‘EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED, Nathan.’
‘How so, Ms Dante?’
‘Are we back to that?’
‘A man can’t call a woman by her first name unless she is his sister or she agrees to go dancing with him.’ This is in reference to my refusal to go out on a proper date with him. The business dinner with his Hong Kong client and her husband had gone well, but Nathan had felt short-changed because the restaurant that served the best West Coast rock lobster in town did not offer its patrons a dance floor.
‘Why have you got this thing about dancing? Can we be serious for a moment?’
‘As far as I can see, you’re always serious. With you the question should be “Can we be light-hearted for a moment?”’
‘Very funny. The point is we don’t know if it’s over. Now Daniel has to see me.’
‘I don’t think he sees it that way. You don’t understand, do you? Not even now.’
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘He did it to protect you. He was never going to be able to stop them going after Simone if they wanted to, short of killing Nada Sarrazin as well. But he couldn’t let you become collateral damage for his messed-up choices.’
‘I’ll go to him, then. All you have to do is pin him down and I’ll go to him. I know you’ve had people tracking him all these months. Heidi told me. She didn’t think it was healthy. My brother could end up dead with the kind of friends your husband has, that’s what she said.’
‘Heidi shouldn’t have told you,’ Nathan said quietly. ‘He’s my client. There are professional ethics involved.’
‘Are you sending him invoices? No? Then he’s not your client, is he? You’re the one that’s way out of line, Nathan. You told me you couldn’t find him.’
‘I’ve never lied to you.’
‘I guess that’s technically true, since you didn’t know where he was at that exact moment, but you found him again and forgot to mention it. That makes me wonder exactly what else you forgot to mention. I’m with Heidi when she says the number one rule is to keep your family safe. There are things I have to tell him, so that if anything happens to me, he can carry on looking out for Simone. Just tell me where. I’ll do the rest.’
Nathan comes to visit a few days later. He has a newspaper in his hand. When I look at him enquiringly, he hands it to me and says it’s a week old – I should have a look at the article on St Helena while he makes us a cup of coffee. Simone wanders in and says ‘Hey Nathan,’ before wandering listlessly out again. His eyes follow her retreating back but he says nothing.
It’s a travel destination piece, authored by one Peta Beukes, and illustrated by photographs of the tiny picturesque island and the idyllic bay. It’s the same intrepid journalist who tracked me down and extracted a photograph from me when Daniel went missing on the cruise ship, so long ago now. The caption is ‘Island Mysteries’. The feature story starts off with an anecdotal natural mystery − ‘There is no evidence to prove the existence of the Helena Manatee, and only two eyewitness accounts have been reported’ − but quickly moves on to more recent unexplained events. It builds on the mystery and intrigue aspect, suggesting a connecting thread: the tycoon’s yacht that went up in flames with all on board, the young bird researcher who took her own life, the crime writer who went missing off the RMS St Helena en route to the island, only to be found back in Cape Town having a meal at the harbour soup kitchen, and the dramatic discovery of the body of South Africa’s most wanted man tied to a floating buoy in the seafaring lanes.
Who killed the porn king Albert Sarrazin? Beukes asks, before going on to suggest the police may have had blinkers on. Or worse.
‘Why are you showing me this?’
‘She’s got a point,’ Nathan says, cracking a knuckle. ‘The police must have been paid to look the other way.’
‘You lost track of him. Now you think Daniel is hiding on the ship. On the RMS St Helena?’
‘It’s possible,’ Nathan says flatly. The words have been uttered aloud.
My brain is churning, frantically processing the limited information at my disposal. The persistent young woman I remember has gone up in the world if she’s writing a crime exposé for the Sunday Independent. They probably fired her from the St Helena Tribune for frightening tourists away from the island. Personally I think she’s doing them a favour. It’s a dull backwater. Arson, suicide and a murder at sea lend the island a cachet it’s lost since Napoleon expired there in 1821.
‘You think Daniel is on the ship for RMI.’
Our gazes meet. We both know he would do anything to save me the pain, except lie.
‘Not this time. He’s a man on the run. It always bothered me – how did Mr de Luc get that close to Sarrazin?’
‘If Daniel killed Sarrazin, he must have been on the RMS St Helena at the same time. But Klaus had his men check the passenger and crew lists, and there was nobody matching Daniel’s profile or unaccounted for. They came to the conclusion Daniel used false papers.’
Nathan says nothing, just watching me.
‘But Sarrazin knew Daniel well. He would have recognised him. Somebody must have got him onto the ship and then let him use their cabin,’ I say slowly, understanding at last. ‘It could only be a crew member.’
‘It’s possible,’ Nathan says again, cracking another knuckle. I want to scream at him to stop, it’s driving me berserk, but of course I don’t, in case I chase him away.
‘I’ve made some enquiries. It seems that there isn’t much staff turnover on the ship because it’s one of the few employment opportunities for the Saints people, but they take on temporary chefs when the need arises. I hear the latest addition cooks a mean fillet bourguignon. And when he’s not on duty he writes in his cabin.’
‘You found him.’ I stare at him in stunned disbelief. ‘I must go to him.’ My feet are already running.
He comes after me into the bedroom, where I’ve pulled out and opened my work suitcase. He grabs my icy panicked hands that are fluttering like birds through the underwear drawer and yanks me around to look at him.
‘Paola, listen to me. There’s nowhere to go. The ship’s not here.’ I struggle against him, those big warm hands that want to hold me back, but he only tightens his grip. ‘He’s not the person you think he is. He’ll just do it again–’
I reach up and aim for his chin with my clenched fist but he catches my wrist, quick as a cat after a sparrow. A noise in the doorway makes us both look around. Simone is standing there in her new nightgown. She waits until he lets my arm go and then she backs away soundlessly.
Nathan closes the door as I glare at him and rub my wrist.
‘I’ve checked the schedule. The ship docks in Cape Town harbour in two weeks’ time,’ he says grudgingly.
‘Where does it start from?’
He looks uncomfortable and scratches his head.
‘Nathan? Where would he board the ship?’
‘A couple of trips a year start from the UK.’ He hesitates. ‘But the rest are all round trips starting in Cape Town and back to Cape Town.’
I sit down heavily on the bed. ‘He’s been here all these months since he escaped?’
‘I don’t know how long he’s been here, Paola. It’s possible. He knows Cape Town and it’s off the beaten track for the Canadians. He must have come in on a different name.’
‘But he still needs travel documents.’
‘There’s a thriving black market in stolen and doctored passports, and the computer systems aren’t all linked up yet.’
‘So he could have killed Volkov,’ I say flatly. ‘If he was here in Cape Town then it’s possible.’
‘It’s possible,’ Nathan admits grudgingly.
‘Shouldn’t you be telling the police? Aren’t you the upholder of law and order? Aren’t you supposed to do a citizen’s arrest?’
‘Volkov was a scumbag. The world’s better off without him,’ Nathan says, his jaw set in stone.
There’s nothing left to say.