Morgan took his guest back to the car park a different way, exploring yet another part of the town that Dominic said he hadn’t visited—or, if he had, couldn’t remember. At the lane end, a typical Porthkennack transformation occurred, the row of terraced houses giving way to neat, pastel-painted cottages, which retailed at twice the price of the red-bricked equivalent Harry owned.
“Artist’s quarter. As opposed to the artists’ commune up near me.” Morgan rolled his eyes. “Very popular in the days of Henry Scott Tuke.”
“Really? His sorts of subjects?”
“No. Ships and seascapes rather than boys and bathing.”
“Hm.” Dominic eyed up a particularly pretentious property. “Probably the same people who produced that travesty of a painting in Quick’s museum. Curse the lot of them.”
They walked on, Morgan trying to estimate the property prices. “What chance have you got of running to ground anything about Mary Lusmoore?”
Dominic shrugged. “Lawson, like many a young middie, was easy to keep tabs on up to the time of his last voyage. Ships’ musters, diaries, letters, despatches, and the like. Less easy for a local girl of no notable family, although there are always some bits of evidence that will have survived, especially if you have names to work with. Parish registers. Bibles with the family all listed there.”
Morgan remembered his grandmother having such a big, black family bible, although he had no idea where it might have gone. “It would be good to turn up a nice piece of evidence that’s lain hidden for donkey’s years.”
“I’m afraid that only happens in books and films. This is real life and not quite so obliging with plot twists.”
“Does nobody turn up obscure clues in real life?” Morgan appreciated he was out of his depth with anything to do with research.
“I guess if they’re in the right place at the right time. Like I was when I got given your phone number,” Dominic added, blushing.
“Right time, right place for me too, then.” They shared a contented smile. “Will you stay here those extra few days? Looking for Lawson and his lady love?”
“That’s a painful amount of alliteration.” Dominic slipped his arm across Morgan’s shoulders as they strolled along. “I’d certainly like to. Not least to spend time with you, if that’s okay. Although I appreciate that you’ve got a business to run, so I wouldn’t be offended if you wanted me to use that hotel room I’ve got booked.”
“Daft bugger.” Morgan punched his lover’s ribs. “We can work something out. I can always get on with business while you’re out chasing sailors. Where will you start your enquiries?”
“Back at the museum. Assuming it’s open tomorrow.”
“It should be, on a Sunday in what might count as summer. Mind you, I bet the place they store the documents won’t. That might have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Okay. I should spend an hour or two poking around the internet, now I have this new twist to the tale, but that can wait until you’re checking your emails or whatever. Like your uncle said, we should enjoy ourselves.”
“I like the cut of your jib! And his. Ice cream. We need ice cream.”
“Mr. Whippy. With a flake. From a van.”
“It’s a deal.”
Not far from the car park was a little green, with a paddling pool—still empty given that it was a touch too early in the season—and play equipment which saw action all the year round, even in the depths of winter. The ice cream van sometimes turned up then, dispensing hot drinks, but this bright Saturday it had a short queue of people in search of lollies and choc ices. Morgan and Dominic waited for their turn to purchase a couple of “ninety-nines,” then ate them as they strolled, the warm sun on their backs and making them hurry with their eating, as the soft ice cream began to drip onto the cornet.
“What if you never find a definitive answer about Lawson?” Morgan asked between licks. “Is it a problem if we never run the facts to ground?”
If Dominic had noticed the unintentional change from you to we, he didn’t show it. “I may not need to be able to prove she killed him. So long as I can show Captain Watson didn’t. And I’m really enjoying the thrill of the chase.”
“‘The thrill of the chase’?” A quest. Dominic didn’t seem like the quixotic type, feet apparently too firmly stuck on the ground for that malarkey, although there was clearly a touch of the romantic in him when it concerned his beloved ship. But what if the quest turned out to be an impossible dream?
“Why not?” Dominic reached over with his ice-cream-less hand and squeezed Morgan’s arm. “Searching for Lawson brought me here, didn’t it? Facilitated me meeting you. That’s reward enough. And if I establish the truth too quickly, it’ll eliminate the need to keep returning here.”
“Daft bugger. You’ll keep coming back. You know that.” Morgan transferred his cornet to his other hand so he could return the squeeze. “I’ll rephrase the question, then. Is it a problem if you do solve the mystery, seeing that the thrill’s in that chase?”
“No.” Dominic waved his cornet, sending a sprinkling of ice cream in all directions. “Other questions will crop up. There’s always another stone to turn.”
“And will you keep on turning every stone and never stop?”
“Do you do nothing but ask questions? Trying to cross all the Ts leads to mad—obsession. I’m not that fanatical.”
“Glad to hear it.” Glad to hear Dominic swop the word he’d clearly intended using for something that didn’t cut quite so close to home too.
“There’ll always be another lead to follow, another midshipman’s history to dig up or some obscure letter from two hundred years ago to be clarified. Endless possibilities.”
“I envy you.” That wasn’t a word of a lie. To find contentment in such simple things, to always have another corner to go round and so much satisfaction in the journeying. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt an equivalent passion for anything.”
“Then you’ve not run across it yet. Maybe you’re like your dad. I’m guessing, from what you said, that he never found the one that really kept his interest.”
“Perhaps he never would have done. I don’t believe it was in his nature to settle for one permanent interest. Apart from family, that is. I wouldn’t want you to think he ever tired of us.”
Dominic, who’d pushed the last piece of chocolate flake into the middle of the ice cream, demolished it, made short work of the cornet at the point they appeared in sight of the sea again. “You’re so lucky. All this on your doorstep every day, rather than a couple of times a year.”
Morgan was about to argue that it soon palled, that when he’d been in London he’d regretted—or perhaps felt obliged to regret—how many experiences he must have missed growing up so far from “the action.” Now he valued what he had. “I know. I’m learning to count my blessings. Just about.”
“Glad to hear it. This is a special place.”
This conversation could get mawkish; Morgan concentrated on fishing out his handkerchief to clean his sticky fingers. “Let’s get home, grab a bite to eat, and get googling.”
Unfortunately, Google kept drawing a blank. The Lusmoore name cropped up plenty of times, but mainly concerning the present generation and usually concerning some manner of shady dealings. Of a Mary Lusmoore who might have been a witch, and her connections with a sailor, there was nothing tangible, although perhaps Morgan and Dominic hadn’t worked out the magic combination of words to put into the search engine. Eventually, they put the iPad on standby and settled for a cup of tea and using their own brain cells.
“Why do you murder somebody?” Dominic asked.
If the question was semirhetorical, it was still going to get an answer. “Passion. Or money. At least that’s what it usually seems to boil down to in books and on the telly. When it’s not getting your mitts on the loot.”
“I’m not sure Lawson had any loot. Maybe something came ashore from the wreck along with your timbers, but that would have been fair game for all the beachcombers. She couldn’t have put dibs on it.”
Morgan smiled; he’d not heard that expression in years. They had always been putting dibs on things at school. “Okay, but Lawson was of good family. He must have been due to come into an inheritance from his father—or fathers, if you think Captain Watson was the natural one and another in the eyes of the law.”
“So what was her motive to kill him when she did?” Dominic frowned. “Wouldn’t it have been better to keep him alive until he’d inherited? Then tip him over the cliff or whatever?”
“Hm. Good point. What if she thought he would inherit, and then it turned out he was stony broke?”
“Woman thwarted in her ambitions?” Dominic made a throat-slitting gesture, which was less threatening than funny. “You’re clutching at straws.”
“Okay, so what about jealousy? That’s another standard motive. No straw clutching there.”
“He had a sailor’s roving eye and she didn’t like where it was straying?” Dominic cradled his mug while he mulled the notion over. “Maybe. Plenty of strong emotions on your checklist. What about anger?”
“The sudden irrational desire to tip someone over a cliff because they hacked you off? I’ve known exactly how that feels.” Morgan smirked: he’d had the same idea about James once or twice. If there had been a cliff (and the rat himself) handy when the Dear John letter had arrived, James would have been over it like his namesake up a drainpipe. “There are plenty of possible motives, although I don’t suppose we’re ever going to be able to tell at this distance what actually happened. If everybody knew she’d done it and could prove the fact, wouldn’t she have been brought to justice? Especially if Lawson was reasonably well connected. Which also begs the question of whether he tried to contact his family to let them know he’d survived, which he mustn’t have done if the rumour started that he’d been killed before he even set sail.”
“Perhaps he was too unwell initially to write a letter or have word sent. Maybe, as he recovered, she prevented him. Assuming what we’ve been told is true, that she wanted him for herself.” Dominic twirled his cup around. “It’s all theories and gossip and nothing substantial, isn’t it?”
“Except for the uniform in the museum,” Morgan pointed out. “Anyway, so long as you don’t go writing a book about him based on no evidence, then you can indulge in as many theories and as much gossip as you want.”
“Okay.” Dominic appeared delighted to allow his imagination free rein. “What about spite, as a strong emotion?”
“Go on.” Morgan appreciated how frustrating it could be when fate—or other people—seemed determined to hand you a duff deal. “Where’s this thread going?”
“Down the line of Mary Lusmoore turning into a strange, spiteful old woman. I can imagine a scenario where Lawson felt under an obligation to her and her family, because they’d saved his life. He wanted to repay her, yet kicked against that responsibility.”
“That makes sense, especially if he was a young man who’d been brought up to do his duty. But that sounds like a motive for him to simply up and run away, or to do her in, rather than the other way round.”
“But what if he couldn’t do her in? What if he was scared of her because he’d seen a dangerous streak in her personality?” Dominic closed his eyes, as though transporting himself back to those days in search of some clue.
Fear. Yes, Morgan could sympathise with all-consuming terror, something that would make the most reasonable of people act wildly out of character. Like run out of a house in the middle of the night.
“Maybe he wasn’t the innocent victim we’ve assumed he was,” Dominic continued, shaking Morgan from thoughts of dreams and visions. “Perhaps he made her life hell, till she could take no more. Or he attacked her and she defended herself.”
“Then why not plead self-defence? I can’t believe that the past Lusmoores were any less keen than the present ones to get what they were entitled to. Typical of them to cover things up, though. By whatever means.”
“By making threats or by oiling palms?”
“Whatever it takes. Or took.” Morgan drained his tea. “Sounds like I’m slandering them, but you saw what was on Google about the family.”
“Why bother with all that, though?” Dominic ran his hand through his hair. “You could say Lawson had run away to sea again. Or fallen over a cliff and disappeared. Lay on the grief with a trowel and maybe you get away with it.”
“Enough speculation. My head hurts.” This wasn’t going to end up with a definite conclusion. As frustrating as reading a murder mystery with the crucial last few pages missing. “No Lawson talk until you’ve done some further research. There’s sport on the telly and a pair of sea bass in the fridge for tea. If you don’t fancy that, then you can lock yourself away with your laptop while I have forty winks on the sofa.”
“I’ll join you.”
Dominic didn’t just join Morgan for a kip on the settee or to help cook dinner; it had been unspoken but inevitable that he’d be sharing the man’s bed too. Sex wasn’t the be all and end all of life, although the initial madness of passion still burned bright, even if Morgan felt guilty about dragging Dominic into his mess of a life. But they were both grown-up, both knew their own minds, both had presumably entered into things with their eyes open.
They’d gone upstairs in a statelier fashion than they’d done the night before, Dominic snuggling down with one of his naval books—naturally—while Morgan performed his ablutions. He’d picked up a thriller, and they’d read together by the light of the bedside lamp until Morgan could hardly keep his eyes open.
Morgan jolted awake as Dominic rescued the thriller from where it had dropped from Morgan’s hands onto his chest.
“Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Didn’t mean to doze off.”
“No worries. You look washed out.”
“That’s your fault. Rogering me stupid.” Morgan nestled closer. The night had turned surprisingly nippy, where the wind had veered, making his exposed arm feel like ice. “You carry on and don’t mind me.”
“I’m ready to turn in, myself.” Dominic carefully marked his place in his book, then placed it on the bedside table, turning off the light before settling down with his arm over Morgan’s shoulder. “Been a long day.”
“Been a good day.” Morgan relaxed into the embrace. “Could be another good night, if you want.”
“Is that an offer I’d ever refuse? Not that I’m sex mad.” Dominic chuckled. “I’ve had my leg over more this last month than the previous six.”
“Much the same here.” Morgan brushed his lips along his lover’s skin. “Good thing you found my address, wasn’t it?”
“You can say that again.” A great sigh passed through Dominic’s chest. “It’s a shame you don’t live around the corner. Or at the other end of the District line.”
“I wouldn’t wish for that. I remember what the Tube is like. It can take as long to get from one side of London to the other as to fly to Spain.”
Dominic, shifting awkwardly in the bed, murmured, “I wasn’t dropping an unsubtle hint. I know you can’t move. Not with your mum as she is.”
Not with work or friendships or a hundred other things, either. But distance did add another complication to the pot.
“I know it’s early days too, so don’t think I’m rushing you again,” Dominic continued, evidently unaware of displaying an uncanny ability to read Morgan’s mind. Although Morgan found this faculty vaguely comforting; it was much easier to be known than to be misunderstood. “I was simply stating a fact about the distances involved.”
“Point taken.” This conversation needed diverting elsewhere, and the most effective way to do that was appealing to Dominic’s romantic side. So Morgan manoeuvred into a suitably comfortable position, sharing a kiss that was sweet enough to be taken as a “good night” yet passionate enough to be acted on if the mood took them.
Which it did. It seemed natural now to give in to their mutual attraction and shared passion, to shove any worries to the back of his brain. Why not live for the moment?