Page 88 of Pull Me Under

I check the swell from the kitchen window. Force 4, onshore, rubbish conditions. My board is against the wall in the hallway where it’s been for weeks, gathering dust, quietly accusing me. I should go. The water would clear my head, wash this restlessness out of my bones.

I don’t go. I make coffee instead, and stand at the window watching the sea do what it always does: carry on, regardless.

Truro by half ten. Three restaurants, two fish suppliers, and a new seafood bar on Lemon Quay that’s been buying from Fowey but might be persuadable.

This is the bit nobody sees. The bit Dad treats like it’s a consolation activity for the son who can’t haul nets fast enough. But here’s the thing about the boring bits: without them, Harding and Sons doesn’t exist. Kit can fill the boat with fish. Reuben can captain her through any sea the Atlantic throws. But someone has to sell the catch. Someone has to know that The Merchant wants whole bass on Fridays but fillets on Tuesdays. That Finisterre underpays by eight per cent and isn’t worth the diesel. That the new place on Lemon Quay has a head chef from Padstow who grew up eating Cornish fish and will pay premium for day-boat quality if you can guarantee supply.

I know all of this. It’s in my head the way engine parts are in Brynn’s – muscle memory, instinct, the accumulated weight of years spent paying attention to details nobody else bothered with.

First stop: The Merchant. Dan behind the bar, already smiling when I walk in. We’ve been supplying them for six years. The relationship runs on handshakes and honesty and the fact that I remember his daughter’s name is Grace and she’s applying to vet school.

‘Jude. Tell me you’ve got crab.’

‘When have I ever not had crab?’

‘Last March. Three weeks. I nearly had to buy frozen.’

‘That was a freak storm and you know it. I threw in a free box of langoustines to make up for it.’

‘You did. Grace still talks about those langoustines.’

We go through the order. I adjust the pricing – two per cent increase, in line with fuel costs, which I’ve calculated to the penny and printed on a single sheet because Dan respects numbers more than arguments. He scans it, nods, signs. Done. It’s a negotiation that looks like a chat but isn’t.

Second stop: Finisterre. Less friendly. The manager’s new, doesn’t know me, tries to push the price down by fifteen per cent. I let him talk. Then I pull out the comparison sheet I made last night – our prices versus Fowey, versus Newlyn market, versus the Plymouth wholesalers. Day-boat quality at twelve per cent above market rate, which is fair and we both know it.

He signs. Grudgingly. But he signs.

Third stop: the new place. The Quay Kitchen. The head chef is a woman called Mira – small, fierce, with a focus that strangely reminds me of Brynn. She tastes the sample I’ve brought – line-caught mackerel, still gleaming – and her eyes go wide.

‘This morning?’

‘Four hours ago. Still had rigour when I packed it.’

‘I’ve been buying from Fowey. It’s good, but it’s not—’ She holds up the mackerel. ‘It’s not this.’

Twenty minutes later I’ve got a trial order for three weeks and a handshake that feels like a contract.

Driving back along the A390, the hedgerows blurring green, I pass the turning for Plymouth. The university sits somewhere beyond those hills – the marine biology department, the research labs, the conservation programme I used to look up on the school computers when I was supposed to be doing maths.

I slow at the junction. Just for a second. Then I drive on.

Not now. Probably not ever.

But the thought follows me all the way home, like a dog I once fed and now can’t shake.

The village shop is quiet. Monday afternoon lull, the weekend tourists gone, Sea Salt Bay returned to the people who actually live here.

Dot’s behind the counter, reading glasses perched on her nose, working through a crossword with the intensity she usually reserves for other people’s business. She nods when I come in. Goes back to her puzzle.

I’m staring at a shelf of pasta like it holds the secrets of the universe when Nina materialises at my elbow.

‘Jude Harding.’ She peers into my basket. ‘Doing your own shopping. Should I alert the press?’

‘Hilarious.’

She looks better than she did a few months ago. The shadows under her eyes have faded, and there’s colour in her cheeks again. Still fragile underneath – a brittleness she masks with bright smiles and too much energy. Peter’s death left a crack in her that hasn’t fully healed. Maybe never will.

‘What’s the occasion?’ Already following me down the aisle, because Nina has never met a boundary she couldn’t cheerfully ignore. ‘You only ever buy bread and milk. Sometimes beer. This is unprecedented.’