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time he headed towards the White Cockade. He lit a cigarette and went ashore.
       
    In the guidebooks the White Cockade, Portcoig, was listed as a tourist hotel. But in practical terms that came down to a sensible recognition of the priorities – a big, horseshoe-shaped bar with some fringe tables, a tiny dining room partitioned off in one corner, and a few token bedrooms vaguely located on the upper floor. The bar door lay open when Carrick arrived, but even so he stepped into an atmosphere which seemed compounded equally from smoke, liquor fumes and noise.
    Several of Marlin ’s crew were already elbowed up along the counter and he exchanged greetings with other faces he knew – a couple of seine-net skippers from the Mallaig fleet drinking with a prosperous-looking fish buyer, a local coastguard out of uniform and a garage foreman who’d rented him a car on previous trips. But the crowd thinned considerably at one side of the horseshoe and the reason was grinning in his direction from a table just beyond it.
    ‘Over here,’ hailed Dave Rother, sitting with a small group of his men. ‘I’m buying, Webb.’
    ‘It makes a change.’ Carrick took a vacant seat, ordered a whisky, listened with half an ear to Rother’slight-hearted banter, but noticed that the sharkmen were still being left in isolation as far as the other fishermen along the bar were concerned.
    ‘ Slainche .’ He used the Gaelic toast absently, took a sip of the liquor, then set the glass down. ‘I want to talk with you, Dave.’
    ‘Now there’s a surprise,’ said Rother sardonically. He glanced at his companions. ‘That’s meant as a hint. I’ll see you later.’
    The others rose and drifted off. Lighting a cigarette, Rother settled back and waited. He wore a blue knitted-wool jacket over his shirt and slacks and his thin, long-nosed face was expressionless. The hand which held the cigarette had a deep scar running across the palm, a reminder of a time when the sharkman had held a running rope for a fraction too long.
    ‘Your popularity rating doesn’t seem what it used to be, Dave,’ said Carrick quietly, nodding slightly towards the bar.
    ‘That’s true,’ agreed Rother almost lazily. He ran a finger round the rim of his glass. ‘Does it worry you?’
    ‘Should it?’ parried Carrick. ‘You tell me.’
    Rother shrugged. ‘I’ve an idea you know already. Maybe you’ve heard a story.’
    ‘I have – or some of it.’
    Carrick watched the expressionless face opposite. In another time Dave Rother would probably have found his slot in life as a freebooting privateer captain. Instead, he’d been Royal Navy for a spell, a submarine service lieutenant. But he’d resigned his commission under the threat of a court of inquiry into the complete disappearance of a startling quantity of surplus Admiralty stores. Not very long afterwards he’d appeared on the West Coast and had commenced his shark-fishing operation.
    It was the kind of job which needed a Dave Rother. Basking sharks were the largest fish in the North Atlantic bar none, thirty feet long and often bigger, a minimum of five tons in weight. Only the giant Pacific whale-sharks topped them for size.
    Rother went after them with his little boats and harpoon guns, caught and killed them, then processed the shark liver for its precious oil, wanted by industry and drug companies. Even an economy-sized basker would yield more than a ton of liver, meaning close to £100 cash in terms of oil.
    There was money in it. But it was money won the hard way. The big sharks lived on tiny plankton. Yet they died hard, and a side-swipe from their massive tails could stove in a boat’s side or smash a man’s ribcage to pulp. Even so, the mere sight of those big black sail-fins above the water was enough to excite any sharkman.
    ‘All right,’ said Rother wearily, misunderstanding his silence. ‘You know about the girl. But don’t blame me. We had a few drinks and a few laughs together,