The Watcher in the Shadows

  ‘A conger eel,’ he explained. ‘It’s a long story.’

  Irene looked up at the silhouette of Cravenmoore looming over the treetops.

  ‘What does the name of your boat mean?’

  ‘It’s Greek. Kyaneos: cyan,’ Ismael replied mysteriously. Seeing that Irene was frowning, he went on: ‘The Greeks used this word to describe a dark blue, the colour of the sea. When Homer spoke of the sea he compared its colour to that of a dark wine. That is the word he used: kyaneos.’

  ‘So you can talk about other things apart from your boat and your nets?’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘Who taught you?’

  ‘To sail? I taught myself.’

  ‘No, about the Greeks . . .’

  ‘My father was very keen on history. I still have some of his books . . .’

  Irene remained silent.

  ‘Hannah must have told you that my parents died.’

  She nodded. The small island with the lighthouse came into view, about a hundred metres away. Irene looked at it, fascinated.

  ‘The lighthouse has been shut down for years. Now everyone uses the new one in the port,’ Ismael explained.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone go to the island any more?’ asked Irene.

  Ismael shook his head.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Do you like ghost stories?’

  ‘That depends . . .’

  ‘The people of the village think the island is haunted. They say that a long time ago a woman drowned there. Some people see lights. I suppose every village has its share of gossip, why should this one be any different?’

  ‘Lights?’

  ‘The September lights,’ said Ismael as they passed the island to starboard. ‘According to the legend, one night towards the end of summer, during the annual masked ball, the villagers saw a woman take a sailing boat from the port and put out to sea. Some say she was going to a secret meeting with her lover on the island; others that she was fleeing from a crime . . . The explanation doesn’t matter because in fact nobody could see who she really was – her face was hidden by a mask. But as she crossed the bay, a fierce storm suddenly broke; she lost control of the boat and it was flung against the rocks. The mysterious woman drowned, or at least her body was never recovered. A few days later, the tide washed ashore the battered remains of her mask. Ever since that time, people say that during the last days of summer, in the evening, lights can be seen on the island . . .’

  ‘The woman’s spirit . . .’

  ‘Exactly . . . trying to complete her voyage. Or at least that’s what people say.’

  ‘And is it true?’

  ‘It’s a ghost story. Either you believe it or you don’t.’

  ‘Do you believe it?’ asked Irene.

  ‘I only believe what I can see.’

  ‘A sceptic.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Irene looked at the island again. Waves crashed against the rocks. The sunlight glinted off the cracked windowpanes of the lighthouse tower, refracting into the ghost of a rainbow that faded away through a curtain of spray.

  ‘Have you ever been there?’ she asked.

  ‘On the island?’

  Ismael tightened the sails and with a sharp pull of the tiller the boat listed to port and made straight for the headland, cutting across the current.

  ‘How about paying a visit,’ he proposed. ‘To the island.’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘We can do anything. It’s a question of whether we dare to or not,’ Ismael replied with a defiant smile.

  Irene kept her eyes fixed on his.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next Saturday. On my boat.’

  ‘Just us?’

  ‘Just us. Of course, if you’re scared . . .’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ Irene replied quickly.

  ‘Right then, Saturday it is. I’ll pick you up by the jetty, mid-morning.’

  Irene turned her head towards the shore. Seaview sat perched above the cliffs. From the porch, Dorian was watching them with ill-concealed curiosity.

  ‘My brother Dorian. Maybe you’d like to come up and meet my mother . . .’

  ‘I’m not very good at family functions.’

  ‘Some other day, then.’

  The boat entered the small cove formed by the rocks beneath Seaview. With practised skill, Ismael lowered the sail and let the Kyaneos drift in towards the jetty. Then, grabbing the end of a line, he jumped ashore to moor the boat. Once it was secured, Ismael held out a hand to Irene.

  ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Homer was blind. How could he have known what colour the sea was?’

  Ismael took her hand and helped her up to the jetty.

  ‘One more reason to believe only what you see,’ he replied, still holding her hand.

  Irene remembered the words spoken by Lazarus during their first evening at Cravenmoore.

  ‘Sometimes our eyes can mislead us.’

  ‘Not mine.’

  ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  Ismael nodded, slowly letting go of her hand.

  ‘See you Saturday.’

  ‘See you Saturday.’

  Ismael stepped back into the boat, cast off the line and let the boat drift away from the jetty while he hoisted the sail. The wind carried the craft as far as the entrance to the cove; seconds later the Kyaneos had sailed out into the bay and was riding the waves.

  Irene stood on the jetty, watching the white sail lose itself in the immensity of the bay. A smile was still plastered on her face and a suspicious tingling ran up and down her hands. She knew then that it was going to be a very long week.

  4

  SECRETS AND SHADOWS

  In Blue Bay, calendars only identified two seasons: summer and the rest of the year. During the summer, the people of the village worked ten times as hard, servicing the neighbouring seaside resorts, where tourists and people from the city came in search of sand, sun and expensive forms of boredom. Bakers, craftsmen, tailors, carpenters, builders; all kinds of professions depended on the three long months when the sun smiled upon the coast of Normandy. During those thirteen or fourteen weeks, the inhabitants of Blue Bay worked like busy ants, so that they could then idle away the rest of the year like Aesop’s lazy grasshopper and survive the winter. Some of those days were particularly intense, especially the first few in August, when demand rose from practically zero to levels that were sky-high.

  One of the few exceptions to this rule was Christian Hupert. Like the other fishing boat skippers in the village, he worked like an ant for twelve months of the year. Every summer, around the same date, when he saw the other villagers gearing up for action, it occurred to him that perhaps he’d chosen the wrong profession: maybe it would have been wiser to break with the tradition of seven generations and set himself up as a hotelier, a shopkeeper, or something else. That way, perhaps his daughter Hannah wouldn’t have to work as a servant at Cravenmoore and he’d be able to see his wife’s face for more than thirty minutes a day.

  Ismael watched his uncle as they worked together fixing the boat’s bilge pump. The fisherman’s pensive expression gave him away.

  ‘You could always open a boatyard for repairs and such,’ said Ismael.

  His uncle replied with what sounded like a croak.

  ‘Or sell the boat and invest in Monsieur Didier’s shop. He’s been going on about it for six years,’ the boy continued.

  Ismael’s uncle stopped what he was doing and observed his nephew. In the thirteen years he’d acted as a surrogate father to the boy, he’d still never managed to erase what he both feared and adored the most in him: his obstinate similarity to his dead father, including a fondness for voicing his opinion when nobody had asked him for advice.

  ‘Perhaps you should be the one to do that,’ Christian replied. ‘I’m nearly fifty. You can’t change your career at my age.’

  ‘Then why are you complaining?’

  ‘Who’s complaining?’

  Ism
ael shrugged. They both turned their attention back to the bilge pump.

  ‘Fine. I won’t say another word,’ Ismael mumbled.

  ‘I’d be so lucky. Tighten that clamping ring.’

  ‘The ring’s had it. We should change the pump. One of these days we’ll find ourselves in real trouble.’

  Hupert gave him the particular smile he reserved for fish merchants, port authorities and simpletons of various sorts.

  ‘This pump belonged to my father. Before that, to my grandfather. And before him . . .’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ Ismael cut in. ‘It would probably be better off in a museum than on a boat.’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘I’m right, and you know it.’

  With the possible exception of sailing, teasing his uncle was Ismael’s favourite pastime.

  ‘I’m not willing to discuss the matter. Full stop. The end.’

  In case he hadn’t made himself clear enough, Hupert finished off his pronouncement with an energetic and decisive turn of the spanner.

  Suddenly a suspicious crunch was heard inside the bilge pump. Hupert smiled at the boy. Two seconds later, the screw of the clamping ring he had just secured was catapulted into the air, arcing above their heads, followed by what looked like a piston, a set of nuts and some unidentifiable pieces of metal. Uncle and nephew followed the flight of the debris until it landed, indiscreetly, on the deck of the neighbouring vessel – Gerard Picaud’s boat. Picaud, an ex-boxer who was built like a bull and had the brain of a barnacle, examined the detritus and then looked up at the sky. Hupert and Ismael looked at one another.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll notice the difference,’ Ismael remarked.

  ‘If I ever need your opinion . . .’

  ‘You’ll ask for it. Fine. By the way, I was wondering whether you’d mind if I took next Saturday off. I’d like to do some repair work on my own boat . . .’

  ‘Might these repair works, perchance, be blonde, about five foot five, with green eyes?’ Hupert asked casually. He smiled mischievously at his nephew.

  ‘News spreads fast,’ said Ismael.

  ‘When it comes to your cousin, news flies, dear nephew. What’s the lady’s name?’

  ‘Irene.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘There’s nothing to see. She’s nice, that’s all.’

  ‘“She’s nice, that’s all,”’ Hupert echoed, imitating Ismael’s indifferent tone.

  ‘OK , forget it. It’s not a good idea. I’ll work on Saturday,’ Ismael snapped.

  ‘We need to clean out the bilge. There’s rotten fish in there and it stinks.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Hupert burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re as stubborn as your father. Do you like the girl or don’t you?’

  ‘Mm . . . well . . .’

  ‘Don’t give me monosyllables, Romeo. I’m three times your age. Do you like her or don’t you?’

  Ismael shrugged. His cheeks were as bright as ripe peaches. Finally he mumbled something unintelligible.

  ‘Translate,’ his uncle insisted.

  ‘I said yes, I think so. Although I hardly know her.’

  ‘Good. That’s more than I could say the first time I met your aunt. And I swear by heaven above she’s a saint.’

  ‘What was she like when she was young?’

  ‘Let’s not get started on that or you’ll be cleaning the bilge next Saturday,’ Hupert threatened.

  Ismael relented and began to gather up his work tools. His uncle watched him as he cleaned the grease off his hands. The last girl his nephew had shown an interest in was someone called Laura, the daughter of a travelling salesman from Bordeaux, and that had been almost two years ago. His nephew’s great love, as far as he could tell, seemed to be the sea, and solitude. There must be something special about this girl.

  ‘I’ll have the bilge clean before Friday,’ Ismael announced.

  ‘It’s all yours.’

  When uncle and nephew jumped onto the dock and set off for home just before nightfall, their neighbour Picaud was still examining the mysterious pieces of metal that had fallen from the sky, trying to work out whether it was going to rain nuts and bolts that summer or whether heaven was sending him a sign.

  By the time August arrived, the Sauvelles felt as if they’d been living in Blue Bay for at least a year. Those who hadn’t yet met them knew all about them thanks to the communication skills of both Hannah and her mother, Elisabet Hupert. By some extraordinary alchemy, news seemed to reach the bakery where she worked even before the event. Neither the radio nor the press could compete with Madame Hupert’s conveyor belt of croissants and gossip. Which is why, by the time Friday came around, the only inhabitants of Blue Bay who hadn’t heard about the supposed love at first sight between Ismael Hupert and Irene Sauvelle were the fish and the interested parties themselves. Little did it matter that nothing had actually taken place; the short voyage from the Englishman’s Beach to Seaview had already been set down in the annals of that summer.

  Simone, in the meantime, had finally managed to establish a mental map of Cravenmoore, but her list of urgent chores was endless. Just making contact with suppliers in the village, sorting out payments and accounts, and seeing to Lazarus’s correspondence consumed every minute of her time. Dorian became her carrier pigeon, thanks to a bicycle Lazarus had kindly given him as a welcome gift. Within a few days, the boy was familiar with every stone and pothole on the road along the Englishman’s Beach.

  Each morning, Simone began the day by sending off the letters that had to be posted and meticulously sorting out the letters that had come in, just as Lazarus had asked her to. A small note on a folded piece of paper served as a quick reminder of Lazarus’s specifications. She would never forget her third day there, when she had been on the point of accidentally opening one of the letters sent from Berlin by Daniel Hoffmann. She only remembered at the very last second not to touch it.

  Hoffmann’s letters usually arrived every nine days, with almost mathematical precision. The vellum envelopes were always sealed with wax and marked with a stamp in the shape of a D. Simone soon became used to separating them from the rest, and ignored the strange nature of the correspondence. During the first week of August, however, something happened that reawakened her curiosity.

  Simone had gone to Lazarus’s study first thing in the morning with a few invoices and receipts that had just arrived. She preferred to leave them on his desk early in the day, before the toymaker went to his study, so that she did not have to interrupt him later on. Armand, her late husband, always started his day by going through the bills . . . Until he was no longer able to.

  That morning, Simone went into the study as usual and detected a smell of tobacco in the air. She assumed that Lazarus had stayed up late the night before. She was placing the documents on the desk when she noticed that there was something smouldering in the fireplace among the dying coals. Intrigued, she moved closer and prodded the embers with the poker, trying to make out what the object was. At first glance it looked like a wad of paper tied together, but then she noticed Hoffmann’s unmistakable wax seal. Letters. Lazarus had thrown Daniel Hoffmann’s letters in the fire. Whatever his motive, Simone told herself, it was none of her business. She put down the poker and walked out of the study, resolved never to pry into her employer’s personal affairs.

  The sound of rain pattering against the windowpanes woke Hannah up. It was midnight. The room was shrouded in a blue darkness with occasional flashes from a distant storm that cast eerie shadows all around her. She could hear the ticking of one of Lazarus’s talking clocks on the wall, the eyes on its smiling face swivelling endlessly from side to side. Hannah sighed. She loathed spending the night at Cravenmoore. It was Friday and she normally spent it with her family, but this week she had agreed to stay at the house.

  In daylight, Lazarus Jann’s home seemed like a never-ending museum full of wonders and marvels. At night, however, the countless automata, masks
and strange creatures seemed to change into a ghostly horde that never slept but remained watching in the shadows, always smiling, their gaze always empty.

  Lazarus slept in a room in the west wing, next to his wife’s. Apart from them and from Hannah herself, the only other inhabitants of the house were the toymaker’s numerous creations, lurking in every corridor and in every room. In the stillness of the night, Hannah thought she could hear their mechanical hearts beating, imagined their eyes shining in the dark . . .

  She’d only just closed her eyes when she heard another noise – a regular thud, muffled by the rain. Hannah got up and walked over to the window. Peering out she scanned Cravenmoore’s tangle of towers, arches and roofs. The gargoyles’ wolfish muzzles spewed rivers of black water out into the void.

  The sound reached her again. Hannah now focused on a row of windows on the second floor of the west wing. The wind seemed to have opened one of them; the curtains fluttered in the rain and the shutters were banging repeatedly against the wall. Hannah cursed her bad luck. The very thought of having to go out into the corridor and through the house to the west wing made her blood curdle.

  Before fear could prevent her from doing her duty, she put on her dressing gown and slippers. There was no electricity, so she took a candelabra and lit the candles. Their coppery glow formed a spectral halo around her. Hannah placed her hand on the cold doorknob and swallowed. Far away, the shutters were still banging, over and over again. Waiting for her.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her and looked down the endless passage that ran away into the shadows. Holding the candlestick up high, she set off on her journey, flanked on either side by the dangling shapes of Lazarus’s lethargic toys. Hannah looked straight ahead and quickened her pace. The second floor housed many of Lazarus’s older automata, mechanical creatures that moved awkwardly and whose features were often grotesque, even threatening. Almost all of them were shut away in glass cabinets, but sometimes they would suddenly come alive, without warning, commanded at random by some internal device to awake from their mechanical slumber.