death must have been hard on Uncle Mick, for it was clear they had been close. I saw it in his eyes sometimes when he watched Colm and Toby laughing with each other. I could see that memories were passing through his mind, memories of the times he had spent with his own brother. If they had been half as close as Colm and Toby, I knew it must have been very hard indeed.
I have one photograph of the pair of them, my mother and father, aside from those that appeared in the newspapers at the time of the trial. It’s their wedding photo, in a silver frame. My mother is dressed in satin and lace. It wasn’t the fashion to smile, but there is a hint of one on her lips, and there was no disguising the joy in her gaze. My father looked a lot like Uncle Mick, only younger and with a handsome mustache. His eyes sparkled.
Looking at the two of them, it doesn’t seem possible that their union would end in bloodshed.
I’d learned more details about my father’s murder and my mother’s trial as a young teenager. I’d read every newspaper article and sordid, gossipy piece I could get my hands on, trying to understand what had happened. Once I’d had my fill, learned everything I possibly could, I filed it all away and left it there.
I didn’t talk about it now. I tried my best not even to think about it. But it was always there, in the back of my mind, hovering like a dark shadow.
And it was that dark shadow that had urged me on. For every safe we opened, for every time we broke the law, I felt like it was a tiny bit of revenge for my mother. It wasn’t exactly rational, but I supposed the buried emotions that urge us forward seldom are.
Things were quiet for a long moment after I’d spoken. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I’d almost forgotten where I was.
“I’ve read the trial transcripts,” Major Ramsey said at last.
This surprised me. I had not expected him to delve so deeply into my background. Then again, I had seen, time and again, how thorough he was, how much effort he put into each small aspect of what he did. It shouldn’t be entirely surprising that he had looked into my mother’s case.
“And?” I said.
There was the slightest pause. “And I don’t see how the jury could have come to any other conclusion.”
It was what I had expected him to say, but still, somehow, it felt a bit like a punch to the stomach. “Juries have been wrong before,” I said at last.
“Yes,” he assented. I could feel the “but” hovering at the end of his sentence. He didn’t say it, but he also didn’t believe that my mother was innocent.
“She loved Greek mythology, too,” I said. “And she named me Electra. The avenger of her father’s death.”
“Agamemnon was murdered by his wife.” There was nothing cruel in his tone—his voice was almost gentle, in fact—but the factual way he said the words hurt nonetheless.
“I think she meant something else.”
“And so you steal to avenge her in some way?” He wasn’t mocking me, merely trying to understand. But I realized there was no way I could explain it, not to him. I couldn’t fully explain it to myself. I only knew that, until I had met Major Ramsey, there was a void in my life I had tried to fill with the thrill of theft. And I had justified it by telling myself I was flouting the laws that had taken my mother unjustly.
“I steal because it’s the only life I know,” I said. “And as for my mother, there’s nothing that can be done about it now, so there’s no use in discussing it. It doesn’t matter.”
But that wasn’t true, of course. It did matter. Because if, as I believed, as Felix’s shipmate had hinted, my mother was innocent, then my father’s killer had gotten away free.
* * *
Torquay was beautiful in the bright golden light of the late afternoon sun, the pale buildings arranged neatly around the harbor and an array of boats bobbing on the calm surface of the water. I had never been there before, though of course I’d seen postcards and the like. “The English Riviera” wasn’t a place my sort of people would generally spend much time.
The water looked a bright blue beneath the cloudless sky, tranquil and serene.