The North Sea wind lashed across the jagged cliffs as Alden Vexley stepped down from the rattling coach. He was a naturalist and junior member of the Linnaean Society, arriving in the coastal village of Graymere. He was a tall gentleman of 35, bespectacled, with a notebook perpetually in hand and a leather satchel worn smooth from years in the field. The air was raw with salt and the stench of fish rot and kelp, the sky above a bruised smear of grey.
Before him stretched the village of Graymere- a huddle of slate- roofed cottages and crooked chimneys leaning like drunks toward the wind. The village lay along a wind-scoured inlet, where gannets and puffins nested high in the cliffs and black-backed gulls scavenged among the shingle beach.
He adjusted his spectacles and tightened his scarf. Behind him, the driver gave a grunt, tossed his luggage to the gravel, and left without a word.
