Ruby felt guilt wash over her, but rather than say the right thing, she said exactly the wrong thing. She regretted it as soon as she uttered the words and saw him flinch.
Clancy didn’t reply, his face said it all, and Ruby, she just turned and left the diner, not once looking back.
By the time she made it home she had a horrible little voice jabbering in her ear, telling her what a crummy friend she was. She ignored it, and instead allowed the white noise of her busy brain to block it out. Up in her room she turned on the mini cassette player and pulled on her headphones. The awful music played on and did nothing to ease her mind.
Then at about half past four that morning she got it.
1. She still holds her secret
2. She lies where the toes of the sisters meet
3. She won’t be accessible for long – act swiftly
The toes of the sisters
WHEN SHE FELT SURE SHE WAS RIGHT, when she was positive the code worked, that what she was putting together made sense, Ruby went down to find Hitch.
It was 5.05am on Saturday morning and he was sitting in the kitchen drinking a very strong-looking cup of coffee. He watched her as she placed the cassette player on the table. She pressed the play button and out scritched the unharmonious sound.
When the piece was through, Ruby took out various pieces of paper, placing them in front of Hitch in order:
First the musical score.
Then the score marked with letters underneath the notes. Once he had taken in how it all worked, Hitch nodded and Ruby laid more papers on the table, each one delivering another short instruction.
He looked at them for a long while, reading the messages over and over.
Finally, Hitch spoke.
‘This “she” that they’re talking about, got any ideas who it might be?’
‘Uh huh,’ Ruby replied.
Hitch looked up, his left eyebrow raised. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I reckon she’s a wreck, an old wreck,’ said Ruby.
‘You better not be talking about me,’ called Mrs Digby as she bustled through the room, bucket in hand – in one door and out the other.
‘Never would!’ Ruby shouted after her. They continued to talk, but with their voices hushed slightly: the housekeeper had sharp ears.
‘The eighteenth-century wreck of the Seahorse to be precise,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve been reading up about it and I found an obscure account by some old guy called Featherstone which describes the night of the shipwreck as Martha Fairbank told it. She insisted the ship went down somewhere near the Sibling Islands.’
‘Even though every other account says it couldn’t have?’ said Hitch.
‘Yes,’ nodded Ruby.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘So tell me your theory.’
‘We start by assuming that the Seahorse did go down where Martha said it did,’ said Ruby. ‘Where the toes of the sisters meet – the toes of the sisters are the twenty small rocks sticking straight out of the sea a quarter-mile from the islands; the wild currents make it difficult and dangerous to navigate round them.’
‘The toes of the sisters?’ said Hitch.
‘Lots of people used to call the Sibling Islands the sisters in those days; the smaller rocks were called the toes – it’s to do with that old legend about them.’
‘What old legend?’ asked Hitch.
Ruby waved her hand impatiently. ‘I’ll tell you some other time – it’s not relevant to this. What I’m trying to say is that if the wreck sank somewhere in that channel between the rocks and the Sibling Islands, then this explains why the pirates are trying to keep boats out of the Sibling waters or anywhere too close to the islands. They block coastguard signals and redirect cargo shipping way off course – if a pleasure boat comes by, they steal what they want and cut them adrift. It makes for good cover – makes it all seem random and about looting cash rather than premeditated and to do with 200-year-old treasure.’
‘But why now?’ said Hitch. ‘Why look for treasure that may not even be there, in a wreck that has been submerged for 200 years?’
‘Because now they can,’ said Ruby. ‘The currents are calm for the first time in living memory, so it’s actually possible to dive the wreck.’
‘But this theory presupposes that the pirates knew this was going to happen, or made it happen somehow.’
‘Yes,’ said Ruby.
‘They made it happen?’ said Hitch. ‘This band of pirates know how to quell the tides?’
‘No, but they knew it would happen.’
‘How?’
‘Because of something which happens once in a blue moon,’ said Ruby, ‘something that happens every 200 years.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Hitch.
‘In her account Martha Fairbank described a “falling star” and how the pirates “floated to the island on a raft”. They couldn’t have done that unless the seas were still. The falling star was an asteroid, the same asteroid, the same falling star that we’re seeing.’
‘YKK whatever-it-is?’
‘YKK 672, yes. Well, that’s what’s stopping the currents. It has to do with gravity. Anyone who knew when it was coming back into orbit would know that they could swim the waters and dive the wreck then.’
‘OK,’ said Hitch, ‘but is it likely that these guys would know all this? Aren’t they more brawn than brain? I can’t see the thugs your mother described looking this stuff up in the local library.’
‘I agree,’ said Ruby, ‘which is why I think that guy my mom described – the nicely turned out fellow who was in with the pirates but not like the pirates – has to be the brains behind all this, or at least some of the brains behind all this.’
Hitch nodded. ‘You have to wonder what a clean-cut guy was doing with a bunch of bandits.’
‘Another thing’s still bugging me about all this,’ said Ruby. ‘That treasure might be worth finding, but if Martha was telling the truth, and I think she was, the priceless part of it, I mean the really priceless part, is not underwater at all; it’s hidden in a cave inside one of the Sibling Islands. A cave lost under a rockslide. If
