John Glass sat on the pitch pine verandah with his coffee and his cigarettes and watched the sunlight stealthily leaching the night’s shadows out of the trees. He had slept badly and woken at dawn. He had sat first in the big central living room and tried to read, but the silent house with other people asleep in it made him uneasy and so he had come out here. The salt air was cold still. Birds swooped down swiftly to the lawn in pursuit of the early worm and then flew up again. He was wondering at what time Captain Ambrose started work. He needed to talk to the policeman; there were questions he needed to ask him. He had been wrong about Dylan Riley, all wrong. He had a sense of smoldering anger that at any moment might flare into flame. Later, he was eating a silent breakfast with Louise in the big sunfilled kitchen when David Sinclair arrived from the city. His mother rose from the table and kissed him, and then held him for a moment at arm’s length, scanning his face and touching him lightly here and there with her fingertips, as if to check him for damage.
