Garston just grunted dismissively. He looked like he still had the raging hump. After putting himself out to get everything organised in time to bring Winston down to the cottage the night before, Garston had received a call from the stroppy fisherman saying the trip was off and they would have to wait until the following evening. Rodney didn’t know the exact details, only that the other cargo hadn’t turned up yet.
With Winston and Garston both in foul moods, Rodney felt like he was treading on eggshells. “So, do you need me to stay on any longer?” he asked. “Otherwise, I’ll take Norman’s van back and return in my own car to collect you later on.” He crossed his fingers behind his back, praying that Garston would release him.
Garston snorted. “Yeah, go back to London,” he said without even looking at Rodney. “Nothing you can do here, and you’ll only get in my way if you stay.”
“Should I take Angela with me?” Rodney asked. He knew she was as keen as he was to escape the horrid atmosphere.
Garston shook his head. “No, leave the whore behind. I need her to nursemaid Claude.”
“Okay. Well, in that case, I’ll be off,” Rodney said backing out of the door. He was starving hungry but he would rather stop off at a café and get some breakfast than eat here. Rodney pulled out the shiny new pay as you go mobile that he’d purchased the day before. “I just want to make sure I’ve got your number, he said, pressing the green button. A couple of seconds later, Garston’s phone started to ring.
“Do you want to call me back to make sure you’ve got my number?” Rodney asked, killing the call.
“No need,” Garston said curtly. “It came up on my caller ID when you just rang me.”
“Oh, I see,” Rodney said, not really sure that he did. The man in the shop had set the phone up for him and explained how it all worked, but most of what he’d said had gone in one ear and out the other.
“I’ll see you bit later, “Rodent said, waving goodbye.
Garston didn’t bother to respond. He just sat there staring into his mug.
Rodent didn’t mind; he was used to being ignored, and anyway, it was better than being insulted or finding himself the butt of someone’s cruel joke, which is what usually happened when people bothered to reply.
Chapter 32
For centuries, the remoteness and isolation of Romney Marsh, with its flat, barren landscapes and numerous waterways had made the area a smuggler’s paradise. Largely inaccessible because of its geography and topography, this bleak and desolate land had been the last bastion of malaria in the United Kingdom, and the disease, known locally as marsh fever, hadn’t truly been eradicated until the early part of the twentieth century.
Smugglers on the Marshes were known as ‘Owlers’, a term rumoured to have been derived from the owl-like noises they used to communicate with each other during the hours of darkness. Kenny Meade liked the expression, and he considered himself to be a modern-day Owler.
At fifty-six, he had worked on small fishing boats for most of his adult life, and he reckoned he knew the coastal seas as well as any man alive.
He also knew the layout of the land and its history like the back of his hand. Dungeness with its shingle beaches, seven lighthouses and two nuclear power stations; Dymchurch with its five mile long stretch of sandy beach, and its famous landmarks like The Ship public house, where Russell Thorndike wrote his Dr Syn stories about smuggling and law-breaking on the Marshes, and Martello Tower number twenty-four, built between 1805 and 1815 to defend against the threatened French invasion that never came.
Then there was the nature reserve and all the surrounding countryside and its abundance of flora and wildlife. This place was in his blood and he couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere else, although that wasn’t what he said when the wind was blowing a gale and the sky was full of bruise covered clouds that boded the imminent arrival of a storm.
Meade had hoped to sail his cargo over to France the previous night, but the second passenger hadn’t arrived in time so they had missed the tides. That had meant he’d had to fork out another night’s rent for the cottage where the black gangster was staying, and shell out for separate accommodation for the newcomer as well, all of which was biting into his profits.
Meade looked in the mirror and ran a hand through his thick grey mane. He badly needed a shave, but he couldn’t be bothered, so he decided to wait until the weekend, even though his wife of thirty years had complained over breakfast that he was starting to look like Captain Birdseye with his white whiskers and stupid sailing cap. He liked his cap, so he had bitten his tongue, refusing to give the old cow the satisfaction of seeing that she had got under his skin.
As he studied his rheumy eyed reflection, he thought he bore more of a resemblance to Quint, the character played by Robert Shaw in the 1975 hit movie, Jaws than the crusty old bloke who advertised fish fingers.
“Captain fucking Birdseye, my arse,” he said, angrily slipping his battered cap onto his head and adjusting it so that it sat at a suitably jaunty angle.
Walking through to the kitchen, his knees and hips aching from the arthritis that was beginning to plague him as it had his father at his age, he scooped up his mobile phone from the dining table and dialled the number for Garston.
“It’s me, Kenny Meade,” he said as soon as Garston picked up. “Everything’s good for tonight. Keep yer phone on and await my call. I’ll be sending a car to pick you up and I’ll let you know the moment it sets off.”
As soon as he hung up, he called his
