Jude shudders. “Gosh,” he says. “I was rather hoping it was a nightmare.” He gets up abruptly, to begin pacing back and forth. “All the while I was no help at all. Moira, forgive me. If they were following us, it was because they heard me talking. I should have—”
“Oh, sit down. There’s nothing to be done about it.” I curl my fingers around the edge of the bench as Jude sits back down. He does so with care, his expression contrite. I look him in the eye. “I do forgive you, Jude. I know you were not yourself.”
He takes one of my hands, holding it between us. With his eyes lowered, I see only the fringe of his lashes, dark against his cheeks. “I would’ve never forgiven myself,” he says, “if any harm came to you.”
I stare at him for a moment, wordless. His touch is warm and solid, his palms hardened by calluses. An instant later he draws away from me, returning his gaze to the well. “We ought to discuss our suspects,” he says, a somewhat uneven quality to his voice. “Those who were near the harbor.”
“Right.” I blink. “Well, if we’re to believe the killer was out on the moors last night, it can’t be your uncle, can it? He’s all the way over at the offshore light.”
Jude hesitates, seeming to weigh his words. “You said yourself it might not have been the killer. Last summer, before he left, my uncle and I—we had a bit of a row.”
“I see.”
I wait, but he doesn’t appear eager to expand on the answer. “This row is enough to suspect him of murder?” I ask.
Jude twists his hands together, looking toward the ash tree. He says, voice soft, “Perhaps.”
More secrets. I close my eyes, trying to center myself. I don’t see how much longer we can go on like this. Jude spoke of it already, last night, his words slurred but truthful. You still feel far away sometimes. I wonder if he realizes he distances himself as well.
I tell him, “I’ve got to tutor today.”
He turns back. At this angle his eyes shine amber in the light. “Who?”
“Eve Maddox.”
Jude rubs his mouth, contemplative. “And the investigation?”
“Well, Eve is around Connor’s age. Perhaps she knows something. If Connor planned to meet someone on the beach, he might’ve told his friends ahead of time.”
Jude heaves a sigh. “That isn’t what I meant, but all right.” He presses the heel of one hand to his temple. “I suppose I’ve work to do.”
“Like what?”
“I need to polish the lens, still, and clean the chimney. I ought to start on the monthly report, too—Daugherty will have my head if I’m late with it.”
Folding my hands in my lap, I imagine Jude knocking at my door earlier: his coat unbuttoned, the bags heavy under his eyes. Had he rushed out of the lighthouse? Did he think I had abandoned him after last night?
My heart feels twisted in knots.
A sudden breeze whips up the leaves near us in a flurry of red-brown-yellow. I glance toward the courtyard. “I’d best be off,” I say. “Eve will be waiting.”
“I’ll see you at Mass tomorrow?” He phrases it like a question. We’ve always seen each other at church; I don’t know why this Sunday would be any different.
I nod. “Of course.”
My answer seems to put him at ease. I stand, cross my arms over my coat, and wander closer to the well. I place my hands on the damp stone, peering over the edge. Algae rings the inside, stone blocks circling into blackness.
“Moira,” says Jude. There’s the faintest trace of anxiety in his voice.
Pushing away from the well, I turn around. “You ought to have been a sailor,” I tell him. “So superstitious.”
“Just because you can’t see something,” he says darkly, “doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
The words put my teeth on edge. Twillengyle seems riddled with secrets and half-truths, things seen and never quite forgotten.
We head out of the courtyard together, leaving the well behind us.
* * *
Eve’s grandmother is the one to answer the door when I arrive. I grip my violin case tight as she looks me over. She wears a thin shawl across her shoulders, a nettled expression on her face. “You’re late, dearie,” she says.
“Sorry.”
“She’s waiting for you in the garden.”
I nod, brisk, and head around the side of the house. The gate is already unlatched, and I step through into a tiny, cluttered yard. Empty flower pots and loose bricks line the edges, gardening tools piled against a tumbledown shed. Eve Maddox sits on a wood bench, her brown hair braided in a single plait and tied with a ribbon. Her violin is laid out on her lap.
“Afternoon, Miss Alexander.” She smiles.
“Afternoon.” I set my violin case beside hers on the bench, and motion her up. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Where were you?”
“Nowhere you need worry about,” I say. Eve flips open the clasps on her case, and I watch as she rosins her bow. “Have you been practicing?”
“Yes. I did scales just yesterday.”
I take her violin in my hands. Plucking at the strings, I begin tuning it for her. Eve doesn’t have the natural ear for intonation that Connor did—not yet at least. I’ve been tutoring her for almost two months now, and while she practices, she is absentminded: daydreaming about music rather than concentrating on the composition at hand.
“Did you try the piece I gave you?”
Eve makes a face as she twists the bow back and forth. “Yes, but it’s incredibly dull, miss. When can I play something faster?”
“Once you improve,” I tell her.
She places the violin on her shoulder, looking for my approval as she holds the bow just above the strings.
I reach out to tug her left elbow farther from her side before saying, “Good. Now, let’s go through the A major scale; then you can show me how you’re playing that piece.”
Unmoving, Eve says, “Did you hear about Russell Hendry?”
“I was there.”
The words escape my mouth without thought. I don’t want to talk about this; there’s no use talking about it. Russell’s in police custody, and the sirens are dead. All for Connor Sheahan, buried in the cold ground. Dead, dead, dead. My heart throbs with the truth of it.
“I think it’s awful,” says Eve, “what he did. The sirens were only doing what’s natural to them—shouldn’t have to be punished for that.”
I study her, head tilted, puzzled at this reflection of my younger self. “They still could’ve hurt someone on the dock, Eve.”
“Not if they had iron on them. Isn’t that what all those charms and things are for? To keep the sirens away.” Eve looks earnest now. Her violinist posture has come undone: bow limp at her side, her grip too tight on the neck.
With her questions ringing in my ears, I try to smile. “Yes, that’s what they’re for,” I tell her. “And it’s what Mr. Hendry should’ve used.”
“But he didn’t,” Eve says quietly.
“No.” I take her bowing hand in mine, rearranging it over the strings. “That is why he’ll get a good long prison sentence.”