The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla 3)

Somewhere in that inferno the photographs and cuttings Lazarus Jann had treasured were consumed. And, as the police cars arrived at the ghostly pyre that small, tormented boy were sealed for ever.

As long as he lived, Ismael would never forget the final moments of Lazarus and his companion. The last thing he’d glimpsed was Lazarus kissing his wife on the forehead, and he swore to himself that he would keep this secret to the end of his days.

The break of dawn revealed a cloud of ash rolling towards the horizon over the bay. And as the day chased away the sea mist from the Englishman’s Beach, the ruins of Cravenmoore emerged above the treetops. Columns of black smoke rose skywards, forming velvet-black trails that reached towards the clouds.

Gradually, the haze concealing the lighthouse island broke up into wings of mist that fluttered away in the early-morning breeze.

Sitting on a blanket of white sand, Irene and Ismael witnessed the last minutes of that long summer’s night in 1937. Without a word, they joined hands and watched as the first rays of sun broke through the clouds. The lighthouse stood before them, dark and solitary. A faint smile appeared on Irene’s lips as she realised that, somehow, the lights the villagers had seen glowing through the mist would now be extinguished for ever.

‘They are at peace now,’ she whispered.

Ismael embraced her. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

Together they retraced their steps along the shore, heading towards Seaview. And as they walked, a single thought occupied Irene’s mind. In a world of lights and shadows, every person, every one of us, needs to find their own way.

Days later, when Irene’s mother disclosed what the shadow had told her – the real story of Lazarus Jann and Alma Maltisse – the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began to fit together. And yet, being able to shed light on what had really happened could not have changed the course of events. A curse had pursued Lazarus Jann from his tragic childhood to his death. A death that he himself, in his final moments, had realised was his only way out.

Paris, 26 May 1947

Dear Ismael,

I haven’t written to you in a very long time. Too long, I’m afraid. But finally, only about a week ago, a miracle occurred. All the letters you’ve been sending over the years to my old address reached me, thanks to the kindness of a neighbour, an old woman who is almost ninety but has the sharpest memory of anybody I’ve ever met. She’d kept them all this time, hoping that one day someone would come by and collect them.

Since then I’ve been reading and rereading your letters, over and over again. They are my most treasured possession. The reasons for my silence, and for this long absence, are difficult for me to explain. Especially to you, Ismael.

Little did those two young people on the beach imagine that, on the morning Lazarus Jann’s shadow disappeared for ever, a far more terrible shadow was looming over the world. The shadow of war.

When I lost touch with you during these terrible years, I sent you hundreds of letters that never reached you. I still wonder where they are, where all those words, the many things I had to tell you, ended up. I want you to know that, during those dark times, the memory of you, and of that summer in Blue Bay, was what kept me alive, what gave me the strength to survive another day.

Dorian enlisted and served for two years in North Africa. He returned with a pile of useless medals and a wound that will leave him with a limp for the rest of his life. He was one of the lucky ones. He came back. You’ll be pleased to hear that he finally managed to get a job in the cartography department of the Merchant Navy and that, whenever his girlfriend Michelle allows him a free moment (you should see her . . .), he travels the world with his compass.

What can I tell you about my mother? I envy her strength and the composure that got us through so many difficult situations. The war years were tough for her, perhaps more so than for us. She never talks about it, but sometimes, when I see her standing quietly by the window, watching people go by, I wonder what is going through her mind. These days, she doesn’t leave the house much and spends hours with only a book for company. It’s as if she’s crossed a bridge and I don’t know how to get to the other side . . . Sometimes I catch her looking at old photographs of Dad and hiding her tears.

As for me, I’m well. A month ago I left Saint Bernard’s Hospital, where I’ve been working all these years. It’s going to be demolished. I hope the memories of all the suffering and horror I witnessed during the war will vanish along with the building. I don’t think I’m the same person either, Ismael. Something has happened inside me.

I witnessed a great many things I’d never imagined could happen . . . There are shadows in this world, Ismael. Shadows far worse than the one against which you and I fought that night in Cravenmoore. Shadows next to which Daniel Hoffmann is almost child’s play. Shadows that exist inside each one of us.

Sometimes I’m pleased that my father isn’t here to see all this. But you must be thinking I’ve become someone who lives solely in the past. Not at all. As soon as I read your last letter, my heart skipped a beat. It was as if the sun had come out after ten long years of rain. I returned to the Englishman’s Beach, to the island, and once again I sailed across the bay on board the Kyaneos. I’ll always remember those days as the happiest of my life.

I have to confess a secret. Often, during the winter nights of the war, while shots and screams echoed through the dark, I would let my thoughts wander back there again, to your side, to the day we spent on the lighthouse island. I wish we had never left that place. I wish that day had never ended.

I suppose you’ll wonder whether I ever married. The answer is no. Not for lack of suitors, I might add! Modesty aside, I’m still quite successful in that respect. There have been a few boyfriends, here and there. The war years were too difficult to spend them alone, and I’m not as strong as my mother. But that was it. I’ve learnt that solitude is sometimes a path that leads to peace. And, for months, that’s the only thing I’ve wanted, peace.

And that is all. Or nothing. How can I begin to explain the feelings, the memories of these past few years? I’d rather wipe them out with a single stroke of the pen. I’d like my most recent memory to be that dawn on the beach and discover that all the rest has just been a bad dream. I’d like to be fourteen again, and not understand the world around me, but that’s impossible.

I don’t want to go on writing. I want us to speak face to face.

In a week’s time, my mother is going off to spend a couple of months with her sister in Aix-en-Provence. That same day, I’ll return to the Gare du Nord station and take a train to Normandy, just as I did ten years ago. I know you’ll be waiting for me and that I’ll recognise you among the crowd, as I would even if a thousand years had passed. I’ve known that for a long time now.

An eternity ago, during the worst days of the war, I had a dream. In the dream I was walking along the Englishman’s Beach with you. The sun was setting and the island was just visible through the haze. Everything was as it had been: Seaview, the bay . . . Even the ruins of Cravenmoore peeping over the forest. Everything except us. We were an elderly couple. You could no longer go out sailing and my hair was as white as ash. But we were together.

Ever since that dream I’ve known that one day, no matter when, our moment would come. That in some distant place the September lights would shine again for us and this time there would be no more shadows crossing our path.

This time it would be for ever.