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She walked back along the edge of the shore. The tide was receding and there was a strip of hard, wet sand, here and there strewn with weed torn from the bottom of the ocean and thrown there by the waves. She saw pieces of wood, broken, jagged-ended, and found herself cold inside. She did not know if they were from the ship that had gone down, but they were from something man-made that had been broken and drowned. She knew there were no more bodies. Either they had been carried out to sea and lost forever, or they were cast up on some other shore, perhaps the rocks out by the point. She could not bear to think of them battered there, torn apart and exposed.

In spite of the wild, clean air, the sunlight slanting through the clouds, she felt a sense of desolation settle over her, like a chill in the bones.

She did not hear the steps behind her. The sand was soft, and the sound of the waves consumed everything else.

“Good morning, Mrs. Radley.”

She stopped and twisted round, clasping the bag closer to her. Father Tyndale was only a couple of yards away, hatless, the wind blowing his hair and making his dark jacket flap like the wings of a wounded crow.

“Good morning, Father,” she said with a sense of relief that surprised her. Who had she been expecting? “You … you haven’t found anyone else, have you?”

“No, I’m afraid not.” His face was sad, as if he too were bruised.

“Do you think they could have survived? Perhaps the ship didn’t go down? Maybe Daniel was washed overboard?” she suggested.

“Perhaps.” There was no belief in his voice. “Can I carry your shopping for you?” He reached out for it and since it was heavy, she was happy enough to pass it to him.

“How is Susannah this morning?” he asked. There was more than concern in his face—there was fear. “And Maggie O’Bannion—is she all right?”

“Yes, of course she is. We’re all tired, and grieved for the loss of life, but no one is otherwise worse.”

He did not answer; in fact he did not even acknowledge that he had heard her.

She was about to repeat it more vehemently, then she realized that he was asking with profound anxiety, the undercurrent of which she had felt increasingly since the wind first started rising. He was not asking about health or tiredness, he was looking for something of the heart that battled against fear.

“Do you know the young man who was washed ashore, Father Tyndale?” she asked.

He stopped abruptly.

“His name is Daniel,” she added. “He doesn’t seem to remember anything more. Do you know him?”

He stood staring at her, buffeted by the wind, his face a mask of unhappiness. “No, Mrs. Radley, I have no idea who he is, or why he has come here.” He did not look at her.

“He didn’t come here, Father,” she corrected him. “The storm brought him. Who is he?”

“I’ve told you, I have no idea,” he repeated.

It was an odd choice of words, a total denial, not merely the ordinary claim of ignorance she had expected. Something was wrong in the village. It was dying in more than numbers. There was a fear in the air that had nothing to do with the storm. That had been and gone now, but the darkness remained.

“Perhaps I should ask you what Daniel means to these people, Father,” Emily said suddenly. “I’m the stranger here. Everyone seems to know something that I don’t.”

“Daniel, is it?” he mused, and a lull in the wind made his voice seem loud.

“So he says. You sound surprised. Do you know him as something else?” She heard the harshness of her words, the edge of her own fear showing through.

“I don’t know him at all, Mrs. Radley,” he repeated, but he did not look at her, and the misery in his genial face deepened.

She put her hand on his arm, holding on to him hard, obliging him either to stop, or very deliberately to shake her off, and he was too well mannered to do that. He stopped in front of her.

“What is it, Father Tyndale?” she asked. “It’s the storm and Daniel, and something else. Everybody’s afraid, as if they knew there was going to be a ship go down. What’s wrong with the village? What is it