The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

Author:Susanna Kearsley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2012-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

What we did, in the end, was go outside in search of fresher air.

On the quayside, in front of the Ship Hotel, David bent for a moment to tie a shoelace while I dug my hands in my pockets and looked around.

I’d never seen the harbor when the fishing fleet was out. It didn’t look at all forlorn, as I’d expected. Instead it had the peaceful and serene demeanor of a housewife who, having finished her day’s labors, had found an hour of freedom in the absence of her family, and had settled down happily to enjoy herself.

Not that the “family” was entirely absent. Three boats, at least, had stayed behind, and from the far end of the harbor came the strong persistent throbbing of an engine, competing with the shrill cries of the herring gulls that dipped and wheeled above our heads.

“Which boat is Brian’s?” I asked David, and he raised his head from his crouching position, scanning along the narrow length of the harbor.

“That one,” he identified it. “Second up along the middle pier.”

The middle pier, I gathered from the direction of his nod, was the long bit running parallel to us, on the far side of the harbor, though why it should be called the middle pier escaped me, as it didn’t appear to be in the middle of anything. Of the three boats moored there, Brian’s was the biggest—a bright red monster of a fishing boat with Fleetwing freshly painted on its prow.

Still, it looked frightfully small when one thought of the sea that it had to battle, for all those days on end. I shrugged off an involuntary shudder, glad that I wasn’t a fisherman.

David stood and flexed his shoulders. “Want to walk around and take a look? I no ken whether any of the lads are working on the boat the day, but…”

“Brian might be there himself,” I told him. “He and Fabia were coming down to unload some things from the boat, I think.”

“Is that why she wanted the Range Rover, then? She came and got the keys a while back, but she didn’t tell me what for.” Whistling a snatch of some unrecognizable tune, he shortened his stride to match mine, and put out a hand to steer me around a thick black cable coiled like a snake upon the quayside. I shot him a questioning glance.

“He smuggles, I take it?”

The whistling died as David grinned. “D’ye work for the Customs and Excise?”

“No.”

“Well then, it’s best to keep your head tucked down, lass, in a place like this.” But he yielded to my curiosity, nonetheless. “He has a friend of sorts, does Brian, in one of the Baltic ports. Poland, maybe. I’m not sure. Since the Berlin Wall came down it’s not so hard to get things from that corner of the world.”

“Like Peter’s vodka,” I suggested.

“Aye. It’s what our Brian carries, mostly. Peter lets him use the cellars at Rosehill for storage, till Brian’s mate comes through with his truck. So Peter gets a bottle or two every month, in return.

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