Forest saw the concern in Huck’s face and it made him feel ashamed. Huck would only worry about him more if he told him about the Business. But if Jesse had been running the drug business, then it might well be connected to Forest’s death.

Suddenly he felt a bit lighter. He was right – pretending to be Forest had unearthed a clue about the real Forest’s death! He just couldn’t share it with Huck yet.

‘I found the cave. I need you to tell me again what happened to Forest Dempsey – every detail.’

‘You went there?’ cried Huck, dropping his cigarette.

‘I didn’t go inside!’ said Forest hurriedly. ‘I just went to have a look. I needed to know how to get there, without the map, in case it ever comes up.’

Huck pulled another cigarette from his pocket. ‘Well, you know what there is to know. I don’t like talking about it. Jesse Dempsey trapped me, his wife and his son in that cave. The tide rose, they drowned, I escaped.’ He shivered. ‘And now Forest’s ghost follows me everywhere.’

Forest nodded. It was tough getting Huck to open up about this sort of stuff, to say the least. It was no good rushing him.

He sat himself down on the rocks beside his friend, watching the waves as they swelled around the rocks. In the pool beside him a crab crawled, picking its way over the rock face. Forest imagined being trapped in a cave as it slowly filled with water, as Alexandra and the real Forest had been. It spoke to some deep fear inside him – the terror of it threatened to suffocate him. He hoped he never had reason to actually go inside that cave – he didn’t think he’d be able to manage it.

‘And you don’t know where Jesse went after that?’ Forest asked.

‘All I know is that me and Dad got blamed for what happened.’

‘But what about the other cave? The Treasure Cave?’

‘Don’t talk about that!’ snarled Huck. ‘It’s cursed.’

‘But that’s part of it, right? You said it was why Jesse tried to kill you three?’ He thought of what he’d just learned. Was it part of the drug operation? Perhaps Alexandra Dempsey had had a moment just like the one Shelby had today, discovering that her husband was a drug dealer. ‘Did he . . . store something in that cave?’

‘I dunno, do I? He tried to kill me. I was hardly going to stick around to figure out why.’

Huck shivered, glancing around him. Forest had the disconcerting sense that Huck could hear something that wasn’t there.

‘When are you gonna give up this act? You need to stop pretending to be Forest.’

‘Not until your name is cleared,’ said Forest sharply. ‘So it’d help if you helped.’