Chapter 13: At the Gate

"I kissed someone," I said.

The line went quiet.

Beside me, Jago got up off the bench and walked a little way along the path, to give me the call.

"Who?" Paul said.

"Someone who isn't Duncan."

I heard him breathe out, long and slow.

"Good," he said.

"Is he all right?"

"He's on the floor with two elders fanning him with hymn sheets. She's shouting at the doctor. He'll live."

"Paul."

"He's saying your name, Mischa."

"Then tell him to go to bed."

I rang off and sat with the phone in my lap.

Jago came back and stood over me with his hands in his pockets.

"Him?"

"He felt it. He's still tied at his end."

Jago looked out at the dark sea for a moment.

"So every time I kiss you, a man in Northumberland falls off his chair."

"Apparently."

He thought about it.

"I can live with that."

I laughed so hard I had to hold the bench.

Duncan came down the hill the next afternoon.

The whole pack was on the quay. The first Falmouth order was going out, forty cases, and everyone wanted to load it.

I was on the lorry's tailgate with a clipboard, ticking boxes.

The black Range Rover stopped at the top gate. It was the only car in the county that size and that clean.

The cooper saw it first. "Who's that, then? The King?"

"No," I said. "Worse."

Duncan got out and leaned on the gate.

He looked terrible. Unshaven, grey under the eyes, still in a crumpled shirt. One hand pressed flat to his ribs.

He'd driven all night. I could tell from how he stood.

"Mischa!"

The quay went quiet.

I climbed down off the tailgate and walked up to the gate.

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