The Shores of Spain by J. Kathleen Cheney Page B

unusual,” Oriana said.
    Duilio signed that she was correct. He’d forgotten that boys would be protected here.
    “The witness, Lady Guerra, was quite specific,” the captain went on. “She noticed the woman because she was wearing a neck clap.”
    Oriana’s nose wrinkled. “Here? On Amado? That is odd enough to cause comment.”
    Duilio shared Oriana’s surprise. A neck clap was a leather collar, sometimes placed around the neck of a sereia to place pressure on the gills. It kept them from calling , but was reportedly highly uncomfortable. Given the sensitivity of Oriana’s gill slits, he didn’t doubt that. The only sereia who wore them were local employees of the various embassies—the household staffs. They’d decided not to require them of workers at the Portuguese embassy, one more attempt to show that the Portuguese saw the inhabitants of the islands as equals. Either way, none of the embassies had presences here on Amado, which raised the question of why the woman was still wearing one. If she’d been on the ferry and had worn one there, the crew would remember her.
    “Could she describe the woman?” Duilio asked.
    “Quite clearly,” the captain said. “And the boy as well.”
    Good news . He smiled. “Any idea how old he was?”
    “Lady Guerra guessed seven or eight. From what Lady Monteiro said, he should be comparatively easy to find. He was dressed like a local child, but didn’t have gills or webbing.”
    “He was webless?” Oriana asked, brow furrowing again. “But not human?”
    “That was the term Lady Guerra used,” the captain said with a nod. “Webless.”
    That could be an insulting term here on the islands, a way of describing someone as too human. Oriana hadn’t used the term that way, though. The simpler connotation indicated the person so named literally had no webbing between the fingers. As it was common for males born of a human father and a sereia mother to lack both gills and webbing, their young thief must be half human. The boy would still bear the fishlike markings of a sereia on his lowerbody, so he couldn’t pass for human either, not while wearing a pareu .
    “Can I assume Costa wasn’t with the woman and boy?” Duilio asked the captain.
    “He was not, sir.”
    “If the woman and the boy were that remarkable, we should be able to trace them.”
    “If they took a ferry back to Quitos,” the captain said, “we’ve lost them anyway. We don’t have the resources to question people on the main island.”
    True . The only reason the captain received the cooperation of the neighbors here was that Oriana’s grandmother had accompanied her. On Quitos, no one would answer the captain’s questions at all. Nor could they go to the police there, not when the item stolen was most likely stolen by the Ministry of Intelligence itself.
    Duilio looked at the captain and lieutenant, and then at Oriana with her clenched jaw. She had one fist pressed to her lips, her eyes distracted. She blamed herself for the journal’s loss, although it was just as much his fault.
    There was one thing he could try, a remote chance. “Captain, first thing in the morning, I’d like you to take a letter to the American embassy.”
    “Would I not be of more use here, sir?” the captain asked with a frown. “I can question the ferry’s crew when they arrive.”
    “Let’s let Benites do that, Captain. I want the Americans to know I’m serious, which is why I prefer to send the head of our military attachment.”
    The captain inclined her head gravely. “Madam Ambassador, does that meet with your approval?”
    Duilio didn’t protest the captain’s request. She did answer to Oriana first.
    “What do you mean to do?” Oriana asked him.
    In his younger life, he’d studied crime with different police forcesacross Europe. While in London he’d rescued a boy who’d been taken and held for ransom, not for money but for stakes in a political matter between two countries—the son of