A knot of stress tightened in Rebecca’s nape. ‘Can’t we sort this out later?’
‘I had to sign a contract to get this money,’ he told her. He took two sets of papers from his jacket pocket, rested them on the side window. ‘That is what took me so long, because my lawyer had to make sure-’
‘For heaven’s sake!’
He said apologetically: ‘Please. You must understand my situation. This is a great deal of money. I had to give certain undertakings before I could borrow it. I need to secure myself against any loss, but I wouldn’t want you to think I’d take advantage of you. If you read then sign each of the pages, as I’ve already done, then we can-’
‘I don’t have the time.’
Mustafa spread his hands. ‘I’m sorry, but I must have some form of receipt. Surely you can see that.’
Rebecca put a hand to her forehead. ‘What does it say? Tell me what it says.’
‘Certainly.’ He took one of the contracts and began to read it aloud.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘How much interest?’
‘Ah. Let me see.’ He leafed through the pages. ‘Yes. Here it is. Five per cent, with two weeks to repay. But if it goes over two weeks, there are certain penalties.’
‘What penalties?’
‘Give me a moment,’ he said, shuffling through the pages.
Rebecca shook her head in dismay. She had no time for this. ‘Your pen,’ she said.
‘But you should read this before you-’
‘Give me your fucking pen!’ She peeled the bandage from her right palm, signed the pages of both contracts, stuffed one copy in her holdall. The fresh air felt sharp and good upon her lacerated but healing palm, so she tore the bandages from her left hand too, then packed the money back in the holdall. It was so heavy she had to heft it across to the Jeep. She threw it on the passenger seat, ran round to the driver’s door. Mustafa came across. ‘Thank you,’ she told him.
He waved it away. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘They told me to go there alone. They said they’d be watching.’
‘Good luck, then.’
She nodded and sped away, horribly aware that she was already late, praying that the kidnappers would cut her a little slack.
THIRTY-FIVE
I
There was still no sign of Rebecca at the lodge. Knox unlocked its front door then went in search of Michel’s medical records. When he entered the clinic, however, he noticed the handheld GPS tracker on the examination table, pinning down a folded handwritten note that Rebecca must have left for Therese. He knew he shouldn’t read it, but he did so anyway. He went a little numb at her dry account of receiving the ransom note, of everything she’d done since. He read through her plans for the day, her request that Therese get the GPS handset to Chief of Police Andriama in Tulear if she didn’t reappear.
If she didn’t reappear…
His heart clenched; he felt sick. What was she thinking, taking this on all by herself? He needed to help her. Michel would just have to wait. He turned on the GPS handset, checked for recent transmissions. Nothing since last night, presumably when Rebecca had tested the equipment. He checked his watch. Damn. It was past ten already. He’d used up half the morning in the boathouse. He went out, locked up behind him, pushed Adam’s track-bike over to the generator building, filled it with fuel, straddled it and kicked it into life. Then he swung it around in a tight circle, opened up its throttle and roared away along the track towards Tulear.
II
Many of the villages Rebecca passed were too small and straggling to have name signs. She had to stop every few miles to ask for Andranohinaly, only to be pointed further down the road. Eventually she reached it, however, and set about looking for the orange wayside stall. She passed a broken-down, one-room shack. In the hazy midday sun it looked nut-brown, but she could imagine it might look orange at sunset. She pulled in. Several planks bore peeling flecks of orange paint. If this was it, there should be a turning to the right immediately afterwards. Sure enough, a thin track led off the road fifty metres further along, but it was rutted and narrow, more footpath than proper road.
She pulled into its mouth, sat there clutching her steering wheel for the best part of a minute before deciding it couldn’t be right. She pulled back out on to the main road, drove on for another four kilometres before cursing out loud, swinging around and driving back to the track. She lurched along it to the base of a wooded hill, then snaked upwards in increasingly steep hairpins. Her doubts grew stronger and stronger, but she was too late to secondguess herself again. The surface kept deteriorating; the vegetation grew thicker, branches reaching out at her, thorns screeching on the Jeep’s flanks like fingernails on a blackboard. This couldn’t be it. It just couldn’t. She wanted to turn around but the track was too narrow; and the hillside was too steep and the corners too sharp to make reversing practicable. She pressed on in increasing dismay until she reached a heap of broken rock and loose debris left across the track by a small landslide. She crossed it at crawling speed, leaning almost sideways in her seat. Her relief at making it safely to the other side lasted only to the next hairpin when the track turned back on itself and she reached the place from which the landslide had fallen. The surface was completely gone. There was no possible way forwards. She was trapped.
She gave a yell of frustration. Her cry echoed forlornly. A wild dog barked. Her father and sister were depending upon her, and she was already grotesquely late. She needed to get back to the main road right now. With no way to turn, she had no choice but to try reversing. Negotiating the hairpin backwards was a nightmare. She kept hauling on the hand-brake and leaning out the window to check her wheels weren’t over the edge. Even after she’d successfully made it, she still had the buttress of rock to cross. It had been difficult enough going forwards. In reverse it was unbearable. Pebbles cascaded from beneath her wheels, clattering down the steep hillside until they were netted by the undergrowth. Each time she heard another miniature avalanche, her heart leapt. The Jeep was tilted so far over by now that she was pressed against the driver door, could see nothing in her mirrors.
And then, perhaps inevitably, the steady trickle of earth turned to a cascade, and the ground simply sheared away beneath her, and the Jeep began sliding down the hill like a ship launched sideways into the sea.
THIRTY-SIX
I
Knox sped south as fast as the track would allow him, the bike’s balding tyres slithering on the dust, forcing him every so often to throw out a foot to save himself. But he reached Tulear in good time, stopped to check the GPS handset. Rebecca had turned on the transmitter at last; and though the tracker’s map of Madagascar was rudimentary, it was evident she’d taken the Ilakaka road. He followed signs for it, passed out of the suburbs. The road grew better; he opened the throttle wide. It didn’t take him long to reach the place from where the most recent signal had been sent, but there was no sign of her. According to her note, she’d set the transmissions for once every hour. He’d just have to wait. With nothing else to do, he turned on his mobile. It found a signal, notified him of messages. Most were from Miles, sounding increasingly strained, wondering what had happened to him, begging him to get in touch as soon as he could.
‘About bloody time!’ he erupted, when Knox complied. ‘Are you on your way back?’
‘Not yet,’ said Knox.
‘Things are turning ugly here,’ said Miles. ‘We’ve found jack shit, our new tests have come back negative and the Chinese have sniffed something. They’re sending a delegation.’
‘Christ! When?’
‘The day after tomorrow. And I need you here. No excuses. We’re going to have to blind them with science and archaeology. I can do the science, but I need you for the archaeology.’