booming voice over the bellow of the boat engine. ‘At least here, you can pause, breathe, take a moment. Oh, look folks. Out to your right!’
I turned to see the glossy, mink grey arch of a seal rising and falling through the water.
I raised my camera and quickly started taking a few photos and some videos.
‘You can also see Atlantic Grey Seals in these parts, although they tend to appear further up the coast,’ explained Logan, materialising at my shoulder.
I was aware of how close he was to me again, his breath caressing the nape of my neck. Shivers of excitement raced up and down my spine.
Oh, this was ridiculous! I’d only known Logan five minutes. Was this deliberate, the way he was shadowing me?
I kept my face trained on the bobbing seal. ‘How can you tell the difference? Between the seals?’
‘You can tell by their length and size,’ hollered Robbie over the churning racket of the boat engine. ‘There are two types of seals in the waters off Skye. There’s the common seal, also known as the harbour seal, and the grey seal, which is this one here.’ He lifted one gnarled hand from the boat wheel and pointed. ‘Common seals tend to be smaller and grow to about six feet in length, whereas these fellas are bigger and can get up to eleven feet in length.’
Robbie slowed down the boat so that we were now caressing the top of the waves, instead of chugging through them. The seal twisted and turned in the water, as though putting on a display just for us. ‘The biggest colony of seals is on the island near Loch Coruisk.’ He revealed his gap-toothed grin again. ‘They lie there across the rocks like big, fat sausages.’
Dua Lipa pushed on again, cutting more of a swathe through the water in a frothy V shape.
‘Stand by,’ advised Logan. ‘We’ll hopefully spot some sea eagles, dolphins and puffins, if we’re lucky.’
Robbie leant his head out the side window of his cabin. ‘Aye. Can’t always guarantee them, but there’s a good chance.’
‘How have your tours been going recently, Rob?’ called out Logan, producing a pair of binoculars from his rucksack stowed under the opposite bench to mine. He studied the horizon through them.
‘Aye, all in all, good, thanks,’ belted out Robbie over the engine noise. ‘Managing to keep the wolf from the door.’ Then he frowned. ‘Had a bit of a weird one the other day, though.’
‘Oh?’ Logan squinted back over his shoulder.
Robbie reached up one hand and ruffled his messy crown of hair. ‘It was a bit of a lean day on Tuesday. In the afternoon, I ended up having only one passenger. Bit of an oddball.’ He let out a low laugh, as Logan continued to gaze through his binoculars and I took some more video on my camera. The seal popped up like a bobbing top, before vanishing again. Acqua hide and seek.
I smiled.
‘Oddball?’ asked Logan. ‘The joys of working with the public.’ He grinned round at Robbie. ‘It wasn’t Mrs Forsyth and her cat again, was it?’
‘No, had her and Lothario last week.’
‘A woman brought her cat on one of your boat trips?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Oh aye. She brings him out every so often for a wee treat and a whirl round the Coral Beach.’
Logan grinned over at me. ‘He pays half price.’
I laughed and shook my head.
‘Anyway, this guy tourist I had was on his own. I didn’t recognise him, so don’t think he’s local. Didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in our wildlife, though,’ Robbie continued as he angled the boat more to the right with practised ease. ‘Don’t know why he bothered booking a trip with me, to be honest. I was being my usual entertaining and informative self but it was wasted on him.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you were.’ Logan smiled, scanning the water with his binoculars.
‘Definitely never seen him before,’ carried on Robbie. ‘He looked like one of those fellas out of ZZ Top.’
Logan suddenly lowered his binoculars. ‘You said you didn’t recognise him?’
‘Nope. Never seen him before.’
‘And he had a beard?’
‘Oh, aye. And then some. Jet black it was.’
Logan shot me a look across the boat. ‘Well spoken?’
‘Sorry?’ asked Robbie, looking confused.
‘This man you’re talking about, he was well spoken?’
Robbie nodded. ‘Yep. Sounded rather posh.’
Logan’s expression was curious. ‘Did he talk to you much, Rob?’
Robbie guffawed as he angled the boat again. ‘Are you joking?! I couldn’t shut him up. Not about the seals or the dolphins though. He couldn’t have cared less about those.’
I could see the wheels turning in Logan’s mind. Was this the same bearded man who had been lurking around Logan’s shop? It sounded like it.
Logan abandoned his binoculars down by his side. ‘What did he talk to you about then?’
Robbie scrunched up his nose in concentration for a few seconds. ‘He kept rabbiting on about that Skye Lovers’ Cross thing, asking me what I knew about it, where I thought it might be, did I think it existed.’
Logan’s light eyes were on the verge of falling out of his face.
‘The chappie was also very keen to talk about Skye’s connection to the Vikings.’
I examined Logan’s preoccupied expression. I could tell he was thinking the same as me. ‘You think this is the same guy who was hanging around your shop and who we saw on the Coral Beach yesterday, don’t you?’
‘It’s too much of a coincidence,’ Logan replied, still looking pensive. He fiddled with the long, black leather strap of his binoculars. ‘Robbie, do you have a note of the names of your passengers?’
Robbie looked affronted. ‘Of course I do, Burns! What sort of Mickey Mouse outfit do you think I’m running here?’
Logan flexed one brow at me as Robbie pointed him in the direction of a big, leather-bound book behind him on a Formica table in the cabin. ‘Details are in there. It was my two o’clock sailing on Tuesday afternoon he was on.’
Logan negotiated his way on his sea legs and entered the cabin. From where I was, I could make out him reaching for the book and flipping it open.
Moments later, he came striding back out, a bemused angle to his mouth with Robbie’s passenger book tucked under his arm. ‘Mr Howard Carter.’
‘What?’
Logan flicked open the book and pointed a finger. I could see what I presumed to be Robbie’s dark, scrawly handwriting. ‘That’s the name this guy told Robbie. He said his name was Mr Howard Carter.’
Logan cocked his head at me. ‘Yeah, right. And I’m Ryan Gosling.’
I turned over the name Howard Carter in my head. He’d been the famous archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. ‘But couldn’t this have an innocent explanation? Maybe he does share the same name?’
Logan didn’t look convinced. ‘Hanging around Rock God early in the morning, running off when we saw him yesterday, digging about at the Coral Beach, asking Robbie twenty questions about the Skye Lovers’ Cross… I’d bet just about anything that his real name isn’t Howard Carter.’ Logan shook his head. ‘Nah. Something’s going on.’
I waggled my phone at him. ‘Well, I’m glad something is. Look, we’re supposed to be capturing the essence of Skye’s wildlife for this travel guide of mine, not taking part in an episode of CSI.’ Frustration jabbed at me. ‘If we’re not careful, time will fly by and then I’ll be heading back to London without getting all the content I need.’
There was an odd silence between the two of us.
‘Aye, you’re right.’ Logan kept a tight grip on Robbie’s passenger logbook and moved to return it to him. He threw me a faulty smile over his shoulder. ‘Try not to look too happy about leaving here and heading home to the big smoke.’
My eyes followed his retreating back as the sun danced on the swirling water around us.
‘Logan, your gorgeous sister still single?’ asked Robbie, oblivious to the swirling tension.