The Shadowy Horses

by Susanna Kearsley

  It was lovely and quiet, here. Above the calming sound of the water, gurgling over the stones in its shallower places, the only noises I could hear were a whisper of wind high above in the trees and the chirruping calls of small sparrows and chaffinches. The thick, sweet smell of wild garlic swirled around me, and I brushed against a hawthorn bush that scattered small white petals at my feet.

  The footpath itself proved a bit of a challenge. Every now and then it snaked off in several directions, here climbing the steep wall of the ravine, there hugging the murmuring water, in other spots losing itself completely in a clump of gorse and greenery. A railway bridge had spanned the stream at one time, and the soaring brick supports still bore mute testimony to the fact, lending a rather eerie and deserted quality to that stretch of the river, but I was much too busy scrambling over fallen trees and trying not to slip on the wet red clay of the path to take much notice.

  In time, the footpath led me upwards, past an old and creaking wooden mill that shivered with ivy, and I found myself back on the road again. And the road, after ten minutes’ effortless walk, led me straight to the center of Eyemouth.

  I didn’t see the Range Rover in the parking lot of the Ship Hotel—Fabia and Brian must already have been and gone. But I did find David, sitting in the public bar.

  He looked rougher than his usual self, his eyes red-rimmed and dull above the day’s dark growth of beard. Seeing him like that, I felt a pang of sharp emotion that I put down to concern.

  “You ought to be in bed,” I told him, hoisting myself onto a neighboring stool.

  It took him a long moment to register my presence, but eventually he turned and slanted me an unreadable look, and meeting his eyes I was forced to admit that concern wasn’t all I was feeling.

  After what seemed an age, he looked away and shrugged. “Can’t sleep.”

  “Well, that’s not going to help much, is it?” I nodded at the untouched mug of coffee that he cradled in one hand. “You need a Scotch, or something.”

  The blue eyes lost a little of their dullness. “I’ve had two,” he said. “This is meant to be the chaser.”

  “Oh.”

  “Would you like one?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind,” I admitted. “I didn’t get much sleep last night myself.”

  “Got to you, did it?”

  “The ghost? Yes, it did.” I waited while he ordered my coffee, then showed him a rueful smile. “I haven’t been that frightened of the dark since I was a kid, and it was vampires then, not ghosts. Hammer Films,” I explained, to his curious face.

  “Ah. Well, I don’t think that our Sentinel bears any great resemblance to Christopher Lee, so you’ve nothing to worry about.”

  “It isn’t the ghost that frightens me,” I rationalized, “so much as the idea.”

  “Aye, and I’m sure I’ll be leaving the lights on as well, when I’ve had a chance to think about it.” He sounded weary when he said that, reminding me that he’d had other things to frighten him, these past twelve hours.

  My coffee came, and I sipped it, studying his face above the rim of my mug. “How is your mother doing, really?”

  “She’s over the worst of it; that’s what they tell me. They’ll be keeping her in for a while yet, though. Not that they want to,” he told me, with an unexpected grin. “She’s not so bad when she’s tranquilized, but my mother’s aye crabbit in hospital.”

  “Aye crabbit?”

  “Always in a bad temper,” he translated. “Have you not got your dictionary with you the day?”

  “No, I haven’t…” Frowning suddenly, I looked down. “I haven’t even brought my handbag, I’m afraid.”

  David assured me his means were sufficient to cover the cost of my coffee. But he arched a quizzical eyebrow, all the same. “What were you planning on doing in town without your handbag, may I ask?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I attempted a nonchalant shrug that fell short of the mark. “Just out for a bit of a walk, that’s all.”

  He watched me for a moment, thinking. “Adrian’s not here.”

  “No, I know he’s not. He spent the night at Rosehill.”

  “Oh, aye?” The eyebrow lowered, and I cursed myself.

  “On the sitting-room sofa,” I said clearly. “Peter took his car, you see, and he didn’t fancy walking back.”

  “All that way.” David’s face relaxed into a smile that held a hint of mockery.

  “Yes, well. Adrian’s not the walking type.”

  “I had noticed.”

  I watched while he took a drink of coffee, curious in my turn. “You don’t like Adrian much, do you?”

  “He’s all right,” David conceded, with a small dismissive lift of his shoulders. “But he’s sleekit. And you can look that up in your dictionary, when you’ve a mind to.” After a moment’s silence he set the coffee mug down again and swung his gaze back to mine. “So if Adrian’s up at the house, and you’ve not brought your wallet with you, what the devil are you doing at the Ship?”

  It was a blunt question, and a reasonable one, and it left me with no graceful way of escaping an honest answer. I shifted on my stool and cleared my throat. “Well, if you must know, I was rather worried about you. We all were.”

  The blue eyes softened. “Were you, now?”

  “Yes. And I thought you might need somebody to… well, to cheer you up.”

  He stroked a thoughtful hand along his unshaven jaw. “It’s not a job for the fainthearted, cheering me up.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He looked at me, hard, for another long moment, until I felt certain I’d never be able to breathe again. And then he smiled. “But get that down you,” he said, pointing to my coffee, “and we’ll see what we can do.”

  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 t
o 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.”

  “It doesn’t bother Peter?” I asked. “That it’s illegal, I mean.”

  “Och, no, a wee bit of free trading never bothered him, so long as it’s not in drugs or guns. Vodka,” David said, “is hardly something Peter would turn out of his house.”

  I looked with interest at the little harbor, peaceful in the sunshine with the water lapping smooth and innocent against its walls. “Is there much smuggling goes on here, now?”

  David shook his dark head. “Only Brian, that I ken about. In the old days, though—and I do mean the old days, back afore my grandad’s time—nearly everyone had a hand in the business. That’s why they built the old town like they did, all wynds and vennels, twisting lanes. It’s fair impossible to chase a smuggler when the streets don’t run straight. And that house over there,” he told me, warming to his subject, “Gunsgreen, that was a smuggler’s paradise. It’s got tunnels and storage dens built underneath, and every room has two doors—one to the corridor, and one leading into the next room along. So you could leave an exciseman standing in the hallway, pounding at the one door, while you took off through the other rooms and made a clean escape. It’s magic.”

  I’d noticed Gunsgreen House, earlier. It was a landmark, difficult to miss, set just above the harbor opposite the Ship Hotel. It reminded me of the houses I used to build with my blocks, when I was young—a tall square solid structure with no softness anywhere, its yellow walls and gray roof outwardly respectable.

  “Mind how you go,” David warned, putting out a hand to stop me tripping on another cable. “You’ll not cheer me up if you land in the water.”

  I cast a dubious eye at the cold gray surface that, in spite of the fact that the tide was in, still shimmered some distance below us. Stepping cautiously over the cable, I let David shepherd me the few yards across the harbor road and onto the pavement, where walking was safer. A little farther on, I paused for a better view of the long fish market building that hugged the harbor’s edge. It was open to the air, most of it, paved like a parking lot and sheltered by a sturdy roof that rested on squared wooden posts. Open markets never had looked finished to me—as a child, I’d always assumed that the builders had simply forgotten the walls—but at the nearest end of this one, painted metal sheeting closed off one large section. Outside the market, a truck blocked most of the road, and the driver, leaning up against his cab and smoking a cigarette, nodded politely and said “Heyah” as we passed.

  “He’s waiting for the auction,” David told me, when I asked. “It doesn’t start till four o’clock.”

  “What sort of auction?”

  He sent me a patient look, such as a teacher might send a rather thick student. “A fish auction, lass.”

  “Oh.” I twisted my wrist to check the time on my watch. “But it’s nearly a quarter-past three.”

  “So?”

  “Well, there aren’t any boats around, are there? And I don’t see any fish.”

  In truth, the fish market was completely empty; so empty I could see clean through it, between the posts and across the harbor to where Brian’s boat was moored. But David refused to tell me how the miracle of the fishes was to be achieved. Instead he led me past the market, close against the buildings to our right, which opened up from time to time in narrow arching alleyways that offered glimpses of deserted packing yards of brick and concrete, slick with moisture.

  “Right,” he said, “now we can cross back over, here… hang on, you might want to wait for this truck.” One strong arm held me back when I would have stepped into the street. “You’re an accident waiting to happen, you are. Did your mother not teach you to look both ways?” Another truck rattled past us, squeezing through the street, and David relaxed his hold on my shoulder. “All right, come on.”

  The throbbing of the unseen engine was loudest here, at the bottom edge of the harbor. “The ice plant,” David told me, as we turned our backs to the sound and started up along the middle pier.

  I was forced to admit that, in spite of my former skepticism, the term “middle pier” was, in fact, wholly appropriate. It was indeed a true pier, with water on both sides. To the left of us, the harbor lay serene and almost empty, while on my right a mud-walled channel carried what David assured me was the same river that I’d walked along from Rosehill. I didn’t believe him, at first. Down here, within the confines of the narrow channel, the water looked different, its current faintly sluggish, more sedate.

  “I wouldn’t tell you lies,” said David. “That’s the Eye Water. The town takes its name from that wee trickle, ye ken. Our harbor was built round the mouth of the Eye. Mind the nets,” he added, as we drew level with Brian’s boat.

  I smiled. “You sound just like my mother.” But I was careful, all the same, to step around the green and orange mass of netting stretched like some great sleeping beast at the edge of the pier.

  At first glance the Fleetwing seemed deserted, but in response to David’s call a small, wire-limbed man wearing bright yellow brace-and-bib overalls came out on deck and raised a hand in greeting.

  “Heyah, Deid-Banes.” He leaned over the aft end to look at us. “Heard aboot yer mither. Bloody shame. She still in Berwick?”

  “Aye. And don’t you go thinking of burgling the cottage while she’s in hospital, neither.”

  The other man laughed. “Ye’ve no faith, lad. I’m no sae tarry-fingert. And I’d no steal fae yer mither.”

  “You’d steal from yours.”

  “Aye, but I like yer mither better. Were ye wanting something?”

  “Looking for Brian. Is he about?”

  “Nah.” Still chuckling, the wizened man in the overalls lit a cigarette and shook his head. “He’s away the now, the skipper is.”

  “Left you in charge, then, did he? Trusting man.”

  “Aye, well, he cannae trust Mick, so that only leaves me.”

  David tilted his head. “Do I ken Mick?”

  “The new lad, fae Liverpool. Ye dinna wish tae ken that one, Deid-Banes. He’s a nasty wee bugger.”

  “Christ, Billy, coming from you—”

  “Ah’m dead serious.” The older man pulled sharply on his cigarette and the wind caught the smoke, whipping it past his squinting eyes. “The lad’s been up the gaol half his life, and it wisnae fer thieving. I’ll no turn my back tae the bastard.” And then, remembering my presence, he shot me a crooked smile. “Sorry, lass. Ah’m no minding my manners.”

  David folded his arms and looked at him. “Well, now you’ve switched on the charm, you might offer the lass a wee tour round the Fleetwing; show her how a fishing boat works.”

  The other man shrugged helplessly, his teeth clamped round the cigarette. “I cannae do it the day, Deid-Banes. I’m painting the day, and the paint’s no dry yet.”

  I couldn’t see any paint cans on deck, nor smell the faintest whiff of fumes, but David didn’t press the point. He did permit himself a smile, though, as we turned and walked on, up the middle pier. “I kent he
’d say no,” he confessed, “but I wanted to see what excuse he’d come up with. He’s a brilliant liar, is Billy.”

  I tipped my chin up, curious. “What does the ‘Deid-Banes’ mean, exactly? I mean, I know Wally calls you that, sometimes, but…”

  “It’s my bye-name,” he supplied. “A kind of community nickname, if you like. A lot of folk have bye-names, here in Eyemouth.”

  “Why?”

  “Helps to tell us apart, for one thing. When you’ve more than one David Fortune running about, things get a bit confusing.”

  I was openly intrigued. “Is there more than one David Fortune?”

  “Oh, aye, there’d be four of us, I think. Or was it five?” He narrowed his eyes, thinking, “No, just the four. My Uncle David, and my cousin—he’s a few years younger—and then there was another David Fortune at school with me. If I traced the family history back I’d no doubt find he’s a cousin as well. But we’re nothing compared to the Dougals,” he added. “You can’t spit in town without hitting a Dougal.”

  “So how does one get a nickname, then?”

  “Different ways. I was always digging things up as a lad, playing at being an archaeologist, so my grandad called me ‘Deid-Banes’—dead bones—and it stuck. He’d have called me plain ‘Bones’ if he’d had his way, but there’s a Bones already in Eyemouth, and a Young Bones.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “Some of the bye-names are more obscure, ye ken. There was Deddy; don’t know where that came from. And Pamfy and Racker and Duffs. Now Duffs,” he explained, with a broad smile, “that came down from a lad who worked as a cook on a fishing boat. All he kent how to make was plum duff, so Duffs he became. His daughter got the bye-name, too, and I think her son still gets it sometimes.”