back to haunt him in yet another guise—that of a local fisherman—only this time it just didn’t make any goddamn sense.
‘It doesn’t make any goddamn sense,’ said Manfred, lighting another cigarette off the first, not wanting to mess around with matches in the stiff breeze coming off the ocean and rustling the leaves above their heads.
‘It makes sense, we just can’t see it yet.’ Richard paused, thoughtful. ‘How does he know? Either you told him, I told him, or Justin did.’ He paused. ‘Or he heard it from Lillian.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying he wasn’t there when it happened; otherwise why wait till now to say something?’
Richard paced back and forth for a while, as he often did when working through problems.
‘Yes. Why wait till now? That’s the key. Because he’s only just found out. But how?’
‘All I’m hearing is more questions.’
Richard ignored him, pacing, pacing, head bowed. He stopped abruptly and looked up.
‘You know, I doubt he really knew for sure, just enough to bluff it out of you.’
‘I didn’t admit to anything. I didn’t
Not true. He had messed up with that line about hurling accusations around.
Richard must have read the lie in his eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘He would have known from your look when he sprang her name on you.’
Manfred stared at the ocean. ‘Christ, what have we done, Richard?’
‘No more than we had to. It’ll be all right.’
‘I’ll pay you whatever it takes.’
A cloud of disappointment passed across Richard’s face. ‘It’s not about the money, Manfred. It never has been.’
Richard looked away suddenly, as if embarrassed by his words.
‘I need time to think this through,’ he said, ‘find out more about this Conrad Labarde.’
‘He’s a veteran, I can tell you that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He’s got a regimental tattoo on his arm, some kind of arrowhead, a red arrowhead.’
‘Are you sure? A red arrowhead?’
‘Yes I’m sure. Why?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Richard, not wholly convincingly.
Twenty-Four
Conrad knew something was wrong when Rollo failed to show for work first thing Monday morning. He was never late. If anything, he was early. Conrad would often wake to find him sitting on the deck, waiting patiently, whittling a piece of driftwood or just staring into the distance.
Maybe he was ill. Unlikely. Conrad couldn’t remember the last time he’d been sick.
The answer arrived as he was finishing his breakfast. Two trucks pulled up beside the house. Four men got out. And Conrad knew immediately that he was in for a hard time.
He nodded at Rollo’s father. ‘Ned.’
‘Conrad.’
The other men cast their eyes around the buildings. None of them had visited before now; they’d never had reason to. Cap’n Jake Van Duyn showed particular interest in the barn, which was hardly surprising, seeing as his brother had sold it to Conrad a little over a year before.
‘Looks okay,’ he said.
He was a kindly man, blunt-spoken and fiercely proud of his Dutch origins. When he was in liquor he still railed against the politicians back home who had sold his ancestors down the Hudson River, trading New Amsterdam to the English for a handful of spice islands in the East Indies.
‘You know Jacob, Francis, Edwin,’ said Ned.
‘Sure.’ Though not well enough to call them by their Christian names. The familiarity of the introductions had an ominous ring to it.
‘You want some coffee?’
‘We’ll not stay long,’ said Ned.
‘Coffee would be good,’ said Cap’n Jake.
‘Why not?’
‘Sure.’
Ned wasn’t happy about being overruled, but he didn’t protest.
Conrad felt curiously detached serving coffee to the headmen of the oldest Amagansett clans. The Kemps, Paines, Songhursts and Van Duyns were known as the First Four. It was their forebears who had settled the village, dividing up the land amongst themselves, land that would prove to be the mainstay of their families’ enduring wealth and
