by Holly Watt
‘His house has steps straight down to the beach,’ Miranda had reported back later. ‘Very nice indeed.’
Now Zac poured her a glass of wine, and the words became easier again.
‘That’s delicious, thank you,’ Casey giggled, and it was real, or the right sort of lie.
There was an odd feeling against her ankle, and she squealed.
‘Stop playing footsie, Dodo.’
It was the little mongrel, peeking out from under the table.
‘Dodo?’ Casey asked.
‘He was almost extinct when I found him.’
The dodo – clumsy, large and fatally edible – survived barely twenty-five years after the Dutch settled on Mauritius four centuries ago.
‘Why was this Dodo almost extinct?’ Casey fussed over the little mongrel.
‘One day I had to go to the supermarket early one morning.’ Zac was almost serious for a moment. ‘The stray dogs used to hang around there. And they were catching them in big nets, to put them down. But I convinced them to give me Dodo.’
‘That’s awful. He’s so lovely.’
The little dog panted up at her.
Zac laughed. ‘He is some of the time.’
As the sky darkened, they chatted on. Zac was quick, charming, sharp. After three hours, she knew almost nothing about him.
When she stood up to go to the bathroom, the restaurant was too loud, the colours too bright. She realised she was drunk.
Casey stared at the girl in the mirror and watched, almost with interest, as tears filled her eyes.
Pull yourself together.
She checked the miniature camera robotically, although it had caught nothing of note.
You have to get him to talk. Have to.
And so she strutted back to the table, heads turning as she walked. Not invisible, not tonight.
‘Shall we head off?’
She met his eye. ‘Sure.’
He waved for the bill, gossiping briefly with the waitress. Casey messaged Miranda: leaving soon.
As they walked out of the restaurant, Casey meandered towards the cars. ‘No.’ Zac caught her arm lightly. ‘The boat is this way.’
Casey hesitated. Miranda was in a hire car, near the entrance. She couldn’t follow them on a boat.
‘I can give you a lift back to your hotel,’ Zac said. ‘I sailed round the headland earlier. But I can call you a taxi if you just want to head home.’
She stood for a second.
You have to get him to talk.
But anything could happen.
I don’t care.
‘Sure,’ she smiled. ‘That would be lovely.’
It was a still night, the dinghy puttering through the ripples. The moon glowed, a long beam of light reaching across the sea. Sitting in the boat’s prow, Casey trailed her fingers through the water. She had sent a message to Miranda, going out to the Renaissance, and then shoved her phone deep in her handbag.
‘Who are you going to be?’ Miranda had asked earlier, because Miranda picked characters as if she were picking a book off a shelf.
‘I don’t know yet.’ Because it was easy, wasn’t it? And it was, back then, all those hours ago.
Where am I? Oh, yes. Who am I?
But everyone had a weak spot. Everyone. Didn’t they?
Maybe on the boat, in the house, there would be a clue. Maybe.
Anything could happen.
I don’t care.
‘Do you miss anything about England?’ She looked back at Zac.
‘St Paul’s.’ He surprised her. ‘My favourite place.’
‘Why?’
He was looking up at the incandescence of the moon. ‘Because it’s beautiful.’
It wasn’t his fault that she thought of a magical dome, seen from the top of a hill. And scarlet tulips, and a pattering rain and a city so bright in the dark. And a kiss.
He helped her climb aboard the Renaissance, and swung up behind her. Dodo hopped aboard too, claws rattling on the deck. They sat on the deck, side by side, and he opened a bottle, poured her a glass of wine.
The wooden deck was still warm from the sun. Casey felt unstable, erratic, almost giddy. Too many drinks, and not quite enough drinks. She felt precarious, nervous, on the edge of tears.
‘You’re running away from something.’ Zac’s words startled her.
‘I’m not.’ A reflex.
‘So why are you here?’
Ed.
‘A holiday.’ A forced giggle. ‘I told you. I needed to get away for a bit.’
‘So you are running away from something,’ he said, with satisfaction.
‘Aren’t we all?’ – and now her laugh wouldn’t stop.
He turned to watch her, the boat rocking gently on the swell. And then he leaned across and kissed her.
For a second, Casey kissed him back. His body was solid against her, his arms oddly comforting. His hands were on her body, running up her back, pulling her close, and then he was stroking her face, kissing her again, harder now, and for a moment, there was only him, the world fading away.
Casey opened her eyes.
Not Ed.
‘No,’ she gasped.
‘Come on.’ He kissed her again, his mouth hard on hers, pushing her backwards towards the deck.
‘No.’ A surge of panic. No one knew where she was. And he was strong: far stronger than her. She felt as flimsy as her yellow silk dress.
‘It’ll be fun.’
‘No,’ louder. Both her hands on his chest, and she rammed him away. He pulled back, letting her go, and she felt a surge of relief that almost choked her. Lucky. Fool. What are you doing?
‘All right, all right.’ Zac was laughing again. ‘You don’t know what you want, Casey.’
Her name was a shock. She turned her face away from him, her eyes full of tears. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’
She heard him refill their glasses, her eyes on the ocean. The sea whispered against the sides of the yacht, and it seemed as if the boat was drifting in some lonely, dark emptiness.
‘Why are you really here, Casey?’
Casey forced her face to calm. She turned to Zac, and looked him straight in the eye.
‘It’s my sister.’
‘Your sister?’ Zac was baffled, still smiling.
‘She’s called Flora.’ Zac waited. Casey took a breath. ‘My sister Flora is nineteen years old, and she has cystic fibrosis.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Zac’s voice was even.
‘She has Mycobacterium abscessus,’ Casey recited it, as if it were a scene she had seen once. ‘It isn’t looking good.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Flora is a gorgeous person,’ said Casey. ‘She’s clever and funny and generous and kind. Everyone likes her. You’d like her.’
‘I’m sure I would.’
‘So I came out here to find you.’ Casey refused to look away. ‘I know that your real name is Zac Napier, and that you used to be a doctor. I know that you were working on an antibiotic called Corax. And I’ve been told that Corax might work on Flora. It might cure the abscessus.’
Zac’s face didn’t move.
‘Please,’ said Casey. ‘Please help us.’
Zac took a swig of his wine. ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ll take you back to the jetty,’ he said.
‘Please, Zac. I know you were working on it.’
But he was standing up, moving towards the cockpit. ‘Which hospital is looking after your sister?’
For a second, she hesitated. ‘The Royal Free. Close to Hampstead Heath.’
He looked straight at her. ‘Not the Royal Brompton?’
‘No.’ Too hasty, she almost kicked herself. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t have any information on this Corax stuff,’ Zac said. ‘I’m sorry you’ve wasted your journey.’
He fired up the engine and the Renaissance started to move, slicing mechanically through the waves.
‘I know you can help us,’ Casey tried. ‘We need your help.’
But it was like shouting at the ocean. The yacht churned through the waves, all her flying speed gone, and Zac sat in silence all the way back to the jetty.
17
Miranda was waiting at the hotel, taut with nerves. Casey had barely closed the door to the room before she exploded.
‘You can’t go off like that.’ Casey had never seen Miranda so upset. ‘Anything could have happened to you. Anything.’
‘But it was fine.’ Casey was swaying with exhaustion.
‘I didn’t know what to do. Who to call. You can’t … You can’t just go.’
‘It was fine,’ Casey repeated.
Miranda’s relief was turning into anger.
‘You don’t know him, Casey. It’s insanity. I have to be able to trust you not to … Not to do unbelievably stupid things.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Twice in one day you could have been bloody killed.’
‘Zac was hardly likely to murder me.’
‘But you don’t know that.’ Miranda’s hands were splayed with frustration. ‘Dash thinks you’re going to get yourself killed. That you almost want to get yourself killed.’
‘And that’s why he sent you out here, is it? To babysit me?’
‘You know that’s why.’
‘He doesn’t trust me any more, does he?’
‘Not right now he doesn’t, no. He wants you to take time off, Casey. Get your head straight.’
‘Why doesn’t he just fire me then? Because I know where all the bodies are buried?’
Miranda steadied, managed to smile. ‘You buried most of them, to be fair.’
‘It’s not funny.’
‘I know. But he wants you back to normal. We all do.’
‘Normal? What the hell is normal now?’ Casey felt the tears start again. ‘I can’t make sense of anything until I know what happened to Ed. I have to find out what happened to him.’
‘But we don’t know that anything happened to Ed,’ said Miranda flatly. ‘The post-mortem didn’t show anything dodgy.’
‘They weren’t thorough enough. I know someone killed him.’
‘You don’t know that, Casey. You can’t let yourself consider the possibility that he might just have died. That his heart simply stopped working one day. That’s normal too, not being able to believe it.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘People never want to believe it.’ Miranda stopped. ‘Are you all right?’
Casey had gone pale. Her hands were shaking, her legs quivering. She turned sharply towards the window, staring out over the sea. Standing there, she gripped the steel rim of the window frame, crushing her fingers against the metal until it hurt.
‘What is it, Casey?’ Miranda asked.
‘Can’t you understand that I would so much rather believe he just died?’ Casey erupted. ‘Don’t you see it would be easier if he had simply had a heart attack?’
Miranda’s eyes were wide.
‘It’s OK, Casey. It’s all right.’
‘I could almost bear it if it had been a heart attack,’ Casey screamed. ‘But don’t you see that if someone killed him, it’s my fault? If they killed him because of some stupid story, that means that he’s only dead because of me!’
Casey’s voice broke. She fell against the wall, sliding down into a ball on the floor. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she said again and again. ‘All my bloody fault.’
Miranda huddled down beside her. ‘It’s not your fault, Casey. You didn’t know … Even if someone did kill him, no one could possibly have known then … ’
‘I made him … ’ Casey couldn’t stop the tears. ‘So many times … I made him go to the Sahara. To Bangladesh. To help me. And he didn’t want to. I made him, every time. I didn’t make him happy, Miranda.’ She looked up. ‘Why didn’t I just make him happy?’
‘You did make him happy.’ Miranda stroked her shoulder. ‘Anyone could see that. He was always happiest when he was with you.’
They sat on the floor, side by side, watching the moonlight shimmer on the water.
‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ Casey whispered. ‘I’m surprised, every time I think of it. Every time something happens, I think Ed never heard that joke. Ed would have loved this walk. I can’t believe that his life just stops, and I carry on, getting further and further away from him. How can that be?’
‘It’s normal,’ Miranda murmured. ‘It’s normal to feel like that. And it will get better.’
‘But I don’t want it to get better. I don’t want to wake up one morning, and not remember exactly what he looked like when he smiled. I don’t want to forget how he would raise one eyebrow just a fraction when I was being ridiculous about something. I don’t want to get used to him not being here.’
‘You have to.’
‘But what if I can’t?’
After a few moments, Miranda stood and crossed the room to where a miniature kettle stood. A collection of teabags and biscuits sat on a doilied tray.
‘What did you get out of Zac?’ Miranda asked over her shoulder.
The change of topic calmed Casey. ‘Nothing,’ she said dully. ‘I screwed it up completely.’
Miranda turned round with a teabag in her hand, eyebrows raised. ‘You didn’t get anything at all?’
‘No.’
‘What happened?’
‘I couldn’t think straight,’ Casey admitted. ‘I got everything wrong. I couldn’t decide who I was, how I should play it, what I should do.’
Miranda sat down on the floor next to her again.
‘Never mind. We all get things wrong at times.’ She smiled. ‘Even me.’
‘I felt like I was watching myself fuck up from a distance,’ said Casey. ‘As if it was happening to someone else.’
‘Yes, I can see that’s not ideal.’
‘I let him kiss me, Miranda.’ Casey pulled a face. ‘Anything could have happened out there. I was unbelievably stupid.’
Miranda contemplated her. Then she picked up the printed screengrab of Zac laughing on the beach. ‘Well,’ she grinned, ‘I’ve certainly made worse mistakes.’
‘Shut up.’ But Casey was smiling too. ‘I ruined it. How could I do that?’
For a second, Miranda’s face was serious. ‘Dash isn’t just being a pain in the neck, shifting you off investigations, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s hard, what we do. And it can go very badly wrong, very quickly. You can’t do it if your mind is only half on the job, and Dash thought you were struggling even before … You need time out, Casey. You need to sort yourself out.’
‘It felt as if I had lost my nerve.’
Miranda looked down into her teacup. ‘It can happen.’
‘But what would that mean?’ Casey’s eyes were wide.
‘It’ll come back. You’ll be OK.’
‘But how?’ asked Casey. ‘And what if I can’t?’
18
‘Dash wants us back in the UK.’ Miranda was bright-eyed, hair dripping from a dawn swim. ‘They’ve booked us both on the flight home tonight.’
Behind Miranda, the sun was glittering on the ocean. In the distance, one of the hotel workers was raking the beach while singing tunelessly.
Casey was sitting on her bed, examining her bruises, plum and magenta.
‘I don’t want to go home.’
‘It’s an order, I’m afraid … ’
Casey looked up. ‘Did you tell him about … ’
‘No,’ said Miranda. ‘But he called me last night. While you were off. He asked where you were. Told me that you should ring him back within an hour. And, of course … ’
‘I’m going to go and front-up Zac before we go.’ Casey’s face was rebellious. ‘Just this one last thing.’
‘I can hardly stop you,’ Miranda shrugged. ‘But it doesn’t sound like you’re going to get anywhere.’
According to some old estate agent particulars, Omb
res Paisibles was built around three sides of a square. The beach made up the fourth side of the courtyard, marble steps leading down to the sea.
In the photographs, cream deckchairs reclined next to a coppery green pool in the centre of the courtyard. Behind floor-to-ceiling windows were a beautiful sitting room to one side of the house, and a long dining space on the other. The black rocks that gave Roches Noires its name protected the sand from the crash of the waves.
From the beach, Casey could see that the house’s security shutters had been opened by an invisible maid. Ombres Paisibles would still be bristling with alarms, though, with a hotline to a private security team. Almost all these beachfront houses had formidable defences. ‘You don’t want to be the obvious target,’ someone had drawled in the yacht club. ‘Always make your neighbour the easier mark.’
Mauritius, with its frill of wealth along the waterfront. A froth of luxury gift-wrapping around a far poorer centre. A silver lining, and a diamond edge. Money, an unyielding reef.
Casey walked along the beach, her footprints washed away by the sea. Tiny crabs scuttled over the black rocks. From a distance, she could see Zac standing by his pool. He was stretching, eyes on the horizon.
As she got closer, he smiled down at her, unsurprised. ‘Good morning, Casey.’
‘My name is Casey Benedict,’ she called up. ‘I work for the Post.’
‘I know.’
A jolt. She raised her chin. ‘People always say that.’
I was just testing you. I was only joking. I knew all along. The defiance always crumbled in the end.
‘I’m sure they do.’
It’ll make an excellent story: his words had made her hesitate, right at the start of the evening. She had convinced herself: no. But now she realised: he had known. He had known all along.
‘Was that why you stopped?’ she realised. ‘You know … ’
‘No.’ Mock appalled. ‘I’m a gentleman.’
She glowered up at him. ‘I want to know about Corax.’
He was smiling down at her. ‘Yes. I guessed as much from your – err – performance.’
‘Why did Pergamex abandon the work on Corax?’
Zac shrugged, hands wide. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’