The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4)

by Gregg Dunnett

  Three turns later, we knock Oscar out of the game, and take over all his properties, and then finally the balance of the whole game shifts. Now we’re actually stronger than Lily – in terms of statistics and probability, much stronger, although she doesn’t seem to see it. That’s because she’s still got tons of money, but you could run the model from this point and ninety nine times out of a hundred she’d be paying rent to us faster than we are to her, until she’d eventually run out and have to start mortgaging property, and then she’d be finished. Basically, we’re gonna win.

  I guess I get a bit excited by this, maybe even a bit overexcited, but it is really late now. Jennifer is curled up nearly asleep on the sofa, with Oscar beside her stroking her hair. And Eric has found some brandy and is swirling it around a giant glass while poking at the embers of the fire. Lily keeps yawning, but it won’t take long now, for us to beat her, I mean.

  “How about we call it a draw?” James says, just when I’m about to roll the dice.

  “What? No way!” I say, a bit louder than I mean. Lily looks at the board, and I can tell she knows she’s doomed.

  “It is nearly two in the morning.” She sounds tired. “Billy – would you accept a draw?”

  A lot of me wants to say no, but I can suddenly see what James is doing. He’s trying to make himself look good in front of her. And me look bad. Trouble is, I’m still a bit sucked in.

  “How about we just count up our assets, and see who’s got the most?” I suggest, but Lily groans. Between us we’ve got all the property and more money than the bank. It would take a while.

  “No, come on Billy. It’s super late,” James says. Then he leans in and goes on very quietly in my ear. “Trust me, she’ll appreciate you giving in.” He gives me a smile.

  I look at Lily, and she looks back, a funny expression on her face. So with a bit of an effort I agree.

  “OK. Let’s call it a draw.”

  Eric and Jennifer give a couple of mock cheers, and James quickly sweeps all the pieces off the board, like I might change my mind. Then he starts trying to call a cab, because everyone’s drunk too much to drive. Only then it’s so late he can’t get one for another half hour. We can hear because he actually calls a cab company, I don’t know why he doesn’t just use the Uber app.

  “Why don’t you stay here?” Lily asks, while he’s still on the call, asking if they’re sure they can’t come sooner.

  “No – we’ve imposed ourselves enough for one night,” James says, covering the speaker on his cellphone with his hand.

  “Don’t be silly.” Lily replies. You know I’ve got plenty of rooms here. Just stay. Then you can drive back in the morning.”

  James looks as though he’s going to have one more go at persuading the cab company, but then he changes his mind, and tells them not to bother. So suddenly everyone’s staying.

  I feel a bit awkward then, because I’m not suddenly sure if I’m staying. I still have my bike here after all. And then Lily goes upstairs, to make sure the spare rooms have covers on the beds, or something like that, and I find myself the only one downstairs. Eventually I have to make a decision, so I creep upstairs and to Lily’s room. And fortunately she’s left the door a little bit open, so I look in, and she’s already in bed, but looking at her phone. She looks up, and sees me there.

  “I didn’t know if you were coming.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  So I go in and shut the door. And without really saying anything more we both go to sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The next morning Lily wakes me up suddenly by blowing into my face. As soon as I open my eyes she kisses me quickly, and then prods at my nose.

  “Monopoly is a stupid game, and you are a stupid boy.”

  It’s quite late, but I’m still a bit sleepy, so I don’t reply. I think I just blink at her.

  “Remind me never to play it with you again.” She kisses me again, but before I can kiss her back, she rolls out of the bed and goes to the bathroom. I think she’s going to come back, or maybe I hope she is, because she seems in a much better mood, but instead I hear the noise of the shower running.

  When I’m a bit more awake I check my phone, and right away I see another anonymous email came in the night. It has more pictures of dead sea-dragons washed up on the beach by the Fonchem compound. So then I’m back to feeling conflicted. I know I should say something to Lily about it. Even if she can’t do anything about it. Even if they’ve just been washed up by some bad weather, which is quite possible. Because what if they haven’t? What if her father’s company is responsible for discharging dangerous chemicals into the ocean and destroying a valuable habitat?

  “Are you OK?” Lily is out of the shower. She’s got a towel wrapped around her and she’s rubbing at her head with another. Her sudden appearance jolts me back to my strange reality.

  “You’re not still bitter about last night?”

  “What?”

  “Losing the game.” She sits down at her dressing table, and I see her in the reflection.

  “We didn’t lose.”

  “About not winning then? About not destroying everyone and dominating the world?”

  “No.”

  She frowns. “What then?”

  I think for a few seconds, then I pull up the picture on my cell phone again, and turn it around so she can see.

  “What’s that?” She turns around to face me properly.

  I explain. “It’s a picture of the beach to the south of the Fonchem facility on Lornea Island. You remember?”

  “Of course. But what is…”

  “They’re sea-dragons – well seahorses really, but dead ones.”

  “Why? How?”

  “I don’t know. It could be a chemical leak. From the facility.”

  She looks horrified. Which is nice, in a way, because I was scared she might not even care.

  “Well, how do you…? I mean, how come you’ve got this picture?”

  But just then there’s a knock on the door, and we hear Eric’s voice. “Breakfast will be served in five minutes.” He waits a moment and then goes on. “I do hope I’ve just interrupted you two having sex.” And Lily throws something at the door.

  “We’ve just finished!” Then she turns back to me. “We’ll talk. About this. But let’s have breakfast first.”

  The others must have been up for a while, because James has already been out to get bagels and croissants, and Eric has found a waffle maker and already has a pile of them on the kitchen table. And Jennifer, whose hair is all ruffled up behind her head, is making coffee. We chat, about nothing much, and then the others drift away.

  “So tell me,” Lily says when we’re the only ones left. So I start to explain, about how I set up the site, and how I think that Fonchem might be leaking something into the water.

  “You should tell your dad,” James says at one point. I hadn’t noticed him coming back into the kitchen, but he must have heard the whole thing.

  “I will. But are you sure it’s chemicals? Could it not just be natural? I mean don’t things die sometimes? There’s only a couple in the photos?”

  I hesitate. I’ve been asking myself the same question.

  “I don’t really know.”

  “Fonchem’s not one of those really bad firms,” James says suddenly. And he’s looking at me more than Lily. “They have really high environmental standards, and there’s no way they’d deliberately do this.” I see Lily smile at him gratefully.

  “I mean it, Billy. And if Lily tells her dad about this, he’ll look into it. Properly.”

  I let the subject go. I didn’t want to talk about it with James. It seems Lily doesn’t want to either because she gets up and leaves the room. So then it’s just James and me left.

  “By the way Billy, I never got your cell phone number,” he says, out of the blue. He pulls out his phone, and waits, until I call out my number. Then h
e gives me a call, and – a bit surprised this is happening – I add him to my contacts, and type the name: James

  Chapter Forty

  I’m not completely surprised when he calls me, a couple of days later. He asks if I want to go for lunch with him. When I don’t reply right away, he goes on, and says that there’s a few things he wants to say to me. That’s the only reason I agree.

  “Great. How about tomorrow?” He gives me the name of a burger joint that’s half way between the two colleges.

  “Oh, and don’t worry about the tab. This is on me.”

  So the next day I walk out there after my morning lectures have finished. I don’t take my bike because I don’t want to lock it up off campus, where it might be stolen. I don’t know if that’s likely, but I guess I have a strange sense of foreboding about this meeting.

  I meet James as I arrive, him walking from the other direction. He greets me like we’re old friends, or at least good friends. We go inside and take a booth by the window. The restaurant has table service, and at first James studies the menu like what he’s going to eat is the most important thing. He looks up after a while, and sees me watching him.

  “Order whatever you want Billy, it’s on me,” he says again. So I do. I choose a double bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a salad, because since I’ve been seeing Lily I’ve kind of got into eating salads. When I finish ordering James turns to the waitress and smiles.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.” He smiles, and she smiles back. She’s pretty, not Lily-pretty, but then not many girls are. But she obviously likes James because she can’t take her eyes off him.

  “Oh, and a couple of beers too.”

  She smiles back at him and takes a while to write it down, looking up at him over her pad, and fluttering her eyelashes. Finally she leaves, and James tears his eyes from her behind to look at me.

  “I bet you’re wondering why I asked you here?”

  I give a sort of shrug, to show I am, but it’s not a big deal. But then I’m irritated when he doesn’t tell me.

  “How did it go with Lily’s dad?”

  “What?”

  “Those dead seahorse things? By the Fonchem site? Did she talk to him?”

  “Oh.” I don’t go on. The truth is I don’t know. She told me she’d speak to him, but I don’t know if she did, and I haven’t liked to bring it up again. It’s awkward. It’s not like it’s her company exactly.

  “Lily’s touchy about Fonchem.” James goes on, speaking very casually and easy. “It’s one of the things I learned about her. One of the things.” He does a half roll of his eyes. “You gotta see it from her perspective. She didn’t ask to be born a part of the Bellafonte dynasty. And maybe when she does inherit it all, she might want to do things a different way. But right now, there’s very little she can do to influence the way the company is run.” He stops, and gives me a moment to argue if I’m going to, but I don’t.

  “She’s not one of these girls who has her dad wrapped around her finger. He makes business decisions. Regardless of what she says.”

  I still don’t answer. It’s like he’s building a case against things I haven’t even said.

  “And also, think of the kind of company it is.” James goes on. “Think of what they do.” He pauses. “Chemicals, pharmaceuticals. We all love to hate them, right up until we find out we use what they make, every single day of our lives.” He leans back in his seat, glances down, and laughs a little. “This table here. It’s not a solid piece of wood, you see that? It’s resin bound hardboard.” I look, you can see at the edge he’s right.

  “Almost certainly made with resins manufactured by Fonchem, or one of the companies like them. And you might say, well we don’t need hardboard tables, we could use real wood, but if all the furniture in the country was made of solid wood instead of hardboard, that’s millions more trees cut down every year. Billions maybe.”

  I don’t answer. Though I could point out that you could use sustainable forests, where trees are replanted as they’re cut down, but I get the point. And it’s kind of what I’ve been thinking, when I’ve said how conflicted I’ve been feeling seeing Lily.

  “And it’s not just hardboard, it’s everything, our whole lives…” He looks around, searching for another example, and grabs the ketchup bottle, made of plastic. He puts it down again. “But you know this Billy, you’re smart. Anyone can see that.” He sits back, and the waitress comes back with the beers. She sets James’ down very carefully, right in front of him, and straightens the glass, then puts mine down without hardly looking at me. James flashes her a smile, then goes on, still talking to me.

  “She’s grown up in that world, where everyone’s a hypocrite. Where we all use the products her family’s company make, but we’re the first to lay into them for daring to make them in the first place.” He stops, and takes a long sip from his beer. Then a few seconds later he speaks again.

  “Let me guess, she said she’d speak to him, and then she’s said nothing more about it?”

  Eventually – and carefully – I nod in reply, and James gives a look that says I knew it. He looks away, out the window. When he looks back he nods too, much more vigorously. Then he drums his fingers on the table, like he has a tune in his head.

  “Tell me Billy, have you ever wondered about us? About the five of us, I mean. We’re kind of an odd group, don’t you think?”

  I frown as he says this, then I try to keep my face neutral, because obviously I’ve thought that a lot, but I don’t want him to know.

  “There’s a reason for it.” He stares at me now. It feels like his blue eyes are piercing into mine.

  “What reason?”

  “I need to know I can trust you, Billy. I think I can trust you. But can you promise me you won’t repeat what I’m about to tell you. Not to anyone?”

  “What is it, you’re about to tell me?”

  He keeps staring for a second, than breaks into a grin. “Come on, stop messing. This is serious.”

  So I shrug again, and when he keeps waiting I tell him. “OK, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “You gotta promise. I swear, I’ve never told anyone else this. But you’re… You’re kind of a part now, too.”

  “OK. I promise.” I don’t really believe in promises like this. In a way I wish I’d thought to record this.

  But he nods and seems happy. He takes a moment to compose himself before he goes on. “There’s a bond, between the five of us. That ties us together.”

  James stops, and waits.

  “What bond?”

  He fixes his blue eyes on me. “We do things.”

  We’re interrupted again, by the burgers and fries and salads. And again the girl serving takes care to place James’ plates carefully in front of him, and dumps mine down. Again he smiles his thanks with a flash of his white teeth, and I have to admit he is pretty handsome, in a very obvious kind of way. The waitress goes away, and James reaches for the salt, but it’s nearly empty. He has to shake hard to get any out. He offers it to me when he’s finished.

  “What sort of things?” I ask, not taking the salt.

  James munches through a few fries before answering. “Nothing illegal. Or at least, nothing very illegal, and certainly nothing where anyone can get hurt.” He looks up suddenly, and smiles again, his face open, and sort of glowing with a sort of excitement. “Look I’ll start at the beginning. That’s why I wanted to buy you lunch. To explain this to you. You deserve to know.”

  I just wait.

  “Lily and I first started dating when we were thirteen. She was my first proper girlfriend. My only proper girlfriend.” He glances at the waitress, but just for a second. “Look I know this sounds crass, but we knew each other because our parents went to the same country club.” He shakes his head at me. “Her family has a load more money than mine, more than almost anyone there. But I don’t wanna deny my own privilege.” He stops. “Come on, you gonna eat that or what?”

  We both stop, an
d he takes a bite from his burger. I’ve lost my appetite, so I eat some lettuce. When he’s finished chewing he goes on.

  “I’d liked her for ages, I mean – look at her. When we finally got together, I couldn’t believe my luck. Even more so when she finally let me sleep with her.” There’s a pause, when neither of us says anything.

  “And she told me about her family, about what they do, and what it’s like growing up that way. And I went out on the family yacht, and got invited to barbecues, went skiing with them, all that stuff…” He waves a hand, casually. “I was even allowed to stay over at her parents place – have you seen it yet?”

  He whistles, but I shake my head. “Man, it’s a proper mansion. Makes her place here seem like nothing.” He takes another bite, and chews it carefully.

  “Jennifer was her best friend growing up. Oscar was mine. It seemed sort of fate that they should get together, and then the four of us became very close. Almost, unnaturally close.” He stops and puts his head on one side. “You know what Oscar’s dad does for a living?”

  I don’t, so I shrug.

  “Good. He prefers it that way.” He waits a beat. “He’s an arms dealer.”