The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla 3)

Lazarus shook Dorian’s hand like a good businessman. Then, smiling enigmatically, the toymaker walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a wooden box. He handed it to Dorian.

‘What is it?’ asked the boy, intrigued.

‘A surprise. Open it.’

Dorian opened the box. In the lamplight he saw a silvery figure the size of his hand. Dorian looked at Lazarus in astonishment.

‘Let me show you how it works.’

Lazarus took the figure and placed it on the table. He pressed it lightly with his fingers and the figure unfolded, revealing its shape. An angel, identical to the one Dorian had seen earlier.

‘You won’t be frightened of it if it’s that size, will you?’

Dorian shook his head enthusiastically.

‘Then this will be your guardian angel. To protect you from the shadows . . .’

Lazarus escorted Dorian through the forest, talking to him along the way about the mysteries surrounding the making of automata and other mechanical marvels. To Dorian, the ingenuity of their construction seemed akin to magic. Lazarus appeared to know everything and he had an answer for even the most obscure and difficult questions. By the time they reached the edge of the forest, Dorian was fascinated by his new friend, and proud of him.

‘You’ll remember our agreement, won’t you?’ Lazarus whispered. ‘No more nocturnal wanderings.’

Dorian shook his head and walked off towards the house. The toymaker didn’t leave until the boy was safely back in his bedroom, waving at him from the window. Lazarus waved back and turned towards the dark forest.

Lying on his bed, Dorian still had a smile on his face. All his anxieties seemed to have evaporated. He opened the box and pulled out the mechanical angel Lazarus had given him. It was perfect, eerily beautiful. The mechanism was highly intricate, the product of some arcane and enigmatic science. Dorian set the figure on the floor, at the foot of his bed, and turned off the light. Lazarus was a genius. That was the word. Dorian couldn’t get over how many times he’d heard the word being misused, when this time it fitted perfectly. At last he’d met a real genius.

Enthusiasm gave way to drowsiness. Finally Dorian surrendered to exhaustion and allowed his mind to take him on an adventure in which he, the heir to Lazarus’s knowledge, invented a machine that trapped shadows, thereby freeing the world from the clutches of an evil organisation.

Dorian was asleep when, all of a sudden, the figure slowly began to spread its wings. The angel tilted its head and raised an arm. Its black eyes, like two obsidian tears, shone in the dark.

8

THE UNKNOWN

Three days went by and still Irene hadn’t heard from Ismael. There was no sign of him in the village and his sailing boat wasn’t moored in the dock. A storm front was sweeping the coast of Normandy, with heavy clouds hanging over the bay in what looked like a blanket of ash.

In the drizzle, the village streets seemed devoid of life on the morning when Hannah made her final journey to the small hilltop graveyard north-east of Blue Bay. The procession followed her coffin to the gates of the enclosure, then, at the express wish of the family, the burial took place in private. The villagers wandered back home in silence, lost in memories of the dead girl.

As the congregation dispersed, Lazarus offered to drive Simone and her children back to Seaview. It was then that Irene sighted the lonely figure of Ismael, sitting on a tall crag above the cliffs that surrounded the graveyard, gazing out to sea. She exchanged a quick glance with her mother, who nodded and let her go. Lazarus’s car set off along the Saint Roland’s Chapel road while Irene walked up the path leading to the cliffs.

A storm was raging over the sea, igniting cauldrons of lightning on the horizon. Irene found Ismael sitting on a rock, his eyes fixed on the ocean.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

She smiled and placed her fingers on his lips.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ she whispered.

On their way back to the village, Ismael told Irene where he’d been for the last three days. The moment he’d heard the news, he had sailed off in the Kyaneos trying to drown at sea the rage and sorrow that were consuming him. Eventually he moored his boat at the lighthouse island, seeking solitude. As the minutes turned into hours, a single thought invaded his mind: revenge. He would unmask whoever was responsible for the tragedy and make them pay. Dearly. The thirst for retribution seemed to be the only antidote that could lessen his pain.

None of the explanations given by the police satisfied him. He found the secrecy with which the local authorities had conducted the inquest suspicious, to say the least. The following day, just before sunrise, Ismael had decided to start his own investigation. Whatever the cost. That very night, Ismael forced entry and slipped unnoticed into Doctor Giraud’s forensic laboratory.

Listening with amazement – and a certain amount of disbelief – Irene heard how, after waiting for Giraud to leave, Ismael had entered the cold half-light of the room and, fighting against the thick stench of formalin, had rifled through the doctor’s filing cabinet, searching for the folder relating to Hannah.

For company he had two corpses he’d discovered there, both covered with sheets. They belonged to a couple of divers who’d had the misfortune to be caught by an underwater current in the strait of La Rochelle the previous evening, when they were trying to recover the cargo of a ship that had become stranded on the reef.

Pale as a porcelain doll, Irene listened to Ismael’s tale from beginning to end. Once the story moved outdoors, she gave a sigh of relief. Ismael had taken the folder to his boat and had spent two hours trying to wade his way through the jungle of Giraud’s jargon.

‘How did she die, then?’ Irene murmured.