Dominic was waiting, as arranged, on one of the benches on the seafront at Porthkennack, overlooking the sea and basking in the sunshine. It was well gone five o’clock, although the air remained balmy and any threat of rain had scudded off to the east with the clouds. It felt more high summer than unpredictable early May.
“I always think of Porthkennack being like this,” Dominic said, when Morgan was still ten yards off, as though they were picking up a conversation only just put down. “I always assume that when I return it’ll turn out to be a trick of the memory, but the weather’s great again.”
“It saved its best for you. You should have been here last week, because it was raining cats and dogs.” Morgan took a seat on the bench; his favourite nerd didn’t look like he’d be moving anytime soon.
“I wish those had been here when we came as a family,” Dominic said, pointing at the row of anchors and other nautical works of art placed along the front. “My parents would have loved them.”
Morgan nodded. This area used to be an eyesore, all along the esplanade, before the rejuvenation had started. Now it had the stylish appearance it deserved. “I used to feel sorry for all those people at the yacht club, with their view over a load of rotting tat. Not that any of them have got their boats within miles of here.”
“It’s the beer, not the boats, they come for.” Dominic stared up at the wheeling and darting gulls. “They never change. Determined to dive-bomb your pasty.”
“If I had my way, I’d have the lot of them shot. Horrible things. Worse than grey squirrels. Give me a nice well-behaved sparrow any day.”
“I call them tree rats.” Dominic laughed. “Mind you, I call pigeons air rats.”
“What are seagulls, then? Air foxes?”
“Too nasty to be foxes. Or pigs. Definitely pterodactyls.” Dominic made a gun with his fingers, miming taking down some of the bigger specimens. “When I was small, I used to complain if anything changed. Too fond of what I knew.”
Morgan chuckled. “Maybe that’s the sailor coming out in you. My dad used to read a lot of Patrick O’Brian. He used to compare me and my brother to Jack Aubrey’s crew. We liked what we were used to. Or maybe that was from his Genesis tape. We knew what we liked and we liked what we knew.”
“Something like that. Talking of unnecessary change, is the knickknack shop still at the end of the high street? I used to save up my money to have a splurge there at the end of my holiday. It was like Aladdin’s cave.” Dominic’s eyes shone with boyish enthusiasm. “I used to get rocks and snow globes and all sorts of stuff that I’d turn my nose up at these days.”
“All you’ll get now are things like a skinny latte with an extra shot.” Morgan wrinkled his nose. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s a Costa.”
“Oh. That’s a pain.”
“Maybe that’s for the best. You’d probably have hated the place if you’d seen it through adult eyes. Kids don’t notice the tackiness or the chipped paint.” Still, Morgan could remember how magical it had appeared to him as a boy, like some of the other now long-gone tourist attractions. He wouldn’t think any the less of Dominic for such nostalgia; it was another shared connection.
“I guess you’re right. You usually are.” Dominic stretched, yawned, and leaned back. A strange feeling of old camaraderie settled over them, as though they’d known each other years. Cornwall was like that—it was always easier to relax and just be content in this county, rather than in London, with the atmosphere of continually striving to succeed.
Minutes—although it could have been half an hour, given the peaceful ambience and the liquid quality of the time—passed before they spoke again.
“Sorry, I must be holding you up.” Dominic unexpectedly leaped from the bench. “We should go and eat.”
“Sounds good to me. Not that you are holding me up, but my guts are complaining. Did you have anywhere in mind?”
“Anything would suit me. You choose, given that you’ll have the inside knowledge of what things are like now. I’ll likely take us to a pub and it’ll have converted to a Tesco Express.”
Morgan snorted, though that was too true to be funny. “Do you like Italian? Or would you prefer Chinese? Indian? Fish and chips?”
“I like anything, as I said.” Dominic suddenly shut his eyes and spun around, like a little boy, just as suddenly stopping and thrusting out his arm. The dreadfully polite-sounding, dreadfully English tourists on the next bench studiously ignored the mad pantomime. “This is what we used to do when I was young. Whichever direction I’m pointing is where we go.”
“Out at sea, at present. Got your budgie smugglers?” Morgan laughed. “It’s a shame you weren’t pointing towards Padstow. My favourite eateries are all in that direction.”
“We could cheat. I wouldn’t tell.”
“Nah, it’s daft getting back in the car when I’ve only just parked up. Either you can spin again or we can use Shank’s pony. I know a nice shabby-chic bistro if you don’t mind ten minutes’ walk.”
“Make it so,” Dominic said, with a theatrical sweep of the hand and a huge smile.
Morgan smiled in return, lost for words. Maybe he’d been blind when they’d first met, or maybe he was so low in spirits at present that he lacked judgement—but now he realised Dominic wasn’t bad looking at all. With a broad smile and the sun lighting up his hair like an aureole, the bloke was dead fit. Morgan would have to tell his hormones to control themselves, because falling into a rebound relationship—assuming Dominic did turn out to be gay—always ended in tears.
Morgan would keep the conversation on strictly nautical lines, avoiding anything potentially like flirting. It would bring them back to Troilus, but any awkwardness about the ship—and the possibility that Morgan’s nightmares might edge into the conversation—would be less tricky to manage than romance. He led the way along the esplanade, Dominic falling into step beside him. “Any luck at the museum?”
“Yes and no. There was a painting of the wreck, but it’s totally inaccurate. Wrong type of ship for a start—I’m not convinced there ever was a frigate that size, not even a razee, if you know what they are.”
“I do.” Morgan had read all about Indefatigable, when he’d fancied the pants off the actors on the television version of Hornblower.
“I knew you were bright. Anyway, the painting was produced in late Victorian times, so it must have been based on a report of a report of a report.” Dominic gave a pfft of evident disapproval.
“Right, so that’s the no. What’s the yes?” Morgan stopped by the side of a busy road—busy by Porthkennack standards, at any rate. “Wait. Tell me on the other side. I don’t want you being pulverised because your mind’s two centuries away.”
A snarl up at the junction ahead, where somebody had parked inconsiderately, allowed them to slip between the stationary vehicles.
“There seems to be a bigger volume of traffic here than when I was a child.” Dominic frowned, clearly put out. “And nothing seems as cheap as it did then.”
“There is and it isn’t.” Morgan snorted. “I’m not crabby enough to say it’s been ruined—plenty of things are an improvement on what they used to be—but it has changed.”
Dominic caught his eye. “Maybe I shouldn’t complain too much, in case you start to think I’m a grumpy old git.”
Morgan resisted any comment; almost anything he could say in response might smack of that flirting he was trying so hard to avoid. He stopped in his tracks. “You still haven’t told me the yes part about the museum. Shall I lie in the street, kicking my legs and screaming until you do?”
Dominic laughed. “You’ll get no dinner if you have a tantrum. And you’ll embarrass me so much I’d refuse to tell you.”
“That strategy never worked when I was a child, either.” They walked on.
“The yes,” Dominic said, continuing seamlessly as they crossed another little road, “is a name. John Lawson. He was a midshipman on Troilus, and he’s of real interest.”
“Why him in particular?”
“I’ve read that he was a favourite of the captain. Various people have taken that to mean he was a natural child, which is part of what I’m trying to find out. Perhaps the most important bit.” Dominic stopped at a small crossroads. “I don’t remember coming up here. Which way now?”
“Just cross and keep going straight on. It’s only fifty yards ahead. You’re in Porthkennack locals’ territory now, off the grockle trail.” The rumble of cars and the chatter of families was fading behind them. “Keep going with the story too.”
“Officially Lawson was the son of a friend of the captain’s wife. That’s how he was given a place on the ship—although he’d been signed onto the books for years before he once set foot on the decks. They called it sea time back then.”
“I have no idea what that means, and don’t elaborate. I’ll google it.” In spite of his reluctance to think about real sailors, like the crew of Troilus, Morgan had to admit that Dominic was piquing his curiosity.
“You do that. Anyway, if Lawson was a by-blow, the captain wanted the child close by him. Family story is that he couldn’t support or acknowledge him in the normal way of things, so he had to help him along informally.”
“Interesting. I wonder if his wife knew?”
“Only if she was watching from her cloud. She’d died after a long illness following a miscarriage. Young John was born a year after, possibly a result of Captain Watson taking a little comfort when offered it. Although he never married again, so there’s a story in itself.”
“There is indeed.” They came to a halt beside the bistro. “Don’t stop just when it’s getting interesting.”
“I won’t. Although I need feeding first.”
“We’d better hurry up before your stomach deafens me with its rumbling.” Morgan held open the door to usher them in. The next few minutes were taken up with being squeezed onto the last remaining table, then ordering drink and food.
“This other woman, John’s mother, couldn’t have married Captain Watson,” Dominic continued once the waiter had taken their order.
“Because she was already married?”
“Got it in one. To an old duffer who loved her dearly but couldn’t give her a child, if the tales are right.” Dominic leaned closer and lowered his voice, clearly aware that the two middle-aged ladies at the table next door had started to hang on their every word. “Probably couldn’t oblige at all in the bed department, which is why she might have turned to Captain Watson when she saw her chance.”
Morgan caught the ladies in mid-gawp, smiled at their embarrassment, then said to Dominic, “Lawson was her husband’s name?”
“Yes. Mr. Lawson had made his money in the sugar trade, but there was naval blood in the family. She was the sister-in-law of an admiral, which is how she got to meet my ancestor.”
“At some posh ball? Shades of Pride and Prejudice?” The allusion to Jane Austen attracted attention from the table next door again.
“Nothing so fancy. Mrs. Lawson and Mrs. Watson hitched a lift on Troilus. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“History or conjecture?”
“A bit of both.” Dominic cast a glance at their nosy neighbours, before evidently deciding that if they wanted to listen in, they’d have to put up with what they heard. “Here’s something odd. I found a letter. Or I should say a copy of part of a letter among a collection of bits of correspondence. Stuck in an old commonplace book or scrapbook or whatever, that my grandfather had from his grandfather. It was supposed to be from Captain Watson to his mistress.”
“His mistress? Mrs. Lawson?”
“Probably. There’s no name, not a term of endearment, although enough references to make it pretty certain.”
“Like what?”
“Like fond memories of the ladies being on Troilus.” Dominic smirked. “I assume she didn’t take to his cot there and then, as that would have caused a scandal given the presence aboard of his lawful wedded wife, and risked the possibility of Mrs. Watson smacking Mrs. Lawson with a blunt instrument.”
“The women in your family sound downright scary.”
“Protective of their own.”
The waiter appeared with their drinks and—thank goodness—the bill for the table next door. If they were that bloody nosy about a bit of scandal concerning a pair of naval wives, what would they have done if Morgan started talking about James? He and Dominic shared a grin as the women paid and left.
“Talk about scary women.” Dominic jerked his thumb towards the now-empty table. “Could they have leaned any closer?”
“Maybe they thought you were discussing current events. Some poor Captain Watson, ex-RN, now living down in Padstow, whose reputation is about to go up in flames.” Morgan picked up one of the breadsticks which had arrived with their drinks, then broke it. “That’s how rumours start. Perhaps the same thing happened with your Watson. Old biddies half heard a tale and spread it.”
Dominic, halfway through consuming his own breadstick, shrugged. “Could be. Or old sailors. They gossip just as much. That’s the problem with a lot of research—picking fact apart from speculation. Or downright lies.”
In that case, conducting research was no different to running your love life. “Any facts at the museum?”
“There are some factual items of uniform. One of them is a pair of midshipman’s flashes, like they’d have worn on their collars to show they were the lowest of the low.” Dominic licked some crumbs from his fingers, with evident relish. “The speculation bit starts with the labelling. There’s an account next to the exhibit stating the items had belonged to Lawson. No explanation as to how the person claiming that knew for certain, just the bald statement. Which begs about a dozen questions, especially since nobody is supposed to have survived.”
“Are you absolutely sure that was one of the genuine items?” The museum was a whimsical place, run by people with a peculiar sense of humour. Several of the rather capricious exhibits presented legend almost as if it was scientifically proven truth—the kind of thing the grockles would lap up—and unless you filtered the lighthearted from the serious, you might come away with some peculiar ideas. Like believing mermaids were real.
“I’m absolutely sure of nothing, but the name is a strange coincidence. The official records say he went down with the ship, so how could his uniform have ended up there? And in good condition, rather than ripped to shreds on the rocks where she foundered?”
Morgan took a long draught of Perrier. “And are official records always correct?” he asked, as neutrally as possible. Today had proved easier than expected, so maybe he was getting acclimatised, or whatever psychologists would call it when you faced your problems.
Dominic doodled with his finger on the table. “Better than most, but they are what they are. People fall between the cracks of the written accounts. I suppose most of the sailors who died never had the privilege of any grave but a watery one. If they washed up in some secluded bay, they might never have been found until—”
Morgan held up his hand. “You don’t need to go into details. Especially not before a meal.” The thought of a body lying on a beach, at the mercy of flies, crabs, and gulls, didn’t bear thinking about. “Why is this story so important to you and your family? You talk about having to find the truth. Is this about Lawson’s parentage?”
“Not quite.” Dominic lowered his voice again. “If Lawson survived the wreck, he was on that ship to start with. In person, and not just in name. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“In which case he couldn’t have been killed by Captain Watson before the ship set sail.”
“What?” Morgan almost dropped his glass.
“That’s the rumour. That Lawson found out who his real father was, then started to put pressure on Captain Watson to acknowledge him.” Dominic doodled on the table again. “Watson, with the connivance of his officers—who couldn’t stand the lad—had him killed and buried in a remote cove.”
“Is there any proof of this?”
“Not a scrap, apart from a letter to the newspapers written by one of Watson’s old enemies. It caused a heap of trouble for the family, besmirching his good name. I’d love to clear him.”
“Of course you would. If our midshipman survived, we need to prove it beyond all doubt.”
Although when had Lawson become their midshipman?