Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [27]
Curlew – the boat’s name was painted in neat black letters across the edge of the sliding hatch over the steps down to the cabin. A good name for her, Zaki thought. With her long, downward-bending bowsprit she looked quite like the long-beaked wader she was named after.
Now, could he get into the cabin? He tried the hatch cover. A gentle push and it slid forward. Not locked. Carefully, he lifted out the washboards and laid them on the floor of the cockpit.
The cabin was dark by contrast with the sunlight outside. The sudden thought struck Zaki that she may have left the boat unlocked because there was someone else on board, someone who had remained in the cabin. Gingerly, Zaki climbed down the steps. There was no one in the small saloon. Zaki listened at the door to the forward cabin. If anyone was aboard he or she was keeping very still. There was just enough height below the deck for Zaki to be able to stand; anyone taller would need to remain stooped.
In the flickering, reflected light off the water that entered through the small brass portholes Zaki examined his surroundings. All was neat and tidy. Two narrow bunks, a drop-sided table, a spirit stove; no room for a chart table. He opened the wet-locker by the companionway and found a single set of old-fashioned oilskins hanging inside that looked to be the girl’s size and a pair of sea boots. He closed the locker. A spirit lamp hung from a deck beam aft of the mast. It was the only visible form of artificial lighting. There were no electrical fittings. Whoever owned this boat was a true traditionalist; there was no radio and no modern navigation aids, no GPS, no depth, speed or wind gauges, not even electric lights. Zaki bent down and looked through the steps of the companionway; there was no motor. No wonder the girl had brought the boat in under sail! His gaze took in the fittings – wood, brass and bronze – no stainless steel. She was like a boat out of a museum, out of a different time.
‘Get a move on!’ Zaki told himself. He was supposed to be finding out about the girl, not the boat. But what to look for? Cautiously, he moved forward and opened the door to the forward cabin. A small crowded space, but again, everything neat and tidy. There was a locker on each side, beyond which were canvas sailbags containing spare sails, coils of cotton and hemp rope and other bits of gear.
Zaki opened the locker on the starboard side. Clothing that Zaki guessed to be the girl’s, although there was nothing particularly feminine about any of it. Still, he was now pretty certain that she was sailing alone.
He closed the locker and opened the one on the port side. Behind the door were two shelves and below them a set of drawers; the shelves were full of cloth-covered writing books. It was clear from the state and style of their covers that the books had been purchased at different times. Zaki picked one at random and flicked through the pages. It was a logbook: dates, passage plans, ports of departure and arrival, weather details, notes, each entry written in the same sloping handwriting. He read the date of the last entry ‘6th July, 1965’. Too long ago to have been written by the girl. He replaced the log on the shelf and took down the one that looked the newest. Over half the pages were empty, so it had to be the current log, and this was borne out by the most recent entry; it was dated the previous day and gave details of a passage from Plymouth to Salcombe. It gave no reason for the journey, revealing nothing beyond the bare facts. She’d had a favourable wind and made good time, averaging, by Zaki’s reckoning, around five knots. But the handwriting! . . . Zaki took down the book he’d just put away; he opened it and compared entries in the two books. Yesterday’s entry was written