“Right, and I’ll see you at Dun”—his mind went blank—“at the yacht marina in about an hour and a quarter.”

“Aye, that’ll be fine.” He walked over to a small white Peugeot van parked at one end of the Cormorant Café and got in, and there hardly seemed time for him to start the engine before he sped off along the quay.

There were two other lorries waiting to be loaded when Dan arrived at the shed. He negotiated the tight entrance gate with care, pulled the van into the line, and then went off in search of Tommy. He was informed by one of the lorry drivers that it was Tommy himself who was negotiating the restricted loading space at speed on a forklift truck. When he caught sight of Dan and the Seascape logo on the side of the van, he held up his hands, fingers outspread, to indicate that he was going to be no longer than ten minutes.

In typical West Coast fashion, it was three quarters of an hour before the second lorry was finished being loaded. Dan pulled the van hard against the wall of the loading area to allow the lorry to reverse out past him, and then drove into the shed.

“Sorry about that,” Tommy said as he jumped off his forklift and started to manhandle the prawn boxes off the pallet and into the back of the van. “You’ll be Dan Porter then.”

“That’s right,” Dan replied, pulling on a pair of leather gloves that he had found in the cab’s cubbyhole. He went to pick up three boxes from the pallet, realized that he wasn’t going to manage them, and settled for two.

“And how’s Patrick keeping?” Tommy asked as he collected his next load.

“Not so good, I’m afraid. He had a bad night last night.”

Tommy rested his hands on top of the boxes. “It’s a real bastard, that kind of thing happening to a man like Patrick. He’s such an active man.” He heaved up the boxes and walked around to the back of the van. “He’s awful well liked in these parts, you know,” he called out.

“I can well see why. He’s a great man.”

Tommy came back to his forklift and rested once more on his next load of prawn boxes. “I’ll agree with you entirely on that. Now, I mind the time when . . .”