第2章 第2節 ガブリエル・ヴァンス
Gabriel Vance
The next morning Nora walked the harbour road that curved along the cliffs.
An old man was mending a fishing net outside a low stone .
He was the kind of man who had spent his whole life near the sea.
His hands, which were and slow, still moved with quiet skill.
Nora asked him for directions to the old radio station.
The old man looked up, and his eyes suddenly grew very wide.
"You must be Marion's girl," he said before she could speak.
Nora froze; no one here was supposed to know her mother.
"How could you possibly know that?" she asked, stepping back.
"You have her eyes, and the same way of holding your head."
"My name is Gabriel Vance," he said, "and I knew her well."
He was a man whom the whole town seemed to have forgotten.
"You might be in ," Gabriel murmured, glancing down the empty road.
"You have the tape, don't you? I can see it in your face."
Nora's hand moved to the bag against her side.
"He will come for it," Gabriel said. "He must not find it."
"Who?" Nora demanded, but the old man only shook his head.
"Not here, where the walls have ears and the wind carries names."
He led her inside the , which smelled of and old tape.
Shelves held machines that Nora had only seen in museums.
"Your mother could make a sing," he said with a sad smile.
"Whatever you have been told about her death may not be true."
Nora's throat tightened around a question she feared to ask.
"Then tell me what is true," she whispered, "please."
Gabriel studied her for a long moment, deciding whether to .
"Come to the station tonight," he said. "Come alone, and bring the tape."