Page 26 of The Rising Tide

‘Shall I tell you aboutBogwort, Mummy?’

‘About what?’

‘Mystory,’ Fin says. ‘Youremember. So Mummy, Bogwort is afairy-tale character. Which means he either has to be abaddieor agoodie. What happens is, Bogwort lives in a castle with a king and queen. And they have a princess they love very much.’

He pauses for a fit of coughing. ‘But what nobody knows is thatBogwortdoesn’tlikethe princess very much so he kidnaps her. He takes her off to a tower he’s built in the middle ofnowhere. The king and queen areverysad. They get all the heroes in the kingdom to look for their missing daughter and hunt down the person that took her.’

Fin beams, his lips sticky with cough mixture. ‘But of course,noneof them know that the person whotookher is right there in thepalace. Right therelivingwith them.’

Lucy smiles, ruffles his hair.

‘CREEPY!’ Fin shouts, through red teeth.

‘That’s a great story, little man.’

‘I’ve hardly gotstarted. You just wait for what comesnext.’

She kisses him and retreats to the hall. Downstairs, in the dining room, she finds Daniel and Nick. The air is thick with Nick’s cigar smoke. The table is crowded with playing cards, whisky tumblers and far more cash than she’d like to see. Most of it’s stacked in front of Nick. Daniel’s on his feet, patting his pockets for his keys. When he sees her, he flashes a smile. ‘I promised I’d run Billie back from the Goat. Save a cab fare.’

‘I’ll go.’

Lightly, Daniel touches her arm. ‘You’ve been on your feet all day. Just don’t let this guy drink all the Talisker while I’m gone.’

Nick chuckles. ‘Just don’t empty every cashpoint inSkentel while you’re out. I don’t want to confiscate any more of your filthy lucre.’

Once Daniel’s gone, Lucy raises the sash window. Frigid night air pours in.

‘Jesus, Lucy-Lou. You’re gonna freeze my balls off.’

She picks up a coaster and slides it under Nick’s drink, wiping the wet spot with her sleeve. ‘You smoke outside or with the window open. I’ve told you enough times. Fin’s asthmatic, remember?’

He lifts a hand in apology and stubs out the cigar. ‘You wanna drink?’

Lucy stares at him. The big, tough kid from the Polaroid grew into an unusually brutish man. Unlike Daniel, the legacy of Nick’s early upbringing is much more apparent. There’s a street-kid intensity to his gaze. Subjected to it, Lucy feels all her shortcomings on display.

Fetching a tumbler from the cabinet, she sits opposite. Nick pours her a measure of Talisker and arranges his money into one large stash. ‘Is my boy Danny going to be in trouble?’

‘Not with me. We trust each other’s decisions, always have. You know that. At least, you should.’

Nick’s eyes glimmer as he contemplates her. Lucy’s skin contracts into goosebumps. When he takes a swallow of whisky, she matches him, wondering if her reaction is due to his scrutiny or the cold night air.

‘We all live with our choices,’ Nick says. ‘Nine years ago, when you guys first met, it should’ve been me stranded in that lay-by outside Skentel. Daniel only offered to do the trip at the last minute.’ He turns the whisky glass in his hands. ‘You ever think about that, Lucy-Lou? How things might’ve been different?’

She knocks back her drink. ‘A butterfly can beat its wings in Peking—’

‘—and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.’

Nick holds her eye longer than the length of their laughter.

Leaving him to his winnings, Lucy retreats to the kitchen and loads the dishwasher. When she straightens, she realizes that Nick has followed from the dining room and is watching her from the doorway. Suddenly, she’s far too conscious of what she’s wearing – grey stretch shorts and a black halter – and just how much it reveals. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asks.

‘Half starved.’

‘You want something?’

Nick runs his tongue around his teeth. ‘I guess it depends what’s on offer.’

For a moment, Lucy’s knees give. Only in the act of rebalancing does she come back to herself fully, no longer in the kitchen of her home on Mortis Point but on a table inside the Drift Net before this crowd of expectant faces.

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