‘For Christ’s sake!’ she said.
‘You want me to leave it?’
‘I want you to do whatever it takes to find my father and sister,’ she told him. ‘Emilia’s your lover, Pierre. She’s the mother of your child. My father’s been your closest friend for over thirty years. And you’re worried about your damned car?’ She shook her head at him. ‘What the hell are you still doing here? Why aren’t you back home already, leading the search?’
Pierre went a little red. ‘I wanted to be here for you,’ he said. ‘I cannot bear for you to arrive home with no one to greet you, not after all these years, not to news like this. And I think maybe you’ll need someone to drive you.’
‘I told you. I’m flying.’
‘Yes. But I didn’t know that.’
She shook her head at him, still indignant, yet finding it hard to justify. They were close enough to the automatic glass doors that they kept opening and then closing again, offering brief glimpses of bright sunshine. She turned and walked out through them. The newly laid tarmac in the car park was glistening from a recent shower, and the moisture had coaxed out a cocktail of pungent smells: from the brown-grey zebu pats, like amputated elephants’ feet, scattered as fertiliser on the grass verges; from the sweat-stiffened clothes of the porters, labourers and touts; from the choking silver-black exhaust fumes spewed by the ramshackle taxis, buses and trucks. Yet, deep beneath those, she could detect hints of gentler scents, of frangipani, vanilla and hibiscus. She breathed in deep. Smell was the most evocative of the senses, they said. Eleven years! Eleven years! Yet still it seemed instantly like home, oppressive with memory. For a moment she felt eighteen again, insecure and terrified, about to leave behind everything she’d ever known. She shivered as though a ghost had walked through her.
Madagascar: the Great Red Island, the Eighth Continent, land of her birth.
III
The Bayliner was already crowded by the time Knox heaved his dive-bag and overnight bag down the gangway and aboard. Garry was at the wheel, with Dieter Holm behind him, looking thunderous, alongside Ron, their ship’s steward, off into Morombe for fresh supplies, and Lucia on the cushioned rear seat. He added his bags to the general pile, went to sit beside her. ‘What’s this, then?’ she smiled. ‘Deserting the sinking ship?’
He debated a moment, decided he might as well tell her. She was headed to Eden too, after all, and was bound to find out eventually. ‘You know how you couldn’t get hold of the Kirkpatricks?’ he said. ‘Turns out they’ve gone missing. I’m going down to help with the search.’
‘I thought you didn’t know them.’
‘I didn’t say that. I only said that they were pretty well known along this coast.’
She threw him an amused look. ‘So should I now doubt everything you told me yesterday?’ But there was no sting in her voice. She was a journalist; she knew how the world worked. ‘So how do you know them?’
‘I only really know Emilia. She spent a few days in England a little while back. I met her then.’
‘Ah. Like that, is it?’
Garry opened the throttle up at that moment, and the roaring engine spared him from having to answer. But Lucia’s question set him thinking. It had been a difficult time for Knox, struggling wretchedly to find a way to live without Gaille. Before losing her, he hadn’t fully understood how completely their lives had become conjoined, how dependent on her he’d become. The days had been manageable, thanks to his job at MGS, but his nights had been soul-destroying, unbearable. Miles and Frank had done their best to cajole him from his funk. They’d invited him to the pub, to their homes for dinner. But the forced jollity of those evenings had been awful; he’d come to dread them not simply for themselves, but also because he’d brought everyone else down, and he’d hated that. So he’d started saying no, returning instead to his one-bedroom rental, where he’d lain on his couch eating pizza and drinking himself to sleep in front of the TV. His self-discipline had dribbled away. He’d started turning up at work hung-over, unkempt and smelling of last night’s booze; and though he’d known his dismissal was surely imminent, he hadn’t cared one jot.
That was when Emilia Kirkpatrick had come into his life.
It had been late one Friday afternoon, during a particularly cold snap. She’d had an appointment with Frank that morning, but a flight delay had screwed that up, and Frank had headed off to Harwich to look over a boat. They’d all been locking up for the weekend when she’d arrived, and as everyone else had had plans for the evening, it had been left by default for Knox to deal with her. He’d told her to come back on Monday, when Frank would be able to see her; but she’d flown in from Madagascar for this, and she simply refused to leave, so he finally agreed to hear her out over a drink at a local wine bar. One glass had led to a second; a third had led to dinner. And, suddenly, perhaps as a result of being out for the evening with an attractive and sympathetic woman, his grief for Gaille had overwhelmed him, he’d started pouring out his heart, even weeping a little at the table, causing such consternation amongst his neighbours that he’d felt compelled to leave. Emilia had helped him to a taxi, had escorted him back to his flat, then had taken him to bed, where she’d kept him for much of the weekend, listening to him with extraordinary tenderness and patience now that the logjam had finally broken in his heart, allowing all his hurt to tumble out.
And on the Monday morning, when he’d driven her into MGS to make plans for the Winterton salvage, he’d realised to his surprise that he’d actually been looking forward to the day. For the first time since losing Gaille, he’d felt some glimmer of gladness to be alive. And so, yes, as he’d told Miles, he did owe Emilia. Without her intervention, he’d almost certainly have been out of a job by now, drinking himself to death in a one-bedroom tip somewhere on the outskirts of Hove.
EIGHT
I
Boris had to wait over an hour at Antananarivo Airport for Davit. The arrivals board was broken, and he began to fret they’d miss their connection to Morombe. But the big man finally showed. ‘Hey, boss,’ he said, looking rumpled and weary from his flight, yet nonetheless cheerful.
Boris nodded sourly to let Davit know he hadn’t forgotten Greece. ‘We need to get moving,’ he said.
The plane to Morombe was an antique Twin Otter. It reeked of fumes and was so cramped that Boris had to duck his head to walk down the aisle to his seat, while Davit had to bend almost double, then sit sideways. It struggled to make it off the ground, its engines straining for altitude before faltering altogether, allowing the aircraft to plunge back towards earth, causing several passengers to scream out and making even Boris grip his armrests, before they picked up again.
He looked out and down. Madagascar’s capital was hemmed in by lush green paddyfields that shrank quickly behind him. They crossed mountains, forests and lakes. Though they were quite low, Boris couldn’t see a single road. Turbulence tumbled and jolted them. Through the threadbare curtain separating the cabin from the cockpit, he saw the pilot thump one of his dials with the heel of his hand. The fumes grew worse. Across the aisle, an old woman opened a sick bag and vomited into it with impressive decorum, like she was clearing her throat. Afterwards, she rolled up the top of the bag and held it clenched in her lap like a packed lunch, but the smell leaked out even so, making Boris feel nauseous himself. It was an immense relief, therefore, when they bounced across Morombe’s bumpy runway and then the door opened and the steps arrived and they climbed down on to the sun- baked concrete, and he could stretch his back and arms. ‘That was fun,’ he muttered.
‘Tell me about it,’ said Davit.
They collected their bags, went to find a taxi. There were just two of them, battered and yellow, but neither driver spoke English. They all looked at each other in dismay. ‘Hotel speak English?’ asked Davit.
The taller of the drivers grinned and gave them the thumbs up. They climbed into his cab, bumped along a potholed road into town. Young Malagasy men stared sullenly through the windows, assessing them for wealth.
