The rain continues its arrhythmic drumming as the police search the hotel. They bring the bitter wind inside with them, which mingles impudently with the warmth of the reception and the smell of pine needles. The piano ballad playing softly through the speakers is drowned out by their damp hustling. It is as if the legs of Balcombe Court have been shoved out from beneath it and now it lies flat on its back, struggling to right itself in the eye of the storm.
Max Saunders watches the police from his observation point in an alcove a little way down the hall from the reception desk. He sits there with a whisky and ginger and a copy of The Times, studying the activity over the rims of his glasses.
He looks on as the hotel staff usher the police through, under the medieval stone archways of the reception hall, into the lounge where velvet curtains hide the ice clouds outside, poised and waiting, thick and furred and cold.
Balcombe Court.
First a Saxon hall then a nest of the Bubonic plague, later a coaching inn then jewel of the English Riviera. And soon-to-be location of The Buccaneer’s Daughter. What was it his agent had called it? Historical fiction with a twist. Everything has to have a bloody twist these days, Max thinks, folding his paper and getting to his feet. Why, in God’s name, can’t he just write a good old-fashioned story and be thanked for it?
He heads in the opposite direction from the police, into the billiards room where low lights do nothing to assuage the force of the Devon dark. He wraps his arms around himself, feeling the shape of his mobile phone in his shirt pocket. He should call home, speak to Alison. Wish them all a Happy New Year. It feels wrong though somehow, with the child missing. He looks at his watch. She’s been gone for three hours now. He feels sick at the thought of it.
He paces around the billiards table, his glass dangling in his hand. Where are you, Georgie? Max thinks. Are you still alive, or are you floating somewhere in the deep cold waters of the Devon coastline, reaching down to the ghosts of pirates who lie on the bottom of the sea?
He’s seen the little girl only a couple of times. She’s a spritely thing, always jumping around, never still. She has a younger brother, a chubby blond baby who always seems to be sucking on a piece of soggy toast. But Georgie is dark-haired with eyes like black almonds and a mouth like a red bow tied on top of a present. Her parents are nice enough, with the ubiquitous purple shadows under their eyes of those with very young children. They’ve got that anxious quality about them, Max has observed. Forever second-guessing which ornament Georgie might crash into or which tablecloth the baby might make a grab for. Parenthood seems to Max to be a constant attempt to corral the wind. He and Alison had been through it with Polly and Grace, but now the girls are teenagers and as condescending as alms-giving courtiers (them) to peasants (he and Alison).
He shivers although the room isn’t cold and moves to the window for some reason, searching beyond his reflection into the cold of the night. He holds his hands up, fingers touching the glass, tracing the rain as it gushes down in an endless stream. He feels the warmth of his breath, the sound of his exhaling ominously calm. It is as if time has stopped for a millisecond. There is a fraction of silence in the midst of the rattling on the glass. It seems as though the downpour might have eased, that the weather has exhausted itself, turned in and gone back home. Then the sky is ripped from corner to corner, with a blistering light and a tearing sound.
Now he understands.
The ice comes slowly at first. Deliberate, with pointed teeth. It strikes the ground like spears. Max’s breathing catches as he watches it fall indiscriminately, shattering through the dark like crystal shards. He presses his fingers against the glass as if he’s reaching for outside, feeling for the cliff top where the coastguards search with their sweeping beams. He shuts his eyes briefly, flashes of his own daughters’ faces shooting through his mind, realising how desperate the situation is. Because if that little girl isn’t found soon, she will be dead.
Trapped under frozen rain in the ice storm.