pen. The water was calm here. Drawing closer, she could see bright green weeds floating like a mermaid’s tresses in the current. Carefully, she stepped into the water, her waders keeping her feet and legs dry. As she ventured deeper, the water pressed in on the rubber, sucking it against her legs. There were dog whelks, cockles, goose barnacles, sea snails, and limpets all crowded onto the rocks. She concentrated her gaze and was eventually rewarded with her first sighting. The Venus verrucosa in all her ridged glory. She was pleased to see a fair-sized colony, several larger ones and a collection of babies, uncovered by the low tide. She got out her calipers and set to work, measuring and recording. She’d slung her camera around her neck and when she’d taken the measurements she needed, she began to photograph the colony, placing a small plastic ruler next to them for scale.
All of this took more than an hour and as she worked the tide began to turn, submerging the clams once more. When she eventually straightened up, she was sore from bending over and arched backward, stretching out her spine. She glanced up at the sky. While she’d been working she’d been vaguely aware that the sun had gone in, but hadn’t thought anything of it, so absorbed was she in her task. Now, however, she saw that dark gray clouds had begun to roll in from the north. They definitely looked to be carrying rain. The wind had picked up too, flecking the previously glassy water with peaks of foam, as if they were whipped egg whites. She was fast learning that the weather here could change in an instant. She made a mental note to be more circumspect about checking the forecast next time, but wasn’t especially worried; she’d been out in far rougher weather and lived to tell the tale.
She waded back to where she had left her backpack, stowed her gear away, and returned to the Soleil. Her camera still around her neck, she looked up at the sky again, calculating whether she would make it back to Hugh Town before the storm.
She’d always been a gambler.
Dragging the tinny back to the water’s edge, she pushed it clear of the sand and climbed in, lowering the outboard and getting under way.
Unthinking, she turned the boat toward the Eastern Isles, instead of south back to St. Mary’s. Later, she wouldn’t be able to explain why she had done so. A momentary lack of concentration, tiredness from her late night and morning’s work perhaps?
It was to prove a costly mistake.
Chapter Fifteen
Little Embers, Autumn 1951
Richard regarded the woman before him. Her eyes were blazing and her brown hair, which looked as soft as eiderdown, curled riotously about her face. Bright spots burned in her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell as her breath came in sharp bursts. He could see that her hands were shaking and she was struggling to hold them still. He needed to do something to soothe her, to ease her agitation.
“Do you like music, Esther?” he asked.
“Do I what?” Despite her distress, her tone was glacial.
“Like music? Classical?” He pointed to the gramophone.
“Actually, as it happens, I do. But I don’t see how that will solve anything.”
“Indulge me if you will.” Richard went over to the gramophone, removed a thick shellac-coated disc from its brown paper wrapper and placed it on the turntable. He wound up the machine and then gently placed the needle on the record. Immediately the delicate strings of Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending” filled the room. Esther’s eyes widened but she leaned back into the chair, eventually closing her eyes as the music swelled. Her body, until then taut as a violinist’s bow, slackened slightly. She was completely still and he was able to look upon her without fear of being caught staring. Her mouth was wide and generous, her cheekbones prominent, her forehead broad, and her chin determined. He noticed the purple shadows under her eyes, the shell-curve of her ears that were revealed as her hair fell away from her head, the graceful line of her neck, the deep hollow where it met her collarbones. For several minutes there was no sound in the room save for the soaring music and the crackling of the fire. Richard stood utterly still, watching as a single tear escaped her lashes and traced its way down her cheek. He felt like an intruder on her private grief.
The music finished and she