The Luminaries

fine craft … I do hope she was insured.’
    ‘You can’t drop anchor at a port without insurance,’ Carver said. ‘Same for every vessel. Without it they won’t let you land. Thought you’d know that, if you know anything about insurance at all.’
    He spoke in a voice that was flat and full of contempt, seeming not to care how his words might be interpreted, or remembered, or used.
    ‘Of course, of course,’ Gascoigne said airily. ‘I mean to say that I am glad that you are not out of pocket—for your sake.’
    Carver snorted. ‘I’ll be a thousand pounds down when all is said and done,’ he said. ‘Everything that you can see right now is costing money—and out of my pocket.’
    Gascoigne paused a moment before asking, ‘What about P&I?’
    ‘Don’t know.’
    ‘Protection and indemnity,’ Gascoigne explained. ‘Against extraordinary liabilities.’
    ‘Don’t know,’ Carver said again.
    ‘You don’t belong to a shipowners’ association?’
    ‘No.’
    Gascoigne inclined his head gravely. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So you’ll have been liable for all this’—indicating, with a sweep of his hand, the beached hull before him, the screw jacks, the horses, the tugboats, the rollers, and the winch.
    ‘Yes,’ said Carver, still without emotion. ‘Everything you can see. And I’m bound to pay every man a guinea more than he’s worth, for standing about and tying his shoelaces—and untying them—and conferencing about conferencing, until everyone’s out of breath, and I’m a thousand pounds down.’
    ‘I am sorry,’ Gascoigne said. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’
    Carver eyed his silver case. ‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘Thanks. Don’t care for them.’
    Gascoigne drew deeply on his own cigarette and stood for a moment, thinking.
    ‘You certainly seem set to sell me something,’ Carver said again.
    ‘A cigarette?’ Gascoigne laughed. ‘That was offered quite free of charge.’
    ‘I reckon I’m still freer for having turned it down,’ said Carver, and Gascoigne laughed again.
    ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘How long ago did you purchase this ship?’
    ‘You’ve got a lot of questions,’ Carver said. ‘What’s your business asking them?’
    ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter,’ Gascoigne said. ‘It would only matter if you made the purchase less than a year ago. Never mind.’
    But he had snagged Carver’s interest. The other man looked over at him and then said, ‘I’ve had her ten months. Since May.’
    ‘Ah!’ Gascoigne said. ‘Well. That’s very interesting. That could work in your favour, you know.’
    ‘How?’
    But Gascoigne didn’t answer at once; instead he squinted his eyes, and pretended to brood. ‘The man who sold it to you. Did he pass on conventional cover? That is to say: did you inherit an extant policy, or did you take out a policy on your own account?’
    ‘I didn’t take out anything,’ Carver said.
    ‘Was the vendor a shipowner in the professional sense? Did he own more than just
Godspeed
, for example?’
    ‘He had a couple of others,’ Carver said. ‘Clipper ships. Charters.’
    ‘Not steam?’
    ‘Sail,’ said Carver. ‘Why?’
    ‘And where did you say you were coming from, when you ran aground?’
    ‘Dunedin. Are you going to tell me where all these questions are headed?’
    ‘Only from Dunedin,’ Gascoigne said, nodding. ‘Yes. Now, if you’ll forgive my impertinence once last time, I wonder if I might ask about the circumstances of the wreck itself. I trust there was nodereliction of duty, or anything of that kind, that caused the ship to founder?’
    Carver shook his head. ‘Tide was low, but we were well offshore,’ he said. ‘I dropped sixty-five feet of chain and she caught, so I dropped two anchors and another twenty feet of chain. I made the call to keep her on a reasonable leash and wait until the morning. Next thing we knew, we were broadside on the spit. It was raining, and the moon was clouded over. The wind blew out the beacons. Wasn’t anything anyone could have done. Nothing that might be called dereliction. Not under my command.’
    This, for Francis Carver, was a very long speech; at its conclusion he folded his arms across his chest, and his expression closed. He frowned at Gascoigne.
    ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘What’s your interest on account of? You’d do well to tell me plain: I don’t like a slippery dealer.’
    Gascoigne remembered that the man had murdered his own child. The