She turned her head away from the body and gasped. Adrian was lying on his back on the floor, blood pouring from a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
‘Call an ambulance!’ she yelled at her mother. ‘Get a doctor here right now. You see to Dad!’
Snapping into action, she ripped a pillow from its case. She folded the fabric into a thick square as she jumped down from the bed, and ran over to Adrian. His eyes were shut, but she could see he was breathing. Tentatively she raised the improvised pad to his shoulder. There was blood everywhere. Her hands were soon coated in it. Normally squeamish, she took no notice of the slimy blood oozing down her arms. She just wanted Adrian to be all right. She thought he was unconscious but his eyes flickered open as she lifted his head gently onto her lap. It felt very heavy.
‘That’s three times,’ he muttered as his eyes closed again.
‘Now it’s my turn,’ Lucy replied. A tear dripped from her chin as she smiled down at him. Gently she wiped it off his cheek, leaving a smear of blood behind. ‘Keep still and try to stop bleeding.’
Adrian’s lips curled in a smile that changed to a grimace as she bent forward, pressing the folded pad of material against his injured shoulder.
‘Ow! Stop doing that, will you? It hurts.’
‘Well, if you really want me to let you lie here and bleed to death . . .’
She shifted her position, moving her legs under his head, while he winced, grumbling at her to keep still.
‘You keep still,’ she retorted. ‘Every time you move, the pillow case slips.’ In the background, she could hear her mother’s voice, explaining that an ambulance was required urgently.
‘No, it can’t wait until the morning. There’s a man bleeding to death up here. He needs medical assistance now. And there’s another man—’ She broke off. ‘Look, we need an ambulance, and we need medical assistance up here straight away.’ She paused, listening to the person at the other end of the line. ‘Shot and bleeding to death, yes. It’s an emergency . . . Yes, tell them it’s an emergency. The injured man is a Seychellois. He’s the hotel accountant . . . That’s right, Adrian . . . Yes, Adrian’s been shot . . . Thank you. Honestly, George, you’d think I was asking for a space shuttle to the moon. George? George? Are you all right? George?’
It was Angela’s voice, calling her father. Lucy looked up and saw she was shaking him by the shoulder. He opened his eyes.
‘Are you all right, George? Are you hurt? George, answer me!’
He smiled weakly and assured her he was fine.
‘But it’s all my fault,’ he mumbled. ‘All of it. My fault.’
Lucy’s mother sat back on her heels and launched into one of her lectures. ‘Listen to me, George. If you hadn’t shot that animal right between the eyes, we’d all of us be dead right now, you, me, Lucy and Adrian. It’s only because of you that we’re all still alive.’
‘All?’ her father repeated, as though he did not understand the word. ‘Did you say all?’
‘Adrian’s still alive, but he’s bleeding a lot,’ Lucy said. Adrian shifted in her arms and moaned with pain. ‘You’ve got to keep still, Adrian. Help will be here soon.’
Her father’s head fell back against the side of the bed.
‘I did it,’ he announced to no one in particular. He sounded dazed.
His head jerked as Lucy’s mother pulled a sheet off the bed. Lucy watched her drag it over to Baptiste and throw it over him. Twitching the edges, she covered the dead body completely.
‘There,’ she said, brushing her palms together in a washing motion. ‘We don’t have to look at him.’
Before she walked away, she stamped viciously on the hidden corpse. The body jolted beneath its shroud. Lucy flinched at the sadistic expression on her mother’s face. She wondered what unspoken atrocities had been committed against her in the name of revenge, while she had been chained to the wall in Baptiste’s stinking hut. Still pressing the bloody wad of material against Adrian’s wound, she closed her eyes to shut out the sight of her mother’s face contorted with loathing. When she opened them again the room was full of people. Two men lifted her father up onto the bed and he lay immobile for a few seconds, observing the bustle that was going on around him.
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ a porter told Lucy.
As her father sat up, her mother bent down to plant a kiss on his cheek.
Lucy turned back to Adrian. He looked dreadfully pale. His head was resting on her lap and her flimsy nightshirt was drenched with blood. He seemed to be losing a lot of blood. She shivered. After the stress of her mother’s disappearance, she was not sure she could cope with any more grief.
‘It’s all right now,’ she repeated. ‘It’s all right.’
She could feel the tension in her shoulder as she pressed the pad against Adrian’s wound. As far as she could tell she had stemmed the bleeding, but it was not clear if Adrian had lost consciousness or had just closed his eyes.
‘The ambulance will be here soon,’ someone said, and a buzz of muted voices rippled through the onlookers.
A stout sunburned woman strode into the room.
‘I’m a doctor,’ she announced in a strident English accent. ‘Where’s the injured party?’
‘Thank God,’ Lucy breathed.
One of the porters lifted a corner of the sheet to reveal Baptiste’s face. The doctor lowered her bulk to kneel on the blood-soaked carpet beside him. As she wriggled around the body in a vain attempt to avoid staining her dressing gown, Lucy grabbed her by the arm and yanked her away.
‘Never mind about him,’ she cried. ‘Adrian’s injured. He’s bleeding to death and I can’t stop it!’
With a helpless shrug at Baptiste’s corpse, the doctor turned her attention to the living. As she moved away, Lucy’s mother darted forward to flick the sheet back over Baptiste’s face. Once again, her mother’s expression gave Lucy a cold sensation, she looked so malevolent. Gently the doctor lifted the blood-soaked pad off Adrian’s shoulder and he groaned.
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she announced, with a nod at Lucy. ‘Keep pressing the pad against it. Hopefully the bleeding will have washed the wound out, but he’ll be put on antibiotics to prevent any infection and he might need a tetanus shot.’
‘He’s going to be all right then?’ Lucy’s voice shook so much she could hardly get the words out.
‘I should think so,’ the doctor replied. ‘He seems healthy enough and it’s just a flesh wound, despite all this blood. You’re not a haemophiliac, are you?’
Adrian shook his head and winced.
‘How did it happen?’ the doctor continued. ‘It looks like . . .’ She glanced back at Baptiste, concealed once more beneath the sheet, and frowned. Standing up with a grunt, she addressed the hotel manager. ‘This chap needs to go to hospital as soon as the ambulance gets here, to check everything’s as it should be and there’s no further injury, and you’ll need to notify the police if you haven’t already done so. As I was first on the scene, you know where I am if you need a death certificate for our friend under the sheet.’
‘He’s not our friend,’ Lucy’s mother snapped so ferociously that the doctor looked round at her in surprise.
47
THE SUN SHONE FIERCELY on the sparkling water of the pool. Not far away the shouts of holidaymakers could be heard from the beach, just a short walk away through lush gardens. Her father was lying on a lounger by the pool where Lucy was taking a dip with her mother. Neither of them fancied going in the sea. Lucy doggy-paddled past her mother who laughed and chased feebly after her across the pool. The events of the past few days seemed impossible to believe, as they splashed around in the water. From his seat in the shade, her father called to them not to stay exposed for too long. The only danger now was from too much sun. Aware that her mother was still physically weak, Lucy called to him she was getting out.
Lucy’s mother followed her up the steps out of the pool. She looked emaciated. Since she had been
discharged from hospital she seemed barely able to eat, but they had given up nagging her for now. It was bound to take time for the effects of her ordeal to fade. Tired out after her swim, she went up to the room for a rest. Lucy’s father went up with her. After a while he came down again to sit by the pool with Lucy.
‘She’s fast asleep,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the best thing for her right now.’
In her mother’s presence, Lucy and her father were keeping up a pretence that everything was fine. When her mother was not around, Lucy’s father made no attempt to hide his anxiety. He confided his fears that the unseen consequences of her mother’s experience would prove more tenacious than any physical signs. Her mother refused to talk about her confinement in the hut. Lucy had noticed how her mother recoiled from any physical contact with her father, but now she said only that she wished there was something she could do to support him, and help her mother.
‘I’m not sure there’s anything we can do, other than to be there for her,’ he said. ‘Once we get home I’ll take her to the GP and insist she’s referred to a counsellor, maybe a psychiatrist, someone trained in helping people suffering from post-traumatic stress. Perhaps all three of us ought to go?’
Assuring her father she would do whatever he thought was best for her mother, she lay back on a sunbed. Adrian came and sat beside her, a large dressing taped to his shoulder the only visible reminder of the crisis they had survived. The brisk English doctor’s diagnosis had been confirmed by a hospital consultant. Adrian had suffered a nasty flesh wound which they expected to heal quickly. In the meantime, they had advised him not to drive for a few days – advice which Lucy knew he was ignoring – and he had been signed off work for two weeks.
‘Two weeks,’ Lucy wailed. ‘But we’re going home tomorrow!’
‘I’ll just have to find some other way to pass the time while I’m off work,’ Adrian replied, laughing.
‘Well, you’d better not go rescuing anyone else. Damsel in distress is my role.’
‘Next time I see a girl drowning, or having rocks thrown at her, or being shot at, I’ll look the other way,’ he assured her solemnly.
When her parents joined them, Lucy went to the bar. She walked past a few holidaymakers sitting in the shade around the pool, young couples probably on honeymoon, and older couples celebrating anniversaries or retirement, all of them relaxed and contented. It was hard to believe anything sinister could ever happen in this lovely setting. Eddy, the blond barman, obligingly brought a tray over to them.
‘How’s the injured hero?’ he asked, with a wink at his colleague.
Adrian shrugged, then grimaced. ‘Bugger, I keep forgetting about this damned dressing. It’s more uncomfortable than the wound itself. Every time I move my shoulder, it pulls.’
‘You shouldn’t drive then,’ Lucy retorted.
Overhearing her, Eddy grinned as he set their drinks down.
‘That’s right, Lucy. You tell him. By the way, did you hear the news?’ he sat on the edge of her lounger.
‘What news?’
‘About Judy.’
Lucy sat up. ‘What about her?’
‘They think Baptiste’s gun was used to shoot her. It’s not definite yet. The police are still waiting for confirmation. But apparently he was seen taking her off in his boat, so if it was his gun that shot her, well, that’s going to wrap it up, isn’t it? She was a great girl. It’s a tragedy, what happened to her.’
With a sigh, he stood up and wandered back to the bar where a young girl was waiting for him. Lucy gazed at a few petals floating on the surface of the pool, blown there by the wind.
‘It’s better to let them fall,’ she said. ‘More natural. They don’t need to be swept up.’
Her mother shuddered and pulled her sarong over her bony knees.
‘Health and safety wouldn’t let them lie around on the flagstones like that in England,’ her father replied. ‘Someone could slip over and sue the hotel.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Adrian said.
They sat for a moment, sipping lemonade and beer, each absorbed in their own thoughts.
Lucy’s father broke the silence. ‘Thank God you came along when you did. Although I don’t understand what you were doing in the corridor outside our room.’
Adrian looked embarrassed. ‘I told you, I happened to be passing. I’d been working late – that is, I’d been drinking with some of the hotel staff and – I heard a commotion from the corridor,’
‘But what were you doing up on our floor in the first place?’
Adrian looked away, flustered. Lucy caught her mother’s eye and Angela put her hand on her husband’s arm.
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘He was there when we needed him and that’s what matters.’
‘Exactly. So stop going on about it, Dad,’ Lucy added.
‘I’m hardly going on—’
Lucy jumped up. ‘Come on, Adrian, let’s go for a walk. It’s my last day. Let’s go and frolic in the sea.’
‘Not sure about frolicking with this,’ he said, raising his injured arm a fraction and wincing. ‘But I might be able to manage a sedate stroll.’
He stood up and took her hand, and they walked down to the beach together.
Before dinner, Lucy joined her parents on their balcony to watch the sunset. Her mother must have had a word with her father. Lucy was mortified by his awkward attempt at an apology.
‘It hadn’t occurred to me that there was anything going on between you and Adrian. If I’d known, I would never have asked him what he was doing in our corridor, at night.’
‘Please, Dad, there’s nothing going on.’ Lucy felt herself blush. It was embarrassing, knowing her parents must have talked about her private affairs. ‘And there’s no holiday romance. Adrian’s a friend.’
Her parents must have discussed her break up with Darren a lot when she was not around. She wondered if she would ever understand how much they must have suffered, witnessing her misery. She was only twenty-two. Deep down she had always known that she would carry on with her life and forget about Darren. Carried away by the drama of her own grief, she had been cruelly self-centred. In the bright light that exposed every wrinkle and crease, her mother’s face looked tired and old. Her hair was turning white. Lucy wondered if her own problems had added lines to her mother’s face.
The sky began to flare orange and they all turned to watch the sun set.
‘I think it’s going to be a good one tonight,’ Lucy’s father said.
‘You say that every night,’ Lucy answered with a smile.
Her mother’s words dropped so softly on the quiet air, Lucy thought she must have misheard. ‘Tell us about Veronique.’
It was a while before Lucy’s father answered. When he did, he spoke very slowly. ‘What it all boils down to is that I had an affair with a woman back in the seventies, while I was working here.’ He gazed past them at the ocean shimmering with pink light. ‘I didn’t know she was married.’
‘Would it have made any difference if you had known?’
‘Yes – no – I don’t know. Yes, of course it would. But I was very young. It never occurred to me to ask her, and she didn’t tell me. I suppose I assumed she was free. Why would I think otherwise?’ He shrugged. ‘I wasn’t much older than Lucy.’
‘Old enough to know better,’ her mother said, tartly.
Lucy thought that was unfair. It was not her father’s fault that he had unknowingly fallen in love with a married woman, or that his letters had betrayed their affair to her jealous husband. She looked at her father, who seemed bowed under the weight of his misery. Perhaps he had never cared for another woman with a devotion equal to his love for Veronique. She might have reciprocated his feelings with equal passion, her love for George goading Baptiste beyond endurance. But all that had happened before he met Lucy’s mother.
‘I told you,’ he repeated wearily, ‘I didn’t know she was married. It was just an affair. I was young, and I was
lonely, and like you said yourself, it’s natural.’
Her mother spoke. ‘Did you love her?’
The answer lay in his hesitation. ‘Yes,’ he replied heavily at last. ‘I did. I loved her.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about her? She was a part of your life before we met.’
She sounded so hurt, Lucy began to understand her mother’s anger. It was not her father’s love affair but his silence that had been a betrayal. Her parents seemed to have forgotten she was sitting there. Feeling uncomfortable, she wondered whether to get up and leave, but she did not want to draw attention to herself.
‘I didn’t think it mattered. It was over such a long time ago.’
Her mother’s voice was cold as she repeated his words. ‘A long time ago.’ Her voice rose as she continued. ‘Why did you write and tell her we were coming here, if it was all over?’
His reply was halting, as though he found it difficult to speak. ‘It was a long time ago, but I did care about her once. I just wanted to see her, to know she was all right. When I left, the island was a dangerous place. I always felt guilty about leaving her and worried about how she had coped. I just wanted to check she had been all right over the years. I wanted to see she was happy in her life, as happy as I am with you. Was that so very wrong?’
He waited but her mother did not respond. ‘We are happy together, aren’t we?’ he blurted out. ‘Angela, please don’t shut me out like this. I know I was wrong to write to her without telling you, but I only wanted closure on that chapter of my life by making sure she was all right. She never answered my letters when I first returned to England, and I always wondered why, whether she’d forgotten me, or if something had happened to her. Once we decided to come back, I had to try and find out.’
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