Reaching the ground floor of the hotel, she hesitated. The note had only said Veronique would be waiting for her on the beach. It had not specified where, exactly. Her legs were shaking as she turned and made her way past the pool and down towards the sea. She wondered if Veronique was looking out for her. Perhaps she was watching her as she left the hotel and began to cross a deserted stretch of beach. Still trembling with rage, she walked through an area of overgrown trees at the top of the beach, keeping in the shade as much as possible.
Despite her caution, she must have been exposed to the sun for too long, because her head was pounding. When she tried to open her eyes, she could not focus on anything. She closed her eyes again and waited for the fog to lift.
She must have passed out because when she came to she was lying on her side. Terror gripped her. There was a smell of body odour and stale tobacco. When she tried to look around everything was dark. Slowly she opened her eyes and felt her eyelashes brush against something. She tried opening first one eye, then the other. She was not mistaken. Something touched her eyelashes, almost imperceptibly, as they moved. Instinctively reaching up, she found that she could not move her hands.
‘Is anybody there?’ she called out, terrified. ‘What’s happened? Have I had an accident?’
The last thing she could remember was walking along the beach, furious after reading George’s letter. Perhaps she had wandered up to the road and been knocked down. She wriggled her limbs. Her legs moved freely. She could raise her elbows, but her wrists felt as though they were securely tied behind her back.
‘Am I in an ambulance? Why can’t I move my hands? What’s happened to me?’
A dry, husky voice whispered close to her ear, startling her. ‘George’s wife.’
Angela felt a stab of fear hearing her husband’s name. ‘Veronique? Is that you?’
There was no answer.
Angela tried to sound firm. ‘Who are you? What do you want with me? I want to see my husband.’
There was no answer. A door slammed shut, making the floor shake. It vibrated as an engine spluttered into action.
‘Where are we going?’
No one answered.
Fighting to quell her panic, she tried to work out what was happening. It was difficult, when nothing made any sense. She was tied up, blindfolded and lying down in a moving vehicle. Scrabbling on the floor beneath her with her fingers, she clutched at what felt like small soft petals spread out on a metal floor.
‘Where am I? Where are you taking me?’
Overwhelmed, she broke off, sobbing helplessly. Her bag was no longer over her shoulder. Cautiously she shuffled around the floor, searching for it. If she could find her phone, she could call for help. They drove for what seemed to be hours while she searched the floor in vain, finding nothing but a thick layer of petals. Without warning the vehicle turned sharply and slowed down. The floor tilted as they jolted wildly along a bumpy road. They appeared to be climbing. Rolling over, she felt her phone pressing against her leg. It had been in her pocket all the time but, with her hands tied behind her back, she could not reach it. At last they juddered to a halt. Angela tensed as she heard the door creak open.
‘It has been a very long time,’ the dry voice whispered, close to her.
‘What has? What are you talking about? I demand to know who you are. If it’s money you’re after, you’ve chosen the wrong person to kidnap. We’re not rich people. All our money’s tied up in our house—’
Beside her, she heard a sound like spitting. ‘I do not want your money.’
With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Angela understood. ‘I know who you are. You won’t get away with this. And you won’t get him back. Not like this. He’ll hate you for it. Do you really think he’ll want you back after you’ve mistreated me so atrociously? You’re insane!’
Her voice broke as she realised the truth of her own words. She was in the power of a woman who saw her as a rival. And that woman was mad.
10
IT SEEMED TO TAKE ages for the excursion to set off from the port area, given that the hotel had booked their seats on the glass-bottomed boat trip and they had paid in advance. As they were sitting around waiting to board, a large American woman dressed in garish orange and yellow accosted Lucy.
‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yes. I am English.’
‘Oh my. I just love that accent. Do you mind if I join you?’
Before Lucy could respond that she was keeping the chair beside her for her father, the woman sat down and introduced herself as Gloria from Texas.
‘I’m Lucy.’
‘And where are you from?’
‘We’re from London.’
‘Oh well, what do you know? Did you hear that, Billy? She’s from London, England. We just love London.’
Lucy looked up and saw her father buttonholed by a stout man in gaudy Hawaiian shirt and Texan hat, an outsize camera hanging on a leather strap around his thick neck.
‘I’m Billy from Texas,’ he boomed in rich bass tones, ‘and that’s my Gloria over there, talking with your young lady. And those are our two girls, Tess and Paula.’
Lucy looked over at two well-built girls with curly fair hair and plain faces who looked about the same age as her. They were identical apart from their hair which they wore at different lengths, perhaps to distinguish themselves from each other.
‘Tess is the one with long hair,’ Gloria confided. ‘Aren’t they just something? Come with me and I’ll introduce you. Come on, don’t be shy. I know they’ll be dying to meet you.’
Without waiting for a response, Gloria seized her by the hand and led her over to the twins. Lucy stood flanked by the girls who smiled warmly at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Billy wink at George as they passed.
‘Ah, she’s your daughter. I thought that must be it. There’s a definite family resemblance. But you can’t go jumping to conclusions these days. I didn’t want to go putting my foot in it,’ he boomed conspiratorially. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. For a moment Lucy could not hear what he was saying. ‘He wasn’t best pleased, I can tell you, being mistaken for his new wife’s father!’ Billy bellowed suddenly. He threw his head back and guffawed, the veins in his thick neck standing out.
His laughter was infectious, and Lucy’s father joined in. Meanwhile Gloria had gone to sit down, leaving Tess and Paula vying for Lucy’s attention. The Americans were all stereotypically loud and brash, and immensely affable.
At last the captain ticked their names on his list and they climbed aboard and took their seats. Their guide was wearing a dirty sling inside which they could see his bandaged forearm.
‘Don’t tell me that was a shark took a lump out of your arm?’ Billy from Texas wanted to know.
Gloria slapped her palms against her cheeks, her mouth gaping in mock horror. ‘Oh my!’
The guide shook his head and stared out at the sea without answering.
‘He was fishing,’ the captain called out, ‘and a tuna grabbed a mouthful.’
‘It happens,’ the man in the sling said, adding that it was a bloody big tuna. He grinned and smacked his lips with a loud sucking sound. ‘He made a good dinner!’
Seated around the glass window in the bottom of the boat, Lucy watched fish swimming very close, easy to see in the clear water. She was sitting between the twins who screeched with delight at every sighting of a fish. They all cooed with excitement when a small turtle swam past. Her father looked more relaxed than she had seen him since her break up with Darren. Lucy felt a pang of guilt. She had barely considered the effect of her own distress on her parents and made a silent vow to try and keep her misery to herself from now on. She had dragged them into her depression for long enough. It was time life returned to normal for them all.
It was easy to engage in conversation about the brilliantly coloured tropical fish that swam in the seas around the islands. Her father recognised many of them from his previous s
tay in Mahé although he could not remember all the names. Lucy listened intently as their guide pointed out stripy silver-and-black zebra fish, long thin trumpet fish that looked like small eels, brilliant blue-and-yellow emperor fish, and lion fish with their orange stripes and bizarre turquoise crests fanning out along their bodies like the spokes of a giant comb. Her father identified orange-, black-and-white clown fish, and a red snapper floating lazily past.
‘That would make a decent plateful,’ Billy laughed when George told him what it was. ‘Have you tried the fishing yet, George?’
Her father shook his head. He seemed too preoccupied with watching the sea creatures to mention that he had lived on Mahé, many years ago.
‘Look at that!’ Paula called out suddenly, pointing towards the horizon. Lucy looked up just in time to catch the tail end of a shoal of flying fish leaping out of the water in graceful formation.
‘There must be a shark chasing them,’ their guide explained.
They all scanned the sea in vain for the tip of a black fin travelling in the wake of the speeding fish.
‘As long as it’s only fish they’re after,’ Billy said, with a meaningful nod at the guide’s bandaged arm. ‘You wouldn’t want a shark taking a bite out of you. A tuna’s bad enough.’
The guide shook his head. ‘I been swimming in these waters nearly forty years, and I never had a problem with sharks yet.’
‘There were two fatal shark attacks in these waters last year, off Praslin Island,’ Tess piped up eagerly. ‘I read up about it before we came. The first victim was a Frenchman.’
Paula gasped audibly and the guide interrupted quickly.
‘That was an isolated incident with a rogue shark. It didn’t come from round here. It killed a Frenchman, yes, but that was—’
‘There were two deaths last year,’ Tess corrected him. ‘That’s two people killed by sharks, the Frenchman and an Englishman. The Frenchman’s arm was bitten clean off – or was that the Brit?’ She turned to her sister. ‘He was on his honeymoon.’
‘That’s so terrible,’ Paula wailed. ‘The poor girl he was married to. Can you imagine?’
The guide turned and spat over the side of the boat. ‘Those were random attacks, the first in over forty years,’ he insisted. ‘The waters here are completely safe for swimming and diving. That was a freak accident last year. We don’t have any problems here. Believe me, there are no dangerous creatures where we go diving. It’s like an aquarium. You can see for yourselves.’
He nodded at the glass bottom of the boat and they all looked down.
‘Check out the size of that monster!’ Billy called out as a large sting ray glided past. They watched it sashay through the water oblivious to their exclamations of delight.
‘Do any of the fish look like women?’ Lucy asked the guide.
‘A fish like a woman?’ he repeated, sounding surprised. ‘Do you mean mermaids?’
‘Bless you, dear, there’s no such thing,’ Gloria burst out, throwing Lucy’s father a sympathetic glance. Clearly she thought Lucy was some kind of half-wit. George just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, what can you do? Lucy ignored them.
‘Manatees, that’s what she means,’ Billy called out.
‘Manatees?’
Billy’s huge brimmed hat wobbled as he nodded energetically. ‘Manatees look like sea lions but they’re large fish that are supposed to resemble human beings.’
Gloria reached across to pat his belly and laughed. ‘You speak for yourself, Billy Warton.’
‘Manatees are mammals, not fish,’ Tess pointed out.
Ignoring the interruptions, Billy continued his dissertation, keen to share what little he knew. ‘According to some historians they were responsible for the whole mythology that grew up about mermaids, because sailors mistook them for half-naked women with fish tails.’
An octopus drifted past their window, part of their own world yet utterly alien, its tentacles weaving the water.
‘They’re so weird,’ Lucy commented to no one in particular.
‘I’ve always said that if there is life on other planets it won’t be half so different from us as the creatures we have here on earth under the sea,’ one of the twins agreed.
‘You know octopuses can distinguish between horizontal and diagonal planes?’ Billy told them.
‘What he doesn’t know about marine life,’ Gloria said, tapping his fleshy arm. ‘It’s a hobby of his. Now don’t you go boring all these good people with your useless information.’
‘It’s not useless,’ he protested.
Lucy’s father agreed, assuring Gloria he was interested in hearing more. Billy’s two daughters exchanged bleak glances.
‘What’s the biggest octopus anyone’s ever seen in these parts?’ Lucy asked.
The question sparked some desultory speculation but no one knew the answer. They passed over a reef of knobbly white coral. A few rainbow-coloured fish darted in and out of sight. A whole group simultaneously changed direction with one flick of their tails. The colours were breathtaking, seeming to glow and sparkle in the water like living gemstones. Shoals of bright red-and-yellow fish slid among the corals and others passed by, blue fading to yellow, and anemone fish, black, white and yellow. Their guide pointed out a giraffe crab, its long claws resting on the ocean floor.
In one place they saw a bank of fine black strands swaying in the water. At first glance it looked like human hair. Lucy leaned forward, transfixed.
‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
The black weed drifted out of view.
‘I just saw something that looked like black hair. What was it?’
‘That was Tess’s hair getting in the way,’ Paula joked.
‘No,’ Lucy insisted. ‘It was some kind of weed in the water that looked like black hair.’
‘What you just saw was black coral,’ the guide told her. ‘It’s very rare now. It looks like a small tree, but it’s actually coral, one of the oldest continually living species on the planet.’
‘Wow!’ Gloria exclaimed.
‘Black coral,’ Lucy repeated.
‘I had some once but I don’t know what happened to it,’ Lucy’s father said. ‘It got lost after I took it home to England.’
The guide turned to him with a frown. ‘I wouldn’t try to take it out of the country if I were you. It’s internationally protected as an endangered species. You could get yourself in serious trouble.’
‘Oh, I’m going back more than thirty years ago,’ he assured him.
‘You’ve been here before?’ Billy seized on the remark. ‘Well, you’re a dark horse, George. So you were actually over here thirty years ago, eh? You must have seen a few changes since then.’
‘I had a contract to work here for a year but had to leave when there was a coup in ’seventy-seven, not long after the islands became independent.’
Billy nodded. ‘I read about that before the trip.’ He turned to his wife. ‘You hear that, Gloria? George was living right here in the Seychelles when they had a coup d’état back in the seventies. So,’ he turned back to George, ‘what made you come to work here all those years ago?’
Her father inclined his head at the question. Young, newly qualified and broke, he explained how he had decided to take advantage of the tax exemptions available to those working abroad. Within a couple of years he had planned to have enough put by for a deposit on a flat of his own. Billy nodded in approval as George explained his youthful plans.
With a show of reluctance, Lucy’s father began telling his new acquaintances about his life on the island. Lucy could tell he did not really mind. On the contrary, once he started he clearly enjoyed relating anecdotes from what he called ‘the old days’. Billy and Gloria were a gratifying audience, fascinated by everything he told them. Lucy and her younger companions were happy to listen while they scanned the water beneath the boat for fish. Watching her father’s animated face, Lucy decided the outing had definitely been
worthwhile.
11
THEY LURCHED TO A halt, and Angela heard the door creak open. A gust of fresh air wafted into the vehicle. Stumbling forward on her knees, she felt her way to the open door and clambered out onto turf, springy after the metal floor. It was a relief to leave the stinking interior of the van. She straightened up, breathing deeply. The air smelt damp and green, like freshly cut grass.
‘Where are you?’ she called out softly.
No one answered. This could be her chance to escape. Frantically she pulled at the cord that bound her wrists, but only succeeded in making it chafe painfully. Stretching out behind her back, her fingers felt the dry rough surface of a tree trunk. Carefully she turned and leaned forward until her forehead was touching the bark. Twisting her neck, she kept her eyes tightly shut as she rubbed the side of her head against the tree. The blindfold slipped off easily. Straightening up, she turned to gaze at a green world.
In front of her stood a dilapidated hut, almost completely concealed in thick shrubbery. Bewildered, she took a step towards it. The door was bolted on the outside which meant Veronique could not be inside. Walls of moss-covered wooden planks supported a corrugated metal roof almost completely shrouded in thick ivy. There were no windows or chimney visible. She scanned the area without seeing any sign of the woman who had brought her here. A thick mist hovered overhead, brushing the tops of the trees which surrounded her, gnarled and twisted. A reluctant intruder in an alien environment, she was lost in a forest that had put down roots in primeval times.
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