One of the footmen brought him his regular breakfast, a large plate of eggs and chouriço along with a pot of coffee. Duilio waited until the man left before starting in on his food. Between bites, he told his mother of the bizarre information hed gotten very early that morning. He wasnt certain she was attending. Her coffee was almost untouched, and shed eaten only half her croissant. Her preferred newspaperthe trade daily rather than the Gazette lay unopened next to her elbow. He talked to her anyway, in the hope that she caught something of his words. He would hate for her to feel neglected.
So Im going to go see Joaquim, he finished, and ask if he can help me find her.
His mother continued to stare at the window.
Shall I bear your greetings, Mother?
That caught her attention. She blinked and turned halfway toward him. To Filho?
Apparently she had been paying attention. Just as she addressed Duilio by his childhood name, she called Joaquim so also. Joaquim Tavares and his father shared a name, so Joaquim was simply Filhosonto her. He set down his napkin. Yes, Mother.
Joaquim and his younger brother had lost their mother at an early age and had come to live with their cousins, the Ferreira family. They had stayed for the next eight years, until their father retired from his sea travels to take up boatbuilding. The younger son, Cristiano, had joined that business, but Joaquim had chosen to make his career in the police.
Duilio might have selected that profession himself, had his own father not been set on his sons being gentlemen . Hed dutifully studied law at the university in Coimbraan acceptable profession for a younger sonbut then had proceeded to travel abroad for the next five years to work with various police agencies on the continent and in Great Britain. His father had not been pleased. But when his elder brother Alessio died, Duilio had been forced to return home to shoulder the responsibility of managing the familys considerable investments . . . and to take care of his mother.
She brushed her hands along her skirts and picked up her newspaper, a rare show of energy. Please tell Filho to come visit me.
Ill ask him, Mother, he promised.
I wonder . . . She laid down her paper and touched the smooth brown hair dressed in a simple knot at the nape of her neck.
Duilio hadnt inherited that hair. He had his fathers, darker and with a tendency to curl. The only feature hed inherited from his mother was her eyes. He wished he resembled her more, as Alessio had.
He waited for her to finish her sentence, but instead she stared down at her newspaper as if she had no idea what it was doing there. Sighing inwardly, Duilio rose and took his leave of her, kissing her cheek in farewell. Her maid, Felis, bustled past him, no doubt eager to get her mistress up and about her silent day. Duilio paused and watched the elderly woman fussing over his mothers unmoving form.
His mothers pelt was missing, stolen from the house three years before. In a feat of magic that Duilios intellect never could grasp, a selkie could
remove his or her pelt and be left in human form. Half-human, Duilio couldnt do that himself, but hed seen it done many times. It still baffled him. And even in human form, that pelt remained part of the selkie, an eternal tie to the sea and her life there. Without her pelt, his mother couldnt go back to the ocean she loved.
Duilio hadnt been around at the time of the theft. If he had, he might have stopped it, but hed been in London instead, studying the police force there. Alessio had written and mentioned a theft, but hadnt told Duilio what was stolen, a gross oversight. He would have come back to hunt the thief himself if only hed known. But Alessio and Father had thought they could find the thing without help. Unfortunately, that hadnt been the case.
Then Alessio had died.
His death nearly a year and a half ago had been suspicious. Hed gotten involved in an argument over a lover and ended up dueling another gentleman in a clearing outside the city. Both parties had seen it was foolish and in the end both men deloped, firing their guns into the air. Yet somehow Alessio was shot through the heart. Duilio had talked to witnesses, and none had any idea from where that fatal shot had come. With no evidence to the contrary, the police had called it an accident.
Duilio wondered if that stray bullet was linked to Alessios hunt for their mothers pelt. In his journals, Alessio had indicated he was close to a breakthrough right before his death. But he hadnt recorded that breakthrough, whatever it was, leaving Duilio in the dark.
It turned out they actually knew whod taken the pelt from the house: a footman hired only a month before. The man had pinched both the pelt and a strongbox from the desk in the library. When Alessio had located the footmans apartment, the strongbox and the pelt were already gone. And they couldnt question that false footman about it. Hed been strangled to death. That made it likely hed merely been hired to find the pelt and steal it. Whoever hired him had probably killed him to keep him quiet.