‘He’s a veteran?’
‘Not all of us managed to dodge the draft,’ said Abel with a wry smile. He knew this was unfair, that Hollis’ job as a detective had excluded him from military call-up.
‘We all passed through Camp Upton about the same time. I don’t know where he ended up. Come to think of it, maybe he never saw action. He didn’t show at the Memorial Day parade, this year or last.’ Abel stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Why all the questions?’
‘No reason,’ said Hollis.
In truth, the tall Basque with the unsettling gaze had been preying on his mind all day. In the first place, he had also picked up on the woman’s earrings—that was impressive—and then when Hollis feigned uncertainty of their significance he had simply smiled enigmatically, seeing through the front.
How had the fellow got his measure so quickly? And his parting words, the studied weight of the delivery—‘See you around, Deputy.’ They had never met before, why should they ever see each other again? If it was a message, it was one that Hollis had yet to fathom.
‘When you’re ready,’ said Abel.
‘What’s that?’
‘Come on, Tom, something’s up. I can see you thinking; shit, I can almost hear it.’
Hollis didn’t reply.
‘All I’m saying is…in your own time, if you want to talk about it.’
At that moment Lucy appeared from the house, hurrying towards the table, the oven gloves barely a match for the heat from the glass dish she was carrying. Dropping the dish on the table, she shook out her scalded fingers.
Hollis and Abel stared: patches of ocher-brown paste showing through a husk of dirty white, like snow on a muddy paddock during the spring thaw.
‘Lou, what in God’s name…?’ muttered Abel.
‘Sweet potato and marshmallow surprise,’ she replied proudly.
Six
Conrad found himself counting his steps as he walked—ten paces to every breaking wave, the spume washing around his bare feet. He resisted the urge to hurry ahead, the darkness not descended yet, measured strides over the tide-packed sand at the water’s edge. One-to-ten, one-to-ten. The mental metronome of a route march, memories of the ragged hills east of Cassino invading his thoughts, the sound of the collapsing waves not unlike the hollow report of distant artillery fire, unseen shells reshaping the Italian landscape.
Looking up, he saw a couple coming towards him, arms linked, bodies pressed close, stepping out at twilight. He thought of turning away, veering off towards the dunes to allow them a clear passage along the shore, not wanting to intrude on their moment. But they had seen him now, and a sense of propriety drove them apart.
They approached through the blue-black light, eyes downcast like guilty children.
‘Good evening,’ said the man stiffly as they passed.
A thought occurred to Conrad, and he stopped in his tracks. ‘Excuse me.’
The couple hesitated, turning.
‘Do you walk here every evening?’ asked Conrad.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I was just wondering if you walked here most evenings.’
‘Why?’ said the man.
‘We’re from Albany,’ said the woman. She uttered the words as if they were some kind of protective incantation.
Conrad took a couple of steps towards them. ‘Last night, were you here around this time?’
‘Look,’ said the man, ‘we’re very late.’
‘It’s important,’ said Conrad.
‘We weren’t even here last night, okay? We got here today. And now we have to go.’ They turned and left, stepping briskly away.
Puzzled by their reaction, Conrad glanced down, taking in his appearance, aware for the first time that he was still in his fishing gear—the shabby twill trousers, patched and stitched and crusted with fish scales, plaid shirt protruding from the tattered hem of his jersey, once white, now stained with fish blood and streaked with tar. No wonder they’d been so anxious, confronted by a ragged, barefoot scrap of humanity.
He tugged the jersey up over his head and set off along the shore. After a few hundred yards, he cut inland, up the steep frontal dune. Beyond lay a tumble of sandhills, a tangled maze of crests and troughs, like an angry cross- sea. Narrowing to a point a few hundred yards beyond the Maidstone Club, this mysterious tract of vacant land extended four miles eastwards into Amagansett, widening considerably as it went, demarcated to the north by the steep inland bluff on which the wealthy had built their summer homes.
It was a world Conrad was well acquainted with, one that hadn’t changed in all the years he’d known it. As kids, this had been their preserve, a private nether world where innumerable battles were fought, where Custer died a thousand deaths, yet, strangely, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett always seemed to survive the storming of the Alamo.
Back then the old-timers still referred to the place as ‘the Glades’, dim memories handed down of the time
