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Back Harbour Street Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Contents
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. Chapter Forty-One
  43. Chapter Forty-Two
  44. Chapter Forty-Three
  45. Chapter Forty-Four
  46. Chapter Forty-Five
  47. About the Author

‘Don’t worry.’ Joe had the phone to his ear. The number was ringing. ‘She’ll be asleep. Had too much to drink at lunchtime maybe.’ Then he saw that Jessie was pointing to the elderly woman in the long coat.

He was about to say that the driver wouldn’t drive off without checking that all the carriages were clear when Jessie slipped out from under his arm and ran through the open Metro door. She shook the woman gently by the shoulder. She’d always been a kind lass and Joe was proud of her, but sometimes he wished she wouldn’t interfere.

The taxi firm answered his phone call at the same time as Jessie screamed.

Chapter Two

There was only one house on Harbour Street; the other buildings were businesses. It was tall and grey, almost black with the coal dust that also coloured the little beach on the other side of the harbour wall. Three storeys, a basement and an attic. Imposing. Carved above the door, a date: 1885. There was a light in the basement window and inside a woman was taking sheets from a drying rack that had been suspended over the stove. She folded them expertly, held them corner-to-corner and stretched them, before putting them on the table. Upstairs other windows were lit too, but from the pavement there was no way of seeing who was inside.

Next to the house was Malcolm Kerr’s yard, separated from the road by a rusting metal fence topped with ferocious spikes, the gates fastened with a huge chain and giant padlock. A couple of elderly boats, bits of engine, odd bulbous shapes covered by tarpaulin – it had the feel of a scrapyard. Malcolm ran the seabird trips out to Coquet Island and in the winter, when the Lucy-May attracted fewer charters, he worked in the yard, making repairs to his neighbours’ boats. The snow had started to soften the harsh silhouettes in the yard, making them mysterious and hardly recognizable. In one corner stood a shed, built from corrugated iron and wood. Malcolm often worked there all night, drinking cans of beer, but this evening the place was dark and quiet and there were no footmarks in the snow.