by Holly Watt
‘They found that some ants keep a specific fungus in their nests, and bring leaves back to feed the fungus. Then the ants eat the fungus they’ve grown. They do that because the fungus is better at digesting the tough leaves than the ants. So they’re working together. But in order to defend their nests – and their fungus – from other microbes, the ants produce incredibly powerful antibiotics. So it’s a weird little miracle, right there in an ant’s nest in the middle of the Amazon. Millions of years of evolution to produce one little quirk.’
Casey was struggling to keep up.
‘So Corax could have come from anywhere?’
‘I suppose so. But the low-hanging fruit in antibiotic discovery is very definitely gone. They’re looking in volcanoes and glaciers, now. Or the very bottom of the ocean.’
‘And you didn’t know enough to just produce Corax by yourself.’
‘No,’ he said regretfully. ‘Nowhere near.’
They said goodbye just above his parents’ house, shaking hands with an odd formality in the middle of the Dartmoor wilderness.
‘I’ll call you if I can think of anything else,’ said Noah earnestly.
‘Thank you.’
‘Good luck in finding Zac,’ said Noah. ‘I really tried. You may have other … techniques.’
The sun had come out again, the light gold heavy on the moor. Noah looked around the empty, rolling hills, and almost laughed. Then, for a second, they stared at each other.
You know, thought Casey. You know what it is to lose someone.
She thought about the doctor she had first met, in the beige of that Royal Brompton ward. She had thought he was drowning in the hospital sadness, but it was more. It was always more.
‘Thank you, Noah. I will do my best.’
A brief nod. She watched him trudge down the hill, followed closely by the Labrador, before she turned and hurried towards her car.
11
‘Mauritius?’ Miranda laughed. ‘I might have guessed.’
For years, as the nights lengthened into autumn, Miranda and Casey had brainstormed a reason to travel to the Caribbean. A dodgy hedge fund in the Cayman Islands. A doping scandal in Jamaica. Once they had headed for Australia to investigate a corrupt gold-mine owner. Dash always rolled his eyes. This had better be worth it.
‘I know,’ Casey admitted. ‘And Zac might only have been in Mauritius for a week’s holiday.’
‘Nice place for a holiday, all the same.’
They both looked at a still from the television programme. Tanned dark brown, Zac had dark hair and scruffy stubble. He was leaning back on his elbows, bare chested, his eyes closed under the blazing sun. His kiteboarding kit was beside him, and he was laughing at someone to his left.
‘That’s Le Morne, at the southern end of Mauritius.’ Casey pointed to a hunk of rock in the background, covered in lush greenery.
‘Gorgeous. And Noah Hart didn’t mention that Zac was extremely easy on the eye?’ Miranda’s eyes gleamed.
‘No,’ said Casey. ‘I don’t think Noah really notices that sort of thing.’
‘But Noah is absolutely sure it is him?’
‘He says he is,’ said Casey. ‘Although who knows?’
They were sitting in Miranda’s kitchen. In the pretty house in Queen’s Park that Miranda’s husband had chosen. Tom, picking out curtains and wallpaper and the right sort of schools. A family home with no family, and it took them years to realise there never would be. Tom left one day, and whenever she thought about it, Casey was surprised that Miranda was still here.
‘And you haven’t been able to track Zac down anywhere else?’ asked Miranda.
‘Zac Napier,’ said Casey. ‘Zachary Napier. No. I’ve done every search I can think of. He’s disappeared off the face of the earth, as far as I can tell.’
‘Well, maybe he has disappeared off the earth. There’s a lot of Indian Ocean around Mauritius, and it is rather deep.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Family?’
‘No,’ said Casey. ‘His mother brought him up alone, no sign of a father. She died a few years ago, after a long illness. There are no siblings, no cousins, nothing that I could track.’
‘Friends?’
‘No one has heard from him in years.’
‘So he can just take off for Mauritius?’
‘Apparently.’
‘And you think Pergamex bought him off?’
‘Presumably,’ said Casey. ‘Hopefully, from our point of view. There’s no money in Zac’s background, and he worked for the NHS before he went off to Pergamex. But Mauritius is an expensive place to live, if you factor in a nice house, a bit of kiteboarding.’
‘So you think Pergamex threatened some, bribed others, and if that didn’t work … ’
‘Something like that. Maybe Zac didn’t look like he would threaten anyone, so they gave him a lump sum and told him to bugger off and park himself in paradise.’
‘Why not just kill him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Casey said wearily. ‘Maybe they thought he might be useful at some point. Noah did say that he was very bright.’
‘And why would they attack Ed?’ Miranda’s voice was cautious.
‘I don’t know that either,’ Casey muttered. ‘Maybe they meant to leave that copy of the Standard in the flat, but Ed just happened to be there. It was a mistake or bad luck. Or maybe they targeted him rather than me because killing off an actual Post journalist would be like kicking a termite nest.’
‘Or they might have guessed,’ Miranda said brutally, ‘that you were known to be a bit of a loose cannon at the moment, and attacking him would push you over the edge.’
‘And they had already killed him when the message from me bleeped in saying I had just been to Colindale. So they decided I was too much of a risk too … ’
‘Maybe.’
‘And now,’ Casey felt a flood of self-pity, ‘there’s no one left for them to threaten.’
‘So what do you want to do?’
Casey looked around the kitchen. Tom’s expensive saucepans were gone, she noticed. The lawn, overgrown. There was a picture missing from the wall, a patch of paint unfaded.
‘Will Dash send me to Mauritius?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll ask.’
‘I have to go, Miranda. I have to find out what happened.’
12
Casey dipped her head beneath the surface, feeling her hair flow along her back. Down and down she dived, all the way to the rippling sand far below. For a few seconds, she looked up through the blue shimmer to the splinters of sunlight at the surface. Gasping, lungs burning, she burst back into the air, and swam slowly along the beach. The sea was cobalt, the sky azure. Palm trees fringed the ribbon of golden sand, and in the distance she could hear the ocean snarling against the reef. Inside the reef, the water was smooth, silky, tamed.
She hadn’t found Zac.
She had hung out at Le Morne beach for days, watching the kites dance in the sky. She had smiled, chatted, flirted, and never caught a single glimpse of that dark hair, that scruff of stubble.
On the third day, she had tracked down one of the boys featured in the television programme. Parker, 22, with a big, easy smile.
You were on TV? That’s so cool. Show me. Wow, look at those moves! Who’s he? Pause it! He’s so hot.
But Parker looked vacant, genuinely unsure. I don’t know him. Nah. Do you want another drink?
But you’re always round here? You must know that guy.
Nope. Sorry.
And her heart sank. In the evenings, she drove around the island, through the endless fields of rustling sugar cane. The names were an invocation. Flic En Flac. Poudre d’Or. Cap Malheureux. And everywhere there were honeymoon couples, laughing families, a faded sort of grandeur.
You would have loved it.
She dropped the name into conversation again and again. Zac Napier said I’d enjoy it here, and he was right … You look so like my buddy, Zac Napier …
Zac Napier recommended the snorkel trip?
Not a flicker.
Scraping the barrel, she visited a couple of Italian restaurants, in case he had bothered to practise his Italian. Zac Napier ha detto che la pizza qui è buona come quella di napoli.
Nothing.
At night, instead of sleeping, she watched the programme repeatedly, obsessively. Zac had appeared a couple more times, always in the background, laughing, his kite a vivid scarlet.
‘If he’s here,’ she grumbled on the phone to Miranda, ‘he’s using a different name.’
‘Makes sense, I guess.’
‘Shall I come home?’
‘Dash says to stay out there.’
Keeping her out of the way, Casey translated sulkily. Even if her hotel room was costing a small fortune, it was easier having her several thousand miles away than weeping in the newsroom.
‘Zac could be anywhere by now,’ Casey moaned. ‘He could have been here for a fortnight, just passing through.’
‘But Mauritius is the only clue you have.’
‘I’ll find him,’ Casey promised.
‘If he’s still there.’
Casey dived beneath the surface again. The problem was that she wanted to catch Zac unawares. If she wandered around the island showing people a screengrab of the laughing boy on a beach, it was too easy for people to alert, alarm, forewarn him. You could never guess at loyalties, like steel hawsers under the sand. That’s if he was here at all. She kicked her legs sullenly.
A rim of seaweed lined this stretch of beach, like a dirty bath. Fragments of plastic – orange, green and blue – were tangled among the black strands. A gardener, bent double, was piling it all into a wheelbarrow.
In the evening, Casey made her way back to Le Morne, heading to a beach bar. She threw herself into a chair, and ordered a cocktail, and then another one. The sun was setting red, another wasted day burning to a cigarette stub.
On the edge of the lagoon, two small boys were skimming stones over the still water in a blur of speed. Hop, hop, splash and gone, hop, hop, splash and gone.
The sun slipped below the horizon.
This would be perfect if you were …
A physical pain.
Casey’s phone buzzed. It was a message from Flora Ashcroft, and Casey managed a small smile.
I’m doing work experience at the Post next week! Thank you so much for putting me in touch with Ross Warman!
I’m so glad, Casey messaged. Although you may revise your opinion once you’ve met him. I hope you enjoy it.
She looked towards the kiteboarders. A few of them were still twirling in the safety of the lagoon as the sky darkened to indigo. But there was no red kite, no hope. Nothing. A young couple came into the bar, sat down, entwined like ivy. The candlelight flickered.
Hop, hop, splash and gone.
Another cocktail.
Why didn’t we come here when …
Hop, hop, splash and gone.
All that time, we could have …
The night was closing in now. Maybe she would hop, hop, splash, and disappear beneath the surface forever. A blur of speed, and gone for good.
Beyond the lagoon, a few yachts bobbed, tied up to buoys. Their lights were brightening in the dark, and a dinghy puttered towards the shore, ready for dinner.
Suddenly, Casey was on her feet, throwing a few rupees down on the table. She ran for her car, paused. Gesticulated for a taxi and raced back to the hotel.
In her room, she restarted the television programme for the hundredth time, and there they were: the long tracking shots over the lagoon, so familiar now.
The programme makers must have sent up drones to film the kiteboarders, Casey thought. Zooming out to showcase the glory of the beaches, zooming in as a boarder somersaulted over a wave.
Frame by frame, Casey noted down the names of the yachts tied up beyond the reef. Endless Summer. Andiamo. Serenity. Renaissance. Liquid Asset.
Then she started researching. Endless Summer was being sailed around the world by a retired couple from Alderney. A small piece in a sailing magazine noted that they had been rescued by a trawler two-thirds of the way across the Indian Ocean after Endless Summer capsized. The yacht had been left to her own devices, currently believed to be floating somewhere off Sri Lanka.
Hope all OK? Casey was interrupted by a text from Hessa, kindly checking in.
I’m fine, thanks. Could you see if you can find out who owns this yacht? A snap of Serenity.
Sure.
Casey put her head down again. According to Instagram, Liquid Asset belonged to a Spanish banker who had done a couple of years for conspiracy to defraud. There were five children in the photos, and a third wife who looked as if she knew the fourth was in the wings.
Not Liquid Asset.
Andiamo was owned by a holiday company, and chartered expensively by the week. Casey crossed her fingers. Not Andiamo, please. Five oceans to search.
Her phone buzzed. Serenity belongs to a member of the Alexakis family. Do you want to know more?
Greek shipping billionheirs. No, that’s fine, Casey tapped back.
Do you think there might be a link to the Alexakis family? It was Miranda. The investigations team must be working very late on something. Casey imagined them all sitting in the office, excited and gossiping, a team.
No, Casey messaged back to Miranda. But I realised that if no one on the beach at Le Morne knew Zac, it might be because he had sailed down to the peninsular for the day? So that might mean that one of the boats tied up in the background could belong to him. And he came ashore only to kiteboard.
That’s possible, I suppose.
Casey looked at the footage again. In one shot, Renaissance was dropping her anchor, red sails lowering as she turned into the wind. She was one of the smaller Spirit yachts, with sleek golden wood and exquisite lines. A tiny figure crouched in the cockpit, staring up at the mast.
Renaissance, with her brave scarlet sails.
Renaissance.
13
Casey stood on a pier and looked out across the water. She was close to the Grand Baie Yacht Club, opposite the Pointe aux Cannoniers. Here, the ocean had taken a nip out of the island, creating a safe harbour for dozens of gleaming white yachts. Tied up to their buoys, the boats bobbed merrily in the breeze.
And there she was: Renaissance.
Earlier, she had messaged Noah Hart.
Did Zac ever use the phrase Renaissance Man?
Yes! How did you know?!
The doctor who played the piano, kitesurfed, knew about art and taught himself Italian …
Another text, a moment later: As I said, he could be a bit arrogant.
Casey had grinned, and peered closely at the smaller writing under the yacht’s name. Grand Baie, in italics. As dawn broke, she headed for the sprawling seaside village to the north of the island.
Smiling sweetly, she managed to book a table at the yacht club for an early lunch, dragging out her meal with the help of a novel.
No sign of Zac Napier.
She made conversation with each of the smiling waiters. Zac Napier mentioned he might go out for a sail today … I think Zac Napier is a member here? Has Zac Napier been in today?
Until she was tired of the name, bored with the game.
The afternoon crawled by, the yachts drifting in lazy arcs as the tide ebbed.
A man sat down at the table next to her. Loud Yorkshire accent, sunburned, too many lunches. Casey smiled at him, and soon they were chatting. Within five minutes, the man had explained he was in Mauritius for tax reasons – ‘CGT, not income tax’ – and that his wife was an alcoholic so he’d left her in the UK. ‘I’m with Elene now. She’s from the Seychelles.’ Pause. ‘She’s fucking gorgeous. Off somewhere else at the moment, though. Shopping, I think.’
‘Sorry about your wife.’
‘She was a fucking nightmare. I’m Martin,’ he added, holding out a sweaty hand.
Casey smiled and pond
ered how long it would take her to become an alcoholic married to Martin.
Not long, probably.
They chatted, though, Casey ordering a coffee. Martin was delighted to talk. Bored, Casey diagnosed. Five years abroad to avoid capital gains tax: banished to paradise.
After a few minutes, she pointed at Serenity, bobbing nearby.
‘That’s gorgeous. Someone mentioned it belonged to Yiannis Alexakis?’
‘Yeah, I know old Yiannis quite well. He’s a mate.’
‘How about that one?’
‘Oh, that one belongs to Biggins.’
Not nicknames. Please.
‘You know everyone!’ – and he preened. ‘How about that one?’ She pointed to the Renaissance.
He peered at the yacht, and she was barely able to breathe.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Don’t know that one … ’ Her fingers dug into her palms. ‘Oh, no, wait a minute. I do. That’s Daniel Richmond’s.’
‘Daniel Richmond?’
‘Yeah.’ Martin was looking round for a waiter, gesturing for another drink.
‘What does he do?’
‘This and that,’ he grinned. ‘Quite a few blondes. Spends a lot of time at the Robery.’
‘By the way, have you ever come across someone called Zac Napier? I think he hangs out round here quite a lot.’
Martin gulped his drink, wiped his mouth. ‘Zac Napier? Can’t say that I have.’
14
The Robery was a beautiful old colonial house, built by some long-forgotten slave owner. It sat at the top of a small hill, a few hundred yards back from the beach.
‘It was constructed in the nineteenth century,’ recited a waitress. ‘The main house of a vast sugar plantation.’
The waitress was Creole, probably descended from the thousands of slaves brought to Mauritius. Here, too, the injustices were embedded: an exquisite island with a vicious history. This elegant edifice balanced on foundations of unbearable violence.
The waitress wound up her speech with an efficient smile, and waved Casey to her table.
