Will Adams - The Eden Legacy

The bridge was set down in the deck, but offered good views on all sides, though the windows were scratched and tired. It was better equipped than he’d expected, too, with VHF radio, GPS and sonar, a compass in a brass binnacle and a varnished wooden wheel. He turned on the GPS, hoping to find a record of the boat’s movements around the time Adam and Emilia had gone missing, but either it hadn’t been turned on that day or the information had since been deleted. The bridge was too cramped for a map table, so Adam had instead rigged a corkboard to a system of pulleys that could be raised when needed, then lowered out of sight again. A chart of the Eden reefs was currently pinned to it, protected by a sheet of acetate. It was marked not just with the usual depth lines and tidal information, but also with Adam’s own additions, Latin and Greek characters, zodiac signs and dates, some ringed or boxed or in triangles. There was no key to explain these symbols, however, and it was too dark to make them worth the study.

He unfurled the mainsail, checked the mast and rigging, then furled it back up again. A hatch opened on to living quarters. He climbed down a ladder into a cramped cabin with fold-away bunk-beds against one wall, a compact galley on the other, with a fridge and cooker and a small cupboard filled with tinned food and condiments. A framed photograph on the far wall showed Emilia and her son Michel. A sliding door concealed the WC, washbasin and a large chest of medical supplies.

‘How much longer?’ asked Rebecca, climbing down to join him. ‘Only we should probably find ourselves a hotel.’

‘All done,’ he told her. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Boris had to wait to find out about the boat and outboard, because they both belonged to a local tour guide, and he was away for the day. He showed up during dinner, but only shook his head regretfully when Boris asked him to name his price. It wasn’t for sale, he assured him. His clients liked to go fishing and hiking and exploring the islands. Boris was welcome to rent it for a very modest sum, but this wasn’t just a boat, he must understand, it was his livelihood.

Boris wasn’t interested in a rental. He didn’t know how long he’d need it, or whether he’d want to come back this way; and there was also a fair chance it would get damaged or destroyed. Besides, it wasn’t his money. He fished out his wad, therefore, began slapping fiftyeuro notes down on the table. The tour guide trailed off and fell silent, licking his lower lip.

They dragged the boat into the shallows, rocked it this way and that to check for leaks. The outboard was an old Honda four-stroke, simple to fit, start and steer. Not ideal for long journeys, but perfectly adequate for burbling them down the coast, so they shook hands upon it, both happy with the bargain. Now all Boris needed was camping supplies. Oh. And his gun, of course.

Zanahary swore blind he knew the best hotel in town; the best at giving backhanders, thought Rebecca, when she saw it. But it was late and she and Daniel were both too tired to go hunting for anything better. What with her father’s Jeep waiting for her back at Eden, she didn’t need a hire car any more, so she thanked Zanahary and signed off on his paperwork. Then she and Daniel followed the concierge upstairs to neighbouring rooms, huge and grey with wire mosquito mesh over the windows, chunks of plaster gouged from the walls, wardrobes with neither drawers nor rails. ‘Fancy something to eat?’ asked Daniel.

‘I need to freshen up first.’ She hoisted her overnight bag on to the double bed. It creaked loudly beneath the modest weight, so she transferred to the single. She could hear Daniel pottering around next door. For some unaccountable reason she remembered how she’d stumbled on the Yvette’s deck earlier, and he’d caught her arm. ‘Careful now,’ he’d said.

Careful now, indeed!

These past few years, she’d grown accustomed to signing the cheques, taking the decisions, being the boss. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a whole day with a man whose help she needed, yet over whom she’d had neither authority nor leverage; and she wasn’t quite sure that she liked it. She took a shower, was drying herself off when Daniel knocked. ‘Ready yet?’ he asked.

‘Another minute.’

‘I’ll be downstairs.’

She spread her clothes out on her bed, wishing she’d given a little more thought to her packing this morning. She put on blue jeans and a ruby T-shirt, then did her make-up. The mirror was cracked and dull, and the light above the sink was infuriating, flickering for an age, then springing on abruptly, before breaking into flickers once more. She went out, locked up. Daniel was on a swing-bench chatting to a Malagasy woman with bleached-blonde hair and a turquoise tracksuit. Even as Rebecca watched, she got up on to her knees on the bench and whispered something in Daniel’s. He laughed and shook his head. She pulled an expression of mock affront then unzipped her tracksuit top, grabbed his hand and pressed it against her breast.

Sensations both hot and cold warred inside Rebecca. The cold ones won. Her heels slapped the bare concrete as she made her way down. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Still want something to eat, or have you found something better to do?’

‘This is Mimi,’ said Daniel. ‘I think she likes me.’

‘I’m sure she can be here when we get back, if you ask her nicely.’ It came out more tartly than she’d intended. He raised an amused eyebrow, which for some reason infuriated her. She led the way out of the hotel, waved down a taxi, directed the driver to an old haunt. They took a table on the terrace. ‘Drink?’ asked Daniel.

‘Not for me.’

Daniel went to the bar, returned with a large bottle of Stella Gold, ice-cold and sweating, its label peeling free. He poured them each a glass, offered his in a toast. ‘Your health,’ he said.

‘Don’t drink too much,’ she told him. ‘We’ve got an early start.’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘That girl was just being friendly.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

A young waitress appeared at their table. She had shiny jet-black skin stretched so tightly over her cheekbones it looked as though someone had poked a straw through the back of her skull and sucked all the air out. She took their orders from a distance, as though nervous of touching them by accident. And when she walked between the tables, it was in an apologetic, sideways crouch, one arm in front, one behind, like a figure from an Egyptian tomb painting come to life.

A Malagasy band and dancers began performing. Their music was jangling, primal. Madagascar’s humpback topography meant the only station they could pick up on this coast twenty years ago was Radio Mozambique, so Tulear had developed its own distinctive sound, a blend of Malagasy and African. The men strummed furiously while their women wailed and jiggled their buttocks like jackhammers; press down on their shoulders and you could dig up roads. The crude, overt sexuality of their dance soured Rebecca’s mood even further. There was still no sign of their food. Their waitress finally appeared with a woven basket of baguette slices and a bowl of nuts. Rebecca’s hand hovered above them like a crane-grab in the fairground game, looking for rich studs of salt.

Daniel tore a chunk of white flesh from a baguette, tossed it on to the tiled floor behind her. She turned to look. A ring-tailed lemur was tethered by a long, thin black leash to the limb of a tree. They were delightful creatures, these shrunken kangaroos with their long, hooped black-and-white tails. They had springs in their legs; they bounced all over the place. This one was male; she could tell from the black packet of his crotch. He began bounding up and down with excitement at the sight of the bread, just out of his reach. Daniel got up, walked across, picked up the morsel, held it out. The ring-tail seized it in both forepaws, ate it greedily, then bounced exuberantly for more. Daniel laughed and tore off another piece, crouched low to lure the ring-tail on to his arm, his shoulder and finally on to his head. He looked across at Rebecca and grinned like a schoolboy who’d done something clever.