Free Nailed by the Heart by Simon Clark Page A

away out of sight.

    David's
reaction was odd.

    He
slapped his hands over his eyes as if the loss had upset him. But a
second later he yanked his hands away.

    The
boy was forcing himself to watch the toys being washed away by the
waves. The comics went next, then the blue car. The Star Wars trooper
seemed to hang on the longest, until a splash of water knocked it to
the edge of the boulder and it hung over the edge like a drunken
diver, arms outstretched.

    The
next wave claimed it for the sea.

    Chris
looked back at David. He had retreated up the beach from the incoming
tide and sat cross-legged, staring out to sea. He looked drained, as
if the act of losing some of his favorite toys had exhausted him.

    Losing
them?

    No.
He had given them away.

    "Ruth,
do you think he's happy here? I mean, moving house, losing his old
friends."

    She
opened her eyes. "What makes you ask that?"

    He
told her what David had done.

    "David!
Hey, David!"

    No
reaction.

    He
hadn't heard. Or, more likely, he pretended not to hear. David seemed
to be rolled up in his own personal misery at the moment. He stared
at the sea which had taken his favorite toys.

    "Don't
worry, Chris. I'll go down and talk to him." Ruth ran lightly
down the steps to the courtyard while he watched his son. Something
must be troubling the boy.

    He
turned to go down the steps but was surprised to see Ruth hurrying
back up toward him.

    "Come
on," she said quickly. "We've got a visitor."

Chapter
Thirteen

    In
the courtyard he found a small man-in his sixties, black-rimmed
glasses, white hair combed over a bald patch. He was gazing up at the
seafort walls as if they had just fallen from the Land of Oz. Ruth
and David stood a little way off, watching him. Ruth caught Chris's
eye. She gave a puzzled shrug when the little man's back was turned.

    "Magic,"
the man was saying to himself. "Just magic." Chris coughed.
"Hello? Can I help you?" The man turned. His most striking
feature was his nose. Long, thin, and with a bony look to it which
managed to seem almost aristocratic without being beaky.

    Whoever
he was, he could go. And quickly. The trucks were due for the skips.

    "Mr.
Stainforth. Mrs. Stainforth. And little David." This little man
had done his homework. "I'm Tony Gateman. Good afternoon."
He shook hands with Chris and Ruth. "The times I've passed this
place over the last fifteen years and never once have I seen inside.
This courtyard is bloody enormous." He looked longingly toward
the door into the main part of the seafort. "Like a museum in
there, I shouldn't wonder."

    "At
the moment it's more of a junkyard. Most of the original fittings
were ripped out when a builder began to convert it into a hotel.
Never got off the ground, though. He went bust."

    "But
we don't intend to." Ruth moved nearer. "We've a sound
financial plan and the bank's backing."

    Tony
Gateman peered at her through the thick lenses of his glasses.
"Actually, Fox and Barnett didn't go bust. Barnett had retired
by then, but old Jack Fox ran the firm sweet as a nut. It was liquid
all right."

    Chris's
interest was stirred. "What happened?"

    "Ahh
... " It was more than an expression of remembering; Mr. Gateman
was thinking hard. "He just decided it wasn't really his line of
work. Pulled the plug on the project and went back to building semis
... I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Stainforth, you'll still be wondering who
the hell I am. Poking my nose in."

    Bored,
David had drifted back to the caravan.

    "I
call myself Out-Butterwick's local historian, but that's just a
flimsy excuse. The truth is I like sticking my nose into things."
He rubbed the long aristocratic nose. "So tell me to clear off
if you like." He laughed, and Chris felt himself beginning to
like the little man.

    He
continued: "A couple of years ago I published a little book, a
history of Out-Butterwick. The church, pub, shipwrecks; the
interesting characters of yesteryear, that kind of thing. Trouble is
this seafort is the most