Page 30 of The Sunken Truth (Lily Larkin Mysteries #5)

Chapter Thirty

At the station, PC Hill sat at the larger of the two desks in the reception area. Opposite him, slouched in the chair and with an ankle propped up on his opposite knee, Kurt looked equal parts cocky and pissed off.

“Are you the reason I’m not allowed to leave the island?” he asked Flynn, eyes flashing with irritation. “I have a flight out of Heathrow tomorrow so I need to get back to the mainland today.”

“I’ll be happy to let you leave once you’ve answered some questions and convinced me you had nothing to do with Ryan’s air hose being cut.”

“Great,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “I had nothing to do with it.”

PC Hill stood and moved out from behind the desk. “The interview room is free if you want to chat to him back there. Or if you think it won’t take long, you can chat to him here…”

Flynn hesitated. In his previous experience of policing, he’d always use a private room, but things were different in rural policing, and he knew exactly what PC Hill was hinting at – Kurt would feel more at ease sitting out here. He’d be more likely to let his guard down in the informal setting.

“I think we’re fine here.” Flynn slipped into the chair PC Hill had vacated. “I don’t think it’ll take long.”

“What did you want to ask me then?” Kurt said.

For a moment Flynn was distracted. While PC Hill walked into the back, the sergeant and Superintendent Brand arrived from the opposite direction. Sergeant Proctor gave him an encouraging nod while the two men quietly positioned themselves at the other desk.

As his heart rate increased, Flynn forced himself to focus on Kurt. “I have some questions about the ancient cigar box you handed over to Eustace Tremayne.”

“Okay,” he said with a nonchalant sigh. “What about it?”

“You’re not denying giving it to him?”

“No.”

“And he paid you two thousand pounds for it?”

“No. I gave him the box. And then, out of the goodness of his heart, he gave me some money to help me with my travels. He heard my mum is ill and wanted to help me out with getting back to her.” His lip curled. “The money wasn’t in exchange for the box and you can’t prove otherwise.”

He was right on that point, but Flynn wasn’t overly concerned about the sale of the item. “Can you tell me when you discovered the artefact and why you kept it quiet?”

“I found it on Wednesday morning.”

“Was that around the same time that Ryan’s air hose was cut?”

“Yes, but I was nowhere near Ryan.”

“Really? Because he claimed he’d just found an artefact and someone took it out of his hands.”

“Not me,” he said, sounding bored by the conversation .

“And when you surfaced, why didn’t you mention that you’d found something?”

His chest rose and fell as he sighed. “When I surfaced, Ryan was raving about someone cutting his oxygen supply because he found something. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel very safe admitting that I’d also found something.”

“You thought whoever did it might come after you, too?”

He shrugged. “It didn’t seem worth taking any chances.”

“Why didn’t you mention this when I spoke to you yesterday?”

“I’ve been worried about my mum. It must have slipped my mind.”

“Right,” Flynn said tightly. “Can you explain exactly when you found the cigar box? Maybe fill me in on the events of Wednesday morning, which you failed to mention yesterday…”

“I found the box on the seabed. When I pulled it out of the sand, I looked around and the whole place had turned murky. I saw Ryan and Lily heading for the surface, but they were going slow so it didn’t occur to me there was anything wrong.”

“And then you swam back to the boat?”

“Yeah. We went back along the seabed to see if we could find anything else. When we got back to the boat, I was about to announce what I’d found, but then Ryan was screeching about someone cutting his hose. I made a quick decision to keep what I’d found to myself.”

“But Benji knew about it too, I assume?”

“Yeah. He agreed it might be better to keep quiet.”

Flynn pondered the story. “After you sold the box, did you split the money with Benji?”

“I already told you, I didn’t sell it.”

“Yeah, it was reward money or a gift, or whatever wording you want to use that means it wasn’t a criminal offence, but did you share that money with Benji?”

Again, he gave his annoying shrug. “I told him I’d give him something.”

“And did you?”

He nodded. “It’s not as though I was going to split the money fifty-fifty. It was a gift for me after all,” he said cockily.

“But you gave him something?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Something felt off, but without time to ponder it, Flynn couldn’t think of any more questions.

“Can I go now?” Kurt asked. “If I hurry, I can still make the ferry.”

“I don’t think you’re going to make the ferry,” Flynn said, leaning back in his seat. “Because I don’t think you’re being straight with me.”

Kurt’s eyes flashed with anger. “Unless you’re going to charge me, you can’t keep me here. I know my rights.”

“You may want to brush up on them,” Flynn said, annoyed by the arrogance. “I have every right to keep you here until I’m satisfied you weren’t involved in the incident with Ryan Simmons.”

Kurt laughed, but there was a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. “That’s not right, is it?” He turned to look at the sergeant. “You can’t just keep me here.”

Before the sergeant could answer, Flynn stood. He needed to be decisive or he’d lose face in front of the superintendent. Hopefully the sergeant would back him up.

“Is there a cell free?” Flynn asked, eyes on the sergeant as he asked the redundant question. The cells were almost always empty.

Sergeant Proctor remained expressionless. After what felt like an eternity, he nodded. “Take your pick. ”

“Come with me,” Flynn said to a dumbstruck Kurt.

“You can’t be serious?”

“I’m very serious.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” he complained as he stood.

“Then you probably won’t need to stay long.” He opened the door to the back, and let Kurt pass him before he glanced at the Sergeant.

“Come into my office after you’ve dealt with him,” he said, in a tone that made Flynn question whether he’d made a huge mistake in detaining Kurt.

Ten minutes later, Flynn walked into Sergeant Proctor’s office. He ended his conversation with the superintendent at the sight of Flynn.

“You realise you can’t keep him locked up until you figure out who cut Ryan’s hose?” the sergeant said.

Ignoring the superintendent’s steely gaze, Flynn took a seat. “I can if I can figure it out in the next couple of hours.”

“That seems overly optimistic,” the superintendent said, before turning his attention to the sergeant. “I told you it’d be best to hand this over to the experts. Get a couple of detectives over here and you’ll have it sorted out in no time.”

The sergeant’s demeanour remained relaxed, but Flynn caught the irritation in the twitch of his cheek.

“Since it’s not usually possible for us to access specialists, we get pretty good at figuring things out for ourselves.

Policing is different over here. We have to be versatile.

PC Grainger has proven to be good at that. ”

“It doesn’t seem like it so far.” The superintendent narrowed his eyes. “Was there a reason you chose to interview the suspect out in the reception area? Anyone could have walked in.”

“We don’t get many people walking in,” Flynn said. “I thought there was more chance of him letting his guard down out there.”

“That plan didn’t work too well.”

Flynn’s jaw was so tense it was painful and he forced himself not to respond. The superintendent was looking for faults and Flynn losing his cool would give him exactly what he wanted.

“What do you want to do?” the sergeant asked.

“I’m not sure.” Flynn hung his head, trying to focus enough to get his thoughts straight. “I should probably speak to Benji.”

“What about the guy with the gambling problem?” the superintendent said. “He definitely sounded suspicious to me.”

Flynn shook his head. “He didn’t sound at all suspicious when I spoke to him. He swore he’d never put someone in danger while diving and I believed him.”

“Liars often are very convincing,” the superintendent argued.

“I really don’t think it was him.”

“How many people were in the water at the time?” the superintendent asked, a note of impatience in his voice.

“Seven. Not including the victim.”

“I really can’t see how it’s so difficult to figure this out then. Talk me through all the suspects.”

“It wasn’t Kit or Seren,” Flynn mused. “And it wasn’t Lily. That only leaves four suspects. I should be able to figure this out.” He was muttering, speaking to himself more than anything.

“How did you rule those three out?” the superintendent asked.

“They’re my friends. I know them.”

“That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have done it. Don’t let personal feelings cloud your judgement.”

“I’m not,” Flynn said, through clenched teeth. “But I can tell you for a fact it wasn’t any of them.”

“This is why someone from the mainland would have been better suited to look into this,” he said, eyes on the sergeant.

“No. Flynn’s right. His judgement isn’t clouded. Knowing the people involved gives him an advantage.”

“How long will you let me keep Kurt here for?” Flynn asked the sergeant.

He checked his watch. “Two hours, then we’ll have to let him go.”

“Okay.” He stood in a rush. “I need to go and speak to a few people.”

The sergeant nodded his approval. “Let me know as soon as you find anything out.”

“Will do,” he said, then shot from the room. He needed space to get his head straight. It was impossible to think of anything around the superintendent.

Outside, he took a lungful of fresh air and gave himself a mental talking to.

If he had any chance of proving himself to the superintendent, he needed to figure this one out.

And he only had two hours to do it.