Dark Pirate

‘Good morning,’ replied Greg with an undertone of amusement in his voice. ‘I’ve got the water-heater going, so once you’ve been out the back you can have a bath, if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ said Rose.

After braving the outside loo, which was dark, full of spiders and definitely leaned to one side, Rose was relieved to find the old claw-footed bath brimming with hot water.

‘Take your time,’ advised Greg. ‘I’ll make some coffee and toast when you’ve finished. Pity we haven’t got any eggs and bacon.’

But that was a deficiency which was soon to be remedied. Rose had just finished dressing in her severest office suit, which was navy blue with a white pinstripe and made her feel more in control of the situation, when she heard the unmistakable sound of voices from the kitchen. Surprised and curious, she hurried out and found herself warmly embraced by a grey-haired woman of about sixty.

‘You must be Rose Ashley,’ said the newcomer. ‘I’m your neighbour, Joan Penwithick. I was expecting you on the bus yesterday afternoon but you didn’t arrive, so when I saw the smoke from the chimney this morning I thought I’d pop down and investigate.’

Joan’s brown eyes darted piercingly sideways at Greg as she said this. Rose flushed and launched into a hasty explanation about her lost pocketbook, the missed bus and the sailing trip back from Polperro.

‘And, of course, the weather was so bad last night that Greg didn’t think it was safe to sail back home, so he stayed here,’ she finished lamely.

Joan snorted. ‘Didn’t seem that bad to me,’ she pronounced. ‘I’ve seen you out in far worse gales than that, Greg Trelawney. Anyway, why couldn’t you just sleep aboard your yacht in the bay?’

For once Greg looked completely disconcerted, but instead of answering, he strode forward and grabbed the string bag that was dangling from Joan’s right hand.

‘Well, what have you got here?’ he asked. ‘Bacon and eggs? Oh, you’re a fine woman, Joan, my love. Why don’t you sit down and ask Rose all about her mother while I fry these up?’

Successfully diverted, Joan took her place at the kitchen table opposite Rose and fired an eager volley of questions about Fay Ashley, who was only five years her junior and whom she had known in their schooldays. A complicated recital of the Ashley family history ensued, followed by an equally complicated account of the Penwithick saga, complete with the news that Joan’s second grandchild was due any day now. When she paused for breath, Greg set sizzling plates of bacon and eggs and mugs of hot coffee in front of both of them. Then he sat down to tackle his own hearty breakfast, but he had scarcely swallowed his first forkful of bacon when Joan went on the attack again.

‘Why aren’t you at the shipyard in Plymouth, Greg?’ she demanded. ‘Surely things are too busy for you to have a holiday on a Tuesday?’

Greg hastily swallowed a mouthful of bacon and scowled at Joan. ‘I reckon they can do without me once in a while,’ he replied, his Cornish accent suddenly stronger than ever.

‘Shipyard?’ echoed Rose. ‘What shipyard? Oh, Greg, you haven’t missed a day’s work just so that you could help me? What if you get fired?’

It was Joan’s turn to choke on a mouthful of bacon, and Greg slapped her vigorously on the back.

‘Well, I don’t want to rush you, Joan,’ he said. ‘But if you’ve finished your breakfast, I think you’ll have to excuse Rose and me. We’ve got an appointment with the bank manager in Looe this morning.’

‘Have we?’ asked Rose incredulously, after Greg had seen Joan off the premises.

‘We soon will have,’ promised Greg. ‘Hugh’s an old friend of mine and I know he’ll help us out. I’ll just go up to the phone box at the corner and give him a ring.’

Feeling as helpless as if she were being swept along by some roaring river in full flood, Rose soon found herself shepherded out of the door and on to a bus for Looe.

‘What about your boat?’ she objected as they bowled away between the leafy hawthorn hedges.

‘I’ll come back and fetch it later,’ said Greg. ‘First we’ve got to get you a loan to fix up the cottage.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ protested Rose. ‘Look, Greg, I’m unemployed, except for a bit of freelance programming which I’m finishing off for Inglis’s—I was part-way through it when I left and the systems manager begged me to complete it on a contract basis. He’d always been helpful to me, so I agreed. But once that’s finished, I’ll have no income at all. I’ll never get a loan for the cottage. Never, never!’

But she was wrong. Greg might be only a simple fisherman, but he seemed to have remarkably good contacts. When they entered the bank building in East Looe, there was an unmistakable deference in the manner of the staff as they spoke to him. What was more, the manager Hugh Thomas, a short, grey-haired man of about sixty with a cautious expression, treated both of them as if they were royalty.

‘I’ll come back for you in half an hour,’ promised Greg. ‘You should have everything arranged by then, shouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ agreed Hugh, glancing down at Rose and sighing. ‘Now, Miss Ashley, if you could just step into my office and give me a few details…’

Rose had a dreamlike sense of unreality throughout the interview that followed. After all, she didn’t even have a passport as proof of her identity, let alone a proper job or any sign of financial stability apart from the title deeds of Aunt Em’s cottage, which were lodged with a local solicitor. And yet Hugh Thomas seemed extraordinarily unfazed by all of this and very soon produced a document for her to sign with terms of interest that seemed to her inexperienced eye remarkably favourable. When Greg arrived after the prescribed half-hour she stumbled out, looking dazed.

‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘How did it go?’

‘He’s agreed,’ she said in disbelief. ‘A fifteen-thousand-pound personal loan and another five-thousand-pound overdraft facility. And he’s supplied me with some cash for immediate expenses. I can’t believe it!’

‘Oh, Hugh’s a pretty shrewd man,’ said Greg. ‘He knows a good business proposition when he sees one. And a trustworthy client. Come on, let’s go and have a cream tea to celebrate.’

He took her to an unpretentious tea-shop down by the waterfront and they sat outside on a balcony gay with red geraniums and striped blue and white umbrellas.

‘It’s going to be quite a long time before that cottage is fit to take in paying guests,’ worried Rose aloud. ‘I’ll have to buy a PC with an eighty-megabyte hard disk so I can finish this stock-control program. Oh, dear! How am I going to cope?’

‘That’s easily organised,’ said Greg, reaching into his pocket for a battered notebook and Biro. ‘Tell me what kind you need and I’ll try and get you a suitable ma-chine in Plymouth. Now, the next thing is to organise your renovations. I can put you on to some good tradesmen who’ll save you a packet, but there’s another suggestion I’d like to make to you.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Rose warily.

‘You know what it’s like when you’re renovating a house. There’s always a terrible mess, no electric power, no proper plumbing, dust everywhere. Well, my suggestion is this: while they’re fixing up your house, why don’t you move into my cottage?’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_8333fb35-cef1-564e-997a-48992df0725d)

‘WHAT do you mean?’ demanded Rose in an outraged voice. ‘Move into your cottage?’ Greg tried hard to look like an innocent lamb and failed dismally. Nothing could conceal the disturbing glint in his dark eyes as they moved lingeringly down over her body.

‘You’re too hard on me, Rose,’ he protested. ‘You’re not afraid I’m going to seduce you, are you?’

‘No, I’m not afraid you’re going to seduce me!’ exclaimed Rose hotly and then hurriedly lowered her voice as she saw several people glance over their shoulders in an interested fashion. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you to try, but I’m not afraid of it because I wouldn’t let it happen!’

‘Then what’s the problem?’ asked Greg.

‘The problem is that you lure me into doing things that I don’t intend to do and that I regret afterwards, like going to see the bank manager—not that I regretted that afterwards because it all turned out so well,’ said Rose, getting rather tangled up. ‘Oh, you know perfectly well what I mean, Greg. I don’t want to be alone with you!’

‘But you wouldn’t be,’ said Greg. ‘I wouldn’t be there.’

Rose was conscious of an unexpected stab of disappointment. ‘What do you mean, you wouldn’t be there?’ she demanded, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Greg spread a scone with jam and cream, took an appreciative bite and then sipped some tea before he answered. ‘I’m based in Plymouth right through the week,’ he said. ‘I’m only ever here on weekends.’

‘Then what were you doing here yesterday and today?’ challenged Rose. ‘On a Monday and Tuesday?’

Greg sighed and stroked his chin. ‘You’re very unsportsmanlike to point that out,’ he complained. ‘Anyway, that was an exception. Most weeks I’m busy at the shipyard Monday to Friday and I only come home on the weekends. You’d have my cottage to yourself nearly all of the time and you’d actually be doing me a favour if you stayed there.’

‘Doing you a favour? What do you mean?’

‘It would discourage housebreakers if you were staying in the house.’

‘Housebreakers? In Polperro?’

‘There are purse snatchers,’ Greg reminded her.