“Good man, Tim. The customer’s name is John Miller, got it? He’s a more than the usually poisonous lawyer but he’s rich, of course, which is why I promise I’m not wasting your time.”

I put the phone down and ducked into the pouring rain to see if Joanna had returned. The streetlights on the far side of the river shook and danced their reflections in the black water and I thought I saw a moving shadow silhouetted against one of those liquid spears. The movement seemed to be on board Slip-Slider, and I assumed Joanna must have taken our supper down into the Contessa’s cozy cabin. “Jo!” I shouted toward the shadow.

The yard gate clanged shut behind me. “I’m here.” Joanna ran through the pelting rain to the shelter of the yard’s office. “Come and eat while it’s hot!”

“Just a minute!” I turned on the yard’s security lights. Rain sliced past the yellow lamps, but otherwise nothing untoward moved on the wave-rocked pontoons and I guessed the shadow by Slip-Slider had been my imagination, or perhaps one of the dozen stray cats that had taken up residence in the yard.

“What is it?” Joanna asked me from the office doorway.

“Nothing.” I killed the lights, but still gazed toward the rain-hammered river where, at the midstream buoys that the Sailing Club had emptied at dusk, I now thought I could see a big, dark yacht moored, but the smeared afterimage of the bright security lights blurred my sight and made me uncertain whether I was seeing true or just imagining shadows in the darkness.

I went to the office and told Joanna about Harry’s prospective customer, and we agreed that the opportunity of selling the big yacht was too good to pass up. The widow of Stormchild’s owner was feeling the pinch and, in consequence, we were feeling responsible. That guilt was unreasonable, for the state of the economy was the fault of the bloody politicians, but reasonable or not that guilt meant I would have to sacrifice this weekend’s family reunion in an effort to sell the boat.