Surviving The Evacuation (Book 8): Anglesey by Frank Tayell

knife, not in a threatening way, but with the keen eye of a craftsman tending his tools. Only the four people on the pub’s other side looked as if they were taking their ease, but they weren’t drinking. No one was. I began revising my opinion of Markus.
    “Ah, the two brothers of literary fame,” the man himself said, coming out of the back room. Paul followed, with a sharp-faced women bringing up the rear. “Get them some drinks, Rachel.”
    “Tea? Coffee?” she asked. “Or there’s beer, but it’s Hopvar, I’m afraid. Unless you want to try our own brand vodka.”
    “You don’t have any named brands?” I asked.
    “We keep those for trade,” Markus said. “Except the Hopvar. Vile stuff, but we found a lorry full of it just after we got here. That’s why we decided we’d open the pub. There was more than we wanted to drink, but then one bottle of that brew’s usually more than anyone wants to drink, right, Rachel?”
    “That’s right, Markus,” the woman said, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t. There was something about her expression that made me think she didn’t like the man.
    “Tea would be fine,” I said.
    “Yeah, why not,” Sholto said. “When in Wales, after all.”
    “Two teas, then, Rachel,” Markus said. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”
    “We were looking for a sat-phone,” I said.
    “Then you’re out of luck,” Markus said. “We don’t have one.”
    “No one’s traded them with you?” I asked.
    “They might have tried, but we’re not buying,” he said. “What use would it be? Oh, sure, there’s the battery, but you can find a hundred mobile phones on every street. Finding a use for them is more difficult. I’m glad you came, actually. You can take these off our hands.”
    He walked behind the bar and through the door to the back room, returning with a blue cracked-leather gym bag. He placed it on the counter.
    “Pills?” Sholto asked, looking inside.
    “Yeah, people trade them,” Markus said. “No idea if they still work. Thought you could take them to the hospital. I’ve no use for them.”
    Sholto took out a pill bottle. “Vitamin C.” He took out another. “Neo-natal supplements. This is for arthritis, and this is a painkiller. It’s an opioid.”
    “And we’ve definitely no use for those,” Markus said.
    “You don’t sell pills?” I asked.
    “Where’s the profit in that?” he asked.
    I glanced at the board behind the bar. “You sell booze,” I said.
    “Only after five p.m. We have strict licensing hours.”
    And again I found myself disconcerted by how atypical he was being. “So why not pills?”
    “Because they’ll run out,” Rachel said, returning with a tray on which were two mugs of tea. “There’s no point creating a habit you can’t supply. That’s right, isn’t it, Markus?”
    “Ah… yeah,” he said, and I sensed he’d not planned on giving such an honest reply.
    “You said you wanted a sat-phone?” Rachel asked. “Most of the ships’ crews dumped them over the side during the escape, along with anything else that was useless weight. I went looking months back. You can ask, but I don’t think you’ll get anywhere.”
    After two minutes of good tea and awkward conversation, we left.
    “That wasn’t what I expected,” I said. “I thought it would be a dive. Lots of guns and bandoliers of ammunition.”
    “And gold-toothed pirates? I think that’s who Kim sailed off with,” Sholto said. “No, Markus is a lot more organised than I was expecting, and that’s what that place reminds me of. Organisation. Specifically, organised crime. You remember me telling you what happened after our parents died?”
    “You fell in with some gangsters.”
    “They had a place like that, and I’ve seen others like it since. Places where there are very strict rules. It’s a place of work and run as such.”
    “So the question becomes, what are they working towards?”
    “No,” Sholto said. “You’re not thinking