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‘Lawyers who work for his brother.’
‘Who is nothing like Simon,’ says Florence, with a sharp edge to her voice. She goes back to her laptop. ‘Polaris Pelagic has no debts, no overdue tax returns and no VAT issues. I might be able to find out more details from council records and local newspapers.’
‘St Claire has a library,’ says Evie, trying to get involved. ‘I can take you there.’
‘OK, you do that. I have a few errands to run,’ I say.
‘Shouldn’t we stick together?’ asks Florence.
‘We will, but first I need some answers. If the Arianna II went to Spain and came back with a boatload of refugees, why does satellite tracking show it never left Dogger Bank in the North Sea? And how did Evie get off the trawler? A coastguard helicopter flew from Inverness and a lifeboat was sent from Aberdeen to pick up the survivors. Surely somebody would have noticed a girl among them.’
‘You think it was covered up?’ says Florence.
‘Either that or I’m missing something obvious.’
The old author is weeding his small garden when I arrive at his cottage. Dressed in a wide-brimmed hat with his white hair poking out at the sides, he looks even more Hobbit-like than I remember.
‘You’re still here,’ says Fishy, setting down his secateurs and taking off his gardening gloves to shake my hand. ‘Cold drink? Ah’m having one.’
I wait at an outside table while he fetches a jug of iced water and a bottle of concentrated lemon cordial. Ice rattles in the glasses as he pours. Sits. Drinks. Wipes his lips. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I want to ask you about smuggling.’
‘The world’s second-oldest profession.’
‘Are trawlers ever involved?’
A rumbling laugh. ‘Does a bear shit in the woods? Does the Tin Man have a sheet-metal cock?’
‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
‘Back in the day, trawlers were regularly crossing the Channel or the North Sea, bringing back booze, cigarettes, cheese, caviar. The Russians, the Dutch, the Norwegians, they’d come here. We’d go there.’
‘What about customs patrols and the police?’
‘Scotland has more’n eleven thousand miles of coastline if yer count the islands. Nobody can patrol that.’
‘How easy would it be to smuggle a person on board a trawler?’
‘Just the one?’
‘Maybe more.’
‘Aye, well, I could tell yer that never happens, but I’d be lying. Trawlers come and go as they please. Some skippers don’t bother providing a crew list before they leave port. They might fill out the logbook once the boat has sailed, but if the trawler goes down, there’s no record of who was on board.’
‘So, they could pick up someone and bring them back?’
‘Yeah. If they wanted to break the law, but these are professional fishermen. Good men, most of ’em. Trusted.’ He pauses and lowers his glass. ‘Does this have something to do with the Arianna?’
‘She was smuggling people from Spain when she sank.’
‘I showed you the satellite tracking. She was fishing Dogger Bank.’
‘Can two trawlers have the same AIS signature?’
‘No. Each signal is unique.’
‘If you were trying to hide a trawler’s movements, what would you do?’
