Tasmin knew her as soon as he saw her. She was so like old pictures of his mother that she could have been related by blood. That same triangular face, the same deeply curved and oddly shaped mouth in which the lower lip appeared to be only half as long as the upper one, giving her a curiously exotic appearance. That same long, silvery hair – though Vivian wore it braided and pinned to keep it out of her way. Lim must have been attracted by that unbelievable resemblance.
‘Vivian?’ Tasmin asked.
She pushed a wisp of hair from her forehead with one wrist, keeping the bloody fingers extended. Her other hand held a curved knife. ‘Yes?’
‘I’d like to talk with you, if you have a minute.’
‘I don’t have a minute. I don’t have any time at all. They don’t like us having conversations while we’re supposed to be working.’ Her face and voice were so full of worry and pain there was no room for curiosity.
‘I can wait until after work. My name’s Tasmin Ferrence. I’m Lim’s brother.’
She stared at him, her eyes gradually filling with tears. The knife hand trembled, as though it wanted to make some other and more forceful gesture. ‘Damn you,’ she said in a grating whisper. ‘Damn you to hell.’
In his shock, Tasmin could not move. Clarin stepped between them as though she had rehearsed the movement. ‘Don’t say that, Vivian. I don’t know why you would say that. Tasmin was only a boy when his brother left home, and he doesn’t know any reason for you to say anything like that. See. Look at his face. He doesn’t know. Whatever it is, he doesn’t know.’
The woman was crying, her shoulders heaving. Tasmin straightened, looked around to meet the eyes of an officious and beefy personage stalking in his direction. He moved to meet this threat. ‘Are you the supervisor here?’
The man began to bluster. Tasmin drew himself up. ‘I am Tripsinger Tasmin Ferrence. I am on official business for the citadel. I need to talk to this woman, Vivian Terree, and I intend to do so. You can either cooperate or I can report your lack of cooperation to the citadel. The choice is entirely up to you.’
The bluster changed to a whine, the whine to a slobber. Tasmin left him in midcringe. ‘Clarin, find out where we can talk.’
Vivian led them out of the market and around to the rear where a flight of rickety stairs took them to the second floor. The tiny apartment was as splintery and dilapidated as the stairs, with narrow windows that did nothing to ventilate the scantily furnished two rooms or ameliorate the overwhelming stench of fish.
The baby was playing quietly in a crib. A boy child, about two or a little older. He turned to look at them curiously as they entered, holding up his arms to his mother. ‘D’ink.’
‘Lim’s son?’
‘Lim’s. Of course.’ She filled a cup and held it to the baby’s lips. ‘Little Miles.’
The name came as a shock. Named after their father? Lim’s and Tasmin’s father?
‘Lim didn’t live here?’ Tasmin fumbled.
‘We didn’t live here. We had a house, a nice house, on the rocks over the bay. There was a little beach for Miles to play on. Lim borrowed against it.’
Miles? ‘You lost it?’
‘I guess I never really had it.’ She turned on him, glaring. ‘We would have had it if he hadn’t done that crazy thing. He borrowed against the house. Against everything we had. A hundred-day note. Due and payable at the Old Moon. He was dead by then.’ She leaned over the child, weeping.
Tasmin looked at Clarin, pleadingly.
‘Let me take the baby out on the stairs,’ she said to Vivian. ‘You and Tasmin need to talk.’ She went out with Jamieson, and he could hear them playing a rhyme game on the landing while the sea birds shrieked overhead.
‘Vivian. I don’t … I don’t know why Lim did that. His agent told me about it. I don’t understand it.’
‘He had to get to you.’
‘To me? I hadn’t even seen him in fifteen years! I wrote to him and he didn’t even answer!’
‘You wrote to ask him for money. Why should he send money to you!’
Tasmin bit back the obvious answer, controlled himself.
‘Vivian, I don’t know why. Mother was in need; I thought Lim was making it with both hands.’
‘Let your damned father take care of her!’
‘He died. Years ago. Not long after Lim left.’ After Lim had left, Miles Ferrence had almost seemed to court disaster.
She was shaking. ‘Dead?’ She got up, moved into the next room. Tasmin could hear water running. In a moment she returned. Her hands and face were wet. She had washed off the fish blood. ‘Dead?’ she asked again.
‘Why does it matter?’
‘I suppose it doesn’t, now. Everything he went through. Trying to prove himself to that rotten old man!’
‘You didn’t even know him!’
‘I know about him.’ She began to weep again. ‘He was … he was terrible. Oh, God, he hurt Lim so.’
‘Well, Lim hurt him.’
‘Later. Later Lim hurt him. Later Lim tried to. To get even a little. Because it didn’t seem to matter. Poor Lim.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘How old are you?’ she asked suddenly, eyes flashing.
‘Thirty-two.’
She counted, shaking her head. ‘Lim was thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight. He was only twelve when it happened. So, you were only seven. Maybe you didn’t know. I guess you didn’t.’ She bent forward, weeping again.
‘Vivian, please. Talk to me. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what you’re saying. Yes, my father was a very unpleasant person sometimes. Yes, I think he was harder on Lim than he was on me because Lim was older.’
‘Hard! I could forgive it if he’d just been
