“Eva,” Luke’s voice was all reason, his hand in his jacket. “Out of the way, behind me.”
He fired into the hinge that held the hasp on the door. Once was enough to tear it away from its housing though the echo suggested he’d shot his whole magazine into it. “That’ll bring the authorities. They already have a report of a suspicious smell, that’s how Nora found this place, so they’ll come quicker now. Wait there until I call you.”
“Not a chance.”
“Stay behind me then.”
She nodded. Come on, come on.
Following his broad shoulders, his surefooted steps, they walked into the cooler air of the unknown, one silent step, two careful strides.
“Lock the door,” he whispered.
The bolts slid across as though they’d just been oiled.
Luke peered out of the short hallway, his gun held in front of him. Cautious movements across a small courtyard, his gun pointing ahead, at the upper levels where bright lights blazed against the full darkness of night, to the opposite side of a plunge pool. A door ahead on their left from which leaked the suspicious smell.
“Wait there.” Luke hissed, nodding at the tiny room ahead of them that housed the staircase that led to the upper levels.
She shook her head.
“We’re easy targets here, I can’t check and protect you. If it’s—you don’t want to see that. Go.”
Eva stepped into the shelter of the room, turned to watch him.
Not Lily, it couldn’t be Lily, Eva would know wouldn’t she?
Luke steeled himself, took a breath, and opened the door. A buzzing confirmed Eva’s worst fears, even before the gut-heavingly awful odour reached for her. Not Lily, not Lily. Eva grasped the newel post. It couldn’t be. Please.
Luke was back in the courtyard, closing the door quietly, gulping in the fresher air. He shook his head. “Not Lily.”
He pointed up the uneven staircase, and she followed him around its 180° turn onto the galleried balcony on the first floor, off which were several rooms.
“Wait there.” He motioned for her to move up against the whitewashed wall that leached its coolness into her through her clothes. The stench from downstairs wafted towards her, making her gag. Was that why Charles had said she needed to get to Lily quickly? She swallowed hard, breathed through her mouth. This must be the right place?
Luke went into each room on their right, gun at the ready, arms sweeping cautious arcs, coming out again in seconds. A clatter from the room furthest away from them on the left tensed them both.
Luke was there, tiptoeing towards the door. Eva felt as if she might snap into tiny pieces.
A groan reached her from that far corner.
She wasn’t waiting.
It was a kitchen, the room into which she charged, but she saw only one thing.
“Lily!”
“Mum?”
“Are you okay?” Eva rushed to her, hugging her tightly. Thank God, thank God. Her baby girl, safe again with her.
“Do you have any painkillers?” Lily wriggled out of Eva’s arms, gripping her stomach. In the harsh overhead light she looked grey.
“What’s the matter?” More than Mum-mode, Eva snapped the question out. “You didn’t drink the water?”
“Of course I did. You know about single use plastic.” Her face screwed up against the pain. “The President of Morocco’s all over the news telling everyone it’s safe, that’s what the summit Dad was going on about is all about. What is it with you and him and the water, it’s not like I’ve been drinking all the vodka.”
A big plastic bottle of water sat beside the sink, the seal of its top still intact. “Didn’t he tell you to drink the bottled water?”
Lily winced, holding her hand against her stomach. “He didn’t tell me anything, he hasn’t been here most of the day. I’ve been so bored, this holiday hasn’t been any fun.”
She wobbled a little. Eva only just caught her before she passed out.
Too late, she was too late. The words hammered at her beyond anything, beyond the argument she’d have with Charles—argument? She’d kill him.
As Luke carried Lily to the nearest bedroom, Eva saw it. A flash of neon yellow half under the mismatched run of kitchen units. The note he’d left their daughter. ‘Don’t drink the tap water, drink this instead.’ She imagined the Post-it losing its stick against the damp plastic, fluttering to the floor where Lily wouldn’t read, heed its warning. He hadn’t even bothered to make sure she understood.
Lily came round before Eva had arranged her face into her mum’s everything’ll be all right mask.
“Sweetheart, you need to drink this.” Eva gestured for her to sit up, holding out the glass of salt water Luke had made. “Quickly, come on, it’ll make you feel better.”
“Painkillers will make me feel better. Don’t you have any?”
“They won’t work, you need to be sick. The water is poisoned.”
“Mum—”
“Just do it,” Eva snapped. “You need to drink now.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Lily groaned around a wave of pain that almost bent her in two. “I have a bad period pain, the worst ever. I need a painkiller. The water’s fine, there’s a well in the cellar. This place isn’t on the main supply. You’d think Dad would know, it’s his brother who lived here.”
“His brother?”
“My Uncle Terry, except he was dead when we got here.”
Eva pulled Lily into her arms and hugged her like she would never let her go. Anything else would wait.
“It’s going to be some debrief.” Luke said.
59
It was an unlikely battleground.
Eva watched the TV in the minimalist office while she waited. The voiceover sounded strange, familiar but not familiar, a knowledge she should have had but one denied her by her father’s absences from her childhood. The language might not have spoken to her, but the images on the screen did. Weeping, wailing adults, bewildered crying children, a row of flagpoles with the flags of the countries of every nation who’d
