The Night Manager

THIRTY-ONE

It was the Hosken brothers who saw it first. They were out pulling their lobster pots off Lanyon Head. Pete saw it and Pete didn't say a damn word. At sea Pete never did. Didn't say much on land either, come to think of it. They were having a lucky day with the lobsters. Four beauties they'd caught, ten pounds' weight the lot, my robins.

So Pete and his brother Redfers drove to Newlyn in their old post office van, and got cash for them, because they only ever dealt in cash. And on the drive back to Porthgwarra, Pete turned to Redfers and said, "See that light in Lanyon cottage this morning then?"

And it turned out that Redfers had seen it too, but not made anything of it. He had supposed it was some hippy in there, or New Ager or whatever they call them, one of those buggers from the bus camp over to Saint Just.

"Maybe some yuppie from up-country's gone and bought the place," Redfers suggested, as an afterthought, while they drove. "Been empty long enough. Near on a year. Nobody down here's going to find that bloody chunk of money."

Pete wouldn't have that at all. The suggestion offended something deep in him. "How can you buy a house if you can't find the bugger who owns it?" he asked his brother sharply. "That's Jack Linden's house. Nobody can't buy that house, except they find Jack Linden first."

"Perhaps it's Jack who's back in it, then," Redfers said, which was what Pete had been thinking too, but hadn't said. So Pete scoffed, and told Redfers he was daft.

For several days after that, neither brother found anything further to say on the subject, not to each other and not to anybody else. With a spell of sweet weather and the mackerel rising, and bream if you knew where to look for them, why should they bother about some light in Jack Linden's upstairs bedroom window?

It wasn't till one evening a week later, when they were taking a last look at a patch of shallow water Pete always liked a couple of miles southeast of the Lanyon, and caught the smell of wood smoke on the offshore wind, that they separately arrived at the same unspoken decision to stroll casually down the lane and find out who the hell was living there ― most likely that stinking old gyppo, Slow-and-Lucky, and his bloody mongrel. If so, he got no business. Not in Jack Linden's house. Not Lucky. That wouldn't be appropriate.

Long before they reached the front door, they knew it wasn't Lucky or anyone like him. When Lucky moved into a house, he didn't immediately cut the grass round the front path, or polish the brass door handle for you, boy. And he didn't put a pretty chestnut mare in your paddock ― bloody hell, boy, she was so pretty she damn near smiled at you! Lucky didn't hang woman's washing on the clothesline either, even if he was a bit kinky. Or stand still as a bloody buzzard at the parlour window, more like a shadow than a man, but a familiar shadow for all the weight he'd lost, challenging you to come up the path so he could break your legs for you, same as he damn near done for Pete Pengelly that time they tried to lamp his rabbits.

He'd grown a beard, they noted, before they turned tail and scuttled back up the lane: a dirty big thick Cornish type of beard, more mask than bloody hair. God help us! Jack Linden in a Jesus beard!

But when Redfers, who was courting Marilyn these days, plucked up his courage and informed Mrs. Trethewey, his mother-in-law-to-be, that Jack Linden had come back to the Lanyon, not a ghost but flesh, she bit off his head for him:

"That's no more Jack Linden than I am," she retorted. "S don't you go being a silly boy, Redfers Hosken. That's a gentleman from Ireland and his lady, and they're going to breed horses and paint pictures. They've bought their house and paying their debts, and they're turning over a new leaf in life, it is high time you did the same."

"Looked like Jack to me," said Redfers, with more spirit than he felt.

Mrs. Trethewey fell quiet a moment, deliberating how much she could safely tell a boy of such patent limitation.

"Now you listen to me, Redfers," she said. "Jack Linden who came here a while back is far away over the hills. The person who lives at the Lanyon ― well, I grant you he may be some kind of relative of Jack's, that's possible, and there's a similarity for those of us who didn't know Jack well. But I've had the police here, Redfers. A very persuasive gentleman from Yorkshire, with charm to burn, came all the way from London and spoke to certain people. And what may look like Jack Linden to some of us is an innocent stranger to those who are a little wiser. So I'll trouble you never to talk out of turn again, because if you do, you'll hurt two precious souls."

The End