Amagansett

Hollis cursed himself silently; he’d come at it all wrong.

‘I need this, Joe.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s all I’ve got.’

Aside from extracting a confession under duress, this was his last play—Lizzie’s midnight stroll.

‘She was going to meet someone, wasn’t she?’ said Hollis.

‘Was she?’ Joe’s face was set like iron.

‘I think it could have been the man who ran her down.’

He had gone back over his chain of assumptions, challenging each of them, forcing them to earn their place in his thinking. One had failed the test: the idea that mere chance lay behind the accident, that the impact of two alien worlds on a dirt-grade road in the dead of night—young flesh and hurtling metal, poverty and wealth—owed itself to nothing more than an unhappy coincidence.

But what did he really know about Manfred Wallace’s movements that night? Only that he’d gone with Lillian from the Devon Yacht Club to Penrose’s place. The rest was alibi, it had to be, concocted after the event. Maybe Lillian had stayed with her boyfriend that night—it was quite natural that she should—maybe Manfred Wallace had left Penrose’s house not in order to return home, but to keep a meeting, a rendezvous with a local girl.

It was thin, he knew that, but his talk with Sarah Jencks had reinforced his suspicions. She knew a lot more than she was letting on, and he wondered if her silence had been bought, or even secured with threats.

‘What if you’re wrong?’ asked Joe. ‘What if Lizzie was just out walkin’?’

‘She wasn’t.’

‘What if you’re wrong?’ insisted Joe.

Hollis couldn’t bring himself to say the words at first.

‘Then it’s over. I’ve got nothing else.’

Joe heaved himself up out of the rocker and wandered to the rail. He ran his hand over his crest of stiff white hair and glanced up at the sky. ‘Weather’s set fair for Mary’s bash.’

It was a good minute before he spoke again.

‘What I’m fixin’ to tell you goes no further.’ He turned to face Hollis. ‘I need your word on it.’

‘I can’t promise that, Joe, not if it leads to something.’

‘It don’t. It is over.’

‘If you’re right, you have my word.’

‘Why don’t you give me the name you got and we’ll go from there.’

Hollis hesitated before speaking. ‘Manfred Wallace.’

‘It’s the wrong name, bub.’

Thirty-Four

The man glanced at his watch but was unable to read off the time in the darkness. Almost ten o’clock, he guessed. With any luck he’d be back in his cottage and asleep by two a.m., maybe three. The call to New York could wait till the next morning. Nobody would want to be dragged from their bed at that time of the night.

He tried to picture the face that went with the voice at the other end of the telephone line, but failed. He wasn’t well spoken, just well connected with those who were, that was clear from the kind of jobs he handed out. Who else had there been? The lawyer, the Chicago banker, the square-jawed young polo player who’d pissed himself at the last moment. Establishment types. He never knew why they’d been singled out for his attentions, never even thought to ask. Best to just do the job and clear out.

This one was different though, intriguing—first the rich girl, now the big fisherman with the crappy truck. What was the connection between them? Something to do with the document, but he couldn’t see what exactly. He might have to break with tradition on this one and ask the guy before doing the deed.

He got to his feet and wandered over to the window. He could still see lightning scything the night sky way out at sea. The storm had stayed offshore, heading east. That was good. Rain was problematic. It meant mud on the shoes, it meant tire tracks, it meant a big pain in the ass.

He froze. His first thought was that the wind buffeting the fisherman’s house must have drowned out the noise of the truck. His second thought was that he’d been spotted. He hadn’t been. The darkened figure moving across the deck outside didn’t alter its course.

The man skipped lightly across the boards and took up his position.

The fisherman entered warily, but didn’t think to look behind the door.

The cosh was already raised, and he brought it down on the back of his skull.

Not too hard, not too soft—just right, he thought—as the fisherman crumpled to the floor.

Conrad came at the house from the beach, the gun in his hand brushing against his thigh as he walked. The breakers were building, booming as they collapsed—snatches of thunder stolen from the storm that had given them life.

He peered over the crest of the frontal dune and thought at first he was seeing things. There appeared to be light coming from the barn. He wasn’t mistaken. He could just make out the sound of the generator above the noise of the warm wind whistling through the beach grass.