‘Is that what it’s all about then, being happy?’
‘You tell me.’
‘You can’t regret having studied,’ she said after a while. ‘And you have bettered yourself. I think that’s admirable. Not many people do that.’ She did not add that she would have been unable to do what Adrian had done.
Adrian sat up, leaning back on his elbows. ‘Thank you. I sometimes think it was all a waste of time, but of course you never know, do you, what your life might have been like if you’d followed a different path.’
‘Yes, we all have to live with the consequences of our choices.’
She sighed, thinking about how she had trusted Darren. She was not sure she would ever trust her own judgement again about anything. Adrian lay back on the sand and shut his eyes and Lucy studied him furtively. Tall, bronzed and powerfully built, he was not really her type. Muscular men in England always gave her the impression they must fancy themselves, conscientiously working out to develop their impressive physiques. Yet here on the island it was different. Adrian’s physical strength was probably the result of water sports, not narcissism. Opening his eyes he sat up suddenly, aware of her scrutiny, and she turned away, embarrassed. Just then a young couple appeared, walking hand in hand along the edge of the sea. Lucy and Adrian watched them until they disappeared round the edge of the bay.
‘It’s a romantic setting,’ Adrian said.
Lucy nodded dumbly, uncertain how to interpret his comment.
‘You know if it wasn’t for this – for my mother . . .’ she began and stopped, afraid she might be presuming too much from his reference to romance. He was probably just making conversation, prompted by the young couple they had seen walking past.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to jump on you,’ he laughed, lying back on the sand again.
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m not saying that under other circumstances things might not have been different,’ he added with a sly grin as he closed his eyes.
She wondered if he really meant that, and how she might feel if he reached out and touched her, but it was not the right moment for such speculation. It was the first time since Darren had dumped her that she had felt even vaguely attracted to another man. Surprised that her thoughts had wandered so far from her mother she gazed at the water, listening to the regular beat of the waves on the shore, but the soft swishing no longer comforted her. The grey clouds suddenly flared with orange light, and the sea shimmered pink and golden beneath the setting sun.
‘The sunsets over the sea are spectacular, aren’t they?’ Adrian murmured.
Lucy nodded. Her mother loved watching the sun set over the water. Unable to speak, she turned her head away so Adrian would not see her tears. Gazing at the vast dark water she wondered if her mother was out there, lost forever in the ocean depths. In a rush of emotion, longing for her mother overwhelmed her. Dropping her head between her knees, she howled. Adrian put his hand on her shoulder and sat beside her in silence.
17
WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT HAD disturbed him, George was convinced there was someone else in the room with him. He lay perfectly still, straining to listen; all he could hear was the gentle roar of waves breaking on the sand. The darkness was almost impenetrable. A cloud floated across the sky, exposing the moon, and he was able to distinguish curtains hanging on either side of his open windows, and the shape of a table at his bedside. Without moving his head he swivelled his eyes round the room and paused at the door to his bathroom. He tried to remember if he had left it open when he went to bed.
Silence.
He decided his imagination was playing tricks on him as he lay there half asleep, distraught about Angela. He turned on his side and lay for a while in a foetal position, one arm reaching out across the empty side of the bed, before he rolled onto his back again, unable to relax in unfamiliar solitude. He had not slept alone for twenty-five years, apart from the one night Angela had spent in hospital when Lucy was born. Even then George had been at her side, only nipping home for a few hours in the morning when Angela was resting and the baby was asleep.
Suddenly he heard it again. This time there was no mistaking the sound of a gentle intake of breath.
His first instinct had been right. He was not alone. A sudden spurt of joy thrilled through him.
‘Angela? It’s all right, I’m awake.’
No answer.
‘Angela?’ he called again, his voice barely above a whisper this time. ‘Angela? Is that you?’
He fumbled for the bedside light, unable to find the switch in the darkness. Inadvertently, he knocked his mobile phone off the table.
‘Who’s there? Is it you, Lucy?’
But Lucy did not have a key to his room and she did not stink of stale cigarettes and sweat. His joy turned to fear.
‘Who is it? I know you’re in here so – I’m calling security.’
He reached for the phone but someone else was there before him, snatching it from the table and yanking the cord out of the socket.
‘What the hell are you doing? Who are you? What do you want?’
The questions were inane because he knew what the night prowler was after. He spoke very slowly and clearly so there could be no misunderstanding.
‘My wallet is in the safe. My passport is there too and you’ll find cash – quite a lot of cash – Seychelles rupees and pounds sterling – and my credit card. It’s all there, in the safe. Oh my God, please don’t take my phone because my wife’s gone missing and she might try to call me.’
There was no answer.
‘What are you doing?’ George asked again. ‘Who are you?’
Suddenly a hand grabbed him by the throat so tightly he thought he would suffocate. A hoarse voice hissed in his ear speaking in a thick Creole accent.
‘I could murder you in your bed.’
The grip loosened slightly.
George gagged as he tried to speak. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’
The intruder released him. At the same time George heard someone spit and felt a splash of saliva dribble slowly down his cheek towards his mouth. With a cry of disgust, he wiped the spittle away with the back of his hand and rubbed his hand on the bed sheet to clean it.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered again.
The intruder’s silence was more menacing than the threat to kill George.
‘Look, just take all my money and go away,’ he cried out, with a boldness he did not feel.
‘I do not want your money.’
The dry voice grated on George’s taut nerves. He rolled over and sat up straining to see the intruder, but clouds had drifted over the moon. All he could discern was a vague hunched shape. In a brief flicker of moonlight between clouds, the whites of two eyes glared wildly at him for an instant before they were swallowed by darkness. After twenty-four hours feeling terrified for his wife, discovering a stranger in his room shattered the last vestiges of George’s self-control. His pent-up anguish erupted and, with a sudden howl of fury, he flung himself at his unseen adversary, swiping and punching, frantic with fear and rage.
‘Get out! Get out! Get out and leave me alone! Get out of here!’
They tumbled to the floor, wrestling. George felt a wiry arm wind itself around his neck and he hit out blindly. His fist encountered something soft and fleshy and he heard a wheezing groan as the hold on his throat loosened. In a state of near collapse George knelt on the prostrate figure, planting his knees on his assailant’s chest as viciously as he could, although it had become a struggle to move, his energy was so depleted by the scuffle.
‘I – have not come – to kill – you,’ the intruder panted. ‘It is – your turn – now.’
‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ George demanded, pressing down with his knees as hard as he could. His head was throbbing and his nose stung where the intruder had landed a wild punch. He had a feeling it might be broken.
There was a loud knocking at his door and a voice called
out. As George was distracted, the intruder threw him off with a loud grunt and fled onto the balcony. One of the long drapes swung violently. With a groan, George clambered to his feet and staggered across the room. He flipped the light switch and opened the door.
‘Dad, are you all right? I heard . . .’
Lucy broke off in consternation, staring at his face, then looked past him into the room and gaped.
‘Oh my God, what happened?’
‘Nothing.’
He stepped back from the doorway as a security guard appeared in the corridor behind Lucy.
‘Is everything all right here?’ he asked, looking from Lucy to George and back again. ‘We had a report of a fracas. Has this guest been bothering you, madam?’
‘What? Oh no, this is my father. I heard shouting and banging in his room so I called reception and then came to see what was happening. My room’s just next door.’
Meanwhile the security guard had been peering past George into the room, his eyes travelling around with sudden interest. George turned to see his sheets in disarray, a bedside lamp smashed, the hotel phone on the floor, and one of his window drapes hanging loose, all but pulled down from the curtain rail.
‘Somebody been having a fight here?’ the security guard asked, entering the room.
George nodded and his head began to pound. With a start, he caught sight of his own face in the wardrobe mirror. He had only a vague recollection of being hit in the face but his nose was swollen and one of his eyes was closing, a bruise already forming around it. By morning he would have a black eye. He fingered his nose gently but it seemed intact and when he examined his profile, it looked much the same as before.
‘Is it broken?’ the security guard asked.
George shook his head then regretted the movement. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Lucy repeated, sounding shocked.
‘Looks like somebody got hurt,’ the security guard said.
He folded his arms and stood gazing at George, waiting for an explanation.
‘There was an intruder,’ George said.
He frowned, thinking back over the fight. As he did so, a wave of exhaustion hit him and he had to sit down, shaking.
‘An intruder?’ The security guard sounded incredulous. ‘That doesn’t seem likely, up here on the second floor. Where did your intruder go?’
He glanced around the room, suddenly wary.
As succinctly as he could, George explained what had taken place. The other man listened sceptically, before stepping onto the balcony to check that no one was concealed outside.
‘There’s no one out there,’ he announced, returning to the room. ‘He could’ve climbed down from the balcony, although it’s not clear how he got in.’
Clambering down to the balcony below, it was possible the intruder could have made his way to the ground and escaped.
‘I’ll file a report, sir, and the manager will want to speak to you in the morning.’ The security guard glanced around the room again. ‘I’ll send the housekeeper along to sort the room out for you. Maybe you’d like another room for tonight?’
George shook his head, too tired now to care about the mess.
Lucy spoke up. ‘Can you put another bed next door in my room, just for tonight? I don’t want you left alone, Dad.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ he insisted, but the security guard had already gone.
After the guard left, Lucy fussed and sniffled and offered to drive him straight to the hospital. At the very least, she wanted to summon a doctor. Wearily, George insisted he was fine.
‘Nothing’s broken, Lucy. Don’t worry. I didn’t hit my head or anything like that. It was just a punch on the nose. I think he came off worse. Now I think we should go to your room and try and get some sleep. It’ll be morning soon.’
She smiled weakly and he followed her into her room where the housekeeping staff had acted efficiently. A low cot bed had been erected on one side of the room.
Lucy went to bed at last, ordering him to call her at once if he felt at all ill, or was sick.
‘And don’t lie on your back.’
‘I won’t.
‘Are you sure you’re all right, Dad?’
‘I’m fine, really. It’s not the first fight I’ve ever been in. I suffered far worse than this at school, believe me.’
‘OK, but I’m here if you need me.’
He was relieved when she finally went to sleep and he was able to mull over what had happened. He had not told her what the intruder had said, for fear of upsetting her even more. He had been told that he would not be killed because it was his turn. Still puzzling over what that meant, he drifted into an uneasy sleep.
18
LUCY AWOKE TO FIND her father had already left her room. She knocked gently at his door. When there was no answer she went down to the breakfast room, hoping to find him there. Reluctant to spend time in the hotel where everything reminded her of her mother, she walked slowly down the wide stone stairs and through the glass doors into the breakfast room. A waitress nodded sombrely at her, as though letting her know that the staff were all aware her mother was missing. She crossed the tiled floor and glanced briefly at picture windows overlooking the patio and gardens. The pool was out of sight down a short flight of steps. She resisted the impulse to nip down and see if her mother was there, stretched out on a lounger, book in hand, iced drink beside her chair. Instead she took the lift back up to her father’s room. Her mother and father’s room.
She knocked softly on the door and discerned a faint groan from inside. It sounded as though he was calling her mother’s name.
‘Dad? Dad? Are you awake? It’s only me.’
Not my mother.
‘Hang on.’
Her father had never been one to express emotion openly, but he looked as though he had been crying. While his injured eye was too swollen to reveal his feelings, the other was puffy and bloodshot. Sitting on the bed fully dressed, he pulled on his sandals and shuffled over to a seat by the window. Lucy joined him and they sat side by side, staring out across the lush gardens to the sea, sparkling in the sunlight. She wondered if he had sat like this with her mother at his side and, if so, what they had talked about.
After a moment she stood up. ‘Now, let’s go and get something to eat. Things always seem worse when you’re hungry.’
‘I don’t want anything.’
Hunched in his chair, he looked very old and frail.
‘Come on, we’ve got to stay positive. And in any case, I’ve got a good feeling about today. I think they’re going to find her. The police are on it, and it’s not as if the island’s a big area to search. How long can it take them to find her, now they’ve started? Come on, you’ve got to eat.’
George put on sunglasses to hide his battered eye. With his red and puffy nose still visible, he followed her to the patio where they sat in a secluded corner and ordered from the bar menu. They did their best to put a brave face on it for each other, but anxiety over Angela’s disappearance was never out of their minds for long and they barely managed to eat anything.
‘I don’t think we should say too much in public,’ her father muttered, looking around the bar area suspiciously with his one good eye. ‘It might not be safe.’
He had attracted a few curious glances. It was obvious he had been in a fight. It made Lucy wince just to look at him.
‘What do you mean, it might not be safe?’
He leaned towards her over the table, his eyes flicking nervously at the door as he murmured.
‘I think someone’s out to get me.’
When she pressed him to say more, he hesitated. Just as he was about to speak again, they caught sight of the Vice Consul crossing the patio.
‘May I join you?’
They could hardly refuse when she had come there to speak to them. Lucy’s father pulled a chair over for her.
‘I just came to check on how you are – oh my goodness, what happened
to you?’
George shrugged. ‘Nothing, I just sent an intruder packing.’
‘An intruder?’
‘Yes, he managed to climb into my room during the night.’
‘You alerted the security guards?’
‘Yes, the hotel know all about it.’
‘Well, you need to be careful,’ Maggie said. ‘And the hotel need to step up their security. We’ll speak to them about it. That’s one area where the hotels aren’t usually slapdash. Have you had a doctor take a look at that?’
‘I’m fine,’ George assured her.
‘Have you heard anything about my mother?’ Lucy interrupted impatiently.
She knew the Vice Consul only wanted to be helpful, but she was relieved when she left them alone. There was no news, and Lucy was beginning to find her platitudes irritating. By now the pool and bar areas were busy so her father suggested they go and sit on his balcony.
‘I have a feeling the intruder didn’t come to my room by chance. He said something about it being my turn.’
Lucy felt a stab of fear. If her father was right, that meant someone was deliberately targeting their family. The other possibility was that her father was cracking under the strain of her mother’s disappearance, and becoming paranoid and suspicious. She recalled how quickly she herself had fallen apart when her relationship had foundered. Of course that had been different. Darren had rejected her. But the uncertainty over what had happened to her mother was worse, and her parents had been together for more than twenty-five years.
‘That doesn’t mean he deliberately came to your room,’ she replied, doing her best to speak casually. ‘Maybe it just happened to be you he hit on. It was your turn to be robbed.’
Remembering her own encounter with a mysterious fish woman in the sea, and her impression that she had seen someone on the rocks when she thought a boulder had fallen, she tried to remain calm. It was unlikely they would both have imagined being attacked, but the only alternative was to accept that someone was really trying to kill them. Enemy or insanity, Lucy was uncomfortable with either hypothesis.
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