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set on, though he was older. But if Rother wasn’t around then she’d settle for young Benson.’
    ‘Then what’s your guess?’ he asked.
    Maggie MacKenzie shook her head. ‘I suppose either o’ them could have rolled her in the heather. Orit could have been someone else. Even her own uncle has no real idea.’
    Carrick raised an eyebrow. ‘What uncle?’
    ‘Harry Graham – the Graham who is half-owner of the Harvest Lass ,’ she said patiently. ‘You met him, didn’t you?’
    He nodded, surprised.
    ‘I saw him going aboard after you came in.’ She rubbed a hand along the boat’s painted wood. ‘Mind you, before the girl began mixing with Rother’s sharkers she went around with a local lad, Fergie Lucas … the same Fergie who would have been on the Harvest Lass last night if he hadn’t started beating up young Benson then found himself with a lot more on his hands.’
    Carrick swore softly, and she chuckled.
    ‘What you could call a tangle, isn’t it?’
    ‘A mess,’ he confessed. ‘Maggie, couldn’t Lucas have been the father?’
    ‘It would have taken some doing,’ she said with a dry amusement. ‘Fergie Lucas was away from here for nearly six months, working on some cargo ship on the Australia run. He didn’t come back to Portcoig until just weeks before she died.’
    He shrugged, gave up, and thanked her.
       
    Most of Marlin ’s crew were already ashore. Almost the only sounds aboard were the background hum of the generators and the below-deck’s rasp of music from a transistor radio; the Fishery cruiser lay quietly at her berth as the evening wore on. Overhead, the dull cloud gave way before a freshening wind and the sky became blue, streaked with cotton-wool white.
    Captain Shannon stayed in his cabin. The wardroom steward took him a meal on a tray, then madeanother trip with a bottle of beer. In the wardroom Carrick found himself eating alone until Andy Shaw, the chief engineer, arrived. Shaw was unshaven, but was wearing a tie with his crumpled shirt, a sure sign he was going ashore.
    ‘Ach, there’s just the one trouble,’ said Shaw gloomily, poking at his plate with a fork. ‘A man getting decently drunk is one thing. But what happens wi’ that damned engine-room squad of mine? They get straight on the High Court cocktails – and after that they’re like bloody hospital cases for a day.’
    Carrick grinned sympathetically. The engine-room squad were welcome to their choice. It amounted to a vicious half-pint mixture of sherry, cheap wine and cider, a mixture which could topple any ordinary man into near oblivion. Even a seasoned drinker could be launched into a trouble-making stupor after a few glasses of the stuff. Yes, ‘High Court’ was a sardonically appropriate name.
    ‘Next time sign on teetotallers,’ suggested Carrick between mouthfuls. ‘They’d be easier to handle.’
    Shaw stared at him in horror. ‘An’ what the hell would a teetotaller know about engines?’ he demanded devastatingly.
    That kind of argument couldn’t be won. Carrick finished his meal, collected his cap, and went on deck. Stopping near the gangway, he lit a cigarette and looked around. The sun was beginning to come low on the horizon, already casting lengthening shadows and turning the far edge of the sea to a reddish gold. Along the pier some of the seine-netters had sailed but new arrivals were taking their places.
    He watched another boat come in and tie up. A truck was waiting for it and the fishing boat’s crew immediately opened the deck hatch and began tounload their catch, already cleaned, boxed, and packed around with ice.
    The truck would take that ribbon of road across the island then cross by vehicle ferry to the mainland. By the next night city families would be sitting down to eat that silver harvest.
    Though their fish would cost them several times more than the fisherman collected for his sweat.
    That was life. Carrick grimaced, glanced at his watch, and decided it was