Now, three weeks since the detective's arrival in Boreas, Soames shielded his eyes with his right hand as he looked down on the beach and the sea beyond. The weather was growing warmer and warmer with each day, but out here at Green Heron Bay Soames was still glad that he was wearing a jacket. Farther along the strand, two figures walked one tall, one smaller, their backs to him, their fair hair blown behind them by the breeze: the Winters, mother and daughter, out for a stroll by the high dunes.

Movement came from the house below, and the detective appeared on his porch. He was carrying a stick, and took the steps down to the beach carefully, and at an angle, using his free hand to support himself on the railing. It was only when he was already on the sand that he saw the woman and the girl walking north along the beach. Soames saw him stop and turn to go back to the house. He paused as he glimpsed the car on the road above. Soames raised a hand uncertainly in greeting. After a couple of seconds the gesture was returned, and then the detective was gone.

'They're nice people,' said Soames to himself. 'Wouldn't have hurt you to say hi.'

But who was he to judge?

He got back in his car and left the detective to his solitude.

4.

Amanda Winter did not fully understand why she had been forced to move to this house by the sea. She was aware only of an argument between her mother and grandmother, although she was not privy to the cause. She had simply learned to judge her mother's moods, for the two of them were close in the way that only a mother and daughter could be who had grown up without a man in their lives, and she understood that questions about the fight would not be welcomed.

Amanda's father had died while she was as yet unborn, and her mother rarely spoke of him. Amanda knew only his name Alex Goyer and that he had been a mechanic. Her grandmother had once used a funny word to describe him: 'f.e.c.kless.' Amanda had looked it up online, and found that it meant irresponsible or worthless. There were other words too, but those were the ones that she understood. She didn't like to think of her father as having no worth, for if she was part of him, then it meant that something of her lacked worth too. Her mother had tried to rea.s.sure her on that front. She insisted that her father wasn't worthless, no matter what Grandma Isha said.

Now that Amanda was older and growing accustomed to the nuances of adult speech and behavior, she had learned mostly through Grandma Isha more about the relationship between her father and her mother. She knew that Grandma Isha had been angry because Amanda's mother had become pregnant outside marriage, and her father hadn't wanted to marry her when he found out, instead cutting off all contact. The fact that her father had abandoned her mother while Amanda was still in the womb made Amanda sad, and seemed to confirm Grandma Isha's view of him.

Someone had murdered her father shot him at the repair shop where he worked. The revelation was recent, and came from Grandma Isha. Amanda wondered if that might be one of the reasons for the big fight. She wasn't sure how she felt about her father's murder. Grandma Isha had mentioned drugs. Did that make her father a bad man? Amanda hoped not. Being bad was worse than being f.e.c.kless. Her father didn't seem to have much family of his own: his mother was dead, and his father, again according to Grandma Isha, wasn't much better than the son. Her father's father she couldn't really think of him as her grandfather had died when Amanda was still a baby. His liver didn't work right, and then it stopped working altogether. Her mother went to his funeral, although, like so much else concerning the Goyers, Amanda didn't find that out until years later.

So Grandma Isha was Amanda's only grandparent, because Grandpa Dave, her husband, was dead too. Amanda could just barely remember him. He had gray hair and wore thick gla.s.ses. Her mother said that Grandpa Dave used to call Amanda 'Manna', like the bread from heaven. Sometimes her mother would call her that too, which made Amanda happy.

Grandma Isha loved Amanda. She doted on her, spoiled her, and inhabited every facet of her life. Amanda and her mother had even lived in a house not far from Grandma Isha's, on land she owned. Amanda missed living there. She missed Grandma Isha. There had been no word from her since they had moved to Boreas. She wanted to ask her mother about it, but her mother was lost in concerns of her own, and whenever Amanda tried to broach the subject, her mother would grow angry, or sad, and Amanda didn't like to see her mother that way.

So, when Amanda was not at school which was often, because she had an illness, and the doctors didn't seem to know what to do about it she whiled away the days dozing, or reading, or watching TV until her head and eyes hurt. She had hated it in Boreas at first, hated being separated from her friends in Pirna, and from Grandma Isha. But slowly and surely the sea was beginning to lull her with its rhythms and sounds, for it was the same sea that broke near their old house, even if the view was different. She could not imagine being able to fall asleep without the shushing of waves, or waking without the scent of salt in the air and the tang of it on her skin.

The man who lived in the only other house on the bay had drawn her attention almost immediately. She had seen him walking on the beach that first day, as she sat on her new bed and stared out at the ocean. He stepped slowly and carefully, as though fearful of falling, even though the sand wouldn't have hurt him much if he had. He stayed close to the soft areas near the large dunes, and he used a stick. He wasn't old, though, which surprised her. In her limited experience, only old people like Grandma Isha used sticks, so she deduced that this man must be injured or disabled.

Because of the relative absence of males in her life, Amanda was curious about men. Not boys she already understood them well enough to disregard them almost entirely, finding them temporarily amusing at best and irritating for the most part but grown men: adults, like her mother. She could not quite conceive of the reality of them; their thought processes and actions were alien to her. They seemed like another species from the boys in school, and she could not imagine how someone as dumb and useless in every way as Greg Sykes who sat behind her in cla.s.s, and had once spat in her hair could possibly grow up to become capable of, say, driving a car or holding down a job. Greg Sykes smelled like pee, and would walk around with his hand down his pants when he thought that no one was looking. She could only picture a grown-up Greg Sykes as a larger version of his current self: still spitting, still smelling like pee, and still juggling his junk because he couldn't tell the difference between 'private' and 'public.'

So, on that first day, confused about this sudden upheaval in her life, she watched the man walk slowly along the strand, one hand on his stick, his head down, his lips she thought moving ever so slightly, so that he appeared to be talking to himself or, perhaps, counting his steps. He had paused for a moment to take in their house, noting the car parked outside, and the boxes and suitcases on the porch. His gaze moved up, and for a moment Amanda was certain that he was looking at her, even though she already knew that the angle made it hard to see her if she was lying on her bed. She'd checked when they first arrived, moving between her bedroom and the sand, gauging the room's suitability as an observation post. No, he almost certainly couldn't see her, and yet she felt the force of his gaze, and for a moment he might have been in the room with her, so aware was she of his presence.

Then he walked on, and she shifted position so that she could continue watching him. She wasn't the kind of girl who spied on people. Grandma Isha had once caught her rummaging in her closet, Amanda's infant eyes drawn by the old dresses that her grandmother kept but never wore, the boxes of shoes that remained new and unsullied, and other unknown treasures that might be concealed inside. Grandma Isha had been really annoyed, and gave Amanda a long lecture on the right to privacy. Since then, Amanda had always been careful not to pry, but the man was walking on a beach, in full view of anyone who happened to be around, so it wasn't like she was doing something wrong by watching him. Even so, her attention might have drifted elsewhere, leaving him to become an object of ever-decreasing interest, until she finally failed to notice him at all, were it not for what he did next.

He stopped, reached down to the sand, and picked up something black and red before continuing on for another while. Finally, he stepped to his left, on to the clean white sand beyond the reach of the incoming tide, and dropped the item. He then turned and walked back to his own house, moving even more slowly and carefully than before. The expression on his face was one of tiredness and, she believed, pain.

She waited until he was out of sight, and, when she was certain that he had returned to his home, left her bedroom and wandered on to the beach. It didn't take her long to find the small bundle, for the breeze grabbed at the strip of red fabric that marked its position.

The man had discarded a cloth bag of what felt like stones, its mouth tied shut with the red material. The knot wasn't very tight, so it didn't take her long to open it. The contents, when revealed, didn't appear to be terribly interesting. They were just plain old stones, with no pretty patterns, no unusual striations. She examined them all, just in case there might be a gem hidden among them, but she found none. When she was done, she returned the stones to the bag, retied the knot, and replaced it in the little depression in the sand from which she had lifted it.

Later, the rain came. They listened to it beat upon the roof of their new home while they ate takeout pizza at the kitchen table, surrounded by possessions both boxed and unpacked, and Amanda asked her mother if she knew anything about the man who lived in the other house.

'No,' her mother replied, but she was only half-listening. She was always only half-listening, half-speaking, half-noticing. She had been that way ever since she'd announced that they were leaving Pirna for Boreas. 'I think his name is Mr Parker, but that's all. Why?'

'Nothing. I just saw him walking on the beach, and I was wondering.'

'Maybe we'll introduce ourselves, once we've settled in. Until then, you know about talking to strangers, right?'

'Yes, Mom.'

'Good.'

Her mother's attention wandered again. She'd been nibbling at the same slice of pizza for so long that it must have grown cold in her hand. Amanda had eaten two slices already, and was now on her third. She was ravenous. She finished that final slice and asked if she could be excused.

'Sure, honey,' said her mother. 'We'll be okay here, you know?'

But she didn't really look at Amanda when she spoke, and Amanda thought that she was trying to convince herself as much as her daughter.

And still the rain fell, washing away sand, and dust, and not far to the south of where they sat, a little blood ...

That night Amanda had a strange dream. She was standing on the beach in her pajamas, and in the distance the strip of red material flapped like a flag above the sand. A figure knelt over it, but it was not Mr Parker. This one was smaller, and as Amanda drew closer she saw that it was a little girl, younger than she. The girl wore a nightgown, although she didn't appear to feel the cold. Her long blond hair obscured her face. Her right hand toyed with the red fabric.

Amanda stopped. In her dream, she sensed that it would not be right to approach this girl. She wasn't frightening. She was simply other.

'h.e.l.lo, Amanda,' said the girl.

'h.e.l.lo. How do you know my name?'

'Because I've been watching you. You had pizza for dinner. I saw you eating. Later you went up to your room, and I saw you there too.'

'How?'

'Through the window.'

'But it's high up.'

'Yes. You have a lovely view.'

And even in her dream, Amanda shivered.

'What's your name?' she asked.

'My name is Jennifer.'

'Do you live around here?'

'I suppose I do, now.'

A part of Amanda wished that she could see Jennifer's face. Another part of Amanda was glad that she could not.

'You saw him drop the bag, didn't you?' said Jennifer.

'Yes.'

'And you picked it up.'

'Yes. Did I do something bad? I didn't mean to.'

'No. You put it back where you found it, and that's the important thing. Do you understand what it is?'

'No, I don't think so.' Amanda paused and reconsidered. 'Maybe.'

'Go on.'

'It's a marker, but I don't know what it's supposed to be marking.'

'Progress,' said Jennifer, and Amanda thought that although she looked like a little girl, she spoke like someone much older. 'Each day he tries to walk a little farther. Often it's only a few steps. And he marks the spot, so he will remember to take at least one step more the next day.'

'Why does he do that?'

'He's been hurt. He's still hurting. But he's getting stronger.'

'Is he-?'

But Jennifer stood and turned her back on Amanda. Their conversation was over.

'Why can't I see your face?' shouted Amanda, and she was sorry for asking as soon as the words left her mouth.

Jennifer stopped walking.

'Do you want to see it?' she said. 'Do you really?'

Slowly she turned, her right hand lifting, pushing the hair away from her face.

And Amanda woke up screaming to find sand in her bed.

5.

Cory Bloom had been Boreas's chief of police for two years, and remained the youngest person ever to have occupied that position. By contrast, her predecessor, one Erik Lange, had been the longest serving chief in the state when he retired, and even then the town pretty much had to force him out at gunpoint. Lange died soon after retiring, a fact that Bloom didn't particularly regret, although she kept such thoughts to herself. It was said by Lange's admirers of whom, by the end, there were few that the old chief's heart couldn't bear a life of relative indolence, although Bloom would have been surprised if his autopsy had revealed a heart larger than an acorn.

Lange was of sound German stock incredibly, the old coot's father was still alive, knocking on the door of his centennial and ran Boreas as his personal fiefdom. He was a chauvinist and a h.o.m.ophobe, and the best that could be said about him was that he kept the crime rate down, although it hadn't increased noticeably since his departure, which suggested that Boreas hadn't exactly been Detroit or New Orleans to begin with. By the end of his reign, it was clear that the townsfolk wanted a change, and Bloom was appointed chief with relatively little fuss. It helped that she was married to a man who hailed originally from Pirna, and although nothing was ever said to this effect that she had no children.

For the most part, the transition to Boreas from Bangor, where Bloom had served before applying for the chief's job, had been painless, aided by the unantic.i.p.ated bonus of Lange's sudden demise, as otherwise he would have been unable to resist sticking his nose in her business, and would have carried himself as the chief-in-exile. Yes, there were some who muttered about the public face of law enforcement being relatively young and, more to the point, female, but Bloom had the right touch, and even those who would happily have erected a statue to Erik Lange in the center of town had gradually warmed to her. A handful of holdouts remained, though, including Lange's deputy chief, Carl Foster, who threw his toys out of his playpen and left the force when the town pa.s.sed him over in favor of Bloom. Good riddance to him. It had saved her the trouble of forcing him out.

She parked her Explorer at the edge of the beach at Mason Point, slipped out of her sneakers and replaced them with the pair of black waterproof boots that she always kept in the trunk. She was supposed to be off duty, but had learned quickly that no chief of police in a small community is ever really off duty. Anyway, this was different. It wasn't every day that a body washed up on the sh.o.r.es of her town.

Two uniformed officers were already waiting for her by the water's edge, along with Dan Rainey, who lived close to the beach and had first seen the body floating in the surf. The officers were both women, and had been hired on Bloom's watch. Their employment had led, not coincidentally, to a couple of further male retirements and resignations from the department, to go along with those of Lange and Foster, as their aging cronies negotiated settlements with the town and headed off into the sunset. The blatancy of it had irritated Bloom, but she shared her feelings only with her husband. He was an architect with a sideline in designing boats, and exuded the calm of a Buddha, helped by the occasional toke. Sometimes she threatened to arrest him for it, which he found highly amusing. Still, the resulting purge of the department's deadwood had allowed her to redress the previous gender imbalance (female: 0 percent/ male: 100 percent) while still holding on to a couple of senior male officers who were secretly glad to see the back of Lange, if only because it would enable them to work out their twenty away from his martinet gaze.

Mary Preston was the younger of the two officers on the beach. She was a big woman in her late twenties, and Bloom wasn't sure that she would have pa.s.sed the physical fitness test over in Bangor, which required female recruits of her age to be able to do fifteen push-ups without stopping, thirty-two sit-ups in one minute, and run one and a half miles in fifteen minutes. On the other hand, she was smart, intimidating, loyal, and very, very funny. When Bloom had gently raised the issue of her weight during the interview process, Preston informed her that she had no intention of letting a 'perp' and that was the word she used get so far away from her that fifteen minutes of jogging would be required to capture him. If speed over distance did become an issue, she said, she'd run him down in her car. If she didn't have a car, she'd throw her flashlight at him.

If that failed, she'd just shoot him.

Bloom hired her on the spot.

The second officer was Caroline Stynes, who had twelve years under her belt as a sergeant up in Presque Isle. She was a decade older than Preston, and Bloom was grooming her to become deputy chief, just as soon as she could convince the town's human resources department to come up with an appropriate salary. For now, Stynes had brought her rank with her to Boreas, and was Bloom's de facto second-in-command.

'What have we got?' Bloom asked.

'Male,' said Stynes. 'Could be in his forties, but it's hard to say.'

The body lay facedown on the sand, the retreating tide still lapping at its feet. He looked like he hadn't been in the sea for too long, although immersion in the cold, deep salt water of the North Atlantic would have inhibited putrefaction for a time. His body also wouldn't have started to rise until the gases inside decreased its specific gravity, creating enough buoyancy for it to reach the surface and float. In addition, the man was wearing a heavy jacket and a sweater, which would have kept him under the water for longer, even allowing for the action of the gases.

Bloom pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and gently pushed his hair away from his face. Fish and crustaceans had already been nibbling on the soft tissue, and one eye was gone. She could see some damage to his skull, although it would take an autopsy to determine if it was ante-or postmortem. Corpses in water always float facedown, and the buffeting of the waves, combined with any damage that the body might have sustained upon sinking initially, could well have resulted in abrasions to the head. The lividity to the visible parts of his upper torso was dusky and blotchy from his movement in the water. His right foot was shoeless, although he still wore a striped sock. The remains of his big toe poked from a hole. Something had eaten most of it down to the bone. His left foot had retained its shoe, and the right shoe was attached to it by the laces. So before he'd gone into the water, his shoelaces had been tied together.

Carefully, Bloom patted the pockets of his garments, looking for some form of ID. She discovered none.

'You thinking a suicide?' said Stynes.

Bloom leaned back on her heels. She'd heard of cases in which people had tied their shoelaces together, or bound their legs, before dropping, or shuffling, into the water, just so they could be sure that they wouldn't start kicking once the panic set in. She had even seen photographs of drowning victims with wire tied around their wrists, leading to an initial a.s.sumption that the bodies were put in the water by a third party, only for the autopsy to reveal marks in their mouth where they'd pulled the wire taut with their teeth.

She examined the man's fingers. The skin of the pads and the backs of the hands were macerated from his time in the water, but none of the fingernails was missing. As putrefaction developed, the epidermis and nails tended to peel off, but his were still intact.

'I'll inform the ME and the state police,' said Bloom. 'We'll see if there are any reports of abandoned vehicles, or somebody finding a discarded wallet or ID. In the meantime, we need to get him bagged and off this beach.'

Now that he was out of the water, decay would start to set in rapidly. It was essential that they secure him in a cooler drawer as soon as possible, in order to facilitate an accurate autopsy. In addition, the discovery of a body inevitably attracted rubberneckers, especially in a small town. Kramer & Sons, the local funeral home, had the contract for dealing with floaters and similar unfortunates in this part of the county. They'd be glad of the work. Despite Boreas's relatively elderly population, n.o.body had died in town for a couple of weeks.

'Mary,' she said, 'I want you to go up to the road and establish a cordon. No unauthorized vehicles, no unauthorized personnel, and no excuses. Caroline, you stay with the body for now, and take Mr Rainey's statement. I'm going to call in Mark and Terry to help us do a sweep of the beach while the tide is going out, just in case we can find anything to help us make an identification. All clear?'

They nodded, then Preston looked past her.

'Pastor's here,' she said. 'And Father Knowles.'

Bloom turned to see the two men waiting at a polite distance. She could see only one car, though. They must have decided to travel together. Martin Luther would have had an embolism.

'Is it okay to come down?' Pastor Werner called.

Bloom waved them over. Both men were wearing clerical collars. She wondered if they'd put them on specially. Bloom wasn't religious, but she maintained good relations with both Werner and Father Knowles, the parish priest of Holy Mother. He was a tiny, energetic man, whose enthusiasm for everything sometimes wearied Bloom. She got on better with the Lutheran Werner, who was more laid back and laconic. He probably had six inches on Knowles, and the smaller cleric usually deferred to Werner in community matters, for Werner's father had been pastor before him, while Knowles was only in his second year at Holy Mother.

'We heard about it in town,' said Father Knowles. 'It's no one local, is it?'

'I don't believe so,' said Bloom.

The two men looked past her at the face of the dead man, and winced at the sight of him.

'I don't recognize him,' said Knowles, 'but then, he's been in the water. Do you, Axel?'

Werner shook his head. 'No, he's not familiar.'