Kane’s food arrived. He ate it, thinking about Rory’s collection of Polaroids and Morrogh’s file on Petra Wade and wondering how they connected. Thinking of the fight last night and reframing it with Connor as a murderer with diplomatic immunity. What did Anne and Thomas Lindgren make of accusations being directed at their son? At the very least, it gave last night’s altercation some context, which gave Kane some idea of how to negotiate any repercussions. The food was more needed than he’d realized, and made him feel, for the first time since landing, as if he might survive this experience somehow. He had transport and some sense of the island’s main geography; he’d endured his first encounter with the police, had come away with dramatic new information. The kind of disorientation he felt now was the productive sort. The jigsaw was out of the box.

When he’d finished and paid, Kane went over to read the notice on the church door. In addition to the normal 10.30 a.m. Mass this coming Sunday, 24 November, we will be having a memorial service at 5 p.m. in memory of Petra Wade. All are welcome. He pushed the door and walked inside. The interior was surprisingly homey, with low, sloping wooden beams and walls crowded with inlaid plaques. A war memorial stood beside the door. At the front was a simple altar under a white cloth and beside this was a separate table with a vase of flowers and a framed photograph of Petra Wade.

Kane didn’t want to make a beeline for the shrine. He moved toward it slowly, reading the wall plaques, aware of the priest semi-hidden in the corner, watching him. Kane found one plaque recording the generosity of a Mr. Gordon Croft, whose son was buried in Comfortless Cove. Kane imagined him in 1850 writing the check with thoughts of an island that held his son’s remains and about which he could imagine little other than that it had no church.

The largest plaque recorded the church’s own dedication. Dedicated as St. Mary’s on Ascension Day, 1861. Kane tried to remember his Bible. Jesus ascending back to heaven after having returned from the dead, that was the story. Returned from the dead for forty days, walking and preaching alongside his disciples, a ghost at their elbow. Then he bade his farewell again, rising up, abandoning them on earth. Kane wondered in what way the Portuguese sailors who named the island had been marking Ascension Day when the volcano came into view. He imagined a chaplain of some sort trying to stay upright as the boat rolled and the wine spilled from his communion cup. Or was it no more than an entry on the ship’s calendar, one way of dividing up the blank time through which they sailed?

“Can I help with anything? Just curious?”