‘Is something wrong, Mum?’
Simone smiled faintly and shook her head.
‘I just miss your father,’ she replied finally, a tear rolling down her cheek.
‘Dad is gone,’ said Irene. ‘You have to let go of him.’
‘I don’t know if I want to.’
Irene hugged her mother and could hear the sound of her tears in the darkness.
6
THE DIARY OF ALMA MALTISSE
Dawn crept up on Irene almost without her noticing. She was still engrossed in the diary with which Ismael had entrusted her. What had begun as simple curiosity some hours earlier had become an obsession during the night. From the very first line, the faded handwriting of the mysterious woman who had disappeared in the waters of the bay had captured her imagination. After only a few words, she had known she would not go to sleep.
Today, for the first time, I’ve seen the shadow’s face. It was watching me from a dark corner, lying in wait, motionless and silent. I know perfectly well what I saw in those eyes, the force that keeps the shadow alive: hatred. I could feel its presence and I’m certain that, sooner or later, our life in this place will become a nightmare. I’ve finally understood the help he needs, and, come what may, I cannot leave him on his own . . .
As Irene turned the pages, the woman’s voice seemed to be whispering to her, confiding secrets that had remained forgotten for years. Six hours after she had started reading the diary, Irene felt that this stranger had become more like an invisible friend who had chosen her to be the repository of her private thoughts and her memories.
It has happened again. This time it was my clothes. In the morning, when I went to my dressing room, I found the wardrobe door open and all my dresses, the dresses he has given me over the years, shredded to ribbons, as if sliced by the blades of a hundred knives. A week ago it was my engagement ring. I found it lying on the floor, twisted and ruined. Other jewels have disappeared. The mirrors in my room are cracked. Every day its presence is stronger and its anger more palpable. It’s just a matter of time before the attacks stop focusing on my possessions and turn on me instead. I’m the one it hates. I’m the one it wants to kill. There’s not enough room for both of us in this place . . .
Sunlight flooded Irene’s room as she turned the last page of the diary. For a moment it occurred to her that she’d never known as much about anyone. Nobody, not even her own mother had disclosed the very secrets of her soul as candidly as this woman who she’d never met. A woman who had died years before Irene was born.
I have nobody to talk to, nobody in whom I can confide the horror that invades my soul day after day. Sometimes I wish I could turn back, retrace my steps. But that is when I realise most clearly that my fear and sorrow cannot compare to his, that he needs me and that, without me, his light will go out for ever. I only ask that God will give us the strength to survive, to escape beyond the reach of the shadow that hovers over us. I feel as if every line I write in this diary might be the last one.
Irene felt tears spilling down her cheeks as she thought about this poor woman’s plight. As for her identity, all the diary revealed was two words on the top of the first page: ‘Alma Maltisse’.
It was not long after that Irene saw the sail of the Kyaneos heading towards Seaview. She picked up the diary and tiptoed off to meet Ismael.
It seemed only minutes before the boat was sailing through the choppy current that flowed around the tip of the headland and had entered Black Bay. The morning light sculpted silhouettes along the cliffs that made up much of the coastline, great walls of rock confronting the ocean. At the helm, Ismael seemed unusually cheerful as he steered the boat towards the lagoon. Happy to be under the spell of the sea, Irene told him what she had discovered through reading Alma Maltisse’s diary.
‘She obviously wrote it for herself,’ she explained. ‘But it’s strange that she never mentions anyone by name. The people seem to be invisible.’
‘It’s impenetrable,’ said Ismael, who had given up trying to read the diary long ago.
‘Not at all,’ Irene objected. ‘The thing is, you have to be a woman to understand it.’
Ismael pursed his lips and was about to fire off a quick reply, but for some reason he thought twice about it.
Before long, the wind had carried them to the entrance of the lagoon – a narrow passage between the rocks leading to a natural harbour. Inside it the water, only three or four metres deep, sparkled above the sandy white swathe of the seabed. Irene gazed in amazement at the scene as a shoal of silver fish darted beneath the hull of the Kyaneos.
‘It’s incredible,’ she spluttered.
‘It’s the lagoon,’ Ismael countered, his tone more prosaic.
While Irene drank in the view, Ismael lowered the sails and dropped anchor. The Kyaneos swayed gently, like a leaf on a calm pond.
‘Right. Do you want to see this cave, or don’t you?’
Smiling defiantly, without taking her eyes off Ismael’s, Irene slowly removed her dress. Ismael could do nothing but stare. Clad in a skimpy swimsuit, so skimpy her mother would never have called it by that name, Irene grinned at Ismael’s reaction. After letting him admire her in stunned silence for a couple of seconds, but not long enough for him to get used to it, she plunged into the shimmering sea. Ismael gulped. Either he was very slow or this girl was too fast for him. Without wasting another moment, he dived in after her.
Ismael and Irene swam towards the entrance of the Cave of Bats. The tunnel burrowed into the land like a cathedral gouged out of rock. The cave had a vaulted ceiling, crowned by large shards of rock that dangled down into the void like tears of ice. Sunlight glinted through cracks, revealing a thousand and one nooks and crannies among the rocks. In the half light the sandy seabed emitted a ghostly phosphorescence that spread like a luminous carpet towards the interior of the cave.
Irene submerged herself beneath the water and opened her eyes. A world of fleeting reflections danced before her, inhabited by creatures both strange and fascinating. Small fish whose scales changed colour depending on how the light fell; iridescent plants clinging to the rocks; minute crabs scuttling around the seabed. She gazed at the undersea fauna until she had to come up for air.
‘Keep doing that and you’ll grow a tail, like a mermaid,’ said Ismael.
She winked at him, then kissed him in the dim light.
‘Perhaps I already am a mermaid,’ she whispered, swimming further inside the cave.
Ismael exchanged glances with a crab that was observing him with mild interest from its lair on the rocky wall.
‘What?’ he prompted.
The crustacean seemed to be smiling at his expense.
She’s been absent for a whole day, thought Simone. The hours had gone by and still Hannah hadn’t appeared. Simone wondered whether this was just a disciplinary problem. She hoped so. She’d spent the whole day waiting to hear from the girl, imagining she’d had to go home for some reason. Some minor ailment. An unexpected family engagement. Come to think of it, hadn’t she spent Saturday with her family too, as she hadn’t appeared up at the house then? Any explanation would have been enough for Simone. Finally, she decided to face the problem. She was about to pick up the phone and call Hannah’s home when an incoming call got in ahead of her. She didn’t recognise the voice, and the way its owner identified himself did little to reassure her.
‘Good afternoon, Madame Sauvelle. My name is Henri Faure, I’m superintendent at the Blue Bay police station,’ he announced.
A tense silence travelled down the line.
‘Madame?’ said the policeman.
‘I’m listening.’
‘This isn’t easy for me to say . . .’
Dorian had finished his work as a messenger for the day. The errands Simone had entrusted him with had all been done, and the prospect of a free afternoon was refreshing. When he reached Seaview, Simone hadn’t yet returned from Cravenmoore and his sister Irene was probably out and about wi
th that boyfriend she’d found for herself. After downing a couple of glasses of cold milk, the absence of women in the house began to disconcert Dorian. He’d become so used to them that, when they weren’t around, the silence was worrying.
Since there were still a few hours of daylight left, Dorian decided to explore Cravenmoore’s forest. With the sun overhead, just as Simone had said, the sinister shapes revealed themselves to be nothing more than trees, bushes and undergrowth. With this in mind Dorian set off towards the heart of the labyrinthine wood that stretched between Seaview and the mansion of Lazarus Jann.
He’d been walking for about ten minutes when he noticed a trail of footprints entering the forest from the direction of the cliff and then vanishing mysteriously when they reached a clearing. He knelt down and put his fingers in the imprints, which were deep, more like random holes stamped into the ground. Whoever or whatever had left those prints must have been very heavy. Dorian took a closer look at the tracks, following the marks up to the point at which they disappeared. If he believed what he was seeing, whoever had made them had stopped walking and simply evaporated.
He looked up at the web of light and shade spun between the treetops. One of Lazarus’s birds fluttered through the branches. Dorian couldn’t help shivering. Were there no real animals living in this forest? The only ones he had seen were the mechanical creatures that appeared and disappeared in the shadows, making it impossible to work out where they had come from or where they were heading. He continued to search the area and noticed a deep notch in a nearby tree. Dorian moved closer. Similar lacerations scored the trunk the whole way up to the top. The boy swallowed nervously and decided to get out of there as fast as his legs would carry him.
Ismael led Irene to a small flat rock that jutted out about half a metre in the middle of the cave, and they both lay down to rest for a while. The light coming in through the entrance cast a flickering pattern of shadows against the walls and curved ceiling. The water was warmer here than in the open sea and the air felt almost humid.
‘Are there any other entrances to this cave?’ asked Irene.
‘There is one other one, but it’s dangerous. The only safe way in and out is by sea, from the lagoon.’
Irene gazed at the eerie light infiltrating the very depths of the cave. For an instant, she felt as though she were inside the grand hall of a palace carved into the cliffs.
‘It’s . . . unreal, like something out of a dream.’
Ismael nodded in agreement.
‘Sometimes I come here and spend hours just sitting on the rocks, watching the light change under the water. It’s my sanctuary . . .’
‘Far from the world?’
‘As far as you can imagine.’
‘You don’t like people much, do you?’
‘Depends which people you’re talking about,’ he replied, a smile on his lips.
‘Is that a compliment?’
‘Perhaps.’
The boy looked away and inspected the mouth of the cave.
‘We’d better leave now, the tide will be coming in soon.’
‘And?’
‘When the tide rises, the cave begins to fill with water, right up to the roof. It’s a death trap. You could get caught in here and drown like a rat.’
Suddenly the place no longer seemed dreamlike, but threatening. Irene imagined the cave filling with water, no possible escape.
‘There’s no hurry . . .’ Ismael explained.
But Irene had already dived in and begun to swim towards the entrance. She didn’t stop until the sun was beating down on her again. Ismael watched her go and smiled to himself. The girl had guts.
They made the journey back in silence. The words of the diary kept going through Irene’s mind like an echo that refused to fade. A thick bank of clouds had spread across the sky, masking the sun and turning the sea a leaden, metallic colour. The wind was fresher now, so Irene put on her dress again. This time Ismael barely looked at her as she was dressing, too wrapped up in his own thoughts.
The Kyaneos rounded the headland by mid-afternoon and set a course for the cove beneath the Sauvelles’ house. Ismael steered the boat towards the jetty and berthed it with his usual skill, although his mind seemed to be miles away.
When the moment came to say goodbye, Irene took Ismael’s hand in hers.
‘Thanks for taking me to the cave.’
‘You’re always thanking me and I don’t know what for . . . Thank you for coming.’
Irene wanted to ask him when they would meet again, but her instinct advised her not to. Ismael untied the line and the Kyaneos drifted off.
As she watched him leave, Irene paused on the stone stairway that led up the cliffs. A flock of seagulls was escorting him towards the port. She turned and continued up the steps, a secret smile on her lips.
The moment she set foot inside the house Irene noticed something was wrong. Everything was too tidy, too calm, too quiet. The lights in the living room on the ground floor were on and Dorian was sitting in one of the armchairs, staring at the fireplace. Simone was gazing at the sea from the kitchen window, a cup of cold coffee in her hands. The only sound was the murmur of the wind as it gently turned the weathervane on the roof.
Dorian and his sister looked at one another, then Irene went over to her mother and put a hand on her shoulder. When Simone Sauvelle turned around, there were tears in her eyes.
‘What’s happened, Mum?’
Her mother hugged her. Irene clasped her mother’s hands in her own. They were cold.
‘It’s Hannah,’ whispered Simone.
A long silence. The wind scratched at the shutters.
‘She’s dead.’
7
A PATH OF SHADOWS
As Irene pedalled towards the village on her brother’s bicycle, the sun was setting. For a moment she looked back over her shoulder at Seaview. Simone’s words and the alarm in her eyes as she saw her daughter rush out of the house weighed heavily on Irene, but the thought of Ismael sailing towards the news of Hannah’s death distressed her even more.
Simone had explained that, only a few hours earlier, two ramblers had discovered Hannah’s body near the forest. From that moment on, all those who’d been lucky enough to have known her had been overcome by grief and desolation. There’d been a lot of talk. People were saying that her mother, Elisabet, had suffered a nervous breakdown when she heard the news, and was still under sedation. But little else was known.
Rumours concerning a series of crimes that had upset village life years ago now resurfaced. There were those who saw this new tragedy as the continuation of a gruesome series of unsolved murders that had taken place in Cravenmoore forest during the 1920s. Others preferred to wait until they knew more details of the circumstances surrounding Hannah’s death. But the rumour mill didn’t throw any light on how she might have died. The two ramblers who had stumbled on the body were still giving evidence at the police station, and two pathologists from La Roche were on their way – or so people said. Beyond that, Hannah’s death was a mystery.
Cycling as fast as she could, Irene reached the village just as the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The place was almost deserted and the few people who were out on the streets walked in silence. She left the bicycle leaning against an old lamppost by the entrance to the side street in which Ismael’s aunt and uncle lived. Their home was a humble, unpretentious building, a fisherman’s house near the bay. It was clear that the last coat of paint had been applied decades ago, and the light of two oil lamps accentuated the effects of the sea air on the façade.
With her stomach in knots, Irene approached the front door. She was afraid. What right did she have to disturb the grieving family at a moment like this? What was she thinking of?
She stopped for a moment, unable to advance or retreat, caught between her reluctance to call and the need to see Ismael, to be close to him at such a moment. At that very instant the door of the house opened and the rotund figure of Docto
r Giraud, the local physician, emerged into the street. The doctor’s eyes glinted behind his spectacles in the dim light.
‘You’re Madame Sauvelle’s daughter, aren’t you?’
She nodded.
‘If you’ve come to see Ismael, he’s not at home. When he heard the news about his cousin he got on his boat and sailed off somewhere.’
The doctor saw Irene’s face grow pale.
‘He’s a good sailor. He’ll be back.’
Irene walked to the end of the quay. In the moonlight, she could see the lonely silhouette of the Kyaneos cutting through the mist as it headed towards the lighthouse island. Irene felt like jumping onto a boat and following him into his secret world, but she knew that there was no point.
The full impact of the news was beginning to sink into her own mind, and her eyes filled with tears. When the Kyaneos finally melted into the darkness, she got onto her bicycle again and started pedalling back home.
Dinner was brief that night and silence ruled as the Sauvelles pretended to eat something before retiring to bed. By eleven o’clock there wasn’t a soul to be seen downstairs and only one light still burned in the entire house: the lamp on Dorian’s bedside table.
A cold breeze wafted in through the open window. Lying on his bed, Dorian listened to the eerie sounds of the forest. Shortly before midnight, he turned off the light and walked over to the window. In the woodland, a sea of dark leaves stirred in the wind. Dorian could sense a presence lurking in the dark.
Beyond the trees stood the sinuous outline of Cravenmoore. Suddenly a flickering glow appeared amid the vegetation. Lights in the forest. A lamp or a torch shining through the trees. Dorian gasped. The trail of small flashes appeared and disappeared as if someone were walking in circles through the forest.
A minute later, wearing a thick jumper and his leather boots, Dorian tiptoed down the stairs and carefully opened the door to the porch. It was a cold night and, down below, the sea roared in the darkness. His eyes followed the path lit by the moon, a sliver of silver snaking into the wood. A fluttering in his stomach reminded him of the warm safety of his room. Dorian sighed.