Will Adams - The Eden Legacy

‘You’re not leaving now, are you?’ asked Rebecca, dismayed. ‘You can’t. Your headlight doesn’t even work.’

‘Yes, but I can leave at dawn, and that means filling her up while the petrol station’s still open. Besides, I’m bushed. It’s been one hell of a day.’ He put his hand on her shoulder as he made his way past her to the balcony door, and she felt the jolt of contact run right through her. But if Daniel felt it too, he gave no sign. He merely nodded at Titch. ‘It was good to meet you,’ he said.

‘Likewise,’ said Titch.

Daniel’s departure, and a stomach full of pizza, made Rebecca realise how tired she was. Titch began making noises about getting himself a room, but Rebecca’s had a spare bed and she felt the need for company, not least because of all that ransom money in the holdall. They washed and went to their separate beds, turned out the lights. She lay there on her back, watching the headlights of passing cars painting yellow lines upon her ceiling, making desultory conversation with Titch about the office and their various projects. She couldn’t help thinking, while they were talking, how remote London seemed, how indifferent she was to news and gossip of it. They fell silent for a little while, then she said: ‘I’m going to stay here.’ She hadn’t consciously considered remaining in Madagascar until then, but the moment she said it, she realised it had been inevitable.

In the neighbouring bed, Titch drew in breath then pushed himself up on to his elbow. ‘How do you mean? For how long?’

She heard anxiety in his voice, decided to allay it. ‘Just until I can sort things out properly.’

‘What about America?’

‘Fuck America,’ she said, more vehemently then she’d intended. ‘This is family.’ She waited for him to respond, but he remained quiet so long that she realised there was a question he dared not ask. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay whatever happens with my father and sister.’

‘And what about us? What about our company?’

‘You’ll be fine.’

‘It won’t work without you.’

‘Yes, it will.’

‘It won’t. You know it won’t.’

‘Let’s talk about it in the morning.’

He seemed to accept that. They wished each other goodnight and within fifteen minutes or so, his breathing pattern indicated he’d fallen asleep. Rebecca found it harder to drop off. Her soft tissues ached from the day’s ordeals. Apprehension about tomorrow was exacerbated by not having Daniel at her side. She strove for soothing thoughts, for happy places, but it wasn’t easy. She kept picking up her mobile to check the time, make sure the battery still had some juice in it; but each time she checked it, its dial would light up, draining it a little bit more. Her recharger was in Eden. Daniel was about to head that way. She wondered if she could justify going with him to collect it, but then she heard a motorbike outside. She slipped from the bed and went out on to her balcony, only to find his bike already gone.

She returned to bed, dozed off, woke a little later to find that it had grown light outside, and that the town was coming slowly to life. She still felt tired but she got up anyway, took out her copy of Mustafa’s loan agreement. She hadn’t had a chance to go through it properly before, and the more she read, the more it alarmed her. She kept setting it aside, telling herself not to worry about it now. But then she’d pick it up again. Mustafa hadn’t stinted himself, that was for sure. He’d told her about the five per cent interest, but not about his agent’s fee, nor that he’d demarcated the loan amount in its euro equivalent, according to the previous day’s tourist exchange rate; and that he wanted the principal paid back according to the exchange rate at the time of the repayment. The way she figured it, that would mean she’d have to pay the spread between the buy and sell rates twice; and the spreads here were notoriously punitive. She did a rough-and-ready calculation on the back of one of the pages; she’d borrowed five hundred million ariary from him: yet under the various terms, she already owed him getting on for seven hundred and fifty million. He was, in effect, charging her a?70,000 management fee for arranging a ten-day loan. She felt a little sick, not just at the money, but also because it felt like she was being scammed. Her immediate instinct was to stiff Mustafa in return. Once she was back in England, after all, he’d never be able to sue her. But that was too easy an out; he’d surely have anticipated it. It took her a minute or so to find the sting in the contract’s tail: a clause stipulating her stake in Eden as security for his loan. That puzzled her, for she had no stake in Eden, not while her father was alive, at least. Suddenly she had a very bad feeling about this.

She shook Titch awake. ‘I need your help,’ she told him.

‘Of course,’ he said, stifling a yawn. ‘What?’

‘A hire car. Preferably a 4x4. And see if you can get them to rent you one without a driver.’

He nodded and threw back his sheet. ‘I’ll get on to it at once.’

‘We’ll meet back here in an hour or so, okay?’ she said, zipping the contract up in the holdall. ‘Only there’s a lawyer I need to go see.’

Next door, Knox had also slept poorly. He’d expected Titch to take a room for himself, but he’d been able to hear him and Rebecca preparing for bed then talking through the wall, though their conversation had been too muffled for him to make out what they were saying. It gave him a twinge anyway to think of the two of them together, for it had been obvious from the first that Titch was infatuated with Rebecca, and that she was fond of him too, though it had been less clear how fond. They finally fell silent, except for the creak of bed-joints as they tossed and turned, sounds that he found equally disturbing.

It came as a relief, therefore, when it finally grew light enough outside for him to be able to drive. He rose, paid for his room, then pushed his bike out on to the road so as not to wake the other guests when he started it up. A yellow dog dozed against a yellow wall, as if using it as camouflage. A family of four wobbled by on a ramshackle bicycle, the father standing up on the pedals, the mother sitting side-saddle nursing an infant, a boy balanced precariously upon the handlebars, giggling joyously. For a few miles, the road was busy with smallholders carting produce to Tulear’s markets, but soon he was beyond them and making quick progress, slaloming the track’s pitfalls. He passed a paradise beach, the golden sand bevelled by footprints and scarred by the broken husks of old pirogues. The sun rose above the trees, grew warm. By the side of the road, two men sawed up an old truck tyre to make sandals. Everything had residual value here; everything was squeezed dry. A young boy dragging a snow-white goat by its hind leg grinned and waved. He waved back. Then he saw Pierre’s cabins ahead, a concrete reminder of the revelation that had been haunting him these past twenty-four hours, that he was quite possibly a father. It was an extraordinary thing, like discovering a new dimension in the world. He told himself to drive on, that this was no time for distractions, that his job was to check Eden for ransom updates. Yet he found himself turning off the track up towards Pierre’s house all the same.

The noise of his arrival brought Pierre to the door. ‘Yes?’ he asked. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have a message for Therese,’ he said. ‘From Rebecca.’

‘Tell me. I’ll pass it on.’

‘It’s personal,’ said Knox. ‘She asked me to give it to Therese myself.’

He scowled but went inside. A minute passed. Therese came to the door carrying an infant in her arms, its face to her chest so that Knox couldn’t see. His heart gave a double thump all the same; he beckoned Therese to follow him out of sight and earshot.