“You have people who write to you,” she said. “That is all I observed.”
“That is not all you observed.”
The corner of her mouth moved—the same small, private flicker of interest she could not quite govern. “Very well. I observed that one of your correspondents has a very elegant hand. A woman’s hand, unless I am mistaken.”
“You are not mistaken.”
“And you do not wish to tell me who she is.”
“I do not.”
“Then I shall not ask.” She picked up the pen and returned to the harbourmaster’s letter, and the conversation closed with the same deliberate care with which she closed the journal each morning—a door shut, not locked, with the understanding that it would be opened again when the time permitted.
Indeed, she had not asked. But the smile had said what the question would have said, and the smile was worse, because a question could be refused and a smile could only be remembered, and he would remember it whether he wished to or not.
He set the cup upon the shelf, took his coat from the peg, and went out to the knoll, where the timber waited, and the wind asked nothing of him, and the morning had the decency to be cold and simple and free of women who smiled at handwriting they were not supposed to see.
Chapter Sixteen
ThereplyfromBeadnellarrived on a Thursday, inside a packet Garrett Shaw left at the Anchor with the publican’s wife.
Elizabeth collected it on her way through the village, tucking it inside the basket beneath the bread and the tin of tea, and she did not open it until she had climbed the western path and passed the tower and descended the far side of the headland to the place where the cliff path turned and the rock offered a ledge wide enough to sit upon, facing south, out of the wind.
The harbourmaster’s hand was cramped and practical, the writing of a man who composed correspondence as seldom as possible and resented the necessity.
Miss Bennet,
I have made inquiries as requested regarding persons lost or recovered along the coast between Bamburgh and Beadnell in the period you describe. No body was recovered by this office nor reported to the magistrate at Bamburgh during the months of April through December of last year, nor in the months since.
However, I have spoken to one Amos Firth, who fishes out of Seahouses, and he recalls that a boat working the Farne Channel in late July or early August pulled something from the water that may have been a person. Firth did not see this himself. He heard it from a man at Seahouses whose name he cannot now recall, and who may have heard it from another. I relay this with the caution it warrants.
If you wish to pursue the matter further, I suggest writing to the harbourmasterat Seahouses directly, as his jurisdiction covers the Farne Islands and the channels between.
Your servant, &c.J. Pollard, Harbour Office, Beadnell
She read it twice. Then a third time, tracing each line with her finger as though the pressure of her hand upon the page might force the words into something more solid than hearsay layered upon hearsay.
A boat pulled something from the water.May have been a person. A man whose name he cannot recall. Heard it from another.
It was nothing. A rumour of a rumour, the kind of story that circulates along any coast where the sea gives and takes and the men who work it remember imprecisely. It proved nothing. It promised nothing.
She folded the letter and put it inside the journal. Then she looked south along the coast where the cliffs curved toward Craster and the beaches opened and the Farne Islands sat on the horizon like a low line of dark teeth.
Eighteen months. Jane had been gone eighteen months. And somewhere along this coast, a boat had pulled something from the water in the weeks after she disappeared, and no one had thought to record what it was.
She wrote to the harbourmaster at Seahouses that evening, by candlelight, on the keeper’s paper, and did not tell him why.
Theassessor’sletterarrivedtwo days later.
She read it aloud at the table because the contents concerned them both, and because reading aloud prevented her from feeding it to the fire.
“Mr Gerald Norwood, surveyor, appointed by Hathaway and Crane on behalf of the Blackscar Trust, will attend the property on or about the fourteenth of next month to conduct a full assessment of the tower, the cottage, the apparatus, and all associated structures.” She turned the page. “He will require access to all buildings, records, and personnel.”
William stood by the window. “The fourteenth.”
“Three weeks.”
“And he will require access to the cottage.”
