Page 73 of Washed Up

‘Now you’re catching on,’ he said, popping the cork with a quick twist of his hands.

‘Clever,’ she said. ‘But risky.’

‘Risky?’

‘Yes. I don’t want to alarm you, but it entirely rests on the quality of the picnic.’

Jake snorted. ‘Then I have nothing to worry about.’

Frankie frowned at him, confused.

‘Oh I’m not being cocky, trust me.’

‘Betty made it, didn’t she?’ said Frankie, laughing.

He grinned. ‘Damn straight. I make terrible sandwiches.’

‘Thank God. Please tell me you got crab.’

‘I got crab. Dig in.’

And like a magician he reached into the basket with a flourish, producing two of the fattest crab sandwiches Frankie had ever seen. Betty’s sandwiches were famous on the island, the perfect ratio of thick-cut soft white bread to real Guernsey butter, filled with the most delicious freshly made crab mayonnaise. She took a bite of the pillowy soft sandwich and closed her eyes. ‘Delicious,’ she said.

‘Definitely,’ said Jake, in a voice that made her open them again. He was watching her eat. It was a little unnerving.

‘I meant the sandwich,’ she said, trying to make light of it.

Jake nodded. ‘Oh yes, me too,’ he said, but his green eyes were intense.

‘That’s okay, then.’

They ate in silence, Frankie suddenly self-conscious. This was ridiculous. It was Jake. She’d known him for years but in this moment, he was like a stranger. Had she really kissed him like that? It seemed a lifetime ago in some ways, but she would never forget the way her body had tingled at his touch.

Jake cleared his throat as if searching for something to say.

Frankie filled the silence in the end, with her go-to Belvoir Bay fact. ‘Did you know that a young boy was drowned here in the 1500s with his schoolteacher?’

Jake blinked.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, ploughing on. ‘A strange choice of subject matter for a picnic, maybe.’

‘Not at all, I always love to talk about death on a date.’

Frankie laughed. ‘Good. We’ll get along fine then.’ A date.

‘Do go on,’ said Jake.

‘It was a lad called Walter St John. He was only about twelve. He and his friends came down for a swim with their teacher and both the teacher and Walter drowned.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘I know. He was royalty maybe, or at least, from a noble family, I guess that’s probably the only reason it got recorded. The really sad thing is that they were staying at Castle Cornet and had only come over to Herm for a day or two. Walter had stayed up all night the night before because he was so excited to come to Herm with his father. Isn’t that tragic?’

Jake was frowning out to sea. ‘Here? How could anyone drown here? It’s like the safest beach ever.’

‘That’s the weird thing about it,’ said Frankie, warming to her subject. ‘All the witnesses said they got swept out by the tide and caught up in seaweed, but there’s no way that could have happened here, it’s super shallow and clear. The most likely theory is that the bay and the coastline have changed since then.’

‘Changed how?’