The Shadowy Horses

by Susanna Kearsley

  Wrinkling my nose, I hopped over another coiled fishing net. “So women get bye-names as well?”

  “Oh, aye. If you’d been married to Duffs, you’d have been Verity Duffs.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I assured him.

  David smiled. “That’s not nearly as bad as my mother’s bye-name.”

  “What, Granny Nan?”

  He shook his head. “Granny Nan’s not her bye-name, lass. That’s just what Robbie calls her—Robbie and a few others. No, she hates her bye-name. Call her by it and you’re asking to get your teeth knocked down your throat.” He glanced down at me, his smile broadening. “And you can stop looking at me like that, because I’m not going to tell you what it is. It’d be more than my life is worth.”

  “She’s fierce, is she, your mother?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Encouraged by his openness, and the growing ease of our companionship, I chanced another question. “Your dad was a fisherman, wasn’t he?”

  “Aye, so they tell me. I can’t really mind him. I have this memory of a big man in a gansey—a guernsey, you call it in England—that always smelt of fish; but that might not have been my dad. Everyone smelt of fish, in our house. My grandad was a cadger.”

  “Oh,” I nodded sagely. “Sort of a traveling fish-salesman, you mean.”

  We’d come to the end of the middle pier. A sharp right turn would have taken us over the Eye Water by a small metal drawbridge, then on around the lifeboat station to the looming bulk of Gunsgreen House. But David chose instead to lean his elbows on the bright red railing at the pier’s end, and study my innocent face.

  “Been sleeping with that dictionary, have you?” he asked, in a tone laced thick with amusement. “How d’ye ken what a cadger is?”

  “Well, I had to look up ‘ca’ canny’ the other day, and ‘cadger’ is right on the same page, so I thought I might as well memorize it, too.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “‘Ca’ canny’?”

  “Yes. It means to take care, or be cautious.”

  “Aye, I ken fine what it means. Why’d you need to look it up?”

  I shrugged, and leaned in my turn on the railing. “Wally said it, last week. When Jeannie went out in the car. I don’t know where she was going, but Wally told her to ‘ca’ canny along that road.’ And I just wondered what it meant.”

  “You could have asked.”

  “I don’t like asking all the time. Besides,” I pointed out, “my dictionary works just fine. I did know what a cadger was.”

  “Aye, so you did.” He smiled a little and turned his face forward again, looking across to the harbor’s shielded entrance. Every now and then a stiff gust of wind caught the swirl of the sea and tossed a mist of white spray over the barrier wall. I could faintly taste the salt from where I stood, and smell the cleanly biting scent of the cold North Sea. The smell of fish was fainter still, but for David, at least, it stirred memories. “He had a small business, my grandad did, selling fish up north, around Edinburgh. Mostly miners up there, in those days, with large families. Two pieces of fish to the pound was no use to them—they wanted ten pieces, to feed all those mouths. And that meant whiting. Ever clean a whiting?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “Bloody awful things.” He grinned. “My grandad used to come to auction every day, to get his boxes of whiting, and every day when I got home from school I’d have to help to fillet them. Got a bit of a break at the weekend. There were no fish bought over the weekend, ye ken, so we didn’t have to face the whiting till Monday teatime. But then the shed would be full of boxes again.”

  “Even in winter?”

  “Oh, aye. Only in winter it got so cold we’d be standing on an old filleting board to keep off the floor, with rags soaked in boiling water laid across our wellies to keep our toes from freezing, and bowls of boiling water to dip our fingers in to keep them working. Christ,” he shuddered at the recollection. “I hated working at the fish. We’d all get so cheesed off that we’d stop talking, after the first hour or so. Nothing to do but count the fish. Used to be two hundred and thirty-seven whiting,” he informed me, “in a six-stone box. They’ve changed the weights now, but that’s what it used to be.”

  I propped one foot on the red-painted railing and followed his gaze out to sea. “Is that what put you off being a fisherman?”

  “Not really. You’re either born to the sea or you’re not, and I’m not. My mother kent that, early on. She always tells the story of how Peter caught me digging up the garden, and said I was born to be an archaeologist.”

  “And he was right.”

  “He usually is.”

  It was a simple statement of fact, and I stayed silent a moment, thinking about the excavation at Rosehill. About the disappearance of the Ninth Legion, all those years ago, and about a ghostly presence that last night might have said nona…

  A white shape glided silently beneath us, and I looked down, startled. No ghost, I reassured myself, but something just as strange. “David, look!”

  “Oh, aye, the swan. I wondered where he’d got to.”

  “Do you mean he actually lives here? Here, in the harbor?”

  The bird cocked its head at the sound of my voice, and having surveyed me with one round uncertain eye, turned smoothly and floated back underneath the little red drawbridge, seeking the relative security of the channel.

  “He’s magnificent,” I said.

  “Aye.” David watched the bird’s sleek figure disappearing underneath the bridge.

  “Does he have a mate?”

  “Not yet. There was a female here, a few years back, but she only stayed a fortnight. She couldn’t seem to settle down to life inside the harbor.” He turned his head and met my gaze unhurriedly. “And he’s well stuck here now, that lad. Too old to change his ways.”

  He’d only moved his head, I thought, and yet I felt as though the space between us had grown smaller. I felt suddenly aware of just how near he was, of how little effort it would take to move toward him, feel his warmth… to raise my hand and touch the hard unshaven contours of his face…

  His eyes flicked down toward my lips, and back again, a smile in their depths. “Ca’ canny along that road,” he told me gently.

  But he wasn’t warning me off. No, I decided with growing amazement, watching the smile spread slowly from his blue eyes to his mouth; he wasn’t giving me a warning. He was issuing a challenge.

  And I was already beginning to respond to it, leaning forward, my pulse increasing crazily, when an unexpected shadow fell between us.

  “Hello,” said Adrian. “I thought I’d find you here.”

  Chapter 22

  I wasn’t thrilled to see him. It must have shown plainly on my face when I glanced round, but Adrian took no notice. He was doing his dog-in-the-manger again, and his eyes were not on me, but on David.

  “God, you look awful,” he said, with characteristic tact. “You ought to be in bed.”

  I caught the uncharacteristic gleam of mischief deep in David’s eyes as his gaze swung meaningfully to me. Leaning back against the red-painted railing, he folded his arms across his wide chest and turned to Adrian. “Plenty of time for that, yet.”

  One could almost hear the slap of a gauntlet thrown down upon the pier. Adrian smiled smoothly and raised his chin a fraction, measuring the challenge.

  I frowned at him. “You don’t look very wonderful yourself, you know. Or haven’t you seen a mirror recently?”

  Adrian, being somewhat more appearance-conscious than David, had showered and shaved, and his clothes and hair were as sleekly neat as ever, but his face looked rather ravaged. It was the wrong color, and his bloodshot eyes had pouches underneath. “My dear girl,” he said smoothly, “if you will insist on keeping me up until all hours of the night�
��”

  Oh, no you don’t, my lad, I thought. Tipping my head up, I showed him a smile that was dangerously sweet. “I’m surprised you’re up and walking, after all that drink. Peter was rather concerned about you.”

  “Was he indeed?” Adrian grinned and let my dart glance off him harmlessly. “Well, he didn’t look at all concerned an hour ago, when he came downstairs and turfed me out of the sitting room. In fact,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck with a rueful hand, “I can’t prove anything, but I believe the old boy kicked me.”

  I thought it unlikely, and said so. “You’ve probably just got a hangover.”

  “I never get hangovers.”

  “Fancy a few raw eggs then, do you?”

  He sent me a withering glance. “I don’t know why you’re picking on me, my love. I look a damned sight better than he does,” he said, with a nod toward David, “and Peter looks a damned sight worse.”

  “Peter,” I reminded him, “is twice your age. And David’s had rather a stressful night.”

  Adrian stopped rubbing his neck and turned to David, suddenly remembering. “Oh, right. Of course you have. She’s all right, though, your mother, isn’t she? Peter said…”

  “She’s doing fine the now,” said David. He fixed his eyes on Adrian’s face, as though trying to focus. “Did you say Peter’s not looking so well?”

  “Just exhaustion, I expect. Nothing too serious. He seemed to be in good spirits, when he woke me up. Said he wanted the sitting room all to himself, to write his report for the university…”

  “Oh, Christ, that’s tomorrow, isn’t it?” David levered himself upright, away from the support of the railing, and winced at the effort. “Connelly comes tomorrow. I clean forgot. Peter’ll be needing my notes…”

  “Peter,” I said firmly, “is not an idiot. He knows where to find your notes, if he wants them.”

  “Aye, but—”

  “But nothing. The man’s been doing this for fifty years, you know. I’m sure he’ll manage. You’d hardly be a help to him, anyway, the state you’re in.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Would I not?”

  “Well, look at you—you’re falling asleep on your feet. I’ll bet if I gave you a nudge you’d go straight over into the harbor.”

  A warm glint of amusement lit the weary blueness of his eyes. “Come on, then. Give it a try.”

  Adrian, always suspicious of bantering that didn’t include him, smoothly put his oar in. “I wouldn’t dare the girl, if I were you. It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull. You’re liable to find yourself treading water.”

  “Och, I’d not be budged so easily,” David promised. With a fleeting wink at me he bent his head to check his watch. “But if you’ve a mind to push me in, lass, you’d best do it from the far side of the harbor, or we’ll be late for the auction.”

  Adrian greened a little. “The fish auction, do you mean?”

  “Aye. She’s never seen one.”

  “Fancy that.” The smile he summoned up was rather sickly, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You don’t have to come, you know.”

  “No, no,” said Adrian, with a deceptively languid glance at the big man standing close behind my shoulder. “No, the auction’s open-air, I’ll be all right.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure,” I checked, “that it’s not a hangover?”

  “Absolutely. The smell of fish can turn my stomach any day, drink or no drink. You know that.” His tone had grown intimate again, purposeful, and as the three of us moved to walk along the middle pier he briefly slung his arm across my shoulders, not in his normal friendly way but with a touch that implied possession.

  I stiffened—I never had liked being anyone’s possession—but then it wasn’t my reaction that interested Adrian. The male of the species, I thought with a sigh, could be so bloody maddening. As we passed through the shadow of Brian’s fishing boat, its nets rolled up alongside the pier, I pretended to lose my footing and ducked neatly out of Adrian’s embrace.

  He scarcely seemed to notice. Flashing a thoughtful look at the bright red hull of the boat, he raised a hand to rub his jaw. “Anyone seen Brian today?”

  “He was up at the house, earlier,” I said, straightening. “He and Fabia were going to move some boxes up from here, I think he said.”

  “Move them where? Up to Rosehill?”

  “Well, yes, I believe so,” I told him. “Why?”

  “No reason.” He shrugged and walked on, nonchalant. “It’s just that neither of them was around, when I woke up, and I wondered where they’d got to.”

  The problem with Adrian, I thought wryly, watching as he kicked another tangle of nets out of his path, was that he hated competition. He reminded me of an old Wild West gunslinger, puffing out his chest and drawling, in menacing tones, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” Certainly Rosehill was not quite big enough for Adrian and Brian, philanderers both, and when only one blonde was available… well, I decided with another faint sigh, it was going to be a very long summer.

  Adrian turned at the sound of my sigh. “What is the matter with you, Verity? You sound like the bloody Mock Turtle.”

  Fortunately, we were just then rounding the narrow bottom of the U-shaped harbor, past boatyard and ice plant, where the throbbing of engines drowned out any attempt at speech, and by the time we’d reached the covered fish market Adrian had quite forgotten his question.

  “What time,” he asked David, “did you say the auction starts at?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “Ah.” Adrian cast a doubtful eye along the open length of the building, at the empty shadows and the idle waiting lorries. “In twenty minutes.”

  David checked the clock face on the tower of the Auld Kirk, and nodded agreement. “Aye, that’s right.”

  “There is,” said Adrian, “a noticeable lack of fish.”

  “Ye’ve no faith, that’s your problem.” David gave the Auld Kirk’s clock a second glance, then looked across the road at what appeared to be a tea room. “Does anyone fancy a coffee, or—”

  “God, I could murder a pint,” Adrian cut him off, setting his sights on the beckoning white walls of the Ship Hotel, farther up the harbor road.

  The red Jaguar gleamed conspicuously in the parking lot, and David stroked one hand along the hood. “Got it back, I see,” he said, to Adrian. “And in one piece, too. That’s magic.”

  “Why, is Quinnell a rotten driver, or something?”

  David shrugged. “I’ve never seen him drive.”

  Come to think of it, neither had I, until last night. Suddenly curious, I stole a sidelong look at David’s face. He was still studying the sports car and whistling a careless little ditty through his teeth. “Why doesn’t Peter drive?” I asked him.

  “Well,” said David simply, “he’d need a license to do that, wouldn’t he?”

  “What?” Adrian, blanching, spun round in horror to stare at his precious car.

  I caught the satisfaction in David’s smile, before he, too, turned away, narrowing his gaze on the sea that surged and plunged beyond the harbor wall.

  “Here they come, now,” he announced, and crossed the road to the quay, for a better look.

  Adrian’s face fell. “What about my pint?”

  “Go and have it, if you like,” I told him. “I’d like to watch the boats come in.”

  He wavered for a moment, but his less than trusting nature won out in the end. He was standing on the quayside, square between myself and David, when the first returning fishing boat came nosing through the narrow channel. It hit the harbor like a bullet, that first boat, kicking up an arc of spray and bringing behind it a great wheeling halo of gulls that screamed and dived and screamed again in search of scraps from the deck.


  The boat was a small one, just two men on board, both wearing slick yellow overalls. Even with the tide full in, the boat still bobbed a fair distance beneath the quayside, and the man standing on deck had to tip his head a long way up to see us. He looked frozen through, his face lashed red by the wind and salt waves, but he grinned when he noticed David. “Heyah, Deid-Banes,” he called out, tossing up the mooring rope, “gie us a hand, will ye?”

  David obligingly tied the line off, then stood back as the fisherman came scrambling up one of the metal ladders set into the harbor wall. He was not a young man, but his arms and shoulders bulged with sturdy muscle, and his smiling eyes were keen and very clear. They looked me up and down, passed briefly over Adrian, and shifted back to David’s face.

  “How’s yer mither the day?”

  David dropped into broad Scots as he gave yet another update on his mother’s medical condition, so I missed a good deal of what he said, but his explanation seemed to satisfy the older man, who nodded twice and switched his attention to Adrian and me.

  David introduced us. “My cousin Danny,” he explained, as the fisherman’s ice-cold hand closed firmly around mine.

  “The better man o’ the family.” The shrewd eyes slid accusingly to David. “Is this how ye impress a lass, these days? By hanging round the quayside?”

  David smiled. “She’s never seen the auction.”

  “Aye, well, it’s high excitement, that is,” the older man agreed. He turned to me with a wink. “Ye’ll no be getting roses and sweeties wi’ this miserable lad, ye ken.”

  Before I could so much as smile in answer, Adrian draped an arm across my shoulders to drag me backwards and three paces right. It was, on the surface, a purely protective movement, pulling me out of the path of a rattling forklift that, after sprinting up the harbor road, had wheeled now to a halt just inches from David’s feet. But when the danger had passed and the forklift driver cut his engine, Adrian didn’t let go. His arm still held me firm against his side.

  A wasted gesture, really, since both David and his cousin had by this time turned their backs to us, and were busy lowering chains over the edge of the quay. A moment later they hauled the chains back up again, in practiced unison, and I saw the hooks on the ends of the chains that had been fastened into either side of a blue plastic box, the size of a shallow laundry basket. The box, brimful of steel-colored fish, was rapidly unhooked and loaded on the forklift, and the chains were lowered once again.