Will Adams - The Eden Legacy

Hurrying on with renewed energy, he soon reached a sign directing him up a track to a clearing of wooden cabins and a large, low building. He hurried between parked vehicles to the shelter of the veranda, was surprised to see that the front door was ajar and that torchlight was flickering inside, as though there’d been a power-cut. He shouted out as he put down his bags, and two men appeared a moment later, wearing baseball caps and scarves around their mouths, obviously up to no good. They yelled out and charged at him, knocked him backwards off the veranda. Knox slapped instinctively at an ankle as it passed, and one of the men went sprawling. He leapt upon him but the second man came back and aimed a kick at Knox’s face, forcing him to defend himself, allowing his companion to squirm free. They ran for the pickup, locked themselves inside, started it up and sped away, spraying watery mud all over Knox as he gave chase. Then they turned south along the track and vanished.

He tramped back to the veranda. A woman in dark clothes came out of one of the cabins, plastic sheeting over her head. For a glad moment he thought it was Emilia, that she was safe after all; but then he realised it was her sister Rebecca instead, the one person Emilia had made him promise never to breathe a word of the Winterton project to. She came over to him, looking concerned. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘I’m fine,’ he assured her. ‘Who were those guys? What the hell’s going on?’

‘I don’t know. I was in one of the cabins. They just showed up.’ She looked at the open door. ‘They had a key.’

‘Just as well,’ said Knox. ‘I’m drenched.’ He squelched his way inside, kicked off his shoes.

‘Matthew Richardson,’ she said from behind him.

He looked around, startled that she should know his name, only to see her crouched down by his bags, reading his tags. ‘Everyone calls me Daniel,’ he told her.

‘The Maritsa?’ she frowned, still reading. ‘Is that a ship or something?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know the name,’ she said. ‘Why would I know the name?’

Knox hesitated; but if she’d heard of it, a lie was almost certain to rebound. ‘It’s a salvage ship,’ he told her. ‘They’re doing a project up near Morombe.’

‘That’s right,’ said Rebecca ‘I read an article on it. Looking for some Chinese shipwreck, right?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘What were you doing up there?’

He hesitated again, reluctant to be drawn into all these lies. But he didn’t see what choice he had, other than to betray his vow to Emilia. ‘I’m a freelance journalist,’ he told her, borrowing a trick from Lucia. ‘I was up there to write an article on the salvage.’

‘And is that why you’re here too? To do an article on Eden?’

‘I’m always looking for strong stories,’ said Knox. ‘But mostly I’m here because I’ve got a few days off, and I’d heard great things about this place.’

She pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid we’re really not set up for visitors at the moment.’ Then she looked out at the continuing downpour, and relented. ‘But you can stay tonight, of course; and there are some nice guest cabins just along the beach from here.’

‘Thanks. That’s really kind.’ A pool of water was gathering around his feet, making him realise just how filthy and wet he was. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a shower I can use, is there?’ he asked.

She looked bleakly outside. ‘I think I’d need to turn on the generator.’

‘Then don’t worry about it,’ he told her. ‘The Good Lord provides.’ He took his wash-bag and towel from his bag, went out on to the veranda, closed the door behind him, then stripped naked and strode out into the deluge to wash.

Rebecca lit an oil lamp, turned it up bright and looked around. A red guestbook and a wire tray of leaflets stood upon the high counter. Spare keys hung from a rack behind the desk. A menagerie of snakes, chameleons, butterflies, tortoises, birds and lemurs stared back at her from framed photographs on the walls. The intruders had left damp footprints on the floor. She followed them to the door of her father’s study, looked inside. It was much as she remembered, save for the laptop upon his desk. The camp-bed was still in the far corner, for those occasions when Eden had been overrun by volunteers; and his shotgun was still in the glass cabinet behind the desk. She quickly checked his shelves of books and CDs, but there were no obvious gaps from which something might have been taken.

She went back through reception. The front door had blown ajar, revealing that the downpour outside had grown incredibly fierce, so that the ground was half covered in shallow lakes, and great serpents of dark water were slithering away on the slight camber of the site. Daniel had his back to her, rainwater running down his back before splitting like a delta at his buttocks. His shoulder was ploughed by the distinctive ridges of burn scars, with more upon his back, but there was little else wrong with him that she could see.

He squeezed a stubby caterpillar of toothpaste on to his brush, held it out into the rain, threw back his head to let water drum into his mouth. Lightning lit him up like Christmas, glinting off the silver chain around his neck, illuminating the tattoo of a star on his right biceps, reflecting in twin yellow points from the tapeta-rich eyes of night creatures around the clearing. Thunder cracked; raindrops hammered like furious dwarves at the earth, throwing up tiny coronets with each impact. Daniel didn’t even flinch. She suffered, then, something like premonition; a certainty that there was more to this man than met the eye, that somehow he’d have a part to play in her life.

The door blew closed again. She shook her head at herself, went through to the main room, a large, openplan mix of cafeteria, games room, lecture-hall, library and dormitory. She’d sleep in here herself tonight, put Daniel in her father’s office. The kitchens next, then the restrooms, storeroom and clinic. Nothing seemed out of place, though she’d been away too long to be sure. Daniel was in the lounge when she went back through, wearing an olive T-shirt and baggy blue shorts, holding an oil lamp of his own that made his skin glow. ‘This may sound crazy,’ he said. ‘But don’t I know you from somewhere?’

She gave him an appraising look. Men often tried to pretend they didn’t recognise her; it seemed to make them feel better about themselves for some reason. But if this one was lying, he was good. ‘You may have seen me on TV,’ she told him.

His eyes narrowed, then he snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You’re Rebecca someone. Rebecca Kirkpatrick. You do wildlife programmes.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed.

‘Cool.’ He sat down on one of a pair of armchairs hunched around a low table. ‘So what are you doing out here? Are you on a shoot, or something?’

‘Not exactly, no,’ she said, sitting opposite. ‘This is where I was brought up. My father and my sister…’ She stopped short, surprised by a pang of emotion.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. Outside, the rain was easing. It would be daybreak in a few hours; she should get some sleep. Yet, more than anything, she felt the need to talk. ‘It’s my father and my sister,’ she told him. ‘They’ve gone missing.’

Though she’d been up late, Rebecca woke early and rose at once, brisk with purpose. Her luggage was at Pierre’s, she had no toiletries, so she swilled and spat out some drinking water, threw on yesterday’s clothes, then looked briefly in on her father’s office. Daniel was still sleeping. He’d thrown off his sheet during the night, was naked except for a pair of cheap green cotton boxers. Cotton boxers: underwear of kings! Morning sunlight glistened on the thin fuzz of his navel and chest valley. His arm had fallen off the bed and his knuckles were resting on the floor. She suffered an odd kind of embarrassment then, recalling how she’d poured her heart out to him last night, sharing confidences about her childhood here that she’d never before told anyone-and him a journalist! She’d known even at the time that it was rash, yet once she’d started she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Besides, there was something about him that she’d trusted then and trusted still. And, for all that she’d told him he’d have to leave today, she found herself rather hoping that he’d stay.