Deep Water Read Online Free PDF

creek. ‘How deep is it out there, Mrs Pauling?’
    ‘Please call me Andrea, Justin. I’d guess fifteen feet right now, but who knows for sure.’
    ‘Not enough water for a German sub to creep in.’ Justin sounded disappointed.
    ‘Why would a sub want to?’ asked Leo, with a trace of anxiety.
    ‘To land spies or commandos, twit-face.’
    Leo looked doubtful. ‘What would they want to blow up in a quiet place like this?’
    ‘They’d land here because it’s quiet. And they’d bring bicycles to get to their targets.’ Justin said this with such impressive conviction that Leo was silenced.
    Andrea managed to laugh. ‘Good thing it’s too shallow.’
    ‘It’ll be deeper near the sea,’ said Justin.
    As they skirted heather-clad Goonhilly Downs, Andrea did not mention the Bronze Age barrows in case Leo lectured her on the embarrassment of having a schoolteacher for a mother. Instead she said she had brought his bicycle to Cornwall and purchased another for Justin’s use.
    ‘I’m afraid yours is a woman’s, Justin,’ she added, still distressed that he had called Leo ‘twit-face’. She had been moved to tears, on first hearing that Leo had been big-hearted enough to invite Justin to Cornwall, despite their former disagreements. ‘I’ll need to ride it, too,’ she warned. The thoughtof Justin’s loss brought a lump to her throat. If he turned out awkward at times, who could be surprised?
    A rope was flapping against the suitcase on the roof, so Andrea stopped. After making minor adjustments to the knots, she was ready to drive on; but, by then, the boys had wandered to the end of a stone barn. Across a field of newly sown spring corn, the land dropped away to a sheet of shimmering water. Leo and Justin were staring at the estuary, mesmerised.
    ‘Can we get a boat, mum?’
    ‘I’ll look into it.’
    Leo turned to Justin, ‘My dad taught me to sail before his leg went bad.’
    ‘He took you out a few times in a sail boat, Leo. That’s all. Maybe there’s a club some place near, where you can take lessons.’ Leo looked crushed. To cheer him Andrea enthused about the nearest sandy beach, without mentioning the barbed wire defences.
    The brick villa Peter had rented was neither pretty nor quaintly rustic. Just outside the hamlet of Trevean Barton, it stood at the end of a rutted lane, slightly apart from the older granite cottages. In the neglected garden, daffodils and a laburnum tree in flower banished any sense of desolation.
    ‘Why isn’t dad here?’ demanded Leo, clumping up the stairs behind his mother, his knee-length socks down by his ankles.
    ‘There’s been some minor problem with his roadway . But he’ll be back from Falmouth soon.’ Leomust not know how upset she was that the tests on the roadway were running almost a fortnight late.
    Leo’s room was no bigger than a horse’s loose box, just large enough to hold a washstand, chair, chest of drawers and bed. Justin was to have the larger attic room with a view of the estuary.
    ‘Sorry about the wallpaper,’ said Andrea, frowning at the faded pattern of pink bows and posies.
    She showed them the bathroom with its claw-foot bath and copper geyser that had left a rusty stain on the chipped enamel. ‘It roars like a locomotive letting off steam.’ She hoped for a laugh but got only a faint smile from Leo. Their flashes of enthusiasm and contrasting moodiness reminded her of their ups and downs during half-term.
    The house was not as primitive as she had anticipated . Expecting paraffin lamps, she had been surprised by the flickering electric light powered by a generator at the nearest farm. But there was no refrigerator and an ancient oil-burner served for a stove. The telephone, installed by the navy for Peter, was a rarity in the village. For three weeks, Peter had been looked after by a local girl, who had managed to obtain eggs, milk and butter from the farm in scandalously large quantities without recourse to coupons. But