The Girl from Lace Island

by Joanna Rees

  She stepped forward to Chan, fronting up to him. He looked at her, clearly startled that she wasn’t cowering, as usual. She reached behind her into the waistband of her trousers and gripped Tapi’s gun confidently in her hand.

  ‘Why did you do this, Chan? Why did you bring her here?’ Leila said, because she saw now that this was just the next step in Chan’s awful plan.

  ‘For some insurance,’ Shang said, stepping into the room. She saw Jess shrinking back behind Suresh.

  ‘I’m very bored of you and your defiance. So I thought that maybe you might fall off a cliff one of these days, Leila. Or get eaten by a shark. Not that there’s ever been any sharks around here.’ He laughed and looked across at Shang.

  Leila felt something horrifying click into place. A light coming on, illuminating a truth that she’d always known.

  ‘You killed my father,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, he was inconvenient,’ Chan said, with a shrug. ‘And I would have killed you too,’ he said, ‘if she hadn’t run away from her wedding,’ he said, nodding at Jess. ‘I had everything worked out. Everything transferred legally to Blaise.’

  ‘No,’ Leila shouted. ‘You don’t get to mess with her.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Chan said, pointing his gun at Leila, but she felt no fear. This time, the bullet was not going to miss. She pulled the gun round and aimed it at Chan, and with a furious scream, she pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the shot was deafening. She watched as Chan clutched his stomach, blood seeping from between his fingers. He stared at her, incomprehension on his face as he looked from his hand to her. His gun clattered to the floor.

  ‘No,’ Suresh shouted, as Jess screamed.

  Another shot. This time from Shang’s gun, and Leila gasped as she saw Suresh slump down.

  Jess screamed and now Leila fired a second time, hitting Hakem. He fell in the corridor. Only Shang remained, aiming once more at Leila. She pointed her gun at him, wondering who would fire first.

  ‘Don’t kill her. We need her,’ Chan said, through gritted teeth.

  Leila stared hard at Shang, pointing the gun at him, wanting more than ever to pull the trigger.

  ‘Don’t, Leila,’ Jess said. Then she launched at Shang with a roundhouse kick, making his gun skitter across the floor, before turning again and punching him in the throat. He fell backwards and staggered against the wall, and Jess pushed him again. He hit his head hard on the door frame and fell down against it.

  Leila stared at her daughter, astounded; then she stood over Chan. ‘You don’t win,’ she said.

  ‘Neither do you.’

  ‘Have you any idea how many lives you’ve ruined?’ she spat at him.

  ‘As long as I ruined yours, that’s all that matters,’ he replied, falling further back on the floor, blood pooling around him.

  ‘Why? Why have you been so cruel all these years, Chan?’ Leila said, kneeling down next to him.

  ‘Because nothing I ever did was good enough.’

  ‘For who?’ Leila said.

  ‘For Bibi. Your mother always loved you more than me. No matter what I did for her.’

  He coughed now, blood in his mouth. Leila dropped the gun. Her hands were trembling violently. She stared into Chan’s face. His brown eyes met hers.

  ‘Her last words were about you.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘Of course I was there. I locked her in her bedroom so she’d die from the smoke.’

  Leila felt a lump in her throat.

  ‘You thought you started the fire that killed her, but I did,’ Chan continued. ‘I saw you planting those fireworks. They were useless, Leila. Duds I bought on the market. I planned the explosion, knowing what you were going to do. I heard everything you said to Bibi. I got there first with the dynamite.’

  Leila saw that he was telling the truth. She saw now the lighthouse that dreadful night. The explosion. The towering inferno of fire. And she felt a new truth pull everything into clarity. She couldn’t possibly have started that fire with the fireworks.

  ‘You let me believe all these years that it was me?’ she said. ‘You let me blame myself when all along it was you?’

  She stayed looking at him, but he never answered. Instead, he had a slow smile on his face. And then he was gone.

  She stared at him, hardly able to process what he’d just said.

  ‘Leila. Leila. Help me.’ It was Jess. She turned to see Jess cradling Suresh’s head. ‘Oh God. Oh God, no.’

  Leila moved fast, seeing the pallor on the young man’s face and the panic on Jess’s. Quickly, she went to Suresh, helping to staunch the flow of blood from his chest.

  ‘We need to get him out of here. Let’s move him downstairs to the jeep and then to the ship. There’ll be a doctor on board,’ Leila said, determined now to help her daughter.

  Jess nodded, and together, they hauled Suresh up, holding him under his armpits, as he groaned with pain.

  They dragged him through the door, and Leila locked Shang inside. Then they made their way down the corridor following a trail of blood. Hakem’s. He must have dragged himself away, Leila thought. Gone to get help, no doubt. Which meant the workers would come soon. But Leila would have to worry about that when it happened.

  ‘Be careful,’ Jess pleaded.

  Leila stared at the sky. Dawn had broken and birds were singing in the palm trees at the front of the house. And then a sound. Distant and then nearer and nearer.

  A low helicopter, whipping the tops of the palm trees.

  Leila was amazed. She hadn’t heard a helicopter on Lace Island for years. How had they got through security? Then she remembered that she’d locked Tapi in the control bunker and cut the wires to his computers.

  The door of the helicopter was open, and a man with what looked like a large TV camera was staring down at them, filming.

  ‘It’s Kareena’s channel,’ Suresh said, his voice no more than a whisper, a kind of relieved smile on his face. ‘She finally got her story.’

  And then he passed out.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Cochin, present day

  Jess pinched her eyes, sitting next to the bed in the hospital in Cochin. The monitors round Suresh’s bed bleeped, but he lay motionless and asleep. At this time of night, the roar of the traffic on the street outside was hardly noticeable, but Jess still couldn’t sleep.

  She saw the news come on the TV in the corner and she glanced up at it now.

  ‘In yet more shocking revelations about Lace Island, Cochin’s chief of police was arrested today in connection with a huge-scale cover-up that sources say goes right up to government level.’

  Jess zoned out. It had been four days since the shootings on Lace Island and the world seemed to have gone crazy. Those first few hours when the helicopter had arrived were still a blur. She’d been in such shock from finding Leila and then Suresh being shot that she’d hardly taken in the news cameras. But then the coastguard had arrived, followed by the police.

  The shipment of heroin that had been due to leave Lace Island had been quarantined, and the workers had been rounded up and detained. Mayhem had followed, with multiple arrests, and Leila had remained on Lace Island in police custody, happily answering all their questions. Jess had listened, dumbstruck, as she’d hastily recounted the night of the fire and what had happened and just how many atrocities Chan had been responsible for.

  She’d insisted that Jess go to take Suresh to the hospital on the mainland and Jess had left with the news helicopter, still hardly able to believe what had happened.

  ‘We will be together soon,’ Leila had said, squeezing Jess’s hands. ‘I promise. Make sure your friend gets better.’

  It touched her that Leila, after everything she’d been through, was so concerned for Suresh. So far, he’d had two operations, and the doctors were hopeful that he’d pull through, but it was by no means certain. Kareena and Suresh’s families had all gathered round, fearing the worst.

  Jes
s was happy that they’d let her stay here tonight at the hospital, away from the press pack that had hunted her down since she’d arrived in Cochin. She stood and peeked out of the window, wondering if they were still there.

  She knew it wouldn’t be long before Kareena returned, and then she’d have to go back to the police station. Two agents from the States were coming to talk to her and she wondered what new bombshell news today would bring. She wasn’t sure how much more of these revelations she could take. She knew they wanted to track down Blaise, and despite her exhaustion, she had to do what she could to help them.

  She walked over to Suresh in the bed and stared down at him. She prayed to God that he would be OK. That he would be able to walk again.

  She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop the memory of the kiss they’d shared when they’d been on Lace Island. She stroked his hair, and then suddenly, she saw his eyelids flickering and he opened his eyes.

  Jess gasped, grabbing his hand and leaning in close. She looked towards the door, wondering if she should call the nurse.

  ‘Jess. You’re here,’ he said.

  ‘Of course I’m here,’ she replied, smiling, overjoyed to see the familiar twinkle in his eye. She was so glad that she was here alone with him. That hers was the first face he’d seen. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t feel my feet.’

  ‘They say that’s normal. It’s just where the bullet went near your spine,’ she said, hoping not to panic him. ‘It’ll take some time.’

  He nodded, staring at her intently. His eyes had filled with tears. ‘Jess. Thank you for saving me.’

  ‘I didn’t save you. You saved me, remember.’

  ‘Don’t tell Kareena,’ he said; then he closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.

  Jess smoothed her hand over his hair again, wondering what he’d meant. Did he mean that she wasn’t to tell Kareena what had happened in that small office? About the shooting, or the kiss? Or both?

  He didn’t have to worry on that score, Jess thought, pressing a gentle kiss onto his forehead. It wasn’t as if she was going to have a heart-to-heart with Kareena anytime soon. Not that she disliked Suresh’s fiancée. Quite the opposite. She could see now why Suresh was attracted to her, and his family clearly were totally enamoured with the glamorous newscaster. Rightly so. But to Jess, she was like an emotional bulldozer and Jess found it upsetting how excited Kareena was by the sensational unfolding story on Lace Island. The story that she had taken sole credit for at the news channel that actually wasn’t ‘a story’ at all, but very real and affecting lots of people. Most of all Jess.

  Kareena, however, had been relishing every new revelation with wide-eyed awe, while Jess had shrunk back, too out of her depth to criticize.

  Besides, she couldn’t fault Kareena on how nice she’d been to Jess, insisting that she stay with her at Suresh’s apartment. But Jess knew she was keeping her close, waiting for the moment to spring a big interview on her. Which is why Jess had been keeping her at arm’s length. It all felt too raw and too soon. She needed to check that Leila and Suresh were safe first before she said anything publicly. And even then, she had no idea what she would say. No idea how she actually felt.

  ‘How is he?’ Kareena asked breathlessly, pushing through the door and putting her designer handbag on the chair. Jess sprang away from the bed, feeling her pulse throb in her cheeks. Had Kareena seen her smoothing Suresh’s hair or kissing his forehead? ‘Sorry I’m late.’

  ‘He woke up. He said a few things,’ Jess said.

  ‘That’s good. Well, he must hurry up and get better. You’ll never guess . . .’ Kareena said, her eyes shining.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Today magazine have just tripled their fee for photographing the wedding.’

  She grinned at Jess over the bed, who put her hands in the pockets of her jeans and tried to smile. She hoped Suresh wasn’t listening to any of this. How could Kareena even think about their wedding when he had yet to gain consciousness fully?

  But he would regain consciousness, Jess realized. And then he would marry Kareena. She grabbed her bag from the chair, suddenly desperate to get away. She stiffly hugged Kareena goodbye, with promises to call her later, then slipped out into the corridor.

  Outside the hospital, Jess felt overwhelmingly tired as she got back into the police car that was waiting for her, ignoring the crowd of press that had gathered and the flashes that went off in her face.

  ‘The agents from the States are already here to see you,’ Nev, the police officer who’d been looking after her, explained. She heard the awe in his voice. ‘They are exactly like they are on TV,’ he added, making Jess smile. This was the biggest news story to hit the station for years and Jess wondered how weird all this was for Nev and his colleagues.

  Back at the police headquarters, she followed him through the hot station, where phones were ringing, and she saw through a hatch that there was a room full of people waiting patiently. A whole new day had started already.

  What was happening to time? Jess wondered, feeling truly disorientated. Days seemed to be flowing into nights and back into days without stopping. Would her life ever be normal again?

  She climbed up some stairs and was taken through to a shabby, bare interview room with dark green paint flaking off the walls. A fan was blowing, but it didn’t look like it was doing much for the two American men in the room, who rose to shake Jess’s hand.

  ‘I’m Senior Special Agent Trebitz, and this is my colleague Agent Stone,’ the man with the dark hair explained.

  She sat in the chair as Nev fussed, wanting to bring them coffee, although Jess sensed that this was a stretch and that the station didn’t usually provide such a service.

  Agent Trebitz had shaggy long hair and was sweating in his short-sleeved pink polo shirt. ‘I know you have been through a lot, Jess, but time is important right now. We want you to tell us all you can about’ – he consulted his pile of papers – ‘Blaise Blackmore . . . as you knew him.’

  Jess stared at them. ‘That wasn’t . . . isn’t his name?’

  ‘No. He has plenty of identities,’ Agent Trebitz explained, showing her a colour photocopy of a montage of passports. All of them had different names. All of them had Blaise’s picture.

  ‘Oh my God. Who is he, then?’

  ‘He’s an international fixer,’ Agent Stone explained, handing over a picture of Blaise, looking entirely different, with a beard and dressed in a suit. He works with an accomplice. His girlfriend, we think.’

  ‘Porscha,’ Jess said, as they handed another photo over of Porscha, this time in a blonde wig. She remembered that night in the club when she’d first met her and how she’d felt: small and insignificant – like Porscha held all the power. She should have trusted her gut instinct.

  ‘He’s been impossible to trace until now. He has his fingers in every sort of pie – gambling, drugs, arms dealing.’

  Everything had been a lie, then. She’d suspected it before, but now finding out just how few scruples Blaise actually had made her feel more foolish than ever. She bit her lip, feeling tears perilously close to the surface.

  That day she’d met him on the plane, he’d been there all along to bump into her. And in that apartment in New York, what she’d heard him say on the phone: ‘It’s her.’ It all made sense now.

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ Agent Stone said, seeing her upset. ‘He’s a very skilled operator. We’ve been trying to close in the net around him for years, but he eludes us every time.’

  Jess took a deep breath and then told them everything she could – about the trip in Miami and Nacho on the boat, even the guy who had served them soda that day. And about the hired apartment in New York and the trip to Ibiza with Serge and Ivana.

  Stone, the bigger of the two men, took notes and shook out his hand, as if the writing were making it ache, but when she mentioned Serge, they both stared at each other.

  Agent Stone riffl
ed through his file. ‘This guy?’ he said, showing her an army mugshot of Serge in younger days.

  ‘That’s him. They have this yacht. I went on it in Ibiza. He and Serge went off for a few days together. I have no idea where.’

  Another look passed between them.

  ‘If we can link Blaise to Serge, we’re in with a shot of trapping them both. We cannot tell you how helpful you’ve been, Jess,’ they told her. ‘We know that none of this has been easy.’

  Jess felt her head aching as she finished the questions, and Nev, the policeman, came in and nodded.

  ‘Oh,’ Agent Stone said to Jess, ‘she’s here.’

  ‘Who is here?’

  ‘Leila. She’s just come in from Lace Island. We wanted to question you both.’

  Jess stood now as Leila was brought into the small interview room by a policeman. She looked so different to when Leila had seen her last. She looked smaller and exhausted, as if, like Jess, she’d hardly slept. She was wearing a pair of black trousers and a white shirt, which looked too big for her. Jess realized that Leila probably didn’t have any of her own clothes.

  Leila rushed over to Jess now and threw her arms round her. It felt weird that her mother was so much smaller than her.

  ‘You’re here,’ Leila said, sounding so relieved, as if she couldn’t believe that Jess were real. She cupped Jess’s face, her eyes blazing. ‘You must forgive us,’ she told the agents after a moment. ‘My daughter and I have so much to catch up on.’

  Jess saw the agents exchange a look. They were clearly as baffled by Leila as Jess was herself. She felt simultaneously comforted and overwhelmed seeing Leila. She thought back to that moment – the moment Leila had handed her the pile of photographs – the magnitude of it just too great to wrap her head around.

  And yes, there had been an instant of complete recognition, when she’d realized Leila was her mother, but it hadn’t felt to Jess like she’d expected it to then, and it certainly hadn’t since. She felt shy now of this stranger with whom she was sharing the stage so publicly.

  ‘So what is it you want to know?’ Leila asked them, proprietorially sitting down in a chair. ‘I have been told that I am free to go after this interview, and I want to go and get some breakfast with my daughter. I am so hungry.’