‘Go to sleep.’
‘I can’t.’
He fought the urge to ask how it had been for her.
‘How was that for you?’ he asked.
‘Christ, Tom, look at me. I’m a wreck.’
He looked at her, then kissed her, overcome with tenderness.
‘Your ankles crack when you walk,’ she said.
They talked for quite some while. He wallowed in the intimacy of feeling her body while asking her about her life. She seemed to be related to pretty much everyone in the area, worryingly so, but that was the way with the older families, she assured him—they were all ‘cousins’ of some sort or another. She had inherited the farm from her uncle, who had died childless, and she lived off the rent from the land. The eldest of three girls, her two sisters and her parents lived in East Hampton, all within a few miles’ radius. She said that since they now knew each other carnally, it was only right he should meet them all the next day. His face dropped, but she was only joking.
They discussed his work, and she told him several amusing anecdotes about Chief Milligan which he hadn’t heard before. Though he knew it wasn’t the moment to ask, he couldn’t help himself.
‘Do you know Conrad Labarde?’
‘The one who found Lillian Wallace?’
‘Yes, the fisherman.’
‘I met his stepmother a few times. Maude. She used to be a teacher at the school in Amagansett, a good woman. My mother was on the same charity committee as her.’
‘Where’s she now?’
‘She moved away when her husband died. It was a couple of years ago, just before the war ended. She wasn’t from here. There was a brother—Antton, I think—he died too.’
‘How?’
‘Some kind of fishing accident before the war. He drowned off the beach. I know they all took it hard.’
Hollis tried to picture it: the Basque returning from the war in Europe to find his father dead, his stepmother gone. He knew the Basque had served in Europe during the conflict, because he had paid a visit to the Veterans of Foreign Wars office in East Hampton. They didn’t have the details of the outfit he’d ended up with—only a record of his enlistment and dispatch to Camp Upton along with all the other local men—but the Post Commander had heard that he’d seen action in Italy. Maybe the American Legion in Amagansett would know more. Hollis made a mental note to check with them.
‘Tom.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t want to know what this is about.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Don’t lie to me. First you ask me about Lillian Wallace, now it’s the man who found her.’
In the silence that followed he tried to formulate a response, enough to satisfy her, nip her curiosity in the bud. It wasn’t required.
‘I mean it,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t want to know. But there might come a time when I do. And then I’ll expect you to be honest with me. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘May I have my breast back now?’
He removed his hand and she rolled on to her side. He snuggled up behind her and kissed the nape of her neck, inhaling her scent.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
‘Just tell me one thing. Is it important?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’re forgiven.’
Twenty-One
They arrived at the Montauk Yacht Club at seven o’clock sharp, two chauffeur-driven cars pulling up near the clubhouse and disgorging their occupants.
Conrad made his way along the dock to greet them.
He recognized her father, brother and Justin Penrose from photos she’d once shown him at the house. Her sister, Gayle, was talking to a small woman with long dark hair tied back off her face. Her appearance fitted what Lillian had told him of the maid, Rosa. This was confirmed when Conrad drew closer to the group.
‘Help Rosa unload the food, will you,’ said George Wallace to one of the drivers.
Gayle effected the introductions and Conrad shook hands with father and son. George Wallace thanked him for recovering Lillian’s body from the ocean, and for arranging the charter boat. It didn’t seem to occur to him that there was anything odd about juxtaposing the two events in the same sentence, but at least he got them in the right order of priority.
