第3章 第2節 保険金
The Insurance
Gabriel spread the old papers across the table like a man dealing cards.
"The was dying," he said. "Everyone in Saltmere knew it."
"The fish were gone, the boats were sold, and the debts were rising."
Nora leaned closer, reading the columns of numbers in the lamplight.
"A building that cannot earn money can still be worth a ," Gabriel said.
"If it burns," he added quietly, "the pays what no buyer would."
The fire had been set, she understood now, for the money it would bring.
"It was ," she said, and the word felt heavy in her mouth.
"The fire was planned, and someone was paid to it," Gabriel agreed.
"But a building is not the whole story."
He turned over a yellowed page, and his hand was not quite .
"One man was still inside when the doors were locked that night."
"He had gone back for his tools, and the fire had already reached the roof."
"His name was left out of every that was printed."
Nora watched the old man's face fold inward like wet paper.
"You knew him," she said. It was not a question.
"He was my brother," Gabriel said. "He was twenty-three years old."
The lamp hissed, and the sea pushed against the shore outside.
"They called it an accident," he went on, "and the town agreed to believe it."
"The was collected, and the were cleared, and life went on."
"But your mother had been recording that night, from the hill above the water."
"She heard the doors being locked. She heard a man deciding another man's death."
Nora felt the tape in her coat grow heavier against her ribs.
"That," Gabriel whispered, "is why they needed Marion to drown."