LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      AS TROY strode down the long concrete wharf in his rubber boots, his canvas bag slung over one shoulder, the sea wind tugged at his hair; Seawind had been the name of the sloop he’d been skippering in the Virgin Islands when he’d first met Lucy.

      A tangle of dried seaweed cracked under his boots. He glanced down, his nerves strung tight as catgut. He might look just like another tourist on holiday. But he wasn’t a tourist. His only reason for being here was to go and see Lucy. Although this time not in an immaculate yacht. Unless he was mistaken, one of the workmanlike Cape Islanders clustered at the very end of the wharf was going to take him to his destination.

      From the flat deck of a boat called Four Angels a man of about forty with a weathered face called, “You goin’ to Shag Island?”

      “That’s right.”

      “Come on aboard, then. Hand yer gear down to Gus, and watch yer step.”

      Although Gus looked about fourteen, he swung Troy’s heavy bag down on to the deck with agility. Troy climbed down the metal rungs set into the side of the wharf and felt the gunwale dip under his weight. Four Angels was even less prepossessing up close than she had been at a distance—her anchors rusty, her deck stained with the debris of years of fishing. But as Clarence, her skipper, introduced himself he gave Troy a broad smile, his blue eyes twinkling. Her engine started with a well-bred purr and she backed between two other boats into the open water with a precision Troy could appreciate.

      There was another man sharing the deck with him, an elderly man with a crop of salt-white hair. Troy smiled at him and said, “My name’s Troy Donovan. Are you staying at the Seal Bay Inn as well?”

      “Hubert Woollner.” A pair of eyes as fierce as a falcon’s stared at him beneath bushy brows. “I own my own place on the south end of the island. Near the lighthouse.”

      “Come on, Hubert,” Clarence interjected. “You own the whole darn island, from the lighthouse to the cliffs—tell the truth, now.”

      “Steer the boat, Clarence, and mind your own business.”

      Hubert had spoken without rancor. Clarence chuckled. “You are my business. The way fishin’ is these days, it’s a good thing I got this here ferry service to fall back on. Gotta feed the family somehow.”

      “The boat’s named after Clarence’s family,” Hubert said to Troy. “A touch of poetic license.”

      “Named after the wife and me three daughters. Not that they’re always angels. You married, Mr Donovan?”

      “Yes,” Troy said, and waited for someone to ask if Lucy Donovan was his wife.

      But Clarence was following his own train of thought. “Then you know what I’m talkin’ about. There’s days I think I should’ve named her Four Devils. But there wouldn’t be much luck callin’ a boat that, now, would there? So Four Angels she is, and more power to her.” With a flourish he spat over the gunwales and revved up the engine. The bow bit into the waves, the wake bubbled from the stern and the wharf fell back behind them.

      For a moment Troy forgot about Lucy and the purpose of his visit in the sheer pleasure of being on the sea again; in the last year and a half he’d lost his enthusiasm for sailing. Then Hubert asked, “Did you come for the long-billed dowitcher?”

      “The who?” said Troy.

      “So you’re not a birder?” Hubert said sternly.

      “I know a duck from a pelican,” Troy remarked, raising his voice over the roar of the engine and the hissing of the sea. He’d always been more interested in snorkeling and diving in the Caribbean than in the birds.

      “Humph. So you wouldn’t know what a shag is, then?”

      A long ago crossword clue flickered through Troy’s memory. “A fish like a herring,” he hazarded.

      “That’s a shag. See that bird flying low over the water?” Obligingly Troy looked to starboard, seeing a black bird with a skinny neck flapping madly away from Four Angels. “That’s a shag,” Hubert went on. “It’s the local name for a cormorant—in this case an immature double-crested cormorant. What made you come to Shag Island if you’re not a birder?”

      Amused by this inquisition, Troy prevaricated, “I needed a holiday. I work in a crowded hospital in a big city and a few days on an island sounded like heaven.”

      “If you’re staying a few days, Keith’ll fix you up with a pair of binoculars. Keith McManus owns the inn. Doesn’t have much to say for himself, but he knows his birds.”

      This was clearly high praise. “Is it a one-man operation, then?” Troy asked with low cunning.

      “Anna helps out—his wife. They’ve got a hired girl this summer as well.” For a moment the fierce old eyes softened. “A real beauty, she is.”

      Spreading his feet on the deck and absently noticing that he’d never lost his sea-legs, Troy said, “And what’s her name?”

      “Lucy Barnes,” said Hubert.

      With another of the explosions of rage that seemed to haunt him these days Troy realized that no one had connected his name with Lucy’s because Lucy was no longer using his name. She’d reverted to her maiden name. As if, he thought savagely, he, Troy, didn’t exist. As though her marriage was better forgotten.

      Hubert was still talking. “…myself if I was forty years younger. You’ll meet her if you’re staying for a while. She and Mrs Mossop take turns with the cooking.”

      Lucy had been the cook on Seawind. “Who else lives on the island?” Troy asked.

      “Mrs Mossop—she’s a widow. Myself. Quentin—he’s an artist; he puts big globs of paint on a canvas and calls it Untitled Composition and the critics rave over it. This new-fangled stuff they call art; I can’t give it the time of day.”

      Four Angels had rounded a headland and was headed due west. On the horizon lay a long island—the small pinnacle of a lighthouse at one end, cliffs rearing from the sea like the blunt head of a whale from the other. Filling his nostrils with clean salt air, Troy asked, “Is that Shag Island?”

      “That’s it.”

      “Not very many people for the size of the island.”

      “I keep the numbers low because of the petrels,” Hubert said.

      “Petrol?” Troy repeated, puzzled.

      Hubert raised his brows heavenwards. “Petrels are birds. Leach’s storm petrels nest on the southern end of the island. So I don’t allow cats on the island and we use a dory to go from this boat to shore, to do away with the possibility of rats. There aren’t any racoons or foxes to prey on them. Too many humans would be just as bad. I decided a long time ago that we’re the most destructive species there is. So I won’t let Keith expand the inn.”

      “How do you keep the guests at the inn from doing any damage?”

      “That’s one of Lucy’s jobs. I pay

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