I unglue myself from the book for a moment, interrupted by a grey-haired woman with a short, chic haircut: the director of the library. The woman at the front desk had told her about my search. She’s taken out a book that could easily be mistaken for a primary school ledger. It’s a book of family trees for the four most representative surnames of Providencia: the work of J. Cordell Robinson, a local researcher. There aren’t many copies, the director tells me, and since there’s no system to control their circulation, the book is kept in a room that’s closed to the public. There are others she thinks might interest me.

I continue with Aury’s story for a moment, reading up to his burial in Fort Warwick, on Providencia. ‘Ah, the pirates’ favourite island, and Aury’s too,’ says the director. It seems that there isn’t any real consensus on his role in the history of annexation to Colombia. Aury had been buried with some treasure, and his grave had recently been looted. There have been many different accounts, and several neighbours have refused to formalise their testimony before the authorities – surely fearing retaliation from the looters. They say they saw old coins, jewels, even two silver swords. A government report rejects the possibility that the excavation area, irregular as it may be, contained a grave in the first place; not in an archaeological site like that one. According to the gossip, though, Aury’s remains were thrown into the sea outside the fort. They say they know the full names of the treasure-hunters, who had shown up with metal detectors and everything. The woman tells me all this with an impartial air. These aren’t new stories, I think. Many people have gone diving in Morgan’s Cave; a few have perished. We’ll never know for sure – as is so often the case, I tell her, gesturing to the book she brought me; it must contain as many omissions as it does information.

Now I open the next book: acknowledgments, introduction, etc. And I scan the Archbolds, the Taylors, the Francises, the Robinsons… no one I know. I skim. I skim and skim and skim. Nobody.

But here. REBECCA BOWIE. There she is! Noise, voices. What about her mother? My eyes leap up again, re-scanning the lines of other names: May, Faquaire, Serrano, Martínez. I flip back through pages and pages, and there it is:

—ARNAT ROBINSON & JAMES DUNCAN

BOWIE JR.

—VIOLET BOWIE

—REBECCA BOWIE

(WITH JEREMIAH LYNTON)

—IONE LYNTON

—VIOLET LYNTON

—CASSILDA LYNTON

—ROSSILDA LYNTON

—RONALD LYNTON

—NOELA LYNTON

—OWEN LYNTON

—AIDA LYNTON