The family split up then. Most of them were old enough to earn their living, and the others left soon after. Old man Rosco stayed on in the cottage, working in the fish factory until he was old enough to draw a pension, then doing odd gardening jobs in the big houses round Porthkennan. The children scattered all over the country. If anyone asked old man Rosco if he had heard from them or how they were doing, he would vaguely nod but give no details. There had been so many. Perhaps he had lost count and grown confused.

Then Louis had come back with the Jessie Ellen and a master’s ticket. He was forty-five, thin and small like his father, secretive about his past. Old man Rosco lived only long enough to be taken out for a trip on the Jessie Ellen and bought a drink in the Blue Anchor. Louis took over the cottage and put the boat out for charter to divers and fishermen. He was polite to the people who tried to talk to him, but he gave nothing away. They invented their own explanations for his return. There was something hard about him, they said. He must have been in the army or the navy. He had the look of someone who’d been to prison. Perhaps he had committed some terrible crime.

In the Blue Anchor Louis had one drink, then drove back to Porthkennan. He slowed down past Myrtle Cottage as the road steepened, and he saw the light in the baby’s room and the shadow of Rose Pengelly in the kitchen.

Chapter Three

They met late in the evening on Heanor Quay. Below them the Jessie Ellen moved with the incoming tide. They stood in shy groups at first, awkward and uncertain what to do. The boat was in darkness. Then Rob Earl emerged from the nearest pub with a clipboard and a list of names, and Louis Rosco came in his rust-holed van, with Rose and the baby in the passenger seat. She could bring the child, Louis had said. He had nothing against it. He had never yet heard of a baby who had been ill on a boat, and if the others didn’t mind, he didn’t think she’d get in the way. Then the thin, silent boy who assisted Louis came on a bicycle, and Fat Freddy, who did the cooking, waddled down from the town. Freddy had been sacked from one of the big hotels for erratic timekeeping but said he didn’t mind. He preferred going out with the charter boats. It was a better sort of life. Almost immediately there was a smell of coffee.

“I’ll need some help with the chum,” Rob said. “Louis brought it in the van, but we’ll need to get it on board.”

“Chum?” Duncan James said. He thought the weekend would be a nightmare. He hated the sea.