done a day’s work in your life, and then you found yourself running out of money.’
‘And your best friend found a fortune on the sea-bed, but wouldn’t tell you where. Worse, he was intending to turn it all over to the government.’
‘Pierre was at a conference in Antananarivo all last week,’ said Rebecca. ‘If there were any details to finalise about the salvage, that would have been the perfect opportunity. He sent my father an email asking for new photographs of the white sifaka. But you don’t find sifakas here. You only get them south and east of Tulear.’
‘You think it was a code?’ frowned Knox. ‘You think he sent your father out to photograph the wreck?’
‘It’s possible, isn’t it? And my father certainly saw the email. It was one of the last he read.’
‘Why would Pierre ask for more photos?’
‘To trick my father into giving away the wreck’s location, of course. So that he could plant a GPS on board, plunder it himself before the salvage started.’
Knox shook his head. ‘You saw how baffled he was when you showed him your father’s GPS. That wasn’t faked. Besides, you said yourself that your father was murdered. He couldn’t have done that from Antananarivo.’
‘Then maybe he came back. Listen, his lecture would have taken him one morning or afternoon, but he stayed there the whole week, then met me at the airport. But what if all that was just to establish his alibi?’
‘You think he came back here midweek? It’s a hell of a drive.’
‘Yes, but he could have flown. I mean, let’s go back a few days. He’s desperate to find out where the wreck is, but Adam won’t tell him. He’s got this conference in Antananarivo, and he makes up some story about going to see the Culture Ministry about the licences. Or maybe he really does have a meeting. Whatever, he tells my father to check his email on a certain day, in case he needs anything, then he sets off in his pickup. But instead of driving up to Antananarivo, he goes to a local airport instead. Not Tulear: he’s too well known there. But Manjo or Morombe, somewhere like that. He flies up to Antananarivo, checks into his hotel, gives his talk, shows his face around. He emails my father for new photos of the wreck, then he flies back down, gets his pickup and…’ She broke off, shook her head in frustration. ‘No. He’d still need a way to get out to the Yvette.’
‘He could have stowed away in the hold.’
‘That wouldn’t explain how he got back to shore afterwards. The Yvette was found way out at sea, remember?’
‘What about his zodiac?’ suggested Knox. ‘He could have taken it with him in the back of his pickup.’
‘Yes,’ said Rebecca. ‘Of course. He flies back down, drives as close to here as he dares, then gets in his zodiac and motors down here and waits outside the reef for the Yvette. Maybe he approaches them; maybe they spot him. There’s a confrontation; it gets out of hand. He kills them, dumps them overboard. He lets the Yvette drift off, then gets back in his zodiac, races back to his pickup, drives up to Antananarivo before anyone even realises he’s been away.’
‘It’s a hell of an ask,’ said Knox.
‘But it works, right?’ asked Rebecca. ‘I mean, in theory.’
‘Yes. It works in theory.’
Their eyes turned to Pierre, sitting at the stern. Maybe he sensed something, because he glanced up at that moment. He gave one of his ghastly smiles, pushed himself to his feet, came to the bridge, his nervousness only made the more obvious by his efforts to conceal it. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’
‘It was you,’ blurted out Rebecca, unable to stop herself. ‘You murdered my father and my sister.’
FORTY-FIVE
I
Pierre looked aghast at Rebecca’s accusation, but Knox couldn’t tell whether it was guilt or shock. ‘Me?’ he protested. ‘How could you say such a thing?’
‘You set them up,’ insisted Rebecca. ‘You sent them out here.’
‘No! This is crazy!’
‘Then you murdered them.’
‘No!’ Pierre pointed a trembling finger at Knox. ‘It’s him. He’s been poisoning your mind.’
‘White sifaka,’ said Rebecca.
A look of unmistakeable guilt appeared on Pierre’s face. He must have realised it too. His eyes watered, he tried to say something, but it stuck in his throat. The boat plunged into the trough of a wave at that moment, his left leg gave a little. He lurched out of the doorway, stumbled away along the deck. They ran out after him. Pierre picked up the boat-hook, turned and waved it at them. ‘Stay back,’ he warned. ‘Stay away.’
‘Or what?’ asked Knox.
‘I did nothing,’ insisted Pierre. ‘I swear. I’d never lie to you, Becca. Not to you. You’re a daughter to me.’
‘Like Emilia was?’ asked Rebecca. ‘Get her pregnant and then murder her so that your son could inherit Eden?’
Pierre’s face crumpled. ‘How could you even think that of me?’
Knox motioned to Rebecca to edge to her left, to make it harder for Pierre to watch them both. She nodded and did so. ‘Then tell me what happened,’ she said to Pierre.
‘Nothing happened,’ insisted Pierre.
‘You sent my father an email. You wanted him to lead you to the wreck.’
‘No!’
‘Then you came out here and murdered him and Emilia and dumped their bodies overboard.’
‘Stay back! Stay back!’
‘But my father’s body drifted back to shore.’
‘I was in Antananarivo all week, I swear it.’ And he gestured towards the land behind him. It wasn’t much of an opening, but Knox went for it anyway, launching himself at Pierre, trying to get the boat-hook from him before he could do any damage with it. But Pierre swung it backhanded and caught Knox a glancing blow on his crown. His momentum still took him into Pierre, sent them tumbling together into the starboard lockers, the wood splintering. Knox tried to press his advantage, but the blow had left him groggy. Pierre threw him off, raised the boat-hook above his head, swung it down. Knox rolled aside; the boat-hook thunked into the deck. Behind his back, Rebecca pulled a scuba tank from the broken locker, crashed it down on Pierre’s skull. He collapsed instantly, fell sideways on to the deck, saliva leaking from his mouth. Rebecca knelt beside him, searched his throat for a pulse, nodded in relief at Knox when she found one.
Knox was still a little dazed as he got to his feet, but he found a coil of rope in the locker, hog-tied Pierre wrist and ankle. He was just finishing up when Pierre groaned and opened his eyes. He strained impotently at his knots, then glared furiously up at Knox, spat at his face. Knox took a hand-towel from the locker, wiped himself off with it, then twisted it into a rope and, with Rebecca’s help, used it to gag him. ‘Try spitting now,’ he said. He opened the main hatch above the engine hold, dragged Pierre over to it, dropped him feet first down into it, shot the bolts. ‘That’ll hold him until we get back,’ he told Rebecca.
‘Are you certain?’
‘I know my knots,’ he assured her. He put his hand on her arm. ‘But enough, eh? Let’s take him in, come back out first thing.’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘She’s my sister, Daniel. I have to look. I owe it to her.’
‘I know, but-’
‘You don’t have to do the dive. There’s plenty of gear aboard. Just stay on the boat while I go down.’
Knox sighed, exasperation matched only by admiration. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll make one dive. But only one. And then that’s it for the night. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ she nodded. ‘And thanks.’
