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that time, people say that during the last days of summer, in the evening, lights can be seen on the island . . .’
    ‘The woman’s spirit . . .’
    ‘Exactly . . . trying to complete her voyage. Or at least that’s what people say.’
    ‘And is it true?’
    ‘It’s a ghost story. Either you believe it or you don’t.’
    ‘Do you believe it?’ asked Irene.
    ‘I only believe what I can see.’
    ‘A sceptic.’
    ‘Something like that.’
    Irene looked at the island again. Waves crashed against the rocks. The sunlight glinted off the cracked windowpanes of the lighthouse tower, refracting into the ghost of a rainbow that faded away through a curtain of spray.
    ‘Have you ever been there?’ she asked.
    ‘On the island?’
    Ismael tightened the sails and with a sharp pull of the tiller the boat listed to port and made straight for the headland, cutting across the current.
    ‘How about paying a visit,’ he proposed. ‘To the island.’
    ‘Can we?’
    ‘We can do anything. It’s a question of whether we dare to or not,’ Ismael replied with a defiant smile.
    Irene kept her eyes fixed on his.
    ‘When?’
    ‘Next Saturday. On my boat.’
    ‘Just us?’
    ‘Just us. Of course, if you’re scared . . .’
    ‘I’m not scared,’ Irene replied quickly.
    ‘Right then, Saturday it is. I’ll pick you up by the jetty, mid-morning.’
    Irene turned her head towards the shore. Seaview sat perched above the cliffs. From the porch, Dorian was watching them with ill-concealed curiosity.
    ‘My brother Dorian. Maybe you’d like to come up and meet my mother . . .’
    ‘I’m not very good at family functions.’
    ‘Some other day, then.’
    The boat entered the small cove formed by the rocks beneath Seaview. With practised skill, Ismael lowered the sail and let the Kyaneos drift in towards the jetty. Then, grabbing the end of a line, he jumped ashore to moor the boat. Once it was secured, Ismael held out a hand to Irene.
    ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Homer was blind. How could he have known what colour the sea was?’
    Ismael took her hand and helped her up to the jetty.
    ‘One more reason to believe only what you see,’ he replied, still holding her hand.
    Irene remembered the words spoken by Lazarus during their first evening at Cravenmoore.
    ‘Sometimes our eyes can mislead us.’
    ‘Not mine.’
    ‘Thanks for the lift.’
    Ismael nodded, slowly letting go of her hand.
    ‘See you Saturday.’
    ‘See you Saturday.’
    Ismael stepped back into the boat, cast off the line and let the boat drift away from the jetty while he hoisted the sail. The wind carried the craft as far as the entrance to the cove; seconds later the Kyaneos had sailed out into the bay and was riding the waves.
    Irene stood on the jetty, watching the white sail lose itself in the immensity of the bay. A smile was still plastered on her face and a suspicious tingling ran up and down her hands. She knew then that it was going to be a very long week.

SECRETS AND SHADOWS
    In Blue Bay, calendars only identified two seasons: summer and the rest of the year. During the summer, the people of the village worked ten times as hard, servicing the neighbouring seaside resorts, where tourists and people from the city came in search of sand, sun and expensive forms of boredom. Bakers, craftsmen, tailors, carpenters, builders; all kinds of professions depended on the three long months when the sun smiled upon the coast of Normandy. During those thirteen or fourteen weeks, the inhabitants of Blue Bay worked like busy ants, so that they could then idle away the rest of the year like Aesop’s lazy grasshopper and survive the winter. Some of those days were particularly intense, especially the first few in August, when demand rose from practically zero to levels that were sky-high.
    One of the few exceptions to this rule was Christian Hupert. Like the other fishing boat skippers in the village, he worked like an ant for twelve months of the year. Every