Page 40 of The Sunken Truth

“Yeah.” Benji nodded rapidly.

“There’s no way he moved away from you for a while?”

“No.” Pulling his cap from his head, he dragged his fingers through his mussed-up hair. “He was beside me all the time.”

“What happened when you saw us head for the surface?” Lily asked.

“I was a bit confused. But I saw you reach the surface, andit seemed as though everything was okay. We’d been about to go back to the boat, anyway. Our tanks were getting low.”

“Was there a reason you didn’t come straight up to the surface to check everything was okay with us?” Lily hadn’t thought much about them surfacing near the boat, but suddenly it felt odd.

“I didn’t know Ryan’s hose had been cut, otherwise we’d have followed you.” He twisted his lips. “To be honest, I was focused on looking for any artefacts, so we stuck to the seabed, then surfaced near the boat. It really didn’t occur to me there was a problem. I watched you surface and everything seemed calm.”

Lily nodded. That was true – there’d been no visible signs of panic.

“Thanks for talking to us,” Flynn said, looking between the two men. “I’m going to keep looking into it. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

They started for the door and Lily smiled at Benji. “Don’t forget to tell me if you find you have any good photos.”

His lips twitched, but he looked completely blank. “From today?”

“Yeah or from your USB stick,” she reminded him. “You said you were going to see if you could sharpen up the photos of the wreck.”

“Oh.” Benji opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Yeah. I forgot about that. I was going to see if I could clean them up.”

“I didn’t know you were good at that sort of stuff,” Ryan said. “You could have a try with mine as well.”

“Yeah. I could give it a go.” He shifted his weight and pointed at the back room. “I’m going to grab a coffee.” He gave a quick wave and scuttled away.

Chapter Eighteen

Flynn waiteduntil they were well away from the dive shop before glancing at Lily. “What did you make of that?”

She took a moment before replying. “I got weird vibes from Ryan. If Harry cut the hose he’s a good actor, because I believed everything he said. I don’t know if I’d say the same for Ryan.”

“But if Harry really is having financial difficulties, it gives him motive.”

“Having a motive doesn’t mean he did it.”

“The financial thing is probably true, though. Nat hinted at it when she was talking about the group threatening not to pay.”

“Yeah.” Lily slowed her pace, glancing out at the water, which sparkled madly under the bright sunshine. The serious set of her features told him she was deep in thought as she puzzled through it all. For Flynn, who was more used to talking things through, it made him impatient.

“Did Benji seem twitchy to you?” he finally asked.

“Maybe, but I wonder if that’s just his personality.”

“What was that about the USB stick?”

“On the boat this morning, I saw Kurt with a USB stick. Benji took it from him. He said it had photos of the wreck. It seemed odd, though I’m not sure why.” Her head whipped to Flynn, and she stopped in the middle of the pavement. “Did you see them surface this morning?”

“Kurt and Benji?”

“Yes. They surfaced by the boat, right?”

“Yeah.” He frowned.

“So you’d have seen if they had any artefacts from the shipwreck?”