As he was showering this morning, he’d had a fantasy that he’d walk into Lorna’s house and feel an inner vibration, the kind of thing some people report feeling when they hallucinate a ghostly presence. He’d sit down with Lorna and, armed with the insight he’d gained while on sabbatical from his relationship with Russell, he’d wrest from her the essential truth about the end of Pauline Anderton’s life. His understanding of Anderton would be complete, the disparate pieces of her life would connect neatly, he’d go back to Boston and wrap up the whole package. And no matter how unfortunate the effects of his Boston sabbatical had been on his relationship with Russell, he would at least know that he’d been right about taking it; it was something he’d had to do to reclaim his identity and clear his mind.

2.

Desmond and Jane decided to have dinner together and set out from the hotel on foot. The wind was up tonight, and as they walked along the promenade, the powdery white sand blew up from the beach and across the road like a dusting of fine, dry snow. The water and the sky were a matching shade of golf-course green. Weather reports were as inconclusive this evening as they’d been all day. The traffic had disappeared, and many of the bars and restaurants were closed—for the season or the storm, Desmond wasn’t sure which. For all the threats of violent rain and wind, there was something relaxing about the thought of a large, loud weather system coming to knock down a few trees and set right the disordered pattern of the jet stream.

Jane stopped to read the menu posted outside a white stucco steak house. “We did a show on mad cow disease a few months ago,” she said. “They think it can incubate in the body for up to twenty-five years.”

“Frightening thought.” And yet, what was life but one big incubation period for all the miseries and indignities that would eventually kill you? “Beef might not be the best choice in this area anyway.”

“I suppose we should look for something fishy.”

“That’s probably the sensible way to go. Something alcoholic might be another sensible way to go.”