Crimson Shore

Pendergast stopped well short of the rocks. He laid the metal detector on the ground, then removed a GPS unit, binoculars, digital camera, and a mysterious device, which he placed on the ground as well. Next, he drew out a map and unfolded it, holding down the corners with stones. Constance saw that it was a large-scale topographical map of the Exmouth region, with a ratio of 1:24,000, heavily notated in Pendergast’s neat script. He examined the map for several minutes, frequently looking up from it to scrutinize some point along the coastline. Then he folded it back up and replaced it in the satchel.

“Eleven thirty PM,” he said, more to himself than to Constance. “The wind would have been blowing from that direction.” He looked northeast, toward the lighthouse. “And the light would have been extinguished.”

He picked up the GPS and the strange device and began walking southwestward, moving tangentially to the shoreline. Constance followed, waiting as he paused now and then to consult the GPS. He stopped at a point that placed them between the lighthouse and a nasty line of jagged rocks that stretched out into the sea.

“The bonfire would have been built well back on shore, and on a high point, perhaps the crest of a dune,” he murmured. “It would not have been a large fire — maintaining an illusion of distance being important — but it would have burned hot and bright.”

More pacing back and forth; more consulting with the GPS unit. Then, taking the sou’wester from his head and stuffing it into a pocket of his coat, Pendergast lifted the unknown device and pointed it in various directions, sighting along it as a surveyor might sight along a theodolite.

“What is that?” Constance asked.

“Laser range finder.” Pendergast took a number of measurements, comparing them to the GPS readout. After each measurement, he moved to a new location. Each move was progressively smaller.

“Here,” he said at last.

“Here what?” she said, half exasperated with Pendergast’s inscrutability.

“Here would have been the ideal place to situate the bonfire.” He nodded south, toward the fang-like series of rocks surrounded by blistering surf. “That reef is known as Skullcrusher Rocks. You will note that our location lies on a line with the Exmouth lighthouse, but in such a fashion as to place Skullcrusher Rocks, there, between the lighthouse and a passing ship. A ship on a southerly course, keeping near the shelter of the coast because of the storm, would have used the Exmouth Light to guide it around the northern shore of Cape Ann. If you move the light a mile south, the ship, using the false light as its bearing, would steam right into those rocks — which on a dirty night would be invisible.”

Constance looked at the ground around them. They were standing on a shingle beach, covered in small, even pebbles. It stretched away to both the north and the south.

Pendergast went on. “With a high-tide storm surge and a northeast wind, the debris would have washed in all around us.”

“So where is it? Or was it? The reports said no debris was ever found. A three-hundred-foot ship can’t just vanish.”

Pendergast continued staring out toward the rocks, his eyes narrowed, the wind stirring the blond-white hair back from his forehead. If he was disappointed, he showed no sign. Finally he turned and looked north.

Something in his stance and expression stopped her. “What is it?” she asked.

“I want you to turn around slowly — do it casually, don’t excite attention or suspicion — and look at the rise of dunes to the north, toward Exmouth.”

Constance ran a hand through her hair, stretched with feigned leisureliness, and swiveled around. But there was nothing — just a bare line of dunes covered with a thin mantle of sea grass, whipping in the wind.

“I don’t see anything,” she said.

“There was a figure,” Pendergast said after a moment. “A dark figure. As you turned, he disappeared back behind the dunes.”

“Shall we investigate?”

“By the time we get there, I’m sure he’ll be long gone.”

“Why are you concerned? We’ve seen other people wandering these beaches.”

Pendergast continued gazing northward, saying nothing, a troubled expression on his face. Then he shook his head, as if to throw off whatever speculations were running through his mind.

“Constance,” he said in a low voice, “I am going to ask you to do something.”

“Fine, so long as it doesn’t involve swimming.”

“Would you have any objection if we were to remain here for some time?”

“No. But why?”

“I am going to undertake a Chongg Ran session.”

“Here?”

“Yes, here. I would appreciate it if you could ensure that I remain undisturbed, save on one condition — if the figure, any figure, were to reappear again, atop that line of dunes.”

Constance hesitated only a moment. “Very well.”