bit and the rising water cut off her brief sighting. Whatever it was, the object was too large for a bird, too slim for a boat, too streamlined for flotsam.
They both gazed, frozen in place by some unsettling emotion whose source eluded Stephanie. Maybe it was the stories about Gilbert and his drowned wife that had allowed vague uncertainties to invade her thoughts. Whatever the strange fancy was, she knew that Rod was experiencing a similar emotion too, though he would deny it if asked.
Moored offshore, the old man's boat bobbed as if it, too, was fearful of whatever had been chasing the fish. Stephanie allowed her concentration to lapse, hoping that a less creepy mood might intervene. Further along the beach, up the rise in the dunes were the barn-converted cottages. There were welcoming lights in some of the windows, suggesting neighbourly occupants.
'A dolphin perhaps?' Rod asked himself out loud. 'Most likely.'
His words drew Stephanie's attention back to the deeper water and, as a wave seemingly sloughed off a temporary skin, she glimpsed it again. This time there was a more obvious movement, almost a gesture.
'It has arms,' she said. 'I saw one of them waving.'
'Don't be stupid,' Rod said. There was not simply disapproval in the sound of his voice, but anger too. 'Who on earth would swim at night, in that?' He knew plenty of brave or foolhardy friends who would, but was not going to admit it to Steph. 'Got to be a dolphin. Manoeuvring a shoal of fish.'
Stephanie resumed her silent watchfulness. She must have been confused. Rod was probably correct. Nobody would swim in the surf off Nolton's beach at night, not perhaps since Gilbert's wife went missing. Not in any event; the currents might be tricky.
Stephanie kept watch intently for a few minutes more as the rollers relentlessly arched up the beach. Her eyes were beginning to ache with trying to distinguish the dolphin from the waves that intermittently allowed a peep into their troughs. Wanting desperately for it to be a dolphin. There was nothing, though, nothing more to be seen. The creature had swum back out to sea in search of that elusive shoal.
Yet, lingering in her mind's eye was that half-seen shape, and it gave her the shudders just imagining what might still be out there somewhere in the depths, if it was not a cetacean. Rightly it must be something with flippers, a shark even, or a dead boat's hull surfacing, spars waving as the sea drove it.
'Well it's gone.' Rod said aggressively, as though disgruntled at not being able to make a positive identification. Stephanie slipped her arm under his and tugged gently against his resistance. They turned their backs to the sea and headed to their accommodation. He turned his head back briefly, paused, took a deep breath.
Breasting the dunes using the half-hidden steps that the old man had climbed that afternoon, both of them turned to face the bay again. The moon was a fat crescent, very bright. The extra height furnished them with little more in the way of visibility, however.
Gilbert's dinghy continued to rock to and fro, the only motion besides the restlessness of the tides.
Rod was stroking Stephanie's back, but not affectionately. Unconsciously he was urging whatever had been out in the bay to reappear. The mystery of it aggravated him. Stephanie knew he did not enjoy ambiguities. She could sense his dissatisfaction, but could do nothing about that. In any case, it was hardly worth losing much sleep over.
Except… the sighting had left her rather uncertain. As if she had glimpsed something that she should not have.
Gilbert swore and stomped along the beach, his waders grinding on newly deposited seashells. As he skirted the rocky inlet, he opened his flies to relieve himself. The urine gleamed bright yellow in the moonlight and hissed as the swirls and eddies took it. He swore again and spat, the wedge of phlegm phosphorescent as it hit the surf.
'Tonight.
Then he began to row, the wooden craft breasting the waves. His strength was transmitted to the timbers and, as if they were extensions of some strangely articulated arms, the oars rowed and rowed.
Beyond the cliffs, the sea swell lifted the puny craft and dropped it again, but Gilbert stood up nevertheless as he cast his fishing net overboard. 'I'll give an almighty haul,' he muttered to the waves. 'I cut it loose once.' He sat, rowed a few strokes to allow the net to drift on its floats. 'I won't next time.
The sea sensed his presence and the water grew more restless. The moon brightened as luminous drifts of cloud hurried out of the way. Selenitic light shimmered on his oilskins and lit up the boat's cracked paintwork. His eyes roamed to the heavens.
He waited as the boat nodded in acknowledgment of the waves. The moon's argent haloes existed for the brief life of the swell and were a second later lost and another created. Then there was the tug, the net pulling against the boat's prow. Instinctively he moved hand over hand, reeling in. The drag of the mesh was steady at first, as if what was netted was somehow comforted, embraced by the nylon lattice. But then whatever was hidden in the waves began making furious water.
'Coming to bed?' Rod's call from the small bedroom sounded muffled, sleepy.
'Mmm. In a minute.' Stephanie moved the closed curtains aside and peeped out. There was the cove, glittering under the high moon.
The surf was rougher now, endless waves poised constantly, on the edge of breaking, gathering their brawn from tideless deeps. She cupped her hands to the glass to eliminate the glare of a table lamp and then she saw the rowing boat coming ashore.
She was holding her breath as she watched a hunched, black-clad, wetly luminous figure haul the dinghy out of the water. Across the thwarts of the boat a fishing net dragged, as if the ocean's hand had gripped the tangled nylon fibres and held them.
She knew who it was. He fell, slipped on seaweed or net or through old-age, and a muffled curse rang out loud in the night. He struggled to his feet, hauling himself up using the boat and it wallowed, daring him to try again as he lost his footing once more. He. was acting in a panic now and began dragging on the net while still prostrate in the shallows. Quickly the motion of hand-over-hand in time with yelled words, repeated over and over:
And some thing was dragged into the shallow water, a shape that flopped, not struggling, as if unsure whether dry land offered more safety than the sea. On the shining sand at Gilbert's feet, luminescent plaits of water… and this…?
Stephanie pressed her face closer to the glass, fascinated and terrified at the same time. In the net… bilious white, flesh that might have been partly consumed by some predator. She tried to imagine it had arms, the waving arm she had seen earlier. Gilbert reached out his hand and began tenderly to untangle the wrinkles of the net. No… she mouthed the word silently. He stood and moved in front of her line of sight and bent over the shape on the beach. There was a cry, an echo of which reverberated around the cliffs. An inconsolable cry. Stephanie squeezed her eyes hard shut and, when she next opened them, the old man was trudging for the rocks and the
