He gave a little snort at the memory of Emilia. She’d been something of a force of nature, and about the least sentimental woman Knox had ever met. She’d been so insistent on having no strings attached that, before sleeping with him, she’d even double checked in a rather ham-handed way that he wouldn’t himself be part of the Eden salvage. And when Madagascar’s coup had delayed the project by a year, enabling Knox to take part, Emilia had freaked out about it, no doubt fearing he was carrying a torch for her. Understandable enough, of course, because according to Rebecca she hadn’t just started seeing Pierre by then, she’d got pregnant by him too, and had since become the mother of his…
Knox frowned. Emilia had assured him that she was on the pill, that he needn’t worry about consequences. Yet she’d come back to Madagascar and had got pregnant within a couple of months at the most, depending on Michel’s precise date of birth. His breath came a little faster; he felt slightly dazed. There was a photo of Emilia with Michel on the wall of the cabin. He set down his beer, got to his feet, climbed down the companionway ladder, switched on the light. It ran off the ship’s batteries, and was therefore so dim that he had to remove the photograph from the wall and hold it up close to the bulb to see much of anything at all. Squint though he might, he couldn’t reach any firm conclusion one way or the other. But that meant that the possibility had to remain.
Maybe Michel wasn’t Pierre’s son after all.
Maybe he was his.
III
Davit lay on his back, his arm around Claudia, and looked up at the walls of the tent above him, the way they flapped in the occasional gusts of breeze, the way the moonlight glowed through the blue fabric. Things scuttled outside; things screeched and crept. He turned to look at Claudia, kissed her on her brow.
‘I don’t want to be here any more,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to be part of this.’
‘It’ll be okay,’ he assured her.
‘No, it won’t,’ she said. ‘Why has your friend brought a gun? What has he done, this man you’re looking for?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘You mean you don’t want to tell me,’ she said. ‘You mean you’re ashamed of what you’re doing here, but you’re still going to do it anyway.’
‘You don’t understand. My life back home…’ He shook his head. ‘I have to change it. I have to.’
Her body began to heave and hump against him; he could tell that she was sobbing. It distressed him to hear her so unhappy. He tried to comfort her by stroking her hair, but she only shook her head. ‘Why don’t you want to change your life here?’ she asked. ‘Why don’t you want to change it with me?’
Davit didn’t reply at once. He’d thought about staying on a few days, enjoying Claudia, the sea, some sunshine. But he’d never thought about staying on for good. He was a Georgian through and through; he couldn’t give up his homeland and family and friends. But then he realised with a jolt that he’d already given them up; or, rather, they’d given him up. He just hadn’t accepted it yet, like the ghost who refused to leave his corpse. ‘What would we do?’ he asked. ‘How would we survive?’
A moment’s silence as they both contemplated this. ‘Work, work, work?’ she suggested.
Davit laughed. ‘Work, work, work,’ he agreed.
THIRTY-TWO
I
It was pitch black when Rebecca’s alarm sounded the next morning. She threw off her bedclothes and fumbled for the matches to light the candle she’d left out for herself, then washed briskly, dressed and went out to the Jeep. Despite the cool, it started first time. A good omen, perhaps. She drove as fast as conditions allowed, the world growing light around her, villages coming to life. She kept checking her watch, measuring her progress, a little panicky until she saw the first signs promoting hotels in Ifaty, and knew she was nearly there.
She pulled up outside Mustafa’s gates. The guard was expecting her; he hurried to her window to let her know that Mr Habib’s daughter Ahdaf was coming out. Rebecca felt a twinge of alarm, but the guard knew nothing else and only shook his head at her questions. Ahdaf then appeared, looking flustered. ‘What’s going on?’ Rebecca asked her. ‘Where’s your father?’
‘He went to Ilakaka last night,’ Ahdaf told her. ‘He just called to ask me to tell you that he had to go there on your behalf, and that he’s been successful. He said you’d understand what that meant.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Rebecca. Ilakaka was the shantytown hub of Madagascar’s recent sapphire boom. If you needed cash in a hurry, Ilakaka was an obvious place to try.
‘He said to tell you he’s finalising everything now, but he’ll be setting off very shortly. He says he’ll meet you in Tulear. Do you know La Terrasse? It’s on Independence Square?’
Rebecca nodded. Independence Square was where the kidnappers had told her to wait with the ransom. ‘When will he get there?’
‘He couldn’t be sure. As soon as he can.’
Rebecca thanked her and sped off south. Anxiety came in hot spasms as she drove. She passed a petrol station. It was as well to fill up while she could. A doddering antique of a man held a hose-pipe in her tank while his great-grandfather turned a rusted hand-crank. They changed places every five litres, the effort too much to sustain. When they’d finally filled her up, one of them produced a pocket calculator on which he tried to multiply volume pumped by price per litre, while the other watched over his shoulder and chided him for doing it wrong. It took them five attempts and still they couldn’t agree. She checked her watch. Eight fifty-six. She was supposed to be in Independence Square in less than five minutes. She wailed in exasperation and thrust twice what it should have cost at the two men, then sped off in a cloud of dust.
II
Boris woke to a pounding headache as the sides of his tent grew light with dawn. They needed an early start, but he decided to give himself another five minutes. With luck, Davit or Claudia would get up and start brewing coffee. But there was no sound from the other tent.
Not even snoring.
He pushed off his sleeping bag, grabbed the Heckler amp; Koch, hurried out. Their tent was still there, but that meant nothing. He strode over, pulled back the flap. Davit’s sleeping bag was still inside, but the man himself had gone, Claudia with him. There was a note lying on the bag: an apologia from Davit, claiming that he’d never have signed on to this mission if he’d known there’d be guns; that he’d decided to take Claudia on a tour of the island, see how things worked out between them. Sorry.
The sleeping bag was still contoured from the weight of Davit’s body. Boris touched the synthetic fabric; it still felt slightly warm, as though they’d slept here last night, and had only left at first light. But it was still first light right now. Maybe the sound of their departure was what had woken him in the first place.
He took a moment to listen, heard a faint noise. Yes, the outboard. He swore and took the safety catch off the Heckler amp; Koch as he ran down to the beach, holding it out to the side lest he trip and shoot himself. But even as he reached the sand, he saw them already well out to sea, heading north back towards Morombe.