James stuck out his bottom lip like a spoilt child. ‘No, I won’t.’ He dived round the bed and snatched off the sheet. When he saw Laura he stumbled backwards. Confused, he looked from her to Justin, who was smiling, the smoke drifting from his nostrils. ‘What’s she doing here?’ he said. ‘She’s your sister!’
Justin inhaled deeply and his eyes narrowed. He glanced at Laura, as if to give her a signal. She caught it and, even though she was furious, she controlled herself, stretching her arms above her head, finally dropping the sheet to reveal her breasts.
‘Come here,’ Justin said to James, the cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. James hesitated but then, as if he was hypnotized, walked slowly towards Justin and stood a foot away from the bed.
‘Closer,’ Justin said, tilting his head so that the cigarette smoke drifted into his eyes.
‘No,’ James whispered.
Justin reached out and hooked one finger into the leg of James’s shorts. ‘Naughty boy, come here.’ He drew James towards him and began to undo his zip. As he did so he glanced at the bedside clock. ‘We don’t have long. We’re going dancing tonight, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ James croaked.
‘Mmm, Laura, I think I might need some assistance here.’
James closed his eyes and his legs trembled, but he couldn’t move as Laura crawled over the bed towards him. Justin stubbed out his cigarette, eased off the boy’s T-shirt and began to pour oil into his hand. Laura drew the frightened boy to lie between them.
Max looked at his bruised eye in the bathroom mirror. The ice had reduced the swelling so he rinsed his face with cold water and patted it dry. He put on a clean shirt and light trousers, and slipped his feet into rubber flip-flops. Returning to the bathroom he caught his reflection in the mirror. His blond hair was silvery now from the sun, his pale skin tanned a light golden brown. He was struck at first by his resemblance to his mother, and then became rather pleased by the change in his appearance. He could see the effects of his love affair, as strong as the effect of the sun on his slender body. He would have been embarrassed to admit it, but he suddenly realized that he was, as his mother called him, ‘a beautiful boy’.
James lay face down on Justin’s bed, sobbing into a pillow. He had crossed a line in his life that he had always known was there, but was too afraid to face. He was still weeping as Justin came out of the bathroom, showered and changed. He looked at James, annoyed to see him still lying there. ‘You’d better get yourself together. We’re leaving in five minutes.’
James rolled over painfully. ‘Come on.’ Justin hauled him upright. ‘Get down to the jetty. I’ll see you there.’
James stumbled out of the room. Across his back were deep red welts, and in some places the skin was broken, leaving small beads of blood.
Laura came out of the bathroom, buttoning her blouse. She was angry. ‘I said that was risky, but you wouldn’t listen to me. What if he starts talking about us?’
‘Don’t be a fool. You really think that Master Matlock is going to rush to Mummy!’
‘Or Daddy,’ she said coldly.
‘No way is he going to spill the beans on us. I’ll make sure of it by the end of tonight.’ He left for the boat, and Laura returned to her room. She looked out of her window and could see Clarissa and Justin boarding the speedboat. She wanted to see Max, and be alone with him without Justin monitoring them. She had an agenda, worked out by Justin, but she would follow her own now too. She dialled Max’s number.
He sounded so pleased to hear from her that her spirits lifted. They agreed to meet by the waterfall.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
‘Yes, I think we do,’ she said softly, and hung up.
Max flopped back on to the bed. ‘She wants me,’ he said aloud. ‘Laura Chalmers, my beautiful goddess, wants me.’ He was unaware that James had overheard him from his adjacent veranda, and had realized he’d been wrong about Max and Justin.
Laura was shaking with nerves, but had almost made up her mind. She was unsure if she had the strength to do it. It would be up to Max to persuade her. Laura was forming a plan to leave the island and Justin. He had said he doubted that he could handle Matlock on his own, and she was sure he couldn’t. She was not intending to back out of the murder, though: she just had to make it happen faster than planned. It was imperative to get the Baron and Baroness off the island, leaving Max with her. She knew Justin could easily handle Clarissa and James, and Daphne, that fat, foolish woman, wasn’t the problem. Laura’s problem was Justin. She had got away with lying to him already. Now she planned on doing much more, because she knew she had to escape him.
‘Yes, yes,’ she whispered, and told herself that she had made the right decision, unaware that she was pacing up and down the room. If Marta or Justin had seen her doing this, the rapid footsteps, the urgent instructions, repeated to herself more vehemently each time, they would have been worried. Marta always knew this was the first danger sign. The second was when Laura made brushing strokes down her thigh. On these occasions, Marta acted fast, and doubled Laura’s medication. But Marta was a long way away. This time Laura was on her own.
Chapter eighteen
William caught the night flight back to London. He phoned Michael from the villa, asked him to check out Camilla Maynard and arrange a flight to the Caribbean. He intended to leave immediately after his arrival in England.
Michael didn’t phone back until William was in the limousine coming into London from Heathrow. He confirmed that Camilla had been Andrew Maynard’s sister. Had Justin known from the beginning and used William from the moment he had visited that awful mews cottage in London? He was sure now that Justin had forged the suicide note.
When he got back Michael was waiting for him, although it was after ten. ‘Get me Charlie on the line,’ William shouted at him, dropping his bag and making for his study.
By the time he was at his desk, the call was put through. William snatched up the receiver. ‘Charlie? The letter,’ shouted William down the line. ‘The one you told me about, from Oliver Bellingham. Have you still got it?’
‘Oh, it’s somewhere in my stuff,’ he drawled. ‘But, Dad, let me tell you about—’
‘No time,’ shouted William. ‘Is the letter in the stuff you left here?’
‘The big black canvas bag. No! Maybe the duffel bag or in the small gym bag. It’s somewhere amongst my gear. What’s the problem?’
‘Can I read it?’ William pressed on.
‘Why?’
‘It’s a matter of life and death,’ said William.
‘Oh, yeah right, sure, man. I mean it’s personal but, like, go ahead.’
William gripped the receiver. ‘I love you, son,’ he said, ‘but I’m in a great hurry. I’ll speak to you later, okay?’
William took another deep breath and ran upstairs to the room where Charlie had left his bags. Furiously he rummaged through odd shoes and dirty shorts, until he spotted a gym bag that was full of exercise books, loose pages from Biker and music magazines. There were bundles of letters from Katherine to Charlie at school. At last, in a worn and well-thumbed airmail envelope, he found the letter from Oliver Bellingham. The large sloped handwriting began ‘Hello, Wanker!’ Next to the greeting, Oliver had drawn a grinning cartoon face. In the first few paragraphs, he described life on Tortola, the surfing and the clubs. He also mentioned that keeping straight was tough on the island, where everything was accessible in vast quantities, especially the ganja. There was another grinning cartoon face. There was some reference to his girlfriend and a lot of dots and dashes after her name, and then an underlined passage about receiving a letter from her so that it appeared ‘all was not lost’. This was underlined three times. Oliver mentioned the forthcoming ‘wrinklies party’. He was quite looking forward to it because he had met this bloke called Justin in the Harbour Bar. ‘He’s a really great guy. Very handsome — blond, taller than me and quite a bit older. I’ve been with him on and off most days and nights.’ He wrote that he’d invited Justin to his folks’ party — his parents didn’t really want him to come, but he didn’t care. Justin had promised to bring some gear so it would be a behind-the-bushes job.