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“Better than the television,” she said. “And, no, I didn’t see anyone.

Well, I saw Emily Barnes going down to Fisher Harry’s house, right when the rain started, but of course she’s seeing Fisher Harry’s eldest, Little Harry, and I did not see her coming back again.

” She pressed her lips together disapprovingly, as though young people sneaking out to see one another was anything new.

“And I saw Short Clarry going to the museum, and Young Harry Barnes came by late to get cigarettes, even though I’ve told him a hundred times I close at seven so that I can watch my stories.

But once the storm really hit, I closed my windows and went to bed.

If anyone was out after that, I didn’t see them, and I didn’t see anyone going up to the point at all. ”

She looked down at Joe’s packet of Minties and then back at him pointedly.

Joe reached for a pack of beef jerky and laid it on the counter.

“But if you want my opinion ,” Mavis said, “John Coldwell was very upset yesterday when he came to tell me about the diary. He didn’t even let me tell him first!”

“John Coldwell was very upset this morning too,” Joe said evenly, and added a roll of Fruit Tingles to his stash.

“Yes, well,” Mavis said agreeably. “John’s always had this idea that he’s more a Nesmith than a Coldwell, on his mother’s side.”

“Does that matter?” I asked curiously.

“Well,” Joe said, “it matters to some . Josiah Nesmith was an officer and a gentleman, a lieutenant under Captain Hawthorne, while Robert Coldwell was only an ordinary seaman.”

I had to think like an anthropologist, not a historian. The mutiny might have been two centuries ago, but it shaped the way this tiny society operated.

Mavis hummed and folded her arms over her bosom. “And John’s always talking up his connection to the Nesmith name above the Coldwell name, isn’t he, Red Joe?”

“He is,” Joe agreed. “And what’s your opinion on Henry Jessup’s diary?”

Mavis looked pointedly at Joe’s growing collection of junk food, and he added another roll of Fruit Tingles.

“I think,” she said, when Joe must have paid an acceptable tribute, “that sometimes the past is better left undisturbed, and that nothing good ever comes of digging through dead men’s graves. You mark my words, Red Joe. You mark my words.”

Joe nodded at that, paid for his junk food, and ushered me out of the shop.

* * *

J oe said that we were going to visit Short Clarry the mayor next, but on our way to his cottage we were stopped by a gangly young man with sandy blond hair.

“Red Joe!” he called out, jogging up the street.

“Little Harry.”

The young guy tugged his ear buds out of his ears as he reached us. “Dad says can you come down the jetty? He’s found the laptop!”

* * *

T he Dauntless Island jetty was built into the curve of the little village harbour.

It was a relic of the Second World War, built by the US Navy, Joe told me as we walked towards it, and jutted out 800 feet into the ocean.

Apparently Short Clarry the mayor had visions of ferries full of tourists coming from the mainland, but Joe said the jetty was in dire need of repairs before that could happen.

He wasn’t wrong. The boards creaked and shifted underfoot as we walked down to meet Little Harry’s dad’s boat. Hiccup bounded in front of us for a moment and then, heedless of the cold, launched herself off the edge of the jetty into the ocean with a splash.

“She’ll be fine,” Joe said in answer to my horrified look.

“She’s part seal, I think.” He nodded at a boat that was tied up at the jetty.

It might have been some sort of small trawler?

I had no idea, but there seemed to be a lot of poles and shit sticking up from the deck, like pens bristling from a mug. “Here’s Fisher Harry.”

A bear of a man in a bright yellow oilskin was unloading crates of fish onto the jetty.

“Found your laptop,” he said, and gestured to a battered bucket.

The laptop, or at least the screen, was sitting in a couple of inches of salt water. The hinges that would have held it to the body were snapped off, and the screen was smashed.

“Found it over round the point,” Fisher Harry said. “Under the lighthouse.”

I reached into the bucket and drew the screen out. Water dripped out of the casing onto the jetty. “Um, thanks? At least I’ll have something to show my insurance company.”

It was pretty clear that whoever had assaulted me hadn’t been after the laptop after all. They’d been after the diary, without knowing I kept it on my person.

Joe thanked Fisher Harry, and then we turned and walked back along the jetty. I tucked the dripping laptop under my arm.

“Why wasn’t the diary in your pack?” Joe asked.

A seagull hopped along the jetty in front of us, keeping just out of reach but too lazy to actually bother flying away.

I shrugged. “The rain, mostly. I was paranoid it’d get wet or damaged somehow, however good the tent was, and however well wrapped it was.

So I put it in my shirt before I went to sleep.

I figured if the rain came through the tent, it’d wake me up before the diary got wet.

And I didn’t want to leave it where I might step on it.

” I tapped the laptop. “I probably should have done the same with this.”

Joe hummed.

We continued along the jetty.

“You know,” I said as we walked, “this really is a beautiful place.”

The sea glittered behind us. Ahead of us, the island rose out of the water, green and vibrant.

The white sandstone cottages of the village shone in the sunlight.

To the east, on the point, the lighthouse jutted into the sky.

To the west, the island’s green meadows vanished underneath a forest of pines.

Maybe dark things had happened here once, but it was peaceful now, and beautiful.

“It really is,” Joe agreed with a smile.

“I mean,” I said, returning his smile with a cheeky one of my own, “apart from the assault and the theft. And the death threats.”

Joking about it made it fine, right?

Look at me, grinning at the fact I could have been murdered last night, and pretending my knees don’t go wobbly the second I think about it!

Joking about it meant that I’d be able to sleep tonight, and not lie awake panicking at every unfamiliar sound.

“Oh, you could get those anywhere,” he said airily, the smartarse.

“What, anyone? Or me personally?” I elbowed him and grimaced. “No, don’t answer that, please. If I can’t leave Dauntless with my laptop in one piece, I’d at least like to keep my dignity intact.”

Joe huffed out a laugh that didn’t quite ring true, and my stomach fluttered as I wondered if it was because I’d mentioned leaving Dauntless.

Like, I wasn’t the only one feeling this tentative connection between us, right?

It sparked into life every time I forgot to be scared for my life.

So, not as often as I would have liked, honestly.

Unless I was imagining it, and what I thought was chemistry was actually a concussion combined with some sort of hero worship for the guy who’d made sure I was okay.

After all, I hardly knew Joe, and that was fine.

But as our gazes caught and held for a moment, I knew that I wanted to know him better than I did.

Nothing else about this place made any fucking sense at all, except that part. I liked Joe, I trusted him.

“Eddie,” I heard my dad say in my head. “ Son . Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

” It was the same thing he’d asked after I’d signed up for footy, moved in with Kyle, that arsehole, when I barely knew him, and announced I was going to be a historian.

But he’d been mostly worried about the Kyle thing.

“How can you trust someone you don’t even know? ”

I ignored Imaginary But Accurately Portrayed Dad.

So what if he’d been right about Kyle and I’d been wrong?

That didn’t mean I was wrong about Joe. I liked him, and yeah, I trusted him too—possibly—and not just because he was the least awful person on the island.

I liked him and trusted him because of what he’d shown me of himself so far, not just because the rest of the islanders had their thumbs pressed on the scales of hostility and made him look great in comparison.

Red Joe seemed like he’d look pretty great all on his own.

Joe smiled at me as we walked back down the jetty. Hiccup met us at the end, shaking bursts of water from her coat.

“So who are we going to talk to next?” I asked as we followed the harbour wall around to end of the main street.

“Short Clarry,” Joe said. “Clarence Finch. He’s the mayor. Except…” He checked his watch. “Except it’s almost lunchtime, which means he’ll be down for his nap.”

“You really do know everyone, don’t you?”

“There are three hundred people on this island, Eddie. It’s not that much of an accomplishment.”

“Plus, you’re their king,” I reminded him.

“I’m really not.” He rolled his eyes, but I liked to think his tone was fond. “Come on, we’ll go home and have some lunch, and come back this afternoon to talk to Clarry.”

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “I should check my stuff is dry too, and go and see the tent. It’s not going to storm again tonight, is it?”

“No, not tonight.”

“Good, because it’s going to be creepy enough staying in that tent after what happened last night.”

“So don’t,” Joe said.

My heart beat a little faster. “What?”

“I’ve got a perfectly good couch,” he said, a faint blush darkening his cheeks above his beard. “Actually, you could sleep in Amy’s room if you want to stay.”

“Are you serious?” I asked hopefully.

“Of course. How long are you on the island for?”

“I leave again on Wednesday.”

“You might as well stay until then,” he said. He cleared his throat. “It’s better than a tent. And...it’s safer.”

A jolt of fear ran through me, followed by a flood of warm gratitude.

The idea of replaying last night’s horror movie scenario had been an uneasy clench in my gut all day.

I’d tried to ignore it, but it kept reminding me it was there.

I couldn’t think of anything better than to spend another night in Joe’s little cottage, and not just because I liked him.

I trusted him, and I needed that more than I’d guessed right now.

“It really is. Thanks, Joe. That’d be great. ”

We headed up the hill toward the lighthouse with Hiccup bounding ahead of us.