It hadn’t been hard to put that man’s cheques into his account instead of his mam’s. He’d practised copying his mam’s signature off the food orders from Jim Boyd’s a hundred times a day. Everyone at the Wesleyville bank knew he was Ellie’s son. No one had batted an eye when he’d said his mam had signed the cheques over to him.
There was a lot of money in the safety deposit box now. All that poison money from those twelve cheques, and all this stuff called interest. And then there was the money he’d saved up from his fishing and boat-building to repay all the money Mam had started getting from England after Da’ died – the cheques he’d seen his mam hide in the Fry’s cocoa tin on the top shelf till she’d get a lift into Wesleyville the last Thursday of the month with Jim Boyd to bank it. All this poison money was going back where it belonged. To the daughter of the man who’d blackened his dear mam’s soul.
Take the money and leave Tippy’s Tickle, that’s all she needed to do, and take that murderer, Sam Byrne, with her. Then, everything would be back to normal. He looks up at the clouded sky. I’m just sorry you won’t be here to see it, Mam.
He reaches the giant shards of rock that thrust up through the ocean at the base of the lighthouse. Cutting off the motor, he steers the boat through a crevice with an oar until he is underneath the cave opening. Dropping anchor, he grabs hold of a slice of rock. He tosses a rope over it and secures the boat to it with a bowline.
Tucking the leather satchel under his arm he jumps onto a flat rock sleek with water. He stumbles but catches himself on the bobbing boat. The tide is coming in. He doesn’t have much time.
Grabbing a crack in the cliff face, Emmett jabs his boot onto a jutting rock and slowly makes his way up the rock face to the cave. Another toehold, another fingerhold. Then another. No one’ll ever find the box up here. That’s for sure. The wind whips a spray of saltwater against his face and he blinks to clear his eyes.
Not far, now, b’y. Just a few more—
The rubber sole of his boot slips against the wet rock. He hovers in the air in a millisecond that lasts an eternity. Then he crashes against the rocks and through the waves and down, down, down, sliding like an anchor into the deep, cold water.
The whale breaches, its huge body soaring out of the ocean like a missile. It slides under the water, the white foam of the waves from the breach slowly settling. Around the base of the cliff, George’s letters float like white waterlilies, until they slowly sink into the blue-grey water of the North Atlantic.
EPILOGUE
Wesleyville, Newfoundland – 5 October 2011
‘Bloody Nora. There’s thousands here, Sam. Where on earth did Emmett get this money?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
Sophie hands him a stack of hundred-dollar bills wrapped into neat piles of a thousand dollars. ‘Help me count, will you?’
‘Sure thing, Princess Grace.’ He reaches into the safety deposit box and takes out a stack of money.
‘You don’t think he stole it, do you? Do you think it had anything to do with the accident over by the lighthouse? Why on earth would he have been out there?’
Sam shakes his head as he silently counts out the money. ‘Emmett was a closed book, Sophie. He pretty much kept to himself. I don’t think even Ellie knew what went on in his head.’
‘Wait, there’s something else in the box.’ Sophie takes out a small white satin bag and an envelope that has yellowed with age. She slides a card out of the envelope. ‘Look at this, Sam. An old Valentine’s card. Looks like it’s from the war, judging by the uniforms.’
Sam flips over the card. Glancing at Sophie, he clears his voice. ‘Cupid is the victor o’er many a heart today. He’s made me love you, sweetest, far more than words can say. One little kiss would be such bliss, oh, don’t refuse me, pray!’
Sophie smiles. ‘Do you suppose Thomas gave that to Ellie when he was courting her?’
‘Were you listening, maid?’
‘What do you mean?’
He leans over the table. ‘One little kiss would be such bliss, oh, don’t refuse me, pray!’ He reaches out and plants a kiss on her lips.
‘Sam. Sam!’ she says, giggling. ‘They’ve probably got a camera on us in here.’
He sits back in his chair and licks his lips. ‘Is that cherry?’
‘Lip gloss. Becca gave it to me.’ She opens the drawstring on the satin bag and shakes out two rings, a thin gold wedding band and a silver ring with a large square-cut stone. She picks up the silver ring. ‘I think this was Aunt Ellie’s engagement ring. She mentioned it to me once when we were drawing. This must be her wedding ring. She said she’d lost them years ago.’
‘That’s some diamond.’
‘It’s not a diamond. Ellie said it was a zircon.’
‘Let me have a look at that.’ He holds up the ring and squints at the silver band. ‘I don’t think this is silver. It’s got a maker’s mark. Look, a dog’s head.’
Sophie takes the ring and looks at the mark on the inner rim. ‘What do you think that means?’
‘I’ve seen that mark before on a ring my mother had. It’s platinum.’
‘Platinum? It can’t be. That’s expensive.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Sophie rolls the ring around her fingers. ‘Do you think this really is a diamond? I’ve never seen one this big.’
‘If the ring’s platinum, that’s not going to be a zircon.’
‘Ellie thought it was a cheap zircon all these years.’ Sophie slides the rings back into the satin bag and hands it to Sam. ‘Give these to Toby for Becca. She doesn’t have an engagement ring. Ellie would have liked her to have it.’
‘Are you sure? If that’s a diamond, that ring is going
