“Far from it. I read a book about Harrison once. But I must have missed the Association connection.”

“Well, there it is. The disaster was to have historic consequences, little comfort though that would have been to the fourteen hundred who drowned. The wreck of the Association was finally located in 1967. Cue rival teams of divers swarming all over it in search of treasure. Lots of headlines. Lots of interest. Which naturally I’m hoping will be revived next year. New revelations would do my book no harm at all.”

“Do you expect any?”

“You never know, Mr. Hardy. You never know.”

They had reached the last field before the beach. No daffodils were being cultivated here and there was no hedge beyond it to break the wind that met them full in the face. The bay was a deep scoop out of the coast, the surf surging in round craggy black arms of rock.

“Porth Hellick is a natural sump for wreckage blown in on a sou’wester,” said Metherell. “Imagine what it must have looked like here the morning after the disaster, with bloated corpses dotted across the sand. Sir Clowdisley’s among them, of course. There’s a stone marking the spot where he was found.”

Metherell pointed to a rough granite block set on a plinth at the edge of the beach. They walked across to it and Harding looked down at the inscription.

THIS STONE MARKS THE PLACE WHERE

THE BODY OF ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET

SIR CLOWDISLEY SHOVELL WAS WASHED

ASHORE AFTER HIS FLAGSHIP

H.M.S. ASSOCIATION WAS WRECKED

ON THE GILSTONE ROCKS

ON THE NIGHT OF 22ND OCTOBER 1707

“There’s a rather gruesome legend concerning the discovery of Sir Clowdisley’s corpse,” said Metherell.

“Oh yes?”

“The story goes that a local woman was first on the scene. Taking a fancy to a ring the admiral was wearing, she tried to steal it from the body, couldn’t dislodge it and so cut off the finger along with the ring.”

“A ring?” Harding looked round at Metherell, whose smile had suddenly acquired a mischievous tinge.

“Yes. A rather fine emerald ring, apparently. Set with diamonds.”

Why don’t we put our cards on the table?” Metherell’s smile broadened as he propped one foot on the plinth of the Shovell monument and held Harding’s gaze. “Your name’s Harding, isn’t it, not Hardy? You’re the chap Clive Isbister tells me Barney Tozer’s sent over to buy a cherished family heirloom at tomorrow’s auction. Lot 641. An emerald-and-diamond ring in a starburst box, hallmarked 1704.”

“All right.” Harding summoned some kind of smile himself. “You’ve got me. I’m Tim Harding.”

“The question is: why are you interested in Kerry Foxton?”

“Well, I, er…”

“Would I be right in surmising you were disturbed by the rumours of foul play that reached your ears in Penzance and decided to find out if there was any substance to them?”

“Yes.” Further denial seemed pointless. “You would be right.”

“I quite understand. Barney might not approve. Hence the alias. Well, don’t worry. He won’t hear of our meeting from me. He’s a man even his friends find hard to trust completely. A bit of a chancer, to be brutally honest. But not a murderer.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“As for the ring, you needn’t worry about that either. I shan’t be bidding against you.”

“Do you really think it’s the same ring that was stolen from Shovell’s body?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I don’t. Put simply, it can’t be. I’ll explain why not as we walk back.”

They began to retrace their steps from the beach along the track through the Martyns’ fields. Harding, feeling as relieved as he was embarrassed, listened humbly as Metherell outlined the history of Admiral Shovell’s ring.

“There’s quite a lot we know for certain and a good deal more we can safely infer. The Admiralty sent a man called Edmund Herbert to the islands in 1709 to investigate the possibilities of salvaging the lost vessels. He accomplished little on that score, but his subsequent report did detail the known circumstances of Sir Clowdisley’s death. The ring was certainly missing when the body was found by a search party from one of the surviving ships. Lady Shovell later offered a reward for its return, to no avail. There’s no evidence of an amputated finger, however. The bodies of the captain of the Association and two stepsons of Sir Clowdisley who’d been serving aboard the ship were found nearby. They were buried in Old Town Church, just round the coast from here. But Sir Clowdisley’s body was taken to Plymouth for embalming, then on to London for a full fig state funeral in Westminster Abbey. Nothing more was heard of the ring for nearly thirty years. Then, according to a letter written in the seventeen nineties by Lord Romney, Sir Clowdisley’s grandson, an elderly widow resident on this island confessed on her deathbed to the theft of the ring and asked the parson to return it to the Shovell family, which he duly did. Romney says it was later refashioned as a locket. Its current whereabouts are unknown. But you’ll appreciate it can’t be in that cabinet at Heartsease. And yet the Tozers’ ring does match the description of Sir Clowdisley’s and dates from the right period. It’s quite a conundrum. One which I’ll naturally be exploring in my book.”

“Any idea who the widow was?” Harding asked hesitantly.

“Her name wasn’t Tozer, if that’s what you’re getting at. The Tozers have no Scillonian connections.”

“You’ve checked, have you?”

“Yes. I’ve checked.” They went on in silence for a moment, until the roof of Pregowther Farm came into view ahead of them. Then Metherell added, “It wasn’t Martyn either. In case you’re wondering.”

“How’s Carol?” Metherell asked during the short drive to the boatyard.

“She’s, er… fine,” Harding responded guardedly.

“It surprised me, Barney and her getting together. Not that I knew her very well, but even so…”

“How long did she live on the island?”

“A few years. I used to drop in to her café from time to time. That’s where I first met Kerry. She was very interested in the Association story from the word go. Fatally so, as it turned out.” Metherell sighed. “Some people reckoned Carol taking up with Barney after what happened to Kerry was, well, wrong in some way. You can imagine the gossip. Only after him for his money. Not bothered about her friend. That kind of thing.”

“What did you think?”

“Me? Oh, I took the view that it proved Carol had no doubt it was an accident. She’s hardly likely to have pursued a relationship with Barney if she suspected him of murder, now, is she?”

“I suppose not.”

“The truth is that everyone who was aboard the boat, Ray Trathen apart, is convinced it was an accident. The Martyns will tell you the same. Like a lot of tragedies, there’s no one to blame. It really is as simple as that.”

Several vessels were being worked on in the boatyard. The Jonquil, a handsome blue and white craft propped up on stakes, was receiving attention to its paintwork from two strikingly similar-looking men in dusty boilersuits. The Martyns were both short and broadly built, balding and bearded, with bony, sharp-nosed faces and dark, deep-set eyes. Harding’s impression during Metherell’s round of introductions was that Alf, the greyer and more heavily lined of the two, was the older by quite a few years. He certainly did most of the talking, while Fred stood half a step behind his shoulder and contributed little beyond nods to confirm his brother’s remarks.

Metherell trotted out Harding’s cover story without apparent compunction and Alf expressed their evidently genuine regrets over what had happened.

“First and last time, touch wood, we’ve ever lost a passenger. A real shame. Miss Foxton was a nice girl, really nice. Ain’t that so, Fred?” Fred nodded. “Well, you don’t need me to tell you that, o’ course, you being her friend. Sounds like Mr. Metherell’s given you all the facts. There’s not a lot more to be said. We’d played it by the book. Salvors’ permission. Harbour-master and coastguard notified. Equipment on the boat in good working order. And the weather was as near perfect as you could wish for. The sea was like a millpond that day. Weren’t it, Fred?” Fred nodded. “But it’s when you least expect trouble you get it. We can’t answer for the kit Mr. Tozer brought with him. Divers we know reckon spotting signs of wear and tear on hoses is real tricky. You’ve got to be that particular. Anyhow, worn or not, Miss Foxton’s hose probably snagged on part of the wreck, which she had no business getting into in the first place. We’d have refused to let her dive from our boat with just the one oxygen cylinder if we’d known that was her game. Single air supply inside a wreck is just so risky. Ain’t that right, Fred?” Fred nodded. “You dwell on something like that. Take my word for it. You ask yourself what you could’ve done to stop it going wrong. Not a lot, in this case. That’s the honest answer. But you go on asking yourself. You can’t help it. You can’t ever forget it. Even if you could, there’d be folk to remind you. No offence to you, Mr. Harding. But there it is in a nutshell.”