AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Light dawned, and Aleksey pointed at the shutters. ‘This was used as a darkroom—to develop photographs.’
At the same time as he announced this, Ben handed down a tin tray and confirmed, ‘There’s some big glass bottles but they’re empty, and some more trays like this. That’s about it.’
He swung himself out and dropped down into the pavilion, and Squeezy immediately scrambled up to take a look for himself.
Aleksey was flicking his thumb over the top of the stacked photos, riffling them.
‘What are they of?’
Aleksey pursed his lips. ‘I’m not sure I want to find out.’
He sensed all three of them staring at him, Squeezy’s face hanging like a little upside-down imp above him. ‘Developing secret pictures in your own darkroom? Hidden photographs, and we have a mystery as to why the island is being sold?’
‘Maybe we should just burn them tonight. Not look at them.’
Although Ben said it, Aleksey could tell he didn’t really mean it.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Squeezy swung down. ‘Let me fucking at ‘em.’ He grabbed one out of a box, studied it for a moment, then shuffled through a few more and finally gave a deep sigh. Aleksey was studying his face (something he tried not to do too often), trying to read his thoughts. It wasn’t easy. He suspected there often weren’t any.
‘Well?’
Squeezy chucked his selection back and commented, annoyed, ‘Most fucking boring pictures I’ve ever had the misfortune to mistake for some juicy porn, that’s what.’
Aleksey picked one up. Squeezy was right. Itwaspretty boring, he supposed—if you didn’t actually own the island depicted. If you did, it was extremely interesting. It was a shot of the southern coastline, taken from the deck of a boat. The photographer had captured part of a bow rail in the bottom of the image, presumably to give some context to the framing.
The next was similar, only from further down the southern side. Both photos were black and white, more sepia with age now, but had a startling clarity as real film often tended to do. Ben was peering over his shoulder. ‘There’s something on the back.’
Aleksey turned the picture over fully. Scratchy India-blue ink handwriting slanted down from one corner. ‘What does it say?’
Ben snorted quietly and took it from him. ‘David’s island. My first sighting. So good to get away together.I shall like this place, I think. June 1930.That’s it.’
‘Huh.’
‘Come on, Matey, this tree ain’t gonna move itself.’
Ben nodded at Squeezy’s obvious contention, and they went out together discussing plans for removal. Aleksey gestured at the second as yet unopened box for Tim to carry, and hefted the first into his arms. As they were walking back through the woods, very slowly, Tim shifted his load a little and asked, ‘Did your wife, err, Lady Phillipa, well I suppose I ought to call her Her Roy—’
‘Did she what?’
‘Tell you how this island came to belong to the duke’s younger brother? Why it’s not part of the Duchy Estates along with St Mary’s and the rest of Scilly?’
Aleksey frowned, thinking back to the odd meeting in the church. He didn’t like to interrogate this memory too much in case the conclusion came to him that it hadn’t actually happened. ‘I think she told me he was gifted it for his christening. By his uncle. Why?’
‘Well, I was trying to work out the dates. He’s about Ben’s age, isn’t he?’
‘Older. Late Forties.’
‘So that makes the island coming to him sometime in the 1970s—if he was christened as a baby, which I assume he was.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Well, whoever David is, he owned it in 1930. It would be interesting to fill in the gap years.’
Aleksey thought exactly the same thing.
When they arrived back at Guillemot, they put the boxes on one of the window seats and Tim announced cheerfully, ‘I’ll make a picnic, I think, and take it down to the workers.’
Aleksey corrected, ‘Field rations,’ before he remembered it wasn’t Ben. Then he added, as Tim was exiting the door, heading to the kitchen, ‘A cup of tea would be welcome.’
