“You going up to the Viking settlement?”
Amanda shook her head. “I’m trying to find a friend and his son. The woman at Nancy’s place said he came through here a couple of days ago. Did you see him?”
“A man and his boy?”
Amanda dug out her cellphone to show the photos. “Tyler’s the kid’s name and he’s eleven.”
The woman’s face crinkled in delight. “Oh, Tyler! Yes, they come through here a couple of nights ago — Monday, was it? — quite late. I was closing up the kitchen, but I fixed them some soup and burgers. The boy ate two full bowls of that chowder you had. Now that’s a big bowl!”
Amanda could attest to that. She eyed the fish spread out before her, delicately breaded with a wedge of lemon on the side, and wondered whether she had room for any of it. No wonder there had been some left over for Kaylee.
Then Jill’s smile faded. “The man hardly ate anything. Poked his food around his plate. Drank three pints of Quidi Vidi Premium, though.”
“Did he say anything? Talk about his plans?”
She shrugged. “Just sat there staring into his beer, leaving the poor boy with nothing to do but watch the football game or talk to me. He followed me around, asking me questions about all the fish on the walls, and them paintings. He weren’t much of a football fan and anyways it weren’t the CFL, so I took pity on him. No one’s asked me about this stuff in years, so I told him my husband — God rest his soul — caught them all and I still have all his boats and equipment in our stage down at the harbour. I still go out in the strait with my brother sometimes, but the money’s better here. When Tyler asked if he could see our stage, I offered to take him down.”
“His father let you do that?”
Jill must have heard the surprise in Amanda’s voice. “This is Newfoundland, my dear. The father was happy for the babysitting and the boys here said they’d man the bar. So Tyler and I went down to the cove. It was dark by then, and all the boats were back in that was coming in, but a few fellers were still around, repairing their nets and the like.”
She paused to pull a chair out from the adjacent table. In the silence, Amanda digested the implications. Phil was paranoid about safety, particularly regarding children. What kind of shape had he been in that he’d let his son go off with a stranger, no matter how motherly she seemed? Jill eased stiffly into the chair, hiding a grimace behind a wide smile. “What a lovely boy he was! Questions, questions, questions. Reminded me of my own boys, all gone now to Alberta and Ontario. Nothing for them here except a few weeks’ work at the fish plant down in Port au Choix if they’re lucky. He told me his own dad couldn’t get work here either and that’s why he’s so sad. Well, he’s not going to find work at the bottom of a beer bottle now, is he?”
“No. That’s why I’m looking for him. I’m worried about him. Worried about the boy too.”
“He’s a clever one. Curious too,” Jill said.
A chorus of cheers drowned her out for a moment. Someone had scored something.
Jill glanced over at the table and pulled her chair closer to be heard. “He seemed like a good dad, made sure the boy liked his food and such, and Tyler sure loved him, so he must be doing something right.”
“Did Tyler mention any plans? Where they might go next?”
“Out in a boat,” she said, laughing. “To an island where they could see puffins and whales. That’s what the boy wanted. He was disappointed the deep-sea-fishing season wasn’t open yet.”
“Do you know where?”
“Well, there’s boats all along the coast and plenty of fishermen eager to make an extra buck by taking them out.”
“What about boat tours?”
“Couple of them up in St. Anthony. That’s about an hour and a half up the coast. But St. Anthony’s a busy place and Tyler said they were looking for wilderness.”
She paused and swivelled to look at the men. “Hey Frank! Did that feller who was here a couple of nights ago — the one with the boy — did he say where he was going?”
Frank looked away from the game blearily. “The one sat over ’dere?”
“Yeah. Looked like he’d spent a week in the bush without a shower.”
“He didn’t talk to us,” said another of the men.
“He talked to that other feller, though,” said a third man, who sported a thick grey beard. Jill had all their attention now, lured away from a dreary game by the prospect of intrigue.
“What other guy?” Jill asked.
“The hitchhiker that hardly talked English. Greek or something,” Grey Beard said. “You were gone by then.”
“Oh right!” Frank said. “He came in late, some cold and wet and hungry, b’y. Must’ve walked in off the highway. Didn’t have proper clothes for the Newfoundland coast, I can tell you. He was after free food, leftovers, scraps, anyt’ing. Turns out he only had a dollar in his pocket, just off a boat up at St. Anthony. Your friend bought him food and a couple of rounds of vodka too. That was before they started arguing.”
Amanda grew alert. “What about?”
“Jobs. Fish. I dunno. We was watching the game.”
“It was mostly the Greek arguing,” said Grey Beard. “The drunker he got, the louder he got. ‘Dey’s all cheaters,’ he said.”
“Who?”
“Like I said, we was watching the game. Someone he was working for, I t’inks. Or supposed to work for. He said he just wanted to go home.”
“What was Phil doing?” Amanda asked. “My friend, I mean.”
“Trying to talk him down, weren’t he?” Grey Beard said. “I couldn’t hear what he said because he talked low and soft, but seemed like he were asking him questions. But each question just got the feller madder.”
“Right,” Frank said. “When the foreign feller started to cry, your friend said it was time to go. So he paid for everything and practically carried the feller out the door. Wasn’t hard, guy couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Even soaking wet from the rain like he were.”
“Wait a minute. They left together?”
Both men nodded.
“Did you see what happened outside?”
“No, it were raining and dark as pitch out that night. I heard a truck drive off, but I don’t know whose.”
Or who was in it, Amanda thought. She sat for a moment, contemplating the implications. How like Phil to take a cold and penniless stranger under his wing. But what had happened afterward? Had he given the stranger a few dollars and sent him on his way? Or had he shepherded him into his truck and taken him to the warmth and protection of their motel?
When Norm Parsons had radioed his frantic call to shore, he’d been directed by the Harbour Authority in St. Anthony to dock at the fish plant as usual, but to wait on board for instructions from the RCMP.
Driving along the coastal road and through the interior as fast he dared during the height of moose time, Chris reached the town of St. Anthony in slightly over an hour. He had never been there, but given that it was the major centre for the upper Great Northern Peninsula, he was expecting a bustling town with lots of commerce related to tourism and fishing.
As he topped the hill coming into town, lights twinkled in the valley below and glistened off the water in the narrow bay. Homes and businesses were strung along both sides of the bay and up the steep hills