LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      “It’s starting to look promising out there; will you be fishing this afternoon, then, John?”

      John smiled up at the waitress who’d just brought him his lunch. Katy was a sweet girl, but for all that she’d been born and brought up on the island, she didn’t have an eye for the weather. The clouds scudding across a deep-blue sky were bringing more rain, and although that wouldn’t stop him from fishing, the wind carrying them would make putting out to sea difficult.

      “Not today, no.” He picked up his knife and fork and prodded at three miniature carrots on the edge of his plate, looking even smaller next to the pile of chips and the generous piece of homemade chicken and vegetable pie. “Did these shrink when you cooked them, lassie?”

      Katy giggled, tossing her head so that her long ponytail of dark-brown hair swung jauntily. “It’s her idea, is that. Thinks the tourists appreciate a bit of style. It’s that nouvelle cuisine.”

      John sighed. Stella Duncan was a fine woman, and she’d done wonders turning a small, dingy shop selling ice cream and postcards into a well-lit, airy tourist trap with a thriving restaurant attached, but sometimes she got just a little too ambitious. John recalled the night he’d strolled into the Eilean Bay Restaurant and Bar, wanting nothing more than a ham sandwich and a pint of bitter, only to find that it was Caribbean Night and the menu consisted of searingly spicy food with sticky fruit cocktails made from -- as far as he could gather from one cautious -- tinned pineapple juice and one hell of a lot of rum in place of a decent ale. He pushed the carrots aside in mute protest and reached for the bottle of ketchup before Stella came out of the kitchen and whisked it away for being too common.

      “The ferry’s coming in,” Katy remarked, hitching her hip onto the table and staring out the large window with the air of one who has nothing to do. John started to count silently. He’d reached four when Stella appeared in the doorway and gave the back of Katy’s head a fierce glare which fifty years had honed to a weapon.

      “And is it a holiday you’re wanting, Katy? A long holiday with nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs because you’re out of work?”

      Katy jerked upright, green eyes wide with appeal, and turned to face her employer. “A holiday? No, Mrs. Duncan! And I wasn’t -- I was just making sure John -- Mr. McIntyre, I mean, had everything he needed.”

      Stella studied her in grim silence and then sniffed disbelievingly. Katy hurried past her, head down, and Stella winked at John, her thin face lightening, before following Katy back into the spotless kitchen.

      John chuckled, shook his head, and applied himself to his food, staring out at the choppy sea as he ate it. The ferry was making its ponderous way across the wide channel separating Traighshee from the mainland, skirting around the smaller island of Iona to the west and stopping there to drop off passengers before reappearing and heading for the dock at EileanBay. John, who amongst other things ran an informal taxi service, timed the last mouthful to coincide with the first passenger off the ferry, and stood, leaving a generous tip for poor Katy, and a plate empty of all but the carrots.

      He made his way into the gift shop, which had a small sign in the window saying “McIntyre’s Taxi. Enquire Within” -- Stella was his auntie’s cousin, and family helped family. So far all the passengers had been locals. There was young Jim Cameron, back from visiting his gran in Oban; and the Holloways, laden with art supplies to be transformed into paintings; and pots for Stella to sell as authentic island crafts, although the pair of them were English, with strong Midland accents even an American tourist couldn’t mistake for a Highland lilt.

      As he watched, the final passenger disembarked, and John smiled, scenting a fare. Hadn’t seen that one before. Even from a distance of a few hundred yards, the man stood out, the battered brown leather jacket and jeans he wore doing nothing to disguise the fact that he was clearly a visitor. In fact, they emphasized it. John was wearing jeans himself, but they were stained white with salt-water and decorated with the odd splotch of oil as he’d spent the morning tinkering with the engine of his boat. This man’s jeans were clean, dark and well-fitting, and his leather jacket, no matter how worn, marked him as a visitor. John, like most men his age on the island, owned a suit for funerals, an oilskin for bad weather, and spent the rest of the time in a shirt and a thick sweater, shedding or adding layers as the seasons changed.

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