Sebastian called out a final request for fish.
‘What happened after that?’ said James.
‘Graham could see his son growing big and would one day rival, if not surpass him, in size. So he got it into his head that Eric should be playing rugby. There was a vicarious undercurrent to what was happening, I saw it a mile off, and it didn’t take long to escalate into a full-blown obsession. But Eric wasn’t sporty in the least. All he wanted to do was read. One day his father came home drunk and angry. I was out at the store, was literally gone for thirty minutes, and when I got home I found Eric battered and beaten and lying in his own blood at the foot of the stairs.’
‘My God,’ Abbey murmured.
‘Graham had finally cracked. Eric would never become the man Graham wanted him to be, the man he never was, and he couldn’t handle it. As unpredictable as Graham had become, never in my wildest dreams did I think he could raise a hand to his son. Eric never thought about much else again after that day.’
A respectful silence hung in the air.
‘Eric was hospitalized,’ Elaine went on. ‘Repeated blunt-force trauma to the head. He was unconscious for four days. When he woke up…well, you see the result. Eric is a seven or eight year old boy trapped in the body of a forty-six year old man.’
‘What became of Graham?’
‘Sentenced to three years for ABH and assault. We never saw him again. The second he was behind bars we moved to Auckland discreetly. Eric still asks now where his dad is. He has no memory of the attack, and I pray to God every day for that small mercy.’
In the awkward silence, Abbey uttered, ‘I’m so sorry, Elaine.’
‘It could have been worse, darl,’ she said smiling weakly. ‘Eric is alive and I still have my boy. We are truly blessed. Of all the times God has looked out for us, I don’t find it surprising we survived the crash. It was simply another miracle granted to us, God correcting wrongs done.’
‘I don’t mean to sound insensitive,’ James cut in, ‘but we’ve deviated. You were telling us about Teri.’
Elaine lowered her voice further. ‘Eric told me something. And now I know it’s not just one of his stories, he’s telling the truth.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do,’ she insisted. ‘Mother’s intuition. Eric believes he saw somebody at the airport wearing handcuffs.’
Abbey stiffened. ‘He was trying to tell me something too, back in the terminal. He said he’d seen beneath the man’s jacket. I didn’t pay attention.’
Elaine looked up. ‘Now he’s saying he saw the same man on the plane. He was with a second man, an escort of some kind.’
‘It’s possible, James mused. ‘A convict being transferred on a commercial jet to save taxpayer’s money.’
Face tightening, Elaine leaned forwards. ‘An hour ago, Eric told me the cuffed man is here.’
James massaged his temples. ‘And there’s the flaw. If the man was in cuffs, he still would be. How would he get them off?’
‘I’m one-hundred percent about this, James,’ she defended. ‘Whoever was wearing those handcuffs is one of the remaining ten.’
‘Have you not asked your son who he saw?’ Abbey asked.
Elaine nodded. ‘He won’t tell me. But I’m working on it.’
46
The scream pierced the night and jolted Abbey awake. The girl lay beside her, snoring softly. Had she imagined it, she wondered? Had she dreamt it? Tentatively she lay back down and closed her eyes.
The second scream was louder, a shrill and desolate note. Poking her head from the tent, she scanned the beach. Not a soul in sight. Furtively she moved from tent to tent, certain the scream had come from further afield. Already missing were Teri and Sol, and now the tent shared by Sebastian and Oli stood vacant too, the blankets drawn. She found James where she expected him to be, fast asleep on his front.
Yelping, Abbey spun sharply as her shoulder was grabbed from behind. Inundated in the moon’s backdrop, Anthony stood before her, palms defensively forward. ‘It’s me!’
‘What do you think you're doing?’ she whispered. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’
‘You woke me when you invaded my privacy.’
‘Invaded your privacy?’ she whispered angrily. ‘I carted your unconscious arse halfway round the island earlier, how about a bit of gratitude?’
Anthony turned away and scanned the trees. Any notion of his injury seemed to be forgotten.
‘Did you hear the screams?’ she asked.
A single nod.
‘What do you suppose we should do?’
Anthony began gliding silently towards the trees, his face unmarred by fascination or fear. Abbey nipped at his heels. ‘Maybe we should wake James.' When she received no answer, she said, ‘Do we have a torch?’
‘Leave it,’ Anthony instructed.
In amongst the trees she could see only black. No sinister eyes shone back, but she struggled to shake the sensation of being watched. Going in there without a torch seemed like insanity.
The first dabs of perspiration appeared on her brow as she stepped into the trees. She wiped them away. As her eyes adjusted, the terrain became more accessible. Outlines of trees presented themselves, and in patches the moonlight broke through their leafy ceiling showing them a path. They trod carefully in no particular direction.
Shrieking through the trees, the fresh scream turned her blood to ice. Anthony glared at her, unsmiling, birthmark sitting ominously in shadow. ‘This way,’ he whispered.
Following Anthony’s nose, the pair descended upon a small clearing blanched in moonlight. Grabbing her wrist he stopped her from going further, huddling down next to her by a series of misplaced boulders.
‘What is it?’ she uttered.
He silenced her with a hand gesture and pointed across the clearing. Two unidentifiable people were out there, silhouettes
