Read Online Moriarty Returns a Letter by Michael Robertson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Robertson
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things, and who had not yet thought of what better prospects she might have if she took her youth and beauty to the city.
When he actually managed to marry that girl, everyone in the town had recognized what a catch she was for someone like him. There were many hearty congratulations on his good fortune, and more than a few remarks on the side regarding how long it was likely to last.
For three years, things had in fact gone all right—until one particularly unproductive season, and a series of foolish financial decisions on his part, made her realize that his talk of his own little fleet would never be achieved, that at best he might someday be able to buy an old secondhand boat and eke out his living on it (which indeed was what had come to pass), and that she would never be more than a poor fisherman’s wife if she stayed.
He had almost been able to see those thoughts go through her mind at the time; they registered in her eyes in the morning; they slipped out at times when both he and his wife had a few pints in the pub.
And then one cold afternoon he had trudged up from the dock, smelling of fish and bait, his knuckles scraped raw, his fingers with a new set of slivery cuts, his palms roughened with another layer of calluses—and he found she was gone.
After a couple of trips in vain to London to persuade her, he realized that there was no bringing her back.
He was himself still young then. He had that going for him anyway, for a time. Blond and tanned, as lean and muscular as a shark, he was still a popular figure in the pubs about town; he could do a passable imitation of one particular Australian movie star when occasion required.
But the next lovely lass did not come along right away, not that year, nor the year after. And Cheeverton gradually discovered that while at first the problem was that the local girls did not sufficiently impress him, eventually the problem had become that he did not sufficiently impress them, either.
And then thirty years slid by, to that evening last autumn. Blond and tanned had long since become gray and leathered, and gravity and pints had done what they do. Even so, he was playing darts with a rowdy crowd in Blackheath and everything was fine for a while; he was managing to forget that his sixtieth was approaching with no hint of planned celebration.
But then the evening wore on, and the crowd thinned. So he took a seat at the bar and stared up at the big-screen telly, where a soccer match was over and the late-night news had come on.
The anchor toff on the screen was reporting that there had been some sort of a row over at the Tower Bridge. A Black Cab had driven past the barricades and warning lights, just as the two separate bridge spans were rising to let a high-masted yacht pass beneath—and the cab had actually managed to get stuck between the two spans as they parted. The bridge spans won that contest, and the vehicle got torn in two.
There were two people in the cab at the time—one passenger, and the driver.
The passenger in the cab was Laura Rankin, a London actress in her early thirties, whom Cheeverton thought he might have heard of once or twice before, even aside from the unusual event of the cab getting stuck on the spans of the bridge.
That actress had managed to escape the cab just in time, and was in the hospital.
But the twenty-five-year-old female cabdriver—who, according to the telly, was suspected of actually abducting the actress and doing some other bad things as well—was less fortunate. She had plunged into the Thames.
“That’s why I never go into the city,” said the barmaid, a well-rounded woman of about fifty.
Cheeverton, lost in his thoughts, just stared at the telly and nodded.
“Perk up, mate,” she said. “It’s last call.”
“Then what?” he said.
“Then go home to your wife, like everyone else.” She said that without thinking, and then she caught herself—she did not know Cheeverton; he had only been in
When he actually managed to marry that girl, everyone in the town had recognized what a catch she was for someone like him. There were many hearty congratulations on his good fortune, and more than a few remarks on the side regarding how long it was likely to last.
For three years, things had in fact gone all right—until one particularly unproductive season, and a series of foolish financial decisions on his part, made her realize that his talk of his own little fleet would never be achieved, that at best he might someday be able to buy an old secondhand boat and eke out his living on it (which indeed was what had come to pass), and that she would never be more than a poor fisherman’s wife if she stayed.
He had almost been able to see those thoughts go through her mind at the time; they registered in her eyes in the morning; they slipped out at times when both he and his wife had a few pints in the pub.
And then one cold afternoon he had trudged up from the dock, smelling of fish and bait, his knuckles scraped raw, his fingers with a new set of slivery cuts, his palms roughened with another layer of calluses—and he found she was gone.
After a couple of trips in vain to London to persuade her, he realized that there was no bringing her back.
He was himself still young then. He had that going for him anyway, for a time. Blond and tanned, as lean and muscular as a shark, he was still a popular figure in the pubs about town; he could do a passable imitation of one particular Australian movie star when occasion required.
But the next lovely lass did not come along right away, not that year, nor the year after. And Cheeverton gradually discovered that while at first the problem was that the local girls did not sufficiently impress him, eventually the problem had become that he did not sufficiently impress them, either.
And then thirty years slid by, to that evening last autumn. Blond and tanned had long since become gray and leathered, and gravity and pints had done what they do. Even so, he was playing darts with a rowdy crowd in Blackheath and everything was fine for a while; he was managing to forget that his sixtieth was approaching with no hint of planned celebration.
But then the evening wore on, and the crowd thinned. So he took a seat at the bar and stared up at the big-screen telly, where a soccer match was over and the late-night news had come on.
The anchor toff on the screen was reporting that there had been some sort of a row over at the Tower Bridge. A Black Cab had driven past the barricades and warning lights, just as the two separate bridge spans were rising to let a high-masted yacht pass beneath—and the cab had actually managed to get stuck between the two spans as they parted. The bridge spans won that contest, and the vehicle got torn in two.
There were two people in the cab at the time—one passenger, and the driver.
The passenger in the cab was Laura Rankin, a London actress in her early thirties, whom Cheeverton thought he might have heard of once or twice before, even aside from the unusual event of the cab getting stuck on the spans of the bridge.
That actress had managed to escape the cab just in time, and was in the hospital.
But the twenty-five-year-old female cabdriver—who, according to the telly, was suspected of actually abducting the actress and doing some other bad things as well—was less fortunate. She had plunged into the Thames.
“That’s why I never go into the city,” said the barmaid, a well-rounded woman of about fifty.
Cheeverton, lost in his thoughts, just stared at the telly and nodded.
“Perk up, mate,” she said. “It’s last call.”
“Then what?” he said.
“Then go home to your wife, like everyone else.” She said that without thinking, and then she caught herself—she did not know Cheeverton; he had only been in
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