Deadly Tide. Sandy Curtis
Читать онлайн книгу.
considering its source. Smooth fingers touched her cheek, slid gently to her chin, and tilted her head down so he could look into her eyes. 'There's a resort in Queensland I'm sure you'll enjoy. We'll spend a week there, then I must check out a business enterprise that requires my attention.'
'At least the sun should be shining.' She held up her pale hands. 'I might even get a tan.'
'A golden tan,' he smiled, and Thea forced her mouth to reciprocate.
Chayse looked in amazement at the sorting tray. He'd expected to see prawns, and yes, a variety of fish, spilling from the cod end as Bill released the ropes, but he was unprepared for the assortment of marine life slithering over the tray, gleaming in the bright lights illuminating the back deck. Grotesquely swollen toad fish, prickly sea urchins, sand crabs, coral; and a strong smell of brine mixing with the disgusting odour emanating from lumpy sponges.
Bill pushed buckets onto the tray. Then he shoved a small rectangular piece of timber at Chayse. 'Use this sorting baton to move the prawns. Chuck the rubbish like toad fish down the shit chute.' He pointed to the aluminium slides he'd hooked onto the tray, their ends going over the side of the boat. 'Keep the decent fish.'
They'd already shot the nets back into the ocean, and Sam emerged from the wheelhouse to help sort for a while as the boat ploughed forward into the night. 'Grade the prawns by size and type,' she told Chayse. 'Use that red bucket for the blue swimmer crabs. They're the males, but make sure they're fifteen centimetres across the carapace. Throw the brown ones, they're the females, down the shit chute.' She grabbed a female crab by the back legs and slid it down the chute.
As Bill began to sort through the seething mass on the tray, he looked across at Chayse. 'Gloves over there if you're afraid of getting spiked.'
His tone held no derision, but Chayse said, 'No problem,' and began tossing prawns into buckets. He glanced up to see a flicker of amusement lighten the other man's features.
Ten minutes later, the pile was beginning to flatten. Chayse reached toward a large red fish, but stopped at Bill's shout. Bill picked up the rake he used for dragging the prawns across the tray and shifted the fish to expose a tiny black head. He raked again, and Chayse saw the head was attached to the long fat body of a sea snake. Fascinated, he gazed at the diamond-and-spotted pattern on its greeny-blue back as Bill grabbed the snake's tail and flicked it overboard.
'They're extremely venomous,' Bill explained, 'but their fangs are in the back of their mouths so it's harder for them to get a good grip on you. They're normally pretty docile, but you have to be careful.'
'Thanks.'
'No problem.' The amusement was definitely back.
When the tray was clear, they graded the product and packed it into cardboard cartons. Small prawns were cooked before packing. Bill opened up the hatch to the freezer room and pulled on a pair of freezer gloves. 'Hand the cartons down to me,' he told Chayse, and climbed down the ladder. The deck lights lit up a small section of the dark space, but it was obvious to Chayse that Bill could have stacked the cartons with his eyes closed, his rhythm and speed showing his experience.
'We should get an hour or two sleep before we haul the nets in again,' Bill said when he climbed back on deck. Chayse looked out into the darkness. When they'd been sorting the shot, he'd noticed sleek dark fins cutting through the water where the shit chute ended. Bill told him how sharks were in the habit of following trawlers and feeding off the rubbish fish that were tossed overboard. Although he couldn't see them now, he suspected they were still out there. Waiting.
Chayse walked into the wheelhouse, and paused as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Sam sat in the skipper's chair, lights from the electronic equipment reflecting different colours over her face.
'Everything okay?' she asked.
He looked down at his sodden sweatshirt, grateful to be out of the cool night air. 'I think I'll need more clothes,' he said ruefully.
'Hang it in the engine room and it should be dry by the next shot,' Bill told him as he pulled up the hatch that formed part of the wheelhouse floor. The engine noise increased and warm stuffy air wafted up from below. Bill flicked on a small light in the galley, took off his tracksuit top then held out his hand to Chayse. Chayse peeled off his sweatshirt and handed it to him.
As Bill hung the clothing over the rungs of the ladder leading down to the engine room, Sam glanced at Chayse. And wished she hadn't. Sexual reaction kicked her in the gut with almost heart-stopping force. She'd always been a sucker for a well-muscled chest with a light sprinkling of hair. 'I'll wake you up when it's time to winch up the nets,' she managed to force through the sudden constriction in her throat.
Chayse lay on his bunk, listening to Sam talking on the radio. Then she used the satellite phone and he caught Gerry's name, but her voice was too soft for him to hear what else she said. He waited until he was sure Bill was dozing, then climbed up to join Sam.
The glow from the electronic equipment on the dash and the back deck lights made it easy for him to see the pleased but surprised look on Sam's face when he asked if she'd like a coffee. Minutes later they sat in companionable silence, drinking and listening to radio chatter over the steady throb of the engine, the night creating an intimacy that was neither threatening nor awkward.
Eventually, Sam turned down the radio and looked at Chayse. 'What sort of work do you normally do?'
'Whatever I can get to pay the bills.' He sipped at his coffee.
'Have you ever tried modelling? You have the looks for it.'
Something sharp twisted in his gut. 'I did once. Didn't like it.' It had been his cover on the Sydney job, something he'd prefer not to remember.
'Do you have any family?'
'Just a brother. Our parents are dead.' He saw her quick frown of sympathy. 'My brother's wife is six months pregnant, and he's ecstatic. It's their first child.'
The frown deepened in fleeting pain. 'Where do they live?'
'Cairns. That's where we grew up.' The truth was out before he could stop it, as though the connection they were sharing was too precious to be spoilt by lies.
She smiled. 'I like Cairns. We went on holiday there when I was fifteen.'
Fifteen. The memory came out of nowhere, startling Chayse with its intensity. Jill, the girl next door, blonde, petite, a smattering of freckles across her nose. He'd had a severe case of first love. It must have been contagious because Jill had reciprocated. Two months later, her family had moved to Rockhampton. They'd exchanged frequent letters, but eventually lost touch. They'd both been so young, so innocent. Now he wondered if he'd ever feel that carefree again.
He shook off the sadness that threatened to overwhelm him, and decided to concentrate on getting Sam to talk about her father. After all, that was why he was there.
A lot of the undercover assignments he'd taken on had required Chayse to stay up all night and sleep during the day, but they hadn't been as physically demanding as trawling. By the time the last shot was dragged in and sorted, the sun was spreading gold across a placid sea. They hosed down the decks, then Bill showed Chayse how to find holes in the nets while he mended them.
As he looked through the nets, Chayse was surprised by the remnants of marine life that remained stuck in them. Grinner fish, trapped by their big mouths and gills, could only be removed by breaking their heads off, and their long black entrails stunk like rotting meat. Dead sea snakes oozed slime from their heads. Chayse had always thought he had a strong stomach, but the smell and the feel of the bloated carcasses almost made him retch.
But when Sam placed breakfast on the table, he was amazed to find he was ravenous. The aroma of sizzling steak, eggs and tomato sure beat the smell of the fish rotting in the nets, and when he commented on it, Sam laughed.
'You're lucky we've now got turtle excluder devices on the nets. Before we had those, you'd get turtles shitting in the tray, sharks giving birth, and bull rays as big as tabletops thrashing about. It's a lot better these days.'
Her