"Why did we do that?" he said.
"Because I wanted to see who uses it." She looked down the service path. It ran along the back of the boatyard to the root of C pier, a strip of crushed shell between a chain-link fence and a row of storage containers, and it was busy in the way the front of the marina was not. Two young women in matching gray polos from one of the Italian boats were walking out toward the road with their phones in their hands, talking fast in what sounded like Afrikaans. A provisioning van was backed up to the gate of B pier with its rear doors open, and a stew with her hair in a tight bun was checking crates of lemons and limes against a clipboard. Nobody looked twice at Octavia. Here, in her polo and boat shoes, she was furniture. She found that she was glad of it.
"Tell me while we walk," she said. "Start with the window."
Dex consulted the tablet. "Tidemark called at twelve-thirty. Lenora. The front cleared through this morning on schedule, northwest twenty to twenty-five, diminishing tonight. Good window for Bermuda if you leave by eighteen hundred today. Seas on the beam getting down to two meters by tomorrow afternoon, then following. Clear run to St. George's in about sixty hours at eleven knots. But..." He scrolled. "The low off Hatteras they were watching is developing faster than the models had it yesterday. If Coriolis leaves later than eighteen hundred, Lenora says she'd be crossing the Gulf Stream right about when the low gets there, and that's a wind-against-current problem. She used the word unacceptable. If you don't leave today, the next window is probably Friday week. Nine, ten days."
"And the charter?"
"Twenty-eighth, St. Barths. Seven days. Embarkation Gustavia. Mireille Tarrant's the broker. She's holding the APA in her client account, two hundred and forty thousand dollars, and the charter fee's paid. If Coriolis misses the twenty-eighth, it's a breach under the MYBA contract, and the charter party's a family from Connecticut who've been planning this since February. She says she can probably move them a few days. She can't move them ten."
"And Mr. Kemble?"
Dex made a face that he probably thought was neutral. "Mr. Kemble wants to talk to you first. Before you talk to the captain. He was very clear."
"I'm sure he was."
"He says, and I'm quoting, that the owner is aware that Keelhaven has a procedure, and that the owner respects the procedure, and that the owner expects the procedure to be completed in a timely manner so that the vessel can make its commercial commitments. He also said the owner's office has been talking to Fairlead."