Now she dared to use the word. ‘I’m a healer. I’m just sort of helping with the palliative care, reducing her pain levels, doing what I can, really.’

‘Oh, right. Bill’s daughter-in-law Shannon, she’s into all that healing stuff, isn’t she?’

‘Yes. It was she who got me in for Rhona.’

‘That would figure. She was always recommending healers for everything. Anyone feeling a bit gippy, Shannon’d be sending them off to a bloody healer.’

‘Anyway, Rhona’s been talking about you.’ Which was true. ‘She told me once how much she misses seeing you.’ Which was also true. ‘Says she’d love it if you came to see her.’ Which was a slight finessing of the truth but, Jude reckoned, justifiable in the circumstances.

‘Yes, I would like to see the old biddy before she … you know. Maybe I’ll give Billy a call and suggest going up to Waggoners.’

‘I’m sure Rhona would appreciate it.’ Preparing to move the subject on, Jude looked across the still water of the marina to where the tidal River Fether rushed towards the English Channel. ‘Lovely spot you’ve got here, haven’t you?’

‘Oh yeah, it looks all right,’ he conceded. ‘Looked a lot better when this was full of boats. When Fethering had a fishing fleet. But that’s all gone now. Bloody EU regulations. Then we get out of the EU and things don’t look any better. And if it’s not the EU harassing us, it’s the bloody council, wanting Fethering to be more developed for holidaymakers. Holidaymakers – huh. More crazy golf and slot machines is what that means. And nobody cares about us lot who’ve worked here all our lives.’

He sighed. ‘I’m the last professional fisherman in Fethering. When I pop my clogs, that’ll be the end of it.’

‘But you still do go out fishing?’

‘Yes, but not so much. I just supply the hut where people buy fresh fish, you know, other side of the yacht club. That’s the only outlet now. Not like it was in the old days. Lorries picking up Fethering fish and supplying the whole bloody country. Exports, and all. Those days are long gone.’

He sighed again, spat the last half-inch of his roll-up out into the water and started the laborious process of assembling another one.

Jude’s perfect opening had arrived. ‘I gather from Rhona that you used to go fishing with Bill Shefford on Sundays …?’

‘Yes. But that all stopped when he married the Chink.’

All too forcibly, Jude realized what Rhona had meant when she said that she and Red thought ‘alike on most things’. She made no comment, however, simply asked, ‘So, it was Malee who put an end to your fishing trips?’

‘She was the cause of it, yes.’

‘You mean she told Bill he couldn’t go out fishing with you?’