Out of the Night by Dan Latus Page A

all the way along the foot of the cliffs. They would probably wash it out.’
    ‘So where would it end up?’
    ‘Hard to say.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘On a beach, eventually, I suppose. Further south, somewhere.’
    ‘Port Holland, maybe?’
    He looked at me and nodded. ‘I can’t think of anywhere more likely.’
    ‘So maybe they weren’t dumped there, those three bodies. Maybe they just ended up there?’
    Jimmy nodded. ‘That’s been my feeling all along. I mean, why would you just dump them there, where folk could see them?’
    ‘I’ve been wondering that myself.’
    I nodded and thought about it some more, and could find nothing wrong with the way we were both thinking.
    To change the subject and make him laugh, I said, ‘I nearly got caught out by the tide the other day.’
    He just looked at me, his grizzled face ready to break out into laughter.
    ‘I mean it!’
    I told him what had happened. He started taking me seriously then.
    ‘You could have got up the cliff.’
    ‘I recalled you saying there was a way off that beach, but I couldn’t see it.’
    He frowned and said, ‘Well, it might not be there now, I suppose. But there used to be a way.’
    I thought he was probably right. Erosion would have removed whatever route he’d had in mind.
    ‘Towards yon end,’ he said slowly, ‘did you notice where the sandstone comes down to the bottom?’
    I shook my head. Local geology had been the last thing on my mind.
    ‘Most of the way along it’s just the shale, and that’s no good. But you could get up where the sandstone is. There used to be a few iron handholds hammered into the rock. You used them in the tricky places.’
    ‘How long ago was this, Jimmy?’ I said gently.
    ‘How long?’ He frowned in thought for a moment. ‘The lasttime I went up there, I’d have been about eleven.’ His face creased with smiles and he added, ‘I got merry heck off Father!’
    I smiled, too. The very idea of Jimmy ever being eleven was enough to bring it out of me.
    We talked for a few minutes about Jimmy’s father, who seemed to have been a tough old character indeed. He’d had to be. Fishing was never an easy way to make a living.
    Jimmy yawned. He was getting tired.
    ‘Let me ask you something else, Jimmy, before I go and let you get some rest. There’s a big house just outside Port Holland called Meridion House. Do you know it?’
    He nodded. ‘It changed hands a year or two ago. That fellow with the fancy boat bought it.’
    ‘It’s supposed to be an art centre.’
    Jimmy shook his head at that. The very idea!
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s some funny people around. That might explain it, I suppose.’
    ‘Funny?’
    ‘Foreign,’ he said with satisfaction, as if that really did clinch it.
    ‘Not fishermen, you mean?’
    He grinned. ‘Now you’re having me on!’
    I laughed. ‘Just a bit. Real foreign, you mean?’
    ‘Real foreign.’
    I supposed the presence of an art centre might explain that, depending on what was done at the centre.
    ‘You don’t know anything else about the place?’
    He shook his head. ‘Why?’
    I shrugged. ‘Nothing, really. It’s just that when I wasdriving past this afternoon I saw a car the same type and colour those two thugs had. Probably just a coincidence.’
    After a moment, Jimmy said, ‘Did it have a rear mudflap missing, on the driver’s side?’
    ‘No idea. It was too dark. Did theirs have one missing?’
    ‘That’s just about all I do remember about it. I saw it was missing when I was lying on the ground,’ he added grimly.
    I hurried to change the subject.
    ‘So how are you feeling, generally?’
    ‘Never better.’
    I was sure that was a lie, but it was a good one. I didn’t mind him trying to spare my feelings.
    ‘Well, the good news is that after two days of hard work, both our houses are just about back to normal.’
    ‘Mended, you mean?’
    I nodded. ‘Mended – and cleaned. I got Ellen, that woman who does holiday